Time keeps on tickin'...

...Into the future. I feel like I should post a new post just because that last one was so despairing. So, here is a post of thoughts in 3 weeks of being back in the States:

1. My mom buys really really nice toilet paper. The stuff is so super-absorbent I count out 4 squares instead of just pulling the roll. Seriously, took some getting used to. Also surprising how often I still go to throw tp into the trash, only to redirect mid-motion. 
2. There is high fructose corn syrup in EVERYthing. EVERYTHING. 
3. I don't care for the Mexican-grown avocados that are apparently my only choice here. This makes me VERY very sad. 
4. I miss Inka Cola. 
5. Snow and slush in vast quantities aren't as fun- nay, not even as tolerable- when one cannot locate one's kick-butt snow boots... 
6. Everybody here has so - much - space. As in houses and personal property. Granted, we live close to rural areas, but even the 'city suburbia' is spacious when compared to majority of Lima. And the houses themselves are spacious, even the small ones... Houses are starting to 'look normal' again now, but I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Just like I didn't like it that the 'normal Lima' residential vistas no longer jarred me- it was just 'normal' to see. And it was good when new people came and I saw it through their eyes again for the first time. People can become accustomed to ANYthing, if they are exposed to it long enough. 
7. I despise the job search process. 
8. I have the most AWESOME family in the world- immediate and extended, and on both sides of my family. (Notice I did NOT say 'perfect', but 'awesome'. There is a difference, and I think that the key to having an awesome family is to recognize and embrace the imperfect status that will ALWAYS exist.
9. I love driving on real highways and byways again. 
10. I love having a real postal service again. 
11. I miss being able to hail a taxi in front of your home and being taken directly to the door of your destination for pennies... well, couple of bucks. If it's kinda far... Door to door service where I'm not driving... sigh.  I didn't miss the actual 'driving' the way Cindy always did. (public transpo? I'll take it!)
12. I almost cried in church because the songs they were singing weren't in Spanish: cried because I MISSED the SPANISH. I missed the worship leader at the church I went to in Lima. Missed how energetic the singing there was. 
13. I have been a little bored in church- my brain is like: what? this is it? it's all in English? i don't have to translate and assimilate? um, ok, um, wait- is he still talking? missed that all-English paragraph- really? all English?
14. I have a lot of stuff packed in a lot of places. Almost none of it readily accessible. 
15. I have a little room in which to 'unpack' my stuff- therefore almost none of it truly unpacked.  Such is life living in a room in a basement already filled with things from your old apartment and your sister's, and then all the normal basement things mom and dad have down there. 
16. I miss my mattress in Peru. It was comfy. (No comment on the one here.)
17. Pretzels are cheap again. (relatively speaking)
18. I miss living with Chessa, Heidi, Kari, and Christina. I miss the silly read bird being passed around secretively and unexpectedly between us in new and laughter-inducing places.  
19. Things SEEM further away from each other here... maybe because i have to be the one driving now... 
20. I have absolutely NO IDEA who half the people on the news are ('real' news makers, or sports/entertainment), nor the details of any of the national news/govt debates on deficit, health care, etc etc etc... NO CLUE about anything that's been happening. 
21. I have had enough of winter now. I am SO ready for an ENTIRE summer spent in one hemisphere. 

Well, that's all that pops into my head now. Thanks so much again to all of you who have prayed for me and supported me financially. Please continue to pray!