A Little Growth.

Try not to be disappointed that the following picture is not beautiful flowers ... I got some great pictures on the way home from church today, but instead I decided to showcase something else that is growing around here.

Say hello to my thriving little lettuce garden.

The leaves seem a little yellower than expected and of course, M and I have no idea what might be missing in our soil to cause this. All three varieties are doing well - the one on the left seems to be doing the best. We have thinned each bag once and they are up for another round of survival of the fittest today. Home-grown lettuce will be gracing our table soon!

These Boots.

I am keenly aware that I have a bit of a fascination with shoes. There is evidence of such in earlier posts. Shoes here are awesome and I have been exercising every ounce of self-control a girl can muster not to buy every gorgeous pair I see. Boots are beginning to disappear (I took this picture a couple of weeks ago), only to be replaced with an even larger variety of sandals and summer heels ... I am not sure how long my willpower can hold out against such wonderfulness! Plus, wearing the same three pair of shoes for the past three months is getting a little old - sounds like a good time to get some new ones. Haha.

Green Is Not My Colour.

In terms of wearing clothing that is green, I do alright. It always makes my eyes turn super green and I feel a little closer to my historical heritage with black hair and green eyes. Green is a good colour … it is a colour of beauty, growth and life.

Unfortunately, that is not the green I am speaking of. I am thinking more along the lines of green with envy. I do not have green-eyed monster syndrome which refers to an individual whose current actions appear to be motivated by envy.

I am not interested in acting green – I just have moments of feeling green.

You see, my friends have arrived in Scotland. They have a lovely cottage for a home, with a view that is unsurpassed in my mind. Green lands met by the shining blue of the sea, wooden fences surrounding front and back gardens filled with growing flowers and food, sheep mindlessly wandering the fields … all this greets them in the morning and wishes them restful slumber each night. They are being taught a language, not to live but to point to the Giver of Life. They will participate in the activities I dreamed of doing, meet the people I dreamed of meeting; they will have wonderful teammates to support and encourage them from a distance. They are where I sometimes still wish to be.

I know that the above scene is not without its own difficulties. I know that I too have a view incomparable to anything I have known – hundreds of thousands of lives in my face each morning with a need for something greater than themselves; their voices chasing me as I fall asleep in the darkness of night. My view comes with an overwhelming wonder of where to start and how to even make a difference. All of this has come from an especially hard week, I have been faced with extreme lack of direction or planned purpose for quite some time. It has finally worn me down.

I only keep telling myself, I came because I listened. I will stay because I am listening. When I start to feel green … I need to choose to be the green reflected in the beauty of my Father and my own growth in Him.

Again With The Flowers.

Sunday seems to be the day for flower pictures. Its not my fault that the walk to church is littered (literally) with different kinds of flowers, blooming at different times. I figure I need to document as much of spring as I can - proof to myself next winter - that spring does indeed come!

I Break For English.

Last night, my mate M and I decided that we wanted to do something normal; something that we would do in America. We needed a break from the constant flow of Russian, from our unpredictable daily schedule and from our cable-less lives (yes, we only get Russian and Ukrainian television stations). So M searched out the two cinemas in Kyiv that show original language films to see what was playing in English and we agreed that seeing Slumdog Millionaire would be the best choice for a night off.

We arrived at Kinopanorama early … because we thought we needed to be early to get a ticket. There are a lot of people in Kyiv who would be interested in watching an English film – in English, right?! Not so much. After the woman at the ticket counter finished taking her break, we purchased out tickets. Movie tickets here are purchased based the on seat choice and row 12 seats 14 and 15 cost us 40 rph (about $5) each.

I do not know how many of you have seen this movie … but the first half of the movie is all in Hindi; which would be cool … if we were in America where the subtitles are in English! Who would guess that the subtitles for movies in Ukraine are in Ukrainian? Seriously. It is a really good thing that I am well versed in the art of watching situations and determining what is going on because that is how I managed to keep up with the first half. The second half of the movie is a mix of English and Hindi – still with Ukrainian subtitles. I enjoyed the second half! Haha. So much for letting my brain go on auto-pilot for a few hours at an English language movie.

Either way, I had a good time hanging out with M and going to the movies. The next time we go to the cinema to see an English movie – we will look for one where the actors actually speak English and expect the subtitles to be in Ukrainian. Until then, it is off the Russian cinema for us.

Routine.

Life has been pretty quite as of late. Slow in terms of things to get done and routine in terms of getting a few things done around the house. A couple of nights ago whilst I was cooking dinner, I happened to look out the kitchen window and had to laugh out loud when I saw this car down on the street.

Thought you might get a little chuckle out of the watermelon car also.

Growing Already?!

I suppose it is a good thing that M and I can read Russian ... our 15 days for germination on the lettuce turned into 5! I was cleaning up my room this morning and peaked at the baggies in the window and to my surprise this is what I saw:

I yelled for M to "come quick and look!" It is kind of exciting to know that our lettuce is growing - and growing faster than we expected. Soon we will have wonderful, green leafy lettuce to eat.