Goldfish and Lemongrass

This is going to be a quick and not well edited blog post.

Which means I'm clearly delusional in thinking my other blog posts ARE well edited.  I'm a girl that has a healthy love for the comma which would certainly drive any English, major, crazy, seriously, I'm not kidding.  I love the"......" too even though it has a name I don't remember....

In exactly one hour I will be leaving on a jet plane heading to Israel.  I'm going to be with 23 other women on an intense 10 day study tour.  And by intense, I mean we've easily spent 40 hours doing map work and reading to prepare for this trip.  It's like being in graduate school except for no tests or papers to write or an unhealthy addiction to Diet Coke.

These past couple of months have been incredibly busy around here with Scot and I passing in the night on some occasions.  I think we will have spent a total of 4 days together in all of February.  I told my Grandmother that it's a good thing we are well past our trying to have a baby days because I would be one irritated woman waving an ovulation test in front of my man on Skype.

Since I told my Grandmother that, I figured it was ok to type it.....even if it borders on TMI.  Or dives right into TMI.

Three days ago Scot came home from a trip to the states where he stocked up for us.  He came home with 195 pounds of luggage and about 12 of those pounds were actually his things.

It was like Christmas around here.  All the excitement of the new and then all the mess of figuring out where it all goes.  It looked like Target had thrown up on our dining room table.  There were Christmas cards to read that had been sent to our Houston address, clothes for the boys that seem to be growing like lemongrass (weeds don't apply to our new Asian lifestyle and I'm trying to be relevant) and enough Goldfish to feed a small country.

Oh right, we live in a small country.

Ok, enough Goldfish to feed my two sons that are growing like lemongrass.

I have to say that the table felt like a perfect representation of my life right now.  Crazy and unorganized and often overwhelming.

Some call it "having a lot on my plate", some call it "too many balls in the air", I call it "there's no wonder I'm getting grayer by the minute".

I took a deep breath and decided to just start working.  One item at a time until the table was cleaned off.

Literally and figuratively.

Now I have 45 minutes until I climb on a plane and read something completely silly and irrelevant and watch movies that I haven't seen and hopefully sleep until 21 hours later I get to see my sister in Israel.

I'll get to wear these new hiking shoes that will make me look super smart while I'm studying in Israel.  And they have my new orthotics in them that I had to have made for my foot issues which will make me look super old.   

Nice.

I am now sitting at the airport trying to finish this in some sort of nice meaningful way.  I'm trying not to be too emotional about being away from my boys for 2 weeks.  I sent Scot a text telling him that if something happened to me to please make sure the boys grow up loving Jesus, being gentlemen and marry great women.  

He responded with "OK".

That's it.  He knows me well.  It's going to be ok.

Until I get home and the dining room table looks like the printer at the school and the Goldfish and various sports equipment had thrown up all over it.  

In the mood for a chat

In a life that has come to feel almost normal, I love it when all of a sudden something happens to remind me that my life is........well, different.  Strange, even.  Maybe strange isn't the right word.  Foreign?  Where's my thesaurus when I need it?  

Oh, right....it's back in 1987 from the last time I actually used one.

Over the last 6 months I have snapped a couple pictures of things that make me chuckle on the inside.  Like this menu from Chilis where they not only give the phonetic spelling of fajitas, but they actually have a step by step pictorial of how to fold a fajita.

Folks, we ain't in Texas any more.

Then you have to pay $45 for small Fa Hee Tuz and I am not chuckling any more.

There was the time I was at a grocery store and an entire aisle was devoted to this product......Cow Ghee.  You can't find Rotel or coconut or pine nuts for less than $1 a nut, but Cow Ghee?  Oh, yeah.....they've totally got you covered!

I think someone told me it's purified butter.  I don't know if that really matters because the looks of it still makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.  

One day my Adventure Club friends were pulling out of a parking lot after spending a few hours risking life and limb in the name of fun, and all of a sudden the car load of adventure girls in front of us stopped while one hung out a window to take a picture.  

Even a Baptist girl thinks this is funny..........and knows not to make any further comments.  

Even though she is really, really tempted to.

There are a lot of "lost in translation" moments but I think this description means exactly what it says.  This one I can't claim......stole it from a friend with her permission but without her testimonial on the truthfulness of the advertising.

We have just wrapped up Chinese New Year in this part of the world.  I would say this is the biggest holiday in Asia.  If I was a good expat, I would know all the ins and outs of the traditions surrounding this holiday.  

But I'm not a good expat but am good friends with good expats so if you really want to know, I can put you in touch with someone!

I didn't take many pictures this year, but couldn't help myself during the traditional Lion Dance that came to our apartment building.  These happen all over the place as they are meant to bring prosperity and good fortune to whichever place of business they visit.

There are usually two lions and they dance to loud drums and cymbals.  

The oranges and lettuce are the "offering" given to the lions and they will "chew up" the lettuce and spit it out and then peel the oranges and leave the peels to symbolize good fortune.

Then the dragon thing came out and they did cool things with it.  How's that for informational?  Just call me Mizz Wikipedia.

During the whole event, Nathan could hardly contain his excitement.  Some kids are woken up by alarms or their parents or the lure of a good cartoon.  This day, Nathan was woken up by lion dancing.  I think the charm of that is lost on him.

And since I am going to be in a TON of trouble if he sees this picture, here's a shot of him about a millisecond before hitting a solid double to the outfield.  

Life is extremely busy around here right now.  I have two good friends from Houston coming to visit me for a week......they are bringing me a big bag of pine nuts and that makes me very, very happy.  I am going to soak in every single moment with them and hope it will hold me over until I see Texas again in the summer.  

When they go home, I have a week before leaving on a 2 week study trip in Israel with 23 other women.  In order to prepare for that we've done about 40 hours worth of map work.

I am very, very smart now. 

I also thought it would be a good idea to read the Bible in its entirety before going.  You know, because 40 hours of map work just isn't enough.  Let's power through Ezekiel as well!  

Needless to say, I'm behind and that irritates me but I'm determined to get it done.  

I'm determined because I'm trying really, really hard to embrace discipline.  Let's just say that all the suggestions to read the book Made to Crave did not fall on deaf ears and I'm currently on Chapter 5 of a book that was written all about me.

It was.  I don't care what the author says.......she is going to be owing me some royalties.

In my embracing discipline I've tightened down the hatches in the food department.  I was doing great with my egg and veggie breakfasts and then yesterday.......

Yesterday was the day that my egg had a feather attached to it.  

It wasn't a huge feather, but did it need to be???  This is why I stick to donuts.  And could clearly use a manicure.

Well, it was nice having this random little chat with all of you.  No more procrastinating, I must get back to being disciplined.  

Actually, all this discipline is exhausting me....I'm going to bed because tomorrow Texas is coming to visit and we are going to make Fa Hee Tuz without using any instructions!