The Sentimental Things

When packing for my stay in Thailand, I tried to be entirely practical but some things slipped through.

I brought the dozen fresh roses from my brother given to me the night before my departure.

The origami cat from a young lady at my church enjoyed a window seat on the flight over.

I have an electronic copy of the Bible, so deciding to bring my new hard copy study Bible was settled when I remembered its dedication.

My favorite type of pen (so far) is always close by, ready to journal or take notes.

I have long worn one ring for no particular reason other than I like it. My father bought the first as a birthday gift and the second is one I found in Thailand. My youngest sister wears an identical ring as the first.

Lastly my tag.

My youngest brother and I went to an air show and had matching tags made that had our name and the meaning of our name written on them. I wear it everywhere, the same as my ring.

The Sentimental Things

When packing for my stay in Thailand, I tried to be entirely practical but some things slipped through.

I brought the dozen fresh roses from my brother given to me the night before my departure.

The origami cat from a young lady at my church enjoyed a window seat on the flight over.

I have an electronic copy of the Bible, so deciding to bring my new hard copy study Bible was settled when I remembered its dedication.

My favorite type of pen (so far) is always close by, ready to journal or take notes.

I have long worn one ring for no particular reason other than I like it. My father bought the first as a birthday gift and the second is one I found in Thailand. My youngest sister wears an identical ring as the first.

Lastly my tag.

My youngest brother and I went to an air show and had matching tags made that had our name and the meaning of our name written on them. I wear it everywhere, the same as my ring.

Christmas - This Side Of The World

Christmas activities this year included:

Skyping and calling my crazy family in the morning

And...

Ice Skating at the mall

Photo credit: Khemjira Peekaew

A non-traditional dinner of pizza. That was just me and Pookie, everyone else got the ham or turkey dinner.

And store browsing with Pookie...

And after getting home, I opened my present from the church gift exchange (it was neat to have unintentionally drawn the gift from Pookie!)

This has been a lovely Christmas of contentment!

The Eve Of Christmas

On the eve of Christmas I look back on the past few days and realize the many lessons I've learned while in a foreign land away from my immediate family.

Christmas is a wonderful time of cookie baking, meeting friends, exchanging gifts...

None of that has changed, but the freeing thought amongst the soulful wishes to be home for the holidays is that I'm right where God wants me and he has given me His family to celebrate His birth.

An added blessing is the cold weather that has drifted over Chiang Mai. I've been drinking hot cocoa and wearing a bulky sweater that transports me into the climate of my home town in the US... but alas, no snow to show for the chill.

My good friend who shares many of her spontaneous adventures with me, has kept us on our twinkle toes with laughter as we share a Christmas away from home. 

My eldest sister has sent multiple packages containing paper surprises that I must detail later but show the cutout Christmas tree now.

I quite adore my festive little paper tree. I think the presents I taped to this board are some of the best presents I have ever received!

So while the world is abustle with shopping and cheery hellos and well wishes, I shall be in Thailand soaking up the warmth of my sweater and the presence of my caring Savior who I have remembered as...

The Reason For The Season

Comfort Food

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate this wonderful American holiday!

Here in Thialand the grocery stores are only too happy to help make the traditional dishes, like pumpkin pie, by providing the ingredients. Naturally the pie filling only costs $15... 

Plan B.

Pookie, a friend and I made pie from scratch, boiling halved pumpkins and pulling together all the delicious ingredients.

Mmmmmmm

Turkey and cranberry sauce were out of the picture since both are quite expensive but the table was never-the-less full of tasty dishes such as green bean casserole, mashed potatoes...

Yummy!

Now, this was last week that we celebrated with the Williams family.

Today, the official Thanksgiving Day, we made reservations for four at Duke's, a lovely American food restaurant that claimed to be serving a full traditional Thanksgiving meal... turkey included.

No prep, no dishes, plenty of leftovers... can't beat that!

So, after a full day at the office we headed out and enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving evening.

I chose ham over turkey, it sure was good!

Dessert was a huge piece of tasty apple pie that I ended up taking half home in a box.

HappyThanksgiving! 

Inspirational Bird Droppings

Today I rediscovered the fun of taking random photographs.

Like stopping at the side of the road to take a picture of bird droppings...

Or the headless horse...

And the really cool table in my front yard.

Sometimes you just got to get out there and take some photos!

A Simple Cheer

I was given a lovely iPod Touch by my coworkers before I left for Thailand as a parting gift. It has been the greatest tool I've ever held in the palm of my hand.

From communicating with my family using wifi and free apps to making friends with little kids I can't speak with due to the language barrier.

The latter has been quite entertaining and it always cheers me to see the grin on their little faces when they touch the screen to color a page.

I have built up a collection of coloring pages...

Homesick On Veteran's Day

I miss the Stars and Stripes as I sit here in Thailand.

 I miss celebrating this wonderful day with my family, especially my father who served in the US Navy.

And I miss walking around my hometown in America where uniforms are an everyday comforting sight.

I am glad that America is proud of and upholds the honor of those who serve and have served.

God bless each veteran and those who support them.

Pancakes for Supper

There's nothing like bacon, eggs and a plate of pancakes.

It all started when my friend mentioned the magic word "pancakes."

I know how to make those! My mind began spinning with how to make the fluffy kind... how was I going to find all the ingredients in the store? I can't read Thai.

But I had a recipe!

Compliments of my father and Pillsbury.

But with quite a bit of determination I walked out my front door, hopped on my bike, crossed four lanes of highway traffic and finally arrived at my challenge.

The grocery store.

I figured I could walk through every single isle and pick up the things on my list as I went.

Well...

Searching the isles only turned up a bag of raw sugar off my list of eight or so things to purchase. At least I could read that part of the bag.

My determination got me around the store a couple times before people started singing "she'll be com'n 'round the isle..." You get the idea. Besides, it's not like the store associates were wearing blue vests saying "How can I help you?"

And this nut seemed to be mocking me.

Nutella ad

So, a few days later, and with a lot of help from Krinny, the ingredients were gathered. I took off for my house during a lunch break to mix my happy little concoction together in preparation for supper.

I donned an apron and got busy.

The flour, sugar, oil, baking powder... everything was lined up on the counter, but something was missing and it wasn't the mixing bowls.

I couldn't find the measuring cups!

"Well," I thought "they didn't call them Cup Measures and Tablespoons for no reason."

So I used a cup,

and a spoon.

Mixing a bit of this and a bit of that into the two bowls I felt like my storybook cooking hero, Miss Amelia Badelia.

Finally combined, I loaded what I hoped would become something tastefully edible, into my bike basket and headed back to the office.

Supper time couldn't come soon enough! When the time came, my friend (Pookie) and I cooked bacon (gotta get the house smelling good) and then started pouring batter and frying eggs.

Photo credit: Khemjira Peekaew

Perhaps it is a good thing that we were too busy devouring the fruit of our labor or else you would now have to deal with a photograph of steaming pancakes smothered in butter and topped with maple syrup.