About Fighting Windmills
To find out the reason I chose Fighting Windmills as my blog’s name please read this post: What does quixotic mean?
I am a 33 year old, married mother of three. I went to Davidson College. Soon after I graduated, I moved to Japan. I taught English in Japan for three years through the JET Programme, and then was a stay at home mom for 6 years. In November of 2010 I got a job with a software company, answering the phone in English and Spanish.
While in college, I studied abroad in Hamamatsu, Japan in the summer of 1999 and in Lima, Peru in the summer of 2000. I’m especially interested in languages and the connection between Japan and Peru. My husband is Peruvian, with one Japanese grandparent. We met and got married while we were working in Japan. We now live in the United States and are busy fixing up our first house.
This blog is an emotional release in some ways and gives me the chance to meet interesting people and share ideas. Thank you all for your friendship!
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Fighting Windmills 
Welcome to the bloggin mama scene, babe! I love the imagery of Don Quixote…well done!
Thanks mrsmetaphor. You and your blog are good influences on me!
Hi there!
I’m still sucking down my first cup of coffee of the day, and can’t find an email address for you in the fog. So I’m posting this here. Thanks for your kind comments on my blog. To answer your question about the art studio, it was one of the activities offered as part of our tour package. For that afternoon we could choose painting, flute-making or a ceramics thing. The tour was offered through AHI (Alumni Holidays International), a US company that has been marketing its trips through college alumni offices for years. Our trip was actually called “Campus Abroad in Peru” – and we had lectures. Though not too many or too long. And some kind of cool things that I’ll blog about eventually at fugawe.wordpress.com
Thanks again for posting, and have a good weekend!
Suz, thanks for sharing your travel blog’s location. You have a great gift for describing the places you’ve been with both your words and your beautiful pictures. I can’t wait to go back to Peru and take more pictures, maybe this time with a better eye and more intense perspective. Yours are inspirational.
Hello hello. Just thought I’d stop by and say hello and thanks for stopping by. By the way, I’m Carrie. I see you’re a newcomer to the world of blogging. Terrific work thus far!
Hi, Carrie. Thanks for introducing yourself. I have so much to learn about blogging and about taking pictures. I’m glad you like my efforts. Your blog rocks—what an inspiration!
hello there fightingwindmills.
i am fighting several of my own, each day, being a mama in southern california. i also have 2- a 10 year old girl, and a 6 yr. old boy. their dad and i recently divorced, so my new thing is that i am a SINGLE MAMA! how intense is that- don’t ask!
so i was searching for anything about ani speaking of her mama experience so far, and stumbled upon your blog.
WOW. how refreshing to find tribeswomen- online at that! it always amazes me how those of us who don’t fall far from the tree can connect if we just reach out.
you have inspired me to unearth my blog! i started it…don’t even remember when? a year or so back, before i got into my space- and took the easy way out, using that blog. i just don’t use it enough. i want to be writing every day. do you have a my space?
i do write, on my computer journal, but to put it out there for someone to see, such as myself just now seeing yours, has the connection factor that we all so desperately need as stay at home mothers, often feeling on the fringe of life, unintegrated.
for our experience is so specific, and not everyone can relate to it.
add politics on top of it- sometimes i feel like i am standing at the edge of the abyss, all alone, trying to make sense of how i feel and what i think and who i am.
we share a love of ani. i saw her for the first time in 1995, the year Out Of Range came out. it was an instant love affair. i ushered at that show, which took place in a tiny church in Oakland, CA, with my friends. she was such a little thing, with her hair all shaved underneath, pulled up into this crazy, little ponytail on the top of her head. she was very sweet at the soundcheck, asking us for this or that, checking out the sound system, etc. we were scurrying around like little rats, getting things ready. it felt like being at an old, southern church, the whitewashed walls, the energy of a place that old. so humble and filled with family once the show started. people sitting in the pews, lounging in the aisles, sitting on the sides of the stage. it was so personal and intimate- that was my first taste of an ani show. i was hooked!
i have seen her about 30 times over the years.
she is a major influence in my life.
well, nice to meet you!
have a great day. remember how important you are.
thank you for your blog!
Oilgoddess
Every time I see your long hair it reminds me of this song – your husband can serenade it to you!!!
My baby is “American Made”
Born and bred in the “U.S.A.”
From her silky long hair to her sexy long legs
My baby is “American Made”
Oil Goddess, thank you for coming to my blog and commenting. I am so happy we have this connection. Bless you for reaching out. I hope you will participate in these conversations whenever you have the time. Your experience with Ani sounds amazing! Thank you so much for relating that story of the first time you saw her!
FFPT, my husband would love singing that song to me. I’ll suggest it to him. You’re so funny to mention it!
I love your blog and what you represent. Thank you for being alive.
What an exciting life you’ve lead.
i am a mostly stay-at-homie, meaning i work outside of the home on weekends as a senior companion.
It is easy to lose one’s woman to being mommy.
i use my blog to remember that i am a person who is a mom.
Johnny, you’re a hard nut to crack.
christine, I agree with you. We are people first, but we tend to define ourselves as mamas, especially when commenting on another mama’s blog. Feel free to express yourself as a person and not just as a mom here. What is a senior companion? Please tell me more. 🙂
i help to physically care for, and hang out with, a beautiful 95 year-old woman. i keep her room clean, do her laundry. i bathe her, dress her and walk with her for exercise. We sing together, we eat together, we chat and i write down her rhyming poems- though not so much recently. Her health is declining; she had a major stroke a few days ago.
The work is rewarding on so many levels, though it has taken its toll on my already snarky back. It is hard on her but i remain hopeful always. i mean, we are not to live forever in this world- but i miss the HER of her right now. Gosh, that sounds so selfish of me, but it’s honest.
So that’s what i do on the side.
Like the mission of the blog. Maybe your fellow bloggers will be your Sancho Panza. I just starting this blog thing in December. Still trying to decide if I like it or will delete it. I live in NC about an hour from Davidson. In fact I almost went there but chose UNC-Chapel Hill instead. I had more important things on my mind than scholastic endeavors at that time :-). Keep writing!
Wilson, thank you for the funny comment about Sancho Panza. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. 😆 I love reading Southern fiction, so I am glad that you have pointed the way to your own books. One of my favorite authors is Lee Smith.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Your blog is so interesting to read – I just started blogging so I hope that I will have as many varied things to write about!
Thank you for returning the visit, motherhoodandpotatoes! Your blog is off to an excellent start.
What a wonderful blog! And your photography is truly captivating… excellent! To introduce myself, I’m a soon-to-be retired, old, fat, single man, from Texas. I took up photography as a hobby a couple of years ago, and while I can’t get near the quality of your work, I do love it so! I found your link at Mercedes’ World, where we shared the Arte y Pico Award for writing and photography… and I’m glad I did!
Consider yourself blogrolled, and added to my Blog Surfer list! 😀
Thanks for commenting, Lofter. You are very kind to say that about my photographs. I look forward to seeing more of yours, too.
Hi there! Thanks for stopping my my blog–I’ll be checking yours out, too.
Em
Hi! Thanks for the comment on my blog. I love your photographs! I am experimenting with photography. What camera are you using, if I may ask? Your photographs are sharp and beautiful, especially the ones of the flowers. I’ll be trying out the flickr mosaic meme some time soon!
mama2roo (Em), you are welcome. It’s fun to make those connections. I found your blog through the “motherhood” tag.
calpy, thank you for returning the visit! I’m glad that you like my photographs. Sometimes they turn out well, but I’m not sure why. I use a Canon PowerShot SD550. I put it on the manual macro setting for the flowers. Have fun with the mosaic meme!
What a fascinating history~LOVE IT! Learning about people is one of my very favorite things… And PERU! I’ve wanted to visit Lima since the fourth grade when we learned about the mural of “The Last Supper” in which everyone at the table is a different nationality. It’s on my To Do Before I Die list…. (((((HUGS))))) sandi
Going to Lima, Peru is an excellent thing to have on your list, Sandi! I do hope you get the chance to experience that.
Hi FW,
I thought about you last Saturday when NBC reran Kristin Wiig doing her Suze Orman jackets skit (from comments on Mom Voyage).
I enjoyed spending more time on your blog today and discovering your Japanese connection. (I’m a great big Nipponophile.) My kids attend a Japanese immersion school and we are hosting an intern, assistant teacher, in our home. I am learning Japanese as well. I find the whole South America / Japan connection intriguing, but only know about the Brazilian and Japanese exchange. Have you read Natsuro Kirino’s book, “Out”?
Hi! I feel bad calling you Unfit Mother, but I like your blog and I think it will be fun to interact. Your comment on Karrie’s blog was cracking me up. I’ve never seen the skit, but I could imagine it.
I have a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law who are Brazilian. There are big Peruvian and Brazilian communities in Hamamatsu, where I taught. I think some Japanese were trying to get out of there during the imperialist expansion leading up to the war. I don’t know very much about the history except that many countries in South American opened up their immigration policies so that the Japanese could move there. And in 1990 Japan reformed their immigration policies so that those descendants could move back to Japan if they wanted to work. My husband used to make outboard boat motors at the Yamaha factory.
I just looked up that novel on amazon.com and it sounds like something I would love to read! Then we could discuss it, okay?
Hi, I just stopped by to let you know I was thinking of you. I send my love to you!!
HUGS!!!!!
Thanks for stopping by, gr8tful. You are in my thoughts, too. 🙂
Hi,
Great site! I’ve added you to my blogroll.
Thank you, Minnie. It’s always nice to meet new people and find out what we have in common!
not sure where to leave this comment, but i wanted you to know that your new header picture is absolutely beautiful! such a perfect capture of you and your daughter.
Thanks, Heather. A friend of my parents took that photo while we were at Sherando Lake. I really like the settings she used on her camera to make the colors so soft.
Hey there dear! Praying your weekend is a great one!!
I’m a fellow 30 year old mother of 3 beautuful, biracial children, who has loved Ani since I was 17. It’s good to find a like-minded soul.
Hello, I am very glad I discovered your blog. I am a current Davidson student and I went on the Peru program. Will be dropping by often in the future!