Goals Post – Forward to 2010!

Perhaps this post should be titled “Living in Dreamland.” It’s unquestionably the most ambitious list of goals I’ve ever set out at the beginning of the year, and I’ve not ever completed my shorter lists, but my philosophy of goals remains that having a higher target means I hit more, even if I don’t complete them all. The most important factor for me is to remain realistic in that I remember it IS an overly ambitious list, and that anything I do accomplish is a victory; it’s not a defeat to not do all of it. These are goals to help me stay on track, not requirements that identify whether I’m a worthwhile person!

That said, here are my goals for 2010:

My online miniatures group is doing a goals based project, and we were asked to spell out five mini goals, so I will start with those:

1. Finish the interior and/or exterior of Friendship Cabin, a Real Good Toys Adirondack Cabin that we started several years ago, but which has languished untouched since sometime before the beginning of 2009. Here’s the album where I chronicled our first days working on the project.
2. Finish my Gail Wilson Hitty, which was started with enthusiasm during the online class, worked on for three nights, and now has the rest of the girls giving me “the look” for not getting their sister done. I have a little glitch in the painting, and since this is a challenging project for me anyway, the moment I encountered a problem, I put her away for a time when I could really feel relaxed. ‘Nuff said? :S
3. Finish my Teresa Layman Cottage By the Sea project – actually barely started, and a massive project for someone who really doesn’t like embroidery or French knots. This will be a rug for Friendship Cabin.
4. Finish my Boat Sampler – stitched on silk gauze – lots to go on it, but most of the hardest part is completed. Like the Layman project, I started this on our last cruise. Unlike the Layman project, I loved working on this one, so I did quite a bit more of it. Also belongs in Friendship Cabin, and perhaps will be finished on another cruise…
5. Knit something tiny – size 4/0 needles or smaller – probably something for my future miniature yarn shop

Fiber Goals:

1. See #5 in the miniatures
2. Publish at least 4 knitting patterns – should actually be more than this, as I have 3 projects that just need the paperwork part of this goal in order to be ready. The paperwork is the hard part of course… I’m knitting my next shawl design right now, and I’ve promised another KAL for the spring, so I’m going to be busy with this!
3. Finish my spinning wheel – I can’t believe this sat untouched for an entire year. Where on earth did the time go??? The staining is about half done, but it’s an involved project. Once that’s done, I need to finish and assemble it.
4. Learn to use said wheel
5. Knit a project from wool I’ve cleaned and spun, using a pattern I’ve designed – I have a bit of a jumpstart on this, as I’ve cleaned a goodly pile and picked some of it already.
6. Stash all my yarn on Ravelry – yes, maybe I’ll get it completed this year… – Starting with 550
7. Get competent purling continental. I think I need to have a dedicated project for this… maybe a washcloth.
8. Make another 2 pairs of socks for myself (maybe I’ll get the next done before I wear holes in what I have?) This was one pair until a friend twisted my arm and said I should try for two – and one pair has to be top down, to boot! Bad thing here is that I also promised a pair to my daughter, so this means three pair this year, when I’ve never done more than one. Gulp!
9. Finish at least 3 of the projects currently languishing in my WIP/UFO tubs – items started before July 1, 2009. This one will also be a challenge. I love the stuff in my UFO tub, even though it’s all pretty good at inducing guilt. I’ve found that designing really slows down the knitting, though, especially on other people’s patterns!

Other Creative Goals:

1. Finish at least one of the remodeling projects… sigh… Acceptable candidates are the kitchen (which is in the impossible dream category), painting the door to my future studio (easy), or finishing the nook, laundry room, or my sewing room. Nook and laundry room both depend on hubby – most especially the nook – though I have a load of work to do in those two areas, too.
2. Organize my computer photos, then print and label as I think necessary. I’m rereading this and laughing at the thought of actually getting it done, but…
3. Spend at least a few minutes every week making music – LOVE doing this, but I’ve really ignored this part of my life for the last few years. Looking for a flute – like I need more instruments around here?
4. Learn my new camera – for starters, needing to know why I can’t take a decent close up with a camera that cost this much!
5. Make up a Gail Wilson kit – see mini goal #2
6. Finish Reba – poor thing! Her sisters were finished in 2006 (pix in this album) but my teacher suddenly stopped classes with Reba just one firing away from being done. Every attempt I’ve made to get her fired since then has ended in failure. Need to get a kiln up and going here so I don’t have to depend on anyone else.
7. Make a pair of socks on my CSM – This could be anything from amazingly easy to a terrible headache, based on things I’ve heard. First task is getting the new needles and such that I need.
8. Probably crazy, but I joined a Navajo style weaving Yahoo group, and now I have the bug to weave something, even if it’s small. I’m torn between tri-loom and Navajo style, but would adore trying both. One item is enough to qualify.
9. Move one of my dolls from hospital patient status to display status – maybe Aaron, so he can show off his adorable knitted romper? He is on this page.

Personal Goals – and these tend to have a very familiar ring to them:

1. End the year 25 pounds lighter than I started it. Why is this so hard?!
2. Read 100 books
3. End the year debt free – both money and promises made
4. Go somewhere new – state or country. I have a life goal of visiting all 50 states and all 7 continents, and I need to keep at it if I’m going to succeed!
5. Clean out one of my email accounts – frighteningly big project, but I’ve made a lot of progress already in the first two days of the year. It’s amazing how quickly this can fall behind again, though.
6. I have a challenge with a friend to blog at least once each week
7. Solidly memorize the scripture verses on my calendar
8. Get the treadmill inside – Sounds like no big deal, but it’s going to need cleaned up, and the area where it belongs is packed solid with things that don’t belong where they are – which aren’t where they belong because their spots are filled with stuff that doesn’t belong where it is, which… well… you get the idea!

Running Away From Home

(As always, please excuse these stupid out of focus pictures. I’ve still not managed to get my camera problems resolved – too much going on! Also, at least as of this moment, I’m finding the photos to be showing up somewhat sporadically. If you see a big blank spot with the word “Atlanta” and a number, it means a picture is supposed to be there. Try clicking on the title of this post. For some reason, I’m seeing different photos when I do that.)

So, last week, on rather short notice, I ran away from home. A friend wrote in the middle of June, asking if I’d like to go to Atlanta for the UFDC Convention. I had next to no money, but I couldn’t resist the draw of some time away from home, so as crazy as the idea was, I said yes. I knew I could scratch together enough for my flight and my share of the room (which wasn’t inexpensive!), but past that, I would have to depend on peanut butter crackers, potential birthday money, and whatever sales I could stimulate in the few weeks before the trip. Happily, I came up with enough that I could eat one cheap meal out each day and have something to spend in the sales rooms, and a last minute addition of another roommate made it even a bit better. Still, I have to say that it was really tough being in such a fantastic sea of awesome dolls and accessories with so very little money, and there were a couple of wonderful dolls I lost out on because they were just a little beyond what I had in my pocket. But I didn’t come home empty handed -  and now that it’s a week after the event, I don’t even mind having eaten so much peanut butter.

Hotels that look like this inside don’t come with cheap rooms…

View out our window – see the capitol building?

Martine and Hitty Darlene went along with me, so they did a bit of looking around for treasures. Hitty D. found little in her price range that she liked, but she was quite pleased with the pretzel, which reminded her very much of the huge German pretzels one can purchase at Englischer Gartens in Munich.

She really wished she had money to purchase the great bobbin lace pillow, but it was definitely out of her price range,

and the horse was fun to ride, but she couldn’t imagine paying $200 for it!

Martine, with some judicious bargaining and her sweet smile, brought home all sorts of goodies for her brothers and sisters, and a pair of Joyce Nicholsen’s espadrilles for herself. The little doll in the trunk is one of Alison Harwood’s fantastic creations. Jean-Paul apparently already ran off with his little wooden floor puzzle. Martine has promised to teach Gayelle to knit with the dress kit she bought for her. The purse is “so Malloree” that I chipped in a little bit of my money when Martine found herself a bit short at the end of the day.

We also picked out a few pieces of fabric.

And I bought a little something for my sewing room…

I really had a strong desire to bring home a new doll this year, but on my budget, the only things I was finding I could afford were the mundane – which I really don’t need. I’m definitely sufficiently stocked with those. If money were no object (That will be the day!), this is the one doll I’d have had to have owned. She wasn’t the most expensive doll there by a long shot, but she’s the one who stole my heart most completely.

This beautiful Kestner pink tint, covered wagon, china I thought was going to be mine. She wasn’t priced too badly, but still out of my range, but since it was the end of the last day of the show when I found her, I took the info and intended to contact the seller in a few weeks. However, I went back a half hour later and she was gone – sold. I embarrassed myself by crying. I’d so wanted her! However, she was $25 more than every penny I’d brought along, so…

I did find someone to come home with me, though, and she’s a pretty little gal who is unlike anyone else I have, so a nice addition to the family. And I could actually afford to adopt her, which was a big plus. She’s an ABG Dolly Madison china doll, from the early 1870’s, about 25″ tall. Clothes are not original, nor do they come remotely close to fitting her. In fact, they are so small that it’s going to be a trick getting the dress off of her. Her seller was a bit of a sourpuss, too, so she was more than happy to come home with me. I’m looking forward to having some time to dress her more appropriately, and I’m hoping I happen to have at least some underthings to fit her – though I’m not holding my breath on that count.

On Friday, we went to the Atlanta History Center. We saw some wonderful stuff there, but sadly weren’t allowed to bring any of it home in pictures, making it hard to retain what we saw and learned during our visit. These are two of the period homes which we toured – the Swan House and the Tulley Smith Plantation, two totally different types of homes, and each utterly charming in its own way.

And our trip through town netted me one of my favorite styles of city pix.

And in addition to the touring and shopping, there was all sorts of great fun, meeting a number of people I’d only known online until now, room parties, aching feet, and the pride of conquering the public transit system in Atlanta… All in all a very nice week!

Travel Logged…

Noodling about on Ravelry, looking for a finished project a Yahoo group member shared, I stumbled upon the coolest thing! She had a map of the world marked with the countries she’d visited. I’ve kept a color-it-in chart of the states to which I’ve traveled for many years, but to find an online log – wow! I wrote to her instantly to find out where I could get my own, and not only do they offer a world map, but also a U.S. map, and even better, there is a count and percentage visited. My maps are now happily filled in and residing on a page link in my side bar – or just click here: Travel Logged. Happiness is!

Now for my next trick, I still need to figure out how I’m going to color in a new state or country before the end of the year…

Looking Forward; Looking Back

I think I’m officially the last person in the entire blogging world to do this, but it’s been percolating so long that I can’t quite bring myself to not do it. Besides, I feel like I need to, if only for myself, so here goes – my New Year’s Day post!

I never was real keen on making New Year’s resolutions, as it just seems like the perfect way to start off the year with a resounding dose of failure. Sometime around the end of January you eat that piece of turtle cheesecake, miss 3 consecutive days of exercising, or realize you are already a week behind in your read the Bible in a year program, and you promptly brand yourself a loser, throw hopeless hands up into the air, and say, “Maybe next year…” I just don’t need that sort of thing in my life. I’ve fought hard to get where I am emotionally, so I have no intent to shoot myself in the foot by setting myself up to 334 days of each year thinking uncharitably about myself. However, like most of the people I know, I do feel that fresh start excitement that comes with the scent of a January calendar page, and a couple years back, I came up with an idea that is working much better for me – New Year’s Goals.

New Year’s Goals have very few rules, though last year they did need a few more than they had. They have to actually be possible. I’m not allowed to beat myself up if I don’t accomplish them. They have to be well defined. Two of those three rules were added this year. Having goals instead of resolutions gives me an entire year to succeed, and they help focus my ecclectic brain on a little bit narrower range of possibilities. Another benefit is that it sets some things before me that I have heard myself say, “I always wanted to” so many times I’m sick of hearing it, but without a steady reminder, I find drifting out of my mind when I have the time.

Last year’s goals were not too many:

• Knit a Pair of Socks – This one was accomplished with my Coriolis Socks, which I absolutely adore!
• Master Lace Knitting – This goal would show you just how little I knew about lace knitting December a year ago. It’s also totally undefinable in reality. Just how does one know they’ve “mastered” lace knitting? Should have been “Become Very Comfortable Knitting Lace.” That I definitely accomplished.
• Go Somewhere New – I didn’t think I was going to get this, but when I ended up with a nearly last minute trip to Honduras, which included a side trip through Guatemala into Belize, I found I’d accomplished it well beyond my original dream.
• Read 100 Books – Somewhere around June, I added this, which has now been classed as an illegal move on New Year’s Goals. I didn’t succeed, but I might well have made it had I not read th e entire Outlander series. Books with 48 CD’s take a good bit longer to read than your run of the mill 6-10 CD offering.
• Make a Gail Wilson Kit – Considering the collection I have of the kits, I thought it was time to put my money where my mouth is – or my hands where my money is, or some such thing. Thinking is as far as I got with this one. Oops!
• Finish the Laundry Room Remodeling – Well… Perhaps this would have happened if my dear daughter hadn’t offered to help get the sewing room started, then hubby hadn’t suddenly revived his nook project and added allowing me a studio door. I was spread too thin with those four projects to complete even one of them, though I don’t regret the progress that was made on all.
• Be out of Debt by the End of the Year – Total flop. ‘Nough said?

My list for 2009 is much longer and definitely more ambitious, but I’m doing some things differently, and I’m feeling quite positive about a lot of them. The biggest change is that this year, I’m not settling back in January and thinking that I have a whole year to do this stuff after all, so why rush? There have been a fair number of serendipitous occurrences to help me move in the right direction, too, so I’m off to a great start! I don’t really think I’ll be able to get them all done, but I’d sure like to surprise myself, and I’m not going to aim low!

• Be Debt Free by the End of the Year – I hate having to have this goal. This also includes non-financial IOU’s. I’m going to have to have a miracle to pull this one off. I need to sell an awful lot of books if this is going to happen – and my knitting pattern needs to be a smashing success! I also have several projects, including a quilt to finish for this.
• Get My Email Under Control – This is another one in the miracle category, but who knows?
• Make a Gail Wilson Kit – Sound familiar? Serendipity is that Gail is currently running a Hitty class, I have the kit, and the fee wasn’t very high. I’m far behind the front runners, but I HAVE actually started my girl.
• Finish Reba – The most attainable of the miracle class of goals. There is little to do for her to be complete, but it involves a kiln, learning to fire bisque, renewing my acquaintance with bisque painting, and getting up the nerve to put my beautiful, nearly done head in for a last firing.
• Complete Sewing Room – Mid-range in terms of difficulty. I’ve done an awful lot in there, but I still have oodles of sorting and organizing, along with quite a bit of trim painting to do – like the bookcase and two casement windows. This isn’t a gimme!
• Complete Laundry Room – Another mid-range sort of project. As much as is done in there, the floor tile is a bothersome, time consuming project, and I have some trim painting to do. Really challenging would be that I have to stop knitting long enough to crochet the curtains!
• Lose 25 Pounds – This is going to be easier than I thought. I’m already half the way there!
• Learn to Do Entrelac and Knit Backwards – I’m really looking forward to this one. I have the pattern and yarn to do Autumn, and a week or so back, I finally found a tutorial that made knitting backwards suddenly easy. I’m still slightly awkward at it, but a little bit of practice and it’s going to be second nature. Biggest challenge here is just to actually break away from the temptation of so many interesting KAL’s and do this piece.
• Go Somewhere New – Looking very challenging at this point in time. I had two cruises planned for this year, both to new places,  both depending on other people, and both fell through already. So much for this goal being a gimme. All the states within decent driving distance I already have, and I don’t currently have any good set up for a low cost visit in a new state or country – and there ’s that “out of debt” business… Stay tuned!
• Become Comfortable Spinning – Easy? Well… First I have to finish building my wheel. Then all that remains is finding time!
• Read 100 Books – I’m really cooking on this one already! I think I just listed book 15 – or was it 16?
• Knit Another Pair of Socks - This is more desperation than goal. I adore my socks and I hate it when I have to take them off to wash them! I need more hand knit socks!!! This is a “just do it!” sort of project, and I’m sort of hoping that the SHP KAL is enough to jumpstart the process.
• Stash All My Downstairs Yarn on Ravelry – This would be much easier if the stash would quit multiplying! That said, I’ve already been working hard on this. I’m currently at 244 in my regular stash, so ignoring minor fluctuations due to usage, it will be interesting to see where I am on Dec. 31.
• Do a “Difficult” Lace Pattern – Challenge here is just focusing on doing it – ignoring some of the other rabbits dashing across my path constantly. It’s tough to do that with something like 7 shawls on my  needles and two KAL’s imminent…
• Do Something/Anything with my CSM – I’m not even aiming so high as a pair of socks at this point. I just want to sit down with someone and find out for sure my machine actually works! Socks would be a nice side benefit to the process, though. ;o) A circular sock machine is too valuable to just hold down the floor, in my opinion, and that’s all my lazy contraption has done for about 3 years now.

Now that I type this all out, I’m thinking it’s a very good thing I have a solid start on so much of it. This is quite a list!!! I think I’m going to make a separate page listing the goals in the sidebar here on the blog, then update as things happen…

And How is my Knitting Progressing?

So, I’ve not posted a knitting update since I’ve been home, but it doesn’t mean nothing has been happening. I did a fair bit of yarn play in Honduras, too, having somehow managed to wedge it in between  mud removal and potato peeling.

I cast on a washcloth – the first that is just for me, rather than a class sample – while I was in Miami between flights. I knit on the plane; I knit standing in line at immigration, I knit on vans and buses traveling to and from Belize and on the drive to Pulhapanzak, where I finished it, promptly casting on a second one to see me home. I’m reasonably sure I was one of the few passengers on our plane who didn’t mind sitting on the tarmac for a half hour after landing while we waited for a gate. I chose washcloths for my travel project because they are small and portable, nearly brainless knitting that would be boring done at home sitting on the sofa, would cause little emotional trauma if lost, and could be very easily washed if soiled. Besides, I wanted to have some! I’ve been using KnitPicks Cotlin, and I’m spoiled rotten. They feel so marvelous and look great! I actually had someone ask to buy one that was still on the needles – they are that nice.

Once I got to the Children’s Home, I cast on my traveling lace project – a cashmere scarf with a simple enough pattern that I had it memorized in a couple minutes. However, it was lace, it was cashmere, and it was fun to watch it grow – until I got home and it wasn’t quite done and the tiny ball of yarn remaining started reproducing itself in the dark to become never-ending… Other than that little challenge, I’m loving this scarf! Pattern is by Arlene Graham and published in One Skein Wonders. Anyone who has spent much time in Arlene’s shop, Fiberworks, knows her passion for this pattern. When I was there yesterday, she was knitting it in a marvelous, vintage, brown, pure angora yarn, producing a scarf that I would have just stood and petted were it not for the boxes of new yarn calling out for me… Anyway, the scarf came home somewhere over three feet long, and I really want to finish it tonight – presuming I can knit faster than this gorgeous JoJoLand Cashmere reproduces.

Another thing I did in Honduras was a total accident – and will be hibernating a while, now that I’m at home. Hitty Darlene was, of course, my companion on the trip. She conned me into buying some crochet thread (It was only 5 Lempira per ball – about 25 cents.) and a hook at a little shop we visited a couple days after I got to Honduras, and next thing I knew, she had an entire outfit designed for me to make. I think this thread is a pearl cotton – or very close kin.

I got a good start on it, as my daughter and I holed up in our room in Belize and crocheted until lunch on our full day there, then both evenings until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. This outfit is going to be like a casserole – everything in one – skivvies, slip, skirt, and blouse. Here are the little tap pants, which I absolutely adore!

And with the slip added on…

Thankfully, I ran out of time before I had to figure out how to make the blouse portion, but I did nearly finish the skirt, which isn’t photographed yet.

And my daughter made herself a little doily start to finish in Belize. It had an oddly tricky maneuver around the outside edge, and it took us a while to figure out what she was supposed to be doing, but as you can see, we finally got it. I’m proud of her for persevering despite her frustration, and the end project looks great.

She’s working bit by bit to make her room, which was formerly an examination room in the clinic, more homey. I took her  a clock and matching picture frame, and you can see the doily under a candle sitting by the frame. She made the larger doily, too.

My first order of business once home was to download the final clue for my Way of Life Shawl, and using the excuse of nursing my cold, I had it finished and bound off within just a few days. It looks wonderful – love it! Can’t wait to block it now, so I can see the full effect. I did pin out a portion just to see it, though that’s definitely only second best. (Remember that this was knit from the long side, so this shows it from cast on to bind off.) It’s been around my shoulders often enough unblocked that I know I love it, though. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m sure. I absolutely adore Dream in Color Baby yarn! I’m so glad I risked buying it sight unseen!

As soon as Way of Life graduated to the blocking pile, I started in earnest on my Rose Trellis by Tina/Yarnfeathers. This is such a gorgeous knit, and I’m loving it! I’m within a row of completing the second repeat section, which will be 45% done, but this photo was taken a few days ago.

Yarn is KnitPicks Shimmer in sherry. It has a lot of silk in it, and the only needles I had in the size I wanted to use happened to be their Options needles. I have to say that I should have waited and bought a Harmony in this size. The Options are quite slick, and I’m finding it to be somewhat stressful to keep the silk blend yarn under control on these needles. I won’t make this same mistake again! The pattern is super – just a little more challenging, IMO, than Way of Life because the rows aren’t as repetitious across. It’s definitely another winner of a project, though! Pattern is currently available for free at the Yarnfeather KAL Yahoo group. Tina also did up a beaded alternative.

Okay, for the moment, I think that gets my most active knitting up to date. I either need to stay home so I can do this more often or knit less… nah…

Turned a Corner!

With very little fanfare at the actual moment, I turned a huge corner in my lagging sewing room this past evening. I’ve barely been in there the past few months, due in large part to trip prep and actual travel. It’s been frustrating, as I’d wanted to start putting it back together while the weather was still decent, and I still had painting to do outdoors. Somehow, I think that our temperatures in the 20’s and 30’s aren’t quite what Behr recommends for paint application, though. But, I digress…

So, since I came home, I’ve stolen a few minutes here and there and nudged DH a few times for some of the detail work, and in the process, managed to get every bit of the painting at the back end of the room completed at long last. I can hardly believe I’m saying that! However, tonight he carried down the big tote with my Central and South American dolls and treasures, and I reloaded the high shelves on the back wall. It was a lot of fun to dust off each piece and really look at them again for the first time in years. One does tend to get jaded to a constant display. I was surprised to find that I have two dolls using drop spindles, one of the girls being just over an inch tall! She was purchased years ago, and I’m not even sure I knew what it was she was doing at that point. Now she’s an even better treasure!

Pardon the funny angle. Space is tight and I did the best I could.

So, why is this such a major turning point for me? Well, that is the first location in the room that something has been officially put into its permanent new home, not to be moved again! There will be much to move, sort, clean, and shuffle in the days to come, but I’m done with those two high shelves for good! I’m SO excited!!!

About the dolls and other treasures – I’ve been accumulating these for about 25 years. They range in age from very vintage to bought new last month. Some are gifts brought by traveling friends and family, some purchased on my own journeys. Many have been rescued from yard sales, some from stores, and several from doll shows I used to attend when they had them on Saturdays in Ohio. The dolls and other items come from Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, various Carribean Islands, and other Latin American Countries, and, if you look very closely, you might even be able to figure out which three of the dolls I made myself! Leave a comment if you’d like to guess. )

Contrary to Appearances…

I’m still alive and kicking, and I do know how to count. What I don’t know yet is how to totally control all those lovely little things that just “happen” in life, nor have I entirely conquered the skill of estimating precisely how long certain chores will take. To those last two matters, I owe my very extended 3 week break. (And Joy, when you said 3 weeks was a long time, you didn’t know the half of it!)

So, here I am finally – and at least partially. I have about ten dozen things I’d love to share, but I figured I’d be better off to try to put up a short post – then do the same thing again – regularly. ;o) So, with that thought in mind…

The internet fast was spawned not by any grand personal challenge, but rather by reality. There wasn’t a full internet connection where I was. It was somewhat spur of the moment – at least based on what it was and how much prep time it required – but I ended up with tickets for an out of country experience. My daughter, who lives in Honduras, was getting a hankering to see her mother, so she started pesting (her word for the activity)  me to visit again, asking me to come over Thanksgiving and hopefully early enough to go with her when she renewed her visa. It took me a good while to actually say “yes,” though I knew from the start that I wasn’t going to say “no.” So, November 10 found me heading to a hotel near the airport to get a few hours sleep before my early morning flight.

I can’t begin to go into details. First of all, I’m sure most of you would be bored beyond tears if I launched into a narrative of my trip. There is a rather fat album of currently uncaptioned pictures and videos now residing at the MyPhotoAlbum link in the sidebar. Captions coming eventually – I hope! A capsule summary would be that my daughter lives at a children’s home in the mountainous region of Honduras, and she works there as a full-time cook. This results in me helping get more people fed more meals in 2 weeks than I do the entire rest of the year here at home. This year, potatoes seemed to be my thing, and by the time I came home, I’d peeled and cut up a good 100 pounds of the things. I still can’t look at a french fry without wincing!

Perhaps the true highlight for me in the kitchen was learning how to make cheese. It was SO good! I can’t wait to do it here at home, and I’ve laid in the basic supplies already.

Other daily life activities include selling milk, cheese, eggs, banana bread, menudos, and other assorted items out the kitchen window to the local people, generally mangling the Spanish language in the process, but loving every moment of the interaction.

I always look forward to going to market with her, as well as having a shopping in town day. This year it was rainy and muddy. I came home covered in mud from my waist down, thinking the situation quite far removed from running into Kroger’s for the week’s produce!

We’ve staged a girls’ party both times I’ve gone down, this year making it a tea party, which was very well received. Worshipping in the church and local homes as part of a congregation well mixed with Americans and Hondurans is always a memorable experience – as well as one that I find painful to not be able to share in photos.

And, of course, never is life boring when you are living with 26 children aged 2 weeks to 15. I hope that my photos and videos will have accurately captured some of the joy of being there.

This year, we had several special activities planned. One day we took Marissa’s two special charges and drove to Pulhapanzak, an impressive waterfall. Despite the mist and drizzle in the air, we had a wonderful day, and we all arrived home tired and muddy, but very happy.

Thanksgiving was another special event, and it probably deserves its own blog entry. It was a definitely memorable day! And the last, and certainly not the least, of these activities was the overland trip the two of us made to Belize – a definite step of faith for me, as Marissa had never done this without a travel companion experienced in this sort of journey. We had a wonderful and restful time away, and she said it was her best trip out of country since she went down there.

I was certainly pleased!

Sadly enough, I had to pack my bags and come home the day after Thanksgiving. What teary farewells, especially when the school girls came to give me hugs before running off to classes! It was more difficult for me to leave this time than before, having had yet more time to love them in person.

After a somewhat rocky trip home, I found myself looking at nearly three weeks of undone work, a massive pile of mail, over 2000 emails, suitcases to unpack and air, and the reality of Christmas being imminent – with no shopping whatsoever having been accomplished. Figuring that wasn’t enough of a challenge, I promptly got sick! I’ve finally gotten past that, unpacked the bags, got reaquainted with my knitting, started the shopping, and learned not to look too closely at the total number of emails still unread…

More soon!