Six Things on Monday

Six Things on Monday is just a collection of thoughts or things happening or catching my attention lately. And Monday is our day without anything in the schedule, so it makes a little more sense than The Friday Six.

	1. Friday was International Women's Day and a coincidentally Fridays are the day we have Women's English group at the church. Made these cute little blueberry muffin favors. I made a streusel topping to give the Jiffy Muffin Mix that my mom sent me at Christmastime a little extra pizzazz and they were great! We can't get blueberry anything here so, they were kinda special.
	2. Saturday we had a special program for the children that live in the village at our church in the city. I got to head up the craft. Didn't have to twist my arm a bit...love craftiness! The challenge here is how to create with very few supplies. Basically had to come up with something that only needed paper. I browsed a little and found this cute idea on Pinterest. The kids loved creating, loved their little monster creations, and it was a hit. The kids were given children's picture Bibles at the meeting and these little monsters were perfect little bookmarks for their new books.
	3. The teenage group at church had been begging me to have an English group for them, so we finally found a time to get that going. We first met on Sunday afternoon before church (our regular church meetings are in the evenings). It was good, but super tiring for me. Half-way through the message I had to bail and spent the rest of the meeting in the church office laid back with my feet up. So I changed English to Sunday morning and apparently, Albanian teenagers don't like to get up in the mornings either, so that didn't work out. This week we tried again and met before church, but at my place this time and I am happy to say I was much more comfortable and it went great. Plus I made it all the way through church afterwards without a break. Win!
	4. When I started number three I meant to really write about my number four and got a little carried away. You're welcome for the back story. So my goal for the teenage group is to stay away from anything like school and make it fun. That's not hard to do as long as I don't lecture for an hour while they take notes. I guess their English classes are awful. I stumbled on an ELL (English language learning) website that I LOVE while I was preparing for this week. And it turns out to be a huge hit with the kids too. At ESLvideo.com, you can watch short video clips and take a quiz answering questions about what you watched. For the English speaker, this would be cake, but for the ELL student this is pretty challenging, but fun at the same time. The video clips and quizes range from beginner to advanced and there's a huge variety. I started them out with this adorable little MasterCard commercial and we answered the quiz question by question together, translating everything and talking about the grammar. They were engaged and even enjoyed it and next time we are watching some Mr.Bean! Another win!
	5. Today I woke up so early, I'd still call it the middle of the night. 4:00. Ugh. And I could not go back to sleep. So I messed around on the iPad: read for a while, played a game, caught up on my exercise and diet log, started a new note of things to talk to Dr. Denisa about at our next appointment, listened to a few short NT books on the Bible app with the super boring voice...to no avail. So around 6:15 I got up and thought I'd surprise the husband with breakfast, which he would adore. (We actually have a deal that he does the dishes and I make him breakfast, but I have not held up my end very well.) so I put the bacon in the oven and felt a little hungry myself so I popped the last of the delicious blueberry muffins that I had made this week into the microwave to warm up to perfection. Maybe it was pregnancy brain or lack of sleep, but I forgot about it and let's just say it was in there a little longer than the necessary 20 seconds and that I failed to remove the paper. And then things happened kind of quick. A smell. smoke. I shouted, "Kenny wake up, help!" Kenny jumped up from deep sleep and popped open the microwave. Smoke barreled out. I threw open the windows. With extreme bravery and speed Kenny grabbed the charred muffin and threw it out into the yard. And it was over, just like that. Unfortunately the smell and smokey-ness have not been as quick. Muffin fail. Surprise breakfast fail. You can't win all the time, huh? At least our microwave survived, my husband's my hero, and he got breakfast. : ]
	6. Got a call when I woke up today (after the muffin incident I fell asleep for a couple hours). Daniela called and said the women from the village that is a terrific parukeri (hairstylist) came into town and if I wanted a little change, to come on over. I'd been tossing around the idea of a pixie cut and thought, here's my chance. So I called my mom for advice, of course. I hoped she was awake it was 6:00 in the morning at home...but she wasn't. Anyway, we discussed and she confirmed and gave me a boost of confidence and I ran over and voila! I think I like it! It's been quite an eventful day.