Our Works

We are thankful that Edward has been able to continue his business over here in Albania. Getting tools and the specific types of wood that he uses was a bit of a challenge. Most things aren't listed online. You can't just Google what you're looking for. There are no Home Depots, Lowe's, Walmarts, etc., but he's got it figured out now.

The house that we are renting has an outbuilding in the front yard that is about 20 feet from the house. It already had shelves that were perfect for workbenches (along with some funky paintings on the outside). We love having him nearby.

He makes and sells his own hardware online. A lot of people find him via etsy. com, but he also has his own website, http://waredesignworks.com.

His Instagram page is http://www.instagram.com/waredesignworks/

This is where it all gets made. It's about 7'x10'.

If you looked at the links, you may have noticed our book, I Am One listed. We're doing what we can to get exposure for it. It's a children's book that Edward Jr. and I wrote. Edward Sr. illustrated it and got everything ready for production. We have several more books planned, but unless this one takes off, those will not happen.

I would love to have I Am One translated into many different languages. It's a book that fits the universal characteristics of one-year-olds. Board books (essential for toddler books), are expensive to produce and we are required to buy in bulk, so one order for us is quite an investment. If you know of anyone with a one-year-old in their family, day care, waiting room or library, maybe you could consider sharing our book with them. It can be purchased and viewed at 

https://iamonebook.com/

We have hard copies and a Kindle version on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Amy-Joy-Carlton-ebook/dp/B079QKQLXJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=599Y4IO7OC24&keywords=i+am+one+Amy+and+Edward+Carlton&qid=1696061671&sprefix=i+am+one+amy+and+edward+carlton+%2Caps%2C281&sr=8-1

If it does well, it will free Edward up for the work of the gospel more, as it would be more of a passive income.

God has always provided, so we don't know what His plan for our future is but we have no need to worry. "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33

You can check out our other works! If you like them, you can help us out by sharing our links on your social media accounts and asking your contacts to do the same! Thank you!

https://www.patreon.com/WarePublishing

https://www.etsy.com/shop/waredesignworks

To follow us on Twitter and Instagram:

https://x.com/AmyJoyCarlton?t=Ohwl7Pf5LhWSzYG40USr2w&s=09

https://x.com/WarePublishing?s=09

To listen to different thoughts from Edward:

https://rumble.com/c/c-5501477/videos

https://youtube.com/@edwardcarlton?si=HUHHNoh5NX0hW-La

God bless you!

Tidbits from Tirana

We live in Shkoder, Albania but we take trips to Tirana, the capital city. It is about a two hour bus ride. Edward has friends there from when he had been a missionary there over 20 years ago. 

Everytime that we have been there, Edward has taken us out to celebrate our arrival there by going to the best pastiçeri, or bakery, that I have been to. We get ice cream there, which is a treat! It is much cheaper than in the US. 

This picture was taken at the end of July. It was a very warm evening. Our little guy was an absolute, but happy mess by the time he was done. 

This park sits across the street from the pastiçeri/bakery. This shot only shows about a third of the park. It is full of older men (they are called plak, pronounced like plock) playing dominos and the like. 

We broke up the scene a little bit. We found a spot to sit down and eat our ice cream. 

I'm I'm grateful for the crosswalks and traffic lights in Tirana. (There are no traffic lights in Shkoder.) Even with those, crossing the road is a bit dangerous. However, twenty years ago there were almost no traffic lights, so things are improving! 

The photo above is in an area that we walk through frequently that has lots and lots of furniture shops, new and used. Men with trucks sit around waiting to deliver, as most people in the city don't have cars. If you're able to look closely, there are several white trucks lined up. 

Here's a truck loaded with mattreses. 

As the sidewalk is loaded with parked bikes, this truck is loaded with a sofa set. 

Off it goes! 

The following day we purchased a sofa, and Edward and a couple of the younger kids happily got a ride home in the truck. 

One of our American friends there broke her back. Thankfully she's not paralyzed. Daring not to use her pullup bar anymore, she passed it on to us. The kids love using it!

We finally had some time to go sightseeing on our last visit there a couple of weeks ago. We went by the apartment that Edward had lived in years ago. It's also where we stayed when I went with him for a week-long visit when I was newly pregnant with our first child, in 2004.

We then walked by our friends' (the Pikes) former apartment. They were Americans who had also been on the mission team with their two young children.

Then, on to the Pyramid. My kids are the ones ¾ of the way up it. They kids had heard Edward talk about this place many times. He and his friends would often go there. There was an internet cafe under it, back in the day when internet access was very limited. 

Edward tells the story about the time when he and a couple of his friends climbed up to the top. It has recently been remodeled. Formerly, there were no stairs. Anyway, his friends started sliding down to the bottom. Edward tried, but his shoes kept stopping him. He got the idea to sit on his book bag. Well, that certainly did the trick! He started flying down. He put his feet down to slow down, but now they did nothing to stop him. He went racing to the bottom, flew over the sidewalk and onto the grass. I didn't realize until we were there last week, but that was the one and only time that he ever went up to the top. It was quite a scary experience for him. 

I'm not usually scared of heights, but somehow it was a bit terrifying for me being up there with all of my kids, and all of those little steps going down. 

After that, we walked to a huge park in Tirana. Edward showed us where they used to have baptisms, and an area where they would have gatherings for the teens' group at church.

Our kids had fun in this little tree house, there at the park.

Hopefully this gives you a window into another little area of the world. 

You can check out our other works! If you like them, you can help us out by sharing our links on your social media accounts and asking your contacts to do the same! Thank you!

http://iamonebook.com

https://www.patreon.com/WarePublishing

https://www.waredesignworks.com

https://www.etsy.com/shop/waredesignworks

To follow us on Twitter and Instagram:

https://x.com/AmyJoyCarlton?t=Ohwl7Pf5LhWSzYG40USr2w&s=09

https://x.com/WarePublishing?s=09

https://www.instagram.com/waredesignworks/

To listen to different thoughts from Edward:

https://rumble.com/c/c-5501477/videos

https://youtube.com/@edwardcarlton?si=HUHHNoh5NX0hW-La

God bless you!

When Life Gives You Sour Milk

What is this mess?!!! 

That was the question! 

When we first arrived in Shkoder, I noticed that some of the vegetable stands had a few randomly packaged bottles of milk. What I mean is that in a 1.5 liter Coca-Cola or orange juice bottle, there looked to be milk, instead. They were usually on the ground, unrefrigerated. It looked rather gross to me, and I was confused by it.

After a couple of weeks or so, we learned that it was fresh, local milk. It was a little bit cheaper than the pasteurized and homogenized milk sold at the bakeries and stores. 

We began to buy a couple of bottles every morning that we could. The older boys would go out early in the morning to get them before they were sold out.

We were staying at the hostel then. The boys would cook it at night, put it in the refrigerator, and make butter from the cream that had risen to the top overnight. They would add a little bit of salt, and it was quite good to spread on the fresh bakery bread. Butter is a bit more expensive here than what we were used to in the US. 

When we moved to the house, we began buying processed milk from the store again. We are on the other side of town from the hostel. We weren't seeing the fresh milk anywhere around us. The kids had seen men delivering milk on mopeds. We were hoping find someone to deliver to us, but who, and how?! We are in a foreign land, and there are different systems here!

I began to notice men on mopeds that were loaded down with bottles of milk. Some had many cloth bags filled with bottles hanging from both handlebars, as well as from the crate on the back. I couldn't just stop them while they were scooting down the road.

One day, while I was shopping with one of the boys on the other side of town, we came across a moped, loaded with bottles, but parked. There were several people standing around. I tried my best to ask, with the help of Google Translate, about getting milk delivered to my house across town. They found a woman to help me who spoke English. She brought me over to someone who she said would be good. We got my husband on the phone and they made arrangements to have four bottles (6 liters) delivered daily, starting the following morning. He said that he would be there at 7:30.

My family and I were very excited about this. Finally, fresh milk! We'd be able to make butter, cream, half and half, etc. Hopefully it'd be healthier, we wouldn't have to go out daily to get milk… It had been about a month and a half that we had been in our house and had been trying to find a way to get fresh milk.

The morning came, and at 7:30, we heard the sound of a moped coming down our road. It stopped at our gate and the driver banged on our gate. We we opened the door. He met the family and talked with my husband a little. He gave us four bottles of milk and we paid him 600 leke (about $6).

We went in, heated the milk, then put it in the refrigerator immediately to cool. We bottled it once it had cooled. Much to our disappointment, when we put it in our oats the next the morning, it didn't taste very good. We wondered if he had given us leftover milk from a previous day that he hadn't sold. After all, he had had several full bottles in his crate at 11am the day that I had met him.

The next day, we went through the same process and had the same results. My family was not too excited about this. My husband decided to ask our nextdoor neighbor about this. She told us that she would talk to her milk man. My husband told our man that we were going to stop having him deliver the milk due to it being sour.

We talked to Mariana's man and made an agreement with him. Being cautious, we decided to start with only two bottles a day. I hadn't disposed of any of the sour milk yet, so we had a growing amount of aging milk in the house.

We cooked the milk that we had just gotten, which tasted fine when I tested it in the pot(as the others also had) and put it in the refrigerator. I decided to taste it later that day while it was still in the pot in the refrigerator. Much to my dismay, it was sour! I also noticed that it was still warm after being in the refrigerator for at least six hours!

Off we went to ask Mariana how she handles the milk. She advised us to cool the milk before putting it in the refrigerator, and to use glass bottles. She was so sweet to give us a couple of her glass bottles, as well as a strainer. We followed her advice and had success.

However, we still had 24 liters of milk that I didn't want to go to waste, if I could help it. I was very excited when I saw that the older milk had separated, thickened, and risen to the top, I have made and used bread starters for many years, and have made yogurt before, so I knew the benefits of fermentation. 

I began to strain out the liquid, which is called whey. I wrapped the solids in a woven cloth, and twisted and squeezed as much liquid out as I could. My daughter got involved and looked like a pro! It ended up being exactly like feta cheese! We sprinkled it over our salad that evening. It was very satisfying mentally, and it tasted great.

I sat down and watched several videos on making cheese. People usually heat it up and then add lemon juice or vinegar. I did that to some of the milk, and as I was stirring it, it became stringy. I had made mozzarella cheese! I couldn't help but think about the women years ago discovery the same things in the same way.

It was a big project because of the amount that we were dealing with, but it was a great learning experience for the whole family!

The little kids have spent hours riding their bikes around the yard with crates of empty bottles strapped onto their bikes, pretending that they are the milk man. When they hear the moped coming down our quiet street every morning and stop at our gate, they love to run out with the empty bottles from the previous day. Our three year old spends a good part of his day making the sound of the moped with his mouth. It has been a cultural change that we have all enjoyed. 

You can check out our other works! If you like them, you can help us out by sharing our links on your social media accounts and asking your contacts to do the same! Thank you!

http://iamonebook.com

https://www.patreon.com/WarePublishing

https://www.waredesignworks.com

https://www.etsy.com/shop/waredesignworks

To follow us on Twitter and Instagram:

https://x.com/AmyJoyCarlton?t=Ohwl7Pf5LhWSzYG40USr2w&s=09

https://x.com/WarePublishing?s=09

https://www.instagram.com/waredesignworks/

To listen to different thoughts from Edward:

https://rumble.com/c/c-5501477/videos

https://youtube.com/@edwardcarlton?si=HUHHNoh5NX0hW-La

God bless you!

Our Art Gallery

 The walls of our house in Shkoder really echo. I was happy enough to have nothing on the walls, but the echo was really bothering Edward, and some mornings it would affect me as well.

I looked around for some inexpensive art, but I couldn't find anything. At some point it occurred to me that I had a house full of artists. The younger children were very excited about this idea. I had bought a package of copy paper for them to use to practice drawing. Without as much space outside to play they have been spending a lot of time drawing. 

After about a month of them practicing, I bought some canvases, paint, and brushes. They couldn't wait to start! I told them that they were going to have to be patient or else their paintings wouldn't turn out well. 

Tucker wanted to do a mountain, so we found a video with how to do this little painting.

Being 5 years old, he needed a lot of help, but he has good potential. I decided to put a scripture with each painting. I copied it in Albanian and English and had them laminated. This one has Psalm 23:4 "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for You are with me."

We did this one for Willem. It's above his little bed. The elephant drawing had been in a coloring book that we had gotten here. He helped enough to feel part of things.

Greta wanted to paint a flower. She wanted to add a house when we were done, but I told her that we had better leave well enough alone.

Thatcher wanted to do this farm truck. Next to it is the scripture, "He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall surely come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him," Psalm 126:6. Hopefully this will encourage Edward and Scott as they have been going out daily to share the gospel with people on the streets.

Caleb loves to draw trucks, but we were already going to have two other paintings of old trucks, so he did this house instead.

I decided that it would be a good painting to be incorporated with our family photos. I used the scripture, "Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches," Proverbs 23:4.

Colby did a good job turning a real life photograph into this painting.

It is accompanied by the scripture, "The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD," Psalm 33:5.

I did this set with grapes on a vine for the kitchen. There are so many scriptures that could go with it, and there are so many neighbors here that have an abundance of grapes growing.

I decided to put John 15:4 next to it. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me."

The older boys said that they didn't like paintings, that they look messy. After a while, Scottie gave in and did this duck painting.

I thought that it made his bed area look warm and homey.

After that, he was inspired to do another one. He said that he's not done with it, but here it is below, in progress.

Isaac couldn't help but get inspired. He is almost done with this painting of a deer.

I decided that our white and gray bathroom could use a little bit of color, so I did these next three paintings. I'm not so talented, so I had to keep my paintings simple.

Colby drew the bird and branches for me. I had been inspired to do these three by one of our tablecloths. 

The problem of our walls echoing has been solved, but there are several more paintings in the works! Edward started one last night. We are all very anxiously awaiting watching him paint it! 

You can check out our other works! If you like them, you can help us out by sharing our links on your social media accounts and asking your contacts to do the same! Thank you!

http://iamonebook.com

https://www.patreon.com/WarePublishing

https://www.waredesignworks.com

https://www.etsy.com/shop/waredesignworks

To follow us on Twitter and Instagram:

https://x.com/AmyJoyCarlton?t=Ohwl7Pf5LhWSzYG40USr2w&s=09

https://x.com/WarePublishing?s=09

https://www.instagram.com/waredesignworks/

To listen to different thoughts from Edward:

https://rumble.com/c/c-5501477/videos

https://youtube.com/@edwardcarlton?si=HUHHNoh5NX0hW-La

God bless you!