**I had this almost ready to send Sunday evening and accidently deleted a bunch of it so I'll try again!!**
I am feeling a little heavy in the stomach tonight... But accomplished too! I made Haitian pates this afternoon... A favorite breakfast food. It's so awesome to go hang out and watch the streets come to life in the morning... Chat with the crowd gathered around the lady frying the pate... Be tortured by the amazing smells for forever then finally be rewarded with oily spicy goodness in a little plastic bag... And promptly burn your tongue because you can't wait. If you're interested I'll put the recipe I used at the end.
I feel like for once I can actually say I had a busy week! Joel's graduation in Pryor was the 30th so I rode with Grandma Sharon... Sharla and Katie came up Friday evening for supper and ended up staying till 11 because they were watching a clock that didn't work trick on them!! And the playday was fun... I did not prefer to partake of an obstacle course that involved swinging from round bale to round bale from a rope, nor did I want to make a fool of myself playing softball with strangers so I watched. They played high jump for awhile which made me nervous because that's how Shawna broke her leg and ya 2 grown men were actually DIVING headfirst over the bar then walking away cradling their arms like they were surprised that hurt a bit. Probably the most fun part of the day was chatting with a Haitian lady that's interested in joining the church there. She was raised in USA and married a man from south Mexico... They have 5 beautiful kids and are "homesteading".... Raising produce and organic meat. In the evening Joel's teacher came over with his wife and baby girl and we had ribs out by the pool.
Tuesday night some special girls put on a party for me. Apparently it wasn't enough to get around a gift shower and make everyone brave Covidcrazywalmart or shop on line to make sure Quiara had her kitchen necessities. 😉 It was truly extremely special. The best part was that I never had to be the center of attention opening gifts or do crazy embarrassing stuff like other brides to be... Becca has beautiful sprawling oak trees in her front yard with lights strung between them. And they had bought a bunch of fruits and veggies, rice and beans in all kinds of baskets and bags for a totally realistic mini-Haitian market. There have been a lot of people from our congregation in Haiti so they had a big table full of souvenirs too and some dresses that were sewn over there hanging from the tree branches. They even had a gas burner out there frying marinad... Little Haitian flour and baking powder dumplings that you eat with spicy cabbage picklis. They also had substitutes for cream cheese, cream of chicken soup, and a bunch of other stuff setting out to taste and guess ingredients. We ate supper around tables set with white tablecloths, kerosene lanterns, and magnolia leaves. The bacon chicken sliders, veggies and dip, and mocha desserts were amazing. And then it was getting dark and they drug out two huge baskets of dirty clothes and a water hose. So we all lined up for a clothes washing relay... The only rule was they had to be sudsed up good so nothing probably got that clean and plus half of it got hung over the azalea bush because there wasn't room on the clothesline... So hopefully everything went thru a nice electric washer at home also! 😊 Something about that evening was a super faith booster to me... I had sewn a new dress for my shower back when everything was normal and kept thinking I should just wear it for something else... But to pull it out and get dressed up and go be together for a real true party and even just all the Haiti stuff they had and all just made it seem a little more real again!
We came home and quickly got ready and left for Missouri about 10:30 PM. I slept the night away all by myself in the middle seat and didn't have to drive till the Missouri state line early the next morning. All of my dad's siblings were there for Grandma's 90th birthday. We had ribs in Uncle Bryson's front yard for lunch and Grandma had a new light blue dress with a white leather belt and I thought she was just really pretty. I spent part of the afternoon at Wayne and Di's. We cruised around in their mule... Visited an old cemetery and schoolhouse and got out and sat by the creek in a couple places. And then had supper in the little grove of pines... Chicken legs and veggies over the fire... And then we roasted a pineapple and of course were talking and all the sudden it was dark and I realized it was almost 9 o'clock and the youth was having ball. So I got to play volleyball again after three months and see my graduates all finished with school and ready to move on with life. Seemed like half the people in that gym were my students. It was fun and really strange because I felt like I had totally changed into a different person since I left there and like I didn't belong there at all but yet in some ways it felt very familiar and good.
And then after a night in Grandma's spare room we came home and I've fallen into my little sleep late, talk to boyfriend, cook, and now maybe pick blueberries and hang out in the pool for a while days.... Then go to sleep and do it all over again. It seems like I should be doing like projects or creative stuff or even just sewing clothes to new patterns but ya I guess I'm just in a mental laziness slump because not alot happens. But I do think there might be some light at the end of all this. We know Dominican Republic is opening for tourists July 2 and now today we heard that the Haiti Prime Minister is announcing their dequarantine plan tomorrow. So Zèzè doesn't think it will be as soon as Dominican and ya who knows what they will say but to know a date would be a huge load off the mind. We so wanted to be together by his birthday which is July 23 but it's like he said we wanted a lot of things that didn't happen and we're still alive. Isn't that the story of this year?