Ten Talents...

I can hardly believe it, but we'll be heading back to the sweet US of A in only 14 days!  I cannot wait!  I started counting down the days way back when there were over 100 days to go...I like countdowns :)  I decided to give some thought to what I am most looking forward to and what I am going to miss for my Monday motivation and Monday Madness post because I am DEFINITELY motivated (and a teeny bit mad with excitement) by how close our return is! So, here goes...

Most looking forward to:

1.  The very moment when our lady first sees her grandparents again and they get to hug her.  I could cry just thinking of it.  It's only been 4.5 months that we've been gone, but that's forever in the life of a baby! It will be a little longer until she gets to see her Cici (my mom), so I get two things to look forward to! 
2.  Letting the Shark take a bath for as long as she wants!  We can only give her short baths here and she can't do much playing for fear she'll drink the water, but she loves every second of those five-minute baths. I love the excitement in her eyes when she's in the bath.  I can't wait to see what she's going to do!
 3.   Eating cheese without feeling guilty.  I love cheese.  And I do mean love.  It costs about $5 to $6 for a small package and you have to go over an hour by bus to get it, so I feel a little guilty when I eat it here.  Oh, the cheese that will be eaten soon!
4.   Having 103 choices of cereal.  Just cereal.  Many people returning to the US after being in another country say they feel overwhelmed by all the choices of cereal or butter or just about anything.  I have to admit that I did not feel this way when we went home the last two summers. I must be shallow because I LOVE all the choices.  Mostly because I can read what they are :)
5.  Playing in the grass with the lady.  She's going to love being able to be outside more!
6.  I miss Wag's and Target...a lot.  And I miss my coupons :)
7.  Being invisible again.  I don't like a lot of attention, and it's nice to go to the store and NO ONE CARES that you're there.  I'm looking forward to that.  This aspect of life here has truly given me new appreciation for why some movie stars lose it.  It's hard never being normal.  
8.  Mailbox Monday x18 ! The BIG, HUGE pile of freebies, gift cards from reward points, and things I've won that will be waiting for me when we get back.  My husband says we should just set up a Christmas tree and pretend :) I will try to do a post if it will all fit in one picture.  If I do the post, I'm going to try to link to all the sites where I won stuff and the sites that donated the prizes too...I do say TRY.  That could be quite the task as I think I've been blessed enough to win almost 50 things!  Gotta' love the low entry giveaways and the Twitter parties :)

Things I'll miss:

1.  Smiles EVERYWHERE!  That was the first thing I noticed when we went back home two summers ago--no one seemed to be smiling.  I would smile at people and quite often they would look at me like I was nuts, though some would smile back :)   I know that most people smile because we are foreigners and they haven't seen many of those in these parts, but it's nice...and I'll miss all their smiles!
2.  Cheap fruit & veggies.  We've been paying the equivalent of about 15 cents for 3 huge cucumbers.  That should give you an idea of how cheap veggies and fruit are here in the summer.  It's going to hurt to pay US prices on that stuff again!
3.  How laid-back everything is here.  You don't have 9,000 places to go every day and 2 million things to do.  We've grown quite lazy, I think :)
4.  I'm going to miss the Mamy Pokos, which are the diapers we buy here.  They are seriously the best diapers EVER!  Haven't had a blowout since we got here...and that's saying a lot for the Shark :)