Friday, October 21, 2005

Painting and Discipline

We are getting a bit more used to the currency here, so now I can just look in my purse and see what coins I have without having to take each one out and try to find a value on it. It’s kind of weird having a two-pound coin though, that’s about R24 and it’s just a coin!

I made the butternut soup and it’s okay, definitely edible, but a bit lacking in something. I only added salt right at the end because none of the recipes included salt, but it was GROSS otherwise. Have frozen about eight single portions so I’ll work my way slowly through those. Also had to add some turmeric because it looked very pale, but now it’s almost a baby-poo colour. Might try again sometime. Aaron has started putting things in his ears because we have told him to stop putting things in his mouth. What a silly billy. The boys find great delight in screaming for joy, so tonight I told them that they must stop screaming because people walking past the house will hear them and think I am doing terrible things to them and will come and take them away and make them live with another family, who won’t love them very much, and they will never be able to come home again. Caleb took it quite seriously and his screams were considerably subdued after that.

Well, I spent the greater part of Tuesday and yesterday painting. The room really looked very bad, cracked plaster and sticky tape and prestick, but now it is all smooth and even and officially Apple Mist instead of mustard biscuits. Tomorrow or sometime when I have bought the right colour paint (looking for a Hunter’s Green sort of colour) I have to paint the pelmets, window sills and skirtings. At the moment the skirting boards, which presumably were once wood and probably looked nice, are a sort of aqua colour, termed “government green” by the locals for some reason. You can imagine it.

I went to a toddler’s group yesterday afternoon so I met some moms with little kids. I hope I managed to make some friends, I have a sort of invite to one of the mom’s houses next week some time (that’s Lindsay who I think I mentioned some e-mails ago), it will be good for the boys to have some scenery other than the house and the shops. Shame, poor little kids. Had to drag them to town this morning as I needed a few things, but we may as well have walked because I couldn’t find parking anywhere near where I needed to be so parked on our street, about halfway between home and town. Had to go from one shop to another with the two in tow, it’s not exactly Menlyn where you can load your kids into a trolley and sail from one shop to another in the comfort of an air-conditioned centre. Here we have to try stick to the narrow pavement between shops. Eventually the boys start whining, then I have to try sort them out, but in the meantime all the passersby are kind of watching because they all know that I’m the pastor’s wife, and you never know, there could be our members amongst them! Sometimes I greet people so enthusiastically because I suspect they are in our church, but I can’t be sure because I don’t know anyone well enough yet.

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