If you were given the option of sacrificing time or money, which could you chose?  We usually think of the two as being inextricably linked, that you can't have one without other, and that if you have one, you have the other.  Lately, I've been seeing these two concepts as different personal resources.  I can have lots of money if I give up all my time.  Or, I can have lots of time if I give up ever having any money.  So my questions isn't really a rhetorical one.  It's one I've been asking myself a lot lately as I try to figure out what I want my life to look like.  Do I want time, or do I want money?  My answer is always time, but, for fear of collection agencies and starvation, I usually pick money.

But then there's another problem.  I want my time to be all mine, but even I can't decide how I want to spend it.  Sometimes I want to do great things and save the world,  and other times, honestly,  I just don't want to get up that early in the morning. 

...without which you could not spell the word, 'procrastination'. 

and by the number 6

... which is about the number of months it's been since I've written.

It's not like I haven't wanted to.  I have, in fact, come up with many witty comments about my new surroundings.  In August, right after Koichi and I arrived to our new home in Massachusetts, I thought of posting an open letter to the people of this town.  It went something like this:

Dear citizens of Massachusetts:  Please keep you hands and feet inside the car at all times while driving.  Love, Alaina

I seriously say like 3 people in the period of a week who somehow managed to operate a vehicle with their foot hanging out the window.  One man was zipping down the highway.  Another woman was driving down Center Ave. of downtown Wellesley, wiggling her toes (and waving an American flag) to the hipster music blaring from her car stereo.   Mildly dangerous.  Extremely obnoxious. 

In about September, as I began to settle in and discover my neighborhood, I thought of posting the following:

This town is so over-the-top wealthy that the closest store to my house is a Baby Gap. 

But it's a good thing I didn't post that, because it turned out to be wrong.  First of all, it was a very large Gap with clothes for men, women and children.  Second of all, the closest store to my house is actually called Dover Saddlery.  Perfect.  I no longer have to drive long distances to buy a saddle for my thoroughbreds.  What a lifesaver.

In October  and November wanted to write about my new job and my awesome students.  I also wanted to write about how weird it was to go so far away from home on a daily basis.  I realized that while in Tetouan, I pretty much only went where I could walk.  I remember one day, while riding the train to downtown Boston, I realized how far I was traveling, just to turn around and come back a few hours later.  It was overwhelming.  But I also wanted to write about fall, and Halloween, and how much I had missed this season the year before.  October-November were hard times in Tetouan.   There was the swine flu, the changing weather, homesickness, swine flu...  this year was nice.  But I missed my roommate, Mary.

And that brings me to December, where I finally get the guts to write a post-Morocco blog. 

.... also brought to you today by the colors, red and green.