Monday Madness

Has it really been almost a week since my last post? I didn't think I'd have much time for posting this morning but the child still sleepeth so here I sit.

Sometimes I feel like I should title my blog "Daughter of a Polish Man who Blogs about the Granddaughter of that Polish Man". You may go away feeling the same after you read yet another post centered around this child of mine...

Yesterday she listened intently while Jonathan and I chatted about a few things (we were both completely unaware of this fact but I'm sure this is normal almost-3-year-old stuff!). I asked him where the camera was because I wanted to take a picture of the Jabuticaba tree out back now that the fruit is ripening. "I'll take a picture mommy!" Karis chimed in and ran to go get her camera. Her camera in reality is our first real digital camera. A whopping 2 mega pixels and weighing about 3 pounds made this gadget something to be proud of (6 years ago). Anyway, turns out it makes a better toy than it does a camera (it is usually one of the toys that kiddos fight over when they come to our house).

So as Karis came trotting into the kitchen with her camera she asked "what shall I take a picture of?" I told her "go take a picture of the fruit on the tree out back". She ran out, ran in and then exclaimed "Mama, do you want to see a picture of the fruit saying cheese?!" (as she held the used-to-be-screen of the camera up to my face). We laughed about that all afternoon, I think.

Here is a picture that I took of the Jabuticaba fruit (you can tell me whether or not the fruit is saying cheese.)


I've never been the owner of a pool before (until now) but I did have friends who had pools when I was growing up and I remember all sorts of creatures we found trapped in the water. Snakes, turtles, bugs, possumes...you name it. Here we have the daily ritual of cleaning out the 236 beetles that flew into the water overnight but yesterday we had another surprise (this is actually the 2nd time this has happened!). Scroll down to see what pleasant creature was awaiting us and actually swimming around in the pool!



No, flip-flops can't swim and mine wasn't left in the pool. I threw it in next to the terantulla so that you could have an idea on how big this thing was. Honestly, it still doesn't look nearly as ginormous as it did when I took this picture but still, this sucker was huge. We've had tons of smaller terantullas show up in our house but the little ones aren't agressive. These bigguns though, they rear up on their hind legs and hiss if they feel threatened. I've heard that they can spit poison but I've never bothered to look that up.

I was about to scoop this guy out of the water and throw him over the wall 'til Jonathan saw me and said (because he knows me) "if you're getting him out you have to kill him!" You know me (well, most of you do)...I can't kill anything. It's just not in me. Not even a huge terantulla that may spit poison into my eyes (now if he were threatening Karis I am sure a new spirit would arise within me and I would find the courage to do so!). So I said, "ok, I'll leave him for you to take care of but please don't spray him...that is such an awful way to die and he's so big he'd suffer for a long time".

10am came and went....

12pm came and went...

2pm...

4pm...

and there our terantulla friend was still swimming around in the pool. I couldn't take it. I asked Jonathan "please take care of the spider...I can't stand it any longer!" (he's suffering, you know!) Well Jonathan had things to do so he said "ok, you can throw him over the wall but go to the front house to do it". So that's what I did...I scooped him up, he reared up on his back legs, hissed and then I threw him over the wall. We'll see if he manages to find his way back.

Whew, that was a very wordy story.

Onto some less-wordy stuff. I'm still making carrot juice and Karis still loves the stuff. This is what she does when you tell her to "hold the carrot up for the picture"! I still chose this picture because even though you can't see her face it makes me look skinnier than I really am. After weeks of walking at 5:30am and no sugar (hardly any sugar, I should say) for almost 2 weeks I've lost a whoppin' 2 lbs. Things just aren't as they used to be.



I took a few pictures of Karis on Sunday before we headed to church. We usually go to our Brazilian church first and then to an English service that some of the missionaries have. In the English service Karis gets to go to Sunday School which she absolutely loves. Here she is ready to take her Bible with her.

This picture is now the background of our computer screen.