The new House

This is the house from the front, also a photo of the lounge, except of course I have changed it already. Will try and post a more up to date photo. Things I love about the house are the shower is intense and hot, the wooden floors are warm and easy to clean, the fireplace is cosy and the afternoon sun streams into most rooms and lights them up.

First Impressions, again.

I feel almost as though I have not lived here before. I am having to relearn everything. It will be some time before I walk around to the correct side for the passenger seat of the car and I hope I relearn the direction to look before I get hit by something. I think the worst was doing grocery shopping. I cannot seem to recall any of the products and brands that I used to buy. I spent about an hour and a half for a few bags of shopping because I was pricing, checking ingredients and mostly just feeling overwhelmed. I did spend the first few days just feeling overwhelmed, like I knew nothing and was completely out of place. Now though, my feeling of adventure is returning. I am looking forward to figuring out which bus to take, and am quite excited about finding the Library downtown, of course, Libraries have always been happy places for me. Things that are strange once again include how big everything is. The highways are huge, they go on forever and they fit so many cars at a time. The cars themselves are generally twice the size of cars in Namibia. It is so strange, I feel a little like Alice in Wonderland and I drank a small-making potion. The trees are huge too. Which is something that I love about this part of the world and I love that we have so many huge trees in our garden. The weather adjustment has actually been quite easy, probably because I have been able to just stay indoors on nasty days. What is strange though is the constant cloud cover. My eyes feel like it is just before sunset all the time. More later when I have explored Cville more.

The best thing about the US of A

Tissues with lotion and ... wait for it... vicks! Oh yeah... it's soooo good. you breathe in, it clears you up, you blow out and it clears you up and no sore, red and chapped nostrils. What a wonderful thing.

crazy for crockpot!

There is so much to say about being back in the states, and I will get there. But for now let me talk about the simple wonder in a crockpot. S gave me one that she wasn't using and I am inordinately excited about trying it out. I have gathered together the ingredients for Chilli, vegetarian of course. The beans are soaking overnight and they look gorgeous with their deep and fresh colours in my bright green bowl. tomorrow early I will set everything cooking and hopefully by sometime in the afternoon the whole house will smell edible like when Mom made various deliscious things for meat eaters in her slow cooker. Next I will try three potato soup and maybe even eggplant parmigiana! Will let you know how the chilli works out.

and another one

lovely sunday!

Cat's Bday

My Garden after a rain

Today a monkey got married. The sun was shining into my garden when all of a sudden the sounds of fat raindrops hit my ears. I looked out and each drop was shining on it's way down till it plopped in the dust. After the cloud passed onto the next garden I couldn't resist taking a few photos!

'cos he's just too freakin' cute!

henry makes sure he gets packed too.

Things I wish I'd known before I started to mow the lawn

- WHERE is the double adapter? Did we already give it away?
- Wear long pants, not shorts in order to avoid changing the colour of your legs to green and also to avoid nasty sticks and equivalent hard things thrown at velocity.
- Ditto glasses of some kind.
- Rake the lawn first so you can reach the grass through the dead leaves, this will also reduce aforementioned hard things.
- build muscles with push ups before attempting holding onto mower while it runs across the lawn.
- Do lawn often cos it is FUN!

Keir hard at work

So many samples, so little time.

More craft days!

Who knew fabric paint had so much potential for fun! Unfortunately, my impatience got the better of me. I couldn't wait for the paint to dry on mine, so that I could do the back. I put the shirt outside on the table. Of course I forgot that it has been raining and the table is wet. So while everyone else is wearing their craftiness, I am re-learning the lessons of my childhood.

paradise in a pool

We have been trying to go swimming every two days, and I just can't resist showing off to those of you who are in the Northern Hemisphere.

The water is just the right kind of cold where it is hard to get into but you feel refreshed for the rest of the day!

That's what holidays are for!

Yesterday we pulled out Mom's sewing machine and all the gear that goes with it. I had bought "african" print material to make gifts for various people and C had a special project. Mom was trying to iron but spent so much time showing us how to measure, thread, cut and sew that the ironing took her all day! We eventually sucked her in though and now she is making a pair of trousers, which is far fancier than either C or I could manage. I LOVE craft days!

the Human Jungle Gym

Thought I'd share these. We taught two small and dear people how to play twister. They loved it, but it soon was not enough and poor K was challenged to go through the game with Sheena on his back! It was MUY entertaining! He of course ended up on his butt splayed across the twister board, but he managed not to squish Sheena.

Thanks for Thanksgiving

This is easily my most favourite of the American holidays, it is Christmas without the religion and without the commercialism. It is all about friends and family and reflecting on your life and focusing on the good things about it. It's like the government has given Americans three days to just be together with their favourite people and enjoy each other.

Our usual thanksgiving is for Keir to make the turkey (a Happy one) and everyone to bring sides, I make the Tofurkey - yum - and then we eat till we can't. Then we all lie around or play baord games and perhaps manage a roll around the block before we face the dishes. Of course, here in Namibia no-one has the day off, but K and I took it off. We shopped from a list that reached my knees and then we chopped, peeled and mixed to our hearts content.

There were of course some of the usual mix-ups. I completely forgot to do the peas and we had to use philo pastry for the pies! Plus it never even occurred to me to make Gravy! Essential to all large dinners, shock horror. Then there were the uniquely Namibian hiccups. No Turkey... well, no WHOLE turkey. The closest we could come was to find four pre-cooked turkey legs, which looked very funny lying side by side in our roasting pan. We were all left to wonder where the rest of the Turkey's were. Perhaps they were only eating turkey breast for thanksgiving in Zambia, and only thighs in Botswana? Of course, if we only managed to find turkey legs, what was the chance of finding a tofurkey... Sigh!

The dinner itself was so wonderful. Somehow it still had the feel of thanksgiving, even though it was hot and the Bird carcass was missing from the middle of the table. I was so thankful to be sitting at a table with my Mom and Sisters. The whole evening had this lovely feeling of companionship and contentment that I always associate with Thanksgiving.

K made the most amazing pumpkin pie from scratch! From an actual pumpkin! I really enjoyed it, but he felt like it tasted too much like pumpkin and not enough like pie. Also - HUGE shoutout to KO for the stuffing recipe. Sooooo Good. I think it's the thyme - apricot combination that make it!

Of course all this has left me feeling very thankful for thanksgiving.

This is the weekend.

They wrote my paper on Friday and so this is the weekend for marking. So far I have two complete failures and two kids who got 78 out of 80... lets hope there is a lot more of the latter and not so much of the former hidden in the rest of my pile of papers, or it is going to be a very grumpy weekend indeed.

Almost over

Tomorrow is my second last class, ever, with my Grade 8's. After spending the year with them and seeing them grow up a little, and finally figuring each one of them out I am feeling stupendously sad. Most of them are really great kids and even those that aren't have still taught me something this year.

sniff sniff.

Talk to you again when I grade their papers and have to polish off a bottle of wine cos the little b's didn't study.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. Mark Twain

When we moved here, I was invited to join Mom's bookclub. One of their ladies was going to be away for almost exactly the months that I am here and so I took her place. The way that it works is that the ladies each contribute $$ each month for the person who is hosting the next month. That person then uses those $$ to buy as many books as she can afford, prepares a simple meal and sends out an email with directions to her house. I didn't think I would get to host as the lady I was replacing had already hosted, but they didn't have anyone for October so I got given a wad of cash and instructions to buy what I liked.

This turned out to be a very stressful job. Let me first explain the ladies that belong to this bookclub. These are all ladies who are my Mom's age and older. They have already been through children and careers and all that nonsense and are at the peak of their wisdom and experience. They are almost all involved in some sort of job where they are contributing to society, through lifeline, USAID etc. Their thoughts are well developed, they can tap smartness at the blink of an eye. In short, they are mature in a way I can only hope to be when I get there.

The books they choose are about child soldiers in Rwanda, women in Turkey, slavery, Autism, male dementia and so on. The books I typically choose to read are fantasy, historical novels, murder mystery and the occasional Jane Austen.

Sooooo, when I took my $$ into the bookstore, I ended up on their couch with piles and piles of books, trying to eradicate some of my choices. I was torn between what I thought the ladies would choose to read and what I would use to while away my brain. In the end I settled on a fluffy dan Brown meets Phillipa Gregory, a Jon Ronson, which is sort of like an immature Bill Bryson. The latest bill Bryson joined the group as I thoroughly enjoyed it and as I had never read out of Africa but had cried for the movie about 100 times I added that one too.

Then I took two unknowns. The first was called 'McCarthy's Bar' in which Pete McCarthy travels around Ireland going into every single pub he sees and commenting on Ireland and himself as he goes along. A book that I would call highly entertaining and an excellent read for when you are traveling too. The second is by James Chatto, love, life and loss in Corfu. It's beautiful. The most of the book is a rambling tale of how they are enchanted and adopted by the island. You get so involved in their lives and in their characters without even realising it, then suddenly the 'loss' part hits. I was left sobbing into my pillow, but so glad that I had read the book.

I made an excellent chickpea curry and fruit salad with icecrteam for desert and told the ladies about my books. Luckily October is everyone's busy month, so they all felt like and had time for easy reading and my books got snapped up.