Big Chicken Car Owners

Within the past Month of Mutiny against the blog, I apparently also threw off all responsibility in the realm of wife-dom. 

Brandon's birthday came and went with hardly even a mention of a gift from me. He's such a champ and has come to realize that as long as we're living in the land of chopsticks, gifts from his wife are few and far between....unless he wants another useless hammer whose head flies off when you use it or a drill that ignites in flames after 3 times of use.

And oh yes, there was Father's Day where the kids woke up puking, I completely forgot that it was Father's day, and had to be reminded about an hour before lunch. I called a re-do and said we'd celebrate in September.

All of that to say that despite my lack of outward affection toward my husband and his Fatherly-ness and his 29 years on this planet, I'm quite smitten with him and the way that he gets things done.

Lets take, for example, something he began almost a year ago.

Brandon decided that the best thing for our family was to get a car. Sure we love driving around on our electric bike (no really, we do!), getting lost occasionally on city busses, and standing for who-knows-how-long on the street corner waiting on taxis, he decided we needed to plunge further into China traffic by buying a car. (I may or may not have been the perfect example of biblical submission during this point in our marriage.)

But first, he needed a license. It's not as easy as getting AAA to say you're an international driver and wah-lah you're face is plastered on a piece of plastic next to your Chinese name. 

No, you first have to take the written exam. 

Which fortunately, can be found online (hello China's non-existent piracy laws), downloaded, put on the ipad for hours and hours of studying to one's heart's content...since, after all, there's 1,317 questions.

One thousand three hundred seventeen questions. 

For a driver's test.

In a country that seemingly has no traffic laws.

Ok ok. I digress...

And also fortunately, (or maybe unfortunately), has been translated to English, allowing him to study and take the computerized test in English.

And so the studying began.  

And so did the confusion...

That's true/false people.  At least it was a 50/50 chance. As opposed to...

 The correct answer: A!  A lesson for all you studying to be a paramedic!


Also among the 1,317 questions was clear evidence of the place in which we live...

Which turned out to be quite educational as far as his character reading is concerned!

Also among the barrage of questions were some pertaining to science.
(I also may have been a little ecstatic about the fact that the word "overalls" appeared in a Chinese driver's test.)

Isn't he dreamy...he got that one right!!

And just to make sure they covered all their bases, they threw in some questions for those studying to become stunt men:

In the end, success! He received 99% on his test and his grader was quite perplexed with how well Brandon did! His picture was slapped on a piece of plastic next to his incorrectly written Chinese name and off he went to begin the search for a second-hand car.

Our first attempt was to go to the "2 Hand Car Market" which essentially was a gigantic parking lot with rows upon rows of used cars. And car salesman after car salesman committed to convincing the foreigner that, "Truly...in this car we DID NOT change the mileage to read less than what it really is." and "no really, despite the mismatched car-bumper, this car has NEVER been in a wreck."

After almost buying a VW jetta from a man we couldn't quite tell was shady or just really convincing, we retained our better judgment and came home car-less so Brandon could start scouring the "2 Hand Car" websites.

And he found one that he felt was a good deal!
It's a KIA Cerato, is decked out in Hello Kitty stickers, a golden Buddha, some bling covering all the buttons on the dashboard (because they're all in English after all so the previous owner didn't need to read them!), bright blue seat protectors, some stuffed animals in the back seat, and a military license plate.

Oh yes. Did I mention that the seller is an undercover cop?!
Who actually was quite taken with Brandon and even flashed his badge at the insurance office and got a 40% discount for us on our full-coverage insurance. We're not entirely sure how we feel about this friendship, but so far it's been much to our benefit!

Not to worry. The bling, hello kitty stickers, and golden Buddha were all quickly removed that evening. As were the blue seat covers. We're borrowing a carseat from fellow expats for Caleb to use and scoured Taobao for boosters for the kids (to which their teachers' response was, "oh wow! You guys really like safety!")

And now we're rollin' in our white Kia all over the Big Chicken.

All thanks to my awesome husband, his amazing Chinese skills (did I mention he did that ALL himself?!), and his ability to just get.things.done. regardless of language or culture obstacles.

He's a keeper.

Mutiny

Seven years.

Yep. I checked again tonight just to make sure I was giving you accurate facts.

I've been occupying this little corner of the internet for seven whole years.

Seven years is a long time to document life via Blogger. During these seven years we've made two separate moves to East Asia, took up residence in North Carolina for awhile, welcomed three babies into our family, experienced heartache, ups, downs, and in-betweens, and entirely too much stinky tofu for these two Texans.

But along the way, and specifically most recently, the blog has taken control.
I feel like I've lost the reins.

I'm talking crazy talk. Bare with me.

Social media was sucking away my soul. The blog was reeking the ever-loving life out of me and becoming entirely unenjoyable to even share our stories. Pinterest was constantly yelling in my face that I wasn't good enough.

The point being: I was just done. I was over it.
I was sick of comparing myself. Fed up with trying to be the funniest. The wittiest. The most sincere. The most culturally sensitive yet also the most culturally rebellious. The best at telling stories. The best at taking pictures. The best at fitting in but also doing the best at standing out. The best kids' crafts. The best recipes. The best stories of failure.

Enough already!

So for the past month-or-more I've been in mutiny against the blog. Most social media. Pinterest.

I've mutinied. 

Thrown a mutiny. 

I'm mutinying.

It's mutinous around here.

Pick your verb preference.

I know I'm not alone here. I think it's something most women struggle with. And for some reason we choose to douse ourselves in it by pouring over Pinterest and lamenting the fact that we can't repurpose a sweater into a house rug, turn a wooden pallet into a book shelf, or make turkeys out of reeses peanut butter cups and candy corn.

So rather than choose moderation. I chose nothing. 

No pinterest.

No blogging.

No tweeting.

No status-ing on facebook.

No writing. 

(almost) No blog reading.

I did stick to instagram so that the grandparents wouldn't disown me. 

And now, on the other side of The Great Mutiny, I can't say that I feel a whole lot better. Or that I've chosen a new direction for this little insignificant space of the internet. Or that I'll never do Facebook again or that I'll rise up and rebel against all things social media. Or even that I'll dive in face first again.

I just know, that from now on, if this blog continues, it won't be used as a Chancler Timeline screaming at me to update twice a week because that's what good bloggers do. The pressure to make sure things are succinctly laid out in the order of occurrence is gone. The wittiest stories won't be written here. The best pictures won't be taken here. The best cultural-oopses won't be documented here.

And I'm choosing to be ok with that.

And I'm choosing to move on.

I'll still blog. Because that's what a daughter that has up and moved across the planet and taken grandparents' grandchildren away from them has to do.

I'll still take pictures. Because I have awesomely beautiful children living in a land that thinks it's ok to feed them pig snout.

I'll still tell stories. Simply because I love writing. 

And in the end I'm choosing to remember that that's the reason I even started this seven years ago. 

End Mutiny.