It's Thursday. This would be a dear diary post cause not much is going on. Every day this week has been incredibly windy, and the direction of the wind blows dirt into the house thru the windows and the doors. Sucks for selling stuff on the beach to tourists, since they don't spend too much time outside when it's soooo windy. I studied alot with my Spanish, and had some fun with my English students; they're getting pretty good with the song. They are pretty funny.

My students have a good time trying to learn English. They really want to learn words; they ask way more for words than for sentences...so I ask them for sentences to go with the words....Today they wanted parts of the body. I usually start the class with one or two things-maybe one from the previous class and something related to it, then something new always comes up. I swear I enjoy it more than they do. But Tuesday I felt great cause one woman said she needs my class cause she needs to learn English for her job. They all really want to learn and so sometimes we work on something painfully as they struggle to get the pronuciation down. But we all laugh alot, too. And they all help me with my Spanish- so I think that bonds us even more, cause I'm learning as well. They laughed today when I said they all speak so fast, even my Spanish teacher...that sometimes I just look at her in amazement cause I have NO idea what she just said ha ha.

I am very excited about my trip next week. I leave a week from today. I can hardly wait to see my daughters! And I am also dying to drive up to Armstrong Woods, which is a redwood reserve, a state park I think- but a beautiful redwood grove- the way it smells, the way the air is, quiet, traquill; I like to rub my hands on the bark of one of the trees and just breathe it in. I love the redwoods so much. I have a picnic/potluck one day with my "dog park friends". The group I always saw when I took Sam to the dog park, and their dogs are all about the same age as Sam. I was sad to hear that none of them take their dogs to that park anymore, that they all go different places and barely stay in touch with each other, but one woman, Holly called them all and everyone wants to come for a picnic. It's only about 6 or 8 of us, but we used to stand around in the grass at that park and just chat (ok bullshit) about whatever was going on in our lives at the time. We could complain or praise our spouses or other family members, bitch about our bosses and our crappy or wonderful jobs, comment about our town's politics, or just life in general. When I was working I'd just see them on weekends, and sometimes in the evenings after work. I was lucky- the park was right across the street from my house.
I hope to have lunch with a couple of engineers I worked with at one company and we used to travel together to Thailand all the time. They are both still there and the business has moved from Thailand to China. I did get to go to China once; right after that trip I resigned; I wanted to stop traveling, and I was able to get my dog Sam. I moved to a different company with no travel...ha ha got boring but like I said, I got Sam. When my daughter is not working I hope to hang around with her, and my younger daughter as well- but she's got school and work.

 My older daughter and I are trying to figure out a tattoo we could both get- or something related to each other's. I am going to add a little color to a heart with birds and a peace sign; it's basically purple and the blue of the ink, and I was thinking maybe a little hint of yellow and red behind it as if there was a sunset. And also, I have a vine with tiny leaves that goes up my arm, and the secret is that it actually spells my husband's name, but no one can see it unless I was to tell them about it. But on the back of my shoulder I have a heart with my daughter's names, and I was thinking about extending the vine over there and have it say Elly, my mom. She died on Sept 10, 2011, but I still miss her so much. I read on facebook today a post by my daughter, and she had been chatting with an old woman in the dentist office and the woman reminded her somehow of he Grandma, and she said later she cried cause she misses her grandma. I commented, "me too baby". So anyway, we'll see. This daughter has some tattoos, and her fiance has alot, on his arms and chest. Both my daughters and me have a tiny pink breast cancer ribbon tattoo, the tattoo artist did all three for free, it was after I was finished with treatment. My younger daughter doesn't have any other tattoos, which is probly good since she's only 19. Kinda funny, I just reread this to try and spell check since spell check for some reason is not working in any of my programs (yeah that's another errand when I'm in Calif- to take my laptop to my computer guy and have him give it a once over...change my office programs back to English, maybe reinstall my spell checker)- anyway I noticed it sounds like my tattoos are hearts and vines. Yes 2 hearts, but mostly I have peace signs and dragonflies on my forearms. One one arm is peace; I have it written in Arabic, Thai, English and Spanish...wanting Japonese ad Chinese, and a couple of peace signs; one with an earth, one more 60's like ha ha. The other arm is for the dragonflies- which I love. I have this thing that tells about them; that they have been on this earth for 30 million years, showing us strength and endurance.... beauty, strength...I like that. The dragonfly has 2 different names in Mexican Spanish: Chambuleke, and Libelula. Again....viva!