No, the monkeys are NOT cute!

For any of you who think they are, well, they're just NOT!

At 8 am this morning I had had a good run, made breakfast, sent my honey out the door, and thought to myself that it would be a slow day. Maybe I'd manage to sit with my little boy and help him learn some of his alphabet letters. "I'll just start some laundry first," I told him. Then I realized just how much laundry I needed to do today - since our little princess is super picky about what clothes she puts on these days, and she changes her mind every half-hour and helps herself to a clean set of clothes... but even if she didn't change her mind, she still can't be bothered to use the toilet all the time and very very often wets her pants - or more likely, poops in them. Nasty.

By 10AM I figured I'd already had quite the morning- I counted about 6 loads of laundry I had ahead of me, smashed a nasty centipede on my bedroom floor, and then I got soaking pillows and scrubbing pillowcases (because Annie is still scratching her nose and getting blood all over them at naps and bedtime). Then a panicked Annie cried out to me and come to find out that this time she'd pooped all over the coir matting that covers our floors (terrible mess to try to scrub out of the coconut fibres!). After cleaning her up and the floor, I sent the kids outside. I put the soap outside to dry in the sunshine along with the soap holder because they get so nasty with little kids using them all day long. Our weather has been beautiful, by the way- 70-80 and sunny all day long. It's probably even hotter in the sun.

So the kids played outside until they were fighting so much that I had them come in. Both kinds of monkeys (rhesus and langours) were in the trees and walking on the roof, and I felt nervous as I always do, that they were going to steal my laundry. I tried to scare them away a few times, but they didn't really care. Then, while we were all inside, I looked out the bathroom door and saw a big langour holding our nice bar of soap! HEY! I shouted at him and opened the door to come at him, and so he jumped on the roof - WITH MY BAR OF SOAP!

Needless to say, I was mad! I shouted at him some more and Annie asked me if I needed Pappa - yes indeeed! But he's at work.

I looked out again to check the laundry- and the monkey was back- but no bar of soap, only my soap holder was in his hand this time! GRRRRR! I shouted at him again and this time he hopped up on my roof -WITH MY SOAP HOLDER!

Now I was really mad- and again, Annie asked me if I needed Pappa! :) Too true, but he's at work.

Well, I recovered, prayed so hard that God would send the monkeys away and protect us and our laundry. Pretty soon, the monkeys headed elsewhere. They didn't take any of my laundry and I had come to accept the fact that my soap and soap holder were gone for good. Then I stepped outside to bring in the dry clothes, and suddenly, the soap holder dropped from above just in front of me! NO WAY! (If the monkeys take stuff, they usually leave it in impossible places and we never find the things again). I looked up and thought that maybe God had dropped it from heaven just then. I saw up in the trees a little baby monkey just above where it had come from- ah ha! Well, it's still a God-thing. Every monkey-encounter leaves me feeling protected by my Father in Heaven. I don't like the monkeys and they are certainly not cute and stealing my soap was not funny. A verse that Will has learned recently came to mind several times this morning:
Psalm 32:7
"You [God] are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance."

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!

skype rant!

Sometimes I just get angry.
So I bought some sort of 'online number' on accident on skype instead of buying their unlimited country deal that comes with an online number. somehow that confused me enough to think that if i clicked on the 'online number' thing, i would get the same thing i used to have. but no.

now I'm mad. what use is an online number to me anyway? it sure was expensive especially considering that it happens to be UTTERLY USELESS to me. the worst part about it is that whenever i do these sorts of stupid things, i have a little nagging picture that plagues my little brain: I'm holding a brand new 20 dollar bill in my hand, lighting a match, and burning it up right there.

grrrrr. that's what it feels like i've just done. there is no customer service for skype, it seems, so there's no way to explain my mistake and get the product that i intended to buy. and that makes me frustrated.

so anyway, those of you who have skype, we can skype together. and if you want to call my awesome amazing cool online number, you're welcome to leave me a message, and possibly, if i happened to be signed in at the time, we could talk (but i don't honestly have any idea how it all works and maybe they won't let me talk cuz i haven't paid them more money!). anyway this has just crushed the last of my efforts to keep in touch like this, and i will not be buying another skype whatever-it-was- i-wanted-to-buy-in-the-first-place until i have a lot more energy to talk on the annoying telephone/computer thing.

Just take a breath for a minute (in true skype fashion -ha). -And this is all just to say that at the heart of my frustration is that feeling of so often being the one to make the effort to keep in touch. But when I am honest with myself, I am pretty sure that everyone feels like they're the only one making all the effort, and that's just cuz i'm self-centered and i don't notice all the effort that others put into reaching out to me. SO thanks to all of you who read my blog. thanks for listening to the complaints and rants i have sometimes, and thanks for understanding when i feel this way. I really do appreciate all the emails and phone calls and notes and packages and things that people send my way and I DO know that i'm not the only one making the effort in my relationships.

...after all, I'm the one that moved to the opposite side of the globe. :-(
I miss you, friends and family. thanks for listening (and understanding why i'm not calling you anymore-smile). (p.s. I think I'll be ok and I hope you recover from reading this!)