Spa: Low-Budget Style

Our sorority had themselves a spa night

complete with soaking feet during a movie, pedicure work and some special snacks.

Matt was gone for some trainings so we girls had a lovely night in.

October 5, 2019 0

38 Easy Steps to Making Pumpkin Bread in Mozambique

Hope to make a pumpkin pie in two years when your Mother-in-law and Father-in-law visit around Thanksgiving.
After their visit, save the leftover canned pumpkin, affectionately remembering the pie you devoured.
Remember the canned pumpkin randomly one day and daydream about FINALLY using your bread maker.
Receive word that the only working converter is for 300 watts and under.
Cross your fingers that your bread maker is 300 watts.
After reading the 700 watt sticker, momentarily wonder if this is a sign of the impending end times.
Sulk internally for 117 seconds.
Look up a recipe online making sure to search under “the best” because of the effort you will put in and narrow your search to your limited ingredients.
When your children ask if they can help, pretend that you don’t speak English.
When the lightbulb comes on, also pretend not to speak Portuguese until they lose interest and stop touching all the stuff.
Remind yourself that you’ll be a more encouraging, “let’s do it together” mother when it’s NOT almost kid bedtime.
Wait for the heat index to barely slip below “melting of internal organs” to preheat your oven.
Chuckle at the exact oven preheating degrees on the recipe while guessing what angle of the knob between on and off might possibly be 350 degrees.
Sift bugs out of your flour, crop dusting your table and the remaining ingredients because of the isolating fan.
DO NOT turn off the fan or this baking endeavor will instantly be over as you slip into heat exhaustion.
Run out of sugar mid-mixing and retrieve the excess from the freezer where the ants can’t reach it.
Crack each egg individually into a small bowl and then add it to the batter to avoid the flavor addition of “green, rotten horror”.
Pound the dried cloves you found randomly at a grocery store 1.5 hours away (and paid way too much for “for such a time as this”) with a wooden mortar and pestle, guessing at a quantity that will equal 1/2 a teaspoon and spilling some on the floor while pounding too violently.
Blame the floor with accusing eyes.
Blend all dry ingredients together and combine them into the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
Press through the moment of realization that you will have to hand wash this eternity of dishes.
Spill a little flour on the chair while stirring because the power flickers.
Blame the chair with accusing eyes.
Dig out two bread loaf pans.
Shut a cat in the pantry.
Contemplate using parchment paper in your pans.
Remember that it’s a 2 day drive to replace the said parchment paper if it’s in stock or a $3,000 roundtrip ticket for a relative.
Walk straight to the fridge and retrieve the butter.
Move the homeschool math books aside on the table, dusting off the flour from step 14, and grease the pans with your bare hand to avoid even one more dish to wash because it’s the end of the day, people.
Wash greasy hands and test oven temperature with your face.
Ten beads of sweat means it’s preheated.
Two loaves go in and set a timer for three-quarters of the baking time on the recipe.
Check on your loaves like a paranoid mother of a newborn at least every 2 minutes.
After the fourteenth or fifteenth poke, resolve to remove the bread.
Glory in the fresh smell of victory and tomorrow’s breakfast all in one.
Resolve to never bake again when you turn around to the precarious mound of dishes in the sink.
Remember that you don’t have any more access to pumpkin products anyway.
File it away on your mental list for Stateside baking options in 15 months.

April 1, 2019 1

Family Identity

It came to us right before bed one night in Johannesburg. I had gotten out of the hospital by the grace of God and finally felt like a human being again. We had moved beyond the survival phase; Matt’s day dictated by hospital visiting hours and mine dictated by pain management and nursing schedule. And now we stood at the doorframe of recovery. Recovery from surgeries, recovery from anxiety and recovery from apartness (hey, I can make up words, this is my blog 😉).

And we lay there processing, for processing for parents often happens at night when small ears are not around. In that land of processing I wandered a bit, smelling the flowers, until I realized what I missed the most: family identity.

See, every transitional reality we have walked through as a family was aided by finding a new sense of us. Each added family member helped to redefine how we do family. Each big change. Each trip. Each adventure. Everywhere we find ourselves laying our heads at night, that time period, grows us into a new layer of family identity.

And it was then and there that we realized that that was true for everywhere except Joburg. We had had three weeks of unavoidable division: me at the hospital, Matt being Superdad and trying to still stay fully aware and engaged with what was going on with me, and the girls bouncing from wonderfully willing person to person, but still finding an identity of just the four of them – Rachael being, many times, the voice of reason and taking on the role of “mom” for her sisters. We had been, for all intensive purposes: scattered.

For healing to happen, we realized that we needed to regroup and find our family identity once again right where we were, in Joburg. So it began with a 1,000 piece puzzle…

Everyone’s hands worked on the puzzle. It helped us not only pass time healing, but also just have a united goal again.

We were determined to finish it. Matt and I worked on sections when the girls were sleeping. Waiting times were filled with sorting pieces. Eden even got pretty good at finding edge pieces. Hannah sorted colors. Abi and Rachael helped Eden collect zebra pieces. And we slowly chipped away at it, even when it was really frustrating, until the final piece was laid. I loved how we all cheered at it’s completion. In hours of focus and teamwork we found a sense of family identity in Joburg.

See, friends? We live in a generally quiet town. With generally quiet evenings filled with time. Time when few are out, risking malaria, among the mosquitos. Time when people return home at dusk and shut down for the nights. Seven hours from fluent English and teammates is where we live. And that’s in no way a complaint, just a reality. And then we came to the big city; busy, loud, full of activity, and everything costs something and even the most wonderful friends that we wanted to see. But it wasn’t until we sat down to that puzzle that we realized how much we just needed a slice of us again. Quiet. Uneventful. A united task. Until completion.

And after the completion comes the very best part: the destruction.

[wpvideo FG0PEf1k ]

Family identity is critical. Everyone has a part. Everyone is valued. Everyone is needed.

Together we are better.

January 19, 2019 0

Within the Wall

A week ago our guard heard a faint meow. Figuring it was one of our cats, he asked the girls about it. Since the girls knew the cats were sleeping inside, our guard discovered the sound coming from our property wall.

Inside and between our cement wall and our neighbor’s cement wall was a tiny kitten whom had been dropped by its mother between the two walls and abandoned. And thus began a rescue mission.

The rescue mission required a rake being lowered into the wall with a small plastic container taped to the end with tuna in it. With the bait set, Matt and the guard coaxed the reluctant kitten toward the tuna dish the the aid of two extremely long sticks and prepared to pull up our homemade elevator.

Kitten’s level of fear was not in our favor but patience proved this successful victory:

[wpvideo sR7KQt0U ]

She was petrified, hungry and had one eye gunked shut, but within a few hours she was flea free, fed and settled. And a week later with still no sighting of her mom, we named her Heidi. … for she was hiding in the wall. 😉