Needs Met with Plarn

Necessity is the Mother of Invention, right?  Well, here is a humdinger for ya.  My mother and my crafting aunts will appreciate today's entry. 

Packing my family up to come to Belize was no easy task.  Everyone needed the necessities--clothes, shoes, toothbrushes.  We homeschool, so I needed to bring 2 suitcases of books and supplies.  We all got to have some pleasure items too.  The kids brought some stuffies to sleep with, board games, Gameboys, etc.  My pleasure items were my knitting needles, crochet hooks and some yarn.  I brought along a shrug to finish, and cotton yarn for a market bag and the ever dreaded WIP (work in progress) granny square afghan I started about 12 years ago.  I thought if I brought the dreaded squares it would force me to work on the afghan and that I might be bored enough to finally finish it without a Hobby Lobby or corner yarn store to buy new yarn for a new project.  I finished a crocheted hat on the flight down, the market bag is waiting for me to finish the handle. (I am short of yarn and may have to let out a couple of rows to be sure that I don't have a roomy bag with a stump of a handle.)  The afghan project is creeping up. 

Two of my three children, KR & C, have come down with some sort of respiratory virus.  I'd call it a common cold but KR had a fever associated with it for about 3 days.  I've been pumping liquids into them throughout the day, but washing the cups over and over again is more than a chore.  At home we have coasters that we each made out of fusion beads to put our empty cups on to use later and not confuse with each other's cups.  I wanted to do something like that here, especially wanting to keep the cups separate so as not to spread the cold any further.  Alas, there is no Hobby Lobby  (Someone really should look into this oversight.) to purchase fusion beads. 

My creative juices started flowing though.  I had a need.  I had two needs.  I needed to segregate drinking cups and I needed a new craft project!  So, I did what I normally do when trouble strikes.  I hit one of my favorite crochet pattern sites and looked up patterns for coasters.  I had brought some cotton thread and have been thinking it would be fun to try to figure out the doily-thingys that I spotted in women's clothing this summer.  Instead I'd sacrifice it to make doily coasters for the cups.  But, what I ran into on the site was coasters made of plarn.  What is plarn?  It is yarn made from plastic shopping bags!  I have lots of those!  I have to go shopping nearly everyday (since I have to walk to shop, I can only buy what I can carry back by hand--great exercise!) and the markets all have something in common--they all insist on using the plastic bags.  The underside of the sink in the kitchen is nearly overflowing with the black bags.  My next problem--I didn't know how to make plarn.  I love the internet.  I skipped over a few sites and found some simple instructions.

The bar in the kitchen is a great workspace.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon crocheting coasters.  B brought Pastor Gene home and he must've thought that I was looney sitting in the kitchen cutting plastic bags into strips, making chains and then crocheting them into coasters.  Hippies!  B thought it was fantastic.  That is one of the many reasons that I love him. 

Most of the bags are black.  I had to really scrounge for colors!

A special thank you to my mother who allowed me to be bored when I was younger.  I sure didn't appreciate it enough then, but I do now.  Without the boredom I wouldn't have been creative.  Without creativity I would be stuck in many frustrating situations now.  Needs have been met. 

(The kids are much better.  No fevers.  Getting sleep.  Drinking liquids.  Many trips to the store for Kleenex.  More bags!)

Houses

In response to a special request about our house and the church we are attending here, the kids and I be-bopped around a bit this morning snapping pictures.  We can play Mrs. Jen's neighborhood another day for some of the other sites around town.

Our house is located on the third and fourth floors of a 4-story building on Placencia Road above the Placencia Super Market.  The second floor consists of an apartment for the grocer, who owns the market across the street, and the Treaty Belize office, B's office.  Now, before you think that is totally bland, uncreative, and unoriginal, let me tell you that this town is totally the opposite and the diversity begins with just what I can observe from my windows and porch.

Yesterday I posted a picture from my porch of the sea.  Today, I'll post pictures of the house from 3 different angles, that include shots of the wrap around porch.

Front of house coming from North. 

This first photo is looking up from close to the building as you would see it driving into town.  The concrete part with the windows with panes on the far right is the grocer's apartment.  The solid paned glass windows belong to B's office.  His commute takes all of 5 seconds each day as it shares the stairwell with the house.  The grocer's apartment has stairs on the opposite side of the house.  The yellow, wood-sided house with blue trim is our house.  Only the third floor is visible in this shot.  The fourth floor is more of a loft area, containing 2 bedrooms and a half-bath.

South side of house taken from across the street.

This photo reveals the entry way to the Placencia Super Market on the front center with the awning and the grocer's apartment.  The grocer and his family do not own the Placencia Super Market, but the (I think) LU market across the street.  Either way, both owners are Chinese--as are most of the markets in town.  (I've found 6 so far and 5 are Chinese).  Bo owns the LU.  His wife seems to be Mestizo,which is the name for people of Mayan descent.  Their market has many comings and goings.  Going shopping in Placencia is a social event.  At any given time we can hear Chinese, Spanish, English and Kril (the Garifuna version of Creole) from our front windows.  (Garifuna is the name of the people who originate from the Carib and West Africa)  From this photo, you can also see part of our wrap around porch on the far right side.

Backside of the house

Here you can see how the porch covers the entire backside of the house.  You can also tell that the roof is tin, which makes for enjoying the almost nightly rainstorms all the more exciting.  From this shot you can also tell that some of the houses around us are more what we would consider lean-tos or shacks.  There are actually three houses other than ours in this shot.  Play, Where's Waldo and see if you can tell them apart.  Good luck. 

As I sit here, I can hear a heated discussion in Kril between the builders across the street.  I have no idea what they're saying except for the swear words that are clearly American English.  Thankfully the kids are in the back on the porch reading and cooling off after our morning excursion. 

Lighthouse Worship Center

We cannot seem to escape the Worship Center!  For those of you who don't know, our home church is The Worship Center of Hamilton County, or TWC for short.  Lighthouse is about a 1/2 mile walk North from our house.  They have Wednesday and Sunday evening services in English at 7pm.  There are Spanish services at other times of the week.  It is already dark on our walk to church, but it feels good since it is breezy and the cooler part of the day.  There is air-conditioning there too!  Can I hear an Amen?!?!  The church has about 80 members.  No kids matching the ages of ours from what I can tell.  Our first service they served communion.  That made us feel very welcomed indeed.  (Another reference for TWCers)  We brought down C's old electric drum set to donate.  B brought his guitar.  The pastor plays chords on his guitar and his wife leads a mixture of hymns and praise songs.  Hopefully I'll get to know them more soon. 

There are two other houses of worship in Placencia.  I took a couple of photos of one.  We will not be going there, but I snapped these shots to show you the diversity.

Now you know more about our houses.  Our family home and our new house of worship.  Did I mention that we have a spare room for guests? 

The Water is Fine

We finally have the internet up and running.  I feel connected once again.  There have been many, many, many things that I have wanted to blog about, but new ideas have popped up and taken their place and as with all things, life moves forward.  The first day we landed in Belize City, I took a picture of my passport.  This is my first trip out of the country.  I am pretty proud of that stamp.  I wish the picture was better.

The differences between home and Belize began immediately.  The airplane opened directly outside.  I felt as if Tattoo would be there to welcome me.  Instead, we were directed to go inside the open-air building and to stand in one of 4 lanes for non-residents.  (Only one line for residents)  A reggae band played on a stage right next to the baggage claim area.  Next we were shuffled past the duty-free stores (I only noticed alcohol and perfume stores) to customs.  The officers didn't like our 14 bags so we got to experience first hand the fun of having all of them being ruffled through.  They thought it odd that we brought 2 bags of books and wouldn't be selling them even though we explained that we homeschooled.  Eventually, we were only charged duty on an electric drum set that we did bring down to donate to the church we are attending. 

A shuttle van from the hotel picked us up.  The air conditioning felt good.  Belize City is one big circle and so driving through the streets is akin to being a rat in a maze.  I have no idea how we arrived at the hotel.  People here have the right away and vehicles drive around them.   There are no rules of the road other than not to hit pedestrians and bikers and they do not move out of the way.  Made me want to cover my eyes and cringe.  We are pedestrians here in Placencia and I am growing accustomed to not fearing the vehicles that drive so closely, but we look silly as this little line of ducklings along the road.

Many of you know that one of my greatest concerns about coming here was Montezuma's Revenge.  Who wants to deal with that, especially with 3 kids?  God has provided once again however, because Placencia has the best water in the entire country.  Fresh water from the mountains that we can see from our home on a clear day.  We can drink straight from the tap.  B still installed the water filter I'd insisted on having for my peace of mind, but I feel comfortable now about having ice in my drinks at the restaurants and brushing my teeth.  I boiled water the first day here for tea and orange drink, but it takes forever and a day to cool off enough to put in the fridge. 

An unexpected issue with water is that we only have hot water in two of the three bathrooms.  No hot water for the washing machine.  No hot water in the kitchen sink.  No hot water in the guest bathroom.  It is a luxury here to have hot water taps.  We called to have hot water installed in at least the kitchen and the washing machine.  Maybe we won't go "all out" and install it in the third bathroom.  (We are thought to be extremely extravagant to have air conditioning even though it is only in our bedrooms and one guest bedroom.  We are also going to have some put in the main living area.  Cooking over the stove has been horrible.)

Strapping on snorkel vests

The best water is at the beach.  We only need to walk about 3 houses back to get to the beach.  We set up camp behind Cozy Corner, a local hotel and restaurant.  After experimenting, we've found that going in the morning is the best.  In the afternoon the water is filled with all sorts of debris--anything from palm fronds that wrap around your legs to trash that floats up from Honduras.  Yesterday we saw a school of minnows and some bigger fish chasing after them for their morning meal.  H is discovering all sorts of shells and sea creatures.  He has collected a fully intact sea urchin "shell" and a small horseshoe crab shell.  He found a itty-bitty crab--that stayed at the beach. 

Loving our time here.  We are still getting acclimated and settling into the house.  Maybe we'll do more exploring later.  We'd love to have company down at the beach.  Come on in, the water is fine!

A Cat's Life for Me

Sigh-purr

Fozzie the Forlorn

We share our home with three kitties, Fozzie, Tigger and Shadow.  They have enjoyed playing in and around suitcases for the last few days.  They've pulled things out and dragged them around the house.  Cat napping is allowed in the suitcases.  But, now the cases are starting to get filled with other items besides kitties.  Departure is near.  I wish I could've curled up on the bed with Fozzie today, but other priorities called me away.  We ate lunch with some friends.  B & I finished upholstering some sound panels we are helping with at church this afternoon.  A shower was in order after that sweaty job and not a moment too soon because we were back at church this evening for a special worship program.  Next we supped with another set of friends.  Momma L came to lunch and supper with us too.  Late night again for our kiddos.  Boy...we are in need of a vacation in a tropical location or at the very least a long nap stretched out on a comfy bed while someone brushed my furr, I mean hair.  ;)

Ladies Night Out

     I love my church family, especially the women.  Last night we enjoyed what we call "Ladies Night Out".  LNO is our way of letting our hair down and just spending time with one another without having any real form or rigidness or expectations for the night or with each other.  It is not often we women allow ourselves this kind of time, so I think that this is precious for all of us.
   Last night we made body butter from coconut oil and coconut butter, which come in tubs like Criso, but they smell like chocolate!  Miss C brought some examples of butters she had already made and we sampled them.  We felt like Egyptian Princesses.  Miss C gave us the recipe and we melted the oil and the butter together and then added scents.  We had Bergamot Mint and Tangarine to choose from.  Some of us spent time looking up Bergamot on our phones to see what the benefits were and then decided it was not always a good idea to have more information.  :)  The kitchen smelled delicious!  If a the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, we may have found a short cut last night--that is if he enjoys sweets!      

      The sweet smells in the kitchen whet our appetite for some ice cream.  We all chipped in different toppings.  Forget having 31 flavors of ice cream, we had only vanilla, but the plethora of toppings made up for the small ice cream choice of "take it or leave it".  There was hot fudge, homemade peanut butter topping, strawberries, cinnamon chips, crushed sugar cones, nuts (almonds, walnuts and peanuts!), M&Ms, marshmallow topping, you name it, it was there!  Yummy!  We were like kids when it came time to try to choose what we wanted and instead chose many.  I saw some very interesting concoctions, including a very clever s'more!  I haven't eaten breakfast yet and I think that ice cream sounds good about right now. 

    Following our treats, we had a time of prayer.  We prayed over upcoming surgeries, schooling, aging parents, healthy spirits, for mended hearts, and prayer for me and my family and our upcoming trip to Belize.  I cannot express adequately what it means to me to have a body of women come and place their hands on me and pray over me and my family.   What words of encouragement, kindness and love!  Thank you. 
    I look forward to having more of these shared moments when we return from Belize.  Ladies, you will be deeply missed.  Please check in with the blog and Facebook with me!  What a blessed time of fellowship!  Sweet smelling body butter, ice cream and sweet time of prayer.  Sweet Ladies!

Traveling Home

Hubby has been home for two and a half days now, but his dopp kit remains on the bathroom counter.  I teased him that he had been traveling so much lately that the packed dopp kit on the counter made it seem as if home was the stop over and and the places away from home were where to unpack and settle.  So many deep thoughts and reflections and directions my mind had with that simple sight this morning.

Of course the first thought involved Belize, from where he just returned from a 10 day visit.  He was there to meet with many of the contacts with the new position he has taken, to get paperwork started, to familiarize himself with the situation, to see the house and make preparations for all of us to go back soon.  How dizzy we've all become with the comings and goings of our lives in the last three years.  In that time I have purchased a house and sold the same, moved, changed profession (paralegal/office manager to homeschooling mom).  B lost his first wife to cancer, lost his father, was downsized from his job of 22 years.  Two of the children lost a mom, one moved from a school and lost friends and changed to homeschooling, and all three were cross adopted.  We got married, all had recently changed churches, lost and gained friends.  We have done a lot of traveling in the last three years--part of that pulling a pop-up camper with a mini-van for a  6-week adventure around the United States and Canada.  As anyone can see, our travels have not been limited to the physical, but have also been emotional, spiritual, and mental.  

Sometimes only in retrospect can we see the Hand of God weaving all of the details together--and what a Master He is!  B and I share a new favorite song by Lora Story, called Blessings.  It brings a tear to our eyes every time we hear it, but we see what He has given us as blessings.  No matter where He is taking us; no matter from where He's brought us, we are thankful that we are traveling and that this place that we call home, is nothing like the Home that we'll have with Him in Heaven for an eternity.  We are deeply grateful and appreciative of even these trials that we have faced here on Earth because they also bring great blessing.  We are all just travelers here, the question is, "What is your final destination?" 

Summer Nights

Do you remember the summer nights of your youth?  Staying up late.  Capturing lightning bugs.  Being called in by mother hollering out the backdoor and hearing the other mothers doing the same for their children all over the neighborhood.  Hearing the tree frogs, locusts, and crickets through the open windows while laying in bed after scrubbing off a day's worth of dirt from your bare feet.  Smelling the heaviness of the evening air.  Watching heat lightning.  Dreaming of all the new places to explore, forts to build, friends to meet back up with the next day to start all over again.  Last night I captured one of those moments through the eyes of the boys. 

Watch 'em wriggle!

As a treat I took them to purchase some heavily discounted fireworks to set off over the lake and in the driveway before bed.  For all of you who are now cringing and questioning my sanity, we did have plenty of discussions about fire safety, proper uses for the lighters, horror stories of children who misuse fireworks and lighters and the seriousness and great privilege of being able to do what they were doing.  Don't we all remember being given privileges and how that made us feel grown up and actually caused us to grow up at the same time?  Anyway, they had reached their fireworks quota for the night--they were spacing them out to have a few every night.  I started picking off bag worms from the hedges out front.  The boys decided to burn them with the lighters.  Boys.  They liked watching them wriggle.  H even stacked a firecracker on top of them and lit it to see what would happen.  I kept thinking that this was homeschooling at its finest.  Experimenting.  Hands on.  Forming a hypothesis and testing it.  Biology too.  I know that these will be nights that they remember.  I hope that they have the blessing of watching their children soak up the feelings of summer nights and have fond memories.