Jenyfer Matthews

I was talking to a neighbor over the weekend and mentioned that I wanted to lose a few pounds – the weight I gained over the summer plus the extra few pounds I had on top of that. She was puzzled – why? I told her I wasn’t overly fond of my jelly belly and didn’t want a muffin top too. She laughed and said she understood but that she thought my pooch looked great – sexy even.

Kind of nice to hear, though it doesn’t change my mind at all, especially since most of my favorite pants are too tight…

I’ve always liked old things. If I have a choice between a set of new dishes or a mismatched set of old stoneware, the old stoneware is very likely going to win. (Remember that groovy mug I bought last summer? It gets used regularly) I prefer old jewelry styles too – I’ve adopted several of my mother’s cast-off chains circa-1970s and adore a chain belt that I got from my grandmother (circa 1950s? 1960s?)

A few months ago, an acquaintance here in Egypt was clearing out in preparation for moving. One of the things he was getting rid of was a hand embroidered linen tablecloth his mother made. The last thing I need with two small children in the house is a white linen tablecloth, but I couldn’t let him give it to just anyone. Aside from the fact that as a crafter myself I couldn’t bear for that much hand work to go unappreciated, there’s something about old things that just speak to me.

My love of old things might explain in part why I love trolling thrift stores so much. I was pretty thrilled this summer when I found an “antique” crank cookie gun at a local thrift store in addition to a set of tiny cut glass salt and pepper shakers. I seem to have a thing for salt and pepper shakers – only after I bought these did I recall I have another set packed away in storage, having bought them years before at another thrift store in Ohio. I never thought that I’d be the sort of person to collect salt shakers, but using them gives me pleasure. They are so much more satisfying than the ordinary ceramic ones that came with our plain white dishes.

Part of that satisfaction may be that each of these items has a story to tell – who had them before they came into my hands? Were they every day objects or were they kept in a cupboard, only brought out for special occasions? How did they end up in the thrift store where I found them? The echoes of these stories stimulate my imagination.

That’s a pretty good deal for a couple of dollars.

Why is it that when I was away on vacation I’d have 20+ emails in my inbox every time I checked it, but now that I have the time to sit down and read them and respond I have none? Where is everyone? Or do you think it might be more a factor of the frequency with which I check my email when I am at home (every 10 minutes or so, give or take)?

I actually have other things I could be doing but I’m restless and bored. I’m home but not really back in my routine yet. It’s the lull before the sports crazy fall starts – the children want to do tennis AND soccer AND swim team. All that in addition to school and homework. Soon I’ll be too busy to check email again and no doubt there will be a deluge.

What are you up to today?

I got all of my suitcases unpacked and am slowly taming the rest of our apartment. It helps that the plant sitter did a pretty thorough clean-up before we arrived home. But I still have plenty to do – it would just be easier if I could kick the jet lag.

The first couple of nights I fell into bed exhausted by 10pm. Then I woke up and tossed and turned between midnight and 4am, finally falling back asleep and intending to get myself up at 8am – or by 9am at the latest. Instead, I slept until 10am. Last night I actually slept most of the night, until one of the usual Cairo summertime brown-outs occurred about 3am, requiring me to get up and deal with the AC in the children’s room when the electricity came back on. I was drowsy but didn’t fall back to sleep immediately. I woke up when my husband went to work then blinked and it was 10am again. The only improvement on this scenario is that at least this time the children were up before me.

We have another week off of school so it’s not crucial that we get up before 10am. I could just go with it and enjoy it. But I have things to do!! In the beginning of the summer when it seemed like I had all the time in the world I didn’t worry about all those math pages the teachers sent home to help give the children a head start for the new year (at my request I feel compelled to add). Now we only have a week left and they each have a stack of pages to do. Since it’s not their fault I procrastinated, I’m picking and choosing which ones we complete.

But we’d get a whole lot more done if I didn’t sleep half the day away!

After every long trip away from home, I always go through a process of settling back in that can only be described of as nesting. I not only unpack and put everything away, but I feel the need to clean everything too. I guess I could compare it to an animal marking its territory, only with a fresher scent!

I hired the maid of a neighbor to come in and water my plants while I was away. She did her job – a little too well. Many of my indoor plants were floating in stinky water when I returned. Apparently she didn’t fully comprehend the subtle nuances of my instructions “water inside plants once a week or as necessary“. I thought that was pretty clear. It never occurred to me to ask her (or my neighbor) if she was any good with plants. It was just watering for goodness sake. Guess I know better now!

(Thank goodness I don’t have any pets!!!)

I only lost a couple of indoor plants – one of which was a favorite unfortunately – and a couple of the less heat tolerant outside plants. It could have been much worse. I spent some time cleaning them up yesterday and it might just be my imagination, but they already look happier.

The rest of my apartment is going to take a little longer to sort out!

Summer is over for me and it’s back to reality now – which means no more bacon with breakfast every morning and no more desserts every night. No more good beer or wine either. I’ll have my work cut out for me when I go home to lose the weight I put on in the process of having such a good time this summer. It’s always amazing to me how much easier it is to gain weight than it is to lose it, especially as I get older.

I admit that part of me wants to lose the weight for the sake of vanity. I have to accept that I’m at an age now that I look better dressed than undressed, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Beyond how I look is how healthy I am.

There are unhealthy lifestyles that can take their toll on the way you live and age: excessive eating / weight gain, drinking to excess, smoking, working too much to give a few examples of things that people do have some control over. Then there are hereditary illnesses like heart disease, hypertension, strokes, and diabetes that tend to run in families – not always possible to totally avoid but a sensible approach can probably avert certain disaster.

Living the expat life, most of the expats I meet are in their 30s and 40s with young children. They’ve gone abroad to make more money and live a better lifestyle than they could in their home country. The women I socialize with tend to be very fit and health conscious – many working out at the gym several times a week. In my day to day live in Egypt, I don’t interact with that many older people. It’s been very different this summer. There seem to be senior citizens everywhere I look, in varying degrees of health. Some are out power walking or bicycling while others are stooped nearly in half making their way slowly and painfully around the grocery store.

Watching them has made me realize that one day I’ll be old too – sooner than I’d like. There are always health crisis that you can’t predict like crippling arthritis or cancer, but barring those calamities, I want to be the old lady walking briskly down the street with my head high and shoulders back. I don’t expect to live forever, but I want to live well. I want to be strong enough to lift my own grocery bags and agile enough to reach the top shelf. I want to live long enough to see my children grow up and be healthy enough to see and play with their children.

I want to have the energy to spoil them rotten when they come and see me for summer vacation!

while I take a day to freak out about my luggage. It’s not whether or not it will fit, it’s whether or not any of it will be overweight!

I’ll be going out shortly to do a last few errands, including checking in on the jeweler. Stay tuned on that…

Updated to add: I got my ring back and it looks pretty good. Excuse me if I’m under-enthusiastic, but I need a little time to bond with the ring again after all the aggravation both of the jewelers involved put me through!

Where did the summer go?? When I arrived in July, I thought I had loads of time to do all the fun things we wanted to do. Now that we have less than a week left, we have to make every day count!

Thursday we spent the day at Lutsen Mountain Ski Resort hurling ourselves down the side of the “mountain” on their Alpine Slide. Talk about fun! It was my daughter’s first time to drive her own sled. I made sure I was behind her, just in case she decided to go slower than the next driver – I didn’t want anyone crashing into her. I need not have worried – I was going as fast as I liked and never once caught up to her!!

Friday was another beautiful day and we went fishing with my father in the afternoon. There is more to fishing than simply putting your line in the water! He caught three rainbow trout and I caught one. I’m sure that the one that stole my worm and got away would have been the biggest of the lot!

Saturday was the third lovely day in a row and we spent it at my stepmother’s family camp at an inland lake. The kids spent the day playing in the water and being dragged around in a huge tube behind a speed boat. I spent the day basking in the sun and eating freshly fried walleye. Doesn’t get much better than that.

It’s just as well we had so much fun the previous three days because Sunday it rained all day.

Now it’s time to turn my attention to buying those few things that have thus far been overlooked and packing up all my stuff. One thing that may not get packed is my ring – the jewelry with whom I left it hasn’t done the first bit of work on it. Grrrr…. He suggested maybe I could pick it up next time I’m in town, but what would be the point in leaving it with him? He’s had it since July already. If I left it, he likely wouldn’t touch it until next July anyway!!

Bored? Need a few ideas on how to spend what’s left of the summer? Or maybe you’re more like me and like to plan ahead – for next year! 100 Productive Ways to Spend Your Summer Vacation has some pretty great suggestions. I know I’m taking notes…

TV has changed a lot since I last lived in the US and was watching regularly.

A decade ago my husband and I had “basic” cable which meant we could have decent reception on PBS and the free network channels plus a few extras for less than $20/month. I was an NBC fan and most of what I remember watching was either sit-coms or dramatic series.

When I come back to visit these days, there’s nothing basic about TV anymore. I hardly ever see a network channel for one thing. Most of the people I visit watch one of the many specialized channels available out there – HGTV being a good example. And most of the shows that I see on or advertised are reality shows of one sort or another – pseudo-informative medical shows, interior design or makeover shows, or the fascinatingly grotesque contrived creations like “Wife Swap”. I can remember a time when people watched TV shows to escape reality, not to immerse themselves in someone else’s reality.

But it’s the commercials that really bother me. I remember when the worst thing about commercials was the absurdity of the products that marketers were trying to convince everyone that they simply couldn’t live without. I almost long for those commercials now. But I’d much rather explain to my child why the toy or food in the commercial probably isn’t as fun as it’s made out to be than sit through another pharmaceutical ad with my daughter. I cannot imagine why there should be any controversy about teaching sex education in schools when any child who watches TV is getting a pretty comprehensive if warped idea of the whole process. I notice that alcohol and tobacco ads are out. So who and why did anyone decide that it was a good idea to start advertising prescription medications? I don’t know if my kids have noticed it yet, but if they are in the room when one of those commercials comes on, it usually triggers a tickle attack to distract them. The only thing I’m grateful for is that we don’t watch prime time. My friend tells me that most of those ads are for male enhancement aids or Viagra. Fortunately Nick at Night doesn’t advertise such things.

Yet.