This weekend, our 13-year-old niece, Allison, came over on Friday night, spent the night with us and then the day with us on Saturday. When we picked her up on Friday, we went out to Pizza Ranch for dinner, one of her favorite places. Allison and I have always bonded over the dessert pizza there. We both like the same kind, the blueberry pizza and the chocolate chip cookie pizza. We like to say about the chocolate chip cookie pizza, "It doesn't look that great, but it tastes amazing". We feel the appearance of this "pizza" helps to keep out the riff-raff who do not really know how good it is, and we're fine with that.
Unfortunately, since chemo started, I can't eat chocolate (though I continually try to persevere in this endeavor with no success). It tastes awful to me at this time. I take a small bite and end up spitting it out every time. I wasn't able to eat much at all at our visit to PR this time around, just a little mashed potatoes and gravy and a glass of milk. I tried a bit of both dessert pizzas but just couldn't do it. Allison ate an extra piece of the cookie pizza in my honor, and I enjoyed watching her enjoy it.
One of the things that Allison and I do together is have our own little book club. Allison is a veracious reader, and I really like to read too, so this is a common bond we have. Currently, we've been reading through some of the books in the the Geoff & Janet Benge Christian Heroes Then and Now series. Our current read is
Amy Carmichael (Rescuer of Precious Gems) We had a few delays in getting together to discuss this one, so Allison read the book three times by the time we got together this weekend. She really liked this one. Amy Carmichael was born in Ireland and later became a missionary in India in the late 1800's through early 1900's. She established an orphanage there and rescued and raised many orphan girls. Allison and I enjoyed discussing this one together. And I enjoyed seeing her enthusiasm for it.
I've shared in other posts that Allison and I share a passion for the Operation Christian Child ministry through Samaritan's Purse. We spend time in November preparing shoeboxes filled with gifts that are sent all around the world to children who need them. And through these boxes, the opportunity is also given to tell them about Jesus.
So that we can pack a larger volume of boxes with quality items, I shop clearance sales all year long and store the items away until they are needed. I save up some money for the end of the year, and I do a bulk of shopping during the after-Christmas sales. Walgreens is a particularly helpful resource in this regard as they quickly reduce the price of the toys they had available for Christmas because they want to move on to Valentine's Day (literally, the Valentine candy started getting stocked on the shelves on December 26).
Allison then comes over and helps unpackage and untag the items and categorize it into containers. She seems to love the job, and she's super helpful to me.
In between the unpackaging she got creative with the packaging and started building her own structure.
Over the years, I found with teenagers that if you keep their hands busy in a project and direct eye contact doesn't have to be made, a lot of conversation takes place. So, Allison and I played music (we listened to a lot of Lauren Daigle that day--and Allison knew most of the songs) and we talked about lots of different things. We had an enjoyable time together.
Because I haven't had much of an appetite lately, I haven't baked much either, which is unusual around here. Allison kindly made us some brownies and some sugar cookies, and she did a great job.
As always, Allison and I had a very nice time together, and I look forward to when she's able to come over again.
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