Two weeks into the project and lots of changes.

When I went to work last Thursday work had not yet started but workmen were filling the driveway with pickup trucks. I did not get home until very late that evening. My husband had put up an orange snowfence so that I would not fall into the huge hole between the sidewalk and our back door. In the morning I could see the huge pile of dirt in the backyard and see that the forms for the footings were done. It was interesting discover what was left of the old cistern that was made of red bricks and cement.

Well, we’ve done it. We’ve signed a contract with a building remodeler and we have our building permit.

We will be redoing the kitchen, and getting rid of the flat roof above the kitchen by puting a bedroom above. We will also be adding a wraparound porch/entry/sunroom/gardenjunk room with arbors at each end. These will all be 8 ft. wide on the south end of the house with lots of windows but with an overhang to keep out the summer sun.

The price of groceries tripled today and many types of foods are completely unavailable, but that didn´t stop us from going to a salteñeria and then a Tarijan restaurant to eat some good traditional food with the extended family today. I had some cow tongue, ranga, pig skin, giant corn, aged potatoes, and keperi. We are all enjoying ourselves before the thousands of Massista marchers arrive. Very shortly, the city will be undergoing a kind of silent siege.

Well, things have calmed down somewhat. It´s really hard for an entire country to be this tense for this long. We are all waiting to see what will happen in Cochabamba today. Yesterday morning, four of the five prefects (the prefect of Pando is in La Paz right now being tried on charges of ¨genocide¨) agreed to commence with negotiations even though the prefect of Tarija was unable to reach an agreement in his peace-talks earlier this week. Both sides feel deep mistrust and anger about how things have panned out, but the average Bolivian is sick of uneasiness and fear.

Before I left for my Rotary exchange to Bolivia, Joanna Miller interviewed me and told me that the Prior Lake American website has blog-hosting capabilities should I feel the need to update folks back home. I´ve been in Bolivia for a little over a month now, and I´ve been dutifully keeping my own private blog (www.boliviablog.braveblog.com), but I didn´t see the need to start a Prior Lake American blog until now.

Holy tomatoes, Batman! The tomato plants I plopped into the ground at the last minute this spring/summer are finally producing a full-fledged crop.

We all have goals in life – ambitions, aspirations, and dreams, aimlessly floating around in our head like a springtime dandelion seed. Some are lofty; others are lame. Naturally, since I’m a writer (insert attitude and ego), I aspire to write a book. A memoir?

I harvested the first "fruits of my labor" from the mini-garden last week.

A single, vine-ripened cherry tomato was hardly a bumper crop, but many green tomatoettes look promising.

This year, I planted:  two tomato plants (cherry, Beef eater), two pepper plants (red, orange), rhubarb, and some herbs (basil, cilantro, oregano, rosemary).

My neighbors probably thought the tomato plants were giant weeds, since I didn't put them in cages right away (the plants, that is, not the neighbors...)

Many peopl e have asked how my trip to Brazil wrapped up. The column (below) ran in the print edition of the Prior Lake American back in June, but I forgot to post it here for people who check our online edition.