Uncategorized – Page 11 – Chasing Four Kids and a Dream

Ghost Festival

This year, a holiday called Ghost Festival fell on September 5th. It is a time when Buddhists and Taoists will make offerings for their relatives. It is also believed to be the day the gates to both heaven and hell are open for souls to come and visit. People will set place settings at the table for their deceased loved ones and family members.

People will also burn paper money, clothes, shoes, and the like for those who have died to carry with them in the afterlife.

It is a time when people will also light paper lanterns in hopes of helping those stuck between find a path to a final resting place.

Incense are also burned.

I think knowing these things are helpful in understanding the people we live with and remembering them in a very specific way. Please join us.

Goodbyes and Bridges

I wrote this song while I was washing the dishes. Ok, well, I stopped washing to write and returned to cold, flat, dirty dishwater but it was worth it. This one came about when I was thinking about saying hello to family that were going to visit and the joy that comes in seeing familiar and friendly faces. On the flip side, I also started thinking about all the goodbyes. There have been so many. So while this is a sad song, kind of, it is also one filled with reminders on how we stay connected. I hope you like it and thanks for listening.

Cherries

We have ventured out to a different city this week which for us means fruit! Because where we live, fruit is normally more expensive, we like to buy lots of fruit when we go to other places where the fruit is cheaper. Today, we found cherries for less than half the price of cherries at home. The interesting part is how these beauties are packaged.

They are wrapped and layered quite nicely. The interesting thing is that they are individuality wrapped, two to a package.

I just stared, amazed, as the fruit seller started unwrapping these cherries to round off the pounds we were set to buy. So instead of helping her unwrap, I took pictures. Hopefully next time, I’ll be quicker to the draw.

The End of an Age

So when we started and bought this trekking company, we were thrilled to find that it came with gear. Well, Nathan was thrilled. He looked very much like this picture below.

I was skeptical. Where to store it all? How much to charge for rental? Where to go for replacements? Anyway, included in the gear were 2 well-worn jeeps good for nothing but driving around the great outdoors.

One was white, the other was this black one riiiiight here :

This year, in attempt to simplify, we decided to sell the jeeps. Rental was too low and risk was too high. Today, after selling one jeep last week, it looks like the last one is on its final days with our family too. Its moving on to greener pastures ie, we sold them both in record time. Today is met with saddness and excitement as a chapter in TMG history has come to an end. Farewell Jeep Musk.