Just Breathe (Nicki)

Ah about my title, it got off to a rocky start today with me finding out that I had accidently put a blue crayon in the dryer (hidden in my apron pocket....yes, I wear an apron!). It turned all of the socks blue and left a blue ring around the rubber seal on the dryer door. We were already running late as I made the left hand turn off of our street. I saw some dust on the windshield and thought I would clean it off. As soon as I squirted the water onto the windshield, it froze. This would have been bad enough. However, not realizing what had happened, I proceeded to do it again. Poor Mike had to dig below the seats, retrieve the ice scraper and scrape off the frozen cleaning fluid. I was cranky this morning and the last thing that I wanted to do was go the gym. But, I did and it ended up being the best medicine for a bad morning. After 30 minutes of sweating it out, I was ready to start the day. I picked up Josh and stopped by the food court for a little treat for him and some coffee for me. We sat there as I finished my coffee. I spun quarters around the table for him. He loves this game and digs through my wallet just to get all the change for this purpose. I thought that the nastiness was over but, I remembered after thinking this that I should never underestimate a toddler. Josh hates dropping things. I don't know why. I have never over reacted when he makes a mess or drops anything. My theory is that it's his father's engineering side coming out in him. Anyway, as I was driving home he dropped one of his toys in the back seat. It was located somewhere I couldn't get to while I was at the wheel. He screamed and growled at me the whole way home. His faced was beat red with tears streaming down. This kid should get an Oscar for his performance. There I was driving in a foreign country with a screaming toddler in the back. "Just breathe" I told myself. I'm a sincere believer in the power of breathing technics far beyond the delivery room! We made it safely home sanity intact. As soon as I opened his door and picked up the toy, all was right in his world.

Not much has happened since my most recent blog. I've just been chuggin' away. Our neighborhood is highly populated with Americans/Westerners. Marcus and Masayo live next door. Marcus is from the States and Masayo is a Japanese national. They have 2 boys and Masayo, like myself, is a stay at home mom. Unfortunately, we've only said, "hi" and "bye" when crossing paths. Just the other day, I was venting to Marcus about how cold we've been. That night, they stopped by to give us one of their old kerosene heaters. We were totally surprised but even more thankful. That thing cooks! For once in a great while we were able to sit at the kitchen table without seeing our breath! Because of their generosity it made us feel doubley guilty that we hadn't gone out of our way to socialize more and that we didn't do the proper Japanese-good-new-neighbor thing and drop by with a gift. After they left and as soon as we closed the door, we both looked at each other and said "we NEED to get them something" The next day my first stop was the commissary to pick up the ingredients to make them a Bicardi Rum Bundt Cake. Even though I love to cook, I rarely bake, but this is one of my favorite recipes (1) because it has a total of 1 cup of Rum in it (2) because it's pretty easy to make if a little time consuming and (3) because it tastes really good. Anyway, I stopped by this afternoon to drop it off and Masayo seemed pretty happy to see me & Josh. I really hope that they enjoy the cake.