A Pocketful of Sand

I remember when I first started telling people the name of our family’s blog.  “A pocketful of sand, what?”  “Why, would you name it that?”

And all I could think was, “Have you met my children?”.

So, feeling fully validated I would like to share this recent event.  I was washing the children’s uniforms when I happened to look into the sink and see what looked like mud in the bottom.  I should back up a little.  Our washing machine drains into one side of our kitchen sink.  I know, madness to the American mind, but once you get past the slight inconvenience of having half of your sink dedicated to the hose to drain the washing machine, it’s really rather fascinating.  I mean I can be washing my dishes and check to see how dirty my clothes really were…or how pink husband dear’s jeans are now going to be because I accidentally washed them with my red dress—oops! 

Anyway, I digress, back to the dirt in the sink from my children’s uniforms.  As I watched the wash water rinse through again I realized with a smile what it was:  sand.  Pocketfuls of it.

Mama's got a brand new bag

So, I’ve been learning lots of things here.  Much of it to do with language lately, but about a month ago I started learning a new skill.  It was during the season of car trouble, when some very kind friends allowed us to borrow their manual vehicle for a few days.  That’s right, oh family of mine, this girl now understands how to drive a stick.  Understands?  Yes, perfected?  Not quite.  But to be fair, and one should always be fair to oneself, I did not have the most ideal of learning situations.  It was night and my three overly tired children were strapped in behind me loudly arguing over who would get to hold the computer game they were playing.  Ideal?  No.  Realistic?  Definitely.  And by the end I had a better feel for this whole stick thing, and I didn’t stall nearly as often, and the kids thought this new amusement park ride—honestly, that’s how I bribed them into the car with me driving it—was pretty fun, although it sometimes stopped unexpectedly.  The true hero of it all, though, was husband dear, who managed to teach me and keep me calm despite my inner drive to do everything exactly right the first time and our three lovely but loud saboteurs in the back.  Hats off to husband dear—I love that man!

Oh, and PS to the kind friends who let us borrow their vehicle, no one and nothing was hurt in the practicing of my driving. =)

Crock-pot of yumminess

Ok, I’m sharing this for those of you who have crock-pots and bags of onions.  Have any of you ever tried to caramelize onions?  It’s such a long, stand there, stirring process over the stove—but there is a better way.  I found this on food.com and the idea is so easy and the results so good:

Crock-pot Caramelized Onions

Thickly slice about 3 lbs. of onions and put in crock-pot.  Add stick of melted butter and salt to taste (I use about ¼ to ½ tsp I think).  Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until you have a golden delicious pot of yumminess.

Now here comes the fantastic part of this.  These last for a while in the fridge, but you can freeze portions of them to use at a later date as well.  It really adds a great depth of flavor.  I’ve used them in quiches, pizzas, soups, pot pies, mashed potatoes, casseroles, nachos—really wherever you use onion these are welcome.  I’m making a pot right now, hence the post, and even my kids keep asking what the delicious smell is coming from the crock-pot.

Huzzah!

Some of you may ask, “Why the old ‘hurray’?”; and I will tell you I am celebrating the fact that after two and a half interminable months of waiting (I’m telling you it felt like eons) we finally have wireless internet!  Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah!  No more drumming of the fingers on laptop waiting for your spouse to finish with the internet, no more getting up to do something and finding said spouse has stolen the magical internet wand and you can no longer read your favorite blogs and…you get the picture. =)  I’m hoping this might help me to post more frequently—we shall see, at any rate we are thrilled to be back in this century!

Tip for the day

In the vein of, “Don’t spit into the wind.”  Here is our wisdom from one of our latest car trips:  Do not drive behind open pick-up trucks carrying well-fed cows at high speeds, unless you want to have manure adorning your own car.

Ask me how I know this.  Let’s just say we narrowly, and I do mean within fractions of a second, missed this experience.  We were traveling, and I noticed the aforementioned cow in the pick-up truck in front of us.  Just as I pointed the cow out to the children, husband dear decided to change lanes and everyone got to see what almost happened to our car go flying by the window instead.  Husband dear bursts out laughing, which does not help as it clues our children in to the hilarity of our near miss and from the backseat I hear, “Was that poop flying by our window?” Giggle, giggle, snort.  Ah well, they can’t all be hallowed moments. =)

Wishful thinking

Eldest son told me today:  "I have something important to tell you."  

"What is it Buddy?"

"I know exactly what I want for my birthday."

 Sheesh!  What is it with these kids and the planning of birthdays still months away?

“I want a big zoo with lots of animals—that would be the perfect gift.”

I told him that zoos weren’t exactly for sale as birthday gifts--particularly not in our price range--but hey, if you’re gonna dream, dream big.

Come on and take a free ride...

Umm, so you remember that I was going to update on school for our children.  All went well the first day.  The school is still new and has just moved to a new location so they are still working out the kinks, which is all to be expected I suppose…you can tell there’s a story here, right?  Ok here goes…It all starts when I go to pick up the children on day two of school.  There really hasn’t been clear instruction on the where/how to pick up the children, but the first day I found them in one of two places.  So I head back to place one, the waiting area for buses and drivers (for lack of a better description), and find our son.  I pick him up and then head for the girls’ classrooms.  I don’t find anyone in the youngest one’s class (I’m starting to feel a tinge of panic, but decide there must be another place to look).  As I head to get our eldest daughter I meet the youngest daughter’s teacher who looks at me and says, “She’s on the bus.”

“NO!” I hear myself say with great force and unbelief.  My happy-go-lucky three year old daughter is on a bus by herself in a foreign country where she doesn’t speak the language????  I cannot even put into words all that I was feeling in that moment between hearing those words and these, “Don’t worry, we have teaching assistants with phones on every bus so we’ll call right now and have them bring her back.”  Talk about a roller coaster ride of emotions from panic and anger to relief all in the span of a minute!  And you should have seen her, an hour later when she was finally returned into our arms, our little traveling imp!  I’m pretty sure she had no clue what lot had befallen her on that bus, she was just enjoying her own exclusive tour of our new town, in our new country—a big, little girl on a bus all by herself!

First Day of School

Thought you might like to see our children's first day of school.  I feel like this picture fully expresses the range of emotions we felt today:  Apprehensive, mostly excited, and happily clueless.  I'll keep you posted on the after feelings!

Germ warfare

Ok, let me start off by saying that I’m sure I am the unintentional victim of our youngest daughter.  But good grief what timing!  We just started studies in language here and let’s just say my brain is a little maxed out.  And while I firmly believe that to really embrace our new home we must make the effort to speak the language—I am beginning to wonder about my ability to really do that after one week of study.  So you get the picture, right?  Poor tired me, lying in bed on the one day we have to sleep a little late and our youngest comes trotting in and immediately rubs her face in my face—literally.  She doesn’t usually do that, but I just figured she was trying to be affectionate (read infectionate—ok, bad pun sorry!).  Honestly, I was hoping that if I lay really still she might just snuggle down for a few extra minutes.  Then as she was breathing into my eyes, nose on my nose I hear/feel the congestion on her side and I realize that it’s probably too late.  Sure enough, those things they teach you about the common cold—what every young child instinctively knows/does to spread communicable diseases—it’s true.  That afternoon I could feel it starting to manifest.  So I grated some fresh ginger, added hot water and honey, wiped our youngest one’s nose, muttered about the injustice of it all, and prayed this too would pass quickly.

Imp

There is a twinkle in her eyes, a bubble in her laugh, and a bit of baby still tucked into those cheeks.  As I kiss her good night she’ll say, “I love you too Mama,” before I can even say “I love you” first.  And Heaven help me if I vary the good night prayers.  You see, we’ve always prayed with and for each of our children, and always we ask that they may know God and follow Him from a very young age all of their lives.  I never realized how closely she paid attention, until I rushed through good night prayers one night only to have her tearfully shout, “You forgot to pray for my life!  Mama, my life!” .  Now there was a load of parental guilt heaped on my head—note to self, don’t rush prayers!  She might cover you with kisses one minute and then bop you on the face with her baby doll—her favorite is the hard plastic one—oy!  She loves to play memory with me right now; and no matter how many matches either one of us have made, if she makes the last she’ll squeal delightedly, “I win, I win!”  I thought this might be something I have to discuss with her (you know, being overly competitive) until I got the last match one day and she shouted just as excitedly, “You win Mama, you win!”  (Note to self, never explain how exactly one “wins” this game).  She’s sweet and cuddly and tough as nails (she once dislocated her shoulder and never cried before or after it was “relocated”--makes me shudder to think of it).  She spends more time on my hip than the others ever got a chance too—there was no one to chase her out of my arms.  She has each one of us wrapped up in her smiles; and she is most definitely the baby of this family—I swore I wouldn’t let it happen, but there it is.  And the other part of this truth is that I don’t think any of us would have it any other way.  Children make liars of us all.

Rose by another name...

For my faithful readers, the few, the committed, =) you may recall a post about a recipe I needed but could not find?   At last the true recipe appears!  A big thank you to my Mom for finding and sending me the real “Rose” recipe—you’re the best!  This one looks even easier and more delicious than the one I came up with from my memory banks—so, for those of you who enjoy baking/eating delicious chocolate treats, here it is:

“ROSE”

1 stick margarine (umm, I would use butter, my two cents) -  melted in Pyrex square dish in oven.

layer these in the pan:

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup coconut

1 cup pecans – chopped

 

pour over top:

1 can condensed milk (I’m pretty sure you could use less and be fine)

bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes

The best way to eat cherries

Our son has decided the best way to eat cherries is with his entire body, as these pictures will attest. I was amused, and slightly horrified, later that night to discover that he even had cherry juice between his toes—I decided not to ask how that happened.