A phalanx of beef...

The below quote I found while reading a news article about official government UFO files being released to the public in France... I can't remember where it came from, so I hope I don't get accused of stealing anything... but I'm not claiming it as my own. I just thought it was one of the funniest sentences I've ever seen on a news website...

'A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a barrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the announcement was made, "to screen out uninvited UFOlogists," an official explained.'

Because I had no idea... here is phalanx defined by dictionary.com - (in ancient Greece) a group of heavily armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep, with shields joined and long spears overlapping.

Maybe I should start a 'word of the day' category. Can you use 'phalanx' in a better sentence than the one above... and do you think the beefy security guards in France had spears and shields... shields, maybe.

Interesting...

Right now at 2pm Zagreb time, it's 53 degrees in Ft Pierce, FL... and 50 in Orlando... 42 in Portland, OR... but here in Zagreb... it's 64... I love that...

It's good to know which of my friends are Macs and PCs... :) It's fascinating to me how computer preference can cause rise to such emotions and opinions. It's kind of funny, too.


Ok, I have too much to do to be playing with my blog. I just can't help being gloatful (ok, is that a word? I don't think it is...) when it's warmer here than in Florida!

Do you have a donkey bench?

Before we get to the real point of this blog, I have two quick things... first, Branimir took the pictures I posted on my last blog... he takes great pictures, and I'm thankful he sends them to me since I don't have a digital camera. Second, I got the best birthday package ever from my mom and dad today - woohoo! It was so good I'll even forgive them for sending me poison peanut butter (I always knew they liked my brother and sister better). I can't decide if I like the two big bottles of tobasco sauce or the two packages of socks or any of the many fun surprises they threw in the best... it's a toss up. I'm so excited to wear new socks tomorrow!

OK, on to the point of the blog. Before church started Sunday, Daniel and Visnja and I were talking. Daniel looked at me and asked me a question in Croatian... I apparently proceeded to give him one of my best "What the heck did you just say?" looks because he started to repeat the question in English. But I stopped him and said... "Daniel... I know every single word in that sentence you just said, but I have no idea what they mean together!" So then Daniel explained to me what he was asking, and I was able to answer the question... And we were also able to laugh about it, cause the whole conversation was just really funny. But, that's one of my biggest frustrations of the language - I know all the words but they make no sense when you put them together. I mean, think about it. If English wasn't your first language and someone came up to you and said "Wow, I'm rolling in the dough today!" wouldn't you expect to see a flour covered, kind of sticky person standing next to you??

So I leave you with Daniel's question to me - let's see if you can come up with the correct answer (and if your last name is Pedroni, or you've lived or are living in Croatia, give other people a chance to answer first!)

"So, in America, do you have donkey benches in your schools??"

Hopefully I won't offend...

Ok, so people have been asking me what the "about me" over on the side says (see comments under the "So..." post). I was talking to my friend on Skype the other night and she decided to run it through an on-line translator to see if she could figure it out. Here's what it said:

Vjerujem into a Cripple Oca omnipotent , Maker neba plus countries. PLUS into a Jesus Crystal , Synagogue his merely , Mr ours , who had lips per Duhu Holy , borned with Bezique Virgin , tortured under Poncijem Saw , schedule umro plus buried sašao over hell ; third day resurrect with neutral uzašao at an heaven , Take a seat about desnu Cripple Oca omnipotent ; thence would come think žive plus mrtve. Vjerujem into a Tobacco Sacrilege , holy general lectern , public saint , shrift sin , rising body , curriculum vitae unfading. amen

Oh my gosh... I was horrified and died laughing at the same time... What it really says overe there on the right is the Apostle's Creed in Bosnian/Croatian. Of course the above translation says I believe in "Tabacco Sacrilege" I'm not even sure what that would be, but I think it would make a great rock band name :) The "holy general lectern" is pretty funny too. And I seriously want a "Jesus Crystal"

Never trust on-line translators...

Um... no...

(Just so you know, I am NOT making any of this up... I really, really wish I was...)

So, finally, someone popped the question to me last night... It definitely wasn't the proposal of my dreams, but it did happen... One of my friends called me last night and in all seriousness, asked me to marry her boyfriend... OK, I'll backup.

I went to bed a little early. I spent the day cleaning the house (really cleaning - windows, vacuuming...) and just decided to read a little and hit the sack. I had been asleep about an hour when my phone beeped for a message. I looked and it was from one of my Bosnian friends asking me to call her if I wasn't sleeping. Since the message woke me up and so technically I wasn't sleeping anymore, I decided to call her. She doesn't call often and since it was now kind of late, I thought it may have been important.

So she answers the phone... The phone conversation goes something like this:

- Hey LeAnne! Were you sleeping?
- Well, yes, but it's ok. What's up?
- Well my boyfriend he needs to go to America and he has family there and everything and he needs a visa.
- Ok...
- You know how we were talking and laughing the other day about you marrying a Bosnian to get the paper to get a visa here...
- (yawn) Yes, I remember...
- We were think if you and my boyfriend got the marriage on the paper then he would have the paper to get a visa for a america and then you can have the paper for a visa here... then maybe i can like have the marriage with your brother and then i can have a visa to go to America too.
- (Silence as I try to decide if she is serious or not... then I pinch myself to make sure Im not dreaming) Um... I... um... WHAT?
- Listen LeAnne, it will just be the paper you know and then everyone will have the marriage and what they need.
- ARE YOU SERIOUS? I am not marrying your boyfriend!
- You won't have the serious marriage just on the paper. Look, i woken you up and i know you are tired now, so think about it and we can talk on Wednesday... (mumbled talk in the background as she talks to her boyfriend). It will be ok, we will talk wednesday...
- No, we don't need to talk Wednesday... (cuts me off)
- You think about it, it will work and everyone will have papers for the visa.
- I uh no, no... just no...
- Ok goodnight... will talk wednesday...
- But.. I ... uh... click

I hung up the phone very confused. I woke Skoobi up... why should she sleep when I'm not? I read for a while and just pondered the conversation. It was... odd.

I finally fell back to sleep, and my sister called me at three in the morning. It was kind of funny. We hadn't talked in a while, and she didn't realize i was 9 hours ahead of her... "what time is it there...??" "Three in the morning." "Oooooh..." I love my sister. So I read for another couple hours after that before falling back to sleep. Oh well. I may just shut my phone off tonight when I go to bed!!

When worlds collide... (and apparently earth plates shifting as well)

(Oh my gosh, I'm editing this after the fact because as I hit the "publish to blog" button, we just had an earthquake!!! It's only the second one I ever felt, the first one being on the 14th floor of the office building in Sarajevo. This was a bit stronger, and freaked Skoobi out - she jumped out of a dead sleep and ran around the house. The house shook pretty good, and I have to straighten my pictures. I called my friend on the other side of town and she felt it too, up on the hill, so yeah. That's so weird... OK, on to the real point of my blog...)


This is seriously the oddest post I've ever, well, posted. Donata spent a long weekend in Orlando with many of my good friends, staying with my dear friends, Jay, Penni, and Lydia Holt,meeting my parents, and speaking at my church. Oh, these pictures are so weird to me... I have many more, but these are some of my favorites... I'll caption them for you:



Donata at my favorite restaurant, just down the street from where I went to college




Karen, my dear friend from Deland, made a wonderful lunch for Lydia (pictured), Penni, and Donata




Her first visit to the Atlantic... and her first visit to a "real" beach. Yes, Donata, that's the way back to Bosnia, but I just don't think you can make it wading - that and you're afraid of sharks...




Ok, I'm in cold, gloomy, rainy Bosnia, and Donata's on the beach in Florida. I have serious issues with this...




Jay, Penni, Lydia, Donata, my mom and dad... This is way too weird to me...




Same people as above, with my pastor in the background... Kathleen should have been praying instead of snapping pictures in church, but I'm glad she snapped it :)




Dad, Donata, and Mom





My pastors, Mike and Jim, with Donata



Mom, dad, Donata, my pastor Jim and his wife Carol at the lunch for Donata after church

Ok, well, I guess that's enough pictures for now... I have a lot more, but I'll spare you. I'll have some more fun stories shortly.

Ok, THAT was weird...

I was on my way to Nela's tonight for Bible study when I saw the strangest thing...

I wasn't in the best of moods. I'm kind of tired, and still pretty sad Jana is gone. But I was looking forward to my time with Nela. I walked even though it was still pretty hot (though not as hot as it has been).

For those of you who don't live here, after a wedding, everyone drives around in decorated cars beeping their horns and beeping and beeping and beeping. It's actually pretty fun to watch usually as people hang out the windows, wave flags, and just have a fun celebration. Well, within 15 minutes of my walk, three wedding parties had passed me! It was getting a bit old, with the beeping and all.

Well, as I came to one of the main intersections in town, yet a fourth wedding party was coming up behind me. Not as much beeping, but enough to make me roll my eyes behind my sunglasses. So the first car pulls up to the red light (I'm about 50 feet back) and it had plates from The Netherlands. The next couple cars all had out of country plates as well. Then, and this is the weird part, this huge, white, classy stretch limo pulls up - with TEXAS plates... not just Texas plates, but personalized plates that said "TAKE ME" I did a triple take and everything in me just wanted to bust out laughing!! As the wedding party passed when the light turned green, almost all of the other cars had out of country plates... someone pretty wealthy must have gotten hitched... but goodness... A Texas "TAKE ME" license plate in Zenica... I am so glad I decided to walk to Nela's!!

On Her Way to America....

So Donata got her visa finally, and called yesterday afternoon saying she was leaving for a couple month stay in the States. She's be with her aunt's family in Nashville. It was kind of funny when Jana and I went over yesterday afternoon... shes never flown before, and she had a big bag of food for the trip :) "Um... Donata, they feed you on the plane..." "Oh, I'm so stupid, I don't know how to do this, i don't know what I'm doing..." It was humorous. I think we got her pretty squared away before we left. She's just a naturally fearful person, and she's terrified of flying. So her first trip is alone over the Atlantic. I see the humor in it all, especially since she can't smoke and she'll hate the coffee, but I've had a pretty morbid sense of humor lately. I really wanted to invite her over to watch "Plane Crash INvestigation" and "Seconds from Disaster" on national geographic, and tell her horror stories about people getting flushed out of airplane toilets, but I refrained. Oh, it would have been so much fun, though... Like I said... morbid.

Do pray for her trip. I don't want her too traumatized when she returns, but a little trauma may not be such a bad thing for her. She's supposed to go visit my church at some point, so we'll see if she follows through with that. I'm certainly not holding my breath, but have a faint glimmer of hope she actually may go. She hasn't seemed to have much of a "walk" lately, and won't have any kind of Christian influence around her - not that it seemed to help her much here, but at least she had fellowship and opportunities for growth if she wanted it. I think it would be good for her to go to my church. I guess we shall see. She wrote some other important numbers on the paper withmy friends phone number and email, so at least she can't just lose the information :)

Saturday, we head to Sarajevo wth Nela. It's her very late "first anniversary as a Christian visit to the Thai restaurant" She's looking forward to it, as are we. She'll also get to talk with one of the people from the Bible Institute to see if taking classes there one day may be an option. I have a little shopping to do while we're there, so Jana can take a few things back to the States for me.

Jana and the rest of her family here leave a week from today - next Thursday. We've had a good summer, so it will be strange to be living alone again. Pray for Jana as she transitions into life in New York and a new college experience. Pray for a safe trip back as well. Jana and I probably need to stop watching "Plane Crash Investigation" this week before she has a panic attack on the plane. At least now we know to always wear our seatbelts (you never know when the plane roof is going to peel off) and never inflate your life vest until you are out of the plane (if your're stuck in the plane, you can't go underwater to swim out if your vest is inflated). Fascinating, life-saving stuff... :)

Ok, I will post when I know Donata made it in one piece to the States, and about our trip to Sarajevo. Cao for now...

OWWW

I have an ear infection... I don't know why. I've only had one before and that was way back in high school. I haven't been swimming or anything, but my ear is hurting something terrible. It started on Wednesday and has gotten progressively worse. Liz looked at it today ("ve been in Sarajevo visiting friends since Wednesday) and she said it seems just to be a run of the mill infection. So, I got antibiotic ear drops from the pharmacy, and you know it's great to live here sometimes - they were less than $3! So, hopefully with the drops, Tylenol, and some hot compresses, the infection will go away quickly. I have a lot to do this weekend, so I'm hoping to get a good nights sleep tonight (Friday) and be ready to tackle the weekend (I"m watching a football movie hence - tackle) :)

My time in Sarajevo was fun. I stayed with my friend Janice who used to live here in Zenica. We had fun walking the city, hitting some restaurants, and when Jana came, did a little trip to the Apple computer store - thanks for the directions Donovan! We got lost looking for the store, and I stopped to ask a fireman directions (not a good-looking one, mind you) and he went into the fire station to apparently consult with his cohorts. Well, they told us the address we were looking for was on the other side of town! So I called Donovan (who has been there before), and it turned out it was really just 2 blocks from the fire station! Let's here it for the Bosnian firemen!!

I also got to go up and see old landlady Slavica and her family. Everyone is doing well, and it was just nice to catch up with her and Zdeno for a while. They are building an addition on to their house and getting a new roof, so it's quite a busy time for them. She, as usual, had a grand meal prepared :) It is always so good to go visit them.

Ok, well, I need to put a compress on my head and go to bed... Hope all of you are well and no mysterious ear infections are plaguing you!!