it's been a big 3 weeks...

in the last 3 weeks many things have gone on:

-we hosted our first “team” here in swaziland.

-it was great...seeing friends and family, the services, the work that went on, the suitcases full of things from the states.  it.was.awesome.

-some other friends came to visit from the states.

-they brought more suitcases.  

-there were tears of joy and i sang the hallelujah chorus.

-i really do know the hallelujah chorus....i learned in high school choir....my teacher wanted me to sing with the sopranos all the way through...but there were parts that were painful...so i didn’t when he wasn’t listening.  guilty.

-my friends made me a birthday cake...because it was my birthday while they were here.  

-they also bought me flowers.

-we ate chinese food...at the restaurant...that was nice...because i didn’t want to do dishes on my birthday. 

-i hate doing dishes.

-i hadn’t given any thought to the fact that they don’t have automatic dishwashers here.

-they do not have automatic dishwashers here.

-it was devastating.

-i don’t know if i still would have come had i known...

-my friends, olivia and i went zip lining.  

-the guy snapped the skin of my neck into the helmet clasp.  

-i guess that’s when he realized i needed the extra large helmet from the “special” room.

-i knew i would need a larger than average helmet  as i observed everyone getting geared up.

-i knew because i was having memories of the cap and gown company measuring everyone’s head for graduation whenever i was in high school.

-it’s tough having the biggest head in the class.  i thought it was my spiral perm at the time...but now i’m just not so sure.

-the next day my friends left....and i cried.  it was very sad.

-the day after that we left for a speaking engagement in mozambique.  

-it was a long, long, long drive.  

-i cannot describe how long this drive was.

-there were no restaurants.  

-there were few gas stations.

-we survived on chips, bread and soda for 3 days.  

-it was all we could find.

-we should have learned portuguese before we left. 

-ella tried to speak to the church people in siswati.  

-she was confused when they didn’t all laugh and ooh and aww over her.  

-you could see the confusion as she thought to herself, “man, that usually wows a crowd!”

-i became closer to the Lord as i prayed that none of us would get malaria.

-we will know in 9 days if we have malaria...

-now i shall begin cooking for thanksgiving....without a dishwasher...and hopefully without malaria, too.  

conversions, close calls, and an egg....

-i almost ran over 3 pedestrians today....

-one of them had to actually run to get out of my way. 

-i hate it when you are hitting the gas pedal, but really trying hard to get your foot over to the brake pedal....but it won't get there fast enough...and then it gets caught underneath the brake pedal...

-i felt badly about coming so close to hitting that man.

-i think you shouldn't walk in front of cars whose driver is looking the other direction....as a general rule... 

-why sneak up on a driver like that? 

-i saw two dead, bloated cows on our way home from johannesburg this weekend.

-olivia asked her friends in ballet if they spoke french today. when they in turn started speaking siswati...olivia just blurted out the word oeuf....which is the french word for egg.  

-egg?

-of all the words.....

-griffin and ella found a barbie....and a pair of scissors...and they played beautician.

-in the states, olivia’s ballet teacher wouldn’t let her wear a skirt over her leotard until she was 8 years old....she stopped taking ballet at 7.   

-i’m having a hard time driving on the left side of the road while at the same time going through intersections that have 7 different directions that you can go, knowing what a stoplight says that the red and/or green light bulbs are not working, not hitting pedestrians that are forever running out in front of my car, not hitting cows that are forever walking in front of my car, not hitting goats that are forever walking in front of my car, and remembering where all of the speed bumps are....because Lord knows they are not marked.

-olivia feels confident saying egg in french.  8 weeks of french...and egg is her word of choice.  

-egg?

-i am grateful barbie was who griffin and ella played beautician on....i would cry if one of ella’s pig tails was suddenly missing.

-olivia’s ballet teacher in swaziland only lets little girls under age 8 wear skirts over their leotards...olivia is now 9....

-olivia is beyond sad by this misfortune...

-i still don’t know the exact conversions for celsius and fahrenheit.  

- i do know that in the teens it’s chilly, but tolerable. in the 20’s it’s very nice.  in the 30’s it’s very hot.  in the single digits....i want to go back to the states where my house had heat. 

-when the doctor said griffin’s temp was 36....that really didn’t mean anything to me...

-we had to board our dogs for this weekend because we are going on our team retreat in south africa.  

-the dogs were very scared....there was much trembling... and peeing.  

-i feel badly for the dogs...

-i feel badly for the truck in which they were riding.

-i’ve never seen a bloated cow before....only bloated armadillo...

-bloated armadillo are less disturbing....well, i don’t know...it’s a toss up...

the dogs....

the dogs...

i’m pretty sure we should have taken a seminar on rearing dogs before we ever made our way to the swaziland humane society.  does anyone know if they offer a “growing dogs God’s way” class at a local church near me?  the dogs don’t mind.  they don’t behave.  they are completely out of control.  they jump on everyone that comes through our gate.  they lick.  they dig...oh good grief do they ever dig.  they try to get into the house.  they get into the trash.  they bark at inappropriate times and they smell.  they eat $100 worth of dog food a month....and they are not even half grown.  the situation is out of hand.  

griffin and ella love the dogs.  they LOVE the dogs.  tonight when we got home from taking olivia to ballet, as we were driving into the drive way...ella says, “hey doggies, i’m home.”  if you are carrying ella...you may as well have a target on your entire body.  the dogs love her.  they want to eat her as badly as i do.  they must have felt her squooshy goodness.  they lick her hands, they lick her toes, they just cannot get enough.  and she giggles and giggles, putting out her little hands in hopes that they will come and taste her yummy preciousness.  which, of course, they do.  blech....  griffin spent the entire day in the backyard with the dogs.  he even put a show on for them...complete with song and dance.  it was around that time the dogs went into the front yard.  he chased them down and continued his entertainment.  they were thrilled he had found them.  not really.  at one point i went outside to find griffin sitting on the ground with ranger wrapped around him, wagging his tail, and enjoying the company.  i’m pretty sure they had been in conversation before i walked up.  which leads me to my latest doggie frustration.  the dogs talk.  not english...it’s bark.  i’m not crazy.  but they bark back.  as in, they talk back.  when they get in trouble, they talk back.  at first it was just ranger, but then maverick saw him getting away with it, and now they both do it.  ranger has authority issues.  and maverick is just such a follower.  he needs to stand up and be his own dog.  

and so here i am.  blogging about my dogs.  this is what it has come to....

it was a lovely day...

today i was awakened by my alarm going off at the usual 5:20....heaven help me.  i woke up and read my emails, most of which aren't usually all that interesting.  of course pioneerwoman's blog was funny, and it woke me up enough to go ahead and get out of bed.  her and her spanx...seriously, is there anything funnier?  so anyway, i got into my workout clothes, because it's circuit training day and all.  blech...i hate it as bad as the kids do, but i can't let them know that.  they would probably capitalize on it and try to get me to change my mind even more than i already want to.  they can never know when i'm wavering on something.  it must stay internal!  these cadbury thighs aren't going to go away on their own.  trust me, i've prayed about it....but they're still there.  i wonder if they have spanx in africa?

anyway, we did school..... most of it.   but it's music day, so we had to leave at noon to get to class on time.  we got in the car with 30 minutes to drive our roughly 25 minute drive.  that's when i realized i didn't have enough gas to make it.  i promptly called randy and let him know how i felt about his leaving me with no gas in the vehicle.  it was a loving conversation.  one which involved me screaming hysterically and him laughing....also quite hysterically.  the bigger problem was i that i didn't have any money.  how am i suppose to get gas with no money?  atm cards aren't exactly an option here.  so i immediately had hudson start going through my purse trying to find enough money to get some gas.  he located enough, and so the world didn't end.  although now we were behind schedule.  i hate being late.  the lesson is only like 15 minutes...being late makes it hardly worth going.  so we were on our way.  i was speeding a little here and there, but it's a very winding and hilly ride.  speeding is a challenge.  it's up hill, very few cars in front you can even go the speed limit.  the road makes you feel like you could fall off at any moment....so on and so forth.  but when we got into town, i decided to make up a little lost time.  unfortunately, there were police waiting around the bend.  i was going 11 kilometers over the speed limit.  that's like 5 mph.  i would have never been stopped in the states.  and i told him....sir, i've been driving for almost 20 years,  and i have NEVER gotten a speeding ticket!  in fact, i have never even been pulled over.  he told me to pay 60.  of course i didn't have enough money to pay 60.  seeing as to how i had just had to dig through my purse for gas money and all!  he laughed, he gave me a ticket, and i was on my way.  i was 3 minutes late to piano lessons.  not bad all things considered.

i made chicken fajitas tonight.  i'm tired of making tortillas.  honest to goodness, i don't care if i ever make another tortilla again as long as i live.  i also chased the dogs all the way around the house trying to get griffin's tennis shoe from them.  i scrubbed almost the entire length of our hallway this morning because ella found a crayon while i was doing dishes.  and the mystery of why the water coming out of our faucets is suddenly dirty has still not been solved.  i've had to boil water to do dishes.  i'm starting to feel like i'm the pioneerwoman.

we've been here a while...

the sun comes up early here.  around 5:20 right now...i've been told it will be closer to 4:15 once summer really kicks in.  awesome.  the reason it's so awesome is because the sun wakes up the birds.  the birds are very loud and weird sounding here.  then the birds wake up the puppies.  then the puppies start barking and wrestling and frolicking about the yard...all loud like.  which wakes up griffin and/or precious ella.  it's a wonderful chain of events that takes place each and every morning.  basically, once our morning reaches 9:30 a.m., we have accomplished what seems like an entire day's work.  by 10 a.m. we are in need of lunch and a nap.  sometimes ella even asks for a nap.  i ask for a nap, too....but no one will put me down for one.

we just finished our 5th week of school.  the kids have done extremely well with staying on their schedule and routine.  i couldn't have asked for them to do any better.  hudson's work is all on computer.  his teacher in the states assigns him work everyday, and he is responsible to finish it and then upload it for the teacher to grade.  he's doing great and making good grades.  olivia is studying the underground railroad, the beginnings of the civil war, electricity, adverbs, etc.  griffin is doing worksheet after worksheet that i print off of the internet.  i'm hoping that all of this "worksheet loving" is pointing to him being an eager to learn student.  those are always nice to have.  ella loves doing the worksheets, too.  she loves drawing....although she doesn't particularly like staying confined to coloring on just paper.  she prefers to keep, "the whole house is my canvas" mentality.  ella gets quite a few spankings these days.  ella keeps me on my toes.  ella keeps us all on our toes.  she is a party looking for a place to happen.  i want to squeeze her and kiss her and bite her a little.  she's just so gooshy, and it brings it out in me....

olivia started ballet.  it's going pretty well, and i can tell she is going to learn a lot with this teacher.  it's pretty strict, much more so than where she was at before....  when she got into the car the other day, she said, "well, i can tell i'm going to do this to become really good at ballet, not to have fun."  i thought that was a mature way to look at it.  we will see how it goes.  hudson is taking piano.  olivia will take it too, but right now the teacher still has her on the recorder.  i'm proud of them, they both practice most days....and i only have to tell them to once....sometimes twice....and sometimes they even practice the music that they are suppose to be practicing.  yes, this is sarcasm.

it's gotten pretty busy here at the freeman household.  between all that randy has going on,  homeschooling,  extra curricular activities,  and church.  life is different here.  it's taken some getting use to....and it hasn't happened without many tears...mostly by me, not the kids.  ok, pretty much all of the tears have been mine.  sometimes i can laugh about it, and sometimes i can't.  and sometimes i have to cry before i can laugh.   i would be lying if i said it was easy.  i miss my family, i miss my friends, i miss my food options in the states.  i miss the library, i miss fall in texas, I MISS THE STATE FAIR!  i miss everything so badly that i think i may even miss football a little.  africa does strange things to a woman....

blending it up a bit....

first, let me say that this post is neither important or all that interesting...it's just a few muddled ideas and lessons learned....

second, let me add an addendum to the last post.  hudson's homeschool curriculum was software.  i am not responsible for his lesson plans or activities....his online teacher is.  i was only responsible to download the software.  that is all.

ok, on to my actual post...basically, we have finally bought a blender.  when we got here, it seemed easy enough to set up house...buy a sofa, a table, some beds.  but after a while you realize things you had tucked away in your kitchen cabinets at home, oddly enough, are not tucked away in the cabinets you are renting in swaziland.  we are forever saying, we need to buy a new one of this or of that.  a blender was one of those things.  i had thought we could get away without buying one...perhaps....  but, i had thought that at home many times before, too.  in the course of our 16 years together, i think we had purchased 4 blenders.  either we are very hard on blenders...or we are not buying the right brand.  anyway, i had finally bought one that blended beautifully.  i was very happy with my blender purchase.  but then, like 3 weeks later,  God told us to move to africa, and my blending future seemed iffy at best.  now let it be noted, i did bring my mixer and my food processor to africa...i'm not quite sure why i felt compelled to leave the blender.  i do remember my mom mentioning the need of a blender, i remember thinking, "i'll just give mine to her."   and so i did....all but the lid.  the lid mysteriously went missing when we moved our belongings to oklahoma for a short time before the "big" move to africa.  mom, did you ever find that lid?  i really think it was in dad's truck.  *sigh*  what is my poor mother going to do with a lidless blender?  you can get away without a lid on many things...but a blender is not typically one of them.  honestly, i'm not even sure i correctly recall her saying she needed a blender....i thought i did, but maybe i just wanted to keep my blender in the family.  i do weird things like that sometimes....  by that point in our move,  i had given away or sold so much...the blender attachment may have run deeper than i was conscience of.  mom, please save my blender!  i'm coming back!!!  lid or no lid!!!

anyway, yesterday randy bought a blender.  there was much anticipation in the house as we knew that meant today we were having frappucinos.  yea!  and tonight,  tonight i made milkshakes! they were quite tasty, and i feel i did a good job.  much better than the last time i made them...which was my first time to make milkshakes.  you see,  last time i attempted to make a milkshake, i stuck my wooden spoon down into the blender before the blades turned all the way off.  it took a chunk of wood out of my wooden spoon.  it dispersed wood throughout the shake.  small pieces, the kind you could easily swallow.  pieces that, in my mind....were probably very harmless.  they were so small.  the kids likely wouldn't even notice.  it was an oreo shake, and the kids and i so desperately wanted to drink it.  so, in a quick, rash, decision.... i decided to risk it!  we drank the oreo/wood shake.  well, we drank some of it.  then i had this panic attack that the wood would lodge itself into their colons, puncturing the colon walls and causing them to die.  i didn't want to be the mom that killed her kids with a wooden shake.  so i quickly gathered up all of the shakes, ripping them right out of their excited little hands.....  much to their dismay.  there was crying and yelling and great sadness throughout.  and so i learned, don't stick a wooden spoon in your blender when you are making a milkshake.  you are all very welcome for this pertinent, public service announcement.  and once again i will ask that you not judge me for any of the afore mentioned activities.

what's up?

what's going on....well, at least on my end...randy is a whole other story...

1. we have started school.  we actually started on the 23rd of august.  that was a tuesday.  originally we were going to start on the 22nd....but i temporarily misplaced hudson's curriculum.  all i could do was pray, dear God let it have made it on the plane to africa!  after a sleepless night, looks of disgust from randy, a disgruntled 13 year old, and finally, a looky see around the garage the next day (there was no light in the garage at night), yes, i waited until the night before we were going to start school to look for the curriculum...  it was discovered.  in an envelope.  marked hudson's school.  with some other odds and ends.  well, not "other" odds and ends....as the school curriculum itself was neither odd nor end.  *sigh*

anyway,  we are now in our 3rd week.  it's going marvelously.  there's reading, there's writing, there's dividing and algebra, there's french and there's arabic (don't ask), we even have P.E.  i have applied what i learned last year while losing the baby weight from ella, and have assigned the kids circuit training 2 times a week.  they love it!  no, actually, they hate it.  and they hate me while we do it.  but the other 2 days a week we just do trampoline time.  they don't hate that.  and they don't hate me....until they try to come in after 15 minutes and i start yelling at them, "NO, YOU HAVE TO STAY OUT THERE AT LEAST 20 MINUTES!  then they start hating me again.  really, i don't think my kids are too into physical activity.  which is crazy....i mean, i am the queen of physical activity.  wait, no, no i am not.  please do not make me do physical activity!  i blame it on my own homeschool experience.  there was no circuit training or trampoline time in my homeschool experience.  our physical activity was primarily shopping malls and swap meets....thank you to being raised on the evangelistic field.  it was not so bad....i'm just not a very great runner/walker/swimmer/jumper/catcher/thrower/etc. as a result.  which is fine, why would i need to run/walk/swim/jump/catch/throw/etc?  i don't.  but shop?  swap meet?  i can do that!

2. disciplining....  whose idea was it to train a 3 year old, an almost 2 year old, a 9 year old, a 13 year old, and two puppies all at the same time?!?!

3. i break up arguments and such almost all day.  the little kids fight, the big kids fight, the dogs fight.  i told a friend of mine the other day,  with all of the fighting going on between the kids and the dogs, randy i hardly have time to do our own fighting...

 4. i cook.  i cook a lot.  oh, and i go to the grocery store.....a lot.  for the first 16 years of our marriage, i went to the grocery store once a week.  if it didn't get got that day....we waited until the next week.  it was written in stone. ~ i will go to the store on monday.  if you need anything and it's not monday.  too bad for you!~  we are out of toilette paper?  use a tissue!  we are out of soap?  you need to find a soapless option.  i was not going to the store again.  tuesday-sunday, not store days.  monday, store day.  that was that.  but here, oh my sweet moses...they never have anything i need.  i have to go to the store almost every day.  it. is. killing. me!  i went to the store 4 days in a row this week hoping that they had the right milk.  once, i bought a milk that i thought would be ok...but it was chunky.  and apparently it was suppose to be like that.  soooooo, to the store 4 days in a row, i shall go.   last week, it was powdered sugar.  the week before that it was coconut.  basically, every week i make the list, some how it gets transmitted to the store via satellite, and the workers quickly go and remove key items that were on my list from their shelves.  it's very high tech for swaziland.  and i'm not sure what they have to gain by such actions.  lord give me patience.

which brings me to the next thing i do a lot of...
5. pray.  i pray all of the time.  i pray for protection over my kids' health.  i pray for wisdom to handle the different situations that moving to another continent have given to us.  i pray for the country we are in.  i pray for its leaders.  i pray for my home country.  i pray for its leaders.  i pray for my family at home.  i pray for my friends who are pregnant with little babies that i will not get to see until they are toddlers.  i pray for my friends who are church planters....because i know what that was like.  i pray for my pastor friends and my family members who are pastors...because i know what that was like, too.  i pray for my friends and family raising children.  i pray for their children.  i pray that God gives me an understanding of this culture.  i pray that the african sun isn't too hard on me and my very white children.  i pray for all of my friends who are also missionaries.  i pray that the dogs don't jump on me as i walk to my car.  i pray that i make God proud while i'm here.  i pray that i make God proud.