Cajon

I (D) love woodworking.  It’s my introverted outlet, and a chance to produce something extremely tangible (alas, there are times when ministry feels a bit intangible).  I’ve been working on a few projects lately, one of which will be unveiled in a few days when done.

This one is a cajon, Spanish for “box”, a Latin drum used in a lot of great music.  If you’ve never seen one, you sit on it and lean over, slapping the faceplate (the part with the brass screws).  The sound is perfect for syncopated funky rhythms, like flamenco and latin jazz.

Mine has a drum snare inside, which can be turned on or off using the knobs on the sides.  Play it right, and you get 3-4 different sounds.  The only bummer is that since making it a month ago, I’ve rarely been able to play it!  At church and other venues, I’m usually playing guitar.

And since my production costs were only about $30, if we fall onto hard times maybe making and selling these in BiH could become my cottage industry.  Comparable ones on Amazon with the snare run around $200.

Moves

Lately G, our almost-3-year-old, is really into dancing.  She calls it “doing my moves.”  Every day she’ll come up to us excitedly and ask if we want to do moves with her.  Hers are a combo of stomping, jerking elbows, shaking hips, and Mr. Roboto.  It’s become a nightly routine–good for her, good for us in that it gets some of her energy out before bedtime!

The other night we laughed as we realized that since we live on the 14th floor and were dancing in a well lit room, we’re visible to a whole lot of people on the hill opposite our building.  And since G is quite short, she’s not visible over the couch like we are.  So to anyone watching from outside, we look like two 30-somethings, stomping, jerking elbows, shaking hips, and doing Mr. Roboto.  Word.

PB, baby!

We try not to spend too much time whining about the foods we can’t get here, that we miss from back in the USA.  There are plenty of great Bosnian dishes we enjoy, and it’s no help to anyone, let alone us, to sit around complaining.

But possibly the one longing I could never get over was for real, all-natural peanut butter.  Those of you who know me (Deron) know that I consume peanut butter like your big American SUV consumes gas.  Rapidly, and in large quantities.

But it’s not a popular item here, and the few you can find are quite expensive and more like Skippy.   I long to share with our Bosnian friends the delights of all-natural PB.  Now, peanut butter is one of those things that is expensive to mail, and doesn’t fit our packing standard (it has a quite low longevity-to-weight ratio).  For a long time I’ve meant to look for a quality food processor that we could grind our own peanuts with, but have never pulled the trigger.  Our cheapo one couldn’t handle it.  So basically we do without.

But upon returning to Bos this time I was more determined.  Tonight on a whim I pulled out a simple handheld immersion mixer a friend gave us and went to work on some peanuts.  Added some oil and then honey to offset their oversaltedness, and BAM.  No, seriously, BAM.  Jess took one bite and her eyes grew to silver-dollar size.  I was dancing in the living room.

Coming up for dinner tonight: PB&Js!

And now on to learning to roast our own coffee beans…

Yes, the yield was small, but I was dealing with the tiny bit we had on hand.  And check the quality…look at those nuggets, and the color!  There’s a business opportunity here.

Getting old is a bummer.

When we arrived back in the States, I was stoked to find my old skateboard in storage. I’ve been riding it since college, and it was one of my regular modes of transportation in SLO. I brought it to Pasadena, and rode it to Fuller some days.

One Friday in October I was skating home after class and going fast, when suddenly I hit a rock. The board instantly went from fast to zero m.p.h.; while Deron continued sailing through the air. I landed hard on my knee, and after considerable yelling I picked up the skateboard and walked the remaining 8 blocks home. I remember my exact thoughts: “I’ve had this exact accident about 100 times in my life. My knee’s gonna hurt pretty good for a week or two, and then I’ll be fine.”

That was the adrenaline talking. By the time I reached home, my knee had ballooned inside my now-torn jeans, and I could barely walk. That night Jess had to almost carry me to bed (quite a sight to see, if you know our size differences) as I couldn’t walk a step. The next morning I went to the emergency room, and about six hours later (gotta love the ER) hobbled out on crutches. Something about bruising the kneecap, straining the patellar tendon, and stretching my calf muscle.

But here’s the point: I was in disbelief about why it was so bad. I mean, I’d had the same fall a hundred times before, right? Oh wait…those were when I was 15 and 18 and 22 years old. As I told others about the accident, I got the same response repeatedly: “So did you get rid of the skateboard yet? You’re too old for that.” I wanted to protest but I realized, much chagrined, that all my answers sounded like old-guy excuses: “But I don’t feel old at all!” “Why I’ve been riding that thing for years!” etc…

I realized that though I can still skateboard well, that part’s not the problem. Falling, technically, isn’t the problem either. It’s recovering that’s not as easy as it used to be. I couldn’t run for the next four months, and even now that I’m jogging again I have a bit of pain most days.

Skating occasionally is fun. But being able to climb stairs, run around and play with my daughter, and go for a morning run before sitting in the library doing research for 10 hours is my bigger priority. So bye-bye skateboard. And spare me the getting old jokes. Nah, on second thought bring ’em on.

Me and my keyboard, BFF

Jess and Gabi left town this afternoon, off to visit her mom and fam for the week. This was a good time for them to get away, as it’s finals week at Fuller and I have about 50 pages to write. With some luck–or maybe providence is a better word–I’ll finish by Thursday and drive up to join the visit.

Til then, it’s me and my laptop. I’ll basically write, eat, and sleep. With those two out of town and very large assignments in front of me, it might be a struggle to take care of myself and do “extra” things like shower and eat. Fortunately the fridge is well stocked, and I plan to run in the mornings to keep my muscles from atrophying completely.

The apartment is…very quiet. Not a bad place to get a lot of work done. And I like the topics I have to write on, so I’m actually looking forward to it! But knowing me, I’ll still need to go to the library tomorrow to have a bit of human interaction.

Some pics…

Gabi, growing like crazy!

Favorite activities these days are dancing, clapping, and bopping mom and dad in the face with a pillow.

Our staff team, at last week’s training.

It’s (finally) beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yesterday when I left the house in the morning for an office day, it was beautiful outside. It’s been bizarrely warm, and so I decided to ride my bike while I still could before the real winter hits. (Still a Californian at heart?) I made the ~20min ride to the city center with only a light sweatshirt to keep me warm.

When I stepped outside again at the end of the day, real winter had hit in full force! I was confronted by a snowstorm, and the temperature had easily dropped 20′. 20min bike ride ahead of me, through rush-hour traffic, in the snow…with only a light sweatshirt. And since it wasn’t completely frigid, the snow was melting on the street into giant slobbery puddles.

It was a fun ride home for about the first 5min, and then my hands went numb.

On the positive side, today there’s a beautiful white blanket coating Sarajevo!

I’ll huff and I’ll puff…

We live in the 14th floor apartment. In addition to a great view, we are more, um, in touch with the weather. Like right now, when a really strong wind is blowing. Though they’re all closed, every one of our windows is whistling loudly and I can feel the breeze blowing in. Gabi just woke up from the sounds. It feels like our building is going to blow down…

One other benefit of the 14th floor is in how an earthquake feels like a mild roller coaster. We’ve been awakened in the middle of the night by two in the last two years, and both times we had some really decent building sway going on.

Indulging my right brain

We’re not the first ministers to realize we need a physical, tactile hobby for our free time. When your day job involves conversations, conversations, and more conversations, at times it’s frustrating to not see a physical result of your work. At the end of a long day, computer programmers see tons of code. Teachers have completed lessons. Postal workers have a now-empty bag of mail. We have, well, often nothing that’s visible. I’m not saying we think nothing was accomplished, just that you sometimes long to see some tangible output for your input. There are a plethora of sermon illustrations available in this idea, but I’ll spare you.

Jess sews like a woman possessed. I got her a sewing machine for our first Christmas here, and she proceeded to make several duvet covers, pillowcases, and curtains for our room. As for me, I love woodworking. In high school I took several classes, enough to give me the know how if not the skill of a fine craftsman. Last year I discovered that my friend Saša, who works part-time in our church, also works building cabinetry for homes out of a shop below his house in Sarajevo. He welcomed me to use it whenever I want. Last year I built two large countertop sections for our EUS office as we were expanding, and those three days I spent with the planer, table saw, and chop saw were some of the funnest all year.

Last weekend I finally got around to building a bookshelf for us. Books were overflowing every possible space in our home, and we needed some storage pronto. Here’s the result of two more fun days’ work:

It’s nothing like Saša would have created, but we’re pleased with it and it gets the job done! And coming home those days covered in sawdust and smelling like wood stain, I was a very happy guy.

Enjoying home life

We’re getting a bit embarrassed at our lack of blogging in the past couple months. Our two excuses are the addition of Gabi, and back-to-back trips and visitors.

In March, we traveled to Hungary to give birth. When we returned, Jess’ mom visited to help with our newborn. She was followed immediately by Deron’s sis, brother-in-law, and their 3 kids for a month. Two weeks after they left, we flew to the USA to meet with friends and partners. We returned in June, and three days later our summer project began, as the team from InterVarsity/USA arrived for a month of intense outreach leading up to EUS’ annual camp.

That takes us to last week. Whew! Barely a breath in there, and I confess that with a new baby to watch and parenting to learn, it feels like the brain circuits that led to creative writing online have shut down…

Since the project and camp ended last week, life has been, at last, blessedly slower. We have assorted EUS tasks still in the mix, including supervising the 2 summer interns serving in Bosnia. But Deron’s had much more time to help with Gabi at home and enjoy her.

And she is a blast! She’s incredibly strong, and can stand up well at 4 months (with a bit of balance help, of course). She has a huge grin for mommy and daddy every time she makes eye contact…seriously, it melts us. Her favorite pastimes these days are lying on her back pedaling the air like it’s the Tour de France, squealing and laughing, and licking objects to learn about them.

We are chronically exhausted, but this new phase of life holds so much fun and we are so thankful for it. Knowing that she’s the best looking part of our life, we’ve scattered a few pics of the kicker/giggler/licker in this post for your viewing enjoyment!