3 Days of Christmas: Snow Storm

Yes, I know Christmas has passed.  But I didn't make it to 1, and we still have friends coming to make sugar cookies on Thursday, so the count goes on.  

It snowed 3 feet on Christmas Day, and it was the worst storm anyone could remember. Not so much because of the amount of snow, but because the temperature was right at freezing. The snow was really wet and heavy and so trees were falling in the roads.

 This tree is having a little rest on our roof top. The roads were closed, the power was out, cell phones were down, and the ski resort ran two lifts on generators. 

I made everyone hit the slopes because I have skied in worse, but mostly we spent the day snug in our lodge.  

The kids played cards in the basement by candlelight. This is the next day when the power was back on. 

It's harder than you might think to make a cheerful snowman. Ours in Texas always looked like thugs. 

Winston wore the same clothes for nearly the whole trip, because his suitcase was full of books. To my brother Austin, Winston loves "The call of the wild." We are on the train and Winston's Kindle is out of power. 

We spent the night in Milan, and the Hilton had two rooms set up for us, but they put the two bathrobes in the kids' room. His Highness was quite pleased with himself.  We could not convince him that he should wait till AFTER he bathed to put on the clean bathrobe. 

4 Days of Christmas: Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!  As the priest said in Italian, Jesus is real and answers when we call :-) The highlight of the day was Santa before he was dismembered. This is a chocolate covered panettoni cake, with Santa made of fondant. 

There was a hot debate about his cat/dog/bear. We spent the day with my university friend Elise and her four boys. 

I'm on the chair lift, trying not to drop my camera.  

The beatiful church in Carezza had mass in German and Italian and hot wine and a brass quintet afterwards.   

Our cozy  apartment is one of these with red shutters.  Troy posted ski pictures on Facebook. Wyatt said that a week of snowboarding was the best present. 

5 Days of Christmas: I don't Really Hate Spain

Sorry about all the posts at once. I'm not counting on having Internet in Italy. I am sorry also that I given the impression that I'm so unhappy. Two wonderful ladies' groups have welcomed me, and I love the day-to-day life here.  I love the time in the car with Troy for the commute and the time I spend every day while the boys read to me in Spanish.

We sang carols this week at Bible Study. Sylwia is our host every week. She's from Poland. She's holding a children's Christmas songbook that has a little keyboard.  These three Polish ladies sang a Polish Christmas song, with a flawless accompaniment. The pianist heard it one time and could play it !!!

These are my dear dear friends Jacqui, Hilda, and Mary.

And the Columbian ladies sang come Jesus come, come come come come come.  The South Africans (Hilda is one) did the galoshes dance, so called because they stomp and slap their fringed booties.  Gotta get me some of those! 

Tristan and Wyatt have a youth group Christmas party tonight. This will be their first because they weren't old enough before. Merry Christmas! 

6 Days of Christmas: Three Kings

The school put on Three Kings Parade.  

I asked the librarian about the costumes. The red dresses are shepherdesses. 

The boy in the cap is one of the boys' friends who lived in California.  I found out that the child I was worried about in the post about Pure Motives is sick with fever and throwing up, not something spiritually and emotionally worse. 

I don't think there's a single black person at the school, so I was puzzled to see this guy go in wearing street clothes.... I don't know what to write. I feel like I'm drowning all the magic with the details. 

I do wish I had a picture of Wyatt's friend who was shocked when I said we had never seen a Three Kings parade before. 

7 Days of Christmas: good deed of the day

This picture shows me barefoot in the 40° rain and wrapped in an Omani tablecloth. 

A delivery person wanted to deliver four cases of wine next door.  But the neighbor wasn't there. My buzzer rang while I was in the basement doing my workout.  I would have ignored it but I thought maybe the repairman was here to repair the broken glass on my oven. 

Here's the four cases of wine. Our South American neighbors must be planning to have one of their noisy parties, so I'm glad we are going to miss it. Winston is counting the hours till we leave for Italy. 

8 Days of Christmas: Christmas Party

At the embassy, picking up a boring order of Kleenex from Amazon. 

Then we went next-door to the ambassador's house. There were hordes of little kids, and all the kids our age are girls. The boys are still talking about the party in Oman at the ambassador's house. This one wasn't nearly as much fun without friends. 

We got home to a house full of smoke. Our House is a duplex, so our chimney sucks down all the smoke from the neighbor's fire. I've been meaning to get firewood, but have not got around to it.  Our own fire would have created the necessary updraft. 

So this is a toaster in the fireplace. We have a crazy toaster that doesn't shut itself off. The idea is that you put baguette on it sliced sideways. 

     Thanks, Mom, for putting up with all those smoky fires in your fireplace, so that I could learn all about updrafts.  It cleared the room like magic. 

9 Days of Christmas: Gifts :-(

     Yes, that really is a frownie face because gifts that you pay money for and hand over to someone are an extreme sore spot for me.  I envy people who do it with such ease and grace.

      Five years ago, a wise foreign service wife gave all of us 20 or so newbies at the bus stop in Falls Church some good advice.  Always remember the bus driver at Christmas.  (Or Ramadan, or whatever.)  These are the people looking out for your kids.  I DO follow that advice, but I feel like the stars have to align for it to actually happen.  In Oman, the boys made bags of jelly beans and I think I gave them money.  This year, my Spanish teacher explained the Christmas Lottery, and our school was selling the tickets, so I bought some.  The whole school has the same number, so if one person wins, everyone wins.  The prizes are not that big and there are lots of little prizes.  

     My Spanish teacher made it sound very appealing.  The drawing is on the 22nd of December and it goes on for hours.  They have kids singing out the numbers as they draw them out.  In her childhood memories, the lottery was the start of the Christmas season.  The singing was on in the background and that was the day that they decorated the house.  Here the season runs from the 22nd through Three Kings Day (Epiphany, technically) on January 6th.  

40 cents go to the parents association.  1.6 Euros goes to the lottery.

The advertising for the lottery is pretty aggressive.  Click on this link to see the announcement, which is generating lots of parodies.  Every American will recognize the tune.  Send me a comment when you figure it out!  

     I was in fits yesterday about these little gifts!  First I have to have a card to put it in.  The ones I bought at the Chino (overpriced dollar stores manned by Chinese people) had literal footprints inside, as if they had been dropped and stepped on.  I did a yoga exhale and used it anyway.  Then I have to have some cookies to go with it, so I had the cookie exchange, which I wanted to do anyway.  It was lovely, but I found out some things about the hazing at school that broke my heart, so that made the rest of the day like pushing through molasses.  Nothing too bad, but your heart aches for the kids who are suffering.  Please pray, for my kids and for Joaquín who is also new this year.  Back to gifts, I then have to make do with some random bag, because the bus monitor can't just put a plate of cookies on her desk like the guard can, and the three guards are not there at the same time, and what are their names after all?  How on earth am I going to pull this off?

     I did, and they were all happy and grateful, of course.

     Here's the kind of gift I like.  Wyatt already ate his kale, and on his own, voluntarily, he piled up his bread with more of it.  Kids who like vegetables are a wonderful gift.

     What do you think?  Do you really LIKE giving gifts?

10 Days of Christmas

I set off for the cancer society on foot because our car was still in the shop. I had to stop and stare at this, which really is what it looks like: The shadow of a dog that was sitting on a rooftop patio with the sun behind it.  

I have been taking lots of boring pictures of fall trees. Troy said dismissively that the color palette is not interesting enough here, as compared to, say, Vermont. After I took this picture, the couple behind the tree stopped for him to take a picture of her. 

Winston kicks through the leaves. The color palette really is dull. 

I'm hosting a cookie exchange tomorrow and the boys volunteered to help.  Winston volunteered with such bright eyes and rosy cheeks that I could not say no, though I should have. 

Because I lost it about the time Tristan drank the orange juice for the frosting. The cancer society was a busy, energetic place, with lots of visitors coming and going. That's the good news. The bad news is that I can't volunteer until I've had the introduction course, and the next one isn't until April. 

11 Days of Christmas: Orange pomanders

When you poke an orange full of cloves, it's called an orange Pommander. 

Tristan did not like this design because it's the emblem for his school.  Obviously,  it was someone else's emblem before that :-)

Oranges sell  for five dollars for 6 pounds. So now I have 6 pounds of acidy oranges. 

Soon I will have 6 pounds of Christmas-smelling gifts. First I will give one to the guards for their little shack. 

Mmmm,  smells nice!

12 Days of Christmas: Red Berry Bush

 I´m planning to post Christmas activities from now until we leave for our ski trip to Italy. For Day 1 I have this red berry bush called the madroño.  The shield of Madrid has a bear and the berry bush, though there aren't any bears anymore. The fruit ripens up just in time for Christmas, though my Spanish teacher tells me they are only good for marmalade and liquor.

Here's one of my little bears.

The boys pick them at school and then the other kids raid their stashes.  The mean things the kids do make me sad, but my kids are laughing about it, so I guess that's best.  My heart breaks for the kids are terrorized by that sort of thing.  For example, one friend hid berries in his hat, and an enemy squashed it on his head.  The enemies also pee on the stashes.  Now that's just juvenile, but very Spanish.  Three times has someone whipped it out in my near proximity.  Not like flashing, I should say, just doing their business, in public, in front of me.  Ugh.  My kids seem to have the sense to know that it's better to be the one looking and finding than the one teasing and spoiling.

Here's a close up.  They really are pretty with orange and red and yellow all together.  They taste a little like apricots but squishy with little chalky grains throughout.  I have a box that Wyatt insisted on picking.  I guess I should turn them into jam before they spoil, but I don't like them enough to be motivated.

Intense 4 of 9: When Love Turns to Hate

Knowing God gives meaning and purpose to intense situations.

2 Samuel 13: 15-22 (crosswalk.com)




15 Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, "Get up and get out!" 16 "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me." But he refused to listen to her. 17 He called his personal servant and said, "Get this woman out of here and bolt the door after her." 18 So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. She was wearing a richly ornamented robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore. 19 Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went. 20 Her brother Absalom said to her, "Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother. Don't take this thing to heart." And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom's house, a desolate woman. 21 When King David heard all this, he was furious. 22 Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.

     Poor Tamar!  After the first humiliation of being raped and the second of being thrown out, she suffered a third.  Whatever justice she might have received was subverted by her own family.  David, though he was very angry, did nothing because Absalom made light of the situation and smoothed the whole thing over while he planned his own revenge.  With all of these insults and injuries, if anyone had grounds for hatred, it was Tamar.

     Instead, we read about that all important moment in verse 15 when love turned to hatred for Amnon.  I'm sure you can pinpoint a moment like that in your own life.  For Amnon it was the moment when he realized that she planned to stay.  Maybe she even caressed him as they lay together, as unsavory as that is to imagine.  Reality shifted for him in that moment and rather than accept his responsibility to marry her, he threw her out.  The moment not rational and does not need any grounds.  We are made in God´s image to love good and hate evil.  When righteous anger clashes with our sin nature, you never know what will happen.  For Amnon, his righteous indignation was all for himself.  "I'm the king's firstborn!  How dare she tell me what to do."

     For me, a moment of realization came during a leisurely afternoon knitting by the playground when a friend who does not knit gave me a long lecture about how to knit for charity.  Two years of friendship took on a different light in that moment when I realized that she didn't like or respect me and never had.  I had to accept with profound humiliation that the hints and jokes and barbed comments had been there all along.  It is like falling down the stairs.  You lie there stunned while everything fits back into place, but differently.  You can't get up until you figure out which way is up.  How you get up depends on your character and how well you know God.

     Tamar, incredibly, was still willing to love, and one can hope that her pure and lovely character survived her shame and sorrow.  Amnon was already hardened to the point of selfish indifference, so an angry outburst was almost inevitable.  What meaning and purpose was there for me?  I definitely was bitter, angry, self-pitying and just plain old sad for a long time, but things were better on every level afterwards:  better for her, for me and for the body of Christ.  I was less of a burden to her.  I was reminded that I will not die of embarrassment when I misjudge people.  Paradoxically, we had more unity going forwards.  God is glorified even in such a small private matter.  I could go on and on (and probably will in later chapters) about this incident and what it taught me.  I had unrealistic expectations from other Christian women in expatriate situations.  I'm enraged when someone suggests I'm not living up to my potential.  Jesus calls us to be gracious even when we are crushed beyond what we think we can bear.  But my goal is to glorify God, not get caught up in MY growth and MY journey.  Little moments of love and hate happen every day.  When that Spanish mom that you like blows you off and like turns to dislike, recognize it for what it is: an opportunity to know God and live out His grace.

Why we BOT the printer-bot

As I mentioned before, the missing wheel on the dishwasher causes it to derail every night.  There is always a crash of dishes, and frequent howls of frustration from the boys.

Troy offered a reward of 100 points to design and make a new wheel.

Tristan is rattling off fluent design-speak while I nod and say uh-uh.  Troy already designed the wheel and now Tristan is finishing up the axle.

It takes 10 minutes or so to print. The print head melts a plastic thread and then lays down layer upon layer of crosshatched threads.  It chirps and whirs like R2-D2.

The third attempt at the axle was the one that worked.  Now the basket glides in as smooth as silk.

Tristan is so happy and excited with his success.  If he isn't telling us that he's so happy he could explode, he's sitting and sighing beatifically. (I got that word from Little Women about a surpassingly happy child.)

Intense 3 of 9: Taking NO for an answer

God gave Amnon five more chances to turn back from his bad decision.

7 Then David sent to the house for Tamar, saying, "Go now to your brother Amnon's house, and prepare food for him." 8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, and he was lying down. And she took dough, kneaded it, made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes. 9 She took the pan and dished them out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, "Have everyone go out from me." So everyone went out from him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, "Bring the food into the bedroom, that I may eat from your hand." So Tamar took the cakes which she had made and brought them into the bedroom to her brother Amnon. 11 When she brought them to him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, "Come, lie with me, my sister." 12 But she answered him, "No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel ; do not do this disgraceful thing ! 13 "As for me, where could I get rid of my reproach ? And as for you, you will be like one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you." 14 However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her.

     The obvious question is, "Why did everyone go along with this plan, from David to Tamar to the servants?" And secondly, "Who in their right mind would NOT want to marry Tamar?  She is a royal princess, she is modest and obedient, she is well-educated and beautiful, and she can cook!"
     Before you waste any time pondering those questions, I hasten to add that "why" is not a very useful way to study the Bible.  My opinion might be that David educated his family, which from this passage it is obvious that he did, and then allowed them freedom.  You might counter that he was a very lax parent whose favoritism was the ruin of the country.  So then off we go down a rabbit hole about David and education and parenting.  Instead, you should start with what the passage actually says.
     So what is the content?
     7-11:  Amnon's plan advances.
     12-13:   Tamar objects on four grounds and gives an alternative.
     14:  He refuses to listen and rapes her.

     Now comes the interpretation.  My starting point is the theme that has been bothering me about how to handle my own intense feelings.  Five more times God appealed to Amnon, to remind him of what he knew in verse 1.  Amnon asked, she said no.  She reminded him of the devastating cost to her.  She appealed to his patriotism because Israel was a land set apart. She warned him that he would become "one of the fools of Israel."  She knew what an idolatrous, bawdy lot the Israelites still were.  Her fifth appeal was for him to do it in the right and honorable way.  God gave him a way out. (1 Cor 10:13) But sin separates us from God so that we hear the words but don't listen. (Isaiah 32:3)
     God's way out usually involves waiting and taking 'no' for an answer.

       As an expat who studied Spanish for five intensive months, I expected to be flitting form one group of church moms to the next group of school moms using my hard-earned Spanish.  I do flit about, but it is 90% in English.  My disappointment may not seem like a serious matter, but failing to integrate can make you doubt God's purpose in having you move every two years.  Honestly, I resent those moms who only want my kids around to help their kids learn English.  But, I can't give in to bitterness.  I have to take 'no' for an answer from the Spanish moms, and at the same time, I have to keep studying Spanish.  What about you?  In what decision is God warning you to wait and take 'no' for an answer?  Ask God to show you if sin, like bitterness, is getting in the way.

     I should add that the 10% of time with Spaniards is wonderful and there are really nice people here.  And of course the 90% are the ones who might be reading this.  You all are my joy and crown.

What we did for Thanksgiving

Troy has been eying the three-D printers for a long time and finally bought one.  I am very excited about this because one of the eight wheels on the bottom rack of the dishwasher is missing.  Every night there is the crash of dishes as it derails and the cries of Wyatt in frustration.  

Tristan is designing a blimp.  The first thing off the printer was a little chess guy with a sword, then a model airplane.  Troy is offering a prize to whomever can design and build a wheel that works.  The prize will be points towards video game time.  

It came in a box the size of a 5-pound bag of sugar and weighed even more than that. 

Putting it together took three days, including freezing the rods to shrink them that tiny fraction so they fit into their housings.  I thought it would use the little plastic pellets that are manufactured in my hometown of Odessa, but instead, it uses a spool of plastic thread.

Here's a bonus shot of Winston mashing the potatoes for Thanksgiving.  One guest was from Minnesota, but her husband is Spanish and they have lived here for 30 years.  She was so happy to have the childhood memories that the smell of turkey brought back.  Plus, she thought the kids were just too cute.  She didn't see anything ready when she got here, but then magically the table was set and the food was out.  She said I was relaxed and Tristan was helpful, offering, "Let me take that." I wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't said anything. 

I'm thankful!