Mini-London: a 24-hour course in Best-Friending

Those of you who have been around this blog longer than I care to remember (for posts were not in those days what they are today) might have lived through the days of my Georgia Campaign. On that campaign, I met my "crazy single friend," Katie Frost. Only back then, of course, she was not my best friend. In the two and a half years since Georgia, though, we have grown to be the best of the best sort of friends. Katie is my mainstay and I am hers. She has inspired me in so many ways though our lives run exactly opposite direction most of the time. I'm a nanny, novelist, and blogger while Katie runs statewide campaigns and hobnobs with the rich and famous. She was the main inspiration behind the Cinderella-figure in my contest-winning novella, The Windy Side of Care. In short, Katie's amazing. Which means that when we discovered her family had planned a trip to Washington D.C., it was imperative that I come.

It was the twenty-four-hour trip of a lifetime. We stayed at the Willard Inter-Continental with her family, met oodles of congressmen, pretended we were rich and chic, ran from the Library of Congress to the Rayburn building in high-heels, watched the Government Shutdown vote (and numerous congressmen of interest) from the balcony, rode the little train that is strictly Members Only (with a Member) from Rayburn to the Capitol, went on the Speaker's Balcony and through No Trespassing places, ordered hot cocoa from Room Service at 2 AM, and generally acted as if we were Eloise of the Plaza. A few pictures from the thingamajig:

stalker shot like a pro

Mini-Katie and I on the Speakers' Balcony. DC behind us. Best vantage-point ever.

Lady Alis in the flesh

 

See that tam? It is somewhere on the White House lawn.

The Hill was WINDY the entire time, except for the magical half-hour in which snow fell just for us.

 

Poor lighting, but we had to get a picture on the Congressmen-only train!

 If you ever get a chance to step into the Willard at Christmas, do so. It is beautiful beyond imagining. I was there for under 24 hours and had enough plot material for a novella which I am executing in 12 parts on my other blog. I'm not sure what a week would do for me.

ain't nobody got time for more than some iPhone shots

The Frosts are so involved in politics that they know pretty nearly everyone. Only a slight exaggeration. Though I have been to DC numerous times, I had not gone in the company of a Congressman, which made this a special trip. We saw many lovely hidden places such as the chapel where the Congressmen go to pray. Actually had to wait for one to leave before we could go in. I'm blessed to have been considered an honorary Georgian and a temporary Frost! :D

How beautiful is the Willard, even in a blurry phone photo?

There is one picture that Katie and I snapped of ourselves at 3 AM that night...after hot showers and hot cocoa and getting all the little girls changed and bathed and in bed...and trying to begin watching Decoy Bride. But lest Katie ever marry a famous person and the press comes looking for blackmail photos, I'll refrain. Aren't I a good best friend? Suffice it to say, we looked dreadful.

There was good food, lots of waiting in hallways, crowded Uber (sp?) rides and a hurried, breathless, not-wanting-to-think-it-was-true goodbye at the metro stop where I then ferried myself to the end of the line and was picked up (after some confusion) by my sister-in-law. So many beautiful moments in that too-short piece of wonderful, but my favorite memory has to be the moment of meeting after our terribly long absence. It was exactly like in a movie. I saw Katie in the hall on the far side of the marble plaza, calmly handed off my gloves and purse and we caught each other in a huge hug that was so obviously long-awaited that the hostess grinned. And she's probably used to seeing meetings.

Oh DC, you were beautiful. Next time Charleston. Then London. <3

Long-distance friendships? Yeah they're rough, but being together again is so worth the wait.

Adventura: 3 Favorite Memories

I know you want more of Romania but I'm finding it difficult to proceed very far without PICTURES (Matthew, ahem) beyond those I took with my  own tablet. The other team members who were playing Trip Photographer are dating and at each other's homes and therefore are sort of MIA at the moment ... and yours truly is wishing she'd taken less pictures of the Decebal Head and more of the people I love.  Also, there is just so much that went into the trip that today, I'm going to simply share three favorite memories:

//Butterfly Whispers//

One morning in Arad we were given the opportunity to visit a small children's day-center down a twisting, forgotten street of the city. This charity doubles as a dentist's office and ministers to the neighborhood/street children. There were only a few children present that early in the morning: a few gypsy boys, the British care-giver's daughter, a gypsy girl (Corinna), and the daughter of a Romanian caregiver.
My favorite part about working with children in other countries is that the language barrier is not as much of a problem as with the adults. The children have no scruples against chattering at you in Romanian and are equally fine if you speak to them in English. There is no need to understand each other, really, because isn't the desire to play on a slide or chase each other around a room a universal theme? When the language barrier became too frustrating, the little girls would simply plant their feet and shout, "OANA!" till the Romanian woman came running to translate for them and explain the rules of a game rather like Ring-Around-The-Rosie. The three little girls seemed to gravitate toward a different member of our team and I found myself the chosen friend of a tiny, shy girl named Roberta. Roberta and I played chase for the longest amount of time. She was Oana's daughter and the cutest little thing I'd ever seen. At first she wouldn't let me pick her up but by the end of a solid half-our of tag, she was nestled quietly in my arms. We walked to the window and Roberta began to point outside and whisper in Romania about what she saw and what she wanted to do. It was the sweetest thing: the tiny whispers and the fact that she spoke in Romanian made me feel as if I was holding a fragile little butterfly in my arms and she was telling me things I'd like to know. We soon followed the others outside in "The Secret Garden" and my fearless little Roberta was whispering to the pet dog and pelting down the rickety slide, sliding recklessly on her belly into my arms. By the time we left, we had gotten rather attached and there were actual tears in Roberta's eyes as I set her down for the last time and waved goodbye. I couldn't help but feel glad that she was one of the children who had a steady, dependable parent. <3 I never got a photo of her but Mrs. Edmonston did manage to get a bit of a video and you can see a glimpse of my dear little Romanian butterfly:

Visiting The Children's Home

//Makeshift S'mores//

You will have heard of Stefana, our friend from last year. Stefi is one of the sweetest, most transparent young women I have had the delight to meet, and we only grew closer this trip. Leaving her was like leaving one of our best friends here in the states. I am so blessed by her testimony, her spirit, and her friendship. We spent several nights at Betel hanging out with friends local to Arad, and on the last night, I'd cracked open the bag of marshamallows I'd brought. Several sources had told me that they don't have marshmallows in Romania ... this is sort of a falsehood, for they do sell them. But they don't taste the same, they're expensive, and they are certainly NOT Jet-Puffed or whatever that good brand is called. ;)

Stefana has a sweet-tooth the size of Russia and was super excited when I brought out the marshmallows. She laughed and told us that she had tasted a marshmallow before but had never toasted them, though she'd seen it on movies. Then I had an idea: there was a kitchen in the church. Certainly we could roast marshmallows over the gas stove? We hurried into the kitchen, flipped the light-switch, and toyed with the knobs on the gas stove. Unfortunately, the gas had been turned off for the night and we didn't know Romanian stoves well enough to bother trying to get it back on. That was almost the end of our marshmallow roasting adventure, but at the last moment Alaina and I searched for a candle, found a tealight and some tiny matches, and lit a little blaze (not before I'd coughed and blown it out once, blown it out with one match, and otherwise foiled the candle several times). I speared a marshmallow on a fork and showed Stefi how to roast a marshmallow. It caught fire and she squealed but we blew it out and continued. It's rather tricky to toast these things over a tealight blaze! :D When the marshmallow was suitably gooey, I handed the fork to Stefana and watched her experience a toasty marshmallow for the first time in her life. She adored it and we laughed over the absurdity of our positions at eleven-thirty PM, crouched in a dark kitchen in Romania toasting marshmallows over a tealight. Stefana roasted her own (and possibly a third) and we let some of the gypsy women who live with friends of ours try one. (They said it was too sweet.) In the end, I gave Stefana the last half of the marshmallow bag and her eyes lit up with girlish excitement. She told us that she was going home to her husband in a few days and that she'd save them so they could have a date of toasting marshmallows over a candle. My work there was done.

//Give the Lady a Camera//

The trouble with travelling with a group of people you like a lot is that you always want a group photograph in nearly every spot and there really isn't one particular team member you'd like to cut out of the picture and force to snap the photo. At one particularly Alpine meadow spot, we pulled our little caravan over and arranged ourselves for a picture. We were about to send Sabine (red shirt, far left) to take the photo since he wasn't one of the Zaharias or the Americans, but then someone noticed a little old lady selling cheese at a stand. She saw our predicament and offered eagerly to take the picture. Amy (with the lingual aid of Pastor John) taught her how to work the camera and the little old lady cracked us up by arranging us, telling us to smile, and taking the picture. Amy went forward to view the product and, struck by the funny little scene, I whipped out my tablet and took a photo of the pair. 

This lady is sharp. She started jabbering about something and pointing and Pastor John said, "She see your iPad. Want to take a picture." I handed her my tablet, taught her how to use it (she was grinning ear-splittingly the whole time) and hurried back to the group. She took one photo and I helped her check it out. Not satisfied, our new friend demanded I show her how to take another and she went for Round Two. We thanked her, said goodbye, and packed back into the cars, but I'm certain I will never forget the little old lady selling her cascaval. <3

"An odd collection of various depressions"

"We continued driving with little change in the landscape till, out of nowhere, a mass of prison-like, concrete apartments appeared. We meandered through this odd collection of various depressions till we came to a large, clean white church. We were greeted by a sweet older woman named Mama Veta and ushered up a villainous staircase to a Sunday school room, where we changed into less-wrinkled clothing."

- travel journal

The hospitality of American Southerners is legendary ... among Americans. I have been greeted many times by generous hosts in the American South and I have given back some of that hospitality. But the thing about many hosts in the American South (stereotyping here, I know) is that the sacrifice we make to be hospitable is mostly mental. Sometimes we sacrifice our schedule to make way for incoming guests or maybe we'll even sacrifice a room in our house so a family will be comfortable in our home. But when do we ever really give to the point of discomfort? In Romania, we were hosted more royally than almost anything I've ever experienced here, by people who had so much less than the average Southern Family. It happened several times, this remarkable gift of hospitality, but one occasion in particular struck me as the epitome of what I mean:

There is a little town in Romania called Motru. Motru is little more than a big cluster of apartment buildings built by the communists some 50 years ago. It was strange, entering this same-city. Same building on every corner, same yellow benches out front, same sounds on every street, same people on every sidewalk. It was weird ... everything was literally identical to everything else: a socialistic community of colors. Yellow, grey, white. Even the church was big, square, plain.

But souls are colors. Did you know that? That white church, by the time it was filled with people, was as beautiful as a humming-thrumming rainbow. At the end of the service, we were packed back into the cars and carted off somewhere strange ...

... an auto-body paint shop.

A tan, blue-eyed man in an oil-stained shirt came out to greet our caravan. That shirt made me feel right at home; he looked like my dad. He spoke to Cristi and ushered us into the paint shop which, rather than being full of cars waiting to be worked on and smelling of gasoline, was spotlessly clean with that look about it that I know well: the look of having just been swept within an inch of its life. We came to the full interior of the shop and I literally almost teared up because in the main room of the place was a long long makeshift table set with several sets of china and real silverware, bottles of soda and bowls of bread. The amount of work that would go into washing up after us was a feat unto itself, the amount of work that had already gone into preparing a place for us, equally vast.

After a few moments, our new host led us into the back yard which was a sort of small farm. On one side, the extended family of this man (church members who had run home quickly to change) were barbecuing meat and other members socialized across the language barrier with us. Our host, the farmer, showed us his eighteen piglets with pride and discussed hen-manship with Pastor John. In a bit, we were called into the shop where we blessed and ate one of the best meals of the entire trip. Barbecued chicken breast, pork, and mici, golden mashed potatoes, cabbage salad, wonderful chicken soup and bread, with homemade eclairs and poppy-seed bread for dessert. This family stood and served us while we ate and the farmer spent his dinner hour chasing rogue kittens away from his guests with a determination and embarrassment that made me laugh. Cristi told us that this family lived in the little (perhaps 3-room) apartment above the shop where they had prepared all of this for a group of Americans they had never met and might never meet again. Later, we were taken to spend the night at an apartment belonging to some of the extended family members. The family had vacated it (whether just for our benefit or for a trip, we didn't understand) and were welcomed into this fully-furnished, comfortable home with beds prepared expressly for our use.

 Motru is in one of the poorest districts in Romania and this family put on a feast for us. As far as common sense goes, this family couldn't afford to feed us like this. As far as common sense goes, this family had no room to host us. As far as common sense goes, this family was lacking any common sense whatsoever. But you know what? Real hospitality doesn't stop at common sense. Real hospitality considers others better than yourself and gives and gives and gives out of hearts full of love.

I will always remember the kindly farmer and his family as some of the most generous people I have met. I will remember the lessons learned: that a cement-bound, Communist-birthed town can harbor some of the most genuine examples of a stranger's love ever shown. So dear people of Motru, thank you for your love and your hospitality, and the fact that you treated us like visiting royalty when you could easily have begged off on a laundry-list of excuses. You've challenged my idea of the lengths you can go to show love to a complete stranger. My house and my family can give so much more as you so graciously showed. Thank you, and I pray we'll meet again. <3

Adventura 2 {Romania}

Romania.

Wow.

It is always hard to know how much to say, how much to leave unsaid, how much my friends and family want to know and how much had rather stay in my travel journal to be remembered only by those of us who went on the trip.

I want, first of all, to thank those of you who contributed financially to the trip as well as everyone who prayed for us. We felt the effects of your prayers in a beautiful way and several things came through that made me realize just how important your prayers for us and our ministry were.

The main question I got on the trip as well as coming home, was how it compared to last year. Was it more fun? Less fun? More enjoyable? Less enjoyable? For me, that's a super hard question to answer. Last year was the first time I had ever left the country, my first time working with a translator, my first time meeting all the friends I found so hard to leave. Emotions ran high and I experienced some of the greatest and hardest and most wonderful things I've ever gone through as an adult during and after those two weeks. This year, I was returning to a place familiar to me, and if you've never known the sensation of reaching a foreign country and being home, you'll not understand the wonder in it. This year, I returned to friends, not strangers, and the relationships therefore were deeper and far more wonderful than I had even hoped.

Cristi's wife Alina? We adored her and she (thank heaven) liked us rather a lot too. We were thrilled when we heard that she had taken a week off of work to be able to travel with us around the country. Alina is equal parts sweet, sassy, and smart; she proved an invaluable asset to those of us trying to learn Romanian and we in turn helped her perfect her already wonderful English. Language lessons while road-tripping: so much fun.

The first week was spent in visiting churches with testimonies and music. The second week we spent road-tripping across Romania, seeing all the places near to our hosts' hearts. Romania is the third most beautiful country in Europe, right behind Switzerland and Austria. We saw view after view that appeared photoshopped and even though I had only my tablet camera with which to capture the beauty, it was undeniable.

Among the many beautiful places through which we passed, we were able to take a cruise on the Danube River and practically touch Serbia. In the photo below, Serbia is on the left, Romania on the right, and we had to be sure to stay in our half of the river. Cristi says it counts and that we should be able to claim having set foot in Serbia. No matter whether we have bragging rights in that respect, the views were absolutely gorgeous as we zoomed down the river with granite cliffs on either side.

I caught a cough from the hot springs at Baile Herculane. They were hot springs which have been in use since the ancient Romans and we stayed in a cabin up on the beautiful mountains. We chose to walk down to the little family-run outdoor bistro that night: a 7 kilometre (around 5 miles) round trip, so we were good and hungry by the time we came back. Thankfully, we had snacks. The cabins were the perfect size for "Shorty":

Not too fabulous for Oliver (or "Watermelon Boy" as he came to be called):

The Lord gave us such a great team this year just like last year and prepared each person for the work required of them during our trip. One example of His grace was Elissa's willingness to take her mother's "herbal pharmacy" along, even though she doubted she'd need any of the things. Well, Elissa didn't need them, but I came down with a cough and sore throat and Alaina got the same thing plus a fever and headache. If it wasn't for Elissa's pharmacy, I doubt we'd be feeling half as well as we were by the day we left. I so much enjoyed getting to know Oliver and Stephanie as the two people who were "new" to my closer circles of friends.

Their fun-loving personalities, ping-pong prowess, testimonies, and high spirits endeared them to me and they soon became integral parts of the machine that was the 2014 Missions Team. I hope we'll be able to continue these awesome and new relationships even though Stephanie (AHEM) is moving off to Texas for her summer internship after graduating Liberty U with A's. <3

Over and over, God put us right where we needed to be. Sometimes it felt that we were doing nothing but singing and telling easy-to-tell testimonies in the churches. Surely there was something more we should be doing? But Cristi told us that in Romania, this sort of ministry is needed terribly and already he had received phone calls from members of the various churches telling him how much the body of Christ was blessed in that village by our hour and a half in the church. In our very weaknesses, He is strong. After the first couple of nights, Cristi urged us not to use notes but to pray before we stood up that God would give us the words we ought to speak. The night I began to heed this advice was one of the finest nights of the trip. We can never prepare enough compared to asking God for His words. 

There were stresses (Cristi and Pastor John had a pretty crummy two weeks with family in the hospital, church members dying, weddings and funerals to conduct, etc.) and there were blessings. God worked some in the ways we'd hoped and some in ways that were completely unexpected and delightful. We had adventure upon adventure and I wrote more pages in this year's travel journal than I had last time. I visited two real live castles, darlings! I will obviously tell more about the trip in detail in subsequent posts but I wanted to give you a brief over-view for now and to let you know that our time was blessed and your thoughts and prayers were cherished.

I have so many stories to tell and pictures to share and things to laugh over with you so please stay tuned to this blog! I'll be posting Romania posts for the next while with Plenilune makeup posts scattered through, so keep a weather eye out! For now, drum bun! (droom boon) This expression means "good road" and is basically a sort of "bon boyage and have a safe journey" saying. Till next time, darlings!

Matthew gets credit for this photo. ;)

Travel Fashion: My Minimalist Wardrobe

Hi. Yes, that's my "I leave the country in ten days!!!!" face. It's part trepidation and part a hunky load of excitement. I am sorry I haven't been blogging recently! My new job as Mary Poppins has been going wonderfully well, but I'm learning that all those people who complained that work left little time in which to blog were 100% correct. My days off are filled with the pressing business attending my days on and I'm still learning how to juggle it all. It's fun though. The girls and I get along so well, and their parents are fabulosity itself. But I decided to drop the news that I'm leaving the country again for a 17-day missions trip to Romania with a huge fat post full of the topic about which I've been dropping broad hints. This topic? 

A "minimalist" travel wardrobe

 In Romania last year, I packed far too many clothes. I was still under the 50 lb. limit for the checked bag, but along with that bag, I was toting my huge Baccini and Thomas (Barrow), my utterly confused carry-on suitcase. Somehow I made my way through two weeks of lugging around far too much luggage. This year when I knew I would be going back, I wanted to take far less. It's going to be summer so I wouldn't need gobs of clothing. We will be traveling in the mountains, but the most I will need in Romania in May would be a light jacket and jeans. With this in mind, I started thinking about packing. Pinterest can be a huge time-waster, I know. But far oftener than not, I find it a beautiful cause of inspiration. Sometime in the fall, I came across the idea of minimalist packing and I was hooked. This pin is the inspiration for my insanity:

8 items of clothing to make 22 outfits? Seriously? Could that even work? The closer I scrutinized the system, the more I thought it looked like something I wanted to do. When I heard that we will be traveling within the country with limited luggage space, I was decided. I looked at some of the items and colors I already had in my closet and settled on a palette of coral, cream, navy and sage:

Because I felt crafty that night, I made a cute little thingamajig to help me shop. It was more fun than it was useful, but it made the whole thing feel legitimate, which was lovely. Haha. I am a sucker for lists, doodles, and artistic bents on tasks. By God's provision through my job, I was actually able to shop for quite a few things; Shrinkage has been going well which means that I have lost weight and instead of being an 18, I'm a pretty solid 14 (and I got one skirt and some shorts that were 12s!). Most of my summer clothes from last year are way too big, so I needed new stuff. I shopped sales and thrift-stores, bought a couple of full-price (but still reasonable) things, and put together my wardrobe for Romania.

My minimalist travel wardrobe consists of:

• 2 maxi skirts
• 1 pair of cargo capris
• 1 pair of  dark-wash jeans
• 4 blouses
• 2 pull-over/shrug things
• 1 scarf
• 1 belt
• 2 camis
• 1 pair of sandals
• 1 pair each flip-flops and walking shoes (not pictured)

Plus, your average set of pajamas, underclothes, and a light-weight jacket. As a list, it looks like a lot, but in practice, as you shall see, it's fabulously tiny. Could I really make that many outfits out of these items? Yes, I can. I had assumed I'd be able to make enough to carry me through the seventeen-day trip with only a couple repeats, but I hadn't tried making outfits till today. Apparently this whole "Choose colors that coordinate infinitely" thing works pretty darn well. Observe:

My four tops and four bottoms

My "accessories": navy shrug, cream-lace shrug, belt, scarf

All of it (sans camis and shoes) laid out on the floor

 This? Really? All of this could carry me through the entire trip? I was loving the size of this pile--so dinky!--but would it really serve me for both church outfits and casual travel/hanging-out clothes? I started working outfits. Wouldn't they at least start looking identical? I can't even wear jewelry while in the Romanian churches, so how would I shake up the looks? See for yourself: (and while you're at it, pardon the sometimes-foggy mirror-selfies. It's harder than it looks. XD)

No. 1

I started casual, with my jeans.

No. 2

These are the most comfortable sandals! Got them from Payless and though I paid $24, they are worth it.

 No. 3

 No. 4

Switched to sage cargo-capris after 3 options ...

 No. 5

We get tired of making the same faces, preciousss

 No. 6

Switched to my striped navy maxi skirt ... 

No. 7

Love this sage Henley I found at the Salvation Army for $1.50!

 No. 8

 No. 9

This anchor-top is my favorite ever! Bought it on clearance at Belk for $10 (had been $37)

 No. 10

Switched to my blush maxi skirt.

 No. 11

Funny face and hair-shot. I don't think I've showed my new glasses or haircut here, so voila! I love both. ^.^

 No. 12

A dozen outfits, and I am nowhere near to having made all the combinations I could think of! (I just got tired of posing and taking clothes on and off! ;) Packing a minimal amount of clothing (eight main items, four accessories) takes a load off your mind when preparing for a trip.

This stack? Yeah, it includes pajamas (sweatpants and two t-shirts), the camis, and a slip. The only thing missing is my jacket and undergarments. And you do realize I will be wearing some of this to the airport? So the packed stack will be even shorter.

I am in love with packing this way, though I know that I had a little leeway because I was able to purchase some items I needed to pull it off this well. I know that whatever I bring will match with whatever else I bring so I could quite literally pull any top and any bottom out of my bag and wear it with pride. I am so glad I ran across this tactic on Pinterest, and that my friend, Jill, had led me toward something like this too. Not only will I have enough variety for my trip, but I'll also have a couple dozen styles to mix and match all summer long. Thanks to travel bloggers everywhere who gave me inspiration to try mini-luggage, I shan't have any trouble fitting my bags on a plane, a car, or a train at any point in the journey. <3