HOUSE ARREST

Great news! I today spoke with my housekeeper about the weekend's festivities and she informed me that I did not miss the Hiri Moale Festival. For some reason, this year's festival was moved from its usual time over Independence weekend to later in November. Haha! November it is.

Until then, I am still locked away in the confines of a compound where the power goes out several times a day (nearly killing me on the treadmill sometimes) and the Internet today is completely unreliable and pretty much nonexistent, adding to the awesome benefits associated with my house arrest.

When one is under house arrest, one must get creative with filling the day's hours. Though I am not legally on house arrest - because I would never think of willingly committing a crime in a third-world country that is not my own - I am on marital house arrest. To recap, Paul would rather be bored than dead and last week there was a bit of a massacre up north so that didn't help me build a case to get out more.

Therefore, I have decided to turn my thoughts from leaving the apartment and exploring the outside world to putting my brain to use reading other blogs, buying more e-books and discovering Etsy. All of my newfound activities are in one way or another draining our bank account, either today or in the future when I decorate the house that we do not yet have and organize the kids’ rooms that we cannot yet even discuss. Blame Dana Miller and housetweaking.com. That woman is a genius and an incredible example of a creative working mother of three.

I have filled the daytime hours with so much online shopping in the last two weeks that I have memorized the credit card number. Paul was not exactly pleased to find out that I could recite all 16 digits, the expiration date and the secret code without hesitation but I was pretty impressed with myself. That takes serious concentration and memorization!

The good news here (Paul) is that our niece is getting some awesome birthday presents, my best friend, Katie, is getting some awesome items for her to-be-delivered child, I have already purchased Paul's Christmas presents and I have found some really cute stuff for myself. Who's happy? Everyone. That’s who.

I am also happy to report that I have read a lot of books over the last two months, thanks to Barnes & Noble and my handy dandy Nook 3D. I. Am. In. Love! Since I bought the thing a few days before I left the U.S. in mid-July, I have read five and a quarter books (I decided to put Faulkner on hold because I am just not in the mood for him right now), two Marie Claire magazines and countless issues of TIME (countless more are still waiting for me to read; I seem to have fallen behind on my weekly magazine reading, which means I should schedule more pool time, me thinks!).

In high school my mom couldn’t help telling me all about how she regularly read 10+ books weekly because she was a brainiac who was obsessed with good books. At that time in my life I pretty much hated reading, so I learned early on that I would never keep up with my mother in that respect and that she was just going to have to deal.

Now that I am much older, wiser and more accomplished, I realize that my disinterest in reading had nothing to do with an actual hatred toward the art and everything to do with the curriculum. In class I was being told which books to read, how many days I had to read how many chapters, and it was imperative that I foresaw all of the foreshadowing, made sense of all of the hidden symbolism and logically interpreted multiple storylines – on all of which I was to be tested.

I think I would have done much better with more fluid, guided studies that allowed me to pick my own books and simply discuss my thoughts on the characters and storylines. No symbolism, no chapter-by-chapter deadlines, just read the book and tell me what you think.

When I am not reading, writing or freaking out over trying to create a new website (developers and creative web people out there – I am willing to pay!), I crave little jobs to prove my worth and keep me busy.

Today I cleaned my kitchen like I haven’t cleaned since we moved out of our Singaporean condo, and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. The few seconds when I opened a never-before-opened cupboard and found a dead bug on one of the shelves was not the greatest. I should specify that the bug was small and not cockroach-like so it didn’t freak me out, but that doesn’t mean I picked it up either. I just shut the door and proceeded cleaning other things. That cupboard door hadn’t been opened in months so why would I open it again?

I swept the floor, washed the dishes, cleaned the counters and the sink, cleaned the inside and outside of the microwave, cleaned the stove and Clorox wiped the inside and outside of the cupboard doors as well as the refrigerator. Paul later advised me that Emily Gilmore would not approve of me doing the work of the hired help. As much I sometimes dreamt, wished and possibly believed that I was a Gilmore, sadly, I am not a Gilmore, so who am I to care what Emily thinks? I wanted to clean, darn it, and the housekeeper didn’t get there soon enough.

I might have to break out tomorrow.