Much on my mind

School is taking up a lot of my time these days. I forgot how much they can pack on the work and, of course, I'm a perfectionist, so assignments take me forever.

We drove down to Indiana this week for an interview at school. Evidently, I have some masochistic students and I am one of the nominees for adjunct instructor of the year. Between the prep work (an essay) I had to do for that, school work, and two days of driving, I was more than exhausted by the end of the week. I am going to try to get some sleep tonight. My stress level is a bit too high at present.

La Hija has been so testy lately. She gets angry and yells, "I miss my Daddy!!"

On one level, I know that she is pushing buttons because she does the same thing with just about everyone (Nuh-nuh, Papa, her aunts and uncles, grandma, grandpa... just about anyone who is not present. Heck, she will even tell me that she misses her mommy--and then she catches herself and laughs), but I also know there is truth to that.

I had hoped we could go back by May, but my aunt is getting married this summer and I need to be there, so it's looking like August now. I can't afford to be flying back and forth, pretending it doesn't cost ridiculous amounts of money.

I miss Mi Amor as well. We talk almost daily, but I miss his hugs. I miss kidding with him and laughing and seeing his smile. I miss watching him with his daughter. I miss helping him with the business.

Speaking of that, things are getting better, very slowly. He is making about half of what he needs to be making in order to support us. He says the economy is even worse there right now--which is something I can't even imagine. It doesn't surprise me though--they are dollarized. Their economy hinges on ours.

I have been thinking so much about starting up a business, but I have no idea how to begin learning about such things. I will need to learn about creating a business plan and all of those basics, and then I would need to figure out how to finance such a venture--even though it would take far less money to pull it off in El Salvador than it would elsewhere.

I'll put it on the list of things to do while I'm here.