written on friday

I wrote this on Friday and haven’t been able to post it until now. Actually, I wrote more than this, but it’s funny. When I read it today, some of it didn’t seem so important anymore. Maybe I should filter all my blogging that way?

*In August 2008, some good friends of ours moved away from Madagascar to go work with MAF-Chad. It was one of those sad good-byes, because a) we really like them, and b) we had no idea of when we could ever see them again. I mean, they’re Dutch and work in Chad. We’re Canadian and work in Madagascar. It was one of those goodbyes that make me wonder why we chose this lifestyle. Well, guess what? He was here in Uganda this week! It was so great to see him again – the girls were as excited as if one of their uncles had come. :) He brought drawings and notes from his boys and our girls prepared a whole stack of little papers to send back with him. He showed us pictures of the family in their environment in Chad, so now we can picture where they are at a little bit better. They have my admiration. It is hot (38-44C), sandy, undeveloped, unstable and they don’t have a lot of options for recreation.

*Yesterday the girls and I were invited to spend the afternoon with E and her two girls. They are with MAF as well, but we hadn’t really met them until Monday because they’d been on holidays. The girls are 4 and 7. The 6 of them hit it off and played steadily from 11 till 4. :) E and I talked almost that whole time, so I guess we hit it off pretty well, too. I think we’ll be doing more with them before we leave.

*Today is our housekeeper’s day off, so it’s always more relaxing for me. It’s not relaxing in the sense of having less to do, but relaxing because we have the house to ourselves. I didn’t even take a shower till after 8. :)

*I’ve been trying so hard to be more consistent with my kids, to look for ways to let them be aware of the consequences of their choices, and to not let them run over me. It’s exhausting. The whining issue alone is enough to give me more gray hair. (Oh wait, I’m already getting them. Never mind.) I guess I fail to understand why they continue to whine, when I have been trying so hard to make sure that whining doesn’t get them anywhere. Whining makes me want to wear Matthew’s noise-cancelling headset around the house. I’ve been praying that God would help me to be humble, to have life-giving words, and to trust Him for wisdom.

*The weather here continues to be ideal, in my opinion. A cloudy, rainy day or two and then the sun comes out for a day or two. When the sun is out, it’s hot, but not unbearably hot. Today is overcast, but not raining (so far) and just a very pleasant temperature. (Like Red Lake in July when it’s overcast.)

*In response to your questions on the previous post, I made scones for our brunch on Monday. I just made a basic recipe out of my Betty Crocker book, and then I made two cream cheese spreads for them. For one, I mixed cream cheese, cinnamon, brown sugar and vanilla. For the other, I mixed almost equal parts of strawberry jam and cream cheese. Surprisingly, the cinnamon one was the clear favourite. (I just expected the girls to go for the pretty pink one.)

*The rat seems to be gone. We bought some poison and didn’t see any sign of him after that. However, a few nights ago Matthew and I were sitting in the living room and a little baby mouse ran in. Matthew made me block a doorway while he chased it around and eventually ended its poor little life. He was kind of disgusted with me that I felt sorry for it, but I can’t help feeling sorry for a baby mouse who gets taken out in the prime of life. Or something like that. :) The kitchen still has its invaders, but ants aren’t quite as disturbing as a rat or mouse. Ants might not poop all over, but they come in by the hundreds (thousands?) and make me feel like my kitchen is not quite clean. The other day I washed the cutting board and left it in the dish drainer to dry. I never even thought of ants because usually clean dishes aren’t much of an attraction, but I guess there was some little crumb of something left on it. When I came back awhile later, there was a solid stream of ants coming in the kitchen window and gathering on that cutting board. Thankfully, these are the tiny sugar ants and not the long (well over 1cm) ants that come out at night and run around the house in a seemingly indiscriminate way.