Detta är Dagen

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

-Psalm 118:24


Pages

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Sick of this:

This is THE conversation starter for (almost) every person we run into:[No, not the bad hair day- cuz they all know that's just her normal look.] But everyone who hasn't seen her in awhile, looks at her and notices right away the huge sore on her nose -then they seem to need to know "what happened?!" Well, if she has a beautiful scar on her nose in 20 years, I just want everyone to know that it's not our fault! :) The trouble is that she's had this sore on her nose since about October or November (?) when she fell and scraped her nose - and since then we have tried everything to help it heal up. Many days it seems to be almost better and then we turn our heads and next thing we know, she's picked it AGAIN and we start back at square one: bandaids on at night and sometimes during the day, socks on the hands when she's in bed, clipped nails, lotion/antibiotics/anti-itch ointment... everything.
Then today I saw that it is again, ALMOST all healed! If she gives it another day or two, maybe we'll be done with our nearly 4-month conversation starter and we can talk about something else when we meet random people. :) Bring it on! I'm ready for a new topic!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Enjoying

These days I'm really enjoying (in no particular order) :
1. early morning runs- a beautiful thing! sometimes inside on a treadmill listening to music, sometimes outside on the roads... watching the sun creep up from behind the mountains in the stillness of the morning. I am loving this.
2. great weather! now my laundry dries in just 3 hours outside in the bright sunshine. My kids play together in the dirt (and I'm longing for a summer of playing with water that won't be dangerous for them).
3. giving my kids grapes and ice cream - they love grapes and ice cream. No, not together, but it's so wonderful to give them things they enjoy. -Makes me think of God. I think He also, as our Father, loves to give us things we enjoy when it works with His plans. :)
4. my husband- he's such a great husband and I am really enjoying this 6th year of marriage to him. We communicate well and help eachother well, I feel - what a gift.
5. living availably. I feel free to do things last-minute, to invite people over, to drop in at other people's houses if they might need my company for a bit. I love being able to help where there are needs and having relationships well-enough established here that I can bring people together and encourage those who need it. I think I was made to live like this- but not every season of my life has permitted it. It's so nice to feel like I can live like this right now fairly effectively. I wonder how long it will be before I am well -enough established in the next place we live to be able to live like this?

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Bob The Builder and Will

The other day we had some friends over for the afternoon. Will was playing with the older two kids. Before long, H (who is also 4) came in and asked me if we could watch Bob The Builder (which Will has seen once when he was babysat back in December). "Sorry, we don't have Bob The Builder", I said. "But Will said he has it!" H insisted. "Well we don't." I re-iterated.
H went back to Will and said, "You don't have Bob The Builder." So Will said, with all the expression you can imagine: " I DON'T???????!!!! I don't have Bob the Builder??????!!, Awww, come on!!!!"
"Well, let's just go back and play outside." H said.
"Ok, yeah, we should go play outside." Will agreed. And off they went. Maybe you had to be there, but it was a very funny conversation and Will was so surprised that he didn't have Bob The Builder. Sometimes he makes things up, I think, and just kind of lives in his own little world imgining that a cardboard box is a laptop and he can just watch Bob The Builder all day long on it. It was a rude awakening to have his friend tell him that actually Will doesn't have that DVD.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Babies

Today at breakfast, I was thanking God for the food, when Annie started in with "jesus, baby mohala, baby ducha..." and when I had finished praying, she scowled at me because I had not included her prayer requests in my prayer. So Nate told her that she can pray for baby Mohali and baby Dechen whenever she likes - which seemed to go over well. Here are our kids looking at the two newest babies we've seen who were born to our friends just one day apart here in India in December:
Annie LOVES babies! Here she is holding baby Mohali:

Then Will got a chance to feed baby Mohali:
Annie nearly threw a fit, so Mohali's mamma saved some milk for Annie to feed him:
Here's a little quilt I made for Mohali before he and his parents headed back to Australia. I miss you guys!!
Baby Dechen is still around and we'll spend the rest of the semester hanging out with her and her parents, so that's nice! Like one of my friends commented: "It's raining babies here at WS!" That's nice- lots of people having babies, lots of friends pregnant - and I finally have people to pass baby things to!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

count-down: 4 months to go

We're counting down - Four months from today, we'll arrive in the good old USA. I'm looking forward to that. (That's an understatement, by the way.)

Today I had a play-date with two other mom-friends here. That consisted of hiking to the top of our mountain with my kids where we met one family (who had hiked across the mountain about 15 minutes to meet us there). Then we all headed down the mountain and picked up our other friends on the way back to our house. We had lunch, put the youngest 3 kids down for naps while the other 3 kids played in the yard, and we 3 women talked. It was lovely. Then we got some time all together outside before one mom headed down the mountain and the rest of us went back up. All the way up to the top of the mountain to drop off our friends at a managable place (one mom with three kids 4 and younger! yikes!). Then all the way back down again to our cottage.

That's why I'm tired. But it was lovely and we'll do it again, I hope.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

To the Gym

It snowed here... was it last week? I can't remember. Anyway, here is my boy saying: "mamma, take a picture of me!" on our walk through the snow. :) Back at home, where we spend the majority of our time, Will keeps occupied with toys and books. He's pretty creative and figures out how to make the toys he has serve his purposes:
(He has a duplo tractor and is using a toy rake on the back of it in case you can't see it very well.)
************
Then there was Valentine's Day. At our house, we did nothing until supper time when I whipped up some heart-shaped pancakes and we spread chocolate sauce on them before devouring them.
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
*****************
Ahhh yes, the GYM!
This school year we have been spending a lot of time in the gym. I have had play-dates with other moms in the gymnastics rooms, and often, I just go there myself with my kids for a change of venue. Today we did errands and ended at the gym where the kids climbed on mats and jumped around for an hour or so. They love to watch the older student in the PE classes playing on the basketball court below too and I figure that's gotta be worth something- you know, I'm sure they're learning 'sports appreciation' or something like that. (Lots of times I try to dig up 'educational' expressions for how my kids and I spend our days... our 'home-school' program wouldn't really pass any scrutiny, I'm afraid).

SO, here is a picture of our big basketball court for any of you who haven't gotten to see it:
And here's the gymnastics room (sorry the picture is a bit dark):
And my kids playing, playing, playing:



Then it's time to hike home. We only live a stone's throw away from the roof of the gym, but because of fences, gates, stairs and the mountain, we have quite the hike to get back home. All the way down and back up again. The pictures below are taken from the last stretch of stairs right before we reach our house. Sorry the got all out of order, but you can get an idea of our outings anyway. This is the kind of hiking my kids are accustomed to:


This is the view we have of the gym from right by our house- so close... yet such a hike to get inside of that building.


Finally we're home. Such a nice outing- do you want to join us next time?

Friday, February 12, 2010

Woah!

What's up with the different look here?
Somebody got tired of black, that's all.
Enjoy some other colors! :)

Dal Recipe

One of my big projects at the moment is compiling recipes in an effort to make a proper recipe book. So I finally typed up my Dal recipe for that (and also so I won't lose it) and I thought I'd just share it here for any of you curious cooks.

Dal

1 cup dal (lentils)
1 litre water (about 4 cups?)
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric (haldi)
1 ½ tsp coriander powder (daniya)
1 tsp garam masala (perhaps this is like curry powder?)
½ tsp chicken masala
1 onion chopped fine
6 cloves garlic chopped
3 Tbsp oil

1. Put dal in a pressure cooker and wash dirt off well by running it through fingers, pouring off dirty water and rinsing again with fresh water. Do this several times until the water is pretty clean. Then pour off the water and put 1 litre of clean water into the pressure cooker.
2. Add salt, turmeric, coriander, garam masala and chicken masala to the dal and water.
3. Put lid on pressure cooker making sure seal is tight and cook over a high stove flame. Note the first time that it whistles and then let it continue cooking for about 15 more minutes.
4. Turn off flame and let pressure cooker sit for at least 5 minutes before letting out the steam.
5. Let all the steam out of the pressure cooker so that you can add the last ingredients as soon as they're ready.
6. Heat oil in a pan and fry garlic and onion until well-browned. Add them immediately to the dal in the pressure cooker and mix well.
7. Serve with rice and roti as desired.

Serving size: 4-6 servings
Cook time: ~20 minutes

Options: This recipe is not at all spicy, so you can add ¼ tsp red chili powder along with the other spices if you wish. Otherwise, we enjoy this dal with a spoon of lime pickle on the side.

reading

Since I wasn't there, I told Nate that he needs to post a re-write of a recent conversation he had with Will in which Will 'read' some stickers to Nate... I'll stop there, but hopefully soon he'll share the story with you all- it's GREAT!
Happy FRIDAY!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Church

One thing that has been a very valuable insight for me/us during the past 4 years here- has been a new perspective on Church. A few years ago, my husband and I decided to make attending Church a priority because it is Biblical and is meant to be something that is a part of a Christian's life. We had to make this definite choice because Churches are not perfect and they don't always suit our needs and desires, and perhaps you can identify with me when I confess that we often don't FEEL like going to Church. So we have been attending a Church (a 40-minute hike from our house) and it has been interesting to see what the Church is in this part of the world - (although to only see it, we could have just attended once or twice.)

One thing I did not anticipate was the encouragement that I would eventually find in regularly attending Church. For many years I felt that we were supposed to attend Church to worship God alongside others with similar beliefs. The focus was on God- the songs were about/to God, the sermon was about God, and we didn't really talk with people before, during or after the service because no one just hung out for that: it seemed we had come 'for God'...

So Church here doesn't 'draw me to God' the way other services have felt to me- and that always disappointed me... until I realized that maybe there was something I was missing in my own understanding of what Church should be. "Let us not give up meeting together..." (Hebrews 10:25)
WHY?
-because we meet together to encourage one another. In fact, I realized that perhaps even in simply attending Church, I can be an encouragement to others who also attend. I have found that I often look around and am so encouraged to see students that I know from school or other teachers in the service. Perhaps it encourages the surrounding community to see that we, staff at the school we work at, are believers - they need to see us there to be reminded that God is working at our school too. And we need to see the community members and hear about struggles and persecutions happening in our area so that we can lift those up to God and be reminded that we are on a team here and are not isolated at our school.

When we first determined to attend Church, I had no idea that God could use that to encourage others and I had no idea that He could use OTHER people's attendance to encourage me so much.

My family is unable to be much more involved than simply attending, but I have learned that perhaps worshiping God happens when we build each other up by simply making Church attendance a priority. It doesn't have to be in the songs or style of music we prefer, or sermon that speaks to our hearts- but simply in gathering as common Believers for His glory -and so He can use our interactions in a positive way.

I don't know if any of that will make much sense to people who have not lived in a similar sort of cross-cultural situation as we are in, but I thought I'd attempt to express my thoughts about it because it has been helpful for me to see another side of 'gathering together'. Hope you are also encouraged to figure out what He has for you through those seemingly dry seasons when Church just isn't 'filling' you up.


Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Happy and the Sad

HAPPY!
It's been raining here yesterday and today -interspersed with hail, thunder and lightning. I stopped over at our neighbors' house breifly tonight and was thoroughly surprised and thrilled to see that it had SNOWED while I was inside chatting with them!!! I LOVE the snow!!! Maybe it will last until tomorrow and the kids can play in it!

SAD.
Tomorrow Nate starts teaching again... the end of our wonderfully long holiday has finally arrived.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

cheesy

I sure like those kids.
another cheesy family picture, but it's been awhile.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Dusting off what remains

It's February.
I don't really do 'new-year-resolutions' and I don't typically set goals anymore because I wanted to live more free than I have sometimes... (and I also got tired of feeling so defeated by un-reasonable goals.)
But this past year has been a different season of life for me and I've been privileged to have more restful days and more time to accomplish things. So it seemed right that I set some reasonable goals and live more disciplined so I could reach them.

I spent the past several months telling myself: "I will start running again in February". If I just get up a little earlier, I can fit in a run every day before my family is up. But when February 1st arrived, I lay in bed wondering why I thought running would be a good idea. However, now I've managed to run 4 days in a row and I find that I enjoy it so much once I get going. I haven't really been a proper 'runner' in about 10 years, but this time, I would like to keep up my running long enough to finish a big race (like a half or whole marathon) in the summer or fall.

Besides running again, some other goals have sprung up and I am now committed to making a community cookbook with some friends and recording an album of my songs just for fun. I also continue to struggle through elementary-school piano pieces and re-visit scales that I haven't thought of in years, and this afternoon I plan to play cello with a pianist friend - which I'm looking forward to immensely! French is fast-disappearing for me, so I am trying to listen to French radio for about 20 minutes each day... just listen- so I don't completely forget. And I have now downloaded some Korean flash-cards, because I would like to learn Korean and what better time than now?! I wonder if I can still learn anything, but it's worth a try.

So many parts of me that have been shelved for many years need dusting and use. It's always hardest right at first to see how much I've lost over time and tonight will be another one of those moments, I think, as I've been invited to play soccer with some of the other staff here. It's been so long since I've done all of this stuff, but it feels good to get to do them again and I am praising God for this season He's given me.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Precious Moments

After Will took a bath and got dressed the other day, the conversation went like this:
Pappa: "When you get your pajamas on, you can stand by the fire and get warm"
Will: "Shame, Pappa, you're so nice to me."
******************
My favorite line so far goes to Annie, however- this weekend she said: "Me yikes us. Me yikes Will, me yikes Pappa, me yikes Mamma, me yikes Anna - me yikes us!"
These are precious moments I hope to not forget.