another one leaves the nest

so the major happening this week was the start of school. davian started 2nd grade and nathaniel started kindergarten.

oooohhhh, mama bear was nervous to send her cubs into the woods alone! i think i was having a harder time than they were - but then i know the dangers and pitfalls that lie ahead and they don't. but it went well for both of them. davi's first day was tuesday and after i put her on the bus i couldn't help but watch the clock all day - it was the longest 8 hours i have had in a long time. but finally that bus came back and she hopped off. how was your first day of school? i asked. great!! was her reply. ahhh, sweet relief.

on wednesday nathaniel had his orientation. i think he has one of the best teachers in the world and she really helped allay some of my fears. he did better in his class than i had expected. the orientation was very long and he sat so still and quiet. when i praised him for being such a good boy he said well, mom, you need to be quiet to catch fish. ha! all those saturday afternoons on the riverbank with daddy fishing have paid off!

later that day i decided to teach him to write his name. now i know there may be someone reading this who thinks that a 5yo should already know his letters and how to write them. sorry. i guess i dropped the ball. i am nominating myself for "worstest mom" (more on that another time). well, when we named nathaniel we never considered how many letters it has and how difficult it would be for a little one to write.....n-a-t-h-a-n-i-e-l. we practiced and practiced and he did so much better than i would have thought. but our thoughts quickly turned to the little boy who sat next to him at orientation. i made the mistake of saying nathaniel, your friend Om only has 2 letters in his name. to which he replied oh man, mom, why didnt you name me Om??!! yes, why didn't i name him Om?

i managed to get him on the bus with no tears - those had come the day before. so dan, stephen and i waited patiently for the bus to let him off before lunch. there we were at the end of the driveway. from a distance we could see the big yellow blob approaching. i got the camera ready and we all took our positions. the bus came closer and closer, our anticipation of seeing our eldest boy descend the bus steps grew...closer, almost here and then whhooooossshhhhh - right on past! thats right, the bus didnt stop to let him off. all we saw of him was the blur of his little head behind the window. i put my hands up in the air and could have cried. dan wanted to chase the bus into the development it had turned into but i finally convinced him that the bus would not let a child off on some random corner with some lunatic that had chased it down flailing his arms. so we waited and waited and waited - for about another 45 minutes. thankfully the last stop was across and down the street so my mom walked over there to wait with the other family anxiously await om's return. when the bus finally went by again and stopped down the street my mom was able to tell the driver that the last little boy was supposed to have gotten off a long time ago. so the bus went to the end of the street and came back to deliver him. i felt bad for the bus driver...she seemed really nervous about passing his stop. i was just nervous that nathaniel would be scared but he seemed no worse for the wear and actually seemed to enjoy being the last one off. as it turned out, he was a late enrollment so he was not on the master bus list. no harm, no foul.

the hard thing is dealing with stephen. he goes out to the sidewalk with us twice or 3 times a day to wait for his brother and sister and it just kills him that he can't get on the bus! EVERY, and i mean, EVERY single time he has been out there he has said, me ride bus too? this is going to get really old. there are about 180 school days, times 3 buses - so that means i may have to hear this question 540 times this school year. i think stephen is also a little confused. he equally likes that he has the house to himself and yet misses nathaniel and davian. he frequently asks about them through the course of the day.

i can understands how he feels. so can davian and i suppose anyone who has ever had that conflicting feeling. i dont remember if i mentioned this in a previous post but a few days before we left brasil, davian said to me mom, i am really excited about going back to the states and seeing my grandparents but i am also really sad about leaving. how can i be happy and sad at the same time? oh davian. i tried to explain that that was a feeling she would feel almost her whole life. i told her that her dad and i and almost every other missionary feels the same way - like our hearts are trying to be in 2 places at the same time. when we are in brasil our hearts long for those we left in the states and when we are in the states our hearts long for brasil. it is a strange feeling but one that i think makes us more sympathetic.

and really this feeling turns my thoughts toward the Messiah's return. it reminds me that this world is not where we belong and how our hearts long for our heavenly home. one day our hearts will not be torn in 2 but will be wholly happy being right where they are - at home with our Lord

family reunion

toady we are just outside pittsburg to attend dan's family reunion. my family (aunt cheryl's side excluded) cant be bothered to spend time catching up and enjoying eachother via this sort of event so i am really out of my element.

last night we had a wine and cheese meet and greet. of course i hardly knew let alone recognized anyone so the opportunity to embarress myself didnt take long to present itself. i sat nathaniel down at a table with a plate full of food where a distant uncle was sitting. the the following conversation ensued:

me: nathaniel, this is your great uncle john. you can sit next to him, he doesnt bite.
uncle john: oh yes, you can sit next to me.
uncle john's wife: actually this is your uncle roger

we do have an uncle john but he is like 20 years older than uncle roger. after that i just decided not to assume that i knew anyone there. today we are going to a big RV park for festivities (i know some of you are chuckling at that) where there will be about 80 distant relatives so stay tuned for more stories. there is a black family reunion somewhere nearby today too because there are quite a few people staying at our hotel. how do i know? because they are all wearing "cook-larson family reunion september 1, 2008 parker park". so my heart swells with gratitude - i am NOT expected to wear a family shirt.

self check-out? no thanks!

i am pleasantly surprised to report that the kids are doing a good job adjusting. i feared for them but the sad truth is that i am having a harder time than they are. what it boils down to is that the things that i complained about in brazil are now the things i miss. to make matters worse, i have become increasingly irritated with the things that i used to adore about the US.

let me illustrate this with an example from 2 recent shopping experiences:

old brazilian shopping pet peeve - the store employees that hound you from the moment you walk in looking for ways to help you and then hover over you while you browse just in case you need something. i would get so irritated and if i could have said it correctly in portuguese i would have said would you please get out of my face and let me shop in peace?! if i need something i will come find YOU!
situation 1 - running into the dollar store to buy blank dvds. i was a little surprised that i didnt get so much as a greeting when i entered, let alone a can i help you? but i continued walking through the store and quickly discovered that i didn't know where i was suppose to look for blank dvds. so i began looking around - surely there would be someone over my right shoulder waiting to help. hmmm. no. ok, maybe down the next isle. no. in my head i am shouting hellllooooo! isnt there anyone working here?? is it too much to ask to get a little help around here???!!! dan and i ended up going down every single cotton pickin' isle looking for those stupid discs - all in all about 10 minutes wasted for lack of good help!

old american good thing - being able to go to the grocery store and use the computerized deli order machine and self check-out lanes. this amounts to going to the grocery store filled with people and never having to actually interact with anyone.
situation 2: it was the noon hour and the regular check out lines were long at the local grocery store. of course "long" for my mom, whom i was shopping with, and "long" for me (after waiting and hour in brazil a time or two) are 2 different things. mom suggested going through the self check-out lane. i was only doing it to make her happy, after all she is the expert in getting things done quickly. well, that was a bad idea. i have never been so frustrated tying to scan my own groceries, set them on the belt so that they pass the sensor just right, look up all my own produce codes, etc. SIDE NOTE: if you don't scan and place your item on the belt fast enough you get yelled out by the computer, and the computer doesn't like little boys picking up previously scanned and placed items and putting them back on the belt. this is no lie - i had the helper lady come over at least 4 times to clear the computer of mistakes. i was humiliated. the lady waiting behind me said nothing but i could hear her thoughts: what business does this lady have using the fast lane, self check-out? she should have spared the rest of us this fiasco and used the real cashier check-out. why is she having such a hard time with this?
i repeatedly told my mother, who was substituting as my bagger, that this was a very bad idea. i asked the lady behind me why do people choose to use these lanes? she just looked at me smugly and shrugged . i told her that i had just come from brazil and that these new fangled contraptions just wouldn't fly there. in a country where you could go to some stores and never touch your merchandise until you walked out the door, self check-out just isn't in the immediate future. the last time i bought a pair of jeans i reached out to take the bag off the counter and the sales clerk said oh no, i will get that for you. let me walk you to the door. that being said they carried my bag for me as they accompanied me out of the store. how is that for service?


i am worried that i am being too critical. my aunt is helping me with my effort to keep a Godly perspective on the cultures i live within. of course there are annoying things about brazil and equally annoying things about the US - i just have to get used to appreciating the things i like about the culture i happen to be in and let the rest go. if i am still blogging next year it will be funny to read about the things i am so irritated about in brazil after leaving the good ole US.

keep watching :)

what has your dad done for you?

so the big event of the last week was registering Davian and Nathaniel for school. UGH! I don't think we filled out so many forms since we joined Wycliffe. the biggest hurdle was proving residency. because we are living with my parents we have no lease agreement, no utilities nor do we get a paycheck. so i went in armed with anything that i could get to help prove we were in fact residents of north olmsted. everything was going smoothly until the ladies on the other side of the desk asked for the proofs. i felt i should preface this part of the registration process with well, this is going to get a bit complicated... surprisingly it went ok - i was only missing one thing - my father's driver's license. i sort of grimaced and then the following conversation ensued

lady 1 - well, who is your father? if he has lived in north olmsted for a long time than maybe we know him.
me: ummmm...(long drawn out pause) side note: i know this seems like an easy question. one that i should not have to pause to answer. but my father was a policeman for the last 30 some years so i always have to brace myself for a possible negative response. i never know if the person knows my father because he arrested his or her grandma or because he was the guy who found the 2yo who wandered into the woods alone. uuuuuhhhhhh.........charles jandecka? and then a raised eyebrow as i await the response
lady 1 and 2 in unison: ooooooohhhhh noooooo!
lady 2: he wrote my son a ticket several years ago.
lady 1: yeah, and he wrote my husband for an illegal right on red.
me: so i guess you know who he is.
lady 2: oh yeah, honey, we know he is a resident - lives over on dover rd, right?
me: maybe i should come back on monday
lady 1: oh no, your kids can go to the school. it's ok. you can't help who your father is

once again my father's reputation proceeded me. our family is so accustomed to this that we laugh every time something like this happens. in this instance it actually helped me out. and its not the first time its been helpful. however, we jandecka children were heavily warned not to use our father's name to get out of trouble. i wonder if i was the only one of the 3 kids to get this warning, hmmmm. although i never flat out said to any police officers, do you know who i am? my father is charles jandecka! i could not lie when asked what my last name was.

i remember one day quite clearly. end of the school year. one of the 25 beautiful days in cleveland. me and my girlfriend cruising home from school. me behind the wheel and her hanging out the car window pretending she could fly. then the whirl of the squad car siren.

i remember thinking of how clever i was to be my dad's daughter and get out of a ticket. and i remember thinking the likelihood of him finding out about the escapade was next to nothing. after all, what were the chances of one of my dad's buddies mentioning to him over a donut that he pulled over a couple girls soaring like eagles down root road?

im chuckling now just thinking of it but i will chuckle more if my dad reads this and discovers something new about his eldest daughter.

i hope my name does good things for my babies.

what's the flour for?

sometime in the last several years i have turned into a modern Betty Crocker. please understand, i am not boasting - im not saying that my recipes are cookbook worthy but that i have become much more knowledgeable in the kitchen. it was a such a slow process that i didn't even know it was happening. but now that i am in convenience food country i can see the changes clearly.


when i asked my dear friend Heidi about the struggles of moving back to the US for furlough every 4 years she said that one of the hardest things for her was cooking. i was rather surprised because for me one of the hardest things about being in Brazil was cooking. now i am started to see where she is coming from.


if i had a dollar for every time i cursed the brazilian supermarket for not having what i wanted or having what i wanted but at ridiculous prices i would likely be able to afford all the expensive imports like cream of mushroom soup, salsa, or tortillas. so in the absence of key ingredients i have had to learn to make due with what i could get or create myself. i have come back from brazil knowing how to make yogurt, sour cream, ricotta cheese, donuts and much more.


even more surprisingly i have come back disgusted at the laziness of american cooking. i know everyone is busy running to soccer practice or sitting in traffic but does that mean that everything we eat must be half-prepared before we get it home? i never would have guessed that this would bother me. in fact, i think this just may be my way of dealing with the bitterness i have felt for the lack of convenience food. ok, let's not go off on that diversion.


to make a meal from scratch is fast becoming a lost art and i had no idea of it before. let me give you a recent example.....


mother-in-law: what should we have for dinner tonight?
me: hmmmm, how about breakfast? i can do eggs, bacon or sausage and bisquits.
mother-in-law: sounds good
me: oh, no. i dont think i have enough flour
mother-in-law: flour?! what in the world do you need flour for??
me: for the bisquits, duh!
mother-in-law: you're going to make bisquits?
me: how else are we going to get them?!
mother-in-law: out of the freezer, of course! they're pre-made, you just have to bake them
me: you've got to be kidding! frozen bisquits? oh, i don't know about that...


i had totally forgotten that you could just have bisquits without getting out the flour and shortening. in the end i did make them from scratch because my husband is spoiled. the same thing happened last week when i made lasagna - complete amazement when i realized that i could use the sauce right out of the jar without having to season it and get any kind of cheese i wanted already grated. but that amazement was pale in comparison to the discovery i made today. cousin cheryl told me that you can even by pre-cooked bacon!!! not bacon bits, ok? real bacon strips that are pre-cooked!!! who could have predicted that??


as we were eating our eggs and bisquits my father-in-law revealed his sausage gravy recipe secret....you get a package of stouffers gravy mix and add some water and sausage. (sorry i gave that away, dad) i just giggled with a little pride as i thought, i bet the gravy i make with real ingredients tastes better. but then on the other hand it would be nice not to have to put so much work into my pepper gravy. so i found myself at a cross-road. to be a convenience cook or to NOT be a convenience cook.
convenience cook pros: its faster, i can use recipes that call for pillsbury crescent rolls and cream of chicken soup, all the cookies can turn out uniform, i don't have to worry about mistaking the baking powder for baking soda
convenience cook cons: its more expensive, it will be harder to adjust to life back in Brazil when we return, the food tastes like chemicals, generally convenience foods are not good for bodies


hhhhmmmmmm....what should i do? if i have to decide today i think i will chose to cook better rather than quicker. i vow to do my best to use ingredients that don't have ingredients!


i guess we will just have to wait and see how long this one lasts.....Dan, are there any more frozen burritos in there? awesome, nuke one for me would you?



just kidding

don't do the Dew

so i have sort of slacked off a bit on posting - but i do have a life sometimes. we have actually been busier than i thought we would since we got to my in-laws. we have been doing a lot of shopping. yes, kelley, yard sales....thrift stores...wal-mart...the mall....even the unclaimed baggage store (so much fun, thanks chris!). it is amazing what you can buy so cheaply and it is equally amazing at what people will try to sell. but i have had so much fun shopping sales at the mall because in Brazil, like nothing ever goes on clearance. this is no lie. you can go into about any store and see clothes that have literally hung on the rack since the late 80's being sold at full price along side the new arrivals. i find it funny because Brazil is heaven for outdated fashion. walking down the streets of Sao Paulo you will see people wearing things that they have likely had in their closets for ages. it is the land where outdated styles never die - anything is fair game. i think that most brazilians just don't have the disposable income that many americans do so if the stone-washed, shredded, painted on jeans still fit then they should be worn. so at the second hand stores i find myself looking at blouses and thinking, hmmm i couldn't wear this here but this would still work when i get back to Brazil. for me this is great as i can't go updating my wardrobe every time the season changes and now i find myself regretting the fact that i threw out the leg warmers i had in 4th grade and my favorite red sweater with the shoulder pads that i wore all through my freshman year in high school. oh well, water under the bridge i guess.

but enough about fashion. i am dedicating this post to my mother. remember when i said there would be more to come regarding my health nut mom? well, this is one of them. she is one of the best people i know - i totally dig her. if you already know Rachel then you know that she is totally health conscious and does her very best to help people treat illness through natural, God-given means. so imagine the shock and horror that i experienced when i received the picture below via email. take a look now and then come right back. yes, that is my dear mom in the Sao Paulo airport with a pack? no. a carton? no. that's a CASE of marlboro cigarettes!! this is not a secret vice of hers and she actually does have a rational for this. it comes down to my younger brother who, in fact, is a smoker. yes i know it is horrible - he is obviously not politically correct or he would care more about my air quality. and due to some unfortunate events he went into debt. with my mom. when she saw how cheap the duty-free cigarettes were she thought to herself if i buy matt these marlboros at this discounted rate then that leaves him more money to pay me back with. like i said, good rationale however scandalous the photo may be.








what makes me think back to this story is Mountain Dew. yes, we all know the stuff, the green soda. Mountain Dew is the one thing that my husband, Dan, misses most about the States. ok, not the ONE thing but he really misses and talks about it all the time when we are in Brazil. now that we are back in the land of the Dew he is drinking it whenever he gets a chance, which is a lot. every time i see him with a can of Dew i think back to my mom's last visit to Brazil. about a month or so before she comes down she starts a wish list - a list of the things that we have asked her to find and bring with her. one of the things on this last list was a request from Dan - a Mountain Dew. so when she finally arrived at our home we started in on the suitcases like it was Christmas morn. When i asked about the Dew her response was, well, i really tried but i just couldn't bring myself to buy that stuff. that stuff is sooo awful - it could kill you!

enough said!

Battle of the Pants

HEEELLLLPPPPP!!!!!!!!
i am in a battle for every pair of pants that i have!!!!!
one of my dearest friends, kelley, also lives in Brazil and was recently in the States for about 8 months. before she left for the US she told me she was very afraid of coming back with a nasty thing we missionaries like to call "furlough fat". being the newbie, i had never heard of this monster before but it didn't take me long to develop a healthy fear of this concept too. unfortunately kelley's worst fears were realized and she lost the battle while she was in the great land of Papa Johns and Krispy Kreme (sorry, Kel, but i just couldn't leave you out of this). so i was determined to start strong and finish wearing the same pants i arrived in....

LESS THAN ONE WEEK back and i have already tipped the scales by 2 pounds!!!!! now i know that does not sound so serious but do the math. approx. 42 weeks of furlough times 2 pounds a week equals 84 pounds!!! i didn't bring any fat pants, people. if i can't button myself up i will have to resort to the "old rubber band through the button hole trick" or just be happy sprouting the "muffin top" out of my waistband (you know, when you got too much dough in the muffin tin and it spills over the top). actually i have a mini-muffin top that my husband rather approves of but it only really reveals it's glory when i am wearing low-riders that are a little too tight. enough of that....

so why is it so hard to say "no"?

reason 1 - it's easy to feel deprived
what i need to tell myself - just because you have not eaten Girl Scout cookies, Wendy's Frosties, American cheese, fruit on the bottom yogurt or Bryer's mint chocolate chip ice cream in a VERY long time does not mean that you have to eat them all the same day.

reason 2 - it's too easy to satisfy my cravings
what i need to remember - just because there is a convenience store on every corner or a fast food kiosk in every store (when did it become un-american to open a store that doesn't have a food stand??) that does not mean that i have to eat every time i am out of the house. somewhere someone must have starved to death as they were going from the video store to the pharmacy and so a law was enacted that requires food and liquid refreshment every 100 ft within the city limits.

reason 3 - my in-laws, who we are staying with for 3 weeks, show love through food
what i need to do - stop blaming them for my lack of self control just because they happen to have 6 containers of Pringles, 2 cartons of ice cream, 6 different cases of soda in the house and no reservations about eating out. i don't HAVE to eat the junk that is around simply because it is there. they have a can of herring in the cupboard and i don't feel obligated to eat that. pretend the Dove chocolate bars are cans of herring.

well, so far furlough fat is winning but it is still early in the game. i need to be more conscious about what i am eating and why and try to remember that i am here long enough to enjoy everything that i have missed in a healthy time frame and in healthy portions. or i could just let myself go while we are with my in-laws because i know that my mom, the health nut, will not allow these demonic foods to enter her kitchen. so i will then be forced onto the organic, wholegrain diet that will include lots of rejuvenated water and daily sessions on her "vibrator" that "supposedly" melts the pounds away. more on the health nut mom later....for now i have to go have a small bowl of sugar-less praline ice cream - it's my compromise.


p.s. please visit kelley's blog at http://daughter-of-a-polish-man.blogspot.com/
and maybe she won't be mad at me for talking about her furlough.

getting settled in again

so everyone needs to go through some adjustments when they travel cross-culturally and i, surprising, am no different. we left Brasil on Tuesday and have been trying to get use to being back in the States ever since.

everytime i have been back there is something else that seems to strike me. the first time i returned was when my smallest was 8 months. he was born in brasil so i brought him to the US so that our families could meet him. i remember being really surprised at how fat everyone was, how big the cups of coffee were and that our friends' kids had grown while i had been gone. i was so excited to hear and speak english that i just talked to everyone i possibly could - the little indian lady who worked at one of the food stands at the airport, the coffee stand guy, the lady cleaning the bathrooms, the cashier at the gas station....if you were standing still long enough for me to strike up a conversation i would soon know more about you than your neighbor.

the second time i came back was a year later and i was really taken aback by the feel of carpet on my feet and the fact that people have large lawns with grass and no walls around their properties. after being flicked off and honked at a few times in traffic i soon realized that my driving had dramatically changed. you see, in Brasil, if there is a space in front of you that you can squeeze into you go ahead and squeeze yourself in...in the US this is called "cutting someone off" - i began to remember that people dont like that. and if you follow too closely behind they dont like that either.

with this return there has not been as much initial culture shock but we have had to reprogram our minds a bit. for example: in Brasil you cant pump your own gas. the attendant comes over to the car and asks you how much you want and you just sit and relax as he fills the tank...sort of like the full service lane at the stations here but who can afford full service anymore? so when we pulled into the station on Wednesday my husband just sat there and waited for the attendant. we talked about how he should ask for a full tank and then after a few moments we just laughed as we realized that no one was coming to fill our tank. dan looked over at me with a smile on his face and said, "how do i put gas in the tank again?" after all, it had been well over 2 years since he had to do this himself!


my kids keep commenting on how EVERYONE speaks english and they are amazed that they can drink out of the tap without threats of dysentery. i actually videoed them in the cereal isle at Walmart as they tried to choose a box of cereal - it took like 10 minutes because they were so overwhelmed - and they could only see the first 3 shelves!

i, for one, feel like i am living in a hermetically sealed laboratory. we are in Alabama in July so it is hot and everyone has central air. at our house in Brasil the doors and windows are always open. it is almost always the same temperature inside and outside. there are breezes which flow through the house and all the noises of the outside mingle with what is happening in the house. but at my in laws house all the windows and doors stay closed and the blinds are mostly drawn to keep the hot sun out. well, the other day i started getting really unsettled and panicky. i started to wander around the house trying to figure out what it was that was bothering me. then it hit me - you have been totally cut off from natural sunlight, the breeze and any noises from the outside!!!! i ripped the blinds up and tucked the curtains back to expose myself to the sunlight....just then the bird clock in the kitchen chimed 9 am so i got to hear the mechanical chirping of the kingfisher which marks that hour. i guess that made me feel better.

i dont want to belittle the fact that we are glad to be back to see our family and friends but we do feel at home in Brasil and miss being there. we are trying to teach our children that there are good things about each country and to appreciate the things that are good about whichever place they happen to be in at the time.

i love going between cultures - it gives so many opportunities to laugh, be saddened, gain insight into my own culture and contemplate my own reactions to people and situations

stay tuned for more cross-cultural observations....like why you cant put your purse on the floor in a brasilian restuarant. :)

ps. this could have been a really funny post but i felt like such a loser because i only had one thing posted so i really pressured myself to write this even though i am tired and not thinking clearly....will try to do better next time...be a little wittier or something. probably something.