Mission Monday

Here a few snippets from our missionary boys.  They both sound happy, so that makes me a happy mom.


From South Africa:

Conference was my highlight for this week! It was so awesome. I love hearing from the prophets and learning at their feet. They are so knowledgeable, and wise. It is kinda hard to watch here because all of the sessions are out of order, and I still haven't seen the Sunday PM session yet (we will see it later tonight), but it is still an amazing time! I love the gospel and I love the chance that I have to continually learn more and more. I can't wait to get the printed version and reread it again and again. Our bishop commented that he didn't think that it was a coincidence that conference was held on fast weekends. It was different to fast and to watch conference in that spirit.

I also have to say that I'm doing the 90 day Book of Mormon Challenge, on top of all of my other studying, and I'm currently half way done with it, and it has been an eye opener. I've learned so much this time reading it through, and it is interesting to be reading from two different places in the Book of Mormon and to see all the parallel lines between the two places.


From Madagascar:

It first rained like 2 weeks ago, and it's rained a couple times since then, and it is fantastic! When we are on a flat stretch of road on our bikes, our bikes have wakes like little boats as we go, then when we are going down a hill, there is a monster river going down each hill! If you just go straight down, you're good, but if you try to turn sideways, then the water catches your tires and you can fall over pretty easily. Then, at the bottom of the hills is a big lake. Of course, this particular lake that forms at the bottom of two hills we go on all the time is next to an actual lake, so the drainage is pretty good, but there is still a LOT of water. (fun side note--the name of the lake is literally Lake Stinky Water, Malagasy names are sweet. And very honest...)

Don't be ashamed of your beliefs. Lots of people are scared to let other people see what they believe and that it's different from most people. For example most people won't let us come teach if they have other family over, but they should be the people that you want to hear the gospel the most. Then lots of people in part member families don't understand how powerful testimony and simple discussions can be in converting the rest of their family. The Lord has promised that if we open our mouths it will be filled. If you're trying to do his work, He will help you every time.

Welcome to Conference!

We are watching LDS General Conference today.  Won't you join us here?

Why do we like Conference?  The biggest reason is because it is inspiring.  There are so many talks on different things we can do to become better, and there are always a few that just hit.  Those are the ones I know I need to take to heart and do something about.  I always feel happier after I've been listening to Conference.

Another reason to celebrate Conference is because I get to share it with people I love.  It's just nice to be able to sit around, in our pajamas, and just be together.  I love my family.  Lots.  And it's a good thing we have lots of couches.

Oh, and another Conference favorite is the fun food we have.  That's a big part of life for a group of boys.  We like to just have a table full of food that we can snack on and enjoy whenever we get hungry.  It's good fun.  This year, we will be spending Saturday with some of this.  Oh yeah.

Zucchini bread and pumpkin bread are definitely on the menu.  David and Eddie will be learning how to make sweetbreads this year.  Chris has already made two cheesballs - ranch and Italian - to eat with crackers.  And fruit.  We have a counter full of fruit just waiting to be cut up and enjoyed.

It's a nice way to spend the day.  With my family.  In my pajamas.  Being spiritually and physically fed.  That's the good stuff.

Writing, Writing, Writing

So I didn't join up with the Nester's write-every-day-for-31-days-in-October project this year.  I did last year, and the year before as well.  But this year?  Meh.  I guess it just boils down to a bad case of I-don't-want-to-itis.  Sometimes it's nice to be an adult, because no one can make me do things I don't want to.  Bwahaha!  At least that's what my kids think.  I won't go there today.

But I don't have to write every day about the same topic for a whole month if I don't want to.  And I don't want to.  I'm having a hard enough time being coherent in real life right now - being coherent in my writing would be near-impossible.  And I did get burned out after the exercise the past two years.  I'd rather just keep trying to get in a good habit of writing regularly this year.  After all, it's not like I'm trying to write a book.

This is what my book looks like.  Blank.

I went to visit the midwife who so expertly assisted us to get our twins into this world.  We got some fresh produce from her garden, some good hugs, and reaffirmation that we are doing ok.  After I left, I reflected on what an extraordinary life she had led.  So many babies and so many stories!  Someone needs to write her book.  Really.

My husband thinks I should write it, and I'm flattered that he has such a high esteem of my writing.  He is so kind.  But frankly, I don't have the skills needed to write a book.  A biography, no less.  I would be terrified at such a huge undertaking.

But as I was thinking about it, late at night, I realized that I have been writing a book.  This one.  The history of my family and my odd ruminatings on life.  And I am writing a biography.  My dad's.  We've been working on it for over a year now.  On the one, I just skim off the top of my thoughts and dump them here.  On the other, I just listen to my dad's stories and record them.  No big deal in either case.  One I've always wanted to write a children's book, so maybe one day...

But for today, I think I'll curl up in a corner with a good book that someone else wrote and nurse my I-don't-want-to-itis.  Where's my blanket?

Ye Olde Sourdough

During the summer, we went to a colonial village where they were re-creating life in the 1700's.  It was fun to watch people, dressed in period costume, making and hawking their wares.  One booth that especially caught our attention was the baker.  We were lured there by the scrumptious smell of bread baking in their brick oven, and kept there by the skills of a master storyteller as he told us the history of bread and what people ate in colonial America.  

Trent procured a sourdough start and a loaf of hot bread before signing us up for a breadmaking class.  The classes weren't held for a few months, so we nearly forgot.  But we didn't.  We went to the class and had a lovely time.  We learned lots of things about our country and its early settlers, and even a thing or two about bread.  We helped make a big batch of bread, and I mean BIG!  I wish I had the capability to make this much bread at once.  The sourdough takes so long that it would be nice to just spend a day and have the week's baking done.

Here is Trent, lecturing the dough balls on how to rise.  I'm not sure what he was really doing, but it does look instructional, doesn't it?  Yes, we actually made 26 2-pound loaves.  You should see the size of his mixing bowl!

We took home some of the bread dough and made a few more loaves at home.  They turned out gorgeous.  It would have been perfect if the parchment paper hadn't stuck to their little bread heinies. At first we picked away at the paper, and then, out of burned-finger desperation, sawed their bottoms off.  The bread still tasted good, don't worry.

Not long after the last crumb of bread was consumed, I promptly forgot how to make it.  It didn't even take very good notes.  There is some information on his website, but not enough to make me confident in my sourdough skills.  So I had to make another batch.  I'll re-learn by practicing, I guess.

Good thing my dad loves sourdough!  The kids tolerate it if it isn't too sour - unless it is hot.  Everyone loves hot bread, slathered in butter.  The next batch is in the oven, and it is starting to smell wonderful. Hopefully, the parchment paper does what it is supposed to do this time, and doesn't stick.

Is is rational to be wanting to build a brick oven in the backyard?

P.S.  The loaves came out gorgeous!  And delicious!  But I'm picking off the parchment paper again.  Sigh.  It doesn't taste as good as the rest of the bread.

Bad Breaks

I looked at the old apple tree a few weeks ago as we moved in, and remembered my gardening grandpa.  He planted the a dozen fruit trees in the backyard as soon as my parents bought the house.  I think I remember hearing that he planted them before they got back from signing the papers - without them!  There aren't as many trees in the backyard any more, but I love having grown up with them.

The sturdy limbs of the apple tree were full of round baby apples, green and hard.  There was an abundance of apples - too many.  I knew they should be thinned, so the branches could take the weight better.  Grandpa would have picked half of them off so we would have fewer, but larger apples when harvest day came.  But we were busy with the moving in and unpacking and the hubbub of the everyday.  We'll get to the tree.  We will.  Just as soon as we...

A few weeks ago, we had a big storm.  Thunder boomed and lightning crashed all around us.  The wind was blowing fiercely and the rain pelted our windows.  It was the kind of night that makes you grateful for shelter, and I loved listening to the wild music.  

In the morning, however, we found that the apple tree had not fared so well.  Four or five branches had broken when the weight of too many apples was exacerbated by the strong winds.  The worst break was a main branch on the front that had snapped along a weak joint.  The branch did not beak off, but split open along an extended fissure.  Not only that branch was lost, but possibly others along the split.  We might have the cut the whole thing off, nearly down to the trunk.

It's a tragic loss that could have been avoided if we had merely thinned the apples when we noticed how thick they were.  It made me a little sick, looking at the poor wounded tree.  I don't speak for the trees like the Lorax, but I feel for them.  In fact, I didn't want to cut off the branch so much that I avoided the task.

Weeks passed, and the end of the branch, once held so proudly, still rested on the grass.  It needs to be cut.  Really.  That sad tree needs some attention.  But after a while, I realized that even in its wounded state, the tree was still nourishing the branch.  The leaves were not withering and drying out.  The baby apples were still growing and ripening.  

It's finally applesauce season, and I've got my first two batches simmering in the kitchen.  The sweet apple aroma wafts about pleasantly, and I'm still thinking of the tree.  I've learned that too many projects will weigh me down.  Fever jobs mean that they get done well, instead of having lots of little half-baked tasks to burden me.  Too much weigh also makes me less flexible, and I snap when the weather is more harsh.  Thin.  Prune.  Prioritize.  Do less, better.

I'm also learning that I, like the tree, am very resilient.  Even when I think I am broken, I am still very capable.  That's an amazing realization.  And I can break and be cut and fall all apart - and still be ok.  I'm still here and still puttering around, after all.  The tree will still be beautiful without the broken branch.  I'm glad we have its stately branches and comfortable shade.  And I'm still useful and lovable, even with my warts and faults.

Thanks for the lessons, old tree.

Mission Monday

This week on the other side of the world...

From South Africa:

It's so weird that I've been gone for 6 months already. It hasn't sunk in yet. I'm 1/4 done with my mission.

Today is going to be fun as well, as we are going to the VW factory in Uitenhage to tour it and to drive brand new VW's and Audi's on the test track that they have there. I'm looking forward to that. It will be fun!

He is also trying to teach me new words in Xhosa, and African language that is spoken by most of the population where he is right now.  I'm trying to get the hang of the clicking sounds.  C makes a "tut tut" kind of click on the back of the front teeth; X makes a cluck in the cheek like calling a horse, and Q is the tongue flip on the top of the mouth that sounds like a cork popping.  Whew!


From Madagascar:

On Monday, after the cyber in the morning, we went shopping and ate out with all the elders in Antsirabe, then we beat the tar out of some Malagasies at soccer. It was fantastic. That night, I was feeling kind of cold and I took my tempurature and I was at 100, and I felt super tired so we stayed home. Good move, because my fever shot up to 103 and I was vomiting/dry heaving a ton.

This week my word of the week is a little bit different because it's 2 words!!! Avy hatrany, AH-vee hah-CHAW-nee. It means from now on or continuously. This comes at you from Alma 32 when Alma turns from the big crowd of Zoramites he was preaching to and focuses on the big group of poor people because he can see that they are ready to recieve the gospel. And then from then on he only talks to them. I like how once he sees that there is something better that he should be doing, he turns and does that from then on. Lots of times when we try to improve, the change might not be lasting, or we might notice a problem, but not deal with it for a while. The nice thing is that through repentence we can stop doing that bad thing right away and live better starting then and continuing for the rest of our lives.

Repurposing Furniture

I've been reading some about "repurposing."  It seems like a big fancy word that means you take some of your old junk and make something new and useful out of it.  I remember doing this in the 70's.  Make binoculars out of old toilet paper tubes!  Make quilts out of your old holey jeans!  Macrame a plant hanger out of old rope from the garage!  Isn't it just recycling at home?

The latest trends on repurposing seem to be in using furniture for other than it's designed purpose.  Like cutting the legs off a kitchen table and using it as a coffee table.  Or adding boards to an old headboard and making a bench out of it.  I looked around the house today and discovered that we are trendy!  We have got this repurposing stuff down pat.  (patting self on back)

Vintage treadle sewing machine used as plant stand / end table.  Gorgeous.

Sunshiny corner table meant for *me* (notice covered sewing machine in the left corner) improved as a family computer center!  Maybe not improved.  Note the creative freeform tangle of cords in the snake pit under the desk.

Washer and dryer repurposed as storage shelving.  Open shelving is so *in* this year, isn't it?  How refreshing it is to actually see all our messes, instead of just having to assume they are there!

Empty propane tanks used as yard art. Stunning.

My current fave: yet-unpacked moving boxes standing in for a night stand.

And our all time best furniture repurposing came this week when we parked a full-size upright dresser next to a sofa and called it a side table.  It was quite a focus piece, I tell you.  And as much as I loved it, I have to say that the whole room breathed a sigh of relief when that dresser found a new home at someone else's house.  Somehow, the room feels bigger now, and we can actually get past the sofa without having to do a sideways shimmy.  

Maybe I'm out of my league with these professional repurposers.  My pictures don't have the same lovely feel that theirs do.  So I guess I'm not quite cut out for a home decorating blog.  Sigh.  I guess I'll go move those propane tanks around to the back yard.