Buy local...

I went to pick Abby up from driver's ed this afternoon; she's having to do the actual driving with the instructor part this week.  I noticed I was almost out of gas so after picking her up, I had her drive us to the gas station, and pump the gas for me.  I could get used to this.  :)  Across the street I saw a tent up in the hardware store parking lot...hmmm...wonder what it could be?

CORN!  Fresh corn, right off the farm and sold by a nice young Mennonite lady!  I bought a dozen for $4, and a good looking zucchini for $.25!  I wondered if the corn would be good this early in the year...and YES.  It was.  It was really, really good.  

AND, I saw a bluebird tonight on the way to pick up the girls from church.  :)

Mochi = happiness

While we were still in Japan, one of the treats we would often get when we were out in town was mochi.  This is a Japanese dessert item, made of sweet rice flour.  Traditionally, it is pounded into a glutinous mass....this still happens at festivals and such.  Molly got to take a turn pounding some mochi at school one day, it was fun!  (I've just spent about 1/2 hour looking for that picture...it is no where to be found...grr...)

ANYWAY.

I bought some Mochiko rice flour at the commissary when we went, and finally today we tried making it into mochi!  

First, I took the red beans that I soaked last night, and then boiled this morning, then pureed, added sugar and fried them a little bit until they were dry and made a paste.  These went into the fridge after frying. 

Sophie made the mochi part by stirring together the rice flour and sugar and water, then microwaving it for about 8 minutes.  It was very sticky by then!

After cooling both the beans and the mochi, we took a little ball of beans, and wrapped some mochi around it.  The mochi is very sticky, so we dusted it with a mixture of corn starch and sugar.  YUM!!!

If I had a dollar....

....for every time one of the girls has asked me "Can we get a dog?" over the past two years...I would be a rich woman!

Just over two years ago we left our beloved dog Kiki with our neighbors as we were headed to Japan.  She's not kennel trained and we knew she would NOT like the long, long flight.  We also didn't know what to do with her the first few months we were in Japan...with the rules they have about dogs and not knowing where we would be living for awhile.

Molly and Kiki before we went to Japan

We didn't expect to get Kiki back when we returned to the States...but our neighbors have developed allergies to her and when we got back, and they knew that we still missed her terribly...they offered her back to us.  

Abby and Kiki on the day we were reunited

Last week the girls and I drove to Sandusky, OH.  We stopped to see my sister on the way, and spent a day at Cedar Point Amusement park.  Then, they arrived at our hotel and such happy girls we were!  I'm not sure she recognized us at first, but it didn't take long.  We had dinner together and I really enjoyed catching up with our neighbor.  

We've come home and Kiki was so excited to see Andy!  She's fit right back into our family, and we're so glad to have her again.  

New beginnings

Welcome to my new blog!  I decided it was time to jump back in to blogging.  I'd pretty much stopped writing after leaving Japan.  We are now pretty much settled in Kansas.  It still doesn't quite feel like home, but we've only been here 2 1/2 months.

It took me about a month of thinking before actually making a new blog.  I couldn't decide on a name for it!  My last blog www.findingjoyinjapan.blogspot.com seemed quite out of date since we weren't in Japan anymore!  I wondered about just changing the URL of that blog to a different name, but I was afraid I'd loose everything from that blog...I just didn't want to chance it.  So I just decided to make a new blog.  So, how did I come up with the name?  Our home faces almost due West, and one thing we do three or four times a week is to go out on the front porch in the evening and watch the sunset.  I really enjoy the time to just sit and talk to each other, and see the beautiful colors in the sky.  Sunsets are common...they happen every night, yet they are each unique in their own way.  They are most beautiful when there are some clouds in the sky to create layers and different colors.  Bluebirds live in Kansas, at least at this time of year.  I don't see them very often.  They fly so quickly through my line of vision, just a quick flash of bright blue.  I get so excited when I see one!  These are two things that make me happy here in Kansas.

Things that are common, things that are rare...I am trying to be thankful for everything that God brings my way, and find beauty and joy in the little things of life.

Image taken from: blue-bird_471_600x450.jpg