Trip of a Lifetime

Posted by missjunebug on Wednesday January 27th, 2010

oneacrefund.org Rwanda Photo by mjb2010

Perhaps you’ve noticed that missjunebug flew away for a little while. Pretty far away actually. All the way to Africa to visit her ElderJB. Believe her blog title when she says it was the trip of a lifetime. This much she knows is true:

Her ElderJB and his spectacular (svelte, sublime, super-gorgeous) MG are making history in the hinterlands of Rwanda helping farmers TUBURA their harvests and improve their lives.

TUBURA (oneacrefund.org in Rwanda) staff is dedicated, optimistic, hard-working, and forward-thinking, a powerful force for good in the Nyamasheke district.

The enthusiasm and energy and pure exuberance of the local Rwandan staff brought tears to missjunebug’s little bug eyes as they celebrated success and acknowledged the hard work of the field reps and the farmers in their care.

missjunebug was blown away by the sheer enormity of the undertaking her ElderJB has taken on in this most remote of places on the planet (at least to her!) and further blown away by the 2020 target: one meeeeellion farmers (to borrow a phrase!) Are you kidding, ElderJB? missjunebug knows how large you live when you are around the Hacienda but your plan to live large in the hinterlands of Rwanda is truly awesome.

missjunebug’s motherly advice to ElderJB and the superb MG? Go for it! If anybody can do it, you two and your incomparable staff of young, strong, savvy Americans and aspiring, inspiring Rwandans can do it!!

Here’s a little photo-essay missjunebug style:

It starts in the field. Photo by mjb2010

It's in the bag: Seeds-to-be! Photo by mjb2010

It's a meeting of the minds. Photo by mjb2010

It's all about leadership. Photo by mjb2010

It's a hand-up, not a hand-out. Photo by mjb2010

It's a time to praise success. Photo by mjb2010

It's a simple idea yielding preposterous results! Photo by mjb2010

It's oneacrefund.org Check it out for yourself online! Photo by mjb2010

Happy New Year’s from missjunebug

Posted by missjunebug on Thursday December 31st, 2009

Ring in the New Year...It's Got To Be Better Than the Old! Photo by mjb2009

missjunebug wishes a not-so-fond-farewell to 2009 and looks forward to a better 2010!

Cheers!

Holiday Highlights! Subtitle: Christmas Loot Galore!

Posted by missjunebug on Saturday December 26th, 2009

missjunebug's Christmas Loot! Photo by mjb2009

missjunebug is happy to report that she got everything she wanted for Christmas…and more! A gorgeous Jennifer Miller bracelet a lá Hoda Kotb from Santa, a new pair of UGGS from TinyJB, a delightful, funny, interesting and sweet x 10 phone call with Rwandan-based Elder JB, and some funny little gadgets from Mr.JB (carabiner flashlight! extra camera battery! Chinese watercolor brushes!).

But she knows what you must be thinking. What about the nutcrackers? Did she score more? missjunebug is happy to report that Mr.JB/Santa has moved on to new Christmas decorating territory with the addition of a gold-lamé, white-furred Santa and a wine-red brocade and white lace Angel with a face, well, like an angel!

After a present-opening frenzy, the junebug family knoshed on Waffle-House style Cheesey eggs, Jimmy Dean sausage, and leftover rum cake. What a feast! Then Mr.JB headed outside to trim palm trees with his nifty new 14-foot chain-powered saw/pruner given to him by TinyJB! Wow that thing can cut up some tree! Meanwhile, TinyJB read through his new beer-making library of books (3 in all!) and missjunebug slipped into her UGGS, bagged up her loot, and began working on the evening meal (Spiral-cut ham, green bean casserole and fab pineapple stuffing).

Later in the afternoon, Mr.JB busted out his new blue-ray DVD of Quentin Tarentino’s masterpiece Inglourious Basterds, cooked up some popcorn, and gathered the junebugs to settle into the Men’s Club to watch one of the best revenge stories ever! Somehow it seemed like perfect Christmas viewing material, Jesus being a Jew and all.

After a savory Christmas dinner, Mr.JB continued reading the Uganda novel with the word eclipse in the title that ElderJB gave him for the big 6-0 while TinyJB and missjunebug duked it out over Trivial Pursuit. Sadly, missjunebug was not a winner as TinyJB edged past her with the sixth and final pie piece on a lame question: What was taken in John Godey’s novel The Taking of Pelham One Two Three? Thanks to the recent remake with John Travolta, TinyJB had no trouble coming up with “a subway train.” Puhleeze.

What a family! What a celebration! What a Christmas!

A Few of missjunebug’s Favorite Christmasy Things

Posted by missjunebug on Wednesday December 23rd, 2009

This one speaks for itself! Photo by mjb2009

missjunebug hopes these images cheer you during the Holiday Season!

Go Santa Go! Photo by mjb2009

Wide-eyed Santa glistens! Photo by mjb2009

One of mjb's all time favs! Photo by mjb2009

A Sparkly Orange Orb! Photo by mjb2009

A Beary Merry Christmas! Photo by mjb2009

Merry Christmas! Happy Baking! Wonderful Wrapping! And Unwrapping! Delicious Eating! Thoughtful Praying! Exuberant Praising! Sincere Thanking!

Blessings to you and your family from missjunebug, Mr.JB, ElderJB, and TinyJB!

Cookie Madness!

Posted by missjunebug on Tuesday December 22nd, 2009

A Sprint to Finish the Spritz! Photo by mjb2009

missjunebug is way too busy baking cookies for Christmas, shopping, wrapping packages, standing in UPS lines, and eating Chex Mix to write anything other than a brief update entry. And this is it!! She hopes you, too, are enjoying the pre-Christmas frenzy of fun x 10! Excuse her while she pops those Spritz cookies into the oven!

Parenting: Six Simple Rules…Not So Simple

Posted by missjunebug on Monday December 14th, 2009

The other day missjunebug was watching the Today show and listening to a couple of parenting/happiness experts wax eloquent on the six simple rules parents should follow to help their kids turn out just fine. In theory missjunebug found these rules to be sensible and simple…on paper, but actually following through with them could get a little tricky.

The first one is no surprise: have dinner with your kids. The catch?  Five nights a week! missjunebug remembers the days of soccer games, evening school meetings, mid-week church activities, friends dropping in and out. Getting to the grocery store, much less actually cooking dinner five nights a week and corraling the kids sounds formidable indeed, but now that missjunebug is well past this phase in life with her two boys ElderJB and TinyJB, she’s happy to recommend it to others. As a former educator she’s also very familiar with the study that suggests students’ SAT scores improve with regular dinners shared in a family no doubt because of the conversations/discussion/arguments that ensue when the whole family comes to the table with their divergent views. Fun times!

Rule Two? Attend church or synagogue once a week. OMG this one is not easy, take it from missjunebug. Even now every Sunday she has the best of intentions of getting to church, but stuff happens and sometimes she just doesn’t make it. When her kids were tinier, she had a much better record and she managed to get both her boys through Confirmation (Martin Luther-style). Of course, now her grown boys have figured out a few things for themselves and have taken to questioning all that good God stuff missjunebug managed to stuff them with. And so it goes. She’s happy to report that TinyJB’s Confirmation plant is still alive! Considering he’s now a senior at university that’s a real miracle! Faith lives!

Rule Three? Uhggg. Supervise the homework nightly! Apparently it is no longer enough for parents to go through school themselves. Parents need to go through it all over again, this time peering over the shoulder of their child. N.B. That does not mean parents DO the homework for the child. Just make sure it gets done. Okay, okay, missjunebug must agree with this one.

Rule Four? Ahhh. Take a yearly vacation of at least a week with your family. Except for listening to the mandatory Are we there yet? mantra all kids are born speaking, this one has no downside as far as missjunebug can see. She heartily recommends the National Parks as the most fertile ground for growing great parent-kid relationships, starting with Jenny Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. Trust her when she says that hitting the trails all day kids in tow is rewarded with gourmet dining in the evening at the superb restaurant of the JLL. Talk about the best of all possible worlds.

Rule Five? Demand the truth from your children. Hmmm. As the parent of TinyJB missjunebug learned the hard way that sometimes the truth is hard to come by. She won’t go into the unauthorized party TinyJB and his friend managed to pull off practically right under her little bug antennae. Suffice it to say she dodged a bullet on that one.

Rule Six? Put away that Blackberry! missjunebug might also add: Make them stop texting while you are trying your best to Be present with your children. Media holds sway just about all the time and just about everywhere so for parents to succeed with Rule Six it will be because they pressed the pause button or put the phone on vibrate (or better yet on power off) and directly engaged their children in conversation or just stopped to listen to them.

Six rules…Not So Simple but oh so worth the effort.

Rain! Glorious Rain!

Posted by missjunebug on Monday December 7th, 2009

missjunebug is delighting in the rain that has finally come to SoCal. Hoorah for rain! She can finally turn her sprinklers off! She can fully get into the holiday spirit thanks to the colder temperatures and gray skies. Is there anything better than cozying up to a fireplace listening to the sound of rain falling outside? Maybe cozying up to a fireplace listening to the sound of rain falling outside while drinking a hot toddy! Ha!

missjunebug would not say no to a hot-buttered rum right about now, but Mr.JB’s not here to share it with her so she better just get back to wrapping those Christmas presents that are piling up on every flat surface in missjunebug’s little house.

Cheers!

When Collections Go Wrong

Posted by missjunebug on Friday December 4th, 2009

Nutcrackers Vying for Mantle Space! Photo by mjb2009

It started out pretty innocently. Mr.JB began giving nutcrackers to missjunebug about 30 years ago give or take a few years. Year after year missjunebug would gleefully open up the beribboned rectangular boxes from “Santa” and delight in what she found inside.

Nutcrackers of every description: stalwart soldier, aproned baker, flouncy flamenco dancer, twig-broomed snowman, bun-coiffed teacher, golfer, skier, gold-trimmed Pharoah, London Beefeater, milk-bottle clutching dairy cow (missjunebug’s current fav), piano-playing musician, caroler, wise man, leiderhosen-clad beer drinker, betooled toymaker, and a whole army of red and white clad Santas complete with toy-filled Santa bags. missjunebug is sure you get the idea.

She’s got a crap-ton of nutcrackers!

Every year she turns on the Sounds of the Season on her cable tv and to the croony voice of Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, she shleps down to her Christmas closet and unpacks and unwraps each and every one of these nutcrackers and places them in pretty much the same locations as she did the year before, except of course she has to find space for the new ones Mr.JB gave her the previous year! It’s a little like fighting for shelf space in the cereal aisle of the supermarket! There’s a finite supply of it and these insistent nutcrackers want to be at optimal eye level. They’re a pushy bunch.

missjunebug has a feeling this collection has gone terribly wrong. It reminds her of the origin of the nutcracker fascination, that part of the Nutcracker ballet when little Clara dreams of giant nutcrackers come to life. A little creepy if you ask missjunebug! Which brings her to the question at hand: When is a collection done?

missjunebug will continue to ponder this question as she squeezes out a little more prime mantle space for the latest nutcracker model in her collection.

She can hardly wait to see what Mr.JB (aka “Santa”) has in store for her this year!

Happy 60th Birthday, Mr.JB

Posted by missjunebug on Tuesday December 1st, 2009

missjunebug wishes her

J.ust T.errific Mr.JB

a birthday that is the best

and eclipses all the rest!

The Holiday Juggernaut Begins

Posted by missjunebug on Monday November 30th, 2009

missjunebug just ate the last sliver of pumpkin pie and she’s ready to rush headlong into the Christmas season. She’s working up the courage to open her Christmas closet filled to the brim with nutcrackers, Santas, shiny ornaments, twinkly lights, nifty fake greenery, Christmas stockings, nativity sets, glittery pinecones, and goodness knows what else.

And that’s part of the fun! She can’t remember how cool her Christmas stuff is until she actually pulls it out of the plastic containers she packed it in last year. It’s always a surprise because it’s been a whole year since she’s seen the stuff and believe her when she says a lot has happened in that year!

Maybe that’s part of the magic of the holiday season: revisiting the decorations imbued with a history that encompasses all the Christmases missjunebug has been fortunate enough to share with her Mr.JB, ElderJB, and TinyJB. Yeah, that’s it!

Let the decorating begin!