nearing a year!

We are in the middle of our 2nd week of school for this year. These are busy, busy days for me and I am trying to find a balance of doing everything to keep my head above water, or just doing what I can and still enjoy life outside of homeschooling and not worrying about what I can't fit in.

Some things that have been happening here in the last few weeks.

We have had lots of visitors from the US, Zambia, South Africa and the Philippines! It was a great time. At the same time I was organizing my books for school so my livingroom looked quite messy for awhile with stacks of books everywhere. One of the visitors became my hero when he and Kaleb fixed my washing machine and even more importantly, my popcorn popper! Yeah! I gave him my rice cooker to mess around with but they were unable to bring it back to life. But, happily, our guest from the Philippines taught me how to make rice without having it stick to the bottom of the pan or burn, so we should be all set.

Andrew and Alissa joined the youth group! They have started 7th grade so it was time for them to go with Kaleb. They both loved it and are looking forward to going again this week. Joel thought it was pretty hard to drop his daughter off at youth group and is wondering already how he will ever handle dropping her off at college!

Kids are still keeping me humble. As soon as I think I have it all figured out they show up in church with their jeans on backwards (Jonathan...and even worse is that I didn't figure it out until we got home!) or involve me in a huge drama over whether it is reasonable for me to expect him to find a pencil for math instead of using a pen (Kaleb; and we finally decided that obedience is the key here; and it doesn't matter if he thinks I am reasonable or not).

Mostly, though, the kids made me very proud as they handled all of the company (which meant that we were moving around every night; sometimes in one room, sometimes in another; and a few nights with all 8 of us in Kaleb and Andrew's room) and helped me with keeping the house clean and meals made. They are great kids!

It is hard to believe that we have been here almost a year already. It seems like a lot longer. At a bible study yesterday somebody said that they have been here since February and they still felt new. I was thinking about it and realized that I no longer "feel new" here! I know people and have friends and know who people are talking about when they discuss things. So, maybe this really has become home!

August days

The days have been so beautiful. The mornings and evenings are still cool; I love that! It can be pretty warm during the day but some cloudy days stay breezy and cold. Perfect days for hanging clothes on the line.

Joel is in Zambia again. He is attending a missions conference and then speaking at a youth conference. I have only gotten a few text messages from him since he left so I am not sure how everything is but I am thinking he is really busy and probably having a great time.

We have company coming this week. Several people from our mission are here in Malawi to give a conference at the lake and our house is a good place to stay the night on the way there and back. Three ladies will be here while their husbands are at the conference to speak at a ladies conference here in Lilongwe. These folks are also bringing my school books (yeah!) so I am going to be busy organizing our new school year and probably starting school in the next few weeks.

Because of having many people staying here the kids and I have been busy cleaning and decluttering the house this week. Joel will arrive home on Monday (our 18th wedding aniversary) and we will have a chance to go out to lunch on Tuesday (his birthday) before he leaves again to the conference at the lake.

Kaleb is enjoying youth group, volleyball, and playing guitar in church. Andrew is growing taller and taller; he has passed Alissa (his first goal) and now measures himself against me each day to see if he has passed me yet. Alissa is one of the most self motivated people I know. She wakes up early and runs, washes dishes and does her math each day before I even wake up! Anna enjoys her friends (she loves people) and playing soccer on Tuesdays. She was the only girl when she joined and now there are as many girls as boys attending! Joshua is still missing his two front teeth but they are showing signs of growing in. He loves soccer and his favorite job is washing out the garbage pail for me when we change the garbage (I am glad because I hate that job). Jonathan is behind Joshua in tooth loss, but he is really enjoying reading. He says that Tuesdays are his "favorite day of the whole year" because that is soccer day. Anna, Joshua and Jonathan also love their Sunday School class and last Sunday sang in front with their class.

I am really enjoying my Saturday Bible study where we are going through Elizabeth George's book "A Woman's High Calling". My Tuesday bible study is starting back up this coming week and I look forward to seeing the ladies again after taking a few months off. Besides that my days are filled with housework, schoolwork (even during our break we do some school each day!), soccer on Tuesdays and I am still doing once a month cooking. Once a month or so we have a homeschooling meeting here at the house and have had a few field trips as well. In fact, yesterday we just got our homeschooling group t-shirts for the Lilongwe homeschoolers.

We miss everybody from home; last year at this time the days were filled with cookouts, swimming, card nights, and just fun days with family. We are especially thinking of Jamie and Michael as Michael nears his 2nd birthday. It is also my oldest nephew's 18th birthday in August...he was born the day before Joel and I got married! I think I must be getting old. I do have the grey hairs to prove it although I have recently learned of a hair dressers that does highlights so hopefully soon my age can be less obvious. (smile)

Stir-Crazy

I love popcorn. Every country we have gone to so far I have taken a Stir-Crazy popcorn popper with me. It is kind of bulky so I don't try to take it home with me aftewards but leave it with somebody and then get a new one before our next country. I can't remember who has my Indonesia or Philippines popcorn popper but my Brazilian popcorn popper was left with Lucia who was my popcorn buddy while we were there.

So, we have been enjoying popcorn here in Malawi for 9 months now with my latest Stir-Crazy popcorn popper. I remember when I bought it. We were at one of our wonderful Birch Run weekends with Jamie and Mom and at one of the kitchen stores I had to choose between a popcorn popper and an ice cream maker. The kids thought it would be an easy choice...and it was! Of course I got the popcorn popper (not exactly what they were thinking...)!!

Well, a few days ago one of my sweet children (I name no names) plugged my popcorn popper into the wall. In the US that would be great; but here it means an instant spurt of heat and light and a large popping sound...then the child comes running "Mom! I did something to your popcorn popper!" Sigh. After living with transformers for so many years I forgot to remind them about it this time.

After being extremely annoyed for a good five minutes I decided to plug it in and see what the damage was (but my experience told me the damage would be complete) and the little stir part started going around! I was so happy...we jumped up and down and hugged and ran and got the popcorn and oil and started making popcorn. We waited...and waited...and waited some more before we were finally forced to admit that while the stir part was not broken, the popcorn popper was not heating up at all. Kaleb told us that we should have known; the whole inside would be all melted together now. (sniff sniff...what a sad thing to have happen to my favorite popcorn popper!)

While I was not a grump (for long) because of the loss of my popper, I was not ready to listen to the well meant comments from the children. "At least you can still make popcorn in a pan mom!" "It isn't like you can't have popcorn again."

At soccer yesterday somebody told me a place that fixed their microwave so I might try to see if there is any way it can be fixed (which means I have to ignore Kaleb's 'completely melted inside' comments). Now I have the fun of looking forward to making enough popcorn for 36 people on Thursday on the stove! Sigh.

Pray for my friend!

My friend Corinne's 12 year old daughter was hit by a car while riding her bike last Wednesday. Please visit this site http://www.caringbridge.org/cb/viewJournal.do?method=executeInit and pray for Rachael (the daughter) and her family!

My mind and heart have been full this week.

Two more days!

It is hard to believe that Joel's trip to Zambia is almost over! He should be home late Saturday afternoon or evening (it is a 12 hour trip so it just depends on how early they leave and if there are complications on the road; a flat tire slowed them down 4 hours last time).

Joel has been gone since Friday morning so tomorrow it will be a week. I worried that I wouldn't sleep well while he was gone; that I wouldn't feel particularly safe in this house. We do have a guard who seems to be very careful while Joel is gone about staying awake and doing rounds around the yard to make sure all is secure. I have been keeping supplied with coffee and high sugar snacks!

I have been able to sleep pretty well...the only times it was hard was when Jonathan and Joshua wanted to share the big bed with me (because why in the world does Mom need all that space all by herself?).

Anna went to visit her new friend Janelle today. I guess Anna fell while they were playing and came home all banged up...her tooth almost went all the way through her lip, so she has a completely fat lip, sore on the inside of her mouth, a scraped up chin, a sore wrist and a gashed and bloody knee. She got another invitation from another friend for visiting tomorrow but I thought that she needed some recovery time.

Kaleb was picked up to go to youth group last night...I have to say, watching him ride away in a minivan full of teens (driven by a 19 year old) was kinda scary. It was dark and the roads are so bad here. They were going a very short distance, but we all know that statistics show that 79% (or something) of all accidents take place within 1/2 mile (or something) of your own home! (Isn't that right, Jamie?) Youth group ends at 8:30 and when Joel picks him up he is home at 9pm at the latest...so by 9:45 I was about ready to call my friend (whose house it was at) to find out what was going on. I didn't call because I KNEW that I would get a call if there had been a problem and it wouldn't really help Kaleb's standing in the youth group to be known as the kid with the worrier mom. So, the dad of the family (I was happy to see it wasn't the teen daughter driving this time!) dropped him off at around 10pm and I was sooo happy to have him home! Turns out that they had a huge game of capture the flag on the ABC campus and Kaleb had a great time. Actually, today when Anna was supposed to be home by noon and wasn't and by about 1:30 my friend called (same friend) to tell me that she had just heard that her husband had told me Anna would be home by lunch...was it ok if she stayed until 3pm instead...I had thought of calling earlier as well but didn't. I think that eventually I might get as good as my mom is about not worrying!

So, to sum up my week without Joel, we have been plugging away...doing our normal things in life. We walked to church on Sunday and found out that it only takes about 10 minutes to get there with all of us together. Kaleb was the only guitar player and I thought he did great! We have been busy in school (just a few things; we are in summer mode), cooking (today did several loaves of bread and made and froze pizza crusts!), cleaning and hanging around. I taught Jasper how to catch popcorn today (a skill that all self respecting dogs should master)...he just looked plain silly before with it hitting his nose and falling to the floor and him going diving after it.

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My heart and prayers have been with a MOMYS friend this week. A week ago yesterday her 12 year old daughter was hit by a car while riding her bike. She has been in a coma with very serious brain injuries since and the latest update tonight said that they didn't expect her to last the night. I am so sick at heart for her. If anybody thinks of it, please pray for Rachael (the daughter) and Corinne and Pete (the parents). Corinne has 12 children and I believe 6 grandchildren.

Setting the record straight.

Great memories - Remember the time we were throwing
apples at the cars? And that lady stopped and we ran around the back of the
house and Grandma was annoyed and Grandpa just laughed.....

The above was a response to my last blog entry from my cousin Kris. While I do indeed remember the day she is talking about, I think that her memory is a bit fuzzy as far as the details are concerned.

Yes, apples were thrown. But we did not throw them. Let's just think about the facts, shall we?

Kris, Jamie and I were over at Grandma and Grandpa's house spending a beautiful summer day, as we often did growing up. We were playing a fun game (I so innocently thought) of hiding behind trees whenever cars drove by. Once a car slowed down and stopped and Jamie and Kris started yelling for me to "Run! Run!" Well, I thought that this was taking the game a bit too far. Why run? Maybe we knew the person...maybe they wanted to ask a question...maybe they simply needed to turn around in the driveway. Why run? Well, the "Run! Run!" kept coming at me and so I ran with them around to the back of Grandma and Grandpa's house and in to the back room. By this time the driver of the car had pulled up the driveway and had come to the front door. What a scolding that woman gave Grandma! Throwing accusations around about children throwing apples as passing cars! I was confused until I saw Kris and Jamie's faces... They had been throwing apples at passing cars! Grandpa sat in the kitchen laughing with (or was it at) us as we hid in the back room until the woman left. Then Grandma shared some of the ear full that she had gotten with us! Yikes!

So, that is the true story of the day in question. I would never throw an apple at a car (I was always the well behaved one you know); not like two hooligans I grew up with!

Introducing Grandma and Grandpa

Growing up my own Grandparents played such a huge role in my life. We walked to visit them almost daily and their home was as familiar to me as my own. Certain things bring instant memories of our time there (frozen pizza, spaghetti o's, those orange push-up ice cream things, rubarb with big cups of sugar - I think that last one was a Grandpa thing; I am assuming now that Grandma never knew that we dipped our rubarb in the sugar until we were done and then dumped the sugar back into her big sugar container).

We had been talking about different types of rocks in science class with the bigger kids and that of course led to talks about how Grandpa found, cut and polished rocks. We named our dog Jasper because of my favorite stone and the kids love hearing about how I never could remember the name and would ask Grandpa, "What was the stone that I like best?" and he would tell me the name. How he died just shortly before I got married but I opened up a jasper necklace he had made for me at my wedding shower. Still brings tears.

Well, the other day I was talking about Grandma (because although she has been gone for so long now, so many things about her come to my mind; especially when we are playing cards or I am baking) with Joshua and Jonathan as they were going to bed. I told Joshua that I thought he looked like Grandma and they were full of questions about her. Jonathan wanted to know if Grandma went to heaven when she died and I told them that she had I thought. Then Jonathan and Joshua were a bit worried because they had never met her (which they think is extremely unfair...I agree with them!)...how would they recognize her when they got to heaven?

So, today we got out a dvd that mom had copied for me that Aunt Joyce and Uncle Bob had taken over 20 years ago...right before I went off to college actually and there is a lot of pictures of Grandma and Grandpa on it. Isn't it funny that after so long Grandma's house is still as familiar as my own?

Joshua and Jonathan were very happy to see the pictures and were very happy to know that now they would recognize Grandma and Grandpa in heaven. According to Anna it doesn't matter anyways, because I will be going to heaven first and will of course introduce everybody.

After we watched the DVD I got out my excercise dvd (I haven't used this particular dvd since we lived in Brazil) and attached to the inside cover was an UNO card with Draw 4 written all over it! The last thing that Grandma gave me was a deck of UNO cards and of course she included a bunch of the extra draw 4's to make the game more fun. I am so happy to find that I still have one of those cards.

Maybe in heaven that is how the kids can recognize Grandma...look for the loud room with all the people playing UNO!