Keurig, good friends, Graduation, oh my!

It's one of life's guilty little (expensive) pleasures. I was first introduced to it in Alabama, where my boyfriend's uncle had just purchased one. At first we didn't understand the hype about it. My boyfriend still doesn't understand the hype about it, but then again he just isn't one to drink hot beverages (well, so far. Lets see how long he makes it in South Dakota later on this month without changing his ways!). However, my friend bought one last week, and... well... let me put it this way: she bought about four different drink singles packages, and... we need to replenish our stores.
In our defense, we are still reconciling ourselves to the fact that we are now adults, and there just aren't that many toys out there that are inexpensive and edifying. A keurig is... well, neither cheap nor healthy, but its cheapER and healthyER. And its just fun. You get the thrill of a little child playing with the simple toys at the science museum, but if anyone asks what you are doing, you have a mature, reasonable answer: I'm simply making myself a cup of coffee/tea/hot chocolate/chai.
Not just because of the Keurig (although it definitely helped) but for other amazing, valid reasons as well, this friend gets the award for the best friend of the month. She's been helpful, cheerful, welcoming, entertaining, and just plain awesome. She's been one of the few peers who hasn't either grilled my boyfriend on his stance on Calvinism or some other bastion of our school OR plotted a way to get him to start attending Seminary. She has made absolutely NO disparaging comments or minded us being a couple with normal ups and downs; in fact, she's welcomed him with open arms, plopped him down on her couch and introduced him to the world of "Independence Day' and "The Big Bang Theory' TV series.

(side note:I don't need all my friends to like my boyfriend, and if they have valid reasons for not liking him then I'll listen with open ears, heart and mind. But if the main reason he's off the list is simply because he doesn't go to my school or church and may not conform to all of the nuances the collective student body has determined 'correct' or 'correct-er' then please save it for someone who cares. Plus, all of my older friends, such as professors or mentor-figures in my life love him. Its just the younger people who are acting quirky)

Anyway back to my friend. The dear girl has been going through a rather hard time, so its been a great balance of us being there for each other the last few months. The awesome thing is she doesn't gripe for the sake of griping; she takes in feedback and implements it! She's trying to get more disciplined and organized in life. While I think I'm the last - or next to last - person one could ask to help out in THOSE areas, she's taken what I've had to offer and its been so encouraging. She got back from Thanksgiving break and I personally thought she looked more fit and slimmer so I said so. People, you have NO idea the power of an encouraging word. She keeps mentioning it, blogged about it, and used it to help her stay on track on her new weight loss routine. Gee whiz, a simple compliment and she's been floating for days! That was so encouraging to ME, because I've felt really discouraged with one or two really important people in my life recently; just not knowing how on earth to encourage. The one because encouragement seems to slide of their back like water on a ducks back. The other because it seems as though they want validation through me doing what they want the way they want when they want and if I don't then I'm not taken seriously. I've wanted to just throw in the towel but have been convicted recently of ways that I can do better on things personally, and... I don't know. We'll see how things turn out.
Alright well I need to go make myself presentable. The Seminary has its graduation today and a few good friends are graduating and then off to start amazing ministries and make names for themselves that will go down in the annals of Christian Great Minds ;-) I'm bad; I'm waiting until the actual ceremony is over, then I'm going to arrive when everyone is taking pictures outside and laughing and glad its over. Sorry, but there's just not enough room in the chapel, and I just don't want to sit through all the pomp and ceremony. ;-) Cheerio.

experiences and musings

I can't decide if I love that warm-climate cultural aspect where one must argue for a solid five minutes with one's friend about who is going to out-hospitality-ize the other. But either way, I experience it pretty much every week now, which has been glorious. Kristi and I had to take turns bickering with our dear Turkish friend who flat out insisted that we were destitute, struggling, poor college students who could not afford to have her over to our homes and provide the culturally-mandated refreshments and tea that must be present when entertaining. Therefore it only was right that she treat US to all the goodies at HER house.
Our come back was that we were her cultural informants and Americans who can darn well afford a few cookies and a spot of tea once every couple of weeks when she concedes to coming onto our turf.
However, it IS a little tricky to get to Kristi's place. I agreed to meet our friends on campus - where they knew how to get - and guide them to the house. It is a few blocks away down a rather curvaceous route in which Kentuckian drivers are often encountered and I didn't want to risk throwing my friends into flashbacks of their host country's insane driving laws (or lack thereof) distracting them from the route and getting them thoroughly lost.

So they called and I ran across campus, saw them waving out their window in the parking lot, let myself into the back seat and collapsed into a heap panting heavily. They chirped their hello's and then lapsed into their native tongue. Eventually they admitted that they were commenting on their discovery as to why I am so thin: they clucked in admonition when they pointed out that I apparently run everywhere.

(room mate, friend, and me playing dress up with my scarf)

I tried to balance small talk with guiding them through traffic and we finally parked. Sema got out of the passenger side of the car and spread her arms out in preparation for a big bear hug.
"Nice girl, I want to say hello to you. I have missed you, nice girl. Come give me a hug!"
I laughed and gave her a big hug and Fatmah came up behind me clucking her indignation that I hadn't given her the traditional peck on both cheeks accompanied by a hug first.
Sema has only been Stateside for about six months and so is far more timid in speaking English, but when she does makes it very very clear that she feels at home with me and Kristi and Colleen, and likes us a lot! Its encouraging and humbling and flattering and convicting, all rolled into one. These dear ladies aren't going to stay here, but will return to Turkey when their husbands complete the schooling they initially came here for. While I value them as friends in their own right, I am constantly reminded that I am one of the few witnesses to Christ they have ever met, and they will take these memories of me and my testimony back with them. However, so far it seems to be a generally good experience, which is good. :-)

(room mate sharing pictures of family on Facebook via an Iphone
I love how internationals usually own
better technology than I do.)

Today's sermon in Church was all about the difference between a 'Carnal Christian' and a person who is claiming to be a Christian but isn't. The point of the sermon wasn't to instruct Church Members on how to run around judging fellow members in the Church, but how to determine if I myself truly am a believer who is walking my talk. I have full assurance of my salvation, so the Sermon was generally encouraging, although I jotted down in my notes some areas of improvement. A funny quote from the sermon had to do with the Stainless Steel cookware someone had given my pastor and his family. He was jokingly complaining about how he now owns bizarre and strange cleaning products that had never graced his cupboards before, and how he was learning how to cook on lower heat temperatures. The reason being that the steel grabbed onto whatever substance he was trying to heat, sucked it into the grooves of the metal, and apparently then screamed "MINE!"
"You are supposed to grab onto Spiritual Truth like a stainless steel pan grabs onto a burnt egg! But what happens is that some Christians are like Teflon pans, and let the egg just slide right off. Yes, non-stick is BAD in this analogy!"
After laughing with the rest of the congregation, I thought about the different ways I've been trying to allow Spiritual Truth sink into the details of my life. Meeting with these Turkish Muslims regularly has really been a good sounding board. They ask hard questions that cause me to ask myself, my professors and my Lord questions that I had never thought to do before. I am constantly reminded of my inadequacies as a Christian and forced to turn to the Holy Spirit for help and guidance.
One of the application questions at the end of the sermon was 'What victories have you won lately? No victory is perfect, but what Spiritual Victories have you just WON, albeit imperfectly, in your life?'
I won't take the time to list all of them as this is getting long enough, but it was encouraging to have to mentally go through the list of areas the Holy Spirit is working in my life.
A big part of the sermon, though, was TIME.
A dear friend of mine who has been really struggling with being a Christian for the last year called the other night and we had a really good conversation. I hung up a little frustrated, though, at how much TIME it is taking him to grow into the strong man of God I know he could be.
The sermon reminded me that while sometimes God does work in quick, visible, miraculous ways, sometimes we are called to throw seed out into a field. Whether that field has good soil and just needs a good rain shower to make those seeds start to germinate... or instead get eaten up by birds when the cracked dry land does nothing with them, is in God's control. I'm called to continue casting seed whenever the opportunity arises.

I am so blessed to be given the opportunity to learn how to sow seed with my brothers and sisters in the Lord... despite all our various obnoxious imperfections and irritating quirks. ;-)

(3 missions majors and 2 counseling majors)

Again, I'm sort of thinking and musing and rambling out loud and trying to get my thoughts in order. However, my mom claims that her blog is there strictly for self-therapeutic reasons. I'm gonna lay hold of that excuse, and at the same time hope you've been encouraged and convicted and entertained by mine. :-)

~Princess Ouch~

Domestic moment

I don't know why, but for some reason working 7 hours two days in a row made me walk into my apartment and simply want to bake something. Wacky? Yes indeed. However... this is ME after all.
Over the summer my team and I were near Amish country and we went to one of their whole foods stores and I picked up some non-conventional ingredients for when I had time and inclination to play around with tastes. (its what I do...) My mom has frequented health food stores since I was little and she always would buy the bizarre flours and weird whole grains and try to substitute them for actual real white flour (you know, the kind that causes cancer that we put in everything. That one. The tasty one!!!) when she wasn't abandoning normal western eating habits altogether and overdosing on some lentil combination and forsaking bread completely. (I'm not traumatized AT ALL). So out-of-the-box powders lurking on pantry shelves is now integrated into my bloodstream but I tend to lean more on the side that still listens to taste buds.
All that to say, I picked up a pound carob powder. I bought carob powder because my mom did occasionally take pity on my poor taste buds and buy these carob bars that had seaweed and kelp in them. You didn't mind the sea stuff because the carob redeemed it. So I knew carob was one of those powders that were not only healthy but tasty. (you CAN have both in the same dish! I promise!!)
And, hoping Mom would take the hint, I generously bought her pound as well. The end to that story is that I presented it to her with a flourish and she sort of wrinkled her nose and asked what in the world one put Carob in, muttered something about how I always bring home weird things that only tribal people cook with, and the lonely little pound of carob is somewhere in exile in my parent's pantry, not being eaten. (I bring home weird things?! and how many different NON WHEAT flours are in the SDian pantry I ask? Ever so complacently and un-emphatically I ask this...)
SO. To bring it back to last night, I walked in the door and was like, "I need to cook with my carob powder." Oh, the other deciding influence you need to know about is that my friend/coworker has been giving me grief ever since I treated my hair with Henna. He's called me either Carrots (which he did immediately before ordering food at the coffee shop when I was preparing food... I ask you, does that demonstrate smarts? Logical thinking? Superiority of the graduate program over the undergrad? I think not. And I reminded the dear fellow about what happened in the movie 'Anne of Green Gables' when she was called carrots, and said that since there were no slates to break over his head I would have to improvise on his sandwich. Since he's my co worker and not an ordinary customer I can do that) OR told me that I need to put my hair in two braids and hand him a frosty, as clearly I escaped from a Wendy's restaurant advertisement. So I left work wondering if I should find some way to acquire a frosty and do something devious to it, but that would take money and I didn't want to waste money. But I did want to cook with carob.
So. I got online and googled Carob recipes. Apparently it is high in protein and very healthy. There are a few historical armies that are said to have lived off of carob right before they invaded something significant... and I came across a recipe that looked as delicious as it was healthy. So I decided to not only make it, but to post it on here should it turn out well, which apparently it did. So here ya go. For whenever you have some extra carob lying around. If you don't, I think you can substitute cocoa powder. It just won't be as healthy.


Cake: 1 cup flour, Frosting: 1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup carob 1/3 cup honey (i used 1/2 honey, 1/2 sugar for
1 tsp baking soda this part)
1/2 tsp salt 1 cup dry milk powder
1/2 cup butter 1/4 cup water
2/3 cup honey 1 tsp vanilla
1 mashed banana
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 8 inch pan. Sift together flour, carob, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and honey until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in banana and vanilla. Beat in flour alternating with water. Stir in chopped (wal)nuts if you so desire (which I neither had nor desired)
Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes, until a knife inserted in middle comes out clean.


Frosting: Cream butter and honey until smooth. Blend in milk powder, carob powder, vanilla and water. Beat until smooth and spread on cooled cake.

The conclusion is that it came out amazing. My harassing friend and his two co-workers/my other two friends had joked when I left work that I ought to stay and close with them. Saturdays are insane, and anyone who works automatically gets several thousand years knocked off purgatory along with a few jewels in their crowns. (yes, I mixed up doctrines and theology. I did that on purpose!) I had worked from 9 to 4, and wasn't in any kind of mood to deal with a mob of voracious undergrad students. And I also knew that since I was working with all guys, guess who would be on food duty, as I am about 3 times as fast as making sandwiches as they are. I say this in all humility and it comes solely through working at Starbucks for a year and getting the 'faster than the speed of light' policy down, along with the fact that I've worked in this coffee shop two to three times as long as any of these guys. But I felt kinda sorry for them. And I had to return some theology books I had borrowed to one of them, and I knew despite the external trials and tribulations of demanding 'customers' it would have been fun to work with the three of them. So I cut three generous slices and skipped over to the coffee shop after it was thoroughly closed. The two were appropriately impressed and thankful, but the third - the one who teases me about carrot hair - didn't hear, see or smell the ambrosia-like scent wafting from the freshly cooked brownies. And I guess he didn't like the hip-hop that they were blaring full-blast. In a word, he was grumpy.
"Smile! You look awful!" I said, and he proceeded to grumble about how there was nothing to smile about, and he would only smile once the cutting-board he was bleaching was thoroughly cleaned. So I picked up the container with the brownies and held them over the counter and under his nose.
"Smell this and tell me there is nothing to smile about."
"NO! There is absolutely nothing..." and then he caught a waft... and then he inhaled deeply... and as he breathed a smile stole over his features and he began expounding upon the glories of the Lord.
I told him that i couldn't get a frosty for him and he said he hoped I could NEVER get my hands on frosties again. I also told him this was a result of his cruel harassment on my hair and it was God's sanctifying work in my heart that caused me to not only forgive him but bless him. The twirp then said that he was so thankful for Gods grace that he was going to harass me EVERY time he saw me so that I would cook more. Woops. That backfired. I said he shouldn't count on me being so receptive to conviction in the future but he said don't worry about that, he would pray conviction-resulting-in-brownies into my heart. Ha.

Anyway that is my domestic moment for the semester, as well as my compassionate, reaching out to brothers in Christ moment, so please do not count on any more sweet smells wafting out of my apartment because mid terms, group projects, papers and finals are within sight, and I think I won't have time to make anything else scrumptious for a while at least.
~Princess Ouch~

you know you are a missions major when...

I sent the following list to my supporters when I was volunteering at an orphanage in Romania in 2006. I thought I'd post it here as a comparison to a more recent list:

You know you're in Romania when...

1. Cold Cereal is a sweet thing of the past.

2. When you ask to put milk in your tea, you get funny looks

3. If you wear a scarf on your head and it's generally known you're not married or a Pentecostal, you get funny looks.

4. It's not unusual to see a Semi-truck parked next to a horse hitched to a wagon full of firewood.

5. No one thinks it's odd to see a guy in 19th century clothing herding his cows or sheep home and chatting on a cell-phone.

6. Most of your friends 30 and over have gold teeth, black teeth, or several teeth missing.

7. It's safer to drive on the wrong side of the road and risk getting hit by an oncoming car than it is to drive on the right side of the road and risk hitting the potholes the size of the grand canyon as you swerve to miss hitting the pedestrians who are casually walking down the middle of your lane, or the gypsy wagon with hand-made brooms sticking out in all directions. (Disclaimer: just for the record I haven't done this as I'm not brave enough to try driving here. But my friend's have)

8. When a person walks out into the middle of a beyond-busy street in the middle of the city with driver's who invent traffic laws as they go, you're immediate reaction is not "SUICIDER!!" but, "Oh good. Traffic will stop for them and I can cross at the same time and get to where I'm going on time instead of being late!!!" (pedestrians have right-of-way and often take advantage of this. Yes, Csaba, I'm talking about you.)

9. "We have to leave right away" really means, "We have to start getting ready and be out the door sometime in the next ten minutes." (in the villiages)

10. Unless it's exams week, getting up at 7 am is the crack of dawn. "Getting to bed late" means getting to bed around 1am.

11. If a friend offers you a ride in their car to church, (thus cutting the travel time from a freezing 40 minute walk to a 10 minute drive) you begin thinking of ways to get the pope to saint them, even though they aren't Catholic.

12. You watch your feet when you walk, because there aren't laws about keeping animals contained, and they (the animals) often leave "gifts' on the ground. If the ground is 'gift' free, the pavement (or lack thereof) is so riddled with cracks and potholes that it sometimes takes talent to keep an even gait.

13. When someone shakes your hand you automatically begin to kiss them on both cheeks.

14. You're guilt-tripped into taking 3rd helpings at mealtime.

15. You have to say "no thank you" at least 4 times before they believe you really won't accept what they are offering.

16. Doing laundry is a 2 to 3 day event. (2 1/2 days are spent geting the clothes dry as there aren't clothes dryers here.

17. You don't find it odd to see a woman wearing a red and white striped t-shirt with a black checkered skirt, brown stockings, berkenstock sandals, and a hand-knitted sweater over it all.

18. You have to budget "eating out" at that really fancy resturaunt, McDonalds.

My two roommates are from Nagaland, India, and I am gathering more and more friends from India. So I decided to make a list of 'you know you have Indian roommates when..." list.

You know you have Indian roommates when:

1. you buy black tea in bulk

2. most meals include large quantities of garlic and onions, and those are the bland dishes.

3. your spice cabinet consists 70% of chili-related spices that threaten to catch Americans on fire simply by looking at them

4. helping verbs or articles are rarely used in sentences. In fact, quite a few sentences consist just of subject and verb.

5. To emphasize something, it is simply repeated twice (it's HOT hot, not just hot.)

6. Most material possessions are not bought but acquired from the Indian or international network. Actually this can be said of most Seminary students as well, just subtract the 'international' descriptor.

7. Chocolate is considered bizarre

8. Bollywood movies and songs are consistent occurrences.

9. Arranged marriages are not considered abnormal, although preferable is a debated descriptor.

10. Grocery shopping occurs once a month, and is done through catching a ride with a friend or walking the 6 blocks to the store

11. You know what Chai is. You also know that Starbucks doesn't sell it.

12. You know three different ways to make chai.

13. you buy the ingredients to make chai in bulk

14. You think people who don't drink chai regularly are abnormal

15. You know five different locations of international grocery stores, and might know their owners on a first-name basis

16. Most of the foods in your pantry and refrigerator that have labels not in English

17. 'Eating out' is Burger King.

18. Nodding one's head no longer occurs in an up-and-down movement. It is done through making the chin lead one's head in a side-to-side, bobble-type motion. Sort of like the Albert Mohler figurines you buy at Lifeway bookstores.

19. you know saffron is not just a color, you know where to buy it, you have an inkling how to cook with it, and you are considering paying the $5 an ounce for it because its that good.

20. Curry doesn't scare you.

21. your 'Auntie" or 'Older sister' is not biologically related to you.

Mullberries

Someone in the history of our property's settlement planted three mulberry bushes behind the duck shed, and every year the bushes take turns in producing gorgeous, juicy berries.
This year Dad discovered three more HUGE bushes in the ditch up the hill, and so on Saturday I took Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum berry picking.
Or rather, I took them to go berry munching while I picked.
We started with the bush that is growing wild in the field on our property before heading towards the planted one. Between bushes Tweedle Dee used the excuse "Gotta go bathroom" and fled to Mom and Dad where she reported that I was "Slaving them" and begged for parental intervention.
However, my parents live to see their children's character built and jobs done, so they threw her back outside to help me and Tweedle Dum finish picking.
We got at least two gallons worth of berries (I know you measure them in bushels but I don't know how many bushels we got and I know how many gallons we got so there) and now we have to figure out what we are going to do with them.
Tweedle Dee voted for Mom to make juice, but we need to buy canning lids for that. And that means long hours in the kitchen boiling stuff down and getting hot and sticky. Yay.
KB said she hated me when I walked in with the big tub full of berries with TD and TD marching proudly in front of me. :-) I guess she figured all I was good for on my visits is creating more work for her to do. That's what big sisters are for, right?
TD and TD and I drove to the bushes on the hill as we had to take a detour around the once-again-flooded river, and on our way back we discovered ANOTHER mulberry bush.
"Hey guys, look! Another one! Should we stop?"
"NO!" they screamed in terror. We had been outside for at least three hours and for the last half of it they had both routinely been informing me that the "clock inside my tummy says its lunchtime."
So fun times on the farm. I couldn't find my camera so no pictures of our deeply-purple stained hands and scratched arms :-(
In other news, trying to finish the Coopertive Program assignment for school and figure out the job situation before heading back to school in August. Oh joy. Being an adult is not always all it is cracked up to be.
Anyhoo. Made Romanian coffee today and dipped some of our home-grown zuchinni in eggs and garlic-salted-flour and fried them up. YUMMY. I wish eating healthy wasn't so dang expensive most of the time. And to be perfectly honest, I far prefer the taste of my own cooking to any gourmet cafeteria at any school. But the powers that be decree otherwise, and so off to the meal-plan-paying office I go first thing when I get on campus. Pooh. But other than that I am looking forward to buying interesting theologically-based books and studying them and learning different missions techniques and writing papers and cramming for tests and ridiculous hours with friends sharing some kind of chocolate something or fried something and swapping different types of tea with girls of various majors and theological viewpoints. Although it has been good to be home and live in a HOUSE and home again for a while.

Later gator,

~Princess Ouch~

The hot sunshine was allowed in the kitchen just enough to give it a bright, cheery feel, without letting in the sharp heat that pounded into the Transylvanian countryside. My home in South Dakota had experienced an extra long winter, and so the coolness of the house was a welcome relief after my walk around the village, which was hot even for the locals.
A kitchen in Transylvania has a unique smell, especially Elizabeth’s kitchen. She is in her eighties, and so her kitchen has had a long time to accumulate the homey smells of coal and wood fires, pig lard, wine, garlic, muddy shoes, dill, and the usual mold that creeps into older homes. Today the smells of pastry dough and raw eggs were added to the mix, along with the wonderful feeling of excitement. Elizabeth’s grandson was coming home for the weekend. She carefully kneaded the pastry dough to just the right consistency while her forty-five year old daughter, Magda, mixed a chocolate syrup to add to part of the dough.
I stood in a corner and watched the two ladies expertly whisk together the scrumptious concoction, trying to stay out of their way. They encouraged me in their soft Hungarian voices to take the seat, but I had a better view standing. I always felt tall amongst them. At five feet six inches, I am the shortest in my family of tall Germanic Americans, of whom the shortest after me is five feet ten inches. Elizabeth was maybe five feet at the most, and Magda couldn’t have been more than five two.
Elizabeth asked in her whispering, aged voice something about the consistency of the dough and Magda answered equally as quietly. Their calm demeanor belied the excitement and nervousness that crackled in the air.
Soon Marta, Elizabeth’s elder daughter, came visiting and brought her daughter-in-law and granddaughter. I was shooed out of the kitchen to go eat lunch with the younger generation while the three older women continued cooking. Rahela and I made some small conversation in Romanian about the grandson who would be returning soon while Sanda babbled in two-year-old delight and tried to fling our lunch around the room. Apparently the little girl found extreme delight in the mysterious substance of sour cream, and kept trying to mix her lunch into the main container with her small plastic spoon. She screamed with frustration when Rahela absent mindedly moved her hands away and relocated the container to a safer and unreachable spot on the table.
After the meal Sanda was taken to the bedroom for a nap and I returned to Elizabeth’s kitchen. Magda had yielded the cooking surface to Marta, who was rolling out a delicate dough and was sprinkling some kind of sweet cheese, nuts, sugar and unsweetened cocoa onto the surface before rolling it up into a kind of jelly role type pastry. I inched closer to the table when no one was looking and snatched a quick taste of the dough. Mmm, it was delicious!
Soon the smells of the baking pastry floated around the room and I was offered a sample of the finished product. I rolled my eyes in mock ecstasy and licked my lips, earning a satisfied chuckle from the chefs.
“Meshaysh feenom.” I said, raising my piece of pastry. The best translation I can give you of the Hungarian compliment is, “Excellent worthy of the legend.” A bit melodramatic perhaps, for a mere country kitchen’s pastry. But first off, you must understand that Hungarian is a poetic, melodramatic language. And second, Elizabeth and her daughters are just very good cooks. Worthy of legend.