maudy's journal

It was last Easter Sunday after service. The kids were egg hunting. We would love to stay, but we wanted to come to our friends house for another celebration. We were almost getting into our car when someone called my name. I looked behind me, it was our friend Phillip and his cute baby boy, Lucas. Apparently Lucas found an egg with my name on it. His dad told the boy to give it to me. He was sooo cute, and cuter when he said "happy Easter" with his baby voice. Aww...

Someone dyed an egg for me. I don't know who it was, and I believe that person knew I would not join the kid's egg hunting. Yet she (I believe dying egg is mostly women's business ) knew it would eventually got to me. I felt special.

So, what is it about a name that makes it so special to us? Acknowledgement, care, and love I would say.

There are a lot of things I've been worrying about lately. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I found this verse today, “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name..." -Psalm 91:14

I couldn't go back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night to relieve my bladder. Something bothered me that I had to woke hubby up. He is a light sleeper, so knew he wasn't fully asleep yet.

Me: Hun, who invented radio?
Hubby: What? Why?
Me: My mind keeps telling me that it is Macaroni while I know it's not. The name is similar to that though.
Hubby: (grunt* because I asked random question in the middle of the night) It is Mascarpone.

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". -Wikipedia

The day I officially graduated (not the ceremony date), hubby told me that he had a surprise for me and I had to find it. I looked around the house but didn't find any. I knew what kind of person he was, so I didn't expect a present wrapped in tissue papers put in a nice gift bag beautified with a curly ribbon. Finally, with his clue, I found the gift. Where? In our share folder...in the computer! We store our data in our server and have one share folder. It was electronic tickets for my favorite radio show, Prairie Home Companion. I'd always wanted to watch the show, but the show was mostly in Minnesota and when it's close to us, we couldn't afford the admission ticket. Then about several months ago, we heard that Garrison Keillor, the main star was about to retire in less than two years. Apparently hubby took note of my light wish. I was in early August when I got the surprise, and the show was just less than two weeks ago.

I love listening to Prairie Home Companion, a weekly radio show hosted by the National Public Radio. I found the show accidentally, when we were on the way about five years ago. Since then, I've been listening to it regularly. The show runs on Saturdays from 6 to 8 p.m. our time; and the rerun is on Sunday from 2-4 p.m, so I often miss it. Fortunately, the archive is available on their website a day after the show. So this show always faithfully accompanied me during my school year. I loved to listen to it while doing my design work. I love the joke, the story, the song, and the music. The show is so inspiring for me.

Finally, the day had arrived. I was too excited the days before. Our five hour drive to Murray, Kentucky was so enjoyable. It was the peak of the fall season, so watching the colorful tree was another excitement for me. We tried to come early to the show, but the crowd was much bigger than what we had expected. Knowing that the show is more than 35 years old, it's indeed a very popular show.

It was exciting to watch a live radio show with over a thousand audiences. Fifteen minutes before the show started, Garrison came out and sang some songs. Not only that, he also walked around that big stadium to engage the audiences. He even went to the balcony! His loyal fans swirled up around him, snapped pictures of him while he was doing his things, but he didn't budge since the show had time constraint.

Since our seats were very close to the stage, we could see a digital clock counting down. Garrison got back to the stage few minutes before the show was aired. Then the clock showed 00:00, the "on air" light went on, and we heard the Tishomingo Blues... and "From American Public Media...". Ahh...we were on air! It's amazing to know people all over the country were listening to the show.


The cast members were reading the scripts. It was fun to watch their expressions. The guy on white shirt was the sound effect guy. Wow, he was amazing.


Picture of Garrison Keillor and the local bluegrass band. The show was celebrating 100 years of Bil Monroe, the father of bluegrass.


Since it is a live radio show, it always needs some adjustments on the fly.


The scripts.


The end of the show, but the show continued about 15 minutes after it went off air. Hubby and I really want to watch the show again in the future. The next one hopefully will be in Saint Paul, Minnesota

Hubby's shoes has a hole as big as a short diameter of a duck egg. Yet he still doesn't feel the need of buying new ones. "They are still ok", he said.

Those brown shoes were bought in four years ago, and he has been wearing those everyday for work ever since. Couple years ago, mom spotted cracks on his formal shoes. Being my mom, she felt pity of her son-in-love, so she open her wallet and asked him to buy new ones. Her way of "ordering" him to get a new pair of shoes was funny, and we refer to that moment since then. Since she insisted, I took her offer. Back to the States, I keep pestering him to get new shoes. Knowing that he didn't think those shoes were belong to a trash can, I had to use my magic phrase, "you've promised mom".

Now another pair is proposing their retirement. I've made him promise me to get new one or I may need to buy him flower-patterned socks since the socks can clearly be seen from the rear end of the shoe.

He isn't a scrooge. He gets me whatever I need, as long as it makes sense. However, he feels that what he has is more than enough. His budget for his personal stuffs is from zero to very low, yet he is always happy to give to others.

My life would be much simpler and happier If I could easily feel content as he could.

No one cleans after our mess, so we try to make as little mess as possible. The result? We don't need to sweep and mop twice a day like what my housekeepers used to do back home. Cleaning the house is scheduled once a week unless there are special circumstances. On Saturday morning, hubby starts cleaning early in the morning. His cleaning schedule is pretty much set on Saturday since it synchronous with the NPR's Saturday medley. He then picks up vegetables from downtown while I chat with my family (that's the only common time my family and I have). After dropping off the veggies at home, he goes to the church, cleans the sanctuary and arranges the chairs while I takes care of the veggies and cook. He gets home and we have lunch, then we clean the house together and be lazy. At around five or six in the evening every two or three weeks in summer, he will go back to the church to mow the lawn. The mowing takes about three hours.

One thing we both don't like is doing laundry. Fortunately both of us do not need to wear any uniform so we can do laundry every two week or more. We didn't have laundry machine until last December. Now we know how blessed we are for having one after years of doing laundry at a public laundromat. Doing laundry is more bearable now, since I can do something else while the machine is doing its thing. Having a dryer is also really helpful, but in hot summer, we like to half dry the clothes then hang them on a rack in our sunroom. It's more sustainable that way. I fold or hang the laundry after they dry. Hubby irons his clothes if he needs to, and I iron mine usually before church.

Who would have thought hubby and I, could do those things ourselves? We both barely entered kitchen nor cleaned house before we moved out from our parents' house. The spirit of doing things ourselves leads us to pay more attention to stuffs we possess and how to handle them. To some extend, it also makes us think what we need or don't need to buy. Now we try not to buy trinkets. They trap dust for sure, hence add more cleaning jobs. Now We try to put things at their proper place to minimize extra work. We've have been building a system since our first days moving in this country. Recycling is one example. Hubby put several boxes for plastic, paper, glass, and aluminum in our laundry room so he can dump those stuffs in the proper container at the recycling center.

We enjoy our do-it-ourselves life. However, our everyday activities are not always without bumps. Sometimes I am lazy to do my part, and hubby is too. Sometimes I let the house be dirty until I gain power to clean. Sometimes hubby get mad at me and vice versa if one of us doesn't do what we are supposed to do. The bottom line is, it is not hard to live enjoyably without housekeeper. From my experience, what makes it hard to live without one is because we often center our activities around our housekeeper's help. I think we are the main doers and they are the helper. Do it ourselves. Why not? as long as we are still young and healthy. But, if you are lucky enough to have one, treat her well like how we want to be treated.