soakin' it all in on thankful thursday

as i was washing dishes today, i am the dishwasher, i was thinking about what i am thankful for.   then i splashed up on the edge of the sink and wiped it up with my spiffy soak everything up sponge.   yeah, today i am grateful for sponges!

i use sponges for dishes and cleaning up all kinds of messes.   then i throw them in the washing machine and get to start all over.   i am grateful for not having to touch some of the things i soak up with those sponges.   i am grateful for my super sponges that soak up every last drop of water or whatever.   those are awesome!   i use sponges for sinks, tubs, counters, tables and when the need arises . . everywhere else in the house.   i mean really.   i have a family and we spill stuff.

i have made paint stamps and textures with sponges as well as just smoothing things out.  not to mention the sponge paint brushes that are great for kids, signs, and walls.  if you combine those uses, you get a mural and or graffiti. that's another story.

i have used them to keep the water out of the kids eyes when washing hair and for cleaning them up after.  i like the sponges that you put your little slivers of soap in so you can still use the rest of the soap.

sponges are cool little critters on the ocean floor or in a salt water tank.   i don't have any though.

sponges are cool plants as well . . well, you can make a loofah out of a certain squash anyway.

memory foam mattresses are just really big sponges.

magic erasers are very cool sponges!

there are birth control sponges and a square one with pants, but i think i will avoid both.

you can use a sponge for applying and removing make-up, oil, sunblock, and liniments.   there are also little sponge things that hold your toes apart while you paint your nails.   those amusing to me.

sponges can be used for bathtub toys, water fights, and stacking blocks.   we played the game where you have to carry water from one place to another with a sponge and we used them for water tag and water baseball.

clean the chalk board, wet a stamp or seal the envelope.

stick the old ones between your plates when packing, stuff a doll or pillow or whatever with them.   i remember having sponge beds for some dolls as a kid.

i have a tendency to stick sponges in the bottom of things that need some padding and/or absorbency    i keep my sharp knives in a big crock with a sponge in the bottom to protect it and the tips of my knives.    i've used the thin ones under leaking things for momentary fixes.

sponges are good for starting seeds or growing sprouts.   but make sure it's clean and doesn't have chemicals in it.   i prefer an unrolled (new, duh) tampon.   then i can plant it with the seeds and it dissolves.

have we enjoyed sponges yet?   i hope so.   my dishes are done so i'm happy.   now, keeping them done. . . not thinking about that.   i'll just enjoy the moment and know that when it's time, i will have sponges to do the job.

let service saturday begin

i think i have gratitude down pretty well.   i'm very grateful for everything and will continue to be, but how can i improve myself?   something has been tickling the back of my brain lately.   service!

let me go back several years.   i grew up not knowing my father.   i met him when i was 18.   it was at that time that i first met my 6 half brothers and sisters.   i was visiting their house for a few weeks and was used to doing things for myself.   my dad would often stop me and ask one of the kids to do it.  i noticed that he would often ask them to do little things for him as well.   just things like getting a glass of water or something of that nature.   he told me that you love the ones you serve so he gave the kids an opportunity to more deeply love. . . hmmm. . .yeah, right.   classic of my dad, this is a joke.   he was kind of teasing the kids and telling them this as a way to get them to do things for him.   it's his version of "got your nose".   i haven't used it on my kids yet, maybe i should.   back to the point, this memory has always amused me but it has hung around in the back of my skull.  one of those things that seems important but you don't know why.

another story of service that amuses me and has also been bouncing around in the background, is about a missionary.   you're probably familiar with the mormon missionaries.   2 guys in suits or 2 young ladies in dresses with little black name tags?   they are almost always in 2's sometimes in 3's but never alone.   i ask that your nice to them even if you don't want to talk religion.   they would love to help you paint, rake, clean, move, etc. even if you don't want to hear about the church.   really, ask them to help, give them a drink of water in the summer or some hot cocoa in the winter (just cuz it's nice) and ask them to do something for you.   they love service!   and they are young 18-21 year olds, they can get things done.   back to the missionary story.   like i said, they travel in pairs.   they live together and work together.   they have to stay together all the time.   they rotate partners every so often but they still have a partner at all times.   sometimes they get a partner they don't see eye to eye with.   i mean they are just people and people are all very different.   they are coming from all over the world, different backgrounds and cultures, they are bound to get at least one partner that they have a hard time getting along with.     one missionary, and i'm sure this has happened to more than one, but this missionary was having a hard time with his current partner.   he felt that he was trying very hard to be kind and friendly to his partner but still found his partner to be annoying.   the mission president (guy in charge of all the missionaries in an mission.   a mission is a specific area, like the boise mission is most of the southwestern part of idaho and some of oregon) told him that he should serve his partner.   he should find little things to do for his partner secretly.   just random acts of kindness.   that same, " you love the ones you serve thing".    the  missionary went back to the apartment with his partner and tried to think of some things to do for him.   immediately though, he noticed that his partner was doing little acts of service for him.  he realized that his partner had been just as annoyed with him as he had with his partner.   as they served each other, they became friends.   like my dad said, you love the ones you serve.

in my religion, we talk a lot about service.   service is a major deal.   service is built into the very structure of our church.   if you have read other posts, you'll remember me talking about visiting teaching.   the women are assigned certain other women to visit each month and give them an uplifting thought but also see that they are doing well.   there is a similar version for the men called home teaching.   we all check on each other.   if we do need something and are not sure who to ask, we should start with those visiting teachers or home teachers, they are then to either help in anyway they can or contact the leadership and get the help.   for instance, my grandmother is without a car, her visiting teacher is able to drive her to appointments.   if she can't do it, she finds someone that will be able to do it.   in this way everyone has 2 women and 2 men to contact for help, first line of defense you might say.   the other half of this is that the women i am to visit, and care for, are my responsibility.   not to say that no one else can do anything, but i try to stop and see them at church and say hello, etc.   the thing about this is that these are often women i would not usually talk to.   people that just don't run in the same circles, not unfriendly, but we wouldn't normally stop to chat with each other.   it really broadens my horizons     i love all of the women i have ever gone to visit.   some started as complete strangers and ended up dear friends.   i am grateful for the opportunity right now to visit an elderly lady who always has lots of stories from the war to tell.   i never really talked to her because of the language barrier.   i'm still struggling to understand her stories and she is very patient with my horrific german.   now, when we see each other in church we always greet each other warmly.   last week i came into class late and just took the first open seat.   i didn't really look to see who i was sitting by.   this sister clasped my hand and gave me her usual sparkling smile when i sat next to her.   she leaned over a few times and spoke to me.   i understood little of what she was saying but i love sitting by her anyway.

this brings me to service saturday.   i'm not actually holding myself to post every week.   i can't get thankful thursday in on thursday most of the time so i'm not going to add another deadline.   but, i am going to bring those service tinglings to the front of the skull  instead of bumping around in the back as they have been.   i'm looking for ways to serve.   i will be reporting on things i have done, want to do, am doing or others are doing.   i just want to start.   once you start something  you never know exactly where it will lead but you don't actually go anywhere until you start the journey.

cheesey thankful thursday

do i really have to have a reason to be thankful for cheese?

i don't think so but i will explain what brought it to mind.   

i have this wonderful opportunity to take classes to learn german.   since germany has open borders, there are an immense numbers of immigrants.   in our class there were people from turkey, poland, nepal, romania, bulgaria, russia, and south africa!   very cool!   we have been doing presentations about food lately.   yesterday we had a presentation about pancakes from russia and cheese and sausage from poland.   i brought brownies and no bake cookies since it's something i grew up with and gave several extra to our only male student.   he loved them and i had tons left over that i didn't want to eat myself, and we all know young men are always hungry.   he passed on his extra cheese and sausage.   i was able to hold onto 2 little pieces of sausage.   my little blonde curly boy loved them!.   the cheese - back to cheese - the cheese is called oscypek.   his girlfriend's uncle made it and her dad brought it from poland this last week.   it is a traditional cheese that is only made in one part of poland.   you have to have certifications and specific equipment to make it.   it's made from a soured milk and then hung and smoked.  you can see the ribs where this cheese was in a cloth and hung.   it can age for up to 30 years!   now, if you don't have all the certifications, that you have had to pay for, you can still make cheese but you can't call it oscypek.   you simply drop the o and call it scypek.   scypek is generally made from fresh cow and sheep milk so it is considered a healthier cheese comparatively.   it has a sharp smokey flavor.   it tasted like a really weak sharp cheddar with a smoky background to me.

how is that for a neato cheeto?   should i even mention cheetos?   cheetos are like the mutated, cloned, side show freak adopted cousin's pet of cheese.   my kids still love them.    nothing wrong with side show freaks, probably more relatable to me than the normals.

cheese is a great source of calcium and other dairy important things.   cheese is yummy and that is all, i mean, i don't need any other reasons.

clean eating

ok, i try to eat fairly healthy stuff but i'm not consumed in it.   i'm doing good to just make dinner every night and not pull out a frozen something that i can throw in the oven.   we all have that kind of day, i think.  

my dirty windshield

cat prints, dog prints, kid prints, iguana prints, chicken prints, goat prints, cow prints - at some point or another, i've had all of these on my walls, windows, shirt, pants, face . . .isn't life so much more amazing when you share it with the beings around you?

spidey is thankful for thursdays too.

since we just past halloween, i thought i'd go with something halloween-y.   i'm not  a spider fan but i am grateful for them all the same.

they build these great webs that catch other annoying flying bugs.   i love that!   and webs are beautiful, dang hard to capture in a picture though.   science has started using webs for all kinds of things.   they even crossed goats and spiders to get a goat milk that creates better webs.   they just crossed the milk and web genes.   8 legged goats crawling up your walls would be disastrous.

 this is my tomboy princess's halloween pumpkin.   i had to include that.   spiders are great in the garden and for their scare factor.   i mean without spiders we'd only be left with snakes, mice, politicians and lawyers to hate.   nothing personal, but i don't want to be hanging politicians and lawyers up for halloween.   i'll stick with spiders.

spiders are very cool little things.   don't get me wrong, if it's on the floor in the house, i'm stepping on it.    (outside is it's home and it can live . . unless it's poisonous, then it dies anyway)   spider poisons are some of the venoms being researched for medical uses.   weird right?  i think it's so amazing that we can use something that would normally make us sick, or even kill us and make it into something that helps us.

 yes, i know, this isn't a spider.   but daddy long legs are cool too and i like this picture.

this is actually the nest of babies that all of the cat spiders pictured on this page came from.   how neat is that?   these little guys were in our garden this spring.   we watched them spread out across the yard.   we have watched them grow and make their own webs.   so amazing!   we would watch all of them huddle together and then blow on them and they would all spread out like this.   i know, we are awful to tease the spiders.   it was seriously awesome to watch them though.   all of these tiny little things no bigger than a pin head just scurrying around the nest.

this is one of the spiders we watched grow up.   it's not the biggest one though.   one of these little ones got to be bigger than a dime this year.   she had a great web in a great spot.

ok, that's what i am grateful for on this thankful thursday.   creepy little crawly spiders . . gah!