School Days....

I still have many more things to share while I was away from blog land......but today I will wait and instead say this.....

After home schooling for 12 years, it is now day 2 of my girls being in high school full time.
How do I feel? That is a good question. A question that I don't know if I am ready to answer.

I believe whole heartedly that even though it is a very overwhelming adjustment for them...they will be just fine. Adapting to crowded halls, angst teens, and multi tasking schedules is all part of the "right of passage" to growing up. In a short amount of time, those crazy schedules will be old hat to them and they will know all the secret short cuts around what I am told is the biggest school in Oregon.

As for me.....I am getting my walking in (I did 4 miles this morning) so that feels good. I was able to blog visit today and that is an accomplishment. And I am doing little projects around the house.

But I don't feel that I am really here. It is like I am not thinking and just watching me next to myself.
It will take me a while.

It is funny because I have a few well intentioned friends that have posed the thought, "Hey now that you have all this free time we can go for coffee, lunch, shopping, you can volunteer for this, and I need...........blah blah blah.

I have skirted around it all and not committed to a single thing. I don't want to be busy. I don't want to obligate to anything. I don't want someone else to plan my time. I know that I will eventually become busy...but those are my choices to make.

Don't worry. I am not angry. I just feel a small voice rising in my as I write this wanting to say, "Tout le monde!" (is that right Kitem?)

Mirror Lake...

Here is something I wanted to share....

Two weekends ago my hubby and I figured that we had better get in one more exploration hike before the weather changes and our fall schedules try to run amok. Our goal was a small little lake up on Mt. Hood called Mirror Lake. The weather was perfect and the scenery was breath taking. Here are just a couple of the shots that I took that day.

This was one of the first bridges we had to cross after we left the highway.

I was amazed at how quickly the noise of the highway

was dimmed by the dense tree growth.

The 1.5 mile short trail was very well maintained.

As we climbed in elevation, we encountered friendly chipmunks

looking for handouts and rhododendron bushes everywhere.

This bridge connected us with our end game.....the beauty of Mirror Lake.

Amazing! We walked all the way around the lake. Along the way we came across many people with their dogs going for a swim. There were also lots of people harvesting bucket loads of crawdads for their dinner.

I love this shot.
Do you see the tip top of Mt. Hood between the trees?
It was such a wonderful day.

I'm Back!......

Ah! A heavy sigh and a smile of contentment crosses my lips as I find my way back to blog land tonight. Thank you for being so encouraging as I took some time off to attend to things. Much has happened over the last several days and it will take me a few posts to share it all. For now, I will give you a glimpse of some of the laughter.

I have so enjoyed being around our dear friends from Hawaii. We have shopped, hiked, taken in the sights, and eaten until we couldn't even move from the table.
My husband laughs at me whenever we all get together because I am a sort of ...well chameleon I guess.
What do I mean by that? Well, when I am around our Oregon friends....I speak carefully in dialect. However when I get on the phone with my father in Texas....instantly my southern drawl comes out. Funny, I can feel it even as I type these words. But even more so, the change that comes over me when I get around the table with my family and our Japanese/Portuguese/Hawaiian heritage leaks everywhere as we talk stories......."oh bradda my English get all broke up wit island slang and da kine talk".

Last week after church we all got together for Dim Sum left overs around the dinning room table. Oh it was all so "ono" (good beyond belief). I grabbed my hubby's cell phone to shoot a couple of food shots before we ate it all.


With Hawaii being such a melting pot of culture and diversity, we have ended up having multiple names for many of the foods that we like to eat.
There is something that we all love that we have always called "ricee". It is a sponge type sweet cake that is steamed and strongly resembles white rice hard pressed together. I could eat it all day long and be so happy. After much research I have just discovered that it is really called Pak Tong Koh. It has taken me a few days to look around online but I have found some recipes that look easy and promising. Maybe after playing around a bit with the recipes I can get it to look something like the picture below.


Another favorite of mine. In Hawaii we can it Manapua but many also know it by the name Humbou (I know I am not spelling that right). It is a sweetened steamed bread with a pork meat filling on the inside. Again I could eat THIS all day and be so happy.

This was new to me. It is a fried Ponko batter on the outside and taro root on the inside. It was very good and the warm taro coated my tummy nicely.

Taro root always makes me smile. When I was a baby, I was very small at 4 pounds 9 ounces. We were stationed in Tachikawa, Japan and then later in South Dakota during those small times for me. As soon as the doctor said I could have food, my mom had Nana ship over boxes of jars of poi for me to eat and build up my strength. How I wish it wasn't such a precious Hawaiian commodity. Even today at 37 years old, I still have times when I crave a nice thick bowl of poi to fill my tummy.

Yum! Oishi! Or as we joke around the Hawaiian table "Ono-licious".

And if there is something that one person doesn't like, we all say, "Mushfeeka!" That means "good then more for me."

This is Mochi Sesame Balls. Mochi is a brown sweet bean that is used a variety of different ways. Mostly you will find it mashed and put into the center of a ball of some sort of bread as a sweet dessert.

There, have I made you hungry? There were many other things on the table as well but I always go for the carbohydrates first. After all, a girl has to have her priorities.

How Does You Week Look?.......

Blogging is so addictive.
Doesn't that statement simply say it all on so many levels?

When I set out into this world of blogging, my focus was to use it as a sort of journaling. Along the way though I have developed wonderful relationships. What a great fringe benefit.
So, this quick post is to let you know, my friends, that I will probably be pretty scarce this week. I fought it all last week and tried to keep up with visiting everyone but it just didn't work the way I had wanted it to. Please don't feel neglected and know that I am just fine.

I am getting my girls all ready for their schooling experience. My Rosie-girl has home schooled with me all the way thru 8th grade and now she will be stepping into what I hear is the biggest high school in Oregon.

Being the Children's Pastor at our church, it is that time again where I need to make sure that all of the lessons are in order and each teacher has what they need.

And, friends from Hawaii are staying with my mom right now. I am the DD (designated driver) for some of our outings.

It is all fun. But I will probably not have time to visit anyone this week.
Thank you for understanding.
Blessings to you and your week.

Phone Call....

I had a phone call from our foster son yesterday. It was a shock to hear from him and good to know that he is still alive. I had not seen him or heard from him since a week before Thanksgiving when he came over asking for a hair cut. That is 9 months.

He told me that he hadn't been in contact with any of us because he was too ashamed to tell how things had been going for him. Then he said he had been living in a tent behind a local market store on the other side of town and eating apples out of the trees for food.

It breaks my heart....at 20 years old that he has been choosing to live that way.

He said he is on some one's couch at the moment and looking for a job. He was calling because he felt things were looking up and he wanted me to know it.

I really hope that this time he uses this opportunity. I pray that this time is the difference and he steps into his self worth.