Jenyfer Matthews

My husband has been a vegetarian for 20+ years, but I am not. We’ve managed to merge quite well – we eat vegetarian at home and I eat what I like when I’m out and about. When we had children, my husband felt quite strongly that they should be raised vegetarian and since it didn’t matter to me one way or another, that’s what we’ve done. We both know that one day they will make the choice for themselves (and have already – my son sneaks pepperoni and hot dogs whenever he can!)

Last week I was chatting with one of the ladies I work with at the library about Thanksgiving and she asked what I was going to make for dinner. During the course of our conversation, she asked me why the children were vegetarian so I explained about my husband. She said so? What right does he have to make that choice for them?

It’s not the first time I’ve had someone try to argue with me on the point, and I find it fascinating really. Why should they care so much what my children eat or don’t eat? They are perfectly healthy and well developed so clearly they aren’t suffering for their diet. Parents make choices for their children all the time without waiting to see what the children might ultimately think on the topic – names, vaccinations, clothes, schools, and religion.

Since I thought it was a good analogy, I pointed out to her that parents don’t ask their children what religion they want to be, they just do it. I knew before I said it that it was going to be a tough sell – Egypt isn’t the sort of place where religion is thought of as a choice. Of course, she was adamant that it was not the same thing at all. Religion is spiritual, a tradition. I guess I wasn’t supposed to mention the fact that as an Orthodox Coptic Christian she follows the church fasting practices and essentially turns herself and her children into vegans for about 1/3 of every year. Because it’s not the same thing at all, right?

I had to give up on that line of argument and just suggest she think of my husband’s vegetarianism as his tradition. I wonder if she would have felt better if I were to have lied and said he is a Buddhist, to give his diet a religious context?

We do!

People often ask me what it’s like to celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas abroad. We manage just fine, I think. I suppose it really boils down to what your expectations of the day are more than anything else.

When we lived in the United Arab Emirates, the weekend was Thursday / Friday so Thanksgiving was never an issue – we always had the day off! The weekend in Egypt however is Friday / Saturday so there have been times when the children actually had to go to school on Thanksgiving. As it happens, this year Thanksgiving coincides with a Muslim holiday so EVERYONE in Egypt has a long weekend.

As my husband and children are vegetarian, we don’t cook a turkey, though they are available. I saw some giant frozen Butterball turkeys at the store the other day. Just thinking how much fossil fuel energy that turkey must have consumed to travel to all the way to Cairo is staggering, frankly. And I wouldn’t want to think about how many times it might have thawed just a bit on the way! But if you are really into your turkey, it is still probably worth the money. A neighbor of mine bought a local turkey one year and in the end was very disappointed. Turns out, the shop had sold her a rooster! They compensated her by giving her a Butterball after the fact, but that didn’t make up for the fact that they ruined her holiday meal.

On a normal day, I’m a one-pot meal kind of cook. On Thanksgiving, I go all out (for me, anyway!). I make a pumpkin pie, stuffing, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce, a veggie (this year, steamed broccoli), and a lieu of a turkey we have lentil loaf. It’s a meal we all enjoy and since we only make it on the holidays, it’s all the more special.

There’s no Macy’s Day parade or football to watch, but the children don’t mind because Thanksgiving is when I finally lift the ban on watching Christmas movies

Whatever your plans for the holiday, I hope you have a great weekend.

So, having worked all week so far my house smells musty again. Since I don’t have time to do the thorough cleaning I’d like, I guess I’ll have to cut to the chase and light that scented candle again until I do have time. Which will be have to be the weekend since I’m scheduled to work all next week as well. When it rains, it pours!

Working so much also means I won’t have time to make any progress on the Noah’s Ark baby quilt. Not that there is any deadline – I make the baby quilts as they pop into my brain and then wait for someone to come along. The problem with this system is always timing: when someone needs a baby quilt, then they buy it. Otherwise, people admire them but don’t buy.

Whenever I’ve been invited to participate in craft sales, it ends up primarily acting as advertising for me. On one memorable occasion I sold two baby quilts to the same woman – she had gifts to give. Mostly people take my card and sometimes get in touch later regarding larger projects. I’ve tried to think of smaller, more affordable items to make that would be more conducive to impulse purchases, though even they are problematic. Making smaller items means turning myself into an assembly line which isn’t so much fun. Also, it’s hard to predict what people will like.

For instance, I have made my own children pillow cases with fun juvenile print cotton. They look wonderful with a plain sheet and the children love them. I thought that might be something that others would find appealing – they don’t take long to make and would be affordable so I made a dozen pillow cases. The problem? People are attracted, then ask if I have a matching sheet. I don’t make sheets. Why would I? A sheet is nothing but a hemmed piece of fabric. And most of the prints I’ve used would be overwhelming as a set – they look so much nicer with a solid sheet. I’ve explained this but few people seem to agree.

Guess what my children’s friends will be getting as unique birthday gifts?

I haven’t done much to explore the option of putting the baby quilts in shops because of the commissions involved – and also, I like to keep my options open. If I get involved with a shop, they might want a certain quantity on a regular basis. That sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. I’ve done the assembly line thing and it really is a burden. Sucks the fun right out of everything.

At any rate, I suppose I’ll keep making baby quilts as long as it appeals to me. If I sell them, I sell them. If I decide to go in another direction, then the Linus Project can expect a generous donation.

The boy went back to school this week, and I was looking forward to a little alone time before the upcoming long weekend – this year Thanksgiving and Eid fall at the same time so the children have off Thursday – Monday. I had planned to do a little cleaning then maybe curl up on the couch with my current hand-quilting project and get some quilting done while watching a “House” marathon. I want that quilt ready to use by January.

I haven’t heard from them in at least two weeks, so of course the library called me in to work yesterday and today. Oh well, a couple days work never hurt anything. If one of the professional staff were to fall ill, I’d get a higher hourly rate though…

I am glad that I made some progress over the weekend on a new baby quilt that has been living in my head for a while. A friend of mine was cleaning out her cupboards a few months ago and gave me three different 1-yard pieces of some Noah’s Ark cotton print, as well as several 5″ wide strips, leftover from a project she did of her own. Lucky for me it perfectly coordinated with a brick red star print that another acquaintance gifted me when she moved away.

(click to enlarge)

The only fabric I added to the mix was the brick red, gold, and muslin in the stars. The back and binding will be the same red star print as the narrow sashing between the body of the quilt and the printed border.

Thinking of quilting it in a large meander / stipple – though I’ll have to teach myself how first! It’s perfectly color coordinated and cute, but honestly I’m not that crazy about it. It’s not a color palette I would have chosen on my own. Or maybe it’s *too* perfect. Also, it’s very printy. But since I have enough of this sort of fabric left to make at least one, if not two, more Noah’s Ark baby quilts, guess what I’ll be doing? You guys know how I hate letting things go to waste! Someone out there will love it, right?

Not that I’m much good at predicting what people will like…but more on that later.

I hadn’t been out of the house a whole lot for any length of time while tending to the sick boy, so let me tell you it was a nice change of pace to go to my daughter’s tennis lesson Wednesday night. Only when I got home again I noticed a distinct smell. Not a rotten smell, just sort of musty. I am fairly sensitive to smells – I don’t like strong fragrances and avoid detergents and paper products with scents – so this smell, mild as it was, was disturbing to say the least.

I had been parked in front of my computer working on various writing tasks for most of the week, but yesterday I spent the morning cleaning. I had to get rid of the mysterious funk.

I went a bit above and beyond my norm. I changed my sheets and washed the shower curtain. I sprinkled baking soda on the carpets – and if you knew how much that stuff costs here, you would know how drastic a measure that was. I bring it back in my suitcases and hoard it. (I was really annoyed when I returned one summer and found that my former housekeeper had taken it upon herself to open a box in my spice cabinet to absorb odors. What odor? It’s a spice cabinet!)

I dusted and vacuumed and opened the windows briefly. Opening the windows in Cairo is a mixed bag. The air isn’t all that fresh and leaving them open for any length of time just undoes the dusting and vacuuming in record time. The last thing I did was light a scented candle – drastic measure indeed. I love candles but really can’t be trusted with them. I get distracted and leave them unattended. I’ve had a few minor fires start as a result of unattended pillar candles. This one was in a jar so it was less of a hazard.

Now it smells of “sweet pea” in here, which is a vast improvement. And my floors are clean, for now.

My children decided the time had come to make their Dear Santa Christmas lists. They were a few hours too late as I had already hit the “submit order” button at Amazon, but I left them to it to see what they came up with and whether anything on their list matched what I had chosen.

My Son:

-a pet turtle
-spiderman toy
-a big tent
-cannonbolt (ben 10)
-guitar
-”trumpit”
-sunglasses
-scooby doo 3 (does not exist!)
-a “bezuca”
-police sketchers (shoes)
-lego fire station
-lego star wars
-American football helmet and clothes

My Daughter:

-a big tent
-police sketchers
-a ds game
-a gameboy (why??? she just got a Nintendo DS for her birthday!)
-Shrek movies
-goal keeper gloves
-a gun
-a “trumpit”
-sunglasses
-Phineas and Ferb collection
-American football helmet and clothes

Okay, some of these I can work with, but in my house Santa does not give pets as presents and where exactly they thing they are each going to pitch a “big tent” is a mystery to me. And a bazooka? When I questioned that one, I got an eyeroll and the answer “just a toy one.” Like that was what I needed clarification on!

I have already done some shopping and gotten them some things they didn’t even know they wanted. Tell me – what kid wouldn’t want night vision binoculars???

Now I have to find a way to “post” the letters while secretly keeping them for posterity…

I said I wasn’t going to take on any more quilt commissions for a while and I meant it – at the time. So when I got an unexpected call asking me about the possibility of making a queen sized quilt from the friend of a friend, I hedged. I told her that I had some other projects already in line and that it would take me at least six months to finish. When that didn’t put her off, I quoted a fair-but-on-the-high-side price. She accepted.

I could have just said NO of course, but since I’ve already spent that money on my trip to Thailand, I guess I’m locked in.

That doesn’t mean that her project is going to jump the queue however. I have two things in mind that will come first. One is a baby quilt using some Noah’s Ark print fabric a friend gave to me a few months back. I’ve been itching to get to that one, but life has gotten in the way! The other is a full sized bed quilt for my son using a no-applique sea turtle pattern I bought a few years ago. Since the boy had “a new blanket” on his Christmas list draft, I simply have to get started on that one soon, though I have next to no hope of getting it done in the next month!

The new quilt commission was initiated by the wife, but is actually for the husband. It was interesting meeting with him about it because, like a car salesman who insists on talking to the man in the pair regardless of whether or not he’s paying, I kept directing my questions to the wife until she made it very clear that the husband was definitely the one in charge. He really did have some specific ideas and preferences. However, he also respects the artistic process enough to end our conversation by telling me to forget all that he’d said and make it the way I want to. Now that’s what I like to hear

Due to my son’s illness, I was unable to personally attend the scheduled craft sale yesterday. Lucky for me a couple of my quilt friends volunteered to take my things to the sale and man the table for me. By all reports it was a slow day – many sick children and other competing events – and the only thing I sold was the last of my Christmas stockings to my friend! Oh well, a sale is a sale and at least by not attending I didn’t spend any money

I’m happy to report that the little man is on the mend. I am going to keep him home for a few more days just to ensure that no complications arise. He has a rather nasty sounding cough I’d just as soon not develop into anything else.

Little did I know exactly how many children were out sick at their school. No one is talking about it and they certainly aren’t using the “f” word to describe the illness for fear of the government swooping down to whisk your child away to be quarantined in one of the local hospitals, a horrifying thought if ever there was one. What better place to pick up a secondary infection than in a hospital full of really sick people? Also, no one wants to give the government the excuse to shut down the schools again, even if this might be an appropriate time to do so.

All this drama reminded me of the winter I was in eighth grade and there was a nasty bug going around. I can’t honestly remember what the bug was because I never caught it, but I do remember that at least a third of the class was absent on any given day for a period of about two weeks. Why didn’t I catch it? Who knows. I can’t imagine that my hand washing habits were so stellar and there were no hand gels back then. My homeroom teacher, a mentally unbalanced nun, had her theory though: she advised no one to play with me because obviously since I hadn’t contracted the virus, I must be the carrier. She didn’t do it on an individual basis either – she made an announcement in front of all three of the eighth grade classes. Fortunately, no one paid her much attention. Everyone knew she was nuts.

Fingers crossed my immunity now is as good as it was back then. It’s no fun being sick when you’re the mom…

I have always loved Twain, and this quote is particularly inspiring:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

I made a decision and booked my next trip: I’m going to Thailand the second week in January.

My husband and I took our daughter to Phuket, an island in the south, in 2001. It was truly a lovely spot but in the end I kind of regretted not going to see the north of the country, particularly after I went to Cambodia a few years later. Since I couldn’t lure anyone into joining me and I don’t like to travel alone, I booked myself on a tour.

But not just any tour. This tour. First a look around Bangkok, then an overnight train to Chiang Mai, followed by three days of trekking around remote villages, sleeping in huts, and elephant rides. It was the elephant ride that clinched the deal for me!

I’m both very excited and just a bit nervous, which is actually great. I wanted to have an adventure, to take a trip that would push me outside my comfort zone a bit. With this tour, I’ll have the safety and company of a group without being stuck taking pictures through the window of a bus the entire time. And I’ll have a day on my own at the end where I can relax in my hotel, take a shower, and have a Thai massage before heading back to Cairo the next day. The best of both worlds!

But I still have to get through December. My son was sent home from school yesterday with a fever and shows symptoms of having the flu. So far my daughter is okay, but for how long? Fingers crossed it passes quickly and without complications.

The grocery store where I do the majority of my shopping is sort of controversial in my neighborhood. They carry a lot of imported items – at the expected mark-up – and have a reputation for being thieves. I buy a mix of local and imported and am willing to pay for the convenience of shopping there than elsewhere. Truly, I’ve done the comparison shopping and they aren’t so much more expensive than other shops are AND I can walk there. I just watch the cashier closely

They put up this sign in the last year, but I have yet to hear of anyone actually “getting lucky” in the mystery sale – in any sense of that phrase, ha ha! Until recently I’d been doing most of my shopping in the early mornings, but I’ve recently shifted to Saturday afternoons. Still no luck. I’m beginning to think that it’s (gasp!) all a big hoax!! I may have to do some sort of expose and call them on it. Maybe I’ll get 25% off my bill just to keep me quiet…