Moist, Fluffy Scones

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
1 3/4 cups Flour
2 1/2 teas. Baking Soda
3 Tables. Sugar
1/3 cup Butter-melted
1 Egg-slightly beaten
1/2 cup of desired FLAVOR-Apples/Cherries/Almonds/Chocolate Chips
1/3 cup Half and half

Blend the flour, baking soda, and sugar together. Stir in melted butter, then egg, then 'Flavor'. Add half and half, use hands to combine ingredients now.
Lightly flour the counter. Kneed the dough. Place on ungreased pan. Kneed down the dough into a circle, with clean edges. Cut into eighths. You may baste another egg on the top of it before putting in the oven, only if you choose.
Put in oven for 10-12 minutes.
Enjoy.

See the world

I want to travel the world. Pretty much that's it. I don't really want to buy anything when I go to see the world, I just want to SEE the world. I don't want to have to worry about people kidnapping me, or taking my money, or running out of money...you know all the important stuff...I don't want to have to worry about that. I just want to see the world. Everywhere I haven't been, I want to be there. Everywhere.
I've already been to some places, but it's only a few next to the grandness of the rest of the world left for me to wander and explore.
Perhaps I should come up with some sort of show, like 'Wild America' or 'Rick Steves' (except with a less annoying voice), and I could be paid to go to all these places.
I wouldn't need much, just a backpack of the essentials and a walking stick-like Gandolf's from "The Lord of the Rings". The essentials being: clothes, toothbrush, deodorant, you know the things that can make you have a friendly appearance that won't have people saying, "Eww" and throw money at you to get you to go away-though that's not a bad idea to get extra spending cash for more essentials when those get worn out or gross.
I wouldn't carry a map. I wouldn't have a time span, unless I was doing something like-SEE THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, kind of thing-you know for that show idea.
To see the world in one lifetime would be my goal. What will come of this goal well, we'll have to see.

Check list:
Mexico
Argentina
Canada
Germany
France
Luxemburg
Belgium
(picture is the delicacy of Bamboo worms in China)

China May 2009-7

Monday
Last day of clinic. Sitting here, waiting for more people. Sunny just showed James my resume for a man. He's a Winner!! Hahaha...no.
On Sunday I went into dad's room to use the computer and someone came in and ate a peanut butter sandwhich. I was sick for half of the day. My throat was swollen, eyes were red, and my stomach hurt. Around 3:30 we went to this lake where we got to go fishing. I caught a shrimp with my bare hands-cool. (I was feeling better.) Then we had dinner and headed back to the hotel.
Hum....dreaming.
People are here.
If only I could tell you the things I day-dream about.... :-)
Later Monday night
I played basketball with some local police, 3 on 3, Anna and Pastor Dave were on my team. Afterwards we went to dinner across the street. We told jokes and stories to make each other laugh. And then it was a quiet ride home for me, leading into a shower and then devos, followed by thanks to each team member. Sigh, today's clinic we had served over 200 people!! Yeah!!

China May 2009-6

Saturday, early morning before I knew the time
Yesterday was 3rd clinic day. The day where we had to sleep overnight in the village in bunkbeds with Tom and Jerry (well just Jerry) attire. But I've skipped ahead.
I woke up Friday morning with the thought that it was Thursday-wrong!!
It was a tough wake up morning. I had a tight right shoulder from playing the 'tops' with the natives and having the air conditioning on while I slept. It's okay-Cindy, Janet's mom, is the nurse and can give me a massage. (She did-plus a few others helped out!) We did devos and headed out for breakfast. We had breakfast of rice noodles again! They are so tasty.
We were off for out 2 1/2 hour drive to the village with 'little' mountains and winding roads. I sat in the back of the bus, across from Julianna and behind Cindy and Anna-behind us in the long seat was Dad, Dorothy, and James. James kept looking over my shoulder seeing what I was doing-he saw that I was doing Sudoku and has never been taught, so he asked me to teach him later.
About an hour was left by the time we stopped for a potty break at this little park-stretch our legs, try to not step in huge mudd puddles. Back on the bus.
We got to the government house-where we would be doing the clinic. We had time to stretch our legs, look around, go pee before we walked up the road through the village to lunch.
There were little chickens, hens, dogs running around at the lunch place. Ok clarify only the chix and the hens were running around-the dog lay lifeless with his tongue hanging out...in the fridge; not the whole dog-half of him.
We headed back to the government officials house to set up for clinic. We saw over 120 people in that afternoon, giving out 126 pairs of glasses. I did the reading part of the clinic again-I loved it. After the clinic we all headed back up the hill for dinner, in the rain. This meal was mostly grean looking with green leafy veggies, cucumbers, rice, a little meat and I had a coke to drink.
(not written down in journal-recall from memory)
It rained of course that night, yet the officials still wanted to play a game of basketball against the Americans. We played...so scary. I cut my lounge pants off so that they were make-shift shorts. I only had crocs to play in--not a good idea. The ground was so slippery. We played--Americans against China Government officials. Such an awesome game. Oh did I mention that I fell?! Yup, wipe out. Everyone was so nice, course they all thought I scraped/ripped/broke something...not a scratch!
(Course I was a little sore in the morning.)
So our clinic the following morning didn't have hardly as many people as the day before, so we closed up shop early and decided to head home--stopping on the way at a little park. Headed back to the hotel for a restful night and day off the next day!

China May 2009-5

5:55 p.m. Thursday
Today was a day of rest. We had a light breakfast and devos before we headed out to the tea factory. We got to see the history of tea making, we got to try some, and then we bought some. We headed for lunch-where we sat on tiny stools and I ate a chicken tail. Walk down the hill to our entertainment of the natives dancing, singing, and making us join them in various things. Everyone wanted to have their pictures taken with us. The most handsome guy of the village was single and 21-I got a picture with him.
We traveled down another hill to see the agriculture and waterbuffalos! It rained a little bit on us as we traveled back up the hill. It was refreshing!
Now I'm sitting, waiting for dinner in the same place that we had lunch.
(not written down in journal-recall from memory)
Alrighty, so the various things that the villagers made us do were: we had to 'hop' with them through these bamboo poles, spin tops with them, dance, and then we sang with them. An amazing few hours.
The waterbuffalo licked my arm, probably because it was salty. One of the villagers sat on the buffalo--it was like seeing a rodeo--that buffalo didn't like it at all!
The handsome, 21 year old, heartthrob of the village graced us with his talents of voice and guitar. Pretty amazing!
For dinner, up at the same place we had had lunch, they served us watermelon as an 'appetizer'--lots of watermelon. And then we sat down to an awesome meal that they had prepared for us. And before we were done eating a group of the villagers came around to our tables with shot glasses full of rice wine--they wanted to toast us, three times! It was an interesting flavor and toast...I didn't understand anything but Sunny was right next to me translating and Cindy was also translating from across the table. The villager was thanking us for coming on our day of rest to their village and for allowing them to make us lunch and dinner. They were so greatful that we were there and that we participated in the activities with them.
We also decided to toast...some in English others in our group did Mandarin.
After the toasts everyone agreed to sing, again, to each other. We sang them the doxology--in English-- and some other Christian songs. The officials were right there, listening to us. Amazing! The villagers sang back to us some of their tribal songs and popular ones sung in China. It was truely an awesome experience.

China May 2009-4

9:55 p.m. Wednesday
My devo's were interesting-short and sweet. We headed to clinic Day 1 after devo's, but first we grabbed a bite in a side restaruant. We had rice noodles with toppings and pork filled buns. It was very delicious and very filling.
Set up for clinic.
People were already there-waiting. Set up was a little rough but it was our first time. I was at the distribution station- which is: I read the paper and get several pairs of glasses that the person might like. It was so busy in the morning, but around 12:30 it slowed to a stop and we had lunch.
While we were still having lunch we had a line start forming. It was slow for about a half hour and then it picked up so fast. But it went by pretty fast. There was one little old lady-wearing a light blue shirt with a white thick scarf around her head-she had the funniest, most contagious laugh and smile. She pretty much made my day.

Cleaned up around 5:30 and headed to dinner-another hole in the wall. So much, yet delicious. We had devo's once we got back to the hotel. And after devo's a group of us went out to the pavilion outside our hotel to see the dance concert that had representatives of the groups of the natives. Chinese kids!

China May 2009-3

7:03 a.m. Tuesday (Shuang Jiang)
Woke up, had devos, and awesome breakfast and headed out to the market to shop for stuff! I found my supporter's gifts. Then we had a spicy lunch-mmm-except I couldn't fully enjoy it because since I had woken up my throat was swollen and I'd felt dizzy.

After lunch we headed to the airport in taxis and a van for our hour flight. That plane ride was horrible I felt sick to my stomach-Janet kept me company with her farce voice for Bobbie the Happy tea bottle (who apparently was in love with me), plus the row of Chinese boys in front of us had questions for us. Once we got into the bus for out two hour ride I took some motion sickness pills to help with my queasy-ness. The scenery was beautiful-rolling hills-thousands of crops.
Dinner was with the government officials-good stuff-I was feeling better. I saw three geckos, took some pictures, peed in a hole, and got attacked by mosquitoes.
We drove for another half hour and got to our hotel.
Unloaded all the luggage and then got out room assignments Julianna and I got settled into our rooms, and then headed to dad's room for devo's-it was Julianna's turn-and we got to sing "Seek Ye First". We went back to our rooms to sleep but I had to write my devo's for this morning.
This bed is hard. Off to sleep.