The view from where I write...

I am doing a 28 day expat blogging challenge in February, which will be good for my neglected blog. I hope family and friends can hang in there through all the prompts! Today's prompt is "The view from where I write."


I write at my desk, facing the cream colored wall. In front of me is "The Mortal Instruments" box set- trashy teen literature- guilty pleasure and birthday gift- that I need to put in the give away box. Also on my desk is a desk lamp that hasn't worked the whole three years we've lived here (it came furnished) but that I used to dry toddler underwear when we were potty training and our dryer was broken and I couldn't wash tighty whiteys fast enough. And of course, the stack of insurance claims I need to submit for reimbursement and my recipe pile. I keep meaning to type these neatly up and print them out again, but it never happens. They are scribbled out on scratch paper. Most of them have no titles, so I have to read the ingredients and puzzle out what it must be and also no directions other than a temperature and time. But it has worked okay for me! Some of them have made it into page protectors in a white binder along with my kids' artwork and newspaper clippings. I need to do a paper purge so we'll be traveling light once more this summer, but I am so caught up in the day to day tasks that this doesn't seem to ever happen. If I look up, I spot temptation. In my shadowbox / wall décor (also came with the place) is a tin of Cavendish and Harvey Mixed Fruit Drops. I don't usually like hard candy, but these are really good and I love to mindlessly reach for them. What I love most about writing in my room is that behind me is a huge window where doves, sparrows, finches and white cheeked bulbuls perch, cheeping, cooing and fluttering. Whenever the neighborhood cats try to wander through our backyard, I try to hiss at them, because already, my lizards have disappeared and my birds are significantly less thanks to the increase in felines on the street. I miss the lizards, which used to scurry out of the rosemary every time I watered. Looking out over my backyard, taken up with a sand table, plywood pirate ship, toy motorcycle and trampoline, sidewalk chalk scattered everywhere, I reflect how lucky I am to live here in this beautiful country and to have an outdoor space for my children. And how lucky I am for them, even if it does mean every space in my whole house- inside and out- looks like a WalMart Black Friday toy aisle. I see the hibiscus and oleander and other tropical shrubs, the blue sunny skies, so different from the forest green and grey of the Pacific Northwest. (So grateful that I don't get the Februarys here! I think seasonal depression in Seattle and Portland can run from October through April because it is just grey and wet and cold the whole time!) I love it. What was unfamiliar has become familiar and will be so missed when we eventually leave it behind for a new view. Although I will not miss that rugby ball sized bee nest in that prickly acacia tree and all the bugs that live in the dense groundcover in that scary corner of our garden that I never visit!