Doha,Dallas, Austin...India

The end of summer is here. The speed limit in school zones is back to 20 mph. Temperatures are easing up.  My Doha friends are finishing with their return jet lag. Facebook is filled with back to school pictures. Yes. Goodbye summer "vacation".  Our container from Doha traveled the ocean all summer and is supposed to arrive in our driveway today. There is a sense of closure that surrounds the delivery of 9 years in the Middle East.  Today, before putting Robert on the bus to Austin where he will be met by his brother Russell and then start college on Monday, we will sort through and identify the boxes that will be stored here in the attic and those that will be moved to Austin on Friday.   Granted it's not a huge container but still the task overwhelms me.  Vaguely I remember the contents and I do have the inventory list but still...actual items and sizes of boxes are not in this brain.  The summer has been good though. Time to reconnect with friends.  To be with our family in Kansas. Road trips. Buc-eys, Doha reunions and Abu Dhabi ones, too,  Dallas restaurants, long conversations, movies, laughter, tears, stories, hugs..and Mike getting a job.  In India. I hope to join him once the crazy here is sorted out.  I guess I'll have to change the name of my blog.  I actually  started this to have a chronicle for my kids. They were pretty young when we left the states.  Friends have told me to keep writing so I guess I will.  Been brainstorming a new name for it though.  Sandy land won't work in Mumbai. Guess I'll get my creative kids on that... My creative juices aren't flowing right now.  Perhaps by the time I join Mike in India...hopefully by end of September, I will have a new title for a new adventure. 

One of the many wonderful memories  from summer that I will take with me.. Shari and I holding our great nieces for the first time . 

30 Days of Summer

His name is Sarge. Every morning he greets me on the porch.  There is something comforting about this friendly brown lab with the stubby tail and the lolling tongue.  Mom's front porch, overlooking the fields with a 180 degree view that goes for miles, has been a a safe place for me for 35 years.  A place to breathe and think and pray.  And even with Mom Hildebrand gone now (and me missing her very much) it still is that comforting place .

While I sit on the porch I'm thinking about the month we've been back in the U.S.  The busyness of it , yes, but also just the familiarity of everything. The grocery store always has what I'm looking for,  the nearby park with green grass and green trees to take walks in the early morning cool air, highways that go for miles and miles and bring you home, radio stations, movies, family, friends, fresh breezes, and resounding thunderstorms. I've been taking it all in this month.   

Future plans are still fuzzy but these weeks in Texas and Kansas have me feeling less fragile and vulnerable. God knows what is next...so I'll keep,praying, enjoying our family and friends, and periodically petting Sarge on the front porch.

On the way to Kansas.  Can you say, "Kids in a Candy Store?"

Sallie, Katie, her boyfriend, Rem, Robert and Lindsey after a great meal in Hudson, Kansas

Sunning by the Sandpit with an interesting audience.....

Laughter, S'mores and the 4 th of July with family. Nothing beats it.

Sallie and Robert setting up some explosives. 

Goodbye Doha

In the great brown desert

There were

Shisha Users and

White land cruisers

Swaying palm trees 

And Bright blue seas

Camel hair and 

Call to Prayer

In the great brown desert where the road construction never ends

There were mosques and thobes and 

Pakistani robes

Shoes at the door and marble on the floor

The early morning sun and Kareem Ramadan

Sand dune hills and dune bashing spills

Huge yellow bear,

Raging sandstorm air

Malls everywhere

Goodbye shisha users 

Goodbye land cruisers

Goodbye swaying palm trees and bright blue seas

Goodbye camel hair

Good bye call to prayer

Goodbye mosques, and thobes,

And Pakistani robes

Goodbye shoes on marble floors and 

Early Ramadan sun

Goodbye dune hills and dune bashing spills

Yellow bear

And sandy air

Goodbye malls everywhere

Goodbye road construction that never ends

And good bye to precious, amazing friends...until we meet again.