Returning again

It continues to amaze me how time can fly. How is it possible that our 3 month "home leave" is over and we are back "home" in our host country? Where did the time go? Well, I do know that for me, most of the month of January went to coughing. Nasty bugs you have over there in America. I had better stay here where we only have bird flu, fillaria, malaria, dengue fever, leprosy, tuberculosis, cholera, dysentery, Japanese encephalitis ...

While looking for a basic broccoli soup recipe today, I ran across this. WHY would you want to do this??? As if finding interesting recipes is not time consuming enough?

We are now 2 days into our new year of homeschooling. Everyone is doing very well, especially considering the circumstances:

This is the living room, which was being sanded to remove some of the chalk that had been applied to the walls to prepare them for painting. No, I don't understand that either. And, my camera lens was not dirty. The dirt you see was the chalk dust floating in the air.



Welcome to the bedroom. Yes, the living room furniture has invaded the bedroom. And it seems the mattress has taken wing - perhaps looking for a less dusty abode.


And the playroom/family room has taken on the role of storage chamber. Hmmm, the mattress landed here. I'm not sure the its new home is any less dusty. The computer desk seems to be holding everything except the computer.



The porch. We have to walk through here to get to the kid's room, the school room, and the laundry. 'Nuff said.



Ahhh! We have arrived in the school room. The scene above is the result of telling the kids to "Carry these things upstairs and stack them neatly in a corner."



And the school table. In our absence, it became home to the pictures that should have been hanging on the walls. I have managed to carve out a space for my coffee mug, though. Always take care of the important things first!



And finally, will someone please tell me why our closet is now in the school-room???

On the up side, 3 of our 7 boxes of books arrived today. Receiving books is always cause for celebration! Praying for the other 4 boxes to make it through. Will keep you posted.

Another month

. . . has passed since I last posted. Many times I have had ideas, observations, thoughts that I wanted to write, but have found myself too busy, or too tired, or too sick, or too something! But today brought blessings too wonderful NOT to write about!

Of course, today is Sunday. That alone is a blessing. A day to rest, a day to worship. For me, it was extra special, as it was my first opportunity to attend our home church since we came back to the US. The rest of the family went last week, while I nursed a nasty sinus infection in bed.

But the most amazing part of today, so far, has been the surprise we woke up to: SNOW!!! Of our 3 children, only The Scholar has even seen snow, and he was only 1 at the time. The 4-5 inches we got was enough to scuff around in, shovel (what joy!) and even sled on. We enjoyed racing down the hill, sometimes more gracefully than others, and landing in the soft snow at the end of the run. We watched our children's wonder as they observed how the snow fell and balanced in strange ways. We laughed with them at the feel of snow, its taste, and the way it chilled them when it worked its way in around their cuffs.I nearly cried over Princess Grace's reaction to the first snow she has ever seen. When I asked what she thought of the snow, she just hugged my leg, rested her head on me, and smiled: too enraptured for words.

What (on earth) could be better than this?

Of Writing and Reading Blogs

While we have been traveling, I found myself unable to post. Sometimes, the internet was just too hard to access. At other times my thoughts were too hard to access. For me, posting is an emotional, even cathartic process. My depression and anxiety, and the medication I take for them, leave my emotions blunted, my true feelings masked. Digging into my thoughts takes time and effort: which travel and chaos tend to prevent. Sometimes, I mourn the loss of my feelings. But I have to remember that I have exchanged them for functioning: for being able to talk to my children without yelling, snapping, or crying in frustration; for being able to get through a day without a 2-hour nap; for being able to be with my loved ones, rather than escaping from them. With this comes a capacity for seeing blessings and feeling joy that previously was lost.

While I have been unable to write on my blogs, I have been able to read other's blogs. Over and over I have been challenged, encouraged, blessed by the thoughts and reflections of others. And for this, I thank you. To Ann V. of Holy Experience, thank you for challenging me to see God where he IS, rather than where I would like to keep him boxed. In one post you have given me weeks worth of stuff to contemplate. Slow down ;-) ! To myfriendConnie at smockity frocks may God bless you for blessing me with things of beauty and practicality. You have reminded me that life in my ugly concrete house mission house need not be ugly. To the whole team at The Common Room, thank you for the ongoing view into what life in a homeschooling family can look like. It keeps me going when homeschool days grow weary. And to Amy at Amy's Humble Musings thank you for great links that have kept this news-thirsty expatriate informed about life and politics in the US. I have been challenged and taught on so many levels. And to the many other blog writers I have read and enjoyed, thank you.

Around the world

It has been a month since I posted. A crazy, travel filled, stress-laden month. A last-minute trip to a neighboring Asian country, continued on to another country. A quick return home to pack up and move out of half of our home. Then the final, big journey, halfway around the world, across 14 time zones, to our "home country" for 3 months of leave.

What a month. We traveled on 2 trains, 6 airplanes, countless taxis and occasional subways. Not to mention 30 + hours in the car. Our children have slept in no fewer than 10 places in the past month, not counting airplanes.

In all of this time, we have visited one emergency room, 2 Sunday Schools, and 3 hotels. We have already enjoyed time with 4 grandparents since arriving in the US. God is good. We are together. And we are rejoicing!

Of Bugs and Bats

Perhaps this isn't the most spiritual topic, but I needed some distraction today anyhow. Last week, every evening's peace was broken by my wild children an unbelievable loud squealing noise from outside. I am not talking about the rickshaw-mounted sound systems that roam the villages all night, advertising a movie or promoting some politician or spreading health awareness messages. This was a squeal of more natural origins. It was a bug, or rather, LOTS of bugs, making this loud, sustained noise. It was literally loud enough and of such a frequency that it hurt my ears. If I had to guess, I would say it was cicadas, though I have never been much at insect identification. Insect AVOIDANCE, now there is something I can talk intelligently about!

I am only guessing about cicadas, but I did find this great website from the ABC of Oz (that is the Australian Broadcasting Company) with this photo of a cicada that certainly looks like the giant bugs I flick off our screens from time to time. I was not surprised by the volume of these big bugs - up to 120 dB! I have felt the pain!

Well, the noise of last week has been replaced by a noise that, if possible, is even louder. We have a large tree in our yard that I'm told is a rubber tree. This is not your average, US indoor potted ficus, however. This is a REAL ficus elasticus - in the wild - no wait, if it were truly in the wild, it would be inside my house, not in the garden. Ok, not in the wild, but outside in the sub-tropics, where it has room to thrive. It has 7 primary trunks growing from a central base and an above ground root structure that looks like a floor covered with snakes. Should a real snake gets in there it would be pretty tough to see!

Around this time of year, that giant tree flowers and grows fruit, which attracts the animal causing my head to ache today: the Indian Flying Fox. For those of you that don't instantly see the difficulty in that name, I will give you the alternate name: Giant Fruit Bat.

The Indian Flying Fox is the second largest bat species in the world, according to my 5 minutes of internet research at slower than dial-up speeds. Their wing span is around 4 feet - roughly the size of my 7-year-old. I told him he could lay down and use a bat for a blanket. He didn't go for that. Hmm . . . do you think that will give him nightmares?

So, from dusk until 9 pm, we have a continuous screaming contest concert in our front yard. After dark until morning - well, I don't know when they stop because I have this thing about sleeping at night. But before the sleep, you literally have to shout to make yourself heard over the din if you are on our porch.

There are a variety of bats in South Asia. My in-laws had tiny bats living in their ceiling vents when they lived nearby. When we are in the capital we see a medium size bat quite often at dusk. But none seem to be as loud or as active as our colony of flying foxes.

A few interesting tidbits: Indian Flying Fox bats are sacred in parts of India. In Pakistan, the fat from some bats is used for medicine. Some bat species are under threat from humans - who kill them for food (YUCK!). Bats do sometimes carry rabies, and have recently been implicated in SAARS. At least one of the common names for our bat neighbors here translates into some kind of snake. They are kind of creepy, so maybe it is a good name.

Adding to the ruckus is the rain-like drumming of their discarded fruit seeds on our tin roof. Don't you wish you lived here?

A Birthday Dinner

Today I have been cooking. In our house, the birthday dinner menu is generally the choice of the Birthday boy (or girl). Of course, living here, I sometimes have to make adjustments based on what I have on hand or have access to. For instance, vegetables just aren't available right now. For the children this would not be much of an issue, but some of us like vegetables.

Today's menu was based on a more practical theme, however. In less than 4 weeks, we leave for 4 months in the US. So, after an inventory of my freezer and pantry, I planned every meal between now and when we go, with the hope of leaving a minimum of food items in storage here.

Tonight's birthday menu has come together beautifully:

A small pork roast with a cranberry-orange sauce.
Potatoes Au Gratin
Broccoli & Cauliflower - steamed
Apple & Craisin compote

Dessert:
Pineapple cream cheese coffee cake
Homemade vanilla ice cream with toffee bits and mini chocolate chips

The only things I would have liked in addition to the above would have been fresh dinner rolls, but I had to draw the line somewhere!

Now, what is interesting is how this meal came together. Based on my menu calendar, I had chosen the pork roast for today. I noticed a tin of jellied cranberry sauce (left over from last Thanksgiving) while rooting in the pantry the other day for a can of tuna. So, off to the internet to find a recipe that combined these 2 items. Voila! Oh, except I did not have cranberry juice, so I substituted orange juice, freshly squeezed from the Malta oranges that became available last week.

Next came the side dishes. I was hoping for noodles because I LOVE egg noodles with pork. But, making homemade noodles was too much to do today. So, on to plan "B" - potatoes. I dug out bits of 3 different cheeses from the depths of the fridge, all rather desperate to be cooked with, so Au Gratin was the logical choice. Vegetable was easy. Either it came from the freezer or there was not going to be any vegetable. I am out of canned veggies except 1 can of peas that is earmarked for a tuna noodle casserole later this month. The freezer yielded some broccoli & cauliflower. Finally, we just bought apples again for the first time since I can't remember when. Sadly, they were too mushy to be nice to eat. So, they had to be cooked. Add in an open packet of dried cranberries (Craisins), some sugar and cinnamon, and the extra orange juice, and we have a nice compote.

Dessert was even more interesting. A can of local pineapple needed to be used. Cans are notoriously poor around here, so it definitely wouldn't last too long. And then, there was the cheese. Yesterday, DH tried to make ice cream. But when he heated the milk with the sugar in it, it curdled, indicating that the milk was no longer as fresh as it had once been. Our milk is delivered to the door every day, still warm and usually with cow hair floating in it. We boil it and refrigerate it, but it does not keep too long. I couldn't see wasting all of that milk and sugar, so I drained it through cheese cloth and had a wonderful, pre-sweetened soft cheese. The need to use this up before it spoiled pushed me to look for a recipe that would use both the pineapple and the cheese. In the end I chose a recipe that I made once before. Of course, that meant some substitutions also. Sour milk for sour cream, pineapple for apples, my cheese for cream cheese etc. By the way, the ice cream turned out wonderfully on the second try: fresher milk.

And whose birthday was it that was celebrated in this interesting way?

Mine!

Good thing I like to cook!

What a week . . .

It has been a long week. And not a particularly good one. Some difficulties with our work here have been emotionally and spiritually draining. The result is that we are physically drained as well. So, posting has been on the back burner. But today is a bit better. Praise God!