No Donkey Heads Here.

During one of our last weeks in China, I glanced out of a bus window and saw a freshly cut donkey head on the back of a cart.  I knew I had been in China for a while then because the head brought no response from me except the notice that there was a donkey head on the back of a cart.  It interesting how the extraordinary becomes kind of ordinary after a while.

So no donkey carts here.  Just lots of rain and an early setting sun. I have a new job as an ELL para-educator at a high needs elementary school.  It's a very different kind of job for me but I like it.  I basically go to six different classrooms during the day and work with students who need literacy help.  They are not English Language Learners in the newcomer sense of the word.  Most  students were born in the US but are from families where another language is spoken at home.  My job is to work in small groups to help increase their reading comprehension and writing skills.   It's a fast paced job and pretty tiring.  But at 3:30, I walk out the door and am finished for the day.  That's a good thing.

In  other news, I made yogurt  in my slow cooker the other day. Not as exciting as a donkey head but totally something I would have done in China.  I made it from whole organic milk, plain yogurt and some milk powder.  It's thin but not liquid.  I put it on my oatmeal this morning and it was great.  It's cheaper than containers but not by much.  Honestly, it's just the kind of thing I like to do and feeds my creative spirit.  Here are the instructions.Crockpot yogurt  You can add fruit at the end but it makes it thinner- more like kefir. Make sure your milk isn't ultra-pasteurized.  I added a cup of milk powder and I think it made a difference in the thickness.

I also made cloth napkins.  We have cloth napkins that we use all the time.  I got a dozen beautiful linen napkins at Goodwill for $1.99.  For some reason I saved this fabric when we left Missouri for China.  I just cut them up and turned under a small hem that I zigzagged.  I read some instructions that said to make mitered corners.  Honestly, I just can't be bothered!  

This short speech was recommended to me and I highly recommend it to you. This is Water  It's a graduation speech given by David Foster Wallace about how to view the dailiness of life.  It's very simple and very profound.  Take a few minutes to listen with your heart and spirit.