I Haven't Been Fair To My Readers

I haven't written a decent post for a long time. And a lot has happened! Maybe that's why I hesitate. There's much too much to cover. So just a few, insignificant things for now...as it is wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay past my bedtime here in Eastern Europe.

I'm getting used to being domestic. I baked today! I made some chewy oatmeal M&M cookies and some homemade bread! Mmmm.

And before I was able to do that, I had to visit my neighbor to get her blender, only she wasn't home, so I had to ask her son who had no idea where it was so he asked his sister... I heard a loud crash in their kitchen, and about a minute later he returned with a pop bottle cap in his mouth and the mixer in his hand trying to put the attachments into it. It was quite the sight. It made me smile a big smile, and laugh.

Before that, I was doing some other domestic duties. One of which was washing the dishes. I cut my thumb. There was a lot of blood. There was also a brief moment that was semi-hilarious... I was walking to my bathroom to get a bandage with my thumb positioned over my free hand which was cupping the blood that was gushing ever so freely and since I wasn't yet sure how bad it was, I wondered to myself if the local hospital (across the street) has any doctors who are as good as Dr. Gregory House, M.D. I chuckled to myself for thinking that. What would a diagnostition tell me anyway? "Ma'am, you seem to have cut your finger. I'm sorry. You need stitches. If you refuse, we'll amputate."

And before that! I had a private English lesson with a dear friend. We joke and laugh all the time. And I'm a bad influence. I get it from my mother. Anyway, my friend is almost 40 years old, is a pediatrition at the local hospital where her husband, about 50 years old, also works. She doesn't have any children, and she's afraid to have any children at her age; she knows the risks for the child and doesn't want to take those risks. So, she wants to adopt a child (or two or several). Her husband doesn't. Oh, one more thing: she and her husband live in a tiny apartment right now. Her husband wants to buy a 6 bedroom house for the two of them and remodel it...instead of adopting a child (which is free). This has been an ongoing saga and today we were making jokes of it to lighten the atmosphere...and her mood. So, I told her what she should do... she should convert their office into a bedroom for a child and decorate it with either pink frills or sports equipment, but get a bed and all sorts of children's toys and decorations in there... If she can't have the kid, what's the harm in pretending? :) Of course I was joking and she would never do that... but it sure was fun for us to think about!
On a serious note, though, please do pray for this situation...she so, so, so badly wants a child. And she's willing to take a child from the orphanage; a child that equally needs a tender, loving home.

In the next edition of my Two Cents...
I will talk about my visit to the USA for three weeks in January/February and how I surprised the WHOLE family! THAT was awesome!

But for now, I MUST....go....to....sleep! It's 3 a.m. I must be nuts.

And to think that when I heard my alarm go off this morning at 6:30am, I thought it was going to be a bad day...What a great day it turned out to be!! Praise God!!!

AND... it's Fat Tuesday. Happy Lent, everyone!!!! Well...not happy, maybe somber...but you know what I mean. I wish you all a reflective season this lent; may you learn something knew about our great Savior, our wonderful God.

WILL MARRY FOR GOOD DOCTRINE

That's all.

I'm flying home Friday morning!

Whew... off my chest. Well, not that it's been bothering me.

I'm beginning to face the reality that I actually will be home soon. The best part is that it's still a surprise for about 80% of my family! :) I'm going to take my camera, put it on the videotaping option, and walk down that airport corridor to watch my dad's utter astonishment, befuddlement, and hopeful joy! He thinks he going with my mom to pick up my mom's sister. Muahahaha. My mom and I are the plotters of this big surprise. We've been planning it for months. It does come at a really good time, though, with my grandpa being in the hospital. Not so great weather, though, I hear. It's -20 degrees Fahrenheit with 50 MPH winds and windchill. Ewwww. Another blizzard is on the way as we speak. Double ewwww.

Well, anyway... I just had a moment of realization. I could actually conceptualize [and feel (you know, deep down in your chest where all the deep emotions lie) what felt like my heart leaping] meeting my friends again...and their reactions to seeing me when they aren't expecting to see me until July! :))))) I'm getting so very excited!

Traveling begins Thursday at 8am. A fellow teacher is driving me to a hotel in Krakow (couldn't find anyone to drive me to the airport at 2:30 Friday morning...wonder why?). So I'll spend the day in Krakow (probably at the hotel), and I'll call a taxi eeeeearly in the morning to drive me a few kilometers down the road to the airport where I'll begin the next stage of my journey. Twenty-four hours later, I should be carrying that camera down the corridor with me! Woo!

And tomorrow I get to show our newest missionary to Poland around our area. She arrived safely Sunday afternoon. In addition to helping her around, helping her to get acquainted with new surroundings, we'll get to meet up with the other two girls who are serving nearby in the Czech Republic. It will be our first meeting alltogether! I'm pretty excited for this, too!
...and afterwards...I sleeeeep. :) What a great day tomorrow will be!

Joys

So... in all my complaining, I didn't mention some of the joys of the last few weeks/days.

My favorite:

I was invited to a good friend's house to talk with her, her daughter and her husband. She and I stayed up until 3:30am, talking in her living room. It was so wonderful.

And, to top it off, during our conversation she told me she thought I would make a wonderful mother someday. :)

Some Icing for the Cake

I think my cats have fleas...again.

They're both less than happy with me right now as I've just given them very thourough baths. And locked them in the bathroom while I attempt to clean the flat as well as I can...

Will be calling the vet for some of that good ol' liquid flea-killer again. And for their shots. Ugh.

Will I get everything done before Thursday? I mean Wednesday... as I apparently have no ride to the airport, so instead of 24 hours of traveling, it will be 48. Woo. I'm so excited.

...reminding myself it could be worse, it could be worse.... St. Paul....thorn....grace...enough...so silence yourself...

A Long One...

I'm a slacker, but at least I can admit it. It's been a long time since I last wrote. More than a month!! I know, even I can't believe it. But now that I've got that off my chest...

Here are some things that have been happening.

December was a really good month, overall. I think it was my favorite month of teaching to date. Perhaps also the worst. But with some of my classes, I was able to build stronger and better relationships than ever. I had a lot of fun teaching last month. It seemed like, at least with some groups, lesson planning was so easy because I knew that whatever I brought to class, it would be good. Of course, that wasn't true for all of my classes, but I'm not complaining. Beggars can't be choosers.

December was simply a month of many joys. I also spent a lot of quality time with some dear friends. I did a lot of baking with them. We prepared for Christmas, we celebrated Christmas together, and it was a time of euphoria.

Until.

I got a call from home. Actually, I called home. It was Christmas day and my parents were celebrating Christmas with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. My brothers were elsewhere with their families. Anyway... That was the day I found out my grandpa has Leukemia. I was a little prepared for it, but not prepared for how taken aback I would be when the news was confirmed, especially by him. I knew he was having tests done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. And I thought the chances of him having Leukemia were pretty steep considering we've observed him having some blood problems and a rather palish, but oddly dark complection. I know it's a contradiction in terms...but it's hard to explain how he looked. Anyway, the point is that the news was hard to take, especially coming from him. And especially knowing what our whole family collectively knows. My great aunt, my grandpa's sister, died of Leukemia, and my grandpa was the one that took her to her chemotherapy treatments, saw her suffer through the treatments with the immune system weakening, huge doses of morphine, hair loss, and other side effects such as shaking, then having to get around with a walker.

It's hard. He's my only living grandpa. By some token I'd be really happy if he were released from this earthly life. On the other hand... well, there's a lot on the other hand. He's my only living grandpa. He's been handed a death sentence, so this isn't just like he's going to pass from earthly life to eternal life without some conscious knowledge that it could be very soon or that it could be rather painful. And on a rather petty note--he'd be leaving a huge mess for the family, namely my mom. He's a pack rat. He's still running a business and it's running straight into the ground (and actually, my mom is the one left with all the business). The business has been up for sale for more than a year now and it's still not sold (unless, fingers crossed, it sold a few days ago). And the most devastating thing for me to watch out of this is my mom's suffering. Without me. I'm 6,000 miles away, helpless. What can I do except call home when she's extremely busy to begin with, only to delay her with a phone call that maybe helps her to not think about the circumstances for a while, and me knowing that her only solice from me is my saying, "yeah...yeah....yeah.... but it will get better." And that's not true solice, because it's a blind lie. It's probably not going to get better. At least not before it gets much worse.

So, another insight into my mom's suffering. She worked for my grandpa for 26 or so years. She was manager, but treated like dirt for being the boss's daughter, paid dirt because everyone else was coming from higher end jobs and demanding more, so she took the pay cuts. The job was a total nightmare for her for about 25.5 years. My dad and I finally talked her into giving up her job there (after not even being able to cash her paychecks for almost a year), and take a lower-paying job (? sort of...considering she wasn't actually cashing any paychecks) as the church secretary. But note: my dad also owns his own business. He and my mom do all the work, my mom doing all the bookwork. So, there's another job.

So here she is now. She's the church secretary--full-time job. She's doing my dad's bookwork, the bookwork for their personal accounts, my bookwork (against my will), my grandparent's bookwork, and STILL doing the bookwork for my grandpa's business. Oh, yeah. And payroll. Oh... and still not cashed any of those paychecks. Which she might never be able to do considering the business is already in-the-hole. And now, we have to add in, where there's no more room, that she must now also try to sell my grandpa's business while dealing with this news, not knowing what she's doing, and knowing that whatever this business sells for is what my grandparents have to live on for the rest of their earthly lives. Did I mention that the business is already in the hole? Well, she's got to keep it running until someone buys it, and that's hard to do when there's no money.

AGH! I'm so sick of watching this from the sidelines, helpless. If I were a millionaire, I could assure my mom that she'd never have to see more bookwork or business deals in her life!

So...this isn't as refreshing of a blog as I originally thought it would be. But now it's out there, lightening the load? Not totally. Not much at all. But somehow I feel a little bit better.

Well, that's the deep, dark alleyway that I'm walking through right now. And I'd like to say that my first week back into teaching went well, but I'm not so sure it did. I was too much of a mental case.

And the week before, two other missionary girls and I went to England (London, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Bath), and I'd love to say it was great, but I had a lot on my mind, got off to a bad start by forgetting my passport at home, missing my flight, getting there a day and a half later... anyway, I had a lot on my mind and wasn't digesting it healthily and was therefore quite grouchy. That, and a few instances during the trip (such as me tripping twice in one morning, scraping my knee) made me an even more pleasant travel companion, I'm sure.

I'm trying to look on the bright side tho. At least I have a grandpa, and I have family to suffer with. And I do feel this so that means I'm not dead inside. And I know that God is in control. I know that He tests us in new ways all the time...but that things work out for good to those than love Him. And I know (from personal experience) that these great trials are used to strengthen us and eventually help someone who's going through the same or similar situation.
And in regards to the trip. I was grouchy and I'm not ready to apologize for that. I apologize for my less-than-helpful behavior/attitude at times, though. And I'm still not forgetting my blessings... that I was able to go to England. That I am in that percentage of less than half the population of the world that might ever even consider going to England or travelling abroad, period. That I have friends to travel with. That, even though it was a rather (too) expensive trip, the money will be replenished. That even if that money were to not be replenished, I'm still taken care of. That we three girls were kept out of harm's way. That I didn't have a horrible day every day. That I was able to get my mind off things for at least a few minutes each day. That, above all, my God is stronger and mightier than any petty thing, problem, disease, arguement, dark alley of life...anything and everything. And He's MY God. And He loves me. He loves me more than is even imaginable. More than I love my cats, my brothers, my grandparents, mom, dad, nieces, nephews, friends, best friends...more than all of those put together!!! And He loves my whole family, and everyone I care about. And He's in control.

See, life isn't bad at all if you just put it in perspective.

I mean, really: what is earthly suffering anyway? MAYBE 100 years, let's say 0-105 years on the earth. That's like tiny time. It's like that 15-minute coffee break that's always too short...at least compared to the time eternal that we'll have with Jesus. This is the road to patience...and toleration (in a good sense). And I'm still so richly blessed that it blows my mind. How can anyone deny God?

A Day in the Kitchen

I spent my free day today with a German friend who's living in Poland. She likes to come over sometimes to bake; we usually use some of my recipes, but today we used hers! And they were good! They brought back some memories of cookies my grandma and aunt used to make. I have no idea what we called them in English, and I can't really remember the German names, either. But here they are!

Kurpferl ??

A pie-shell type dough, rolled up, baked, and covered in a powdered sugar and vanilla sugar mix.

Yum!!

Don't remember what they're called, but same thing: pie-shell type mix, rolled into a ball, poke a dent into it with the handle of a wooden spoon, carefully put in some black-currant jam. Then bake, remove from oven, sprinkle powdered sugar & vanilla sugar mix onto it.

My favorites were these. They are made out of egg whites, almonds, and dates...probably some sugar, too. I wasn't watching my friend the whole time, so I didn't catch everything that went in... they aren't like anything I've seen before, but they sure are yummy! And soft and gooey.

A sample overview.

I'll be getting the recipes soon, I hope! If you're interested, I'll post them. I'm also going to be learning how to make some Polish Christmas cookies this year=exciting! The Poles usually make at least 12 types of cookies at Christmastime--all kinds of miniature cookies! It's a site to see!