Bowling, etc

On December 18th, our homeschool friends gathered at a local bowling alley for a surprise party for Jessica. As most of you know, Jess went to Mexico on December 31st, and we wanted to have a going-away/birthday party for her before she left. We managed to keep it a complete surprise. Jennifer did an excellent job, taking Jess out for coffee, and then keeping her busy until it was time. So when the two arrived at the alley, it was a complete surprise, and we had a blast. Here are some pictures, both from the bowling, and then from our house where we went afterwards.































Jessica got to Mexico safely and met up with the missionary family. She's having a good time, getting acclimated there. She will be working with the three oldest children, helping them with homeschooling. I think they're starting on Monday but I'm not sure. Be sure to hop over to her blog...she promised to keep it updated! (www.jessicassoapbox.blogspot.com)

Yeah, so.

Yeah, so I have 2 blog posts in my drafts folder. The reason they're not published is because if you could see inside my brain, this is essentially what you would see:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
????????????????????????????????????????????????
:P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*^!#!&*^#$!#&!)#*!*#1hCBK!YC#!OIY#)*)#&!#B)!&@
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
??????????????????????????????????????????????????
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

A rough translation would include elements of excitement, happiness, confused, questions, amused, very confused, and busy. Hence why I do not for coherent thought-sentences and resort to symbols. So the reason those two blog posts are not published is because I have excellent thoughts, for about 10 minutes. Somewhere between the "I must think this through before I try to type it out" and the actual thinking part, I get diverted to college/work/food/talking/laundry/etc. And then I come back to blogger and am promptly seized with writers block, which results in an ineffective blogger. Except I am doing pretty well right now, probably because I am actually saying absolutely nothing of substance.

I'm fighting the urge to hit "save" and finish this later. But I'm not. So tell me. How are you? What are you up to? Why haven't YOU been blogging? :)

Work

I'm sitting at my computer, feeling *very* un-writey, so what do I do but go start a blog post. I'm going to tell you about my job...this will be like therapy...a sarcastic commentary on what it's like to be a housekeeper at the Comfort Inn.

Wednesday morning, I got a call from Sally at the Comfort Inn. She wanted to know if I could come in for an interview. So I drove down (with my mom...yes, I'm a wimp like that) and talked with Sally. The upshot of that was I was supposed to come in to work Thursday morning at 9:30 and Janice was going to train me. Whoever Janice was.

So I drove to work the next morning, slightly apprehensive. Janice is roughly five feet tall and I worked with her Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Teresa is also a housekeeper and Carolyn does the laundry, and there are some random desk people. Sonny and Sally are the managers, and I have yet to see the actual boss. Anyhow, I walked in and learned how to punch in. Then Janice and I headed off down a hallway to a random room and commenced cleaning. I basically watched her for the first room, but by the second and third, I was able to help. We did maybe 6 or 8 rooms that day, and I got done shortly after 2, I think.

Basically, you make the beds, by which I mean, you change the sheets. Not the blankets, though...I think I was sorta disgusted by that part. And you pick up any garbage, like pop cans, and dust and vacuum, and you clean the bathroom. Cleaning the bathroom is where you use the chemically cleaning supplies that chap and hurt your hands (and the pink stuff smells bad so that you sneeze or cough if you breathe too much of it). I think I want gloves. In other words, just call me Cinderella. Except that Cinderella had multitudes of adorable singing mice and birds who banded together to help her. The Comfort Inn version of adorable and helpful singing mice and birds is a spray bottle filled with a lethal cleaning substance. :P at them.

There are signs all over the place that say basically, "Yay!! You're here and we're so happy that you're our guest!!" I think someone in India wrote them: "Ah...you wish me to write words of welcome on signs for your Inn of Comfort? Yes...yes...I shall do that..." And so the signs are there. Also, in each of the rooms, we put an envelope with the housekeeper's name so the honored guests can cough up a cash tip for the poor people who worked exceedingly hard cleaning up after them. However, it's moreso, for the guests know who was responsible for the cleaning, so that after they complain, the managers can be sure that they shoot the right one.

Sadly, it looks like I'll have to work every other Sunday. I worked yesterday, and I was fairly independent (as in, semi-out-of-training). And I did 9 rooms all by myself. I still don't have a uniform, but I should be getting one soon. Then I will look like an alien. Can't wait. I mean, why did they have to pick THAT shade of blue? What about navy blue? Why this weird light blue alien style color? And I can't even wear jeans, and the managers can and so I kinda go "grr" when they stroll casually by in their jeans while I have to wear my brown pants cause they're like the only pants I have that aren't dressy, white, or jean.

Anyway, I'm sure I will have exciting updates in the future. But now I am going to bed. Yeah, this whole working thing means I have to get up at early hours like 7:30. Yeah, like in the morning.

November

Y'know, it's sorta been a while, well, since the last updatey post. Grandma Suzy came up to visit the end of October, and we had our Thanksgiving with her then. The Mom's Side Relatives came over like they normally do, and the food was really good, of course. Election day also happened, and that was my second time voting and it was cool. The Election Day dinner at our church was also nice. Annetta and I had a conversation with Uncle Bill, in which we learned some new things. See, whenever Daddy tells us stories about when he was a boy, they're told in typical younger brother style. So Uncle Bill found it incumbent upon himself to tell us how it *really* happened. Those stories where the innocent young Dave would pull away Uncle Bill's book while Uncle Bill was reading, and then got pounded on? Maybe not so innocent, if you believe Uncle Bill. But, he did concede that "it was hard for him, not being able to read. We would give him books with pictures, and maybe words, like "cat" and "dog" or "republican," you know." So I'm sure we're forever grateful for Uncle Bill for opening our eyes to the truth, and also making us laugh so hard we almost cried.

Moving on. School. Jess is in her second year doing distance learning from PHC. She has an exciting opportunity coming up this spring, but we'll let you know more about that once it's been officially announced :) I'm starting 2 online college classes from Empire State College today. They're Human Biology and An Introduction to College Reading and Writing. And no, I do not have a major selected. The rest of the kids are still in various stages of school. Not sure if Katna is doing anything, but everyone else is.

Snow. As I type, the snow is melting, but we got maybe a couple inches on Friday and Saturday. I took advantage of this last little while we have of (relatively) bare ground and took a walk yesterday afternoon. It involved getting rather lost, but not to worry, I made it home safely.

So in closing, some pics of snow. Have a good day, folks, and stop by sometime soon! You just never know when I'll get an irresistible urge to blog.

An Open Letter to the Kid About to Get Braces

Dear Metal Mouth,

Endearing, isn't it? You'll be Metal Mouth (or worse) for roughly the next twenty-eight years of your life. But I thought I'd make the initial stages a bit easier on you by writing you a reassuring letter. The first step of the braces process is to go to the orthodontist's office and have an "initial" consultation with him. He is very nice, knowledgeable, friendly, smooth, and reassuring, as are all the staff. Don't be fooled. In his other life, your orthodontist worked closely with Fidel Castro, and received his orthodontic training in Communist prison camps, by trial and error (which is still his preferred method of work).

But once your mother, taken in by the nice feel of the place, sets you all up, you are stuck. Every so-called "escape route" (and I mean *every* single one) is blocked by electrical wire and soldiers with AK 47s. Do not be the kid who has personal experience with these...trust me, it's not worth it.

The methods of orthodontic torture procedures differ from kid to kid. They say it's because everyone's different, but it's really because they can't remember what they're doing. It's best if you realize this now. They will use things called RPEs, biteplanes, crickets, archwires, and brackets, but close inspection reveals that these are, in fact, parts of atomic weapons left over from the 1960s. If your orthodontist should ever say something to the effect of "you don't need to be a nuclear scientist to be an orthodontist," I recommend running away from home.

You'll also become familiar with "rubber bands." These were invented in 1931 by a sadistic orthodontist in socialist Russia. By the way, have you ever wondered why Stalin turned out the way he did? As a schoolboy. he was selected to take part in Russian orthodontics as they worked out their system, which was later widely used in POW camps during the Korean War.

Your orthodontist and his assistants have a completely different nervous system than you do. They'll say, "You may feel some slight discomfort," or "This might hurt a little bit," but when they say that, be prepared for agonizing pain. The truth is that they've become numb to how outside people feel -- outside of Communist prison camps, that is. However, you can hardly blame them for that. Usually they're not trying to be malicious -- they just struggle with separating their former lives with life in the post-Reagan/Thatcher world.

But if you survive the orthodontic treatment (read: as long as you aren't selected to be a guinea pig for any experiments in Moscow), you will have straight, beautiful teeth. Happy you!

Oh, look at the time! You'd better go now...you'll be late for your initial consultation! And you don't want to make them mad this early in the game, do you?

Love,
Erika
(written from a dark cell in Pyongyang)

Fall Photo Shoot

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. It had been raining for a couple weeks almost continually, but it finally cleared up. The leaves are pretty, and Annetta, Jessica, and I decided to head out back to our woods and take some pictures. More pics on facebook...but the assumption is, if you care enough to see them, chances are pretty good that we're friends on facebook so you can just go find them yourself :)

So how is life going? I've been working on college stuff...looking into online classes from Empire State College. And trying to get a job. And still doing CAP and AWANA and so forth. So tell me about your life. What's new and exciting...or even old and boring?

Grape Pie

It's surprising to me how many people don't know what grape pie is, or have never had it, so I should probably begin by defining it. It should become fairly obvious as this blog post progresses. So you know those purple Concord grapes? Yeah...you take a lot of them, and you take them off the bunches. Then you squeeze the slippery insides out, and heat up the insides until they're smushy enough that you can strain them through a stainer to get rid of the seeds. Then you add the skins back in, as well as sugar and flour and anything else the filing calls for. Then you put the filing in the pie crusts and bake.

As you might have guessed (astute and intelligent you!), we recently made grape pies. Rachel, Annetta, and I went to the house of our friends, who have grapes growing on their property. We picked a lot of them, and then headed to our house, where Elizabeth joined us in the preparation.

First, we had to take them off the stem...

...and the squeeze the insides out.

A very cool pirate observed our work.


This is Annetta stirring the grape insides that are heating up.

Jessica made the crust.
And Elizabeth, Rachel, and I stirred and strained the grape insides.







...the finished pie crusts...


The streusel topping



Admiring the pies.


We ended up having our family plus 4 others joining us...we had more than enough pie. It was a fun day!