Reflections on Wednesday...

I met a "newbie" to Shanghai this morning for coffee. Her husband is a work acquaintance of Tim. They have been here for 3 months and she is looking for things to do and maybe a job. I took her to the flower market and then to the Community Center. The HR person at the community center might have a job for her....it was a successful outing!

Our decorating project continues....I spent the rest of the day talking to painters and searching for paint. Sounds simple right??? Not!!! One of the painters said he has never painted more than one color in an apartment....mostly he paints white....everywhere. He was quite perplexed when I told him I wanted 4 different colors in our living spaces. Some of the paint in China is very smelly and probably toxic. We don't want to move out of the house while they are painting so I am very picky about the paint. Then....I discovered that having colors mixed is also much more "iffy" because no one has a computer matching system as we do in the States. Yikes!!!

So....the final decision today....I hired one of the painters to paint our bedroom. If he does a good job I will have him do the living spaces. Ahhhhhh....just another day in China!

I have been collecting "spring" things this week. The rain from yesterday washed away some of the smog so the sky was a lighter shade of gray today. I miss the fresh air, our yard and flowers this week!

Iris and daiseys

Bringing "Spring" indoors
Lily and "green puff balls on branches".
More flowers

At the risk of being blocked from the Internet again I want to say that we are very concerned about what is happening in the western autonomous region of China. We do not get much news about it....the news is blacked out on CNN whenever they are reporting on this event.