how to spend time

In my last post, I wrote about my plan to support my local library by going to the poetry evening.

Well, I went. I almost didn't go, thinking, "I don't know the language well enough, and it might be weird and...". And then I just got tired of staying at home. There were 6 people, including me: two teenage girls, an older man, an older woman, and a middle-aged man who I had previously known as "the guy with long hair who also uses the Internet a lot because I see him at the post office all the time". It turns out he's like the town poet or something. Various people read poems they had written...about Balaklia, God, the weather, love, and vodka (it's Ukraine, what can I say?). I didn't read any poems, but I did play the piano for a little bit before everyone got there at the request of the older lady.

You know, it wasn't a bad way to spend an hour.

Other new hobby: cracking walnuts. :) Honestly, it's fun. I'd been given a bag of them a while back by the K family, and yesterday I bought a garlic press/nutcracker. So yesterday afternoon, I sat down at my desk with my music playing, and cracked walnuts and sang for an hour. I bought a frosting mix at the bazaar yesterday, and I now have plans for a kabachi (zucchini-like vegetable) chocolate cake with nut-flavored frosting sprinkled with chocolate chips and nuts.

Chocolate chips...yes, Tif, that means that your packages showed up. And a VERY big thanks to whichever of you, you or Mom, who sent me maple extract. I'd just been wishing for maple syrup this week! The menus were great...although I read them right before lunch and they made me SOOO hungry for food I can't get here! (Also to Tif: the CD was unrecoverable, so please resend, maybe with less files on it this time and multiple CDs.)

Heather: It's Meredith Van-something...thin with short bouncy red hair. Was in a Bible study with Jen and led a STM to Mexico.