What's Happening?

Well, that's a loaded question! The stories below consist of events that I consider to be a series of little victories that, when all bundled together, make for a very successful week!

1 - I finally was able to host a coffee/tea at our home!! It took the women getting together and deciding what day and time they wanted to come. They practically invited themselves - all 13 of them!! It turned out to be a great time. Two of my friends made the coffee and tea, helped answer the door, made sure all the guests were comfortable seated, etc. They did a great job showing me the ropes!! The next time around, I'll probably have a bigger responsibility, but I bet I'll still get some help. The women all live in our apartment complex, and they all pitched in to purchase a couple of really nice housewarming gifts for us. Of course, it seems every story has a little glitch - this one is no different. I thought I had ruined my cookie recipe the night before. Well, it was 10:30 when I started the cookies - for two hours before I was making muffins! Anyway. . .when I looked at the recipe I saw baking soda and 2 tsp., so I added 2 tsp. of baking soda. When I looked back at the recipe I noticed that it was 2 tsp. of baking powder and 1/4 tsp. of baking soda!! And I had doubled the recipe already!!! I didn't know if the cookies would flop or harden, so I decided to try at least one batch. They got really fluffy and soft - like a tea cake. The women loved them! Even our mistakes can result in success when in the right Hands!!

2 - Mark and I bought an "assemble it yourself" chair a few weeks ago when we traveled to a city a few hours away. When we put two of the pieces together the wood splintered. We could sit in it, but we had to be extra careful, so we decided we would try to exchange the chair for a new one - there's the same store an hour or so away. Yesterday we ventured out to see if we could get it done. It all started with getting the car filled with gas. Well, it snowed some last week, so we decided that after filling up with gas we would get the car washed in an automatic washer thing. Mark pulled up to it, got out to put money in the machine, and he found that the thing doesn't accept money. He went inside the gas station and got the man to come help. It took 3 men and opening the electrical box on the side of the washer to get it started, but start it did! (I started feeling a little claustrophobic watching the big brush things rolling over the windshield, but nothing came crashing through the window!) We made it on to the nearby city only to realize that I couldn't remember how to get to the shopping center (I had been there once before - but in my defense I was on a bus the first time and didn't have a clear sense of where we were). Mark got off the freeway and wound us through some back alleys. Somehow we made it back to a main road and we stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. The man told us that it was on that same road about 5 km. away. We could hardly believe it - we had wound our way around to the exact road we needed!! We had no map either. We made it to the store, exchanged the chair without incident, and were able to enjoy a nice long walk around the mall. We went into a book store so Mark could look for a map - although we made it to the shopping center, we weren't entirely sure how to get back to the road that leads to home! Of course, they had maps of every other major city in the country, but not for the one we were actually in!! So off we went on another side trip down a few back roads and made our way back to the right road - without a map!

3 - And I'm still trying to "rewrite" recipes so that they work here! My mom makes a delicious Mexican cornbread recipe. I had a taste for it, so I asked her to send the recipe to me. The only thing is that the recipe uses cornmeal, and I can only find corn flour. The batter was extra soupy, so I was scared to see what was going to happen when I baked it - I was convinced it would never solidify! Well, I was surprised to find that it did solidify. It was not cornbread (maybe casserole consistency), but it was very tasty. I'm going to experiment with a couple of changes and see how it works.

OK - that's all the little victories I can think to write about for now. Hope you'll find joy in the little victories in your life today, too!