Dentists

Dentists in the former Soviet Union don't have a positive reputation. From purchased diplomas to procedures designed to make you have to have more procedures - the general advice is that it is better to stay away from them if possible. You just are never quite sure who you can trust. So when my doctor at Dobrobut said I "had" to go to the Dentist to get a certificate saying that I had healthy teeth - I was wary. But I also figured - how much harm can a dentist do if you just go in for a cleaning?

I had also recently joined Groupon UA and they were advertising Ultrasonic Airflow cleaning. When one came up at a dentist in my area I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

Conclusion? I don't think that they can do damage with a cleaning, but I don't have enough dental vocabulary - WOW is that an area where I am REALLY lost. I did get that the dentist thinks I have a cavity - but as it is UNDER a place that was sealed by my dentist to prevent cavities - I'm skeptical and have decided that I'll wait and go to the UK dentist or my trusty US Dentist to have my sealants replaced and the cavity investigated. She also told me they were having a "sale" on fillings. That really confirmed the wait factor :-)

it was also the first time I had had an Ultrasonic airflow cleaning. I did NOT like the cleaning stuff used as it doesn't taste pleasant and burns a bit - but my teeth are clean, sparkly white - more sparkly than the last few cleanings I had (those were in the UK) and I was in and out in 15 minutes with that super clean feeling - so pretty impressive. Also impressive was the groupon price - 145 UAH or 18 dollars - of course this was a sale as it should have been 500 uah (62 usd) In the UK, my last cleanings were 25 gbp - or 32 USD. I think my last US cleaning - was around $80, but that was in 2007, so not to sure on how prices compare there anymore and how much this type of technological cleaning would cost.

china-lish

Sorry about the bad quality - but we use the box to store the train and I'm not ready to destroy it just to get it to fit on the scanner.

The perfect toasted sandwich

If I was a photographer foody, there would be a delectable picture here of a sandwich: brown and crispy, the cheese melting and spilling out of the sides, the plate lightly sprinkled with crumbs or maybe the nut and seed mix lining the crust. I am not a foody - nor a photographer - so you will have to trust me that fall and this cold pre-wintery weather is perfect for a toasted cheese sandwich with chutney.

Chutney was made for toasted cheese sandwiches. If you're using a super wonderful fragrant cheese, like stilton or blue - of course, you may want to pass on the chutney. but for anything blander - a mild chedder, american, gouda. Chutney makes that plain-jane sandwich pop. It makes an ordinary snack into a savory treat. I know all this because I had the great fortune of smearing a piece of toast with chutney while in the UK and eating it with cheese. Soon after this, I melted the cheese. The rest was WOW and I can't really ever go back to the way a toasted cheese sandwich tasted before - that crunch of oil, salt, and gooey cheese is just . . . .. flat.

Today is a cold day and I am sitting with a bowl of soup and a toasted sandwich - bemoaning the fact that I barely had the time to make applesauce this year, let alone chutney. Maybe in 2 or 4 years, I'll find the time to pursue "hobbies" again. Until then I will dream of chutney and enjoy it on our stints out of Ukraine.

If you do want to make your own chutney - an excellent recipe one can be found here. But even in the US, you can find chutney in a supermarket.

Diaper bags

I've been looking at diaper bags on-line recently. The price and style ranges are mind numbing - and for exactly that reason I am loath to buy anything without seeing it in person and really pawing through all the pockets. Video reviews are helpful . . . . but still. I've also decided that the absolute perfect diaper bag has yet to be manufactured for me. I'm hoping that maybe a company when doing product research will randomly stumble upon my post and design my bag - and of course give it to me for free :-) But this is crazy talk. Still, I'm going to link like mad in the random hope it might happen.

My bag would be lightweight like the Fluerville re-run Hanna. It would also be similarly sized to the Hana as well as the Skip Hop Studio and sadly discontinued City Chic. After much measuring and estimating - my ideal bag would be 16 x 10-12 x 6. This sized bag is wide enough to access everything, not too deep to lose everything, and not longer than the bars of my stroller. It would not be overly bulky, but would allow me to carry the essentials for lets say 2 kids and myself with the stroller basket having kid toys in it.

My perfect bag doesn't have insulated compartments. I don't reheat things for Saphira, and fortunately we didn't have to bother with bottles, but frankly I don't want the weight.

In appearance, I also like the Hana in that it is nondescript. It doesn't look too much like a bag, or too much like a fancy purse. Still, I love the idea of the purse bag - the going out to dinner and having a nice bag that is your diaper bag and purse - just like the well organized and super heavy Amymichelle bags.

My bag would come with stroller clips/ties, have good organization pockets, and have a wee clip that could be fastened to your belt loop, or an Ergo strap, to keep it anchored, but not have to switch to a backpack mode as that just looks stupid. If I wanted a backpack, I'd get a backpack. This clip is vital. If you have a bag on your shoulder and you bend forward, the bag flies forward. It doesn't matter the size of the bag, small or large gravity pulls it forward. And if you happen to have a small child in the path of the flying bag . . . . . . Well lets just say I can't imagine why such a clip hasn't been invented yet.

My bag would cost $30, $40 max and would still be quality enough to hold up to sand, crumbs, water, and being banged around. One reason I don't want to buy a bag online is that despite what seem to be very positive designs of the Hana and Studio bags - there also seem to be a goodly number of reviewers who had problem with quality - and well, I can't really return it can I? The cheaper bags, the k-mart, wal-mart variety may work - my ideal may even be out there - but they don't really have reviewers and video bag tours do they? This would be my only bag. I've never liked switching things from bag to bag - the only time I might want something else is when we fly - and then I will just want something Big (cram that 10k in!) - so it would need to be functional and sturdy for everyday use.

I thought about a messenger style bag - it would be handy for Alister to be willing to carry a bag, but when I thought realistically about how often he would need to carry the bag, and if the bag was small and compact, he wouldn't need to carry it anyway. I'm also unconvinced about the organization of the messenger bag. I think I'd really like to see it. Plus, I just want to feel a bit more feminine so an elegant bag is more up my line.

So for now, I found a really cheap bag at the rinok and am making some hack changes to see if I can make it do some of the things I want. Granted, it is a bit smaller than my ideal, but I only have one kid and think I can make it work. Trial run this Sunday - which is the ultimate test since I have to be prepared for a 9:30 - 3pm absence from the house and from any amenities. We'll see.

Double Dog Dare You

Back on the playground as a mom, I sometimes feel that not much has changed. The kids are running around, flocking to whatever looks interesting, and doing what they see the other kids do. Eventually they'll get older and while they might not immediately do what the other kids do, they will be urged along and dared to do the same or even greater fits of daring. But what I didn't expect is that to some degree, the mothers are still repeating the same pattern themselves. We talk; we chat; we sidle over to the group that seems to be having the most interesting conversation. We find out who is eating what, buying what where, and doing what to counter some behaviour - then we go out and do the same. We make suggestions, receive suggestions and find ourselves under motherly peer-pressure to perform. I double dog dare you.

One mother always come to the playground with her crocheting. She has crocheted three sunbonnets and when last I saw her she was halfway through a child's dress. She also manages to make jewelry. (I wish I could manage to have the dishes washed each night). She is amazing. I mentioned to her that I also crochet and soon found myself in possession of multiple crochet patterns, a book of crochet stitches, and links to an on-line crochet forum.

Now, I do know how to crochet - but I haven't been truly taught. My Aunt Helene taught me how to crochet a basic rag rug and a loopy doily. She taught me without the use of terms or books and the only term I knew was a Chain stitch. Fifteen years later, I made friends with various grannies in Croatia and they made doilies and tablecloths and all sorts of lovely, lovely stuff. They resurrected my past learning and taught me to look at a doily and make a copy. That winter, I spent lots of time huddled under a blanket making little doily copies. Finally, I attempted my first pattern. The pattern was in German. The women spoke Croatian. We looked at the signs and symbols and I managed to get far enough to ask them what to do when I hit a hard spot. I left Croatia in 2005 and in 2008 I finally finished that 10x10 doily. I've since made three baby blankets, 1 rag rug, and a pair of mary jane baby booties. I still can't read a pattern and I still don't know the English, German, or Croatian terms. Without YouTube, I would be lost. Now, I suddenly have a pile of Russian patterns. It's like handing a sheet of music to someone who can only play by ear.

I made some copies of the crochet book patterns and dutifully looked at the websites and magazines. When I returned the book, I told her I made copies and then wondered to myself why?, when will I find time to do it? Most days I feel over booked with Saphira, ministry secretarial duties, church, house, Seminary accounting, editing, the baby book I'm trying to put together, and the long overdue book I'm trying to get together for our nieces and nephews. Still, a few days later, walking home with Saphira I suddenly remembered a little skirt that some friends at church gave to Saphira and which has only been worn once for lack of a shirt that coordinates. I was walking past the market and suddenly charged into it and headed straight to the yarn stall. How many skeins do I need to make a shirt, I asked? And soon found myself in possession of 200 grams of fine cotton yarn and no idea what I was doing.

Too many days of internet research later and this is my goal. We'll soon see if I manage to finish something before winter, before she grows out of it, or how much mischief accepting a double dog dare will get me into.

Made in China

I don't know how it works in America, esp in the cities - but here the mothers with the children congregate in a park or a playground and let the children play. Sometime there can be as many as 15 toddlers with their parents, strollers, bicycles,and toys in toy running here and there at the accustomed meeting point.

At this age, the children do not play together. They are more interested in what toys the other children brings and normally the children will run up to the newcomer's stroller and peer into the basket, the more badly behaved ones pulling the toys out themselves. The mantras of the mother's include: Don't touch someone else's stroller, don't take things, and nelza - which basically means don't by any means - or a very strong no.

You listen as the mothers yell at their children and you learn the kids', but not the mothers', names. You begin to talk to the mothers who are there often and the ones you like you may learn their names and start arranging to meet. The mother's watch their children, chat, talk on the cell phone, and play interference when needed.

And the children play, bouncing from toy to toy as the fancy strikes them. Balls, strollers, musical animals you pull on a string, clack-clack toys, shape sorter toys, shovels, buckets, trucks, toy phones- an entire toy shop distributed between the stroller baskets and strewn beneath the trees. Most of the toys cheap (balls 50 cents, stroller $5, toy phone $1.25), some of them broken (but the kids don't care), and all of them from China. Many of the toys are the same, because if a parent sees that their child likes something the chances are that they will buy it for their child (it is slightly embarrassing if your child is always after anther child's toy)- but all the same they prefer to play with the other children's toys over their own - until their own toy has been claimed by another child. The best thing about the toys is that they cheap - not all toys - just the ones you see on the street. It doesn't matter if it gets lost or broken or picked up by another kid. One mother says she loves the 10 uah toys because she can buy them and feel like she is getting something for her child and not feel guilty about the money - though the money does eventually add up. And aside from the bicycles - it is often the cheapest toys that the children like most. Plastic shovels, for instance, are wildly popular. Not to dig with necessarily - but just to walk around with.

It is fascinating to watch, and rather enjoyable to be a part of, especially if your child is well fed and rested that day. You learn the latest child rearing gossip - the cheapest diapers, the foods the other children are eating, the rumor that raw carrots will prevent cavities. I'm quite enjoying it.

Photos from the 4th

Things that go boom

Fireworks!

My family didn't do fireworks growing up. My dad said it was burning up money. One year I set off fireworks with friends in Prescott, another year in Waitsburg, one year in Kansas at a family reunion, and one year a renter had left some sparklers and a few other things behind and so we lit them in the road and made some gun powder trails with some gunpowder my dad had laying around. That was it. The other years, we either drove around and looked at everyone else's fireworks or went into Walla Walla and spent the day at my aunts and then went to watch the firework show at Pioneer Park.

Yesterday, we bought fireworks. Despite Alister's protest that we would only celebrate November 5th, some friends invited us for a picnic and that was that. There is a firework stand by our house and I've been dying to buy fireworks since I first saw it 4 years ago. So I conferred with our hosts, took up a collection, and bought fireworks. 3 fountains, a pack of flowers, a pack of bugs, 3 salutes, 4 rockets, 2 roman candles. You don't really know what you're getting when you haven't really done fireworks yourself and haven't quite mastered all the explosive vocabulary connected to them. But the seller assured me that it would be pretty. I forgot to ask if it would be loud.

The setting, a residential district in Kiev - is not the normal location for fireworks, and when you are setting them off when no one else is - you are very conscious that they are very, very loud. Especially the bugs - we decided not to set any more of them off after the boom activated a couple of car alarms. And so began a series of fortunately harmless mishaps - One rocket refused to launch - so we had a ground level bloom erupt at our feet. Another rocket flew, but the stick landed on a neighbor's roof. The roman candle tipped over, and sent us all running for cover. After the roman candle, we decided it was best to leave the rest of the fireworks for the family to set off in a field another day. I also concluded that fireworks are most fun for the children who want to light them and that the rest of the time, we are better off going to a show. Alister concluded that my dad was closest to the truth - they just burn up money - and though the fountains, and the 26 salute box were lovely and presented no mishap - I think we've both gotten our fill of fireworks for a long time.

Saphira by the way did fantastic - a bit startled with the boom bug - but she was nestled away in the Ergo and was more sleepy than scared for the rest of the fireworks. We did get her to say oooooh along with us as the fountains burned - but the rest was a bit much though, as I said before, she did not cry.

I don't know what Alister did with the camera, but once I find it I'll post some pictures too.

Pea pods and math problems

How I wish I had paid more attention in math class!

Fresh peas are in the market now and I bought roughly 210 grams. 140 grams were pods and 70 grams were peas. I paid 20 uah per kilo which I think means the actual peas cost 33 uah per kilo. I can buy frozen peas (usually) in bulk for 24 uah a kilo - which, if my math is correct - means my time and money are better spent in the frozen food section of the grocery store (not to mention the temperature there is nicer now too!!)

Anyone want to proof the math?

Strawberries are about to reach their peak - twice the price over last year but cherries are actually CHEAPER than strawberries - though still more than last year. Don't know what i'll attempt to make or can this year - It is so hot and the days are very, very short with Saphira waking up so early. (I know the sentence doesn't sound logical - but the reality of my days prove it - I think the coffee factor - I don't start waking up until my second cup of coffee has something to do with it.)

A Broken Alarm clock

Our alarm clock is broken. For the last few weeks, we have been slowly and steadily been awoken by its blast earlier and earlier. Currently we are holding at 5:30. We would love to reset it, but somehow the Saphira clock has no manual. Last night Alister and I resigned ourselves to a no-win situation and went to bed at 9:30. Still bleary eyed, but more rested than the past few days, we all hit the ground running.

The day was lovely - sunny AND cool. And there are fresh strawberries coming into the market and the price has hit the frozen strawberry mark so I feel justified buying them. I bought them from a babushka. They were not the prettiest strawberries at the market, but they were garden grown and it is always nice to help a babushka who is probably living on a $120 a month pension.

They were amazing. I don't know if it was because they were the first fresh strawberries of the season, because they were garden grown, or what, but even the greenish ones were so incredibly sweet.

We also had a fantastic day at the play park. And the park is getting a face-lift. And I have 3 phone numbers, and two more on the back burner. I even have a "little black book" with the mothers' names and children's names and approximate b-days. but more on all this another time.

Am still pretty tired from this alarm clock battle, but today was a fantastic day all the same.

Accidental Cottage Cheese

I was all set to make Yogurt today but ended up with Cottage Cheese. The culprit was the "fresh" milk I bought in the store. Normally, we buy the long life milk and have it delivered once a month or so with our other stock up on grocery order. Delivery is free if you order about $80 so we can stock up on non-perishables. While this is very convenient - esp as I don't have to carry gallons of milk and a baby around every day - LongLife milk is a bit more expensive, so when I make yogurt I buy it in the "fresh" bags in the grocery store. This milk isn't exactly fresh, it has been processed somehow, but you never know how long it will actually stay good - another reason why we buy the long life as we know it will be good when we open it and will last a day or two in the fridge.

Anyway, I pured my 1.5kilos of milk onto the stove to bring to 200F, tried a spoon, noted it was a tad "off" but thought the boiling would kill anything in it and maybe add to the yogurt flavor process.

While it did kill everything, I will have to try again at yogurt tomorrow, what I got instead was white clumps in yellow water. A quick Internet search (what did they do before google???) confirmed this was cottage cheese, and was edible. And its tasty. The 1.5 kilos of milk produced only 225 grams of cottage cheese or what some may call closer to ricotta as it not the same rubbery curds we get in the states -and 1 liter of whey.

As Whey is incredibly healthy, I'm looking into what to do with it now - but in the meantime, if life gives you sour milk, make cottage cheese :-)

Cakes - Phase four

One hundred fifty-six cupcakes to frost, Onehundred fifty-six cakes, take some cream and smear it around, One hundred fifty-five cupcakes to frost.

Thanks to the help of three wonderful women - all cupcakes were frosted by 9pm. (Starting at 7 with a break for dinner) Everyone had fun and now the biggest question is how to get them to church in the morning. Not quite all 156 cupcakes will make it - a few have already left his world and several others got put on a plate in the freezer for a friend. But the tally is still over 120.

Whew. Overall it has been fun and a great learning experience - but I think I won't do something like this until Saphira graduates or some big achievement like that. All things in moderation - and this was a bit beyond that border stone.

Cakes - Phase three

Next step - lots and lots of cupcakes. Three people have come to help. The cake was made using the Hershey Sourcream cake and the Hershey heritage cake - the Sour Cream cake was the overall favorite. Not only was the taste and texture great - the color was amazing. Little bugs were for the babies and made from cottage cheese.

Saphira decided to dig into the big people cake.

Now she found her own lady bug.

Sweet Dreams

There were just too many good captions to go with this scene that we saw on our walk the other day:

Cakes - phase two

If you're following along - I'm baking an insane number of cakes and cupcakes for our one-tomorrow daughter. Did I mention I've never done cake decorating before? Frosting yes, decorating no.

Cake status

total batches of cakes baked: 7

Recipes used: 4 (used another Hershey - but it is untested as it is a cake base, not a cupcake)

1 large round cake in freezer

2 rectangle cakes in freezer

22 unfrosted large cupcakes in freezer

8 partially frosted large cupcakes in freezer

over 100 unfrosted mini cupcakes in freezer

Today I did the final baking and did a frosting test run with the Ukrainian dyes.

I also decorated Saphira's Sugar-free sirnik that I colored/sweetened with pureed cherries.

Then I decorated 4 cupcakes and 2 other sirnik "cakes" that I'm going to drop by a friend's tomorrow - her son was also born on the 13th!

All the sirnik bug were made using a silicone "bug" form.

The frosting of the cupcakes is taking as much if not more time than I feared - I think I'll put a call out for Saturday help.

Phase three will be Thursday night when I make the "big" flat cake for the country team meeting - as well as make up 30 hard boiled eggs for deviled eggs. Eek.

Incredible edible eggs

I normally buy my eggs from the egg wagon on the way home from the supermarket. Okay - so its the back of a truck - but wagon sounds better. My last egg lady (they seem to move around alot - she was my 4th) always made sure to give me the freshest eggs and would even refuse to sell them to me if they weren't fresh enough - all because I had a baby in tow.

This new egg lady has been pushing me to buy Quail eggs. Well, They're cute enough - but I really didn't see the point. A year or so ago when we were in Ivano-frankivska, the woman we stayed with gave her young daughter raw quail eggs in a yogurt type drink every morning - for health and to fight against radiation and several other health benefits that i took with an interested nod and a generous dose of skeptic's salt.

Well, when the egg lady keeps trying to get you to buy something, the least you can do is find out about it. While I couldn't find any totally authoritative source on the internet, I found enough pseudo sources saying similar things that you just have to believe that they are healthier for you than chicken eggs. Actually the item that most caught my attention was that Quail eggs have twice the iron content of a chicken egg packed into their small shell.

Iron is incredibly important for growing babies and as we don't have all the iron enriched (or no-sugar) cereals that there are in other places Saphira's diet is probably a bit low on natural iron - at least according to the iron calculator. And since I can get 10 eggs for 3 uah (I think) - they're a bargain compared to western prices - so i think I'll give them a try. We'll see if it helps us run faster, jump higher, and conquer illness with a single egg.

The Great Cake B ake - or a probable recipe for insanity

I have these two parts of me - the very direct, keep it organized and simple part and a creative part. The creative part succumbs to odd activities and projects - sometimes ones that never get completed. The organized part often stays too busy too allow the other part to succumb. And sometimes the two parts battle it out. Win-win, win-lose, or lose-lose: I've suffered them all.

Enter Saphira's Birthday. Plan A was to just have a quite song at home with gifts from her family - after all, what does a one-year old who we don't give sugar to need a party for? And then things kept happening - like meeting a mother with a child who has the same birthday, like the country team meeting falling on that weekend, like the newest doorkeeper giving Saphira a treat every time she is on duty and saying she is going to act like a granny since her granny is far away, like the fact that the whole church has been stand-in family for Saphira, like making a photo album and not having the traditional picture of 1st b-day cake smeared all over the place.

Creative side put her foot down and said something had to be done - She decided we needed a big cake and 100 cupcakes to bring to church. She decided on a ladybug theme.

Organizer queen still can't figure out what the big cake is for, and hasn't quite figured out the decorating of all the cupcakes - but she did manage to win out on mini cupcakes instead of big ones (less baking, less frosting, less cost) and after Creative Girl tried making about 30 cupcake liners herself out of parchment paper, she took over that project as well and found a woman to meet her on a street corner and sell her some mini cupcake liners. Now those were a great find.

So far they've both won on the choice of cake - Creative Girl obviously likes variety and Organizer Queen doesn't see the point in baking a lot of cakes unless you discover the best one - so while all the cakes will be chocolate (what other color can you have for a ladybug??) the following recipes (in order of niceness) have been used.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateCupcakes.html - method really is everything, they say - while most involved, this recipe gave the best chocolate flavor overall - texture was also different than the others. The top of this cake was matte rather than glossy which was also probably due to method.

http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/4602/Chocolate-Sour-Cream-Cake.aspx (really almost 1st) - very very rich, easier than the 1st recipe, but a bit more pricey with ingredients

and http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/4754/Black-Magic-Cake.aspx - wins on cost and color - but flavor almost tastes boxed :-(

Was going to do a 4th variation - but Organizer Queen missed the fact that she would have to give the mini cupcake tins back when she did and so she didn't have the buttermilk she needed for the other recipe - we settled on a second batch of the sour cream for ease of baking and because there was lots of sour cream.

Would expound on this theme more - but Organizer Queen says that time is ticking and I still have another cake to bake. (If you're wondering - OQ won out on the doing it in advance and putting the cakes in the freezer, will just have to figure out the frosting bit as we come closer to to celebration day/week)

Experiments - or making Yogurt in a Crockpot

While visiting a Ukrainian mother and talking about food - I mentioned that Saphira adores yogurt. You want her to eat something, you douse it with yogurt. (We joke that she is all set for India). Well, the mother wanted to know if I was making my own.

"No," I said.

"Why," she asked, "or are you lazy?"

I explained I could find sugar-free plain yogurt that was tasty and saw no reason to buy yet another machine to make it. Honestly, I've been quite skeptical of the growing popularity of yogurt makers here in Kiev. Some of my friends have them and when it comes to babies - this is always a question that comes up. Still, this was the first time that I'd been called lazy for it.

"Why do you make yogurt instead of buying it?" I asked.

She explained that it is for the pro-biotic effects - that you get the most good bacteria and that the stuff in the store might not even have anything living in it anyway.

Still not convinced, I nodded.

Fast forward a week when we met up again. Our visit fell over lunch and so she shared some yogurt with us and I shared some of Saphira's cutlets and sirnik with them. Saphira gobbled up the yogurt. I mean, she loves yogurt - but this was obviously something extraordinary. Skeptical as I was, I couldn't deny her response - so the research began.

1) Economic cost of yogurt making: Despite the readily available cheap and yummy yogurt - making it yourself ends up saving you HALF the cost. Even if you factor in the average cost of a machine, you break even around 32 liters - or in about 27 weeks for my household.

2) A little searching and I discovered that I could make yogurt without a machine - in fact I could make it in my crockpot. Now there are recipes out there for making yogurt in a crockpot that really are pretty high maintenance - you have to do all this preheating and wrap a towel around it overnight - blah. I wanted something that was an EQUAL substitute for a yogurt maker - so I read some other ways to make yogurt and here is what I came up with:

Easy Yogurt in a Crockpot

Materials: 1 Crockpot, preferably with a keep warm setting; 1 serving of natural yogurt with live bacteria or a yogurt culture starter, glass jars that fit in your crock pot, At least 1 liter of milk - if you use more you may need to increase the yogurt and starter you use and add more jars, a cooking thermometer that registers temperatures from 80 to 200F

Prep work: You should test your keep warm function the day before to ensure that it won't heat your yogurt too high. I did this by pouring hot water into the crockpot and leaving it on keep warm for a few hours and checking it periodically. I did find that on my crockpot, if left for a long time (3+ hours) the temperature will rise - so I took this into account when making my yogurt.

Instructions:

1) Pour hot water into your crockpot - about half way full - check the temp to ensure it is not higher than 100F - Turn your crockpot on to its lowest setting.

2) Heat your milk on high in the microwave a few minutes - you don't want it to boil but you do want it to reach a temp of around 180 to kill things - check the temp periodically with the thermometer and stir the milk. This process took about 10 minutes. Alternatively you can do this on the stove.

3) Allow milk to cool to 110 - 100F. (I Covered it and put it in the fridge)

4) Mix in your yogurt or yogurt culture

5) Fill your clean jars with milk mixture

6) Place the jars in the crockpot - make sure the water in the crockpot does not get into the yogurt - remove water if necessary

7) insert your thermometer, close the lid and go do your thing - the yogurt should be ready in about 3 hours.

I checked mine periodically to ensure the temperature was fine and turned it off after one hour while we went on a walk. It stayed off the remainder of the time and at 3.5 hours the yogurt was a lovely soft set and mild. Other sites say that a more tart yogurt can be achieved by leaving the yogurt for more time. During the remaining two hours - the temp had dropped 10 degrees - not bad at all since the lid doesn't close fully due to the height of the thermometer!

I'm very pleased with myself - not only can I now say I'm not lazy, but I start saving 50% on yogurt immediately - without buying another machine to clutter up the kitchen!

Ethnic food

While sushi is readily available in Ukraine - other ethnic food is oddly absent. There are a few Chinese restaurants - and they have good food - but its expensive and one item that is sadly absent are egg rolls.

So I experimented a few weeks ago when ground pork was on speacial and found it really wasn't too hard to make eggrolls - the most formidable obstacle - the wrappers - was overcome by discovering that lavash works perfectly.

A friend also pointed out that I could make bean sprouts from lentils found in the market and as ginger has suddenly become readily available - we cam make some really tasty Chinese food. The rolls turned out so well, that paired with stirfry and fried rice - we're not sure if we'll be dining out for Chinese in Ukraine ever again.

Context

Sunday, my day of Bible reading catch-up, found me tackling chapters 7 - 15 in Jeremiah. Maybe it was the culmination of 8 chapters of doom and gloom, and the memory that six chapters of doom preceded it, but for the first time I thought “where does the hope of verse 29:11 come in? Probably one of the most quoted and published “comfort verses”, this verse falls after 28 chapters of God telling his people that he would judge them, bring disaster on them, and break them so they could not be repaired. Twenty-eight chapters and suddenly a verse, not isolated, but in a paragraph:

¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. ¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.^[a] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

A few thoughts strike me:

1) If I were in Jerusalem and I've been hearing 28 chapters worth of doom and gloom - I'm not sure how I would feel about the phrase "¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,"

Everything in me would be saying - what? I've just HEARD you tell me all your plans that you have to HARM me and now you're telling me it will "prosper" me?

In fact, in the context of all that came before, this verse is not comforting UNTIL you consider the paragraph that surrounds it.

2) In the surrounding paragraph we see that 1) God did not abandon his people but rather he goes to them and brings them back. 2) This happens after the people call on God and seek him out 3) God again repeats that when he is sought, he will be found and he will bring them back.

3) The ESV translates verse 11 as “plans for wholeness and not for evil”. I prefer this translation because it points towards the greater context – wholeness developing through suffering, growth from brokenness. It also makes it more difficult to manipulate the verse for a prosperity gospel. “Wholeness” doesn’t mean riches, wealth, or even success – it is deeper than all of this. This translation too reminds me of Paul’s summary of suffering in Romans 5:3 - 5

4) Considering the context of suffering, this verse can only ever be comforting to the Christian who desires his continued sanctification for the glory of God and his ultimate unification with him.

5) The comfort waiting for the Christian in this verse is well summarized by Jeremiah Burroughs in Chapter 3.9 of The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment:

”in all the afflictions, all the evils that befall [a Christian], he can see love, and can enjoy the sweetness of love in his afflictions as well as in his mercies. The truth is that the afflictions of God's people come from the same eternal love that Jesus Christ came from. Jerome said, 'He is a happy man who is beaten when the stroke is a stroke of love.' All God's strokes are strokes of love and mercy, all God's ways are mercy and truth, to those that fear him and love him (Psalm 25:10). The ways of God, the ways of affliction, as well as the ways of prosperity, are mercy and love to him. Grace gives a man an eye, a piercing eye to pierce the counsel of God, those eternal counsels of God for good to him, even in his afflictions; he can see the love of God in every affliction as well as in prosperity.”

This ultimate comfort is not as warm and fuzzy as the greeting card version of an isolated verse written in French script – but it is more enduring. In the end it actually helps us see through present and future sufferings better as we look past them, past our own time and dimension, and see God’s time and God’s vision of wholeness. We benefit not only from the verses that come before chapter 29 – but from knowing the story that comes after – the preservation of the Jews by Esther, the king himself paying for the rebuilding of the temple, the return of the Jews, the recommitment of the people to follow God – and most poignantly the promise and realization of an ultimate rescue through Christ.

Dirt and Danger

Becoming a parent has taught me that you don't really realize the dirt and dangers surrounding children until you have one and are toddling/ crawling at their level (or dealing with black-kneed pants and socks from running around inside)

I knew there was dirt and garbage on the street, but until I started taking Saphira out of her stroller to toddle on the ends of my fingers, I didn't quite realize how many "no touch" items there were out there . . . . beer bottles, bottle caps, cigarette butts, hypodermic needles . . . . . .

I finally let her tounch a dead and crusty leaf just to have an item that could be explored.

Secondly, after a week of visiting the playground out of the stroller, it is slightly disconcerting that the only adult name I have to show for the encounters with children is that of a probable predator. I'm assuming predator because not only was it an old man without children on the playground, but 1) he approached us 2) he asked us if he could buy us something 3) he gave us his name and asked mine (this has NEVER happened in any conversation with other adults on the playground - strictly kid talk, even obvious things, like my accent, have not been asked about - let alone a name) 4) he said that when we meet again we need to have drinks. Of course,if i'd missed any of those neon signs, there was also the older woman walking by who was also telling me to ignore him, at which point I was already bundling Saphira into the stroller and trying to extract myself.

Maybe its the fact that I grew up in a small, clean, country town with a farm to play on where the most dangerous items were piles of junk and rusty nails (ok - I suppose as a parent these are disturbing too - but I'd rather have a rusty nail over a syringe).

It all just makes you think of what is safe, and where you do let your kids play. S obviously can't play alone yet - but when she can - do I let her go in sand piles and boxes? What could be buried there? It makes me very glad that we've invested in the mud hut and that at least once in awhile we can go out and play in the fresh air and the grass and have nothing more to worry about than bee stings and splinters.

Philosophy

There are so many philosophies you have to take a stance on when you become a parent.

Feeding, Sleeping, diapering, routines, discipline, potty training, eating, learning - and my latest obsession - footwear.

Saphira has extra wide feet - and I am thankful for all the very thorough measure at home guides - especially at Startrite. And I am also thankful for all the new options in footwear (esp wide footwear) that wasn't there when I was growing up.

So I'm sorting through it - the different brands, the different philosophies, the different ways of getting stuff to Ukraine. And while the philosophy behind baby footwear in Ukraine is very far from our own (barefoot is NOT best here) - There are some options for us. (The idea to ask a shoemaker to custom make something didn't pan out- philosophies and language being the key barriers)

My most interesting find? Neighboring Poland actually invented a super flexible shoe. Maybe we'll have to investigate on a future visa run.

Until then, we managed to find some 1st shoes that were wide enough for Saphira's feet. Now when we go for a walk - she can get out of the stroller to bounce on the end of my fingers while she talks to the pigeons.

The Average Housekeeper

In grade school, my schoolmates and I laughed at the exploits of one mother who "gasp" mopped her floor everyday. We obviously didn't have mothers who aspired to such overzealous and unnecessary behaviour. Granted, she had no infants or toddlers in the house, but now that I have one, I wish I could manage to mop the kitchen floor each day. Even without adding her dropped food to the occasion, the floor is dirty enough that I just have to grin and bear her crawling on it or find that extra minute to mop it.

I finally bought a "real" broom - so that has improved the chances of it getting mopped considerably. Our old broom was a quaint, traditional bundle of twigs. In order to use it without breaking your back though, you had to be a dwarf. It was that or the vacuum. So i bought a new broom. I now manage to mop the floor at least 4 times a week - which may explain why I'm not blogging quite so often now :- )