Sorry I haven't written much recently. I will try to post something soon! Hope all is well for all of you.....
Ruth

A Laugh...

Ole got a job as a widow washer with his friend Sven. Well, he got so tired of cleaning up those bird splatters. But then Sven told him "well, ya know, could be vorse. It's a blessing cows dun't fly."

Found this amusing....

Sleeping man gets locked inside I Don't Care bar

A patron at the I Don't Care Bar & Grill evidently didn't care about leaving until it was way past closing time and the door was locked. The man, whose name was not released, told police in western Kentucky that he fell asleep inside the bar and when he got up to leave he set off the alarm.
Hopkinsville, Ky., police officers arrived a few minutes before 3 a.m. Friday to find him still locked inside the establishment and unable to find a way out.
So they helped him leave the bar.
No one was arrested. Evidently it's not a crime to be left behind after closing time at I Don't Care.
___
Information from: Kentucky New Era, http://www.kentuckynewera.com

Gosh, the things I say.....

Quit that! You don't have to copy EVERYTHING you see on TV!

Don’t hit your brother, he hasn’t even hit you yet.

Stop hanging by your fingernails off the edge of the deck. I didn’t build this deck for you to do yourself in on!

Where’s Henry? Never mind. Just follow the TP trail all the way down the hallway….

Don’t ever pick a fight. Just be nice. But if they pick one with you, get ‘em good, so they don’t ever do it again!

Pester somebody else for awhile. You’ve bugged me enough for one day.

Just wear your brother’s underwear and get it over with we are already hopelessly late. (That WAS clean underwear lest you wonder.)

Let me show you the right way to do a flying front kick…but you are not allowed to DO it ever….(Joseph of course did it right away and very well too)

Go get the cat out of the christmas tree. Again.

Please dump this bucket of shoop down by the garden.
Answer: “But mom, I’m not old enough to do that chore.”
Yes you are! Now go!
Answer: “I don’t think I’m EVER gonna be old enough to do that, mom…”

Get DOWN off the furniture before you…
(scream and frantic crying)
Oh never mind. SEE?

Spoken: You may quit practicing piano now.
Unspoken: because I cannot stand one more minute….

OK. WHICH ONE of you darling wonderful rascals ended up with the soccer ball in the TOILET BOWL???

Where is my coffee cup?
Found: in Henry’s room with 3 power ranger figurines swimming in cold coffee….

AND MANY MORE LOVELY DAYS! Best to you as always from the Liew Crew!

A Few Things I Want to Share with You:

Best and finest memories of Malaysia

1. Saw a huge monitor lizard right there in the drain near KL old central station KTM.
2. Looking down from the bridge on the Klang River by Pejabat Pos Besar, it was so brown, so smelly, so foul. I am happy to say that not long after that the cleanup plan was started and the Klang river in that place now is not nearly as dirty as it was.
3. “It is going to rain. Better take an umbrella.” Well, Waihon thought we could walk to town before the rain started and he told Popo we didn’t want one extra thing to carry. It rained before we could unlock the gate. The best part of this story is the little, girlish giggle I remember from Popo.
4. At KLCS (old Central Station) we were waiting for the very last train home around 11 something. There were not many people there. I notice one man, very unkept, very crazy looking. I think he was homeless. But my heart almost stopped when I realized that this man, who had nothing at all, had an old towel and in it he was carrying a very small kitten which he petted from time to time. I had up to this point not seen such a vivid example of how compassion can live in the human soul. I learned that from a homeless crazy man.
5. Zainun, Marges Uncle and Auntie next door and sister Linda. My neighbors at Taman Nyior.
6. The chicken rice shop just outside Taman Nyior. If I had a little cash, I could walk there with Ellie and Joey in the sling. We usually had just enough to share one serving of chicken rice. Sometimes we had just enough for a little rice and a boiled egg. I think the neighbors thought I was crazy walking in the middle of the day. I think Waihon would have thought it unsafe.
7. The huge, really colorful lizard we met on the way home from the chicken rice shop one day. He reappeared one morning in Marges carporch! She thought he was charmed and wouldn’t dare go out and disturb him. I thought he was wonderful so long as he stayed off my carporch. She laughed at this.
8. The way Eunice would call up and say “You want to go Giant or anywhere? We are coming to fetch you ok? See you then.” When I didn’t know they were coming to fetch us. Ok! Have twenty minutes to clean up and get ready to go out!
9. Soo Hui’s father when he took us out to see the Parilament building (we didn’t have kids yet). He was so quiet, kind and polite.
10. Joanna’s big, round eyes the first time she laid eyes on me. She was four years old. She must have thought I was very strange looking, not brown like everyone else she had ever known. I won her over by playing folk songs on harmonica for her. Waihon wasn’t even with me the first time I met his family; he was in town getting his hair cut to be presentable to his mother! So I focused on the ones I thought might be more accepting-the kids!
11. When the Auntie next door was dying of cancer, she allowed me to help care for her and pray for her. Later was able to share with her family. My mother in law helped me interpret to cantonese what I wanted to tell them.
12. Top of my list of favorite places: Kong Ming, Tops, Curry Leaf, that funny japanese restaurant chain that the food comes out on a conveyor belt. If that isn’t entertaining nothing is. I like the food at Kong Ming best; I like Tops because they give you a lot to eat, I like Curry Leaf for the obvious reason that the friends I always found myself there with were good company.
13. The roti seller in our neighborhood always came around the same time and we would buy roti and then it was time to put the kids to bed. Just around dusk. Became a comfortable routine.
14. The way I would walk to Zainun’s house at the corner in the evening, stay longer than I intended, and then we would walk each other home a couple of times before saying goodnight. Still miss that.
15. I was shocked and amazed when I realized how much effort, thought and love went into Agape Heights. It was a nice place to be. I have never seen such a big bed before (in the first bedroom). And they chose fancy new dishes for the kitchenette. Which I was afraid to use because I didn't want to break them.
16. The kitchen in my house in Nilai…that was probably the nicest thing Waihon had ever done for me, let us build up the kitchen properly. It even has an oven. I miss my smiley mugs.
17. Those really centuries old trees near Allson Klana Seremban. Or were they near the children’s park? You know what I am talking about if you are from the area. Don’t they look amazing like something from Peter Pan’s imagination?

18. And many more precious memories that I think of usually around…3 am…..especially when I’ve had too much kopi O…..so funny me, when I was in M’sia, I spent so much time thinking of MN…

On the way to work today

On the way to work today I was on 26 and I saw

three eagles

one falcon

one buzzard

a mother duck and her ducklings

two wild mallard drakes

three groups of canadian geese heading north

a chickadee so heavy he could barely fly

and countless other birds!

I love the Mississippi Valley!

A poem about my boys.....

A Mother’s Musings (by Ruth 3/22/09)

My little one is sleeping like a whisper in a cloud
Peacefully he slumbers making not a single sound
How quite unusual, suddenly I realize, for boys
Tend to make a fair amount of sound-mostly noise.

Old coffee cans, patriot marching drums,
Sticks for swords and rifles dare the enemy come.
Kitten becomes ally, puppy becomes foe,
Until he needs a horse on which to travel to and fro.

I often notice that beneath his fingernails
In little rows of blackness like rounded out porch rails
Is dirt. It bears a silent witness in perfect formation
To the fact that he has gone on a recent exploration.

Where did it take him? Although I surely know
I can only theorize the places his imagination goes
A rope becomes a tail, a tail become a swing
A quilt becomes a sail and happily he sings

As he runs to and fro and explores most everything.

All around the garden, up and down the lawn,
Learning growing laughing dawn to dusk to dawn!
And every little daydream he makes daring for awhile
And his mother looks on him and cannot help but smile.

Do you know what this is?

Here is my mother's stove-but what's in the kettle? Any guess? Ok I will tell you.

This is a kettle full of sap. It will boil and boil and boil and then, when it is thick and syrupy, we enjoy it on pancakes and waffles! Did you guess maple syrup?

Nope. Its boxelder syrup! Which is very similar to maple syrup but more amber in color. Finally a use for boxelder trees. We started on this adventure with Laura who brought us the first pint of syrup to share. We were happy to discover several more gallons of sap the next few days after that. It takes approx. 50 gallons sap to make 1 gallon syrup, according to Dad.