My Bubbling Teapot

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...