Happy New Year 2023 - and a rat

And just like that, another calendar page turns over. The flowers are beautiful this time of year. This hedge has many colors of flowers in it.

The tropics have a lot of interesting flowers.

These exotic bulbs light up the side of the street.

The neighbor's addition is going well. W and I watch it go up, day after day.

Anytime Bailey is too muddy to come inside, he watches me through the glass door. He follows my path through the house, window to window. He's such a fun companion. In a few minutes, the mud sheds off and he can come inside.

Friday, December 30, 2023

There's a bit of this and that - I start peeling the paint chips off the folders. 532 paint chips later, I'm done.

They're spread onto a black-painted canvas. Each is 1X1.25" (2X3cm). I'm thinking about what I want to do it with it: a face, a landscape, a pattern? or ...?

Saturday

It's quiet. We get ready for tomorrow's New Years gathering. I take apart the wonderful but dying Christmas bouquet. It yields greens and aging roses. I submerge them, flowers and stems, in water. A trip to the garden gives me a pail full of flowers. It toss everything into the full bucket of water to hydrate.

A few hours later, a bit of jostling in the old oasis results in a new bouquet for New Years.

(After the weekend, the roses have drooped beyond repair. The surviving pieces give us one last bouquet in a new vase.)

We decided against a neighborhood New Year's Eve party this year: we're too tired to ask for that much permission. Instead, we contact those we love. We watch a movie, pray together, and go to sleep mid-evening. The neighbor's guests keep coming and going so the dogs are in a furor. We finally put them in crates and things are quieter. They're amazing watch dogs.

Sunday

We wake to a new year. We are at IES early but thing go sideways and back to center a few times before everyone arrives. It's the nature of events with many moving parts (and cultures.) 

When the morning is done, we have had a good gathering. New Years Day is normally the smallest gathering of the year: people stay up late with their families and friends the night before. We are happy to see those who show up!

W feels dizzy so we don't go out for lunch. It's another quiet day. My one self-assigned chore last week was language review, which didn't happen.

Today I finally get to it but my mind is blank. I've forgotten most of what we learned earlier in the year. Oh well - I rarely use Indonesian so the words get lost. I'll relearn them.

Monday

W and I do a quick walk around the block. The wall is going up stone by stone.

Baby Dutch still has their selfie station up. It looks like a Hansel & Gretel cottage.

PakG drops me at the school 15 minutes early - so I sit on the front step. Ibu Roni from my last series of classes comes to say hi. She introduces Etsha, my new guru. Oh boy, have I ever forgotten a lot! We review words and chat in Indonesian. She gently corrects my grammar and mispronunciation. I gratefully accept.

It was much easier studying with someone else (Kristi, last round). In a bigger class, you hear the words repeated and have time to think them over. My brain is tired after 2 hours and I'm happy to go home.

From ground beef and other stuff in the fridge, IbuS & I make meatballs. We eat lunch before W shows me how to upload the classroom files so I can retrieve them. I study and listen to past lessons most of the afternoon.

W's project is replacing a broken fan in the upstairs (guest) bathroom. When he's done, both our bathroom fan and that one are purring.

Supper is meatballs with chili and fresh-baked bread = a taste of home. As I'm cooking, a rat jumps up on the counter from behind the oven, sees me, and jumps back down. It runs into the living room and climbs up into the ceiling, where we've heard it gnawing wood for a week. Ugh.

W catches the rat in a glue trap within a few hours and disposes of it. We leave a few more traps out just in case more rodents live in the ceiling.

We watch Glass Onion, the sequel to the Knives Out movie we recently watched. It's interesting to compare reviews with our reaction to the film. I hope parents don't let their kids watch it. I'm trying to think of what my reaction would have been at ages 13, 15, 17 ... Beyond its suspenseful plot, it contains violence, sexual content, and foul language. It's like bathing in mud - and confirms that Hollywood-style movies and my soul don't get along.

Tuesday

2 more hours of language school. I get another 20 words to absorb. Once I'm done, I wait on the street and spot this strange tree "across the street" (sebarang jalan - see, Indonesian is nothing like English!). The round spiky fruit is not edible but it's pretty.

When i get home, the big Christmas tree has been taken upstairs. The rest of the living room is reset with broken glass on the ledge (from 2 mirrors that smashed last year). It's a reminder to shine with all the broken parts of the past. The art will come down later this week.

Someone broke a big ceramic tile (used on the kitchen counter) over the holidays. The pieces create a nice line behind a panting in the dining room.

The day fills with calls. People want to pray together as the New Year begins. What a privilege to share the joys and burdens of life.

Read more:

*I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us. Isaiah 63:7

*My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? Psalm 42:2

*For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:8

*If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Romans 8:31-32 

*God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Ephesians 2:4-5

Moravian Prayers: Lord, your promises are sure. You guide us and guard us, protect us and save us, but best of all, you love us into eternity. As this year ends, walk with us into a new beginning, dear Lord. We thank you for the gift of curiosity, the hunger to know more of you, and the desire to grow deeper roots into the soil of your grace and love.

We ask, Lord, and you respond. Merciful God, we are grateful for your tenderness and patience with our failures and flaws. Help us to fix our hearts on the power of your love and the transformation it brings, as we journey with our imperfections. AMEN.