La Cumpleañera

Wednesday, I turned 24. Yes, I am a viejita now. hahaha! I got a laptop the day before my b-day, so I've had fun playing with that (no, no. I paid for it myself). So for my birthday, I went to Mongolian Grill, my official favorite restaurant, with the Lanes, Pages, and my parents (AKA sets of parents 1-3). I ate a lot, all for FREE! Earlier in that day, I got balloons and a flower at work, it was funny to pin a really nice flower onto my work t-shirt! ha!

I will not be at work from now until next wednesday, I am treating myself to a 4-day "mental health weekend" - time to relax, or at least to get stuff done that needs to be done.

I talked to Apryl today for HER birthday (we talked on my bday for that matter), and she is coming "home," here, in a month for when her new niece is born. Yay!


. Me and Apryl at her wedding last May

RELAJO. I just like that word.

This weekend was quite interesting. The "Bite of Missions" went off pretty well, I think people liked my pupusas with chimol. The missionary speaker guy was from Argentina, and I could actually understand his spanish quite well. I don't think that many people knew that I can speak spanish conversationally, they were surprised to hear us talking.

Anyhow, I had a "gran relajo" en my kitchen to clean up when I got home - pupusas took longer than I'd thought, so I didn't clean up until later, later being like 9pm when I realized that I had only sat down for about 45 minutes so far at that point - working from 5:30 to 1, then making enough food from scratch to feed an army and finish decorating my booth, it gets tireing! So yesterday I slept a lot. And read a lot. And I didn't do my Bible Study for tonight (NONE of it!) so I should be doing that now. I think this week might be less busy than last week. That will be good. I feel like I have a lot to do, and people keep giving me books. That's a bad thing becuase I will just sit and read them all afternoon, and I'm such a slow reader, and even slower when they're in spanish! Well, I will go outside for a walk, it's like 60 degrees (17) and that's a heat wave for this time of year here, so I should enjoy it! And then do my Bible study!

2 more days 'till my birthday!

Vuelva a la Cultura Catracha

This is me today - standing in the kitchen making pupusas and chimol, and listening to d.c. reto. A blind person might think I'm catracha. You know, pupusas seems to be quite a common topic in this blog! Anyhow, the reason I'm making them today is because at church tonight we are havine "Bite of Missions" for Faith Promise weekend. There are 7 countries represented, and I am doing the Honduras booth. I would've done a Mexico booth, except that I don't know how to make authentic Mexican food, and I don't have many Mexican decorations. I actually had to scramble around last night for enough Honduran stuff to decorate my booth - lots of it is really from Guatemala. I provided the decorations for the Brasil booth too, which is actually kind of funny. They are serving espresso at that booth (so it's a southern Brasilian city theme) but most of my decorations are from tribes! Ha! The other booths are Hawaii, France, Italy, Romania, and India.


This is at Fran's birthday party in 2003. This is one of the pictures I put on my HOnduras booth to depict a Honduran home.


This is one of my favorite pictures from Brasil - me, Joann, Ruth, and Rachel canoeing in the Amazon Jungle.

It's my birthday this week, on Wednesday. I'll be 24, a real viejita! Haha!

Rip City

Bust a bucket, bust, bust a bucket!
Blazers are in the house!
Drexler is in the house!
Blazer fans are in the house!
Hey, what about 'dem Laker fans?!
No way! They're still out on the porch!

Here's to all the children of the '8o's who grew up listening to that wonderful red & black cassete tape trying to immitate Jerome Kersey's "bust a bucket, bounce a pass" rap!

I went to the Blazers/Kings game on Saturday night, and I must say I was rather pleased - Portland was never behind the entire game! How often does that happen?! Bingo bango bongo baby!

Jessica's Sports Favorites:

NBA - Portland Trailblazers
NFL - San Francisco 49ers (although some loyalty is switching to the Seattle Seahawks!)
NCAA football - Oregon State Beavers!!
Baseball - Seattle Mariners
Mexican League Soccer - Guadalajara Chivas
Honduran League Soccer - Olimpia (a Tegucigalpa team)
Brasilian League Soccer - Flamengo
Spanish League Soccer - Real Madrid
World Soccer - Brasil! (yeah, I know, I may have some problems in 2006 living in Mexico!)

Las Pupusas Usuluteñas y el Jurado

I ate pupusas today, and no, I did not make them myself!! There is now a salvadoran restaurant in Salem, and I ate pupusas estilo guanaca today! And they were gigantic! It was interesting to be brought back to eating salvadoran pupusas instead of honduran pupusas - the salvadoran ones are less flavorful, as they lack the tasty chimol (salsa type stuff), but awesome none the less! So I had pupusas with cabbage, red beans, and steamed yellow rice! It was definitely the highlight of my day!

Of course, I didn't take much to have a highlight of my day today outside the jury room. I got called to jury, and kept hoping that there would be a loophole that I could slip through to get out of it, but there wasn't. I think stubborness in stubborn people comes out to the full extent during jury duty. There were two people on the jury who, first off, would NOT shut up, and second, they kept giving these crap suggestions as to why the defendant was not guilty. It was a really lame case, and obviously the defendant was guilty, but these two would not see that! I'm SOOOOOOO glad that Oregon, or at least Marion County, doesn't require a unanimous jury response, we would be there for the next year. So that was my exciting day today - sitting in the courthouse, eating pupusas, and wishing that I could yell at and beat some sense into two obsitnate jurors. Aren't I nice? It's all behind me now, and next time I get called for jury duty, I won't come unless Marion County (will I even still be a resident?) flies me in from Mexico on their dime. So basically, this was a one-time experience. Yay!

Un Dia Bien Lindo

Today was nice. Work was good - someone called in sick and I didn't have to stay extra. I had a yummy lunch. I found out that there is a Salvadoran restaurant in Salem. I had people over to the house to talk about me going to Mexico.

Yes, now and then, God drops me little hints that I really am supposed to be doing the whole support-raising thing, that I really will go to Mexico someday. The people that came over tonight were really encouraging. They said a lot of things that I really needed to hear, and left me with a book that I think will be really uplifting. I needed some encouragement in this area. It was good.

Tomorrow I get to go to Jury duty. Yes, I get to sleep in 'till 6:30, which is why I can actually stay up past 9 tonight. I hope I get out early, and can go try out the "comida guanaca" at the salvadoran place! I like good days like today!