Jenyfer Matthews

So I’m going to post a funny list a friend sent me. I am going to have to try a few of these out. Anything you’d like to add?

How to Maintain a Healthy Level of Insanity

At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.

Page yourself over the intercom. Don’t disguise your voice.

Every time some one asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

Put your garbage can on your desk and label it “In.”

Put decaf in the coffee pot for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

In the memo field of all your checks, write “For Smuggling Diamonds”

Finish all your sentences with “In Accordance With the Prophecy.”

Don’t use any punctuation

As often as possible, skip rather than walk

Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face

Specify that your drive-through order is “To Go.”

Sing along at the opera

Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don’t rhyme

Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day

Five days in advance, tell your friends you can’t attend their party because you’re not in the mood

Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, rock bottom

When the money comes out the ATM, scream “I won!, I won!”

When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling “run for your lives, they’re loose!!”

Tell your children over dinner. “due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go.”

Having some external deadlines has forced me to be even more organized than usual. Today I:

1) Went grocery shopping

2) Worked on the edits for ALL THE WAY HOME

3) Pieced much of two baby quilts for the bazaar next week

4) Helped both children with their homework

5) Made a totally killer homemade tomato sauce and lasagna

I was feeling pretty on top of things. Then my daughter asked me why it was that I don’t work.

Sigh… See who gets cookies tomorrow and who DOES NOT!!!
Mwhahahaha!!!!

I delegated the purchasing of snacks to hubby and he came home with drink boxes, granola bars and….watermelon. I have nothing against watermelon – love it in fact – but it does require a little more preparation than bananas do.

I’ve been hearing this rumor circulating with regard to watermelon. Apparently, in places like Cairo where you do have to be fairly careful about what you eat, it’s thought that because watermelon has such a high water content that the fluid in the watermelon is a risk for carrying ameoba. One idea is that the farmers water the crops with tainted water and it gets sucked into the produce.

Personally, I don’t buy that. Isn’t that what the plants roots are for? To act as a filtration system? And if they didn’t, wouldn’t we all have gotten sick long ago?

The other idea is that the farmers or produce merchants inject the watermelon with water to make them heavier so they can charge more. Now, I wouldn’t put it past someone to do such a thing, but one of the moms at the soccer game cast doubt on this theory by sharing just how difficult she’d found it to inject a watermelon with vodka. In short, probably not worth the effort.

I do realize that melons and all produce can be contaminated by ground water and other contaminants on the outside and by improper handling. I washed our team’s melon with a scrub brush and soap prior to cutting it. And I did do a little research just to be sure. I can’t vouch for the cleanliness of the childrens’ hands but for my part I think we’re safe enough.

My duty is done for this season. Off to my quilting sweat shop now…

Okay, the weekend is here (for me anyway) It’s supposed to be a relaxing time, a time to leave work behind for a couple of days and just chill, right?

Well, one of the drawbacks to working at home is that never really happens.

So what’s got me so wound up? Let me tell you. Time is passing and I have not yet completed the tops of the Christmas quilts for my children. Though it’s a testament to how much attention they pay me because I was working on my son’s quilt when he came home from school yesterday and he didn’t even comment or even seem to notice. But I want it to be a surprise so I don’t like to take chances.

In addition, a friend asked me to bring the baby quilts I make to sell to her house for a charitable bazaar she is hosting in two weeks. I only have a few boy-oriented quilts ready to go right now so either I hurry up and churn out a couple more in more neutral / girly colors or I just give this opportunity a miss. Since I tend to be an overachiever, which option do you think I’ll choose?

This weekend is my turn to provide snacks for my daughter’s soccer team, enough to feed and quench the thirst of twelve kids. Easy right? As usual, I tend to overthink these things. I have been stewing about what to bring all week. Most of the other parents are going for popularity because they bring chips and candy and snack cakes and mega-sweetened juice. I’m not a total junk food Nazi, but it’s not something I buy on a regular basis. And it’s not something I really
think is an appropriate thing to feed children at 9:00AM.

My DD knows me too well. When she heard that it was my turn to bring the snacks she said, “NO! I like what the other moms bring!”

I’ve thought about baking something but kids can be so picky. Does it make me a bad person to admit that it ticks me off to see a child openly reject food that I’ve made an effort to make myself? Or to take a bite and then toss the rest? I decided that I would compromise and bring granola bars and juice boxes with no added sugar. But they also need a halftime snack. Most of the other parents bring quartered oranges. My DD doesn’t care for oranges. I finally decided on bringing bananas. Most kids like them, they are individually packaged, and best yet, they don’t require any preparation on my part.

Guess we’ll see how that goes over.

And if all that wasn’t enough, Aurora is chattering away in my head, pushing me to get on with her story. It’s coming along quite well actually. So of course now is when I get the first edits for my third book, ALL THE WAY HOME. I haven’t thought about that story since I completed it in the spring. On the one hand, having some distance is helpful when working on edits – gives me a fresher eye and perspective. On the other hand, I’m so not in that head-space right now.

Sigh… I think I’m going to be very busy for the next little while.

Guess what? It’s Thursday afternoon and I still haven’t had water delivery.

Just to add a new twist to the story, the man who cleans the stairwell of our building decided to be super efficient in his duties today. He picked up those bits of rubbishy paper that were tucked securely underneath the empty water bottles (otherwise known as coupons!!) outside my door. Did he replace them after he cleaned? Did he pocket them? Noooooo…. he wadded them up and tossed them out of the window down the interior air shaft of our building! (Because that’s what you do with trash, right??)

Fortunately I noticed the coupons were missing before he finished his cleaning job. After struggling to explain my problem to the security guard on duty and after much to-do in which the cleaner and two others searched the floor of the inner shaft (a store room of sorts at the bottom) from up high and down low, my coupons were returned to me, crumpled but intact.

However, the water company is not answering their phone.

I give up. I’m expecting a case of water from the grocery store any time now…

EDITED TO ADD: It’s now several hours later and I now have a case of water from the grocery store as well as three new bottles of water from our delivery service. More than enough – until the next drought…

I’ve been just exhausted for the last few weeks. Not sick, just tired. I wake up tired and by the end of the day I’m totally zapped. All of us have been. I’ve been blaming the poor air quality and it seems that I’m right. I make jokes about opening up an oxygen bar downtown but it might not be a bad idea…

Cairo tries to escape life under a black cloud

(read the rest of the story here)

Ranked one of the most polluted cities in the world, Cairo is once again under the shadow of a highly toxic black cloud which mysteriously settles above the huge city every autumn.

Exhaust fumes belched by millions of cars mixed with the hypertoxic emissions of the annual burning of rice stubble in rural areas of the Nile Delta are a prime cause, along with the city’s ever-expanding population.

“We have here 540 micrograms per cubic metre of PM10 (polluting particles), which is three times higher than the official limit, and 10 times the limit of the World Health Organisation,” meteorologist Magdi Abdel Wahab told AFP.

The thick “lead blanket” settles every year over this Nile city, triggering serious health concerns for its 16 million residents.

Emissions of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide gases, mainly from the city’s traffic, are mixed with the PM10 particles to create a potentially lethal cocktail, experts say.

The WHO has recommended lowering levels of the particles, which can cause a range of problems from bronchitis to foetal deformities, to 20 micrograms per cubic metre per year.

“Visits to my clinic have increased in recent weeks by 50 percent, and that is due to the pollution,” pneumologist Assem al-Issawy told AFP.

The black cloud started appearing in Cairo skies in 1999 to the dismay of the city’s residents who already struggle to deal with surging pollution on a par with Beijing and Mexico City.

Since then, it returns faithfully every September and lasts until early winter, intensifying air pollution which kills up to 5,000 people every year, according to medical sources.

The authorities lay much of the blame with farmers in the Nile Delta who traditionally burn rice stubble to enrich the land for the next harvest.

On top of factory and traffic pollution, the burden is too much for Cairo’s environment.

MOST DANGEROUSLY POLLUTED CITIES

PARTICULATE MATTER AIR POLUTION 2004
(Micrograms per cubic meter)
Source: The World Bank

ParticulateRANK CITY COUNTRY Matter---- --------- ------------- -----------1 Cairo Egypt 1692 Delhi India 1503 Kolkata India 1284 Tianjin China 1255 Chongqing China 1237 Kampur India 1098 Lucknow India 1099 Jakarta Indonesia 10410 Shenyang China 101

If you can start the day without caffeine, boring people with your troubles, day and be grateful for it, blame without resentment education and never correct him,

If you can get going without pep pills,

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining and

If you can eat the same food every

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and

If you can ignore a friend’s limited

If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

…Then You Are Probably The Family Dog!

I have water in my sink at the moment but no bottled drinking water. Our water service failed to deliver for the second week in a row – in spite of my calling to confirm with them today. If it’s not one thing it’s another…

EDITED TO ADD: I just called again and they aren’t coming again until THURSDAY morning!!! Apparently you get get anything delivered in Egypt, but all in their own good time…geez…

I had a very good day yesterday. Not only did I do my dishes and multiple loads of laundry, but I sat down and wrote. And wrote and wrote. Phew – did it feel good to get that part of the story out of my head.

After I wrote, I worked for a couple of hours on a quilt that my neighbor has commissioned me to make. It’s going well – only one more corner to go. Before I have to sew all the blocks together and get busy on the hand-quilting that is.

I admit that I fell down on the job when it came to dinner however. I used up all my creativity writing and quilting so in the end I fell back on pizza for dinner. Oh well – it was at least homemade. And better yet, my husband made it.

One thing I really have wanted to do this year is write a couple of children’s stories. Not for publication but for my own children, as a Christmas gift. You might think it would be easy. They aren’t long after all. But somehow I’m having trouble getting in the proper mindset and finding a hook.

I really admire people who can write *good* children’s stories. Personally, there are very few contemporary stories that I enjoy reading to my daughter. Most of the books she brings home from the library or that I peruse in the book stores strike me as too pedantic, too obnoxious or just flat out boring. Don’t get me wrong, I like a story with a moral – I just don’t like to be hit over the head with it or for the lesson to be so obviously the whole reason for the story.

I can live with Junie B. Jones, but keep Captain Underpants away from me. Same goes for Horrid Henry (I live for the day when he gets his comeuppance!) The Magic Treehouse has a good premise but disappoints me over all. They lack any real drama and there are a few questions I have: why can’t Jordan the magic librarian go get the books herself if she’s so great? Why does Jake carry around a notebook and take notes if the notebook doesn’t really serve any other purpose other than to break up the text with glimpses of his handwriting? How do these kids speak every known language through space and time yet no one is every overly concerned about where it is they magically appeared from?

I could be over-analyzing though.

My husband suggested that I didn’t need to think of a lesson to teach and build a story around it, instead I just needed to think of a conflict. Like a little girl who is afraid of dogs…and then??? That’s just an example but it has got my brain working. I only have a little over a month to come up with something passable. Somehow I think I’ll just be cruising Amazon again.

Never put off til tomorrow what you can do today. Especially in Egypt.

Normally I wash my dishes every night. I don’t like to leave my kitchen a mess because of the possibility of attracting bugs, but also because I don’t like to wake up to the chaos. I like to start each day fresh.

Believe it or not, every now and then I get tired – like I was after a weekend of cheerleading. So Saturday I gave myself the night off and went to bed early. I planned on doing my dishes in the morning. And I did start on them. Then I had to take the kids to the bus so I took a break and when I got back, my water had gone off. Again.

It does that with alarming regularity lately.

So, while my dishes sat in the sink, soaking in ever cooling water, I picked up a book to read with my breakfast – and didn’t put it down again until hours later when I’d finished it.

I know, I know. I was supposed to be writing my OWN book. But as a mom, an author and a quilter, I get so little ME time. I figured if I couldn’t wash the dishes or do the laundry, I might as well take a mental health day and lose myself in a book.

My husband laughs at the way I read books. When I find one I like, I devour it. I read until I’m finished with the story…and then I turn back to page one and start over again. When a story really grabs me, I simply don’t want to stop turning the pages. And when I’m finished, the writer in me wants to dissect it, to analyze it and figure out what it was that made the book so wonderful, so compelling, so enjoyable. So I start over again and read more slowly, savoring the prose and the details. With the outcome already in mind I don’t need to rush.

Today, it’s back to work – I swear. My dishes are (mostly) caught up, my laundry is going. I’m already sitting in my chair, so time to put my hands on the keyboard and type.