Sunday, February 26, 2012

Wash Day


Wash Day



Whew!  Today was wash-day and I am thoroughly whooped!

Let me just say, I have a new found respect for my Amish relatives who go to even more work to hand work their wash machines.  

Step 1: Haul water from the spicket to the wash basin
1 Basin = 4 Buckets = 2 Trips Upstairs


Step 2:  Fill Wash Basin (Water + Detergent: Jasmine & Rose mmmh)

Step 3: Put 1st Load of Laundry in and turn on the spinner
Thank-you Jesus it spins by electricity 


Step 4: Fill Rinse Basin
= Make 2 more trips to the spicket for water

Step 5: Spin the water out of the washed clothes
(This is electric too!) 

Step 6: Put the spinned clothes in the rinse water and spin again!

Step 7: Take rinsed clothes out and put in spinner again to ring the last water out


Step 8:  Hang Clothes Out
mmh clean clothes in the sunshine!

Step 9: Empty Water from Basins
= 4 Trips to the lawn to dump buckets of water


REPEAT
for as many loads as you have
:)



Ha ha!  This is a really great workout and quite pleasant on a sunny day! :)
It's quite a lot more work than my machine at home though, 
even the 50cents I had to pay at Teen Mania ;)


Happy Wash Day!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentines Day: Dinner on the Lawn

Valentines Day Festivities

Today was Valentines Day!
and I absolutely Celebrated my HEART OUT! J

I LOVE Celebrating….whenever I get the excuse I celebrate, I do!  In fact sometimes I even celebrate for no reason at all!


Festivities

Paper Garland

 
I just recently developed a LOVE for Paper GarLAND!  J I founds some cool ideas on Etsy and with a stapler, some string, a pair of scissors and paper and SPENT ALL evening making these creations the night before

Dinner on the lawn
L-R: Ty, Freidel, David, Annette, Sheena (in hood :), Bronte

I posted on the little white board outside of our room a countdown for Valentines Day - and the Faser’s wrote a note saying "Tell us when the PARTY is, we want to JOIN!" So I couldn’t let them down!  We planned dinner on the lawn - EVERYONE INVITED!  Annette brought salad and potatoes, and we provided our own meat.  

I went ALL OUT setting the table with all the china of course, even little Tea Cups for HOT CHOCOLATE.  Picked flowers from the GARDEN.  The POPPY’s I have been waiting and pining to pick just for today.


We stayed and enjoyed dinner until the sun went down and the CANDLES stayed alit.  


Chocolates

Sunita & I
Us girls provided dessert.  We CHOSE these little round chocolate cake balls from the local bakery - Our favorite: Virtue Bakes.  ONE for Each.
Served w/ HOT CHOCOLATE


Sweet Little Things

 Miss Bronte wouldn’t think of having Valentines Day without Australian CADBURY Chocolate!  J  HA HA!! 




 Poppy’s - There is just something SACRED and GORGEOUS about these simple flowers on their long curly stems! (My first appreciation of them started at the oil paintings Charlotte made of them). I decided this year they are MEANT FOR Valentine’s Day! 




* I had so much fun! *
 :)
Happy Valentine’s Day!!





Friday, February 10, 2012

The Three of Us

And two became three.........
Shyla . Sheena . Bronte

Bronte (said brontee :)... Joined us the first week of February.  It has been even more wonderful to have three.  And who knew I would have such beautiful, like-hearted women to share this year with!  Sheena will be here for 4 months and Bronte 3.






Bronte
 


Love that nose of hers!  She's precious isn't she :)  Bronte is Australian. She has also lived in the states with her family for 9 years.  She just spent a few months in Rwanda prior to coming here. 

She is unique and sweet - loves planning and designing as much a I do - and quite   inspires  me.




Sheena


Ha ha - Love that wild.  I couldn’t find pic of just Sheena smiling - which is telling. Sheena’s a blast.  This little miss is from Ireland.

She is serious about real issues, cares for people and God’s work, and she knows how to have fun!  So glad to still have someone in my life to have dance parties with.



"Beauty gains sustenance when it has the joy of being shared."
 -me
 Bronte & I love that Ooty is full 
of vintage 'granny' sweaters!



The girls are always dressing us up with the jewlery they make...."you like?"  :)


(I'm sure you're dying to see picture of the girls in the aftercare center - unfortunately I cannot post those),

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Doing Business in an Indian World

So I wondered what it would be like working in an office in India. 

I love Event Planning
I'm great at Administration......

But what about when you're planning a meal in a country with foreign food
or your planning an staff retreat where you're not quite sure how the transportation works
And what if you're planning in a country where you can't really be SURE about anything really....???

It has been fine so far - fun really!

I have had quite a few experiences when I have said, "I'm in India - Noo worries!."
Wait a little longer - no problem
Come back tomorrow - Sure!
This is the way we do it here - Then I will too!

This week I had an experience that I was a bit frustrated about though....
I'll Share:

So I am on a mission to make copies for some financial work that I am doing at the office. 
The personal printer in the office will not be suitable for the # of copies I need.  So I am told that I need to go to a Xerox machine town.  

This is what town looks like!  The Xerox shot was on the top floor of a building like this.
So - In my mind, I thought, I will go find one of the many Xerox signs in town - stand in front of a machine, do my things, and pay.  No, no - There is always service for everything in India - seeing that everyone needs a job! :) So I give my stack of 50 papers to the friendly couple behind the counter in this tiny square of a shop, and explain to them that I need 10 sets of it copied.  So they begin to copy one page at a time on the scanner - and I stopped them saying, "Can't you just put them in the top and copy them automatically really quick,"  it was apparent they had the capability to do that with their machine. "No - no, that just won't be efficient."  Ok - So I say (to myself) - "No worries I'm in India - I'll wait."

50 Papers.......one by one.....

This is going to take awhile - So I leave and tell Susai (my driver) that he can go and come back for me. 

Now the friendly Xerox couple are feeling a bit pressured.... so both of them started copying at the same time on 2 different printers - I thought, oh my goodness this is chaos.....I said..."coffee? Is there coffee around here."  They pointed me across the street so I escaped for a bit and went back. 

Then Susai came and said that one of the Freedom Firm girls is sick and needs to go to the hospital so I paid for the copies and said we'd pick them up later (because you can do that in India). :)

I left thinking of how much I always enjoy all these little experiences in the end and had another one to add to my reservoir. :)

The Next day Susai brought me the copies all neatly separated in 10 envelopes - And I thought, "How nice."  

Until.....

I realized the sets were all out of order.


Ok....seriously.
(I would have to go through 50 sheets of each one and put them in order.  It was 5:00 - so I sighed, left the office, I will sort them on Monday).

  So, doing business is different in India. :)  It is a funny little thing if you can choose to be patient and go with the flow.  This is very important in different countries.  There is a time and place to bring modern ideas and improvement, as there is a time and place to say, "Whatever" and to get frustrated. :)


I love these cloth flags!