random

I've been busy - busy doing nothing or busy doing catch-up.  It all depends on whether I have a headache or not.  A higher percentage of the time I do have a headache so I am busy trying not to go crazy doing nothing or enduring some pain and doing a bit of something on the computer.  Right now I am working on a blog book.  I want to have a book made with all my posts each year so that we sort of have a photo album/journal of each year.  That way the kids can look back and have something to remember each year - stuff we did, plus getting a little deeper into their mom's random brain.

I thought it was going to be an easy thing to do.  This company just downloads each blog post, complete with pictures and puts it into book format.  The problem is that sometimes the pictures get mixed up (and the standard layout is kind of boring) and the way I have written takes up a lot of space, so I have had to do much editing.  It is now causing me to rethink how I write.... so from now on, I'll be writing in more regular paragraph style to save myself hours of editing later (I could leave it, with all of my spaces and single sentence lines, but then the book is ginormous and costs a fortune!).  Anyway, it is at least something I can sort of do while having my headaches.... at least for a little while.... until staring at the computer screen makes the throbbing worse.

Since I have been rather discouraged with my physical state (including the rest of my body.... nothing like lying around every day to make you feel like jello.  So much for trying to keep up my fitness level over the summer.  Its just all gone to pot.), I haven't wanted to write.  Plus nothing much has been going on.  But now I am putting my big-girl panties on, sucking it up, and just going to write about all sorts of random things all in one post.

I don't think I have ever introduced you to this man in the photo.  For the life of me I can't think of his name right now, but he is a daily feature in our lives.  While we don't always directly drive right past him, we see him across the intersection.

He only has legs up to the knees and is always at the same intersection, standing in between lanes of cars, waiting for money.  He is definitely not begging or even asking.  In fact, I think what he is doing to earn money is giving away smiles and friendly hellos and waves, and hoping that people might appreciate it enough to help him out a little.  He is one of the most genuinely happy, encouraging people I have ever seen in my life.  He is a good reminder to me, as I slip into bouts of self pity, that I have much to be thankful for.... a little to cry about.

Every time we drive past him, I have to pray that he doesn't get run over.  Because he is so low to the ground, and traffic is so crazy, people are bound to not see him until they are right up to where he is standing.  It is rather unnerving.  God protect that man.

Last week was spiritual emphasis week for middle school and high school.  My desire was to go to each daily session, but just didn't have the stuff to make it each time.  By Wednesday, after not being able to go, due to a pounding head (Tuesday was a really rough day  and I was about ready to jump head-first into the pit of depression.), I finally told myself I was going to go regardless.

I needed to put on some make-up and some happy clothes.  So a donned a cheery yellow cardigan and my newly named happy shoes.

I bought these plain wool shoes a while ago and was waiting to wear them once I had made a few shoe clips to put on them.  The idea was have interchangeable little extras to pin on depending on what else I was wearing, but I scrapped that and just hot glued these little blue circles of cheer straight onto the shoe.  

Then I stuck a smile on my face and off I went.  And it was great.  I skipped out of some of the loud worship music part, but it was so good to be there, and the speaker (from Guatemala) was fabulous.  I made it one more day, but Friday was back to bed for me.

Do you remember the canopy thingy that I made for Lucy's bed?

(She added some butterflies)  Well, it has been hanging in her room all tied up like that for a month now. She said it was always in her way, so I finally just took it down.  I thought all that work went for nothing, but now Maddy said that she would like it.  So, in a year or two, once we actually get the hook up in her ceiling, it will be back in action.

About two weeks ago a friend (and another missionary for Youth World) got engaged.  Her boyfriend and some friends took her to the beach for the weekend, where he proposed.  It was all very romantical from what I understand.  They asked if I could decorate their house a little for a surprise engagement party for the night they got back.  I said I would, with their understanding that I might not be able to do too much, depending on how I was feeling.  I did work on a little bunting sign while feeling poopy-ish one day and then thankfully the day it was too be done wasn't a too bad one.

The bunting sign says "Yahoo!  You're getting married"  It all went well, she was very surprised and delighted and I was quiet thrilled to have a happy creative project.

I neglected to mention that on that very hard Tuesday, my friend Marlo cheered me up.  She brought me cookies and some homemade mora (kind of like blackberry) jam.  Oh so very good.  

 I didn't share the cookies, but I am sharing the jam.  But the jam.... so good.  It is slightly reminiscent of homemade raspberry jam from Manitoba, and has definitely motivating me to make my own.  I didn't think that there was really any point in making my own jam because it is hard to find raspberries.  But this is so good, it doesn't matter.

Look at that toast perfection.  Homemade jam, Canadian (Kraft) peanut butter, on brown bread toast (and not the prepackaged kind, either).  That is the way to start a day!

Last weekend the kids had a somewhat spontaneous three day weekend.  September 30 was the 1 year anniversary of the attempted coup and the city was expecting many grand protests.  Thursday night the kids' school decided it would be better to shut down due to possible riots and traffic issues.  Of course, the kids were thrilled.  They spent the day enjoying some of their own creative projects.

Cade dipped into the scrap wood stash and built himself a little bench for two people.  Then he and the girls decided it needed some color, so they all worked at painting it together.

They are such charming children, aren't they.

This Friday was one of Lucy's teacher's birthday.  Her name is Miss Lam, so as a play on her name, I decided to make some lamb cupcakes for the class.

They look a little more like a cross breed of albino lions and sheep, but the kids didn't seem to notice.  They were quite thrilled.  Miss Lam wasn't in the classroom when I brought them in, so I'm not sure if she appreciated the play on her name like I knew the kids would.  But I figured if she is working with first grade, she must be somewhat impervious to people tying her name to the cute little baby sheep, right?