Free Coffee?!?!

Well on Tuesday night at Eric's softball game I decided to try one more time to introduce myself to one of the people in the stands and hope that it not bomb like it had before. So I already knew she was the spouse of the "Shirt" or "First Sergent" for the same squadron Eric is in. She immediately told me to sit down next to her and keep her company for the game. Her name is MaryAnn and they have two kids one who will be a freshman in college and one who is 16. She also told me that the base chapel just opened a coffee shop that very night and she was helping to oversee it. They were having trouble with their espresso machine and I told her that MAYBE i could help.
So tonight i went in-yeah, couldn't fix the espresso machine. But i did spend 2 hours there getting to know her even better and the Wing Chaplin's wife Liz or was it Lisa? So that was great. It's a huge room all redecorated with free coffee, pop, blended coffee drinks, and treats. It's the only place on base that's open past 8:00 (besides the bowling alley) and it's the only place for some peace and quiet away from home. I love it!

His birthday is today-o

Today was Eric's birthday. He wakes up at 5:30 some days to work out so he did this morning and usually i'm up working on breakfast before he gets home so this morning was no different. He got biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast. Then I met him for lunch and we went to the Turkish officers club and had yummy Turkish food there. The balloons i had ordered for him arrived shortly after lunch (Superman balloon and Hawkeye colored balloons). At one-o-clock i had to be home for the delivery of his gift. Porch furniture. YES this is what he wanted not me. Although i like it too. It was hard to decide what to get him this year, like it always is but i'm glad it was a surprise.

When Eric comes home he bikes and he enters the house through the gate in the backyard so there i was sitting there with some pink lemonade and a snack when he got home. He was very surprised and very happy. I barely made it out there as the cooking and baking took five hours.

We spent time together before the Goosens were supposed to come over at 6:30 for dinner. Dinner was completely ready with Spiderman cups, plates, napkins and a really cool Spidey cake topper. It was nice to just hang out. He opened his gift from my parents and my card and other small gift.

The Goosens called to cancel so we had a really nice meal together outside. Inside out Bacon cheeseburgers with fresh tomato and lettuce. Scalloped corn, baked beans, potato salad, fruit salad-totally midwestern meal here.

Then we went to the softball game and had lemon cake afterwards.

It is Eric's special day but for those wives out there i think there's some kind of pressure we feel to make it special. Eric was so sweet and all night long he kept saying how nice his day had been and how thoughtful i was. So it was a sucessful day for me too.

Happy Spiderman Birthday!

Snakes and Snails and....that's what our garden is made of

Yesterday Eric and I took on the front yard. Now that all the gardeners are gone (they were forced to join a company and increase their prices by 18% if they wanted to stay) we are in charge of maintaining the Air Forces' idea of what a proper yard should look like. We weeded and weeded and weeded. I tore out all the ugly plants and we were amazed to see so many snail shells scattered around. While we were weeding we noticed these strange 1cm. round deep holes every so often.

Our neighbor was out washing his car and he asked me if i wanted to borrow his boots. I thanked him but told him i was doing just fine. He asked us if we had seen the holes yet. Yes, we had. Then he gave us some delightful news. Those are spider holes he says. This is where Eric got up and went into the house. The boy hates spiders. I have to kill them at our house as they do not bother me one bit. We did end up seeing one and they are pretty big but nothing huge. He told us that if we look down the holes we can see their little eyes staring up at us. Sure enough today i went out to look for them and i peered down into one of the holes and there were the little spider eyes staring back at me. Yes, they are big enough to see!

So I've included a picture of their homes for your viewing pleasure. Sleep tight!

Anlamadim, or in other words, I don't understand

Today was exhausting. We woke up too early for a Saturday and got on our bikes to catch the first dolmus (minibus) to go into the city for our first Turkish lesson. It was an adventure as you can imagine, a city the size of Phoenix, not speaking the language just a google map hand drawn. So we got on and off the first bus just fine and decided to hop on another bus that was heading the direction we needed to go, miraculously saw our street, got off and walked another five minutes to the language school.

Our lesson was going to be four hours long so we were gearing up for that. Our teacher is a Turkish linguistics student who just recently taught at the University of Florida. He is 24 years old and that's all we know about him personally. I had my reservations knowing that once they figured out how much Eric knew they would be excited to propel through the "easy stuff" to get to where he is at. This was already daunting as i knew that i would have to play catch up and try to get them to understand that i basically don't know anything.

So the lesson was fine, pretty disorganized and scattered. No notes were handed out so we had to write down everything he said and he expected us to know all the vocab (about 200 words/phrases) when we began to repeat things. After two hours i was so frustrated i was on the verge of tears. He would ask me a question in Turkish and i would have no idea what he said even though we were just doing the basics which i supposedly already knew.

So 7 pages of notes later i am decompressing and ready to work really hard this week and go meet with my Turkish friends to ask them ten times "How are you?" "How old are you" etc. etc. hopefully i won't get too down on myself.

After that we walked all the way back to the Adana Mosque through Arkadas park. It is GORGEOUS, fountains, flowers, beauty everywhere and it's huge, maybe 8 blocks by 4 blocks. Oooh here are perfect pictures. One is looking right up the sidewalk we walked on through arkadesh up to the globe and beyond that is the mosque and the other one is on the other side and you can see one of the buses and that is right where we got off our bus!

God took my pudding snack...and other lies. Plus also i ran today.

Well my friend Keri and I are about to embark on a book journey every Wednesday. We are reading "Lies Women Believe..." by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. THAT last name is mouthful missy.

Anywho, besides being really spiritual, i ran today. I like to announce when i run, because it in no way resembles structured thought out decisions to go pedal my thighs at the tread mill bazar. Instead it's still more of a funny joke to me that i am running-but i try not to laugh out loud when i'm on the tread mill. I find that other people think i'm laughing at them and that i slip and fall and shoot across the room from the unstopped belt. I do announce when i'm running and when i read the bible or pray because they are two of my biggest challenges right now. I feel like i am a (now just bear with me it's the first mental picture that popped into my head) a boxer. I am getting all warmed up in the corner, swaying back and forth, knocking my gloves together, chomping on my teeth guard, wiping the sweat away from my eyes. And i stay there. I prance and prance and prance and never go out into the ring. So when i finally do get out there i feel like i knock those challenges DEAD. RIGHT IN THE KISSER. Who says that???!!!

So i ran today, also i prayed two days ago.

So back to this book that Ker and I are going to read. When i was going through my "woe-is-me God-left-me-and-took-all-the-great-things-about-iowa-city-away-and-now-he's-trying-to-teach-me-a-lesson-while-i'm-supposed-to-stay-faithful-in-the-spiritual-dessert" routine.
I felt like I was little Suzy out on the playground with cute pigtails and a sun dress and i was really good at four square and sharing and my favorite thing of the day was to eat lunch because my mom would pack a pudding snack and write a little note to me with sharpy on the top. My life was so great with that pudding snack. But then one day a big mean guy came and stole my pudding snack. (I'm so sorry that i only work with visual pictures and metaphors). So that's how i felt like God was treating me when i went to California. He took all the friendships, good church teaching, good DEEP bible study, and NOTHING was working in California.

I thought like this (that God stole my pudding snack) for a loooooooooong time. But then one day in a moment of rarity when i was listening to God after my ranting. He asked me if I really believed that was the kind of God he was.

no

He didn't even make me say it louder so he could hear me. I knew then that I had made God into someone i could dislike and someone to carry the blame for how icky life was out there. SHOOT. I did it again. But if you read my very first post you'll see that he didn't make me feel bad for it. So God, you can have my pudding snack if you want it. I don't mind.

Bowels that Howl

I would hate to be the one to estimate how many hours I spend upon the throne. I'm not proud of my bowels. They are sneaky little guys-although I don't really know why bowels are plural...My mom can be mighty proud that she raised me on good nutritious food so that my body literally rejects all partially hydrogenated whatever, enriched flour and the WORST of all evils-corn syrup. Any type of fast food makes me pay. I guess it is a good thing-we could never live off of it.
Because I spend most of my time in the bathroom I have developed lots of useful things to do whilst chained to the porcelain.
1. Take care of any hangnails, toenail extras, cuticle cropping.
2. Straighten out the shower curtain.
3. Read the toilet paper packaging.
4. Blow dry your hair.
5. Clean the sink.
6. I used to read in there-for a LONG time, but then my bottom would get numb and then my legs would get numb and start to ache so I stay away from that now.
I tried to tell my stomach that the food I ate today was scrumptious-and it was-but it wouldn't have it.
So, if you couldn't tell that i didn't have much to say today-now you know. I just thought I would include you in my woes. No thanks necessary.

What do you SEE in my Turkish CoFEE

I'll get to THAT a little bit later but first I want to make one thing clear about my blog. I write exactly how i think. In short bursts of thought, cylical thought to be precise and it's not very organized when YOU guys get to it. But i probably won't change. This is not a paper, it's kind of public journaling. That's all i have to say about that.

Yesterday my new friend Holly (married to Maj. Goosen with two bambinos) called and asked me to go with her into Adana to our Turkish friend's house for lunch. YES! So we left at around 10:00 and piled the kids and another women and her kids into the monster truck and set of for Samara's house. When we first got there I went with Samara's sister into the kitchen to learn how to make Turkish Coffee. I always thought it would be intimidating to make it but it's SO easy. Using the cups you serve the coffee in you fill them with water (one cup water for each person) and put them in this little pot. (See picture). Then you put in one TINY spoonful of grounds and one spoonful of sugar for each person and stir all that up for a long time. Then you set it on the stove and turn the heat to medium. When the contents start to froth (not boil) you pour some of it back into the cups, froth the rest and keep pouring. But while it's on the stove top you scoop off the creme and put it on top of what is already in the cup. Voila. The key to great coffee is to not have many grounds in the bottom (you will have some and DON'T drink it) and the really great creme. It is wonderfully strong and sweet at the same time.

After the coffee we started preparing lunch. This meant chop till you drop. These women do not use cutting boards but you should see the TINY pieces they got. Parsley, Dill, Tomatoes, Red Cabbage, Onion, Tomatoes, Garlic, Cucumber. They cut it inside their palm and they get TINY pieces and then we mix it all up with a couscous type thing and some red paste and roll it in very thin bread or grape leaves. Great lunch. Dessert was frozen Jack fruit, watermelon and mystery melon.

In between lunch and dessert Samara's sister asked to read my coffee grounds. I really wasn't sure if i should let her or not but Samara was already translating before i could persist. So, whatever at this moment in my life it was ok. God is more powerful and HE knows my future withOUT having to look at my nasty coffee grounds. SPOILER ALERT! If you do not want to know my future do not read anymore. Or it can just be up to God and not grounds.

She said: I am going to have a boy really really soon, a new job working with a man, being trained by a group of people with Eric's support; eric loves me a lot and we will always be happy and he only has eyes for me; we will keep giving a lot and then we will be receiving money, we will live in Turkey a long time, i will get a phone call from family that will make me very happy, i pray and ask to see God. So there you go. Whew.

Almost five hours later we were back home. Imagine if your lunch guests came over, or if you stayed for five hours?! Holy hospitality batman!

REDeemed

Spiritually God and I are patching. He is showing me more about what the last three years were (even though he didn't have to) and i am learning that He is VERY interested in me dying to myself, and not trying to BE the mirror for Jesus or reflect Him. He wants me to GO AWAY and HE wants to shine forth. HALLELUJAH. No more DO just BE. I have realized that before i thought it was my responsibility to SHINE my Jesus light as brightly as i could by; quoting and memorizing scripture, being an example of the Fruits of the Spirit and muster up good ol' fashioned Grace and compassion the way Jesus would. What they got was a SPIRITUAL FRUIT CAKE!! So quietly Jesus took away my tools, and believe me i was building a big ol' reflection mirror. And he let me be alone for a while. He continued to pour grace upon grace so that i would begin to look at Him and not at how i was doing reflecting Him. Can i see Him in me? was not supposed to consume my thoughts anymore but rather, can i see Him at all? And i think you know that i couldn't very well. So the fruit cake got moldy, the tools began to rust to where they didn't work anymore and I began to receive His grace the only way He knows how to give it out-undeserved. I loved the gifts He gave, although i was very angry He was being such a nice guy when i disliked Him so much. "Dear Jesus, thank you for heaping burning coals on my head." Love Laura. He gave me what i needed to be without Eric, He gave me DEAR friends that He sneakily touched through my skin when I WASN'T EVEN LOOKING!!! It makes me polar frustrated a: frustration i couldn't watch while He worked and B: frustrated that He was working and I didn't get to be a part of it. Well, every word rebuked me. The answer would be there in my mind before i uttered the last word, the pride would hiss as i made the period drop on my sentence like oil on a hot skillet, and yet still as never before the GRACE would rebuke me. Grace finally felt undeserved, i mean how could i deserve it, i was really NOT BFF's (Best friends forever) with God. Grace finally felt like Fatherhood a gift to a dear child with a message that I am completely loved but I am not without sin. Thank you Father for the gentle reprimand this time, thank you that I can see now that you were that gentle the whole time. Thank you for redeeming me.