The Curious Caves: America is Not a Melting Pot, It's a Salad Bowl

It's funny how after I have been blogging for a while, I start to think in blogs. What I mean is that as things take place in my life, sometimes I instantly think about what I will write in a blog about it. Because of this, and because it has been far too long since my last blog, I have been walking around with something like three different blog topics in my head. Hopefully this first one will help explain why it's taken me so long to get them out of my head.

On August 9th we got a new roommate. One of our college students from church came to stay with us for a little while. Not only is she a college student, she is an international college student. She is from China and got to go home to spend the summer with her family. Due to circumstances out of her control and ours, before she returned she ended up losing her housing here in the states and we ended up with all of her things in our garage. Not only that, but she was supposed to come back on the 8th. Remember those giant typhoons that went through Shanghai that caused over 200,000 people to evacuate? Yeah, that slowed her down a bit. So, when she arrived on the 9th, she came to our house to stay with us until she could find suitable living arrangements.

On the 10th I had my wisdom tooth removed, which wasn't really that big of a deal except for the fact that the anesthesia made me sick for a week. Not throw up sick, but more of an "I'm so dizzy I can't get off the couch or I might fall over" kind of sick. So, with a new roommate and the traumatic loss of my tooth, I was a little preoccupied for a while.

Shidi (our new roomie) must have looked at two or three houses a day that she found on Craig's list. When she finally found the one she wanted to move in to, we celebrated with ice cream cake! Shidi loves ice cream. We love ice cream. So it was a win-win situation. Shidi loves sweets, possibly more than me- which is saying something for those of you who know me- and she informed us that girls have two stomachs. One is for food, but the other is for sweets. That's why we always have room for dessert! She also told us one night that she had always heard that America was a melting pot. But once she lived here she disagreed and said it's actually a salad bowl because we are all thrown in and tossed together, but we all keep our uniqueness. Shidi was so fun and brought much laughter and joy into our home.

She loved to help me in the kitchen and learn about how we do things. One day she offered to cook us Chinese food, but insisted that her cooking would not be very good. She was so nervous! I assured her that I had certainly messed up dinner before and if it was completely inedible we would go out for dinner. Well, let me just tell you that she can cook! We had two wonderful meals while she was here. It was so fun to see her try new things and have success. Plus, we got to eat some great food. She told us her parents didn't believe that she cooked, but we were sure to tell them how well she did when we met them on Skype last night. :)

Yesterday was the 1st of the month, so Shidi's rent began at her new place. Tim and I were not at home, so we helped her move today. She was sad to go, and truth be told, we were sad also. I told Tim it felt like we were dropping off and leaving our child at college for the first time. Some people, okay most people, thought we were a little crazy for getting a roommate. But we never doubted that God has given us this house to glorify Him and since we have experienced His love and blessing, we need to love and bless others in return. There was a need and we were just available.

Shidi got us some flowers and we all love ice cream cake!

Shidi's first attempt at opening bread in a can. I have never seen this happen before.

Shidi and Katie helped with the dinner assembly line.

Now it's Shidi's turn- hard at work making dinner!

Lots of prep

This is Shidi's favorite seasoning that she brought back from China. Thankfully,
she can read the Chinese directions because the English ones don't translate too well.