Journaling Life Abroad with Coffee in Hand

Happy Tuesday! Can you believe it’s August tomorrow? That’s just crazy talk. If we were meeting for coffee today, I’d invite you to cozy up on our couch, and I’d ask you what your flavor is. The house is clean, I’ve got most of my business sorted, and my schedule at least somewhat back on track, so I feel prepared to be a proper host again. Just in time for my parents to arrive! They just flew into Bangkok and I’m headed there tonight. They say they want to see me, but I have a sneaking suspicion they need an extra pack mule to help bring up all their luggage! We’ll be there for the remainder of the week, and then we’ll fly back up here to Chiang Mai on Friday.

I’m excited because it means I get to go shopping…and it’s pretty hard to beat the shopping in Bangkok. World class fashions, at Thai prices.

And I am in need of a dress appropriate to wear to a wedding – because I’m headed to the States! In October, Toby and I will go back to California to witness two very dear friends get married. We’ve officially booked our tickets and are now just coordinating when we’ll be where. We will fly to South Carolina for a week, and otherwise we’ll be bouncing around between Orange County, L.A., and Santa Barbara.

I wish I could sneak in some time in San Francisco and Florida too…but there just won’t be time.

It’ll be our first time home since we left almost two years ago. I wonder what it’ll feel like. I know I’m looking forward to proper Mexican food, good American microbrews, jeans that I can fit into, and of course, friends & family. We’ll have to readjust to driving on the right…and, um, traffic regulations in general.

And I’m kind of excited to go to a bookstore and be surrounded by books in English. The kindle’s great, but I do miss being physically surrounded by books I could actually read without a dictionary in hand.

It’s funny, the things you miss. It’s not always what you’d expect.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s still two months away. In the meantime, I’m still trying to hammer out edits to my book. I’m planning to have it ready for agents before I go to the States, but so far, progress is slow, and I’m only about a third of the way through this last set of revisions. Hence the need to be super disciplined about getting work done between now and then.

I will, however, spend some time teaching my dad to drive. Ironic, since it was he who taught me to drive. I’m sure he’ll handle being on the other side of the road just fine (he did grow up in South Africa, after all). It’s the motorcyclists swarming around you, the drivers going the wrong way up the street, and lack of speed limits that make driving here rather more chaotic. I learned to drive on a scooter here first, long before we got a car, so I felt like I had plenty of time to learn and adapt on a vehicle that is much easier to maneuver and see around. But somehow I don’t see either of my parents hopping on a motorbike…

Anyway, I need to tidy up some last details before my flight out tonight. Hope your week is off to a fantastic start, and thanks, as always for joining me for the coffee and a chat! If you care to share with me what’s going on in your corner of the world, link up a post in the linky below and I’ll be sure to stop on by!

Also linking up with Communal Global.

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