Sick Saturday

On this picture above he already looks sick...we just didn't know it yet in the morning. We let Benjakin skip school today because we got home really really late from our Thanksgiving party and they would have had a half day anyway. He was extremely tired this morning which seemed kind of normal considering the hour he for to bed last night. But then he started acting strange, like wasn't interested about going to the mall for riding the gokarts. I knew then that he wasn't himself.

We went out anyway to run a quick errand, but when we got home he fell into bed and his fever started to go up.

Oh boy. I'm pretty sure he got chilled last night at the party when he and Chanti went outside to play with the dog and he sneaked out without his jacket first. 

Anyway, I was taking care of him all afternoon and when 8 o'clock rolled around I put him to bed and he fell asleep immediately. 

I hate it when he is sick.

20 things I miss from America

This is not at all a complete list. Just a random list 20 items I think of often. I have noticed that many of these things are food related. Hey don't judge, I'm 16 weeks pregnant. ;)

1. Target
Red carts that are easy to push, fresh and salty popcorn and a Sprite...let's go. Cute clothes, beautiful housewares, books, DVD's, journals...aawwwhhh heart beats faster.

2. Chinese Buffets
You don't miss it until you don't have it anymore. Favorite ever: Hibachi Grill on Alpine in Grand Rapids.

3. Glazed ham
Paula Dean's brown sugar glazed ham is to die for! I haven't been able to find a chunk of ham here for the world...

4. Efficient and friendly customer service
No questions asked. I am always right. Of course you can return it. We will even pay you the difference if the item you bought goes on sale in a couple of weeks.

5. Peanut butter
Costs 5 euros (about 7-8 dollars) for a medium onion size jar of PB. I have been making my own in the food processor...but it is just not the same

6. Automatic cars
I learnt to drive on a stick shift, but still. Come on! It would be a dream to drive an automatic in Europe.

7. Free refills
Again, you don;t miss it until you don't have it anymore. Nuff said.

8. Traffic laws enforced
Now that's a good one. I might even drive out by myself once in a while...

9. Korean grocery stores
Yup. I like me some Korean BBQ sauce and seaweed sheets, please.

10. Friends, family, church
Shoulda mentioned that first

11. Subway
A 6" sweet onion chicken teriyaki on whole-grain, please.

12. Jet's thin-crust buffalo ranch chicken bacon pizza
...with red onion on top.... *eyes glazed over*

13. thrift stores, garage sales
Yup it would be awesome to pay 10 cents for a meat tenderizer instead of 10 bucks at the supermarket

14. Baby carrots
glazed, baked, roasted, boiled...come to mama

15. Ginger Ale
In my book Pregnancy Survival 101 starts with Ginger Ale. Once you have icy chilled Ginger Ale in your fridge waiting for you everything else will be well in the world.

16. Carpeted rooms
oh that's a good one. Nice, fluffy, fuzzy, shaggy carpets me likey.

17. Cheap gas
For your car, silly!

18. Thanksgiving meals
Turkey, glazed ham, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, fresh buns, apple pie....Gimme the works!

19. $5 DVD's from Walmart
We got half of our collection from there.

20. a Sunday after-church lunch with friends at Logan's
crispy chicken tenders, sweet potato fries, house salad with bleu cheese on the side...

Coming up soon:
20 things I miss from Hungary
20 things I love in Italy

Neighbors, lanterns and legends

I have the best neighbors!

This, in the bowl is Zuppa di Pesce, or Fish Soup, very very common dish here on the Adriatic coast. I love cooking and baking (well, most days anyway). I remember back in Bible school (Jackson, MI, USA) and in missions training (Roach, MO, USA) I always used to share with my neighbors many things that I made. I just love doing that. And guess what, God has allowed me to have such wonderful neighbors like Concetta and Marika who love to share their cookings and bakings with us! Several times a week they bring over some pastries or other local delicacies... I feel so blessed that I am able to sample local food this way. Just yesterday Marika brought some of her mom's pastries over, they are delicious!
Ez itt Hal leves, ahogy a helyiek keszitik. A szomszed asszony hozta at kostoloba. Emlekszem, a bibliaiskolaban mindig vittem at a szomszedaimnak kostolot, amikor sutottem-foztem. Es most olyan szerencsem van, hogy a szomszed asszonyom szereti megosztani a sutemenyeit. Mindig hoz at egy kis kostolot, amikor sut. :) Milyen szuper hogy igy megizlelhetem a helyi izeket. 

The other day our team decided to have our morning prayer meeting at the beach. It was wonderful. I inhaled the salty sea air and gave thanks to my Father for everything.
Par napja a munkatarsainkkal ugy dontottunk, hogy a tengerparton tartjuk meg a reggeli ima- es megbeszelesunket. Gyonyoru reggel volt. Ahogy melyen beszivtam a sos tengeri levegit ha'la't adtam az Urnak mindenert. 

Lanternata. The other day we were off to parade through the streets of our little town accompanying our kids with their home-made lanterns. We actually had no idea what it was about before we went. It just seemed fun to go out at night with lanterns. Then it turned out to be a great opportunity for us to learn a bit of Italian culture.
They also call this event La lanternata di San Martino (St.Martin's lanterns). Legend has it that San Martino became a monk after serving as a Roman soldier. On a cold, rainy day in November, Martino was traveling on horseback, and came across a half-naked beggar. Seeing that the poor beggar was shivering from cold, Martino took pity on him, and cut his own cloak in half, giving one half to the beggar. As soon as Martino set off again on his journey, the sun came out and the temperature became warm. From this we get the "Estate di San Martino" (The summer of St.Martin).
That night Martino dreamt of Jesus wearing his cloak, and woke up with his own cloak intact. This sign made him rush off to be baptized and became a Christian.
According to the Catholic tradition, besides bringing us the wonderful warm November weather, San Martino has many shores as a patron saint or horsemen and horses, of tailors and beggars, of the poor and injured, of barrell makers and drunks, of cured alcoholics, of betrayed husbands- I leave it to the reader to find a thread here.
Well, anyway... we had fun walking around with our lanterns until the rain came down on us. Then we went home.
A lantern fesztival. Valamelyik este mentunk fel a foterre, Benike az iskolaban keszitett kis lampast es meg voltunk hivva erre a kis unnepsegre. Nem tudtuk mi az, ugyhogy felmentunk. Kiderult, hogy belekostolhattunk egy kis olasz kulturaba, es megismerhettunk egy regi olasz (katolikus) hagyomanyt. Vegulis abbol allt az egesz, hogy egy lohaton lovaglo romai katonanak oltozott embert kovettunk egy sereg gyerekkel, mindenkinek kis lampas a kezeben. Egesz jol ereztuk magunkat...amig el nem eredt az eso. Akkor hazamentunk. 
De a legenda szerint Szent Marton egy romai katona volt mielott szerzetesse lett. Egy hideg novemberi esten egy felig meztelen koldussal talalkozott, aki reszketett a hidegtol. Megsajnalta, es sajat kopenyet felbevagta es odaadta a koldusnak a masik felet. Allitolag rogton ezutan az ido felmelegedett. Azon az ejszakan azt almodta, hogy Jesus viseli a kopenyet, es mikor reggel felebredt, a kopenye ismet egeszben volt. Ezutan rogton elment, bemeritkezett es keresztennye lett. 
Hat innen ered a legenda. 

itt a romai katona lohaton

Here is the Roman soldier on horseback

Benjamin and Chantal...they are such good buddies and play so well together.
Benike es Chantal olyan jo baratok es nagyon szepen jatszanak egymassal. 

I am back

Here I am. Cannot believe how much I have neglected my blog in the last few weeks. It is not that I haven't thought about blogging, in fact I have thought about it every day, I even composed thoughts and posts in my head but I never got to sitting down and typing them in. Oh well. Whatever. If I want to summarize the last few weeks I would say: we ran out of money two weeks before our next paycheck due to unexpected medical bills. This put an unimaginable stress on us. For me it materialized in the forms or daily meltdowns, breakdowns, crying over nothing and everything, walking around with a long face and smudged make-up, blaming everything and everybody, shaking my fist and crying crying crying. I was hungry, okay? I felt especially sorry for myself because I was PREGNANT and I had CRAVINGS!!! I HAD to have certain foods, it was my RIGHT! 

Right?

For a while I was telling myself and husband that it must be a trial, we just have to persevere and trust the Lord. He wants to teach us something through this I am sure! Then I watched myself day after day and it didn't seem like I was learning "my lesson", I was still angry and impatient and hungry. I didn't take this "trial" with grace at all. I am so ashamed, I must be not only the worst missionary like...ever, but probably the worst Christian too. Have I learnt anything? I have no idea. My only hope and joy is that God sees me through Christ and as a "finished product". He is so patient with me, sometimes i wonder how come He doesn't just wipe me off the face of the earth...

All right, enough on that. 

I wanted to post this picture that husband took a couple of Sundays ago. I was posing in our front yard for my 15 weeks bumpie when I noticed that my neighbor and friend Marika was cleaning outside and peeking over the fence. I don't know why, I just like this picture It makes me smile! :)

A few days ago, Thursday was Benjamin's 6th birthday! Happy Birthday little man, I love you like crazy! :)
We took the day off, literally. He skipped school and we didn't go in to the office. After opening his presents and having some breakfast we took off for Pescara, a big city about an hour away from us. They have everything! Auchan, IPER, Megalo, IKEA....you get it. So we did a lot of walking around in malls and window shopping. At the end of the day we went to IKEA (Aawwwhhh!!!! :)  my favorite place in the world! I just love everything about it. They had a bunch of Christmas stuff already, it was a sheer joy just to even look at them. Decided to take a 16 weeks bumpie in front of one of the Christmas displays.

This morning at church the bambini sang a song in front of the church. Both in Italian and English. One of the other boys wasn't paying attention, did all kinds of silly stuff and that greatly annoyed Benjamin. He kept telling him to stop fiddling and start singing. Oh the little teacher! :) In the picture below you can see his annoyed little face. We talked about it with him afterwards that it is really not his place to educate other kids, especially not on stage, but secretly I thought it was really funny.

Perfectly decadent day

Yesterday was a great day. I really needed it.
The day started out with beautiful weather, it was sunny, 16 degrees Celsius, a few curly white cloud puffs on the sky... Husband and I decided to go outside and find a place to study instead of staying in the dark and cold house. I put on a jean jacket, a big smile, I stuffed some Italian books in my handbag and off we went. I was so happy...sunshine never made me so happy before. And it was probably the hormones too.
We decided on the overlook on the other end of town. We even brought a cloth picnic chair for husband to sit on because of certain physical discomforts he prefers to sit on something warm. [tmi] So we got all set up on the sun, me on the bench, husband on the cloth picnic chair and had a lovely study session. The view was magnificent, gently rolling hills around us, snow capped mountains further north, the sea with its incredible blueness, the sun was gently petting our faces and everything was perfect.
Tegnap gyonyoru reggelre ebredtunk. 16 fok es melegedett, napsutes...nem akartunk a hideg, sotet hazban tanulni egesz delelott ezert ugy hataroztunk, hogy kimegyunk a kilatohoz a varos masik szelen es kint tanulunk. Gyonyoru volt. Szivtam is magamba a jo kis D vitamint. 

Then it was time to pop in to the doctor for some papers [don't get me started on that one]. We saw that people were gathering on the walking street. We were curious so while husband waited in line at the doctor's office I went out and joined the crowd with anticipation. I thought they were initiating the newly painted road signs on the main street or something [who celebrates that anyway, dah! silly mama]. Turns out they had a memorial service for people who died in WWII. [makes more sense]
Utana be kellett ugrani a dokihoz nehany papirert. Lattuk, hogy a varos apraja nagyja gyulekezik a foteren. Kivancsisagbol csatlakoztam a tomeghez amig Scott beallt a sorba a rendeloben. Azt hittem hogy az uj festesu zebrakat unnepelik vagy mit. Az olaszoknal sose lehet tudni. De kiderult, hogy egy masodik vilaghaborus megemlekezes volt. 

After all that it was almost noon, just an hour before we are supposed to get Benjamin from school furthermore we were not ready to return to our cold and dark house [exaggerating a little for the sake of drama]. We decided to sit in a CAFE. Haven't done it yet, believe it or not, since we moved here. (14 months)
Honestly we have just been so tight on money that the last thing we thought of doing is "going out". Which is actually crazy because the locals do this every day! That is how they meet, socialize, they step in for an espresso in the morning, or some tea and cornetto later, they sit around little round tables, comfortably stir their coffees enjoying the weather and the company of their friends. They just relax for a few minutes. Everybody does it, it is just part of their day.
So anyway, we were like, hey let's blow our last few euros. He ordered an espresso, I a tea and a pastry [let's go all out, eh?]. We didn't even think about what this luxurious date will cost us, we just enjoyed the beautiful November sunshine and our hot beverages. We conversed in Italian the whole time, we laughed at each other, and I even put SUGAR in my tea! [weeee!]
It was the best unexpected and unplanned date ever! So nice to get out of the usual gray weekdays and do something nice like this! Even if it's just a simple coffee out. We haven't been on a date for like...what. 2 years? I don't even know. Shameful I know. But it is just something that is easy to overlook when you don't have money to spare. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, discontent or complainy, it is just a reality of being missionaries I guess. At least for us. For now.

Mindezek utan mindossze egy ora volt hatra mielott Benjamin kiszabadult az iskolabol szegeny. Nem akartunk visszamenni a hideg hazba, ezert ugy dontottunk kiulunk a napra egy kavera. Sosem szoktunk ilyen luxust megengedni magunknak (legalabbis nem miota itt elunk Olaszorszagban.) Mindig ugy ki van szamolva a penzunk, hogy ilyesmire almunkban sem koltenenk. Pedig itt ez teljesen normalis resze a napnak, az olaszok minden nap beternek valamelyik kavezoba egy eszpresszora es egy kis csevegesre. Nincs is benne semmi rossz, sot! De valahogy meg egyszer sem tettuk. 
Hihetetlenul elveztunk ott ulni a novemberi napsutesben finom kavet es teat kortyolgatva. En me'g egy dios retest is ettem [ha lud legyen kover, igaz?] Nem is gondolkodtunk azon hogy mibe fog ez nekunmk kerulni. Vegig olaszul tarsalogtunk Scottal, nevetgeltunk, elveztuk minden percet ennek a be nem tervezett es varatlan randinak. Mikor eljott az ido, mentem fizetni, es csodalkozva ertesultem, hogy mindossze 3 euroba kerult mindez. Kave, tea, retes, napsutes, nevetes, kimozdulas a szurke mindennapokbol... Nem is tudom mire szamitottam, de ez tenyleg nem volt sok. Minden centet megert! El is hataroztuk, hogy maskor is megejtjuk ezt a kellemes kavezast. 

The best part: when it was time to leave I went to pay the bill, and the whole thing costed only 3 euros! What!! I don't even know what I was expecting...! But that certainly didn't break our bank! We decided to do this more often. Yay for 3 euro dates!

Later that day.

I was given a bag of green peppers by our landlord's wife and I found a tiny slug in the bag. [ew] I decided to give it to Benjamin. he got super excited about getting a PET. he made a HOUSE for him and named him SLUGGY. Very original. 

So husband and he have been looking up articles on the internet like "How to keep slugs alive" and such. [??] 

A szomszedasszony adott egy szatyor zold paprikat es talaltam benne egy pucicsigat. [Fujjj] Odaadtam Benikenek. Jaj de hogy hogy orult az annak! Azon nyomban lakhelyet keszitett ujdonsult kis haziallatanak es elnevezte SLUGGY-nak, ami magyarul annyi lenne: PUCICSIGACSKA. Nagyon eredeti meg kell hagyni. 

Ugyhogy azota is olyan cikkeket olvasgatnak Scottal az interneten, hogy "Hogyan tartsunk eletben pucicsigakat" es hasonlokat. 

Mit is mondhatne'k erre...

Sluggy Pucicsigacska

The day was still not over, they were cutting the limbs off our palm trees in front of our house. Of course this was of great interest to Benjamin.
Az utcankban vagtak le a palmaagakat. Persze Benike legnagyobb oromere es erdeklodesere. 

Aaaaaaand...... I made gluten-free biscuits and gravy for supper! Husband's favorite! Haven't done it before, I guess I was a little afraid of how the biscuits would turn out. Well they were great! And so much more simple to make than I thought.
Simple sausage gravy recipe here.
Biscuits recipe here.
Simply substitute flour with gluten-free flouf mix. (The Italian blend is awesome.)
Es vegre megcsinaltam Scott egyik kedvenc etelet gluten-mentesen. Magyarul nem tudom hogy is magyarazzam, mintha pogacsa le lenne ontve finom kremes hus szosszal. Amerikaban nagyon nepszeru etel. 

The day of the dead

Here I am at 13 weeks. 

13 hetesen.

Today is November 1st and an important holiday for the Italians. They all go to the cemetery and flood the graves with flowers. We took a little passeggiata around 2pm and not a soul was outside on the streets. Just like a ghost town. Truly spooky...

Ma November 1-je van es ez az olaszoknak különösen nagy ünnep. Egész hétvégén tódultak a temetőbe es elárasztják a sírokat virággal es ajándékokkal. Délután két óra körül ki sétáltunk a városba de egy lelket sem láttunk. Mint egy kísértet város. Hol van mindenki?

All afternoon I felt so tingly, I had restless legs... and pretty much a restless body. I felt uncomfortable whether I was sitting or standing. Tried to study some Italian but didn't have patience for it. So here I am again, going to bed already. Just a little more Twilight in Italian and some KitKat and I'm ready for my sweet repose. Good night Moon! 

Egész délután olyan furcsán éreztem magam, mintha olyan nyugtalanság lett volna rajtam. Nem tudtam a lábam hova tenni, így se volt jo ülni ugy se volt jo állni...

Korán lefekszem ma is. Olvasok egy kis Twilight-ot, na meg csokit majszolok es utána édes szunya. Jo ejt Hold!