Here I am trying to convince her that she should wear her ghost costume with pride. (Yes, that’s supposed to be a ghost.) This is the only photo we got of her standing. I wish Shawn had been quick enough to get a video of when I initially put it on her and she spun around and around, looking more like a whirling dervish than a ghost. Hmm…idea for next year?

(Non-scary) ghost in repose. This was when she had finally given up the struggle and let me put the hood part on. Shawn claimed that it was this hood that bothered her and caused her to eat part of the costume. But I think it’s the cutest part - look at those ears!

Â

Since our mail comes a little sporadically, I have days when I get shipments like this one. This is actually from 4 different sources, but all arrived at the same time. That’s what I call a good day!

But now I have 4 knitting projects and 2 sewing projects to work on. Where to begin? Since it’s supposed to snow (!) this weekend, I guess I’ll start with a hat and scarf set for me. That’s what the rainbow-y Vanna’s Choice yarn in the photo is for. It arrived looking a little more like a rainbow than I had anticipated (it’s really hard to order yarn online), but I think it will work out fine. I just won’t put my stripes in standard rainbow format. And, as Halloween is quickly approaching, I guess I need to work on Laika’s costume. I made a muslin a couple weeks ago, but she’s already grown enough that I need to alter it. Hopefully we will find a puppy-friendly Halloween venue for her to strut her stuff at. Otherwise, I’ll just take photos for my own (and your) enjoyment.

Speaking of Laika, she’s currently recovering from her “sterilization” surgery. We’ve been calling it that because in Russian it’s much easier to say “to sterilize” than “to spay.” And we are all about taking the easy route when it comes to speaking Russian. She’s doing well - a little groggy, but coming out of it way faster than I would like her to. She gets her stitches taken out in 10 days, so we have to try and keep her calm at least that long. When they do operations on animals here, instead of wrapping the stitches or putting a cone on them, they give them little hospital gowns. It sounded really funny when we first heard that, but now I think it’s pretty cute. However, it is a pain when we have to get it off her quickly when she needs to do her business outside - guess they didn’t think that one through completely.

Now to the change part: I start my new job this week. I will be spending 5 hours a day listening to the complaints of my fellow Americans here in Kyiv. (Well, hopefully at least part of that 5 hours will be devoted to actually helping solve their problems.) That’s right, you’re looking at one of the new Customer Service Reps for US Embassy, Kyiv. Maybe not my ideal job, but it’s something. And I hope that my naturally cheery disposition will help to alleviate the concerns of stressed out Foreign Service families. As with any change, it has it’s positive and negative consequences.

On the negative side: I had about a million things I wanted to do with myself after moving here. How am I possibly six months in - one quarter of the way through our tour - with nothing accomplished? I’m finding it very depressing. I was going to teach myself draping, take violin lessons, work on writing a book, take some steps toward staring a business, and the list goes on and on. I actually have this list written down…and nothing to show for it. So now I’m going to start work and I just know that means I’m not going to feel like accomplishing any of it. Working part-time sounded good in theory (”so I’ll still have time for myself,” I said), but I know that when it really comes down to it, I’m going to be just as busy as if I was working full-time. *Sigh* I’ve spent most of the past week dwelling on my inadequacies, so now I’ll move on to…

The positive side: I’ve realized in the past two weeks that I have entire conversations with the dog. Is this normal? I think it started as me conversing with her solely in the house, but it’s moved on to the public sphere now. I guess the combination of the fact that everyone here looks at me like I just jumped off my spaceship anyway and the knowledge that only about 10% of the people on the street can even understand the things I’m saying has led me to really stop caring about talking to her too much on the street. I’ve got to talk to someone, right? Okay, maybe getting out of the house for 5 hours a day is a good thing.