My Bubbling Teapot

I'm officially moving to xanga. Please come visit me there. I might be back someday, but right now xanga is more user friendly and a lot of my friends are over there. Sorry, bloggers. My address is: http://www.xanga.com/bubblingteapot

I never thought I would stoop to such things. When visiting other homes as a teenager, I disdained the clutter of child’s paintings on the refrigerator. I scoffed at the messiness of obvious child’s experiments in jars in the corner, in egg cartons on the windowsill, on newspaper spread on the table. I vowed my house would be neat, immaculate, and free of childish clutter. I would have an “art gallery” in some out-of-the-way place. Caterpillars would stay outside where they belonged. Clay projects could dry in the garage. My refrigerator would not become a bulletin board. But guess what I discovered? I couldn’t destroy the “beautiful” drawing that my son labored over for hours. How could I throw away the ugly plastic cup with one forlorn flower drooping lifelessly over the side? I remembered my daughter’s gleeful smile when she proudly held out a dandelion clutched in her grimy hand. I never thought I would have a garden growing on my windowsill from the seeds that my son carefully col...

Life has precious moments of blessings. I would like to share three with you. (1)Last weekend our church enjoyed a weekend retreat at a a Christian retreat center. Our theme was prayer and I felt God nudging me to spend more time with Him. Thanks, Lavern and Lolita, for planning such a great weekend! (2) Corleen led a "children's choir" on Sunday morning. It was awesome, Cor!! And the message powerful! Thanks, children!!! The children singing "Love is a Flag" (3) Robin's sister, Caia spent some time here and she blessed me in so many little ways. Thanks, Caia! You were a blessing! She sewed Allison and Hadassah, and Annaliese all look-alikes!!! What a thoughtful gift. Our girlies were happy to wear them at the weekend retreat. It was especially appreciated since I don't seem to find much time to sew recently! (or is that ever?) The three girls wearing their dresses with Caia!!!

Today I'm making monster cookies. And I'm realizing how many American ingredients it takes--peanut butter (ok, we CAN buy it here, but it is expensive and not very good), brown sugar, corn syrup, and chocolate chips. That's a long list of things I can't get here. So, I try not to make these kinds of cookies too often. More substitutes (this time some dressings I like that I can't buy here): Ranch Dressing 1 cup buttermilk 1 cup mayonnaise 1/4 tsp. onion salt, garlic salt, celery salt 1/8 tsp. pepper 1/2 tsp. parsley flakes Mix together and use on your favorite salads! French Dressing 1 cup mayonnaise 1/2 cup sugar 2 Tbsp. vinegar 1/4 cup ketchup 1 tsp. mustard 1 tsp. paprika 1/4 tsp. salt 2 tsp. water 1/4 cup oil Mix and serve! Italian Dressing 2/3 cup cold water 1/3 cup oil 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar 2 tsp. onion powder 1 Tbsp. sugar 1/8 tsp.pepper, allspice, paprika 1 tsp. celery salt, garlic powder 1/4 tsp. oregano 2 soda crackers Combine in blender. Blend until...

Trying to follow an American recipe in Poland can be a catastrophe. Especially, those recipes that say "Quick and Easy." About 99% of the time, I must first of all make my substitutes for the time-saving bought ingredients that aren't available over here. After all my dishes are dirty preparing all the ingredients, I can then assemble the recipe. Unfortunately, for me, these recipes become quite complicated. Georgene posted about being faithful in little things. I thought I would post some of the substitutes I've learned to use. Maybe some of you can save some money by preparing your own substitutes. Bisquick Substitute 8 cups flour 4 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder 8 tsp. sugar 2 tsp. cream of tartar 2 tsp. salt 1 3/4 cups shortening Mix until finely crumbled. Store in air-tight container or in the freezer. Sweetened Condensed Milk Substitute 3/4 cup sugar 1 cup powdered milk 1/2 cup warm water Blend in blender until smooth. Chill. Cream Soup Mix 2 cups instant dry m...

...and we found out that is a long ride!!! Friday we took the children on a school field trip. We left at 4 a.m. from home to catch our boat at 8 in the town of Elblag and spent all day riding a boat in the lake region of Poland through canals, over lakes, down rivers, over land (!!!), through locks, and finally docked in the town of Ostroda at 9 pm (a little later than we planned)!!! We saw some awesome scenery, consumed two back-packs full of food, identified birds, talked to other people on the boat, and just relaxed in the sunshine and enjoyed being together as a family. A boat we met coming up the canal from the same company that we were riding with. Yes, the canal just suddenly ended. There were five slopes like this on our trip and a little cart carried the boat and us up a total of three hundred feet during a 6 mile distance. Amazing! And interesting. The little cart like the one we rode up the slope on! The whole crew ready for adventure The Captain and First Mate (that'...

We feel so blessed that God has given us a property of our dreams. There are many questions ahead that could discourage us: Will we as foreigners actually get permisssion by the end of the year to own this piece of land? (as stated in the preliminary contract we signed this week) Will we be able to find all the building materials to build a wooden house instead of the normal block here? Will we find enough volunteers from America to come and spend some time here building our house? If you are interested in maybe a short VS opputunity or would like more details, email us at jolasmucker@terramail.pl . Will we get permission to cut down trees where we want to build our house if it is zoned as forest land? How will we be able to give the time we need to this project with our already busy schedules? Will the money stretch to accomodate all expenses with the extremely weak dollar? Yes, there are no answers right now for these questions. But we choose to trust God. He has led us so far, givi...

Last week was Reflection Week in the Roman Catholic Church and schools actually closed for this holiday. It was created for a very good purpose, to give people a chance to reflect over their lives before Easter. A very good idea in my opinion. But in reality, nothing is different. In fact, the pace of life increases instead of having a spirit of solemn contemplation. Young people hang around town in groups. The streets swarm with a harried crowd racing from store to store to find their Easter baskets and "palm branches." People are wildly beating rugs and feriously washing windows in preparation for their great "Wielkanoc" (Easter). All the town flocks to the market to buy new curtains and rugs for their newly cleaned houses. Actually, the whole country is in a frenzy to make sure that they are following their age-old traditions surrounding Easter. The church is busier than usual, it is true. Many stop for a few minutes of reflection on their way to town. But are t...

My house was in sad need of a cleaning from top to bottom today . I was planning to clean the downstairs yesterday, but I've learned the flexibility is essential here. I didn't get one thing cleaned yesterday. So, this morning, I'm thinking that I will do a quick over all cleaning. But as I began looking at the living room I saw so many things that needed to be cleaned I decided to spring clean the whole room. Very dangerous! So instead of cleaning my house, I spent all day cleaning my living room. I was washing and hanging out curtains, polishing the lights and windows, dusting the shelves, cleaning out magazine racks, wiping the baseboards, and oh, my, everything looked so nice. Such a good feeling!!! The last thing that needed to be done was to roll up the big rug and haul it outside. These sweepers over here are for the birds. Every so often we just have to take our carpets out and beat all that dust out of them, which isn't impossible since we don't have wall-t...

John's student says, "No, it's impossible. Spring came too easy. There will be more snow and cold." Maybe so.... ...but for now I see little brave crocuses breaking through the hard ground...I see green buds on my rosebushes...I see that the snow drifts have disappeared...and I hear birds...I feel a warmth in the air...I see the world waking up around me... ...And I choose to rejoice and believe that Spring is here and I will enjoy it to the full and believe it is here to stay!!! I told the children today that we should have a "Welcome Spring" picnic soon just to celebrate that winter is gone!!! And somehow I choose to rejoice in the feelings of newness in my heart as well. Why does it feel so much easier to rejoice and feel happy in the Spring of the year?

Overnight guests can throw my weekends into an frenzy. In fact, this past weekend we had seven young people from Ukraine visiting us. That doubled the amount of people in our house. There are a few things that make entertaining more stressful for me here than in the states. I have... ...a small oven ...not a huge fridge ...a small table which means always cafeteria style ...no dryer ...not enough towels and washclothes ...limited storage space So, I will share a few things I have learned in the past few years to adjust to my predicament when I have guests. I started cooking and baking on the Monday (almost a week ahead) so I wouldn't be trying to bake everything all at the same time. What a relief it was on the weekend to pull out fried hamburger for taco soup, mint brownies and pecan pie bars, baked apple doughnut muffins, and cinnamon rolls all ready to just thaw and be served. On Tuesday I made out all my...

A peaceful evening was interrupted with the horrible sound of shattering glass. What shattered downstairs? In a second's time, my mind went through a mental list--the picture on the wall, the glass doors of the cupboards, windows, and I tried to think of all the precious glass objects downstairs. The next instant I was leaping down the stairs two at a time to find all eight persons of our household some running and some huddled around Alli and behind her a huge jagged hole in the glass on her bedroom door. Talk about making a person feel shaky. I felt myself getting faint as I was bandaging up all the little scrapes and cuts, but I felt incredibly thankful that she was alright. Amazing how many bandaids we used. Somehow her shoulder had hit the glass and it shattered cutting her shoulder, foot, and hands. Freak accident. Poor little thing. Her teeth were chattering and she was quite traumatized. I'm still a little worried about her eye. She was rubbing it and rubbing it, but we...

Les told us the other day that he thinks "property hunting" has become our hobby. He might be right. It is true that in the last couple of years, we have looked at a number of properties and houses for sale close to the town of Minsk. So far, none of them have materialized. We sense a great need for something to change. We have been living on this small lot in town now for five years. While the house itself is quite adequate, we feel that we need more space for our growing family. So we continue to look and pray. We want our property to be God's property and we only want to purchase something that we feel that God is blessing. And nothing has fallen into place yet. About one month ago, John's student told us about a property for sale about two miles from Minsk in a small village. We arranged with the owner to go look at it. There are a lot of positive things about it that would have been negatives of the other places we've looked at in the past. The city water and...

There! That makes me feel better! I... ...detest ...abhor ...despise mending. I'm sure those of you who are virtuous mothers are shaking their heads and wondering what is the matter with me. I don't know where I missed it, but the pile of mending in my sewing center makes me cringe with hatred. Why do I wait until all of Allison's dresses are missing a button before I finally, grudgingly get out my needle and thread? Why does a dress hang for two years in my closet with chopped off sleeves that are only waiting for one seam? Why do John's Sunday pants lay over my bedroom chair for weeks before I finally get around to sewing the loophole back on? I've always hated repairing clothes. When I learned to sew and sewed my sleeve in upside down, I would have rather started all over than to tear out the one little seam. Mending is such a tedious chore. But today, when I finally got around to sewing on six buttons on six dresses, sewing up a hole in the back of another, and...

Ok, folks, time for another update. I decided to post our monthly letter here for those of you who don't get it regularly. Let's hear from all the departments this month. Smucker's School Department-- The children are continuing to struggle through their winter's school work. Today when one of them announced that there are only 12 weeks left, everyone's spirits seem tolift a little. It is at this time every year that I think we are not goingto make it to the end of school. Every year about this time I'm ready tosend them all out the door, but I'm hoping in another month or so some ofthe subjects will be finished and dropped off so it will make a lighter loadfor all of us. There are many arguments (Smuckers say they are discussions)about history and science, since my boys love facts and history. Today the"discussion" was centered around whether the St. Lawrence Seaway is made up of only the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes and if it is manmade...

Ten questions waiting to be answered: How should we celebrate Valentine's Day this year or should we just skip it? How can I get my house organized without any effort? Should I prepare a book proposal and send it to an editor? Should we buy property in Poland and build or just keep renting this cold house? Where should we go for summer vacation (or maybe we should just stay home)? How do you keep your children well and entertained all winter with limited indoor space and with only a postage stamp sized property? What do you do when you have 6 pairs of boots and 6 pairs of shoes by the front door and there are only room for 3? What do you do with soaked snowsuits, wet gloves, and stinky socks that come in from the outside? What do you do when your daughter is reading your blog over your shoulder? How can I get my family to come visit me next year?

Thank you, John, for... ...lifting my heart when I need a smile. ...blessing my life with love. ...sharing dreams with me. ...understanding my heart. ...making me feel valuable and cared for. ...taking time to listen to me. ...being a great dad to your children. And that is why I love you. Today I want to wish you a HAPPY 37th BIRTHDAY!!!

I have always found teaching Sunday School to be a stretching experience for me. I can expect to spend a significant amount of time in commentaries, reading related articles, studying the Bible and such. But nothing prepares you for teaching SS in a foreign language. First of all, to begin study, minimum, I will need: My English Bible (to read what I'm actually trying to teach) My Polish Bible (to check to see how to say things in Polish) My notebook (to jot down all my thoughts and ideas) My "Experiencing God's Peace" book that we are studying (Thank the Lord it's in English) My English-Polish dictionary volume (to look up many unfamiliar words) My Polish-English dictionary volume (to double-check to make sure the meaning is right) Whew! All that before I can even begin. Did you ever realize that "Church" vocabulary is completely different than everyday vocabulary? Well, it is. There are many times just going to church is discouraging when you see how ...

Today my husband told me I need to take the afternoon off. Knowing there wouldn't be any privacy at home, he shooed me out the door telling me to go spend some time in a quiet place. Is that awesome or what? I thought about going to Piano Pizza and sitting by their fireplace, but somehow I wasn't sure what people would say if I came in toting a laptop computer, a Bible, a journal, and the book The Jesus I Never Knew. I know that would have brought a lot of stares. Not being in the mood for Polish stares, I opted for the teacher's room at GTE (Gateway to English), knowing that there wouldn't be much activity at our English school in the early afternoon. What bliss!!! Reading a whole chapter without interuptions...being able to think about whatever I want...not seeing the 101 things at home that haven't got done yet today...catching up on emailing and writer's workshops...I feel blessed and pampered today. (I must say, my husband seems to be winning all contests ...