Friday, February 26, 2010

It's a Rock!

We have lots of rocks on our property. Here's one I found, while walking in the woods. I thought it looked interesting, so I toted it home, and today Allen cut it open for us, so the kids and I could see the inside.








Cool, huh?

Sunday, February 21, 2010

BOOM!

Earlier tonight, while I was working in my bedroom and the rest of the family was watching a movie, we heard a sudden, VERY LOUD BOOM! It wasn't quite shake-the-house loud, but it was loud enough that we all mistook the sound for an odd, out of the blue, short clap of thunder.

Not long after, one of Russell's friends called, to tell us that it was a meteor crashing to the earth nearby! Well, that was exciting, for sure, but it turned out not to be correct. We learned later that the noise we heard was a sonic boom, from the space shuttle Endeavour, as it re-entered the atmosphere just before landing in Florida.

That was pretty exciting, too!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

A Brief Update

Once again, I've carefully kept myself from announcing to the world that my husband was away from home. It just seems like information you don't want to broadcast, for security reasons. But he has been away, and now he's back!

Allen flew to Florida a few days after Christmas. He rented a truck in Miami, and purchased the solar panels for our home. Then, with the panels in the truck, he started driving north, collecting donations all along the way. Friends in Jacksonville had collected Christmas gifts for us to distribute, so he picked those up. My family in Sarasota also had a collection of gifts, as well as various items for our family. He collected those as well, then headed further north.

In North Carolina, a church runs an annual gift-making ministry, and he collected 1000 shoebox gifts from them.

Up in Maryland, our home church and other local friends had additional donated items for us. Allen also purchased a hot water heater and . . . this is a big one . . . a dishwasher for our new home.

The container is in transit, and soon we will be working through exactly how much we will have to pay for all of this, as it passes through customs. Then comes the fun of emptying the contents of the container, sorting it, and distributing all of the gifts and donated items (mostly used clothing and bedding) to the poor of Lempira. It's a huge job.

When Allen returned after his trip to the US, he whisked me away for a four day get-reacquainted trip to the cute colonial city of Copan Ruinas, which is about 2.5 hours from our home. We had a lovely little getaway, and I won't even apologize for not blogging during this time!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

A Glimpse of my Kitchen

We've been working hard to make our new home "homey." As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's all one big room (except, happily, the bathroom is a private walled off corner), and we've had to create some sense of rooms within the one big room. I used my bookcases - of which I have many, thanks to the carpentry skill of Allen and the kids - to create walls. Rachel attached woven mats to the backs of the bookcases, since they all have open backs.

Allen and the kids also made and painted my kitchen countertops, and Rachel took a trip to the nearby city of Santa Rosa de Copan, purchased fabric, and created curtains for the cupboards. We do have serious dust issues, so covering the cabinet openings is important. We also like the less-cluttered look of not seeing everything in the cabinets.



There are still several more cabinet openings which need curtains. Rachel is taking a bit of time every day out of her schoolwork to finish these for me. I'll try to post a picture of the entire kitchen when she has finished.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

My No-Internet Mornings


Recently, we've been experiencing very thick fog at dawn. We don't get much rain this time of year, so I'm sure the plants appreciate all the water in the morning air.

I'm not as appreciative as the plants, because the fog socks us in so that my internet connection can't connect. That makes me sad, not to mention giving me that feeling of being "cut off" from the world. I always get this feeling in thick fog, but even more so when my internet isn't working!

Here are a couple of pictures, to give you an idea of our fog. First, the view from my clothesline when the fog has lifted:



The "view" from my clothesline at dawn:



Although by 8am or so the fog will appear to have lifted, we continue to have limited (or no) internet until about noon. I'm trying to think positively, about how much other work I can accomplish if I'm not online, but it's hard. I really like my internet connection, when it's connected.