I Am Home!

Mam'e, me and Stephanie

Seetah, me and Rakieta

I am back. It was wonderful! I am not sure you can use the word wonderful combined with visit to Burkina Faso often, but this time I could. The weather was great for a Michigander. 78-85* each day with pleasant breezes and cool evenings. They, on the other hand, were freezing. Winter coats and hats were a plenty and they thought I was absolutely nuts for putting on the ceiling fan.
I took things in very small bites and really didn't try to do or see too much and it was just right. Burkina is STILL very far from a tourist destination so for now the average American is better off learning of the place through pictures, but things are modernizing relatively quickly. They love westerners and are a happy go lucky, peaceful people so eventually it will be a nice place to go. I think and actually hope it will always be a lot like the places Americans go for family vacations or the RVing crowd likes. An atmosphere like Vegas or Disney would not be good for them.
I will post a little each day so as not to overwhelm. The worst part of my journey was the Paris airport (not a surprise). Flying becomes more stressful and difficult with each journey. I have decided that as big of a pain and as expensive as mailing is, it is the lesser of the 2 evils for shipping things.

Preparing for Africa Trip 2

I am in a BAD Place. The suitcase conundrum. So please enjoy the old posts while I get my life under control. I'll be back soon.

Merry Christmas part 2

Natasha and Abby

Family photo minus Natasha the photographer

The house is bubbling over with the smells of turkey and all the fixins, the tree is overflowing with presents once again and the house is alive with quiet chatter. Today is our "After Christmas Christmas". This time though in addition to all the regular attenders, we have a house guest who is 2 feet tall and is busy concentrating on trying to balance herself unassisted. While she is very entertaining and charming, it is good that she still takes long naps. Her name is Abby and she is Natasha's little girl. Natasha is a long story so I'll give a very short version. Natasha was a young orphan girl we hosted many years ago from Russia. We were unable to adopt her but she was adopted by another family. Now all these years later, she and her daughter have come to spend the weekend with our family and celebrate Christmas with us.
We couldn't be more pleased.
Now it is time to call Rakieta because if she can't be with us, she insists we call.

Chaos

My mind is racing too fast and it has too many different mental folders going. I hate it when life is like that. The only way out of the mess is to keep working and slowly but surely the folders will get put away. I have been in a conundrum over whether to just kick back and go play today or stay home and work.
I need to have fun. Way too much work over the last couple of years. But we have a freezing rain thing coming in and I really need to spend the day working on cleaning up my mind, the studio and getting suitcases packed for Africa(Quite a chore) .
I think it is settled-stay home, cave up like I should and get my life in order. Africa is beckoning.

Holiday Pictures

Country Christmas

Christmas 2010

more pics to come

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

We hope you have peace, wonderful memories and safe travel!

The Kalinowski's

Good morning!

Well hello everyone!
Long time no blog. It has been a very busy period for me and our family. The show was wonderful. Now that costume demands are getting more manageable, we were able to concentrate a little more on props and decorations. We also had some really nice musical acts along with the dancing which seemed to balance out the spiritual with the holly jolly. I always feel like the show is the beginning of my Christmas.
Out of pure necessity we have all the desktops up and running tip top and printers are not far behind. I finally moved all my paper clutter out of the extra room/den and it feels pretty good to have the office area finally getting reined in.
As I have mentioned we had a STUFF overload. Office stuff was not exempt. Grandma K. was just not on top of things in the memory department and like My Granny buying the same bag of craft items 4 or 5 times, it seems Adele (mother in law) had a thing for office supplies and the like. Our children will never have to purchase staples or paperclips. In fact, my grandchildren may never have to purchase that stuff. The same goes for certain label sizes and calculators. Too bad batteries only have a shelf life of a few years. There was literally a small storage tote full that we inherited.
But like every other area in the household, it is getting a major cleaning and organizing. Slowly but surely the house is keeping the proper amount of STUFF and not STUFF from 3 or more households.
Christmas is gently sweeping in this year. I think because it lands on a Saturday. Or maybe because I was able to get a little head start. All I know is that I will not be wrapping at 11:00pm on Christmas eve and I like that plan.
Well, I will say adios for now. I have a little extra paperwork to do, then it is off to wrap and see what I still have to run out for. Take care and be safe in your travels.