Blah

Hello, hello after a L-O-N-G absence.  How is everyone?  Well?  I am all right I suppose…I think the title of this post says it all, and explains why I haven’t posted in so long.  Things just seem sort of, you know, blah. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that after almost 2 years here the things that were exciting and new have become, well, familiar (uh-oh, I may need to change the name of the blog, shoot!).  Happenings that would have had me running to the computer to record every detail in the past seem to slip by with a shrug…like about a month ago when I saw a black snake about the length of a yard stick that was probably a cobra slithering down our driveway and into the nearby field.  Before I would have grabbed my camera to get a shot and posted all about it.  Instead I watched it disappear and reflected that I was glad I was on my motorcycle and not on foot when I spotted the snake, and then headed off to the grocery store.  I also think (and I’m a bit afraid to write this for fear of inviting disaster) that far fewer sensational things have happened lately as compared to earlier in my time here.  I am not complaining about that by any means, I am ecstatic to miss the drama of unexpected animals in the house, too-close-for-comfort lightening strikes, you name it…relative calmness just makes for less to write about.  Every time I sit down to write a post I think, “What has really been happening?  Nothing that people would really want to read about.  Maybe I’ll write another day.”  Then two months go by with nothing on the blog. Oops. 

So here I am on another beautiful, sunny, steamy day, doing laundry, getting ready to grind the hunk of beef the size of my head that is sitting in my fridge, trying to decide whether I can put off going to the grocery store for one more day (I’m fighting a headache with dizziness that seems to get worse when I move around…not the best time to get on a motorcycle I think).  I don’t have any crazy stories to tell, just wanted to check in on this little blog since I haven’t for SO long. 

Wow, I’m boring.

Yawn.

See, this is why I never post.

I need to find ways to make the mundane interesting…I’ll let you know how that goes.

For now, here are a few highlights from the last couple months…

•             Some of the MAF ladies get together about every other month for Cookbook Club.  One person hosts and provides the main dish and the other ladies bring sides.  Usually the host picks a theme, maybe a specific cookbook or web site all the recipes should be from, or a food theme like Italian, Indian, etc.  I hosted our gathering in April and our theme was soup, salad, bread, and pie.  The food was delicious and we had fun gabbing.  Here’s a couple pictures of the tables-I had to bring in our patio set to accommodate all the guests.

          I signed up to bring pies and here are the recipes I used.  They were quite scrumptious, especially     

          the Apple Sour Cream Pie…I would highly recommend them:

          Apple Sour Cream Pie

          Chocolate Cream Pie

• In May there were several groups of MAF-related guests that came through including a couple guys from MAF headquarters in Nampa, ID to install a cargo pod on one of the airplanes, a long-term intern, someone to test the school-aged kids and give recommendations for the MAF school, and a group of college students and an MAF advocate from Canada who wanted to get a taste of life as a missionary pilot overseas.  We kept busy welcoming the guests and making sure they had places to stay, meals, and whatever else they needed.  No pictures of them, but when I think of the month of May doing various hospitality-related things comes to mind.

• Chris and I celebrated our 3^rd wedding anniversary on June 6^th by heading to the nearest larger city, Balikpapan (I’ve talked about it in previous posts), and spending a couple nights at a nice hotel, relaxing by the pool, shopping, and eating.  I think food is pretty much the highlight of every vacation for us since there isn’t much Western-style food available where we live.  It was great to get away.  I can’t believe it’s already been three years since our wedding!  In a way it seems like longer than that because we have packed so much into those years.

•       Our yearly MAF Family Conference was June 10-15 in Balikpapan, so we actually flew in early to celebrate our anniversary and then got together with everyone for conference.  It was a fun time with lots of opportunities to worship together, get to know each other more with team building exercises, and learn from great speakers Kevin & Linda Swanson who very generously travelled all the way from the U.S. to minister to us.  We also, surprise, surprise, managed to eat lots of delicious meals…Pizza, Indian food, Mexican, Sushi, yum!  I can’t talk about it for long, because I just start to crave yummy food that I don’t have to make from scratch *sigh*.  It was a fun and refreshing time hanging out with our friends and co-workers in a different setting.  Here’s a picture of the whole group, as well as a few other pictures from conference.  All the shots are compliments of Tripp Flythe, one of the amazing photographers on our MAF team.

Our MAF Kalimantan team 

Several of the other ladies and I all dressed up for a banquet 

Chris & I

What a handsome guy!

•       Right after conference about half our MAF team including Chris and I came down with a nasty sore throat/cough/cold that seemed to last forever.  I am still dealing with sinus issues 3 weeks after the fact, yuck.  All in all I’ve been struggling with feeling under the weather for the better part of a month between that cold, an off and on angry tummy, and headaches.  Prayers for health and energy would be appreciated.

•       Chris has still been flying the Cessna Caravan like crazy and loving it.  He leaves the house at 6:50am and often doesn’t get home until 5:30-6:00pm.  He is pretty tired on the weekends, but he is having fun flying and he is thankful for the opportunity to get more comfortable flying a turbine aircraft (if that means something to you as a non-pilot, kudos, I had no idea the significance before I was married to a pilot).

•      We celebrated 4^th of July last week with a barbeque with our teammates.  It was relaxing and fun.  It’s nice to celebrate an American holiday and actually have it feel like the right weather…Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas just never feel quite right in the heat and humidity. 

Those are all the highlights I can think of, like I said, nothing too exciting right now, although there are some things on the horizon that promise to be interesting.  More about those things in a later post.  For now I will get going on my tasks for the day.  Enjoy your day or night!