Life in Port-au-Prince..............

I just got off the phone with Dadou in Port-au-Prince. He tells me he is still wearing the same clothes he had on Tuesday as everything in his house has been destroyed. They have been sleeping outside since the quake. Yesterday, they were able to find a little spaghetti for the family to eat, plain with a little maggi seasoning. The day before they had plain white rice. He feels lucky they are able to eat. They are drinking untreated water and hoping they don't get sick. He says the stench is so strong, he constantly feels like he's going to vomit. Eddy was able to talk to his sister last night and their situation is almost identical. This is probably typical for the lucky ones who survived the quake.


I called Money Gram yesterday and found out that they are offering a special rate on money transfers to Haiti; $1 no matter what the amount. Problem is, not a single Money Gram office in Port-au-Prince is operating. Then I called Western Union. They are not charging at all for money transfers to Haiti (their usual rate is 11%). They have one office still functioning in Port-au-Prince but it is away from the main part of town and much too far to walk for either Dadou or Eddy's family, especially if you're weak with hunger. Here's hoping they can get their offices up and running quickly!

Everybody we know living in Port-au-Prince has lost their home and everything they own. Every single one of them! But at least they are alive.

Still no word from Randolph, Eddy's son..........

Update on our family and friends in Haiti

Eddy and I have been so encouraged by the show of support and concern we have received from so many people regarding our family and friends in Haiti. As you know if you have been following the news at all, the digicel tower (main wireless provider in Haiti) is down preventing communication. Even should the tower be restored, there is no electricity so people will not be able to charge their phones. Although some people have been able to communicate through the internet, we have not had any communication from any one this way.

We believe that it could be several weeks before we know the situations of our various friends and family members. We anticipate that once communication has been reestablished, we will be inundated with calls for help.

Typically make a trip down to Haiti sometime in February. I have not made a final decision about that trip for this year. I will be collecting donations for earthquake relief and even if I do not make the trip personally, the aid will be distributed as needed.

There are many ways that you can contribute to help Haitians affected by the earthquake. Our ministry has been helping the people of Haiti for 8 years to be self sufficient through micro-loans for businesses, educational grants, training and in some cases, to meet emergency needs. We are operated completely by volunteers so we have zero administration costs. If you would like to donate through our ministry, you may send your donation to:

Haiti Mustard Seed Ministries
6404 S. Calhoun
Fort Wayne, IN 46807 (please specify earthquake relief in the memo line)

If you would like to donate through a larger organization, the Red Cross has made it very simple to donate. Simply text the word "Haiti" to 90999 and $10 will be charged to your phone bill and sent to Haiti.

Lutheran World Relief is another excellent relief organization which will let you donate directly for this cause. In past disasters, 100 percent of donations have gone directly to the cause; their average administration costs have been 8 cents on every dollar donated.

A simple google search will turn up many more organizations accepting donations to help earthquake victims in Haiti.

Please keep Haiti in your prayers. The Haitians are a resilient people and filled with faith, but this is going to be a very, very difficult time for them.

Earthquake

I was planning to blog about my wonderful day today, saying I felt sorry for anybody who wasn't me.  I spent the day doing things I enjoy; yoga in the early morning, then spent time in the kitchen trying out a new recipe, and the rest of the afternoon I spent lost in the pages of a good book.  I felt relaxed and satisfied and happy. 

Then, an earthquake struck Haiti...............

My heart is clutched into a tight ball as I've been unable to reach close friends living in Port-au-Prince.  The news on the t.v. is very grim and I feel hollow.  It may be days, even weeks before I'm able to connect.

Trudging along......

Usually, I finish a book in anywhere from two to four days (depending on how busy I am and how long the book is).  But I've been trudging through Night Train to Lisbon for over two weeks now.  I was so excited about reading this book because I had read such good reviews on it.  It's the type of book that you read slowly because it's filled with ideas that generate reflection.  But after two plus weeks, I was only on page 197 of a 438 page story and really struggling to make myself continue.  I hate giving up after investing so much time, it almost feels like I'm giving up one of my children for adoption (o.k.... maybe not QUITE like that).  But last night, I finally made the decision to put this one aside and start something new.  Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay grabbed me by the throat and hasn't let go!  A much faster moving plot, filled with emotion and I'm beside myself with worry for the little boy locked in the cupboard!  (want to know what I'm talking about?  go read the book!)

The last few days have been good, but COLD!  Being unemployed has many advantages. You can stay inside and snuggle up with a good book and a cup of tea or a glass of wine (depending on the time of day) and not have to worry about bundling up in winter garb to scrap ice of your windshield.  You can eat breakfast at 10:00 and lunch at 11:00.  You can take a nap 1:00 and play on the computer all afternoon.  But then, there is that money problem....... Always a fly in the ointment.

I don't know how it happened, but somehow I fell off the "decluttering" train and I plan to climb back on tomorrow.  I'm writing it here so I'll feel pressured to do it.  Other things on my list for tomorrow are, make an eye appointment, memorize stanza two of The Raven (got the first stanza down Saturday) and finish Sarah's Key.  Here's hoping it's a good day!

BLECH!!!!!

I should not have spent 5 hours today making roasted winter vegetable enchiladas.  In a word, BLECH!!!!  Washing the taste of them out of my mouth with a nice Argentinian malbec......

My new do

Out with the old (list), in with the new!

I think it might take me 60 years to declutter what it's taken me 47 to collect.  I've only made it through one small box in the last two days.  Here's why.  I have to read every scrap of paper and look at every picture and find a legitimate"home" for every item I decide to keep.  One thing I found is a list I made several years ago.  Across the top of the page is written "Things to do before I turn 50".    The list contains such lofty goals as "learn to dance salsa", "get my pilot's license", "learn Italian".  There are 10 such ridiculous things listed, not a single one of which I have even begun to do.  Rather than be a complete failure when I arrive at 50, with 2 1/2 years left to go before the big day, I've decided to make a new list.

Things to do before I turn 50

1.  watch all the Monty Python movies in a single sitting.  (preferably in Arizona, at my friend Tim's, with an endless supply of "homemade" popcorn)
2.  buy a fancy hat and wear it somewhere in public
3.  get something free through a masterpiece of complaining (saw this one on someone else's list and thought it sounded fun!)
4.  make friends with a complete, random stranger
5.  write and mail a letter to the President of the United States
6.  learn 10 words in Italian
7.  visit California (this is cheating a bit since I already have plans to attend my girlfriend's wedding on 10-10-10!)
8.  try some weed (could probably get some from my sister, or my daughter......)
9.  Memorize "The Raven" and recite it to an audience
10.  learn to write with my left hand.

Yes..... as I review this list, I think it is definitely more doable than the first list I wrote.  I might even start on #9 yet today!

I'm taking a break from "decluttering" because I'm getting ready to try a somewhat involved recipe for roasted vegetable enchiladas.  Spent the last two days gathering all the ingredients!  Needed to make a trip to the Mexican grocery store for poblano chilies (these will be roasted and ground with spices for the enchilada sauce) and the chayote squash as Scott's doesn't carry these "exotic" things.  But already had the dried ancho chilies and chipotles in my pantry.  Other vegetables to be roasted include butternut squash and mushrooms. 

I made Thai fried rice on Wednesday and thought about my ex-pastor and his wife the whole time.  Seemed like a recipe they would like; seasoned with curry powder and fish sauce and studded with cashews, shrimp, pineapple, raisons, peas, and red peppers.  And although the ingredient list seemed a bit lengthy, the whole thing came together very quickly in the end.  Next time, I'll make the rice a day ahead and use fresh pineapple instead of canned. 

Last night, I tried a couple of Greek recipes.  One was for Avgolemono soup (lemon soup).  I already have a pretty simple recipe for this which I love, but this recipe was a bit hardier.  It contained chicken and chopped up veggies as well as a sprinkling for fresh dill.  The other recipe was for Garides Tourkolimano (a shrimp dish).  This was o.k. but I've decided to never use frozen, thawed shrimp again.  The shrimp was mushy!  (If you are interested in these recipes, I got them from closetcooking.blogspot.com)

In other news, I lost three pounds of hair yesterday (no, I didn't shave my legs!).  I took a one-day break from yoga for a 9:00 hair appointment.  I'm very happy with the results and think it makes me look younger.  It's odd how "looking" younger makes me feel younger.  Felt full of energy and happiness all day yesterday!  I'll post a photo later if I can find time in my busy, productive day to take a picture!

Sorry for the boring post, but felt I needed to get something new on my blog before my "followers" wandered away out of boredom. 

A confession, a success, and a failure..............

I have to admit that I enjoy a bit of a reputation in my family for being a good cook.  While it's true that I am adventurous in my cooking and love to try new recipes, the real truth is, I cook like I play the piano, by the book.   To cook, I need a recipe; to play the piano, I need sheet music or a score.  I excel at following directions.  I've never really been very good at coloring outside the lines, improvising, creating..... I just can't seem to take that leap.  And as long as I'm confessing, I might as well take the plunge and admit that the real cook in my family is my sister.  She can open her fridge, pull out a few leftovers or bits and pieces of whatever, and VOILA, dinner.  And it tastes good!  I've always envied her that skill.

I have decided to work on changing this, both in my cooking and in my music (if my esteemed friend and professor, Dr. Mark A Leach is reading this, I hope he'll be proud)!  Today at lunch, as I was preparing to heat up last night's left-overs, I felt a tiny wiggle of an idea......  Why not throw the left overs in a bowl, mush them up, add a few more ingredients, and make something new?  So, that's what I did.  I flaked a piece of salmon into a bowl, added a scoop of rice, some cilantro, swiss cheese, a little Indian chili powder, some mayo, and an egg.  It looked like this

Next, I heated up my cast iron skillet, put in a little butter and fried the mixture in patties.   I had about 1 tablespoon of peanut butter dressing left over from an asian noodle salad I made on New Year's day so I drizzled it over the top.  They were delicious!  Salmon and wild rice patties..... may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but it was a personal triumph!

I'm glad my lunch was a success because my morning was, in a word, discouraging.  The yoga session this morning involved spending long periods of time balancing on one leg while bending over, kicking the other leg back and up, stretching, bending, lifting, pointing....   It was a misery!  I couldn't keep my balance to save my life.  Lots of work to do there.  Lots and lots of work!  I actually didn't get a work-out at all because I couldn't follow the routines.  I kept falling over.  I was very disappointed in myself because I always had such good balance.  Can this be blamed on age?  Or lack of practice?   If it's the first, I'm out of luck.  But if it's the second, there might be hope!

Tomorrow, I plan to start DECLUTTERING!

Great News!

Wow!  Only five days into the new year and my luck is already changing.  I got two pieces of good news today.  The first is that it seems I may have already won $10,000,000 in the PCH sweepstakes.  Just got the notification in the mail today and I'm sure this is some sort of miracle because I never even entered!  The second piece of good news is that I received an email this morning from a member of the royal family in Nigeria entrusting me to handle some delicate banking matters.  I'm not allowed to reveal the details, but let's put it this way, I may be getting rich in the near future!

I hope your day is going as well as mine!  I'll keep you posted.

Another Healthy Day.....

I was very proud of myself for working out with Namaste Yoga this morning. Lucky for me, the 8:30 program was not too intense. Tomorrow's program is described as a bit more advanced. Hmm...... I had a cup of Darjeeling tea and the last of my delicious root vegetable soup for breakfast. Spent the next three hours feeling very proud of myself for making such healthy choices!

Today, I stumbled across this terrific food blog. You can check it out at closetcooking.blogspot.com Every recipe looked delicious! I decided to try a recipe for pan-seared salmon with Thai curried spinach. The spinach recipe was simplicity itself and can you believe I had all the ingredients in my kitchen? Didn't have to go out and buy a thing. I decided to make teriyaki Salmon instead of pan-seared. I served it up with a wild/brown rice mix and a glass of pinot grigio. Very tasty! And my first "meat" of the new year.

(Note to self: make learning how to take good food pictures a goal for the year!)

What Comes Next......

Eddy has recently come up with a new way of starting many of his sentences. It goes something like this, "This isn't a criticism of you, but......." Don't you think, as I do, that whatever comes next is going to be a criticism of me? This isn't a criticism of Eddy, but I don't like it much when he starts a sentence this way. I'm just sayin.........

heaven?

After decades of conservative Christian upbringing, I arrived at a point in my life where I began to question this way of thinking and believing. One of the early problems I had with Christianity was the belief in hell and eternal damnation. This bothered me and I eventually rejected it completely. But recently, I started questioning the existence of heaven.

Have you ever considered that our ability to enjoy something is based on being able to compare the pleasure something brings us with the misery of not having it? How can we know that a movie or a book is good, unless we've experienced a movie or book that was bad? How do we know that this meal is delicious unless we've tasted one that was awful? How can we know we are happy unless we've known what it means to be sad? Our joy at having a healthy baby comes largely from knowing that the possibility existed for the baby to be born unhealthy or deformed. ETC...... I'm sure I'm doing a poor job of expressing this, but it seems to me that it is the difficult and unfortunate situations in life that help us to enjoy the good times.

Imagine someone born on a primitive but beautiful, lush, tropical island. He has everything he needs and everyone around him has everything they need. They are never hungry, sick, lonely, or sad. One day is like every other. They don't have to work hard for anything as food grows all around and there is plenty for everyone. The weather is perfect; never too hot or too cold. Do they even know they are happy? I could enjoy this way of life for a couple of weeks as it would be a welcome break from the "grind". But I think I'd soon get bored!

So carrying this thought through to heaven..... Heaven is usually described as a place where there is no suffering, no sadness, no hunger, no tears. But isn't it the struggle to work through the bad times that brings us the most joy in this life? Can I really be happy living forever in a place where every day is just like the last? Where there is no opportunity to help those less fortunate (yes, I know it sounds awful, but helping the less fortunate is really all about the good feeling it gives you), no opportunity for growth, no more lessons to be learned? It would be like driving on a smooth highway in a fast car in a straight line forever and ever. I think this sounds horrible!!!

I'd like my readers to think about this and share their thoughts with me. I'm asking because, well...... I'm on a journey and I'd really like to know.....

The beginning.....

One and a half days into the new year, and approximately 17,335 days into my life; the first makes me feel hopeful, the second panics me! I'm proud of the way I spent the first day of the New Year; I ate healthy, started yoga, and made plans for the rest of my life. I've spent the second day recovering, so to speak, from the first day. I started the year off with a new recipe. The recipe was for a root vegetable soup and I found it in a cookbook called everyday Greens by Annie Somerville. It was delicious! Here's my edited version:

Ingredients
8 c. stock (chicken or vegetable)
1 1/2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled
3 fennel bulbs, trimmed, halved, and cored
1 large celery root peeled, quartered, and sliced
3 small bay leaves
1 T olive oil
1 T butter
3 small or 2 large leeks, white parts only, cut in half lengthwise sliced and washed
1 T minced garlic
1/2 t fennel seeds, toasted and ground
1/2 c dry white wine
1/3 c heavy cream
shredded swiss cheese (Gruyere is even better)

Method:
Dice enough of the potatoes and fennel to make 1 cup each and set aside. Slice remaining potatoes and fennel and place in large pot along with celery root and 6 cups of stock. Add bay leaf, s & p to taste and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until vegetables are very tender (about 30 minutes). Remove bay leaves and puree quickly in a blender or pass through a food mill. (Be careful not to over process or the potatoes will turn the mixture gummy)

In the meantime, heat oil and butter in large saute pan and saute leeks until soft, about 3 minutes. Ad garlic and ground fennel, cook for 1 minute. Pour in the wine and cook until nearly dry (about 3 minutes).

Add the diced potatoes and fennel and remaining stock. Simmer, covered, until the vegetables are tender (about 8 minutes). Add to the potato-celery root puree. Add the cream and season to taste with s & p.

Serve hot garnished with some shredded cheese.

Oh my! Sounds so good.... I think I'm going to have to go heat up a bowl for my own slurping pleasure right now!