Sometimes, life looks like this:

Don’t say you weren’t warned. Last night late, we went to see the Beachy’s in at the airport. We slept in this morning and by the time I awoke, it was already warming up for the day. The children were grouchy. Havilah is being potty trained…so little else mattered besides happy children and potty training Havilah. And now this is what the house looks like. Isn’t it fantastic? Rachel, this should impress you. Especially as I’m sitting in front of the computer and the house is no better off now as what these pictures show. Not even sure if Frank has seen my house like this. The point is that today it doesn’t matter—when usually I can’t stand it when my world is so topsy turvy. But I’m too warm today to care. And I’m superbly happy with my children. Havilah is doing very well with her potty training, and, as I’d hoped, it sets the bar a little higher for Jube—I think. Not holding my breath yet though. Jube though, is such a good little worker. His latest request in the morning is for a list of jobs to do that he can cross off as he goes. He’s figured out how to create with Legos. I’m excited for him to wake up so that I can give him his dragon from Pappa and Nanna and his new lego board, from them too. First he has to fall asleep though. :) So this is our world today. Come have a look. It’s full of happy, healthy messes. (These are very good Twizzlers. They’re even the proper flavor—strawberry. Cherry Twizzlers are so lame. These are not.)

This is what I call Kha or Galangal. I grow it in my yard. And the roots get put into the occasional soup. Notice the iced coffee in the back ground. I’m living on that today. (I like this picture a lot actually.)

  

Doesn’t look like much yet. So far all it is is chicken, potatoes, water, some kha, lemon grass, and onions. I will improve it a little later with some coconut powder, lime juice, fish sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper—and whatever my husband adds when I ask him to come do a flavor check. So this was a constructive mess…

Laundry in the for ground. Children playing with Lego in the back. They’re mixing and cooking them. My children use my kitchen things to play with occasionally.

My man and his mess. He’s been working on filing a lot of English teaching books and papers. He didn’t get to this mess yet though.

Havilah has taken an interest in the barn and farm animals. One of these days—I’d like to get to it today actually—I’m going to put half of the children’s toys away to pull out later. They have so many that don’t get played with. The barn and animals however, will stay available.

The preschool mess from this morning. He didn’t get too far today, he was so tired. Eventually, the book got put away and they both settled for scribbling on printer paper instead. That pamper was the one I changed Havilah out of this morning. She hasn’t had an accident so far today, but she’s in a pull up right now because of nap time. Dru’s computer came in that bubble wrap. The children spent some time dancing on it this morning, to hear it pop.

This is a close up of the cooks. See that flower pot in the background? That is a dying begonia. I simply can’t keep those things alive. Especially not this time of year. That long green thing is a kha stalk. Havilah was waving it about.

The waiting clean laundry. I settled for washing only one load today. I have dreams of getting it all folded and put away but I don’t know if that’s realistic. Especially as I’m sitting here and not working at the moment. The pink things on the ironing board are Havilah’s panties. They’re kind of silly, but manage to be practical at the same time. That’s a picture of my mom and dad goofing off. But you can’t see it way down there on the floor very well. It finally fell of the wall Frank, you’ll have to come put it back up for me.

This is my music player. My man got it for me for my birthday. It was playing happy music over the happy messes all morning. Rachel, that’s your apple cider vinegar there on the left. The bottle on the right is the Vitamin C I am feeding to my children like candy right now because they’re fighting something in their throats.

The time of the day when I went about snapping pictures. Mom, I was just telling Dru again the other day how happy this wallpaper boarder makes me. It’s perfect. Thank you.

Frank and Mom, this is for you. See my new for me cupboard. I think it originally was Ricks, then Lee’s and now it’s mine. I’m liking it. I’m going to get a curtain over that “hole”. It is rather all a mess right now. I’m kind of happy with the ugly clipboard on the wall. Now when I have recipes all over the kitchen, I can clip them in there and kind of pretend I’m organized anyway.  There is an imaginary hanging wire basket, you know, those with the three on top of each other, and the one at the top is small and the one at the bottom is biggest, hanging there in the corner from the ceiling. I hang my potatoes, onions, and garlic in it. Isn’t it perfect for that corner?

Here’s what’s on the top right now. Yes, it’s good. Try it. I put a snitch of almond flavoring in the frosting and skipped candying the the nuts. I just used some slivered almonds and a few macadamia nuts. A very few because macadamias are not really the kind of nuts poor missionaries eat a lot of. Sorry, no pictures of my finished product. We ate it with the help of our small group. The rest of it is either in Arlin and Kayla’s fridge or their tummies. Unless Kimberly ate it all.

Back to the kitchen. Suppers in the crock pot. And do you see that watermelon. It froze in the fridge. My fridge runs much to cold. I need to shut it off one day and let it defrost itself. Anyway, now the watermelon has been out of the fridge for a couple of days because when I put the before mentioned cake in, there was no longer room for it. But the thing still seems to be fine. So I need to cut into it and discover if it’s still eatable.

 

More of our mess. I was sitting on the rocker when Jube came up to me and asked, “Where’s that yellow air plane with eyeballs on it?” (It’s a playmobile toy.) I didn’t know and told him to go look in the toys. He meticulously emptied it and still didn’t find it. It was in the toy cupboard—not the basket. See, I told you we have too many toys.

A tiny bit of beauty in the dry outdoors.

Be brave little sunflowers! Poor guys. Even they can’t handle all this heat.

Dry grass. Lots of it. There is one little patch of grass greening up because yesterday I left the water hose on for a couple hours accidentally. I think I should do that more often.

Sad corner. A missing tree. Need I say more? That’s the kha, there behind the dreadful spirit house.

Outside play has been abandoned. Too hot.

 

My new arrangement. see the tall candle on the right. It croaked and fell backwards in the heat.

This is from Miriam. I hang it here and don’t let the children play with it because I think it’s so pretty.

 

And after taking those pictures I went and made another mess. Bev, thanks so much for the Valentine’s Party things. Even if they came late, they are fun. Today was the perfect day to get it out and make lunch a happy time—Jube was seriously losing his happiness by this time. This fixed it. Just plain old pbjs.

            

Bad pics here, but great kiddos to have around anyway.

My Style...

Last night I was complimenting someone on her new dress. She said something to the effect of, "I thought it looked like you. It's nice and feminine." Those weren't her exact words but it was something like that. That was a very nice compliment to me I thought. And here I was trying to compliment her. Now how did that happen?

I like flowers and plaids. I like color-coordinated veils. I like pretty shoes. I'm considering a large purse--but mind you it won't be black and it won't be bulgy. I like it when my shoes click.  Oh, and I like practical.

If you want to know what is NOT practical it's those silly shoes that the some women wear to church in sub-zero weather. The dainty little black things with heels. I remember as a teenager stepping carefully out of the vehicle onto hard-packed snow. Then gingerly mincing along until I reached the side walk where I'd make a mental note of how much much ice is on it. Then finally I'd reach the church building to breath a sigh of relief. Then all during church my feet froze because, after all, panty hose aren't as warm as good old socks. Finally I got brave and wore little black boots to church. They were warm and practical but not at all "in".

I like cottons and denims. But I don't like that T-shirt fabric stuff that's all the rage right now. I could say many things about underwear lines and fabric clinging from the waist to the knees, but I won't right now. Yes, I will. No, I guess I won't. I do wear T-shirts around the  house, but not out and about.

I don't like stripes that go around--as a general rule. This my mother taught me. They are prone to make you look fat. Unless you're extremely skinny, or the stripes are "just right." So that's an old fashioned idea by now, I suppose. Okay fine. They'er not pretty. Cute, maybe. But I'm not after that. (I've had way to many people tell me I'm cute, so I'm guessing that that comes naturally for me and I don't need to play it up at all.)

I like my dresses to nearly sweep the floor. My Grandmother used to comment on the length of my dresses and she told me that when the dresses got shorter again, mine would too. But they didn't. Knee length dresses are a wonderment to me. For one thing, I feel exposed when my calves are showing. (Dru tells me I have sexy calves. Isn't that just bold of him?) But then there is that whole thing of the underwear being right around the corner. I always watch closely when I'm around knee length skirts. I like to see if the wearer knows how to sit down in them--and once they're sitting--do they remain modest? Wicked of me, I know--but I have this brazen curiosity. And yes, I've seen flashes of underwear and everything else all the way up. I have to wonder if the poor girl wants to know if she's showing off her stuff, or if she'd rather be blissfully ignorant. I generally let the girl remain ignorant unless my man is around. I may or may not cover for her if it's another man. Please don't ask me to inform you if I ever happen to see your underwear. I might say sharp words about your style of dress that I would like to retract later.

However, I do like a belt over a blouse. I need more belts. :) I think this might be kind of "in" right now but I'm sure I'm doing it all wrong.

You see, I'm just out of fashion at the ripe old age of 26. But I think I'm okay with it. I like my long skirts and my blouses with a belt. I like flowers--in fact, I have too many plaids and stripes in my blouse collection. Not enough flowers.

The truth of the matter is that, although I have these quirks and old fashioned ways, there are many people whom I love dearly and even respect who dress in these "other" ways. There are a few of them who even pull these oddities off in a half way decent  manner--they can even sit modestly to boot! Furthermore, I am quite certain that the way I dress may be of concern to others at times. In fact, after writing this I can think of one dress that I wore quite recently, that bothers me in how it fits. Sigh.

Also, along these lines, I'm always impressed when I find a lady who is fifty or so, and older, and she cares about how she dresses and puts thought and time into it. Granted, these women easily out dress me any day of the week, but I like to think that one day, I'll be able to be put together as well as they do. Wishful thinking probably, but it's nice to dream.

Really, this post is about me, realizing that even though a lot of who I am and what I think is kind of in an upheaval right now, how I dress isn't really bothering me. This post also deserves pictures of what I like and think is nice and all that good stuff, but time is lacking by now so, maybe a follow up post?

I also like a clean house on a hot day so this is all enough of this. Good day. :)