send to...

ooh, I'm a neglectful blogger/mom/friend/you name it right now. I'm blaming it on the daily grind of packing and painting (3 rooms down, 4 or 5 to go). I think it's a good enough excuse, actually.
2 days ago I was "released" from my position as the leader of the children's ministry at our church (that's Primary President for the LDS folk). I cried (of course) because I'm, like, totally emotional lately. I'm just going to miss all of those little faces, not to mention the text messages received 15 minutes before classes start ("sorry, I'm not going to be there to teach my class"). But seriously I'm going to miss hanging out with kids on Sunday. It's so easy to make kids love you. A fun game and some Little Debbies and you're as cool as Captain Kangaroo. Who isn't really that cool, now that I think of it.
So on to the matter at hand. I was just putting some podcasts on my microscopic mp3 player. I was doing the right-click "send to" method. It got me thinking. If I could be right-clicked and sent somewhere, where would it be? It would be Hong Kong, but two different days. The first was in the summer when I was there as a missionary, serving in a stressful area. We had a day off and went to the beach at Shek O to play in the sand and walk on the hills near the water. We missed the bus going back and ended up having to stay later than we planned. There was a diving platform there in the bay and a man came to dive. I watched him as the sun went down, diving over and over, his silhouette dipping into the water almost like he was pouring himself in--so smooth and dark against the purple sky. Just diving and diving. It was so peaceful, the rhythm of the repetition, the colors, the breeze.
There was another day, 12 years later, also in Hong Kong, this time with my dh. We sat in a park at night and I spilled it: I wanted to stay. I would give up the mainland leg of the trip for more time in HK. He was very kind and we promised each other another trip later, with more time in my favorite city. Better yet, he said HK was his favorite place too.
As I lay me down to sleep in my mattress on the closet floor (long story, that), I'll think of the diver and the conversation in the park and forget about the half-painted room and the carpet cleaners and the closets that need to be packed.

our recession scene

I'm listening to Scenes from a Recession, last week's installment of This American Life. It's a little depressing, I have to say, and the backdrop of the utter chaos that is my house doesn't help. I have 9 rooms and a garage to pack up and paint in 34 days . It sounds doable, right? I'm trying to get up the nerve to call in the troops from church to help with some of it. But I freely admit I am overwhelmed with this task. I excel at the quick and dirty cleanup (oxymoron)--the spray-the-shower-and-let-it-sit-for-an-hour-then-scrub kind of thing. This is not that kind of thing.

in praise of the humble Whoopie Pie

This morning it was indeed chocolate sponge cake first (my kids were having danishes, so I thought, why not?) The sponge cake in question was a Whoopie Pie, recipe found here. They are so tasty and spongy and chocolatety. No, I haven't figured out why they are called Whoopie Pies, though. Please don't let it be that you want to shout "Whoopeee!" after tasting one. I hate explanations like that.