Culture Shock? Shake it off, hug a lion & eat some zebra!

Day 10 - 2 pages, LOTS of adventure...

Bartering.
Pretty sure I got ripped off a few times today, but oh well... :/
The SA rand is around 7: 1 US dollar

This guy Sidney (pictured first) tried to be my boyfriend so we could symbolize "the everlasting love" 'his' statue represented... He asked if I had email and said that because he is an artist he comes to the States all the time, haha. Oh Sidney... (then in the journal i listed who sold me what...)

 This guy (below) was a smooth talker and told me that most of the profits he and his brother(/vending partner?) make there, go to feed the other guy's baby girl... He asked for a picture (cuz almost EVERYONE there loves having their picture taken) then we took one on his cell phone for him to "show her who helped him buy her bread that day". It is tough to figure out how factual their stories are that the use to get you to look at their stuff, but I like to believe the best in people - which is what got me scammed in the first place haha.

In South Africa, people will stand all up and down the median at stop lights trying to sell things to you while you're waiting for the light to change. We just passed a group that was selling bat kites! haha.

So I sat next to Tahabng and Johannes all day in the back of the shelter van. Tahabng (the 2 1/2 yr old son) liked to play with my hair and hair clip (which I ended up putting on his shoelaces but it broke in the mall).

His little hand is traced in my notbook, next to his + his brother's birthdays. Then I got to sit next to them at dinner too.

Lion Park.
First, we found the giraffes:

Then, we found the cubs!:

You know that rush you get when you do something for the first time? When you feel SO scared, but really excited all at once? Multiply that by 4 and thats sorta how this was :)

(this was shot through the back window)

Also, I dont have the picture of it but, one of the grown lions decided that the tire on the back of the Smith's truck looked delish so it basically maulled the tire after mounting their car. There is a nice chip on the bumper from its nail, too...

Dinner.

Yep, I ate leg of lamb, venison meat balls, venison sausage, giraffe, zebra, gemsbok, & croccodile!

Delicious =)

& I was given the "Official Photographer" award (everyone got one award or another) from Kristy & Deb :)

Lots of sleeping in the car on the way home.

House Dedications!!

Day 9 - wrote 3 pages

This morning at FP we prayed over the 3 shacks we built + handed over the keys to the families

1. Father + little boy (6 yrs?) [and wife & two more girls(who we never met)]

This is a video Deb shot at the first house dedication
2. The girl on the right and her two younger siblings (1 on her back and the little boy sitting on the ground)

This is the blessing of the second shack that Deb recorded
3. Robert\

This was the blessing of the third shack + the garden
All of the women you see jammin' out in these videos are the care takers i keep referring to throughout the journal.

1. The whole family is "in the program" meaning they all have HIV/AIDS. The father & son were the only ones home so i guess the mom was working somewhere or visiting family or sitting in line at the clinic. The older 2 may've been at the Creche (daycare) or something.
2. This 20ish year old and her little ones, (I think their mom just died, leaving her in charge of the other two) were the most outwardly thankful out of the first two shack-resident families. I cannot picture (very easily) being my age and being completely in charge of a baby and a little brother who cant be older than 4 - especially in Freedom Park.
3. Robert is someone who stepped up from the community to tend to & protect the garden from people hopping the fence to steal whats been grown. He is a volunteer, but now he has a good multi-purpose way to pass time.

All the ladies + Pastor Khumalo who came to pray + Johannes

All the fellers + Pastor Khumalo + Johannes

Freedom Park, I decided last Thursday, is the very last place I would like to - or wish anyone have to - be at overnight. The serious stories of rape and prostitution floor me. Chris pointed out a few nights ago how jail-like it really is: filled with pain, abuse, suffering, scarce food. I can only imagine the screams of a neighbor the little kids must hear any given night when a man breaks in and starts to have his way with a single mom, un-protected 14 & orphaned year old girl, or a 3 year old girl, just because he is a sick, desperate, perverted man. Jenny is so paranoid about just walking around; I don't blame her, but I'm not as scared. One, I haven't really had that situation put in front of me. Two, we always had to have at least one guy with us so we don't. Not all of us girls always had the security of the rule either though....

We also got to visit Phokeng today! :)

Tea party!

The girls were singing "Waka Waka" and they were killer! =)

The boys loved playing with Kristy's ipod!

They kept watching the music video for Michael Franti's "Say Hey" and dancing along :)

Random spurt: I'll miss the photography boys... :(
Dashboard Confessional Saves the Day.

Jon, Charles, & Sean just had the "what do you sleep in - boxers only, or do you wear a tshirt or socks or anything?" talk.... it was kinda funny.  (Jeremy wasn't kidding, I write everything... haha)

Sonner has some stellar song writing skills... not a joke.. he said his CD should be out in the next few months.
& For the last half hour (9p - 9:30) Dave and I did all the dishes from dinner and cleaned up the kitchen... not super awkward, just kind of since we don't talk much normally. Swapped stories a bit so that's good I guess - that makes...2 (Kristie and Dave), 4 days to hear everyone elses? Optimistic thought. However - doing dishes is a good way to pass time + get to know someone.

We met Johannes' family and I got to hold his new baby for a while after dinner!! They are ALL so beautiful!

I just read Micah 5, randomly, and realized the subject matter could totally apply to Africa! (Read it)

Day 8 - wrote 3 pages

"Do you have cough drops?" - Janelle
"Cough drops? No." - the checkout people at the gas station
"This, in my mouth, you don't have this?" *gestures to one of her last cough drops*
"No, we don't."
*looks around and finds a ton of Halls* "This! This is what I've been asking you for!"
"Oh! No no -- that is 'halls' not 'cough drops'!"


So today we filled up the rental van and headed out to THE park to do a few more things in the garden (dug beds) and shacks (painting the screws with tar)... We played with the kids in the Creche (daycare) + gave each one a slice of banana + took more pictures.

Cute little booger was conked out!

Few 'lil manly men

Learning vowels! :)

 Kristy, Kristie & I were talking with Jacki about what would happen with Violet's kid (who we met on the home visits) because of legal & cultural issues.
Legal issues = he (Thimbi) isn't actually an orphan, esp. if there is a real dad in the picture, but in this case nobody really knows for sure...
Cultural issues: the medics/sisters/care takers/OVC administrators, "father", and a foster family are all trying to take custody of the kid. Basically it is all a crazy mess so far, and it is only day 2 of us trying to help his and his mom  :/

This was Thimbi the first day we met him, in a snowsuit that is wayyy too small for him :(

This was after the care taker bathed him and found him some new clothes(!!) when Violet was telling him she was going to the hospital and didn't know when they'd see each other again...

Phokeng was good times -- the neighbor kid nicknamed "Peter Pan" is my new buddy =) Isaac & Gift can DANCE, man! kinda jealous...

So we played some street soccer again today: "Yanks" vs "Bafana Bafana" - they won by 1 point... which is pretty impressive for our guys haha. Then we shot and printed pictures for the kids here too.

We tried to hit up the mall on the way home but it was all closed after we were there only 10 minutes -- except for the Pick & Pay (which was the most important stop anyway) so we grabbed everything we'll be composing care packages with, so it was all good in the long run.

"Eeni Meeni Miny Moe...": At our Lincoln/dinner next-day-run-down we were deciding who was going to stay back at FP with Johannes and Dave. It came down to Taylor or myself so Lincoln just did "ennie meeni" and landed on me - so tomorrow, I learn something about linoleum! :)

Soap? Prison joke? ....What? (the girls had to explain it to me an hour and a half later when we were going to bed haha)

After showering I came into the boy's flat. I walked in and scoped out the place as to set down my stuff and popped-a-squat. The first thing I hear directed at me is from Chris. At first I was thinking about if I'd done anything he wouldn't've liked (as team leader) and was about to chew me out. But I was surprised:

"Hey Lyz?" - Chris

"Yes?" - me

"Have you ever thought about being a teacher?"

"I... umm... When I was younger yeah I did hope to once"

"well, you could cuz you're doing really awesome with the kids!"

That conversation made my night! & it made me second guess my future... again... great.

I feel like I should be writing a lot more, but nothing new is coming to mind...

Day 7 - Monday, wrote 4 pages

"Do we have any spuds?" - Jeremy
"Spuds or studs?" - Cathy
"Neither!" - Kristy
"We have 3 studs right there *motions to Jon, Jeremy & Sean*, what are you talking about?" - Deb

Manure day in the garden at FP

• Once finally delivered, the garden team + some of the construction team moved it and everyone helped with the garden shack as they could (pictured above) all by wheelbarrows from the whole in the fence to all over the tilled garden lot. I'm sure their van smells nasty seeing as their clothes can stink up a whole front room. 
• "Puma/short stack/monkey child" was piggy backing on me for at least 45 minutes total today. In the last segment he had this big red-cinnamon blow pop that I was SO scared was gonna get stuck in my hair + would have to get cut out, but instead it just brushed the back of my neck a few times.

Phokeng: Street soccer, practical jokes then pretending to be casual, bubble pictures. Awesome, awesome place with funny kids!

I met the little neighbor boy nicknamed "Peter Pan" -- he is SOOO precious!

We were able to do some service projects here at Martha's in Phokeng through the week, but mostly just hang out with/get to know the kids:)

"Hey Jon It's 10:18p!! Where are you?!" - Sean

*Jon spazzes out on his chair*

We all cracked up, well those who noticed haha.

Earlier this evening Sean, Jon & I wrote out the steps Sean will have to undergo to bunce bak from his addition to South African Coke-a-Cola:

Coke Rehhab

1. Admitting you are at ground zero
2. Locking it off & hitting rock bottom from deprevation
3. intervention
4. Set goals

Johannes' favorite verses are:

1. Psalm 99:1 - The LORD reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim,
   let the earth shake.
2. Matthew 14:1 - At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus

So I read Psalm 99...100.....101......and 102 =)

(and Matthew 14:1 which he later explained that he likes because he is interested in the family lines...which is not in this passage?)

There is a super cool verse -- Psalm 102:7 -- which is written about "an afflicted man" in reference to feeling like "a bird alone on a rooftop". I like it because, first, I hadn't heard that comparison before & second, because it is the one i feel (out of all I read tonight) that I can most relate to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If God already knows everything we will do with every moment and has our lives planned according to that, why do we "have" free will?

Campfire #4
Nothing to Complain About
Night group devotion -- Hebrews 13: 1-3  ¹ Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. ² Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. ³ Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

     *Freedom Park = prison

• pain, abuse, suffering, not much food ever

     * How perfect God's timing is
     * Humility + Thankfulness + Love

• baby steps

     * Responsibility to use our resources to show God's love and ideas of value everywhere we are. God has us in a mission field every day and as American Christians we need to utilize that.

     * Not complaining even (especially) when you are "miserable"

     * God has a plan for every single minute and we don't have to be super stressed about planning our lives minute by minute

     * Take on a specific mission instead of trying to change the world

     * We are all forced to have faith down here

     * "I don't want money from you, I just wanna help you."

     * Admitting we need God's character

     * We love sinks. And green soap. :)

Anytime that man (Johannes) says more than "Hello, how are you?" "Fine, good" half of us lose it and just start crying. He is so humble and such a great man of God and, in turn, one incredible example of how we are supposed to live out life. I would love to meet more people like him and also, try to, be more like him because that is how more and more people will be blessed and definitely see the love of our Savior stored for them.

"Someone Said 'Amen'!"

Day 6: Sunday, 1 August, 2010 -- 8 pages :)
African church service day! :)

Murdock, Deb, and I were just saying how crazy it is that it is somehow already August. "It feels like January 1st was a week and a half ago"...

Went to visit the babies this morning! :)

Church!
Where you have conga lines in front of the stage during worship =)
* Service was 2 hours 30 minutes

Worship!
Goes at least 1 hour 30 minutes & it is amazing!!
The lyrics I wrote down look short, but everyone is so into it, the song doesn't seem short at all!

(here are some lyrics to look up later:)

Malebongwe (3x)

Lagma Lonksi

~ The drummer got really sweaty i guess so halfway into worship, the pastor brought him something to blot with. He (clearly the drummer) is super good at drumming, too!

Ha a yo (3x)

ya tshwanang le ena

~ "Sunday best" applies here for all possible

Best announcement ever given by a pastor = "If you wear a size __ shoe you will come support this fundraiser ;)

We get an "African Taste" from more worship!! --- more conga - with "sugars" (it's a dancer thing) (I just watched both times a line was going, but it was awesome!)

Obnigado

xiquembo xamatimba

obriga-do

They get crazyinto worship!! I wish Americans were this passionate about praising God everyday...

Communion Song:

Come/come as you are/come/the Lord is waiting/the Lord is waiting for you/Peace/He'll give you peace/peace/the Lord is waiting for you.

Come/come as you are/come/the Lord is waiting/the Lord is waiting for you/Joy/He'll give you joy/joy/the Lord is waiting for you.

Offertory Song:

Ehhhh....

My God is good - oh---

Everything double, double - oh---

Sermon Notes:
"Possessing and Excelling in the Promise of God 2010"

2 Corinthians 9:6-11 (NIV) ⁶ Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷ Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸ And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹ As it is written:
   “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
   their righteousness endures forever.”
 ¹⁰ Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

• God has called all of us to lead the victorious life in order to bring glory to His name
• When we live generously we see big results through the promises of God
• When we sow generously we will live generously
• God WILL supply the seed to sow -- "God will give you the seed" -- we just have to  decide in what area to reap said God - given harvest, and enjoy it.
• If you don't see improvement/"increasing your 'seed'" you have to take a step back and find your problem + fix it so that everything will increase and you can grow in turn. Don't eat the seed itself - eat the bread it grows, because it is more filling.
• God loves a cheerful giver
• God wants to see you be blessed!
• Hebrews 13:8 (NIV) ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
• When we don't know how to overcome hardship or come out of a sticky situation God's grace will come through and save us
• SA hosting the World Cup was an amazing thing because it not only brought up some economy, but it increased moral, optimism, and hope.
• We serve a faithful God let Him increase your harvest.

(more worship)

He'll take the pain away

I know

He'll take the pain away

**Don't ever forget how incredible the sound of a few voices growing into so many in just one verse, and all sounding beautiful...


What today looked like: Up at early (7:15?), baby visit, church, pick up a ton of pizza + soda + chips then go over to Derek & Rebecca (head of YWAM Rustenburg!)'s for lunch to chill and talk with them and just hang out before going home to talk as a group...

Headed into downtown Rustenburg after the service

Dear Ignorant America: Not all of Africa is baskets, dirt & wind like in National Geographic... SURPRISE!

- Sean, Charles, and Jon just compared biceps... I'm pretty sure they decided Charles won, hahah.

I'm not normally one to go off about food, but hear me out -- So we had this pizza... so good! We had a lot of types to pick from but the ones I tried were

1. a spicy-curryish one
2. a banana/ham one (so good!)
3. a vegetable something or other

Here - at Derek & Rebecca's - is the most I've heard Chris talk or have input since we left Chipotle the last Wednesday at home.

 

back at "home"

I love when the 14 of us (plus Lincoln & Jenny) get to hang out - team things are  about to be fixed.

....nothing got fixed, good try though everyone :p

Some of all this stupid drama is on me and I was going to have input and contribute, but couldn't word it exactly the way I'd like to... [the words in my journal haven't made it to everyone on the team to date - (11-2) so therefore aren't being put online either]

Campfire #3 Notes

Philippians 2: 1-8 (NIV) ¹ Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  ⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,  he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—  even death on a cross!

* grace
* patience
* mercy
* Jesus' attitude
* respect

"What would Jesus do" mentality: die to yourself every morning and keep to the new lifestyle all day till it is a habit, not a "new style".

Chris pointed out that every Bible verse we read is applicable to every single person world wide so we should try not to read it in our American -trained- eyes/lifestyles....

"Lets try to make Heaven more crowded!" -- someone referenced our pastors' main goal so we'd have it in the back of our mind for the next few days.

*Hebrews 12:11 (NIV) No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
*Hebrews 12:1 (NIV) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us
*Hebrews 13:20-21 (NIV) ²⁰ Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, ²¹ equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

We are all here for the same purpose...

I'm finding that as hard as it is going to be to leave on Saturday, I still have to invest all of myself - time + energy - into all the kids. Specifically at Freedom Park it will go further and have more impact if I lose myself in serving them and not caring how they look, smell, act, practice any faith, treat other kids, or how many bruises I'll come home with each day.

Day 5b: the notes I wrote to the photography teens
This is what I wrote out 3 times (4 with my copy) for the teen guys --

                                                            July 31, 2010
Hey,

     I would like to let you each know that you did a very good job on Friday when you came to help out with the photo shoot! Also, on Thursday when we first handed out cameras, you all caught on very quickly!

     I hope you had a good time working with us, & I hope that you continue to persue photography and improve =)

    (my signature heart inside a "Jesus fish") Love In Christ,
                            Lyz


This is the letter I gave to the teen girl --

                                                     July 31, 2010
Hey,

     I would like to thank you for coming out to help with the photo shoot! You did awesome at entertaining the children with your camera (& you got some great shots of them too)! I would like to encourage you to persue photography as long as you are interested in it; explore as much as you can with a camera every day and see what shows up on the screen - it may surprise you...

=)

      (my signature heart inside a "Jesus fish") Love In Christ,

                            Lyz

Day 5: Our team has been together for 7 days... Lord, please bless us all.
Saturday 31 July, 2010. Wrote 7 pages, didn't shoot anywhere NEAR as many pictures as people back home would expect... just not feelin' it.

out and about
"Well it looks like Deb just screwed up my entire life!" - Jon
"How - did she get you pregnant?" - Cathy

This is the high voltage entrance fence that Chris (jokingly) dared Sean to try to jump... ha.

RADIO --
*Kaya: rap that Jeremy dances to for real while driving and Deb, Kristy, and I all dance to for fake behind him in a playfully teasing manner.
*Jacranda: good music in English (Lifehouse, OneRepubic, etc.) -- [This is the station where I first heard Secrets by Onerepublic so now that song makes me think of Africa :) ]

Deb, Taylor, Kristy

Today we have the day off in hopes that we can just work on processing this past week. To get away from the Shelter for a bit, Lincoln took us to the Safari Park. Basically, we are off-roading in the vans and get to see some really pretty things (a few pictures are below).  But off roading can be dangerous; an example of this is the time we were all turning around and Jeremy and Charles got competitive about it then Charles was trying to back up to crank the steering wheel ended up backing into someone else's car. LUCKILY for everyone, the only car that really got damage was ours (the shelter van) other than a dent in the other man's front  licence plate. It was crazy because after everyone realized what had happened the guy's wife got out of the car as Lincoln was taking damage pictures on his phone and it turns out they knew each other! The man's attitude (originally incredibly snappy - kinda understandable i guess, but totally unrealistic for what was on his car vs ours) changed like, right away! And turns out that Chris and Lincoln had it in the budget to be in an accident - SUPER common down there I guess.... :/

cute lil elephant :) 

"You have a good snacky-lou baby Ellie the elephant?! :D " - Kristy and her teacher mouth heehee :)

*15 minutes after Charles backs into someone in the park and leaves a sweet dent in the shelter van*
"Hey can someone please let Chris know that if they keep following so close going up these big mounds we're going to slide back and hit them?" - Jeremy
*Yelling from our van to the rest of the team in the van behind us*
"HEY CHRIS! Please tell Charles to not follow so closely, ok? We don't want to hit you... Thanks!" - Kristy
"...Kristy you aren't allowed to poke your head out the window at all or tell/yell anything to the other car anymore." - Jeremy

Someone accidentally left the sliding door open the half hour(?) we were away from the car - luckily nothing was touched!

Writing prompt for a boring night = describe the feeling you get when you hear tree branches scrapping the glass + the metal on the rental van... *cringe* 84x worse than a chalkboard.

Deb shot this out her window for me :)

"I wanna see a panther or a leopard or something" - Jeremy
"Well, you have one or two cougars in the car already..." - Deb

"This would be a good date spot - pack a picnic...bottle of wine...camera" - Jeremy
"Well, you've already got 3 ladies in here as well as two young men..." - Cathy
We ALL LOST IT [here after she made this reference to the Twilight conversation I quoted in a different post]! hahah

"Carrie Underwood is really pretty" - Taylor
"Mm, I'm not really seeing it" - Jeremy
"What?! I would live on her legs!" - Taylor
....?

back "home"
*mental note: research the South African adoption treaty sometime*
Charles plays the guitar to destress apparently :/  (accident)

On the way home from the park, Kristy and I were looking out the window and saw the most beautiful scene (that I'd seen) out of the whole day. We were driving too fast for either of us to snap a picture, so we just tried to draw it, but learned neither of us are much for drawing so I wont take a picture of our attempts to draw it because neither of us did it justice. I'll try to paint a mental picture for future reference though: Highway hillside covered in dead, white, tall grass. In the middle of this hillside, is one of those tunnel drainage systems where it opens up and empties into a ditch and the sides + top are framed with a big cement wall. On the top left of the frame there was an African man in a bright blue wind breaker. His right knee was up at his chest while his left leg hung off of the structure. A bag blew by in the wind. Neither Kristy or I could figure him out - not that it was our job to, but he certainly intrigued both of us because immediately after seeing this shot we turned to each other and just said "...Wow."

View of today: Up at 7:40 to help with the breakfast/lunch making process, left around 9- half after (in theory), 45 minute drive to the animal safari park where we saw zebras, hippos, hyenas, deer & impala, turtles, lots of birds, rhinos, jackal, giraffes, wildebeests, elephants... It was neat for sure - the giraffes didn't seem as big as they do in the zoo but Jeremy pointed out these animals were only surrounded by brush and grass whereas at the zoo they're fenced in so you see their dimensions. So after being in the car for about 8 hours we came back home. I got to feed and put two babies to sleep in the shelter/orphanage and it was awesome! I'm still even more excited to have/adopt my own!! This was a couple hours ago and I still smell very much like "baby." After a little bit of chillage we had dinner (spaghetti pie with melted mozzarella on top, salad, and a really good oven-baked bread with butter) and the rest of the night is just hanging out....woo =/

Funny Story
This morning after waking up I went into the tiled bathroom and just biffed it on the overflown shower water. Kristy Murdoc walked in as i was getting up and thought I'd thrown up and was trying to clean it up - haha - but, no. Somehow I managed to stub my left toe + left hand and skinned both my right pinkie and arm. The skinned area is the kind that hurts and stings when you try to touch or wash it from being sensitive but it didn't bleed profusely. Good story, eh? :p

This was shot the next morning, but I still have a good scar from that spill haha

Jon reads out loud to focus on his book so now the joke is to write out loud.
Chris has an awesome camera and shoots good (great) pictures...

I'm going to write letters* (next post) to the guys who helped out at the photo shoot yesterday and the girl who was helping with the kids the whole time. I hope some one can translate for them! ( --> they didn't need a translator, go figure!)

Makes more sense if you were to know more background on everything...
Jeremy is on some massive kitchen cleaning freak mode... He said he just needs alone time from being submerged with everyone for about 6 - 7 full days -- I completely follow his thought process.
He is mopping (scrubbing) the tile with a wet rag, prolly on his hands and knees. I just hear him on the other side of the doorway behind me and I feel like he nabbed the only de-stresser around (other than writing of course)...(and apparently I like doing dishes here.)

I really miss my piano right now... and Johanna, Kevin, Jonah, & Mara - specifically :(