Sunday, October 23, 2011

Cowgirls

We need to get Amelie and Jarrah a couple of horses.  Today, Sunday, Amelie was very happy because she didn't have any school.  So, the two proceeded to turn our house into stables and walked around riding their toy horses (barbie horse sized). This is what they do everyday and I am always having to drag Amelie away from their horseplay.  They both have a lassoo, cowboy hats and boots.  The dogs usually get roped into being their horses and Jarrah gets very upset when they escape from their stables or if they get untied (they are OFTEN tied up - poor dogs, they are very patient).

Jarrah loves Amelie.  She cries when Amelie goes off to school.  She is sad when Amelie can't play with her.  It is nice that they play together so well most of the time.  Amelie calls Jarrah "J." Not sure if that will stick but it is cute.

Jarrah is also our assigned gracesayer.  Everytime we ask whose turn is it for grace, she points to herself and says me.  Her current grace is:

" Dear Jesus,
thank you for the nice day,
please help Amelie's cough to get better,
please bless our food,
Amen."

She was asking for help until just the other day, and now says it all herself.

Just a minute ago, Lolly, our peacock who should be up in the trees right now as it is dark, jumped up on the table next to me and stood on Aunty Ann's book.  He tore a page!  Sorry Aunty Ann.  I was trying really hard to keep the book nice (it is the Ben Carson book if you are wondering.. really really sorry!)

Amelie just made some oatmeal cookies almost all by herself.  They last batch burned because the timer wasn't set right but they are yummy.  And I just made some eggplant pickle.  Four bottles!!  Not sure what I will do with it all as it isn't that good.  Maybe it isn't too bad.  We'll see. The eggplant were these volunteer round eggplant, small, that we had in our garden and just harvested them all to put in some other stuff.  They are very seedy.  So, that is done.  Not sure if I need to seal the bottles or not.  They are very vinegary and oily.  Maybe we can eat them before they go bad.

Anyway, those are my musings for the evening.
Love from me.

Friday, October 21, 2011

The handyman

I was going to write about our trip early this month to Phnom Penh.  Then that all went too fast.  Then we came home and I have had odd things to write about here but haven't until now sat down to start and now the mosquitos are biting me and I just accidentally turned off the internet so we'll see how this goes.
On Sunday I fixed things around the house. I fixed Amelie's lamp which had a rusted out light fitting.  I replaced an electric box which needed two outlets instead of one which brings electricity from our generator to the house (and the washing machine).  I needed two outlets so that we could also plug in an inverter that would convert the 220V power coming from the generator to 110V so we could plug that into the rest of our house and then when the generator was on, we would not have to use the battery power (important in the wet season because of much rain and little sun to charge the batteries).  It is important if we do plug in the generator into our 110V system, that we turn off our regular inverter coming out of the battery so this doesn't get burnt up.  After all that, the other night I said to Ben "I'm a pretty good handyman." That was my failing.  Also, I should remember to write notes to myself.  Yesterday morning, I was doing the washing so I had the generator on.  I thought I would be smart and also plug in the inverter so I could use power in the house for the computer for a bit.  I forgot to go an unplug the other inverter.  So, I burnt up the other inverter.  The new inverter we just bought from the US.  The new inverter with the fan that works good.  The new inverter which we cannot replace except by going to the US!  So, I am not so smart.  I should never think I am smart.  And I should write notes to myself.

Anyway, today, we went through our stash of old inverters and found an old one which has been repaired once and its fan still works for how long we don't know but we are using that now for our electricity.  The kids electricity was not working in their room for some reason after this mishap.  So, today I managed to fix that quite easily luckily.  I'm not going to say anything about me being a handyman though.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

2010 Photobook

Here is our 2010 photobook I just had published and haven't seen yet as the copies arrived two days after we left the US.  They are getting longer and longer.  I'll have to take less pictures next year.