I Accidentally Left The Country and 5QF

It was a lovely spring day!  Amber's friend from Mississippi was visiting us for a week in our beautiful state of Pennyslvania-the furthest north she has ever been. 



Since we live just a few hours from Niagara Falls, we wanted to take Erin to see them.  It's quite an attraction, and being up close to the Falls shows just a tiny bit of the magnificence of our great God.  I'd never been to the American Falls, only to the Canada side on my honeymoon.



The ride up was so calm, with little traffic and no problems.  I'm grateful for having a GPS! 



Nearing the end of our journey, all of the signs, along with the GPS instructions, were getting confusing!  I couldn't quite figure out where to go, so I went where I thought I should go.



I pulled up to a little building/booth with a very high window, and a man poked his head out.  I told him I was lost, and he asked for my license.  I didn't know it, but I was now in Canada.



CANADA!



Oh-and did I mention we didn't have any passports?



The man asked if my GPS had brought me there, and of course, the answer was yes!  He told me to go to that building over there, and inside I would get a paper to take with me to head back to the States.



I go inside, and tell the lady I got lost, and she too, asked if it was my GPS.  THANKFULLY I am not the only person who has ever gone to Canada on accident!  I could tell since both Canadian folks I had to speak to guessed right on the money what brought me to their country on the first guess!



The lady gave me my Canadian rejection paper, and told me how to head back home. 



Our visitor Erin was now able to go home and tell everyone that she not only visited this far north for the first time, but she also got to step on Canadian concrete!



Heading out of the parking lot, believe it or not, I got confused, and wasn't sure which was to go.  I SURELY wasn't going to ask my GPS for help again!



I asked a truck driver who had pulled over which way to go, and he showed me, along with showing me a map, and warning me that I was going to be given a hard time trying to get back into the United States.



Great.



We got back to the bridge that brings us home, and of course, I was in the wrong lane when I was trying to come back to the States.  I was in the truck lane.  But the nice trucker behind me beeped and pointed me in the right direction.



After taking our picture upon entering the States, I gave Homeland Security my rejection paper.



Let me interject here---coming into the United States is one time that you absolutely do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, want to crack stupid jokes.  It's probably a real good thing Dan wasn't with us.



The very serious, very stern man asked for our passports, which of course, we didn't have, because we didn't know we were leaving the country.  He asked for our licenses, which we only had two.  Security pointed out that we only had two licenses, but there were five of us, and wanted to know why.



Um....because Dakota is 12???  And Amber doesn't have hers yet either????  And one was at home, which just left two of us with a license.



Amber, being the teenager she is, immediately picks up the cell phone and starts texting about our adventure.



Security got a bit radical about it and asked what she was doing!  We answered that she was texting, and he said she couldn't do that here!  Amber practically threw the phone down.



Then Security tells us one moment, and calls someone.  Three other Security men come to our car-one goes in the booth with the other officer, and the other two ESCORT my passangers out of the car and into the Homeland Security building!



Sigh.....



After going thru more questions and feeling like criminals, along with not having passports, we get ready to leave.



I know the guy in the building told me how to get out of there, but I was already confused when I got out in the parking lot and saw more than one way I could possibly go.



So, I asked the parking lot officer to tell me where to go.  He asked if I had a certain paper, which I didn't because one wasn't given to me, and then told me to wait while he checked to make sure we were cleared, since we weren't in the building for very long.



He gave us directions, and we were finally on our way AWAY from CANADA!!!



So!  Boys and Girls, the lesson for today is:



Do not leave the country without a passport!!!



I actually don't think I ever want to leave the country again, even WITH a passport!



Well, it DID make for a more memorable trip for a Southern Belle!  =)





Now onto the 5QF! 



1. Have you ever had surgery?

Yep! On both of my big toes.  Back in the day of big, permed hair, was also the day of pointy-toes shoes.  Fashion is a cruel taskmaster!  I ended up with problems from my toes being scruched together in those pointy shoes, which required surgery.  My one toe got infected, so he had to do it all over again!



Speaking of toes, did you ever notice when you hurt your toe, for a few weeks after that, it seems to have a built-in magnet that attracts everything you walk by, that could possibly hurt if you bump into it?



2. Ever ride in an ambulance?

I don't believe so, but when Dan fell from a tree 2 years ago, and due to nerve damage, was taken by helicopter to a bigger hospital an hour away, Dakota, Elissa and I drove to the airport to watch him go.  He was taken by ambulance to the airport.



3. How are you in a medical emergency? Panicked? Calm?

When it's my children, and it's something that requires stitches, and there is bleeding involved, I try to stay calm so that I can keep my children calm.  I've been blessed that I haven't had to face too many medical emergencies.

I did, however, feel like crying, and was scared when I met Dan and Dakota at the hospital after they got carbon monoxide poisoning.  The bloodshot eyes, the bad headaches, and the reality of what had happened while Amber and I were away that day, sinking in, really scared me.  I could have come home to both of my men dead.



4. Do you have a garden? Flowers or veggies?

We will have a garden this year!  Fresh veggies!  I do have some flowers and plants in my landscape as well.



5. When did you move out of your parents house?

When I was 23.  I lived with a lady from my church for 6 months, and then got married and moved out of state.  =)



I hope everyone has a nice weekend!  And thanks for stopping by!

My Chicken Sneaks into the Window for Cat Food

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xoxox

hello? anyone there?

                          Hello? Have every thought about  what nourishes your soul?
                                               What makes your insides smile?
                           I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in the "want of things" that we mistake them for soul food. It's our human nature. Last night, I watched   e a t   p r a y   l o v e ,  the movie version of Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling book. I didn't want to watch this movie. I was worried it would make me question some things within myself. I was right. Simply said, it was a magical film. Julia Roberts character, Liz, was indeed searching for  soul kandie. 

                          She found it by the simple act of letting herself enjoy  a plate of pasta in Italy.  She gave in to the enjoyment of doing nothing and not worrying that she wasn't perpetually in motion. She took the time to let herself grow in the new friendships she formed in Italy. 


In India, She found it in  the power of prayer  in solitude and let God enter her mind, body and soul. 


In Bali, she found it by  learning to love again  with the help of a very spiritual and wise man that taught her how to have a smiling liver. 


She found the kandie she needed for her soul. 


Maybe we just need to find out who we truly are in order to find the food that nourishes our soul? What we do is not who we are. I started this blog in order to start my own journey for soul food.  Wanna join me? 

Writing on the Wall #6

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."  ~Erma Bombeck

 
(Image by Kyung Soon Park, Motivation)

Passover papercut

Although not my usual style, this was an interesting project.  This is a papercut which has been specially commissioned as a template for a religious summer camp for kids in the USA. A range of age groups will be cutting various parts of the piece which is why I've tried to incorporate some easier as well as more tricky bits. The papercut involves some folded cutting as well as some flat cutting.  I just hope the kids can do it!!!

The size is A4


These are the stages involved for cutting this piece.

Stage 1
Fold the paper and make the first relatively simple cut.
This is my first ever folded papercut!

When opened, the papercut will be symmetrical.
There are now 4 cups of wine and a Seder plate.  The leafy bits are just decorative and are there to hold it all together!

Stage 2
The most complicated cutting is the symbolic parts of the Seder plate.
All writing had to be done in reverse as this is the wrong side.
You can click on the photos for larger images.

This is the right side.
The shank bone looks like a guitar, I know!

Cut the border writing - not too hard but time-consuming.

I have made a reverse image template for the kids to cut from.

New Things

New Tables

New Paintings

New Blue and White Bone Inlay Boxes and Pink Inlay boxes too...

Another new painting

And another fabulous and very reasonably priced table

It really is like Christmas at Black & Spiro lately with all of the beautiful new things we have arriving from our overseas suppliers and also our wonderful Australian suppliers too.  Here are a few things which just arrived in this week.  I am finding it hard not to take things home.  I whisked one of the new pink inlaid trays home with me yesterday and I am obsessed with it...almost as much as my garden!!!

Wishes and Freedom

(picture, 1997-ish, age 20 -- Tunica Hills, LA.)

Do you ever feel trapped by the flow of your own life? Things are going just as planned, in fact you might even be getting some of the things you wished for... and of course when you get those, you wish for more things. Or say nothing is going as planned, it's a big mess and so you want to escape.

I have noticed that humans (myself for sure) tend to go from day to day building up a life, building brick upon brick, foundation, into walls, into personal castle. It seems as though we are building something great, it feels quite safe and accomplished to have something worked on for so long. It's your inner self, the castle... your beliefs, your lifestyle, all your choices, your personality and day to day reactions. And you are really invested in it, of course.

But I... don't know if my castle matters. My opinions are like the wind. I don't know if having the goal of being perfectly stable and predictable is healthy, worth it, or even fun. I don't know if once my castle is all built if i even care to decorate the inside or move in... maybe i just like to go from place to place building new castles, trying out new things, taking risks. Rather then get attached to what i built.

It's not that i don't like myself, or that i don't like my lifestyle. It's that something inside me, some soul-like substance is always driving me to new experiences and I can't really stop it. I have spent the last ten years working on living a sustainable life in the woods, and I have accomplished more then I ever thought I would. It started because I was sick with horrible health problems and then I fell in love with every blade of grass, every wildflower, every rock... i had slowed down enough to merge with nature. And nature taught me how to truly love. But now... i want something else -and i am not referring to city living, but more a coming out of the foggy patterns my health put me in. I want to merge with nature, people, reality, the world, my own health, my own potential - the full picture. I don't have to focus only on one wish, i want a bigger picture,

i want freedom to seek the picture and all it's contents.

XOxoxo

Garden Pots Inside

After planting a few little pots for my garden table on the weekend I have been thinking I might do a few more so that I can bring some inside to put on the table in our lounge room or to place down the centre of the dining table when we have people over for dinner.  I also love how they are placed on the bench in the bathroom I have posted above.  I think it would be a nice idea to find an old rack with perforated shelves {like Brooke's} so that I can store lots of potted up succulents and also my potted bulbs and herbs in the garden near our garden shed.  Lots to do!!

PS.  If anyone is wanting to plant up some of these traditional little terracotta pots, I purchased mine from Bunnings.  I think they were approximately $2.50 per pot.  And if you live in Brisbane and want to purchase some bulbs then head to Bunnings as well.  Bulbs can be a bit tricky to buy here in Brisbane due to them not really liking our climate.   Oh and one more thing, if you want to plant some sweet peas you need to get them in this week if you live here!!  Mine were planted yesterday.  I can't wait to see them grow and flower over the coming weeks.

PPS. I only know these things about when to plant etc. thanks to Merve, Uncle Robbie, my mother, my grandmother and the lovely man at Bunnings who is my new best friend.  What would I do without them!!


image 1 - via delight by design scanned from easy elegance, image 2 - http://brookegiannetti.typepad.com/ {thanks viera}

Windmill Papercut - completed piece.

Here's the finished piece.  Sorry about the slightly blurry bottom image.  I'll take that photo again with my camera on a tripod!

Windmill Papercut

So here are the final few Work In Progress photos.  I'll post the finished item up separately.

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

A tip for anyone who's thinking of trying papercutting - don't draw out your picture with pen!

This was a bit of a mistake as it made my cut line virtually impossible to see and I ended up cutting slightly off the line in most places.  When you're cutting over a pencil line, the cut line shows up very clearly and makes life much easier.

I Am - The Documentary

 http://iamthedoc.com/

Nothing a little meditation on (or brush with) death can't accomplish....
  
I'd like to do, or see, a film that asks an even more fundamental question than the one expressed in the I Am documentary trailer, which is, "What's wrong with our world and what can we do about it?" 

The question I would ask, rather, is "What's wrong with me and what can I do about it?"

I have a feeling that this question would yield answers that would also do a lot toward building a world we each want to see. I might call such a film: We Am.

Windmill papercut - wip photos

I'm making good progress with the cutting today.  

I enjoy this stage where it's emerging from the paper.

Chair Heaven

When I was at a client's house a few weeks ago I spotted this fabulous image when she was showing me through her file of things she loves.  I took a photo of the tear sheet as I too love this chair.  I'm sorry I don't know the source of this photo so if anyone does then just let me know.  This image has now been slotted into my file of things I love...the file is bulging these days!

image source thanks to Make mine Mid-Century Blog - Home Beautiful May 2007 'Bohemian Rhapsody' p 72.

The FOG

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Ride with me through the creeeeepppppy SPooookkkY fog!
It's so beautiful, you will want to reach out and touch it, like a bug goes towards a bug light.



xoxoxo

Windmill papercut - initial drawing

My good friend Tania reminded me today that my blog was woefully neglected!

She's absolutely right of course - life seems to have taken over recently - like getting all three of my children healthy and at school on the same days! That's an ongoing battle that I'm determined to win!

Anyway, despite having my oldest son at home ill today, I still managed to get cracking on a drawing for a new piece.  As you can see, it's another of my cross-sections, but this time I thought I'd do something a little different - hence a windmill!

This is the reverse of the papercut - the right side is black as is usual for me.

Can't wait to get cutting this one - will keep you updated with lots of wip photos.

Windmill papercut drawing

Size A3


PS: If you're wondering what's happening with the unfinished piece from the previous post - well, I'm just really not sure about it.  It just doesn't feel right to me.  I never throw anything away and may come back to it at some point - but for now it's shelved :(
These things happen.

Hear Me Roarrrr....

I am roaring into the week. We put our clocks forward this weekend and suddenly everything and everyone seems to be "springing" into action.

There are exams and meetings and yoga classes to attend this week, cleaning and laundry that has to be done and somewhere in there, time to just sit and be with Mr. Michie; because that is more important than anything else on my "To-Do" list. So, I am just going to keep on roaring and go with it!

(Image by Christine Hale, "Roarrr" added by Jennifer Michie)

FAIL! Seasoning My Iron Waffle Skillet

Um. I dont know what went wrong with seasoning this thing, but here is what happened : My mom sent me this awesome cast iron waffle skillet, that you can use on any hot surface! No electricity required - you can cook on top your gas stove, wood stove, probably an open fire. So... it came unseasoned, ya know... without the blackened oiled non stick natural surface it acquires after use. So i pulled out the pamphlet and read that i had to oil it and then put it in the oven to start the seasoning. Ok. Not too hard, I hoped. So i put olive oil all over it and stuck it in my toaster oven. It wasn't long before I turned around to see what the fucked up smell was, that the whole cabin was filling up with a heavy thick white smoke!!! The waffle skillet had some kind of waxy shit on it ( i thought i felt on it but wasn't sure), that had to melt off and so I assumed the smoke was the wax burning... i had no idea it would pollute my house so bad! ...... so i tried something else..... At this point I figured most the mystery wax must have been gone (mostly now in my lungs and cabin ceiling)... so i let the oil sit in the skillet for a few days, thinking maybe it would absorb. But it didn't. Then i stuck it on my wood stove since i had a fire going and it was majorly hot. It still made really bad weird smells - but no smoke so I was cool with the mildly donut shop/mildly metallic/mildly 'what is that melting' stench. BUT then THIS HAPPENED!!!!! Look at these pictures! (above and below!) .... OMgawd, this is not was it is supposed to look like. One side of the skillet turned all orange red and looks not at all seasoned. The other side, WTF is that gelatinous substance? It's got a red black tint, and it's not even flowing while warm - it's like a goo. Like hot stable iron & wax flavored jello... or maybe chapstick? What did i do wrong? This is a total 100% fail! xoxxoxo

Kam-sa-ham-ni-da (Thank you) South Korea, I am out!

Tomorrow morning I’ll take the plane back to South Africa after spending a year in South Korea as an English teacher.

Time flew by real quick and I had some wonderful experiences living and travelling in East Asia.

I can recall back when I boarded the plane for Taiwan as if it was yesterday. I couldn’t wait any longer in South Africa and wanted to leave, so I decided to go and look for work in Taiwan, but soon received a call from Korea to come and work on an island somewhere in the yellow sea. I took the post without hesitation and did not really know what I was getting myself into. I still remember those first moments in Korea when I set foot into my apartment to find a dirty dump and not knowing who else lived on the island. I remember sitting on the bed which was covered in blood because the guy before me had to leave due to an anal infection and thinking to myself; “what the fuck did I get myself into coming to this far off place for a year?”

Things soon changed as I made friends and realised that I was not alone on the outskirts. And it’s these friends that made my time here all the more memorable. We were a small community who became real good friends and we carried each other through the good and bad times. This place is really different and remote and it was my friends that made this year so great.

Commuting to work on another island for an hour daily was an experience in itself. I took a ferry to work every day and often had to run for busses or hitch-hike rides with Koreans as I tried to communicate in my non-existent Korean. I soon figured out who was who and would get rides with either the police chief, the bank manager or post office attendants. I later knew all the faces on the morning and afternoon ferry and locals would give me rides knowing that I am the foreign teacher teaching their children. The ferry crew understood that I didn’t want to stand in a line with Koreans and that I’d sometimes run for the ferry even as it pulled out. I became a local on the ferry and informed people where to take the bus as we shared a shot of Soju or ran together for the late afternoon bus. I was never able to speak the language and made no effort, but the people on my route knew me and we shared a laugh, a nod of the head or a one liner in Korean or English.

Many people would complain about this tiring commute, but I decided to make the most of it and there was a part of me that enjoyed sprinting for busses or negotiating a lift to and from school.

I taught at two small elementary schools and loved the small intimate classes. I knew all my students and had a good relationship with each. There were only two boys out of all 39 students (two schools in total, eight classes) that I taught who I had a hard time with. Other than that I had a good report and enjoyed what I did. It was really one of the easiest jobs for good money. I earned a decent salary to play bingo and sing songs and put this money to good use to travel.

The main reason for coming to South Korea was to travel and I think I did okay in that department. In a years’ time I was able to travel to Taiwan, mission around Indonesia with Clementine, hike the Great Wall of China near Beijing and ferry to China to see the bustling city of Shanghai. I did a bit a travelling around Korea too, but was never intrigued by this place. Korea is an interesting place, but at times it was too square and I spent most of my time in Ganghwa and Seoul on the weekends.

I had a truly authentic experience as I lived out in rural Korea and would hit the city on weekends.

Ganghwa had its ups and downs, but we all persevered through to make this a great experience. There were times that routine was killing me and so to the lack of diversity. Other times I felt alive as I saw the fighter planes overhead during the shelling of Yeongpyong Island by North Korea. The days we hiked the surrounding hills after work or the mornings I woke up with the most brutal Soju hangover. Pulling faces, making noises and drawing pictures to order food, missing a bus or train, beating old men at pool, head banging to Iron Maiden, getting the school mute to speak, realising the power of a ‘high-five’ and putting a smile on the ferry crews faces all contributed to me having an enriching experience.

It’s an old saying but I do agree with it and it’s that you determine your own happiness. I stayed positive throughout my time here knowing that it was only temporary and that I came here for the experience.

I’ve thought about why this year has been so good for me and it came down to this: Having Clementine visit me three times and a solid group of friends was what made it. Her visits and being able to travel with her to Indonesia and having her here for Christmas is something I’ll forever be grateful for. Along with Clementine’s visits were also the opportunities I had to travel around East Asia seeing places I only dreamed about and the solid community of native English speakers.

In two days from now I’ll be drinking a cold one in warm Cape Town and I’ll think back on my year abroad. A lot will only then kick in and reveal itself, but as I am sitting here I am nostalgic about the year that has past and excited for the next adventure.

Garden Ramblings

This is our garden yesterday with the round garden table Harry and I filled

with pots and also our vegetable garden to the left.

If my ramblings about my garden are becoming annoying just take me off your google reader or stop reading because I am thoroughly enjoying the excitement my garden is bringing me and I hope that these posts might inspire you to get your gloves on too.  I am actually quite a highly-strung, stressed-out maniac most of time however, I am finding that my garden is a place where I can relax.  I tend to drift off into another world when I am out there.  So, this is what I got up to on the weekend.

Harry and I planted up 10 little pots with succulents, herbs, pansies and another little plant which I can't remember the name of.  We arranged them on a round wire garden table which I placed near our vegetable garden.  I think this idea is such a great idea for interest in a large garden like ours but also would be wonderful on a verandah in an apartment or in a courtyard in a small garden.  I originally got the idea from a story on Deborah Needleman in Lonny magazine.  I think it was in one of their first issues...

We also started planting up some terracotta pots with Hyacinth bulbs which won't flower now until Spring but we are prepared and I think I might plant a few more this weekend as they will make nice gifts when Spring comes around. We also planted 30 Daffodil bulbs into the garden.  This weekend we will plant the Ranunculus, Freesias and tulips {which are currently in the fridge}.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will like it here in our red soil and will flower in Spring.

On Saturday we spotted 2 capsicum growing in our vegetable garden along with some corn.  We collected a small basket full of beans and cherry tomatoes which I cooked up on Saturday night.  This week we are planting some pretty sweet peas...this is the perfect time here for planting them.

And just to prove that I am making some headway in the garden compare the top photo in this post to this photo above as this is what one area of our garden looked like just before Christmas last year.  What a difference some effort can make and some help from my Uncle Robbie and Merv our lovely 84 year old gardener.  I can't claim all the accolades although if I didn't work I think I might be out there 24-7!

PS...One day she will be painted white but for the meantime we endure the red, green and yellow...xx