I talked about gratitude in my last post, so I thought I should dish some out. Here’s some things I am grateful for at the moment… Spring seems to have sprung (or started to) here in Jianzha.  It’s gorgeous outside and warming up a little bit more each day.  Blue skies and nice mountain views…

I have been reading this book about this guy who gets "lost" in time.  He doesn’t know when it will happen or where he will end up.  Certain things can incite his time-traveling episodes and certain other things help him to stay put, but ultimately he cannot control "when" or where he will go within…

We picked up the new passports today at the Embassy.  You wouldn’t believe the paperwork you have to fill out just to have the stamp moved from the old passport to the new though…but hey, I’m NOT complaining!  Thanks for all your vertical communication everybody.  We’ll let you know what happens next.

Today is my birthday.  No, really it’s OK if you forgot.  I wasn’t expecting presents.  Cards maybe, but not big ones.  A postcard is fine, really.  (I’m joking, folks.) When it comes to remembering, recognizing, and commemorating others’ birthdays through the giving of gifts–I am THE WORST!   I hit the necessary relationships–wife, children, parents, but…

Even with the in-laws in town, I find myself twiddling my thumbs a lot and playing a fair number of games of solitaire.  There just isn’t much to do in Qinghai in the winter (at least there isn’t much that I want to do, especially if it involves leaving the warmth of our apartment.)  Less…

Seeing, really seeing, takes time, training, and concentration.  My New Year’s Resolution is to really begin to see the beauty all around me wrapped in subtle, often disguised, small packages.  In many ways (for me) it’s a new way of looking at the world.  Annie Dillard, in Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, likens this seeing and…

I’ve never been formerly accused of being a brown-noser, but this picture shows that I am now a black-noser.  That’s coal dust mixed in with my 2 o’clock shadow.  After a rough winter I’ve resorted to sniffing the stuff to get by.  Feel free to intercede on my behalf.  Knowing, after all, is half the…

Funerals are hard, especially when they are for someone you love AND when you have to travel a few days on planes to even get to them.  I am thankful that my Mamaw was a believer and that we could share so many great memories from the lives we shared with her.  But it was…

Well, these photos have already been a bit "played out" on the blog circuit, but I thought I would post my own album since my friends, Josh and Jeremy, came all the way to China to take these pictures for/with me.  Some of these photos (which are all great!) were not posted on the other…

The yeti is back home in Jianzha and happy to be reunited with his family.  Last night in Beijing as he was drifting off to sleep he felt as if his body were swaying up and down on his bed (as if on a giant hammock of turbulence.)  The funeral and time in Kentucky went…