Love vs. the price of a postage stamp

On our trips we like to send postcards, a wish-you-were-here taunt from places we hope we're glad to be. On this last venture, we sent at least two postcards from each of the nine stops, one to ourselves and one to someone else.

From Easter Island, Rapa Nui if you will, a Chilean territory, we sent three cards, one to us and one to each of our school age grandchildren.

The Chilean peso is 630 (approx) to one US dollar. So, the postage stamp had a big number--600--on it. No Forever stamps here. And that's where this tale begins.

Our seven-year-old grandson was quite impressed with his postcard. He was more impressed that we loved him enough to spend $600 on a stamp. That's what he told his mother. This prompted a discussion of international monies, a concept his older sister got faster than he did. When they converted the money over, the cost of the stamp was 83 cents.

I don't know if Jack was disappointed or not to find that we only loved him 83 cents worth.

How to make housework palatable

Isn't that a catchy title for a blog post just before the holiday season?

Been out of pocket (and the country) for a while, but now that I'm back there are Things to Do. Like catching up on the blog. Like housework.

How can a house with one cat get so dusty in three weeks? Not that it was pristine when I left, as I tend to let things slide when I've something else in the offing. But when I can look at the piano and write a tune in the dust there, it's time to get cracking.

Housework and I have never been great friends. One cleans and the house just gets dirty again. There would appear to be no honor between the top of the table and me.

However, I've been listening to Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff and since I wouldn't be in the car for a longer period of time than 5 minutes for a week, and since I'd left the characters (this is a true story) in the lurch with the last chapter listened to, I turned on the audio book and started dusting.

(I really don't like to dust. Really. I blame my mother who thought the dining table legs needed to be dusted every week. I mean, who was going to be on the floor looking? That said, I don't mind vacuuming, but it's noisy and I couldn't have listened and vacuumed at the same time.)

I dusted and listened and moved the iPad from room to room. I found things to dust just so I could finish a chapter. What madness was this?

And I'm not finished with the book yet, despite also applying this new method to the upstairs. I feel a bread baking binge coming on.