Sharing

Because of this tragedy, we are on a daily load share for electricity. This means that everyday, at anytime (other than our regular load share time), our power could go out. The idea is to make sure that it is cut during a high peek time in order to conserve as much as possible. This means that no matter what activity we are engaged in the power could just blank out and we then have to find something else constructive to do for two hours that doesn't require electricity. Necessity is the mother of invention.

So, if my postings lately seem sporadic, this is why.

As a side note, I read in the newspaper that many people are starving as a result of this flood. This is on top of the many people already starving in this country. On the following page it had an article that a truck from India was stopped at the border (where the flood happened) and 20,000 eggs were destroyed because they were not eggs from 'local chickens'.

Willing to share electricity but NOT foreign eggs...

Smocking Part I

Even though I am living a pretty exotic life overseas, there are the times when I want to feel domestic and western. If I could, I would live a dual life, one where I am living in a cottage home, on the east coast, close to the ocean and lots of trees. I would bake cute cupcakes for my kids and duplicate all of the Pottery Barn catalogues. The other life would be the one I am living now. I wouldn't change a thing. I suppose this is the burden one must have for having too many passions.

Speaking of passions, I have revisited one of mine since our things have arrived, smocking. I have been smocking ever since my oldest was a toddler and the many babies in my life have kept me busy ever since. It has been the perfect hobby for me as a busy mom and I could take it anywhere and do it anytime.

My girlfriend from Delaware, Shelly, and I had a love for sewing. Her talent greatly exceeded mine, but I was determined to revive my teenage pastime of sewing so we could blow off some of our 'stay at home mom' steam. While we were at the JoAnn fabric store perusing the many pattern books we came across one of the Vogue smocking patterns. For a brief moment, I believe time stopped. We sat there in awe, barely saying a word. Wow, how do people do that? It is beautiful.

My interest would have probably stopped there, passing it off as a 'too difficult' art. Plus, don't you have to be over 70 to do that? However, my friend was undaunted. She made a few phone calls that week and found a place where they would teach us. I was thrilled to enroll in the class and the amazing woman, Sonja, who taught us had all the confidence in the world that we could master the art. Every week, Shelly and I would meet at each other's house and smock. The world could have fallen apart around us (and it did many-a-times with 5 kids under 4 reeking continual havoc), but we found a la, la land that we couldn't escape. It was pure bliss. We talked about everything under the sun and solved all the worlds problems. Who knew smocking would produce such wonder? It was our therapy and I craved it every single week.

I am forever grateful to my friend, Shelly and my teacher, Sonja. For without them, my daughter would not have the heirlooms I have made over the years. Oh, and professional counselling would have cost a bundle!

Here are some sample projects:

Payton - My first bishop dress

Sunflower on the Mary De, made of navy corduroy with the Delaware fall leaves

Scarecrows on the Mary De

Anne pattern, made up design

China Girl

Hula Bears (my own dress pattern)

Sailor Girl

A dress I made while visiting my parents in South Africa.

A Christmas bishop made on raw silk

Polar Persuasion on blue corduroy. Pattern: Mary De

Leap'n Lizards. On adapted Lily pattern.

I have probably 50 more dresses to showcase, so I will revisit this subject again. In fact, I have two projects in the works. Maybe the pressure of the blog will help me get them done. Now if I could just stop my kids from growing, I could actually get more use out of these dresses!

Our Shangri-La

Here are a few shots of our home in Nepal. Axel and the kids have a hard time going to work and school. Who wants to leave where there are so many fun things to do? We really have made our home a sanctuary.

Whenever we exit the gate of our home I am reminded of the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. As soon as you pass the threshold, you are waking into the world of Narnia. Except no White Witch or Aslan (although he could come in handy to scare off some of the stray dogs here) .

Our garage where Axel keeps most of his tools

Asian Garden Part I & II

The pathway to our staff house where our gardener and one of our guards live.

Tibetan prayer flags

The back view of our home. Our trampoline we brought from Dubai and our soccer field.

As featured yesterday, this is to the side of the house.

Walking up the stairs from our kid's playhouse

Front view

This is taken from our roof. This is the second plot of land we have for our garden. You can't really see the garden, as it is just behind the wall.

So, this is how we live, Nepali style.

Zen Garden III - Bromley Kid Retreat

This is Axel again. Remember this space? I had it ear-marked for a Zen rock garden. Complete with Japanese white rounded stones that would be raked into perfect patterns.

Well, I had to give it up. The thing about Nepal is there are NO playgrounds. There is no place for the kids to go have fun playing and if I did a rock garden here it would just be one more place I didn't want them to mess up.

So I bought some bamboo and wood and talked to my head guard about what I wanted to build. Being a guard is mostly boring. So having an opportunity to build stuff really makes this guy happy.

So I had an idea just to make two quasi houses and we began to build this:

The kids already started playing on it.

It looks like I am working hard on it doesn't it? Truthfully I am not. I am getting ready to go to work. You can see behind me they already cut the bamboo into walls and kind of took over my initial design.

Again, here I am looking like I am working hard. Good picture (except for the huge rear end), not really what happened. These guys know how to work bamboo. Where to cut it, how to join it, how to make it smooth. They are masters at building stuff out of it, and it is so cheap you can really go crazy on buying it.

Here it is finished in a week. We are laying small crushed stone for the fire pit part and sand for the play area.

The back house has two rooms separated by bamboo slat walls. It has a metal top to keep the rain out.

Laying sand. Dona being very helpful. The head guard is in the blue and my driver is in the white.

Dona playing on it. Notice that the bamboo has been scraped smooth so no slivers. ALL the pieces were done like this.

Monkey bars. This is the 'pirate' side. Terah is going to make a skull and cross bones flag .

Notice the little ladder (in bottom left on the pirate part) going from one level to another. This is the kind of stuff they make without even thinking about it.

It has monkey bars on one side going to the other and a bamboo bridge to play Indian Jones II. Remember the part he made them all fall into the crocodiles?

Let the games begin. I am getting old. I used to only do this stuff myself. If I couldn't do it, it wouldn't get done. Now I am happy to have my guys tell me what materials they need in the morning, I give my driver the money and he goes and gets it for them.

In the end we passed some cash out to all four of them who did it. Total cost for four guys doing one week's work on it: $80. Which was a lot for them. When we leave it will be donated to an orphanage.