Ethiopia Bound!!

OK, it's not right around the corner, but we DID book our flights and hotels for a trip to Ethiopia this winter.  I am very nervous about it because we are ALL going.  It cost a FORTUNE to buy five plane tickets, especially because we are taking the easy way and stopping in London for a night on the way there and two nights on the way home.

I think it's going to be a total shock for G and E, and it will be interesting to see how Mebira handles it all as well.  Because she came to Canada when she was almost 5, she still has a lot of memories.  However, sometimes things are a little bit different than you remember...especially after living in Canada for two years.

Why did we decide to go back?  Well, Mebira still has some relatives in Ethiopia who we would like to visit.  Who, you may ask?  That is Mebira's story and I will let her tell it when she's ready, to whom she wants to.  In the meantime, I will tell you that we are all five going to travel to the remote village of her birth, and will visit the relatives who are there.  I'm a bit nervous about how this will go...I can imagine it will be incredibly emotional for all of us.

I absolutely loved visiting Ethiopia both times...it is an amazing country.  I know it will have a totally different flavour now that we are bring G and E along, though.  They find it difficult when we camp without sewer hookups!  :-)  It will be very eye opening, though and will give us many teaching moments.

The girls have been very excited about doing some fundraising for organizations in Ethiopia.  We've decided to support the Soddo Christian Hospital http://www.soddo.org/ and are going to have a crazy busy weekend baking apple pies and making friendship bracelets.  If you live in our area and want to order a pie ($10) or friendship bracelet ($2) or would like to donate, we would love it!

I'll update more thoughts on our trip another time...for now thanks for reading.  :-)

Staying at home

I've been slacking a lot in the blogging world.  It feels like there is so much new that I don't really know where to start.

The fall was pretty hard on our family.  I was quite busy with work at the church and some extra projects at GE.  One of our girls struggled with anxiety and it became a nightly stress walking through that with her.  Mebira also struggled with her identity...and became very embarrassed to be seen with us at school or anywhere in public, and although I understood this would happen, I wasn't prepared for it to happen when she was six.  Arvid also had a lot of stress at work and was putting in more hours and effort and I realized that we couldn't keep going the way we had been.  After nearly five years of working at the church, I decided that I would stop at Christmas.

I didn't feel the full effects of being home until the spring as I ended up having quite a few GE projects to keep me busy.  I could already tell a difference in our family life in January, though.  I have extreme flexibility on my GE projects - I can do them wherever and whenever I want, as long as I meet my deadlines.  And, oddly enough, I really like working on these projects...it doesn't really feel like work.  (I had good flexibility working at the church and enjoyed it, too, but, as anyone who has worked at a church knows, there is a lot more emotional involvement than there is in creating AutoCAD drawings.  :-) )  Anyway, our family life went from crazy, rushed, stress-filled, to the kids coming home for lunch every day, I had lots of time for baking, getting healthy groceries and trying out some new recipes.

I'll admit that staying home has been challenging at times.  When I'm not doing GE or helping out on a few things at the church, I sometimes feel unmotivated...and that all I do is clean the same thing over and over.  I also have a real sense of guilt...this is not from Arvid at all - he is very supportive, but if I sit down for any reason (like blogging) I feel like I should be doing something else, because he's working so why should I have fun?

Obviously, I was concerned about the financial impact of staying home.  My GE work isn't consistent - I just help out whenever they need me, so there is no guarantee that I will have work at any given time.  BUT, we had a really cool thing happen.  I stopped working at Christmas, and by the end of January (with only one regular paycheck in between), Arvid got a raise and it covered exactly what I had been making at the church.  I TOTALLY see that as provision from God, and am so thankful that He blessed us in this way. 

I had a meeting with the ministry team last night, and I must admit that I do miss being very involved at church and working with all of those amazing people.  However, I know for right now that this has been the right change for our family.  Mebira is so much more confident now and seems to really have settled in again nicely.  She is no longer shying away from me in public, but now runs and grabs my hand, fights to sit next to me, etc.  Our daughter with anxiety is making huge strides and is surprising me with her strength and ability to tackle things.

So there's an update for any of you who are still following.  :-)  And now I REALLY need to go do those dishes!!

Hacked

Sorry to all who got a suspicious email from me yesterday. Looks like I was one of the many yahoo accounts that got hacked. I've changed my password and am hoping all is good now. What is it with yahoo accounts getting hacked? My password was quite secure, I haven't signed on in public or on a public computer...is it something on the yahoo side since hundreds have been hacked?

Anyway, all should be good now. Enjoy your weekend!!

Need a laugh?

A few years ago I attended a women's retreat where they brought in a comedian, Tim Hawkins, for a late night comedy show.  I remember thinking he was really funny and was reminded of him this week when I heard one of his jokes on the radio.  I ended up finding various clips on youtube and showing it to the hubby, and we watched clip after clip and laughed so hard until we had tears in our eyes.

It turns out that you can buy his DVDs online, or just download a digital copy for $5.  Let me tell you that this is money well spent.  He is a Christian man so his jokes are clean, and although he does have some church jokes in there I think he's hilarious whether you're a Christian or not.  We downloaded our first one last night and again laughed until we almost cried.  We are for sure going to get all of them - it's the same cost as renting a movie but it's absolutely wholesome and clean fun...we truly have not laughed like that in years.

My only disclaimer is that I recommend watching only a few youtube links...quite a few are available for free, but they are portions of the DVD and are much funnier when they're in the context of the whole thing.

But, just so you get a sample, I've included one of my favourites.  I hope you enjoy!

Can you feel the love?

We tried something new this year for Valentine's Day.  I read about this idea around Christmas in the Thriving Family magazine from Focus on the Family (which I totally recommend if you don't have it) but couldn't remember all of the details so we just made it our own.

The Sunday before Valentine's Day, we each put our names in a bowl and then drew names.  (If you got your own you had to put it back and redo it).  Anyway, once we all had names drawn the game began.  Our goal was to have a week of love...each person was to show love in a special way to the person whose name they drew.  Then, on Friday (when we celebrated) we would guess who had our name, and we gave little prizes for guessing right.

The interesting part of this game is that nobody wanted the other person to be able to guess who had their name, so everyone was being honouring and loving to EVERYONE, just to be sneaky.  It was the most peaceful week in our house ever.  The girls were stumbling over themselves trying to put away each other's plates and toys, or leave surprise notes or treats.  We even went to the dollar store and each of the girls bought something for their special someone with their own money.

On Friday, we decorated the table, had a fancy steak and lobster dinner (G and E had chicken nuggets), and we ended it with a chocolate fondue.  Before the chocolate fondue, we exchanged our little gifts, and guessed who had our names.  It was a super fun week and I think we have started a new yearly Valentine's week tradition!  :-)

The girls with the man in their lives...for now...

Mmmmmm....chocolate fondue, fruit and my precious girls.  What could be more fun?

Hair Extensions

Hi all.  If you remember, I have experimented with yarn braids a number of times, and have had hair extensions put in her hair once by a professional.  It is always a lot of work on the front (if I'm doing it myself) and back end, but I absolutely love the look and the low maintenance required.

I have recently stopped one of my part time jobs (which I'll explain in another post), and as money is a bit tighter, I thought I would try putting in hair extensions by myself.  I went to Images and Shades, and sadly, they were out of the kind of hair extension that I wanted to buy.  (I had planned on buying straight hair, braiding it in, and then curling the  fake hair in hot water at the end). The next best thing that I could find was buying already curled hair.


































Well, what seemed like a good idea in the store actually messed me up a lot when we got home.  I had no idea how to put this stuff in...if I separated the fake hair into three strands, the ringlet totally got fuzzy, and if I left it just as one and braided it with her hair as the other two strands then I didn't totally know how to deal with it when her hair ran out.  The saleswoman had given me some tips and recommended a special hair glue, which claims to be OK for your hair, and is supposed to come out easily.

After messing around for quite a while and feeling like a total failure, I finally figured out how to put it in.  (Oddly I can't remember how now, but I think I wrapped the extension around the base of the chunk of hair I was using, then used the extension as one part of the braid, and used her hair for the other two pieces.  When her hair ran out I put in a little bit of the glue, and then just let the extension fall naturally from there).

Once I got a hang of it, it actually didn't take too long to put in...maybe 4 hours?  (I had already detangled her hair, and washed it when it was in its previous style of box braids, so it was already parted and ready to go).

This was the final look:

 The hair lasted pretty well.  I did very minimal maintenance (other than spraying it daily, doing a conditioning wash occasionally), and fixing up a few strands that slipped or got fuzzy.

I decided to cut it after a few weeks, and I liked this length much better.  This is what the hair looked like after almost 5 weeks.  It still looked pretty good, but I always have such issues with knots at the base of her hair after I take her extensions out that I thought I should deal with it before it got much worse.

 Taking the hair out was much easier than yarn braids...it has more slip to it than yarn.  HOWEVER, I still had a big issue with the knots at the base of each braid.  It seems that if I leave extensions in for more than a few weeks, the hair sheds, then mats together and basically fuses into a little clump.  It takes tons of conditioner, tons of finger detangling, and then tons of comb detangling until I work through it all.  If anyone has advice, I would LOVE to hear it. 

Now I'm back to her natural hair, which I love, but it gets fuzzy after a week.  I am going to use a new gel that my friend recommended...if it helps keep the fuzzies down I'll be sure to let you know.  :-)

Ethiopian Feast

We have been trying to make our own Ethiopian food for awhile but just haven't gotten it right.  Injera has been the most intimidating thing...we were just too afraid to try it. 

At our last Amharic language classes the wife of the instructor was kind enough to show us how to make a few recipes, so we thought we would try it again.  Although it didn't turn out perfect, it was actually pretty good.  Mebira was super excited to eat it, and had it for a few days afterwards as leftovers.

The one thing we haven't figured out yet is doro wat.  This is my favourite Ethiopian food but we just can't make anything close.  If you have some recipes that you'd like to share I would love to try it again.

In case you don't have a good injera recipe, ours uses 1 cup teff, 2 cups all purpose flour, 1 cup oat flour, 1 tsp yeast.  Mix that together and add hot water until runny (a little runnier than pancakes).  Let sit on the counter for 6 hours, then pour a thin layer into an electric frying pan at 350.

It actually had those bubbles - I was thrilled.  Our instructor told us to salt the pan first...let the pan sit with lots of salt on it, then remove the salt.  We don't know why, but somehow this seems to help the injera turn out better.

Our version of a wat.  It was actually butter chicken since we have pretty much given up on doro wat.

This is Mebira's favourite dish, although she said we still didn't get it quite right.  We'll try again...

The rolled up injera, ready to go.

Our Feast - butter chicken, red lentils, shiro, and spinach.  Yum!