this and that

*This morning I was helping L get dressed for school. She looked down at the carpet and said, “I don’t like that!” I looked, and saw what at first glance was a dried leaf. On second glance, it was a dehydrated baby gecko. Nice.

*This week has gone by very quickly. I think that’s because I felt awful from about Tuesday night till Wednesday night and then spent Thursday trying to catch up. Now M is gone till tomorrow night. Then it’s Sunday and we start over again. :) Time flies.

*Our girls are very much enjoying Focus on the Family’s Radio Theatre productions of Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. Personally, I think we could all use a break, but on the other hand, they aren’t watching as many movies! I’m hoping to put the Narnia set into the truck soon and see if they like those. (That is a big production, because oddly enough, our truck has a 12-disc CD player and only M knows how to change the discs! If someone knows why a truck needs a 12-disc player, let me know.)

*Mandarins are in season and we’ve developed a little routine for buying them. Every Sunday after church when we’re on our way home there are about 2 or 3 men who are running beside our truck, desperately trying to sell us fruit. Besides the fact that A. I feel like my personal space is seriously invaded when someone knocks on my window and B. I’m sure I get ripped off every week, they are delicious mandarins and we are happily eating them at the beginning of every week. The girls are capable of eating 5 a day (if I let them), and that doesn’t seem to be a bad thing. :)

*L and her next-door-buddy J are playing so nicely together these days. It’s a little lopsided in her favour: they usually play dolls at our house, but maybe one of these days he’ll show her how to play trucks or tools or something. :) Either way, it’s so nice to see them playing together so well.

*I keep meaning to mention this handy tip: I recently read that it’s possible to bake pancakes. Being a Nisly at heart, I was sceptical. Baked? Pancakes? But, also being a lazy time-conscious mother, I realized that it would be very efficient to bake them, so I tried it. Guess what? It works! I bake one recipe (with 2 cups buttermilk, to give you an idea of what size the recipe is) in my round pizza pan with sides (don’t forget to grease it). I think 375* F for about 20 minutes should do it. They are delicious hot, and it saves all that time of frying them! It’s so easy to cut them with a pizza cutter and dole them out to the kiddos. I’m not saying I’ll never fry pancakes again, but I will definitely do this when M is not here to help me fix and cut pancakes for the masses.

*Tomorrow is la kermesse (carnival?) for the girls’ school. I can’t think of one thing to say about it that won’t sound like I’m complaining, due to the fact that I’ll be taking the girls alone. :) Let’s see. We can have cotton candy. That’s fun. We can eat lunch at the club (it’s held at the club where we swim, play tennis, etc). That’s easy. The girls will get cheap junk for prizes. That’s exciting. For them. :)

*Did I ever tell you I either hit or was hit by a taxi-be the other week? (By “I”, I mean the truck, not my delicate person.) We were meeting each other on a narrow street and crunched corners. At first we thought our truck was fine, but it really has issues with the steering, alignment, etc. I had a really sore shoulder for about 4-5 days, but nothing serious.

*Time to go bake a cake. We’re having company tomorrow night and I’m off to make a wacky cake so that it can properly age between now and then. :)

*Only 58 days till we leave here. (Gulp.)