Life in Bend

Well I guess it’s been a while since I posted anything on here… It’s high time for an update as the Hatter would put it (by the way, I was ecstatic about the movie, “Alice in Wonderland” was my absolute favorite book when I was a kid).

We are doing well: Erik is still in college finishing up his associates in computer science this year. After that… engineering?

His better half (that would be me:) is working as an accountant for a retirement management company and takes awesome photos in the times when she’s off.

We currently attend Bend Bible Fellowship which is a small old fashioned church here in Bend. Dave Hunt is one of its members and I have enjoyed getting to know people there. A lot of them have been out on the mission field for years and have a lot to share.

In April we enjoyed a visit from my sister Tanya who worked as an engineer for Boeing in Kansas and later Steven and Teresa Yeats came to stay with us for a day. Thanks to a snowstorm they stayed two!

A few weeks ago we found out that our good friend Erik Miller is getting married to an awesome girl Julie Love and we are so very happy for those two!

Short and sweet:)

PS: And I got a haircut!

Where the wild things are…

Well as you can see they are right in my house!

I was trying out my flash and asked him to pose. So here’s what came out of it:)

Cookie Theory

Here’s an example to show about the difference in Ukrainian and American thinking that I have encountered numerous times.

A Ukrainian will take a look at these cookies and think “Hmm, flower and butter and chocolate, I bet they will taste great in spite of how they look”.

An American will look at the same sheet and think “I wonder what went wrong… Too much butter… Too little flower… Too long in the oven?”.

One of the most fundamental differences in our thinking is that Ukrainians come to terms with the results while Americans analyze the process. And that is my great cookie theory!

By the way, the cookies were made by me just a few days ago and they had way less flower than called for…

My photos made it into the news!

I took these shots this morning as we watched a house burn down on our street. A local news channel ktvz.com published them on their website.

Avatar 3D

Well, first of all we tried to get in to see it for about a month: every time it was sold out.

Second of all, the glasses are definitely hot.

Third of all, what is up with his lines???? “I was hoping you’d say that!” How cliche..

And fourth of all, I liked “New Moon” way better.

My 5 cents.

Tired of Pandora?

Check out this new radio www.grooveshark.com to have your songs played right then and there. COOL!!!!

The tenth commandment

 

Thou shall not covet… It doesn’t really apply to the Ipad… Right?…

Wild Island

Not sure if I posted this before: here’s a road sign I found in Kauai last year. It was shot a few times and the red sticker at the bottom says “Do not feed the hippies”. Pretty funny I thought.

Book Thoughts

I am currently involved in two book clubs with some girls here in Bend and these last couple months we’ve been trudging thru “David Copperfield” By Dickens. Gotta say, trudging might be incorrectly used in my sentence but it definitely describes the way I feel about this Victorian masterpiece. Long colorful descriptions of words that flow and intertwine like untamed ivy remind me of a complicated violin overture: pleasant though it might be at first, it hurts your eardrums in the end.

The main character, David, is a total mystery to me. That fact is very disappointing since the book is told by David and describes his life in first person. What it fails to convey is his feelings or rather make his feelings believable. Not for a moment do I feel the agony of a little child left by his parents and thrown into the hands of cruel guardians. Nor do I emphasize with a lonely teenager on the streets of London. His emotions and feelings are foreign and queer to the point of ruining David’s “reality”. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that reality for an 18th Century Englishmen was very different from that of ours now.

My final verdict for Copperfield: I cannot relate, I cannot believe, I find it difficult to read.

This was pretty surprising to me: I respect and love a lot of the classics. Like “Jane Eyre”. This book has been in my top 10 ever since I read a little portion of it in 5th grade or so. I’ve probably reread it 15 times or so.

My other favorite would be “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. I read it only once though. From the contemporary authors I will pick Lisa See and her book “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”. The story of two Chinese girls lives caught in the reality of foot binding is mesmerizing.

Another good book that I’ve read recently is “Sara’s Key”: it’s a story of a Jewish girl Sara in France during the World War II who is rounded up with her family to be deported to concentration camps. Sara leaves with a key in her hand believing that she would come back soon and get her little brother out of the cup board where she locked him for protection. She does come back… the next chapter breaks your heart.

Ahhh, there are so many good books out there! It makes me happy we don’t have television:)

My favourite Starbucks mug

Dishwasher safe! Krasota… And just for the info, I wasn’t the one doing the writing on it…