For all my talk yesterday of focusing on local things, last night I was running around with my 13 year old at 9:00 pm trying to buy Thai Bhat for his school trip tomorrow. Not so local and not so normal.

But turning my focus local isn’t about skipping world travel — it’s about focusing on my life instead of other people’s. Since I wasn’t worn out from theoretically trying to solve the problems of the world, when we remembered that he needed to exchange money at the last minute I had the energy to drop what I was doing and go (which really meant I was able to crawl out from under the covers where I was watching Dr. Quinn with Camille and throw on running shoes with my pajamas). Good thing Abu Dhabi doesn’t get going until after 7pm so instead of worrying that places would be closed I was fighting crowds for a parking space. Good times. Even better, I was able to go and be pleasant instead of grumbling that the last thing I wanted to do was go out again after a long day. Yay me! and Yay for having extra mental reserves!

Yes, Caleb is headed to Thailand again — for the second time in less than 3 months. Each year the 8th grade class goes to Thailand for a week and is involved in various service projects and cultural experiences. But for those who are jealous or who think he lives a charmed life (he does), he would be even happier to be running through the redwoods of California. There’s no place like home.