Craft auction of our ladies group

I'm inviting everyone reading my blog (and close enough) to come to our auction and programm tonight. We have a ladies group that meets every two weeks. We have a devotional first, then we make crafts, which we sell every two years at an auction. I have to admit, the worst part of the programm tonight, is that I have to sing with a group. (I don't sing very well:()

Our program starts at 7:30 pm at the volleyball field in Nr. 18.

Here's a little peek at what we are selling tonight:

(If you want to see the beginnings of this quilt, check out my very first post in the blog!)

In case you are wondering, C finally found the silver spoon! I attached a little note to it, I thought she would find it faster that way. (And its how I think of my sister!<3)

She had a very scary week. Her youngest, Jopi, was bitten by a spider and had to stay in the hospital for 1.5 days. But he's better now.

Our motto of the week: DEATH TO THE SPIDERS! Never bite my nephew again!

The Adventures of the Silver Spoon, part 1

As you know, I grew up with 3 sisters. We are all slightly crazy. (but in a very nice way) I'm the one without the 2 front teeth. That year my nickname from my dad was "Ohntehn", which means: the one without teeth.:) Note the true sepia tone of the scanned picture, that only comes with real age. And how did my mom get our hair so shiny?

There was a special spoon in my Mom's cutlery drawer. It was silver, but not in the shiny way that stainless steele spoons are. When i was small, I always wanted to use this silver spoon. In my head it was precious and magical. (We only had black and white tv, I used my imagination alot!)

A few weeks ago, after a scumptious meal, made by my Mom, my sister C and I were washing the dishes (because we are very well brought up daughters). We always had so much fun washing the dishes together as sisters after we all left our parents home. I had the little silver spoon in my hand, and said to my Mom, I would like to inherite this spoon some day. She said, sure, you can take it along today already, if you like. C was sputtering, (soap suds were flying) and says: What? Just like that? I wanted the spoon. We both got a knowing look in our eyes, and decided, without saying a word, a new tradition was born.

So, the other day at our Ladies Meeting, C found the silver spoon during clean-up, in the plate with the plastic spoons.

A week later, the spoon magically appeared at my house in the tin of chocolate milk mix.

This is how the adventures of the silver spoon began, where will the spoon turn up next? If anyone has any suggestions, where I could hide the spoon for C, email me, so C won't read it in my blog:) (brendasaw@gmail.com)

In the picture, my parrot is displaying the spoon for you all to see.

Survey for my sister

Who wants to help my big sister, Daniela?

As some of you know, my parents have 4 daughters, A,B,C and D. A is the youngest, and D(aniela) is the oldest. Daniela is awesome. She and her husband moved to Canada a few years ago. They have two boys, ages 13 and 12. (Super well-behaved boys, btw. They even bought her flowers for her birthday this year)

Daniela has had various jobs over the last few years. She was head wrangler (horses) at a christian camp, she was a cook for a mennonite museum, she was a ....what would you call it...um, she worked at a pig-raising farm, taking care of the sweetest piglets you've even seen. This week she took on another challenge and started her job as a church secretary. I wish you all the best, D, for your new job.

Dani, as we call her, started school again last year. She always wanted to finish high school and now she's taking night classes to finish grade 12. I am so proud of her! (Kleenex, please)

She asked me if I could help her on an english project she's doing, and of course, if your oldest sister needs your help, you help her! And I love doing it, too. She wants me to post a survey on my blog and would like my readers to answer this survey and send it back to her. She needs at least 20 responses and it has to get to her by Tuesday (Oct. 27). Who will help? You can send in your responses to: d_hildebrandt@hotmail.com

Thanks, everyone!

Here's the survey: (copy and paste to your email programm)

Hobby and Handicraft Expo Survey

Please complete the following survey about your interest and knowledge of hobbies and crafts.

What is your gender? Please check one.
___ Male ___ Female

How old are you?
___ < 18 ___ 19 – 25 ___ 26 – 35 ___ 35 – 45 ___ over 46

Do you have a hobby? Please check all that apply.
___ Scrap booking ___ Bird watching ___ Other
___ Gardening ___ Painting ______________
___ Photography ___ Models (e.g. airplanes, ships)
___ R/C cars/airplanes ___ Stamp/Coin collecting

Do you make crafts? Please check all that apply.
___ Knitting/Crocheting ___ Sewing ___ Other
___ Baking/Cooking ___ Jewellery _____________
___ Woodwork ___ Needlework
___ Pottery ___ Card making

How many hours do you spend on your craft/hobby? Please check one.
___ < 1 hour ___ 2 – 4 hours ___ 5 – 10 hours ___ More

How much money do you spend on your craft/hobby a year?
___ < $50 ___ $50 - $100 ___ $100 - $200 ___ More

Have you ever shown your work?
___ if yes, where?______________ ___ No

Would you be interested in showing your work in a non-professional way?
____ Yes ____ No

Where do you buy your supplies?
___ Steinbach: Where?________ ___ Winnipeg: Where?_______

Thank you for taking time to fill out this survey.

Book review: Fearless by Max Lucado

I started reading "Fearless" by Max Lucado, not because I was experiencing fear in my life, but because I really like the author.
Max Lucado has the ability to speak/write clearly, so that you can understand him perfectly and really picture the situations he describes. I have learned so much from this book.
Like for example:
Fear corrodes our confidence in God's goodness.
Fear unleashes doubts.
Fear is a perceived loss of control.
We get so edgy and insecure, when we lose control of a situation. But God will always be the same and in charge, it doesn't change anything about his love towards us, if we decide to fear and worry or to trust him. His love casts out fear, because he casts out sin.
The chapter that spoke to my heart the most was: My child is in danger. Because we have three daughters (13,11 and 8) I sometimes worry and fear for the future of our kids. But the Bible says in Lam. 2, 19: “Lift your hands toward Him for the life of your young children.” We can come to our Lord and bring our kids to him in prayer. Max Lucado says: “Prayer is the saucer into which parental fears are poured to cool.” We can't protect our children from every threat in life (even if I'd love to bubble wrap our girls sometimes), but we can take them to the Source of Life.
Another chapter that was very important to me was: Make-Believe Money. In a slightly humorous way, Max Lucado shows us that the treasures that we accumulate on earth are just as worthless as Monopoly money when we get to heaven.
I would recommend this book to all people, not only the fearful ones, as everybody can learn something new from this great book.

What is/are LOLCATS?

For all my readers wondering what the term lolcats mean:

"Lolcat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A lolcat image
A lolcat (pronounced LOLL-kat, with the "lol" not being an initialism), is an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as "lolspeak" or "kitty pidgin" and which parodies the poor grammar typically attributed to Internet slang. The name "lolcat" is a compound word of the acronymic abbreviation "LOL" and the word "cat".[1] A synonym for "lolcat" is cat macro, since the images are a type of image macro.[2] Lolcats are designed for photo sharing imageboards and other internet forums.
The term lolcat gained national media attention in the United States when it was covered by Time,[3] which wrote that non-commercialized phenomena of the sort are increasingly rare, stating that lolcats have "a distinctly old-school, early 1990s, Usenet feel to [them]"."

Thank you wiki, you can stop now...

I had seen these pictures of cats all over the place on the net, and was wondering what that was all about. Especially the language had me puzzled. But they write it wrong on purpose, now I get it. :)

As most of you know, I have a very photogenic cat, named Eskimo. Last night, I was bored so I was looking at lolcats at http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/, and I found a place where you can make your own lolcats. What fun! (Note: I was reeeeallllly bored)

So, come take a look at my very own lolcats:

Winner of the crochet bag!

Let's celebrate with a bathtub full of fun! We have a winner for my very first giveaway. {Drum roll, please!}
Gladys from http://gladysspeaks.blogspot.com/ wins my crochet bag, cell phone case and a souvenir of Paraguay. Gladys has a really cool blog with hilarious posts. I just love her comments to news stories.

I baked a cuadruple batch of scandinavian almond bars, but in the maple/pecan variation. Just so that I could give some of these scrumptious goodies to the winner, if she was out of my area. But here's a little gift for all of my readers. I have the special permision of my very good friend, Shilo, to give the recipe to any one who wants it. Taste of Home also has this recipe but slightly different. I encourage you to surf through the TOH website, there are tons of great recipes waiting to be found.
Ok, so here's the recipe:

Scandinavian Almond Bars/Maple-Pecan Bars

1 ¾ cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
½ tsp almond extract
½ cup sliced almonds
milk
almond icing
Stir together dry ingredients. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and almond extract. Add flour mixture and beat until mixed thoroughly. Divide into fourths. Form into 12 x 3 inch rolls (I like to pat the rolls down a bit, so they aren't quite that thick). Place two rolls on ungreased cookie sheet and brush with milk and sprinkle with almonds. Bake at 325 for 12-14 minutes. While warm, cut crosswise at diagonal into 1 inch strips. Cool.
Icing:
Stir 1 cup powdered sugar, ¼ tsp almond extract and enough milk to make a drizzling consistency. (I put the icing in a little bag, snip off one corner of the bag, and drizzle the icing on the bars)
To change them to Maple Walnut Bars:
Use ¼ tsp vanilla, ¼ tsp maple extract in the dough to replace almond extract and ¼ tsp maple extract in the glaze to replace almond extract then exchange walnuts/pecans for the almonds.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and come back to read my blog again.

(Photos from: pixelio.com and tasteofhome.com)

Can't think of a title....

After last weeks excitement, this week started pretty tame.



We brought the baby and her mother home, and they are doing well. The baby girls's name is Ercelina.




I went to drink terere with my sister, C, this morning. Her boys are just hilarious! Check out the clip:

Jopi & Stiti's tricycle stunt.

( I don't know why this picture is showing double here, sorry 'bout that)

No one was harmed during the filming of this clip, nor were the any stunts done by profesional stuntmen. This is the real thing!!!

P.S. Just reminding you, that there is still time to enter in my blog-giveaway. Just comment on last weeks post.

An exciting morning and my first giveaway

Are you all curious yet?

First I want to tell you how my day began.

At 3 am our indian tractor driver knocked on our window and said that we had to take his daughter-in-law to the hospital. In their culture it's very common for 15 year olds to "get married" and live with either of the couples parents, until they find work somewhere else. So Marvin took Adriano and Susanna to the hospital. There he found out, that she hadn't had a single check-up since they got together, and the insurance would not pay for her to have her baby there.

They left her at the hospital and I called in at 7 am and asked how she was. The nurse said labor is very slow, so if we wanted to, we could pick her up again and take her to the goverment mother/child hospital at Villa Choferes, 20 km from town. I took my Mom along, just in case. I was so scared I would have to look for scissors and hot water along the way(thats what they always asked for in the old movies), but everything worked out ok till there. We left her in care of the doctor there and left him my cell number to call me when the baby came.

Marvin needed Adriano and his father to plant peanuts, they couldn't really stay there with her. Mom and I had just gotten back to town, when the nurse called and said, Susanna is trying to run away from the hospital, she doesn't understand a word of spanish and they couldn't keep her there (without a court order {did I understand that right?}). So I promised the nurse we would try to find the girls mother or we would send Adriano over. I called Marvin, and he drove to Villa and took the young papa-to-be there.

Juan (grandpa) called us a few minutes ago and told us the baby was born around noon.

That was my morning in a nutshell:)

Now for the surprise:

I'm giving away a crochet handbag with matching cellphone bag. I made this bag for the craftshow a few months ago, and would really like to give it to someone that appreciates the work that goes into crafting.

Eskimo was very willing to model the bag for us! He said he wanted his salary in cat food.

• Everyone that leaves me a comment on this post enters in the giveaway.
• Anyone who comments and also follows my blog gets two entries.
• If the winner is outside of Paraguay, I will send the bag in the mail with a little souvenir (recuerdo) of Paraguay along with it.
• If the winner lives in Paraguay, I will send the bag with some fresh baked goodies along with it.
• I will notify the winner and ask for the address then.
  

In one week, the 16. of October, I will put all the names in a hat and draw the lucky winner.

So now I wish you all a great weekend and good luck in my giveaway!

P.S. The baby in the picture is not Adriano and Susanna's baby. But cute anyway!

New look for my blog

Hello, dear friends following me!

Spring has arrived to the Chaco. We had a great little rain on Tuesday till Wednesday. 40 mm in all here, not much, but a great start!

And because I'm in a spring-mood, I transformed my blog layout to something more fresh and green. I know that the people up in the northern hemisphere might think I've gone crazy, but the seasons are opposite in the south, ok?


I would also like to announce my first giveaway. If everything works out right, I'll be posting about that tomorrow. And I will keep the gift a secret until then, too. So, whoever is reading this today, check in again tomorrow for details.


This is a Paratodo tree in full bloom a few weeks ago, somehow it knew it would receive rain soon. God is good to us!

Transchaco Rally 2009

Ok, everybody, I'm back to normal again, the rally fanatic has left the building.

Last weekend was one of the biggest sporting events of Paraguay (not counting soccer games). The Rally Transchaco is one of the most difficult races of the world. Over 1100 km on dirt roads little more than paths cut through the prickly brush that makes up most of the Chaco. Up to 100 cars start annually on the 3 day race and only a third of them make it over the finish line.

My husbands cousin, Thomas, has always had a thing about speed. He used to drive motocross races and plays in the Fernheimer Volleyball crew. Seven years ago, a little while after his dad died, he signed up for the Transchaco Rally for the first time. Up until now, he only once made it to the finish line in third place. This year, the whole racing team was working on a shoestring budget. There was no money to throw around, and the sponsors didn't trust him enough to put their money on him. The team helping him, all brought their own food along for the 3 days they spent in the open brush in tents or in the Tinglado in Mariscal Estigarribia. My husband and another of his cousins spent 2,5 days in Mariscal cooking for the whole team of helpers.

Monday morning, my best friend Linda (Thomas's sister-in-law), and her 3 boys, and our 3 girls and I all headed out at 6 am to see a part of the race 30 km from here. We were there and cheered Thomas on when he zipped past us in seventh place. Later we took all the kids out for lunch at the Chinese restaurant.

On Tuesday, I followed the race closely on the radio and prepared food for the next day.Early on Wednesday, Linda and her kids and Thomas's mom, Erica, all came to our house. We had coffee and cinnamon rolls waiting and we set up the lawn chairs on the driveway. At about 7:45 the first car zipped past our house, Thomas was leading the race! Afterwards they said, that he had made the best time on this part of the race, most likely because he knows this road like the back of his hand. (He lives right next door.) His average speed was 187 km/h on this etapa of the race.

Afterwards we all went to Pozo Colorado. I had called Marvin on the cell phone, to see if we could all go together, but he was still busy, and not going to be home for another hour or two. Pozo is 200 km from our house, what I didn't know, before I left home. I think, I would have stayed home, had I realized that I would be driving over 400 km in one day.

Around noon we got there and waited. Two hours later we were standing at the finish line, when Thomas drove through and won the Rally for the first time in his life. His mom was very moved and it was an emotional moment for many of us. If you look at the above picture closely, you can see Brianna (the little strawberry/blond head to the right hand side of Thomas), someone put her on their shoulders, so she could see him!

This the the proud Mom and son after the race.