Muddled Thoughts

Somehow blogging was easier when no one was reading it :) And I suppose that may be the case now, since so much time has passed since my last post. But I know I need to keep this thing going. It's just that...I'm not so sure I want to share some stuff that I think about. What if you don't like it? What if you think I am way out of line?

But the other day I shared an idea with my son and he practically made me promise to write it down and post it. I say he practically did...I still haven't done it yet, but that's not to mean I won't. I got to work up to it.

I've taken a small break from writing just about anything. Why? Life is a little crazy at the moment. A couple of years ago I'd look at the parents of high school seniors and wonder what the fuss was all about. What did they mean that having a senior made life crazy at the end of the year?

Now I have a senior. And life is crazy. Now I get it.

I'm working on a Tshirt quilt for him. Memories displayed in Tshirts all the way from middle school days. Yes, I kept them and carted them around through three moves to three different islands. It is coming along well and I am already eyeing the Tshirts of my younger sons. They come downstairs after changing out of their school uniforms and I look at them and think, "Oh, that will be great on their senior quilt!"

I've got to clear my desk off though, so I can put my sewing machine on it to sew it all together. I remember that there was once a desk...I'm hoping it's still there, under all the junk that I piled on it just days after cleaning it off and telling myself "this looks so great, I'll never junk up my desk again." This time, if I find my desk, I'll keep it clean. I promise.

And speaking of promises, I need to write that post my son told me I should write.

But first things first. I gotta finish his quilt.

Having a senior in the house is crazy at the end of the school year.

Shout Out to Fractions!

Lessons learned today:

1. Never let your brain go on cruise-control even when using a tried-and-true recipe
2. Common sense and little red flags that go up in your brain are gifts from heaven. Pay attention to them.
3. Well, I think that's pretty much it.

Today I cooked for two different sets of folks. Why not double the recipe and just use half for one set and half for the other. Why that is an excellent idea, I think I'll do that. 

And why not use a well-liked recipe so that I know it will be a guaranteed good meal for all involved in eating it. Why that is another excellent idea. Let's do it!

So I begin preparing oven fajitas, a recipe I found on Pinterest. So far everyone has loved it. Awesome. Here I go. I start mixing up the spices that will be used to marinate the chicken. As I begin measuring out the various spices I say to myself,

"Hmmm, that seems like a lot of spices. I don't remember that...well, it must be because I have doubled the recipe. Yes, that's it."

A few spices later...

"Wow, that really seems like a lot. Well, I think I have more spices in the cabinet this time than I did last time. I must have skipped some of the ingredients last time. OK, I'll just keep on, I mean, I've made this many times and I know it's good."

I finally get to "Cayenne Pepper" which is one of the spices I did not have before. My brain is thinking about switching to cruise-control. My eyes register "8 tsp". Wow, that is a lot. I start measuring it out. Doubling the recipe, of course, will mean 16 tsp. Really? Wow. By tsp number 4 I think,

"Hmmm, that really is a lot." 

I dip my finger into the cayenne pepper and taste it, yep, it's pretty spicy. I think I'll stick with 3 tsp. I try to dig out what I can from the pile of spices I've dumped into the bowl to get the cayenne pepper down to a lesser amount.

Ok, marinate chicken. It's all in the pan and ready to bake. I double check the recipe for the amount of time to bake. That's strange. It's not on the recipe. I look it up on the internet site. That's when I notice the spice amounts are different on the internet recipe. When I go back to check the recipe I am using on Pinterest, I see that the TOP number of the FRACTION is way off in the left-hand margin, nowhere near the recipe itself. That leaves the bottom number over by the recipe. So instead of 1/2 Tablespoon of chili powder, for example, I read "2 Tablespoons". But I am doubling the recipe, so I dump in 4 Tablespoons. You can see then, that when I got down to the Cayenne Pepper (after dumping about half my spice cabinet into the bowl) I read 8 teaspoons instead of 1/8 teaspoon. That's a big difference Yo!

I look at the chicken. It is literally already baking under the heat of the cayenne attack. I think I hear it sizzling right there on the cabinet. My face burns. My hands burn. I glance at the guests in the living room. I think about the others who are innocently waiting for me to bring them a home cooked meal. This stuff is fire and I am pretty sure it's more spice than chicken at this point.

Hmmmm...

I rinse the chicken. I dump it all into a mixing bowl and rinse it. No joke it takes about 5 cycles before the water is no longer orangey-red and the spices are mostly gone.

Start over. Wow, it sure does look more reasonable now. 

1/2 teaspoon salt instead of 2 teaspoons (doubled to 4)

1/4 teaspoon onion powder instead of 4 teaspoons (doubled to 8)

You get the idea. Whew, I baked it and it turned out just fine.

Disaster averted.

Fractions are important y'all. Numerators are vital. You can't just use the denominator.

Lesson learned.

Foreign Language: Piece of Cake!

I love to decorate cakes!  What completes a birthday party better than a great cake, right?  When the kids were younger, I always decorated cakes for their birthdays.  They could choose the theme and then I'd go crazy (and spend hours) decorating their cake.  It was fun and I learned how to do all kinds of great things with icing!  I made a car cake, a computer cake, a Power Rangers cake, a Spiderman, superhero, plane, train, soccer etc, etc.  Notice the boy theme.  But, I also learned to make roses and daisies and swirls and curls and I'd decorate cakes for girls and ladies as well.

When we lived in Africa, a very sweet young lady named Ruta worked for me several days a week.  She was so quiet and sweet and I loved her dearly.  She had seen many of the cakes I'd decorated and one day she asked if I'd make a birthday cake for her son.  Oh, I was flattered!  I was so happy to get to do something like that to help her throw a party for her little boy.  I agreed immediately!  I planned to have the cake baked and decorated on the following Friday so that she could bring it home for the weekend.

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I mixed up the batter from scratch and baked it in two round pans to make a layered cake.  I covered the cooled cake in rich home-made blue icing and carefully decorated with contrasting colors.  I had studied the tribal language that Ruta and her family spoke and I thought what a special treat it would be to write "Happy Birthday" in her language.  Now, Ruta's mother tongue is not a common language, not many foreigners at all speak it, and it is written in the Ge'ez alphabet, a completely different script.  But I, Jana Kelley, knew that language and could write that script.  Yes, I have the distinct feeling that I was a bit prideful as I wrote those words in creamy white icing on that blue layered cake.  It looked wonderful!  I prepared a box for the cake and carefully packed it so that Ruta could bring it home with her.  I was so happy with the result, knowing Ruta would be so pleased, and surprised too!

And surprised she was.

"Wow," she said, "did you write that?"

"Yes," I smiled, "I did."  Yes!  This was great!  Ruta thanked me and brought the cake home, amazed that I knew how to write a greeting in her language.  We had a relaxing weekend and it was not until Saturday night, as I lay in bed, that it struck me...

My eyes flew open and I gasped loudly...

OH NO!  I'd written "Merry Christmas" on the cake!

Oh my word!  That's what I got for being so prideful about being able to speak and write in her language!  On Monday, Ruta returned to work.

"Ruta!" I exclaimed, "I wrote 'Merry Christmas' on your son's birthday cake!"

"Yes," she replied.

"I am so sorry!"

"That's ok!  It was really nice."

Ruta was so sweet and never made fun of me.  But I've always wondered what that party was like.  All those people gathering around the "Merry Christmas" birthday cake, snickering at that silly foreign lady who decorated it!  And somehow, when I think of that story, I am reminded of Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction a haughty spirit before the fall"!

Nail Salon

I am enjoying "bonding" with my nieces.  One night, Kayla and I had our own nail salon.

After trying, with no luck, to get my son to let her practice on his fingernails...Kayla paints my thumb nail.

And paints a little more...

And a little more...

Using her really cool nail painting tools.

She paints some super cute froggies on my thumbs.

And helped me add some dragonfly decals to my index fingers, because who wants hungry frogs?

And here I am feeding my frogs.

And here are Kayla's awesome nocturnal frogs.  See the starry skies on her other fingers?

Here's to more fun bonding time with my family!

Easter

Easter celebrating began earlier this week with egg decorating! I had to buy "kampung eggs" because they are whiter than the other choices.  Kampung eggs are from "ayam kampung" which is apparently a smaller chicken (that lay smaller eggs) that are raised in the kampung (village) rather than some chicken
farm.  My other choices were:  regular chicken eggs (brown and hard to dye, although we did try a few), duck eggs (large and greenish blue, why bother to dye eggs that are already an Easter color, right?) and pigeon eggs (tiny and white with black spots, again, why bother decorating eggs that were layed decorated!)  Anyway, we had a good time decorating with Aunt K and then we ate boiled eggs for breakfast throughout the week! 















On Sunday morning we enjoyed fellowship and worship with our 
Indonesian brothers and sisters.  What a blessing! Yesus bangkit!


And then we enjoyed more fellowship and yummy Mexican food 
with friends!  YUM!




 We have been reading the events leading up to the first Easter as a family in the evenings, so on Easter evening we wrapped up our Easter celebration by reading the beautiful happy story of Jesus resurrection!

Because HE LIVES I can face tomorrow!

Because HE LIVES all fear is gone!

Because I know HE holds the future,

and life is worth the living just because HE LIVES!

Mini Bonfires

Here is something easy and fun to make for any pyromaniacs who might live in your home.

 First you need some crazy participants.

And then you need tuna cans (one per bonfire) and then strips of cardboard.  Roll the cardboard up and stuff them into the tuna cans in a spiral so that you can see the currogated parts.  This makes a honey-comb look from the top.

Melt wax candles on the stove top.  I used an old vegetable can to melt the candles because I didn't want to mess up a sauce pan.  That way I could just throw out the can when I was done.  When the wax is melted, pour it over the cardboard on the inside of the tuna cans to coat the cardboard.

When the wax cools and hardens, you have what acts like a giant candle wick in a can!  You can take your tuna can anywhere and have a ready-made mini bonfire!

We roasted marshmallows with ours.

And told ghost stories.

And had alot of fun!