Back from Romania

We just returned from Romania this evening. We drove from Oradea this morning to Budapest, Hungary (the closest big airport). Weird to think that we've been in three countries just today!

We LOVED our time in Romania and hope to return. We felt like we had a lot in common relationally with the friends we met there.

One day after classes several of us went out to some property owned by the school's director to have a picnic. They prepared several different kinds of grilled meats - chicken, pork, mici (pronounced "MEECH"), along with savory bread rolls and grilled mushroom caps. For dessert we had little bite-sized pastries made with a walnut paste that tasted like it also had nutmeg in them. And of course, fruit. The director's wife put together a beautiful fruit basket for table decor, then served the fruit at the end of the meal. When we first arrived, Vino looked at the fruit basket and thought the fruit was plastic, especially the grapes - because they were perfect! Green, pink & purple grapes. There were purple grapes growing on a trellis around the house, which I noticed was common in that area of Romania. I loved the simple arrangement, so I took a few photos.

After dinner, we all played a Swedish lawn game that we were told was called "King". I had never seen the game before, but had a lot of fun playing it. It involves throwing sticks, so naturally, I was shamefully bad at playing because I throw like a girl...who can't throw. Our team came very close to winning, but squandered away our lead with poorly aimed tosses. Seeing as how I hardly have a competitive bone in my body, I was fine with losing, especially since it was getting pretty dark near the end and the mosquitos were out in force.

Good times!

Decoupage Wall Art, Take 2

I have some time, so I'm going to post some photos I've had waiting around for a while. This is my second attempt at decoupage. My first attempt was posted on thisyounghouse.com here. You can see more photos starting here. I was quite happy with how that turned out, so I decided the blank wall above our hide-a-love seat (folds out into a small bed AND hides guitars & electrical stuff behind it - hey, we're short on space!) needed...something.

I turned to the stack of random items I had saved from the dumpster on a cleaning day at the office and found two small pieces of styrofoam that were roughly "rectangle" and about and inch thick. I also found a box that at one time was original packaging for some electrical thingy or something. Anyways, it was also rectangular, smooth and about 2 inches thick. I chose three photos that I had taken in the old part of town in Alcala de Henares. The larger piece is the old University building and the two smaller ones are lights strung up over Plaza Cervantes and a weather vane seen through the gazebo in the plaza. I converted them to black and white, then measured the box & styrofoam to determine what size I needed to make each photo. I didn't want to blow them up more than absolutely necessary. I ended up needing to Photoshop some edges on the one of the University building because the shape was different than the original.

I think I printed about 6 different panels for that one, then spliced them together to make one big photo. I could only print on A4 paper. Then I basically just glued it to the box and wrapped it like a present. When that was dry, I brushed Modpodge over the outside. I must admit that I only did one coat. It was messy, and after the first coat dried, I was ready to move on to something else. I did the same process for the small images on the styrofoam. I only had to use one piece of paper for the smallest one. Styrofoam was great for this project in that it was the right shape and extremely light weight, but it's not easy to glue the edges down well. The best thing about using styrofoam, though, is that I only had to put a tiny little nail in the wall and just pushed the styrofoam over it to hang.

So there you go, nearly free art! Check out more photos of this project starting here.

For Love of Cabbage!

I haven't eaten this much cabbage in the past 10 years combined than I have in the last week. Every day is a cabbage day. We've been in Romania for a week now, and leave in a couple of days. I think the cabbage is growing on me. It totally depends on how it's prepared and what it is served with. Examples - Bad Cabbage: cooked and served with plain pasta (this was lunch yesterday). Good Cabbage: wrapped around little meaty spring roll type thingies called sarmale. I'm not doing well at describing these, but they were delicious. Seasoned ground meat (pork? beef?) and rice wrapped in cabbage leaves, simmered in a savory broth. They were so delicious.

We had spent the day in the countryside last Saturday with some new Romanian friends. When we dropped one of them off at her house, she invited us in to meet her family. Their home, in a village, was simple and humble, yet incredibly warm and welcoming. We were greeted by her parents, two sisters, and her sister's foster daughter. Immediately the table was set for us and we were presented with a stock pot full of these things. It made me think about my own hospitality. I want people to feel a welcoming peace in my home, but it has so much more to do with how I treat them than how cute my decor looks or how presentable I think I look (or don't look!). These people were incredibly generous to share their food with us. I can imagine that they don't have a lot of excess for their own family, yet they, with joy, gave to us.

Before we left, our friend's father gave me a bouquet of flowers that he had just picked from the garden out front and tied together with a string. He was so cute when I thanked him profusely and gave him a hug. I don't know if it was culturally weird for me to hug him, but it just came out. :)

So we have just two more full days in Romania, and I can pretty much be guaranteed to eat cabbage at least two more times before we leave. At least. And why not? It's nutritious, inexpensive, and more versatile than I ever imagined! Cabbage soup...cabbage and potatoes...cabbage salad...cabbage and hot dogs...gotta love it. Cabbage.

New focus!

Today I'm starting something new. I guess time will tell how it goes. I haven't been good about blogging (as evidenced by the date of my last post). However, I have been very diligent in posting photos on flickr, so I know I can be consistent with something internet related!

I've changed the focus of this blog. It started out as a general what's up with me type of journal that the world could read. Now, I'd like to share more about my home and how I try to give it, aesthetically, the things that are most important to me: peacefulness, rest, tranquility, joy, refreshment.

Now, if I posted pictures of every corner of my house, you would see the random pile of stuff to be organized & put away, projects yet to be completed, & the occasional dust bunny. That's not my idea of refreshing decor. However, this blog is about the pursuit of those things I hold dear, not the perfect achievement.

I've been told that I like to do things different than the norm. I don't like matchy-matchy new stuff from a showroom floor that requires no creativity. I was also raised in a very thrifty home, but one that had all the things I listed above (the peacefulness, not the dust bunnies). Perhaps that's why I tend to gravitate towards decor challenges that allow me to get the results I'm looking for, spending the least amount of money possible. Because, seriously, we've got more necessary things to spend our money on: food, bills, etc. But that doesn't mean that we have to live in a boring place. Example: I found these old chairs for $5 each:


After a lot of sanding, priming & painting (by my dad!), they turned into these:


I didn't even want brand spanking new porch furniture. Where would the fun be in that?

So, welcome! I hope you are inspired to become creative with what you have or what you can find. Think of every day items in a new way, and have fun!

Erin

Travel Jar

Here's my first blog post on a cheap & crafty way to remember a trip. I got the idea from Sherry & John over at www.thisyounghouse.com. Last weekend the hubby & I went to Barcelona for our 7th wedding anniversary. You're saying, "Barcelona! Wow! What an extravagant trip!" Well, actually, we live in Spain. We're here for two years, and are trying to take advantage of how little it costs to travel in the country. Barcelona is one of our favorite places! We took a long weekend & had a great time. Very relaxing, and we went to the beach - my first time touching the sand & sea in Spain! To commemorate the trip, I scooped up a little bit of sand while we were at the beach, along with some seashells I found, & a pottery shard. I also saved a business card of a restaurant we ate at. It has a black & white photo on the back of the restaurant from when it first opened in the 40's. I don't have a cool jar to put it all in, so this empty garbanzo bean jar will have to do for now.

Add a velvet ribbon & a velum tag to label it, and I have an instant reminder of a great weekend!

The Last Bowl of Ice Cream

Tonight I had my last bowl of ice cream for a while. Tomorrow morning I am starting phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. I've been talking about it for a long time, and meaning to start, but now I'm doing it. I'm a bit apprehensive because I don't know if I can survive without sugar. And I don't like eggs. Or fish. However, we watched our wedding video last night for the first time in a long time, and seeing how I looked then, knowing that I wouldn't be able to squeeze myself into that dress anymore, motivated me to finally start. My doctor recommended the diet to me a few years ago since I'm pre-diabetic, so it has major health benefits for me. Vino is interested in going on the diet with me, but since he bought ice cream and a bunch of other forbidden foods at the grocery store tonight, I'm not sure how long it will last. Who knows, though. He might decide he likes it. My parents just left last week after being here for a month, and my sister comes in a little less than 2 weeks - almost enough time to complete phase 1. I have decided that I'm not going to give up diet soda or coffee...yet. I would dread that. Just no real sugar or fat-filled milk in the coffee.

I kind of feel like posting this online makes me a little more accountable. Like I really have to go through with it or anyone who reads this will think I have no will power if I give up. We'll see how I do with a fresh tub of ice cream calling to me from the freezer. It was mighty tasty. :)

arriving in Espana

We have arrived! By the time we left Lincoln on Wednesday morning, I was beyond tired & frustrated. We had about 1 hour of sleep the night before, the rest of the time spent packing, cleaning, organizing, putting stuff into storage, etc. It doesn't seem to matter how much prep is done before, we always end up just barely making it! To me, it was such a relief to get into the truck and drive to Omaha, knowing that there was nothing more that we could do to prepare.

Several people have asked me how I feel about moving overseas for 2 years. Anxious? Nervous? Excited? Sad? Right now, I would have to say "relieved." We've been in this process for close to two years, and it's just nice to actually be here so we can start doing what we've been preparing for so long to do.

Our first day here we spent time unpacking and settling in to our temporary home. We're living in the basement of the IMM director's house. There is plenty of room for us, and they took time to set it up very comfortably with sleeping, sitting & kitchen areas. We don't have a sink down there, but we can use the kitchen upstairs. We also have a bathroom to use. When the new IMM building is complete, we will be moving into a small one bedroom apartment on the top floor. Although we're comfortable where we are, it will be nice to finally be able to unpack completely and settle in to a semi-permanent home. We've been living with my parents since the beginning of May, so we feel a little like Gypsies.

We went to work on our second day, although it wasn't an intense day for us. The IMM staff had a welcome lunch for us (everyone brought salad fixin's) and we ate outside. The weather since we've arrived has been perfect. Much cooler than Nebraska has been. Later on in the day, Bonnie Cooper (one of the missionaries) took Vino & I and Stephanie Koeshall (she and her husband are MAPS workers here) to a big supermarket, Al Campo, in Alcala (the city close by). Al Campo is like a Super Walmart with groceries, but also just about everything else you would need. We loaded up on food for the week, which took a rather long time since we didn't know where to find stuff (it's not necessarily organized the same way stores in the states are), and we couldn't read all the labels. I'm sure the shopping process will get eaisier with time.

We took Tylenol PM last night so that we would sleep through the night. Did we ever...and through the first half of the day! We probably should have set our alarm. We woke up at about 12:20 pm. Yikes!! So much for doing something interesting today (Saturday). We missed half of it already. I do feel very rested, though.

We bought some interesting fruit at a market down the street. Yellow plumbs and something that looks like a flat, squashed peach. Both were very good. Vino says the fruit is the best in Spain, and it's looking like he's right.

I'm ready to get settled in to Spain.