In addition to the usual housework and shopping / errand running, I have to finish up the Halloween decorations. I’ve been thinking all month about buying pumpkins but was holding off because I was warned about ravenous squirrels roaming the neighborhood who make short work of pumpkins. So I waited… and almost waited so long there weren’t any pumpkins at the store! I did finally find a few yesterday – phew! What’s Halloween without a few jack-o-lanterns?
I also foolishly volunteered to help with my son’s class party this afternoon because I somehow thought that life might be a little calmer by now! HA!
After school, it will be rush rush rush helping the kids to get themselves costumed up for their first real, genuine, American trick-or-treat. I am actually pretty excited for them. I’ve done my best to give them the Halloween experience while we were living abroad and of course they never knew what they were missing, but I did. So glad that they can have the real thing while they are both young enough to participate and old enough to remember!
It’s been a busy week, what with upacking and sorting the bits and pieces of my life.
I started by looking through the many boxes labeled “Memorabilia” from our time capsule so I could get them out of the way before our air shipment from Cairo arrived. That was amusing.
Yes, I used to care enough about wearing makeup that I had a mirror which I could set to “daytime” and “evening” lighting. I also found a cordless curling iron and two unopened BUTANE canisters for it! 1) I don’t remember owning or using such an item (though I did have a corded curling iron I used every day); 2) storing the butane canisters was a very bad idea and I’m lucky that they didn’t combust at some point; 3) a butane curling iron seems like a very bad idea – just add hair spray and POOF!
I also found this. What is it though??
I took pottery lessons way back when and according to the stamp on the bottom, I made it. I was looking at it, wondering if I had planned to display a marble at some point, and in the process of writing this post I remembered: I made it to replace the base of a glass salt shaker that had been knocked over and broken by a cat. Since it is loose and I ran across the loose shaker top, I suppose it didn’t fit!
Our air shipment arrived this week, bright and early Tuesday morning. Fourteen boxes in all, most of which looked as if they’d been run over by a truck before being delivered. It’s amazing that none of our glassware broke, but I am still glad that the box mislabeled “sewing machine” wasn’t actually my Bernina. It was my jewelry box!
Since I was not in Cairo to (micro)manage what got packed and shipped, there were some things that showed up by air that could have come a slower method – or not at all!
Hmmm… I am guessing that I was planning to make A LOT of Christmas cookies at some point. I usually bought the sugar and brought it back because you could not find it in Cairo – unless you had a friend that worked at the Embassy. I guess I better get busy this year. I am now in possession of TWO cookie guns too so no more excuses!
Apparently I also planned to make a lot of muffins! Actually, I used to stockpile these – you couldn’t always find decent muffin papers in Cairo so when I did, I snapped them up. With what I’ve bought since I’ve been in our new house I could probably make muffins and cupcakes for a couple of years and not run out!
(Note to self: make cupcakes for soccer game tomorrow!)
What surprised me most about seeing all these things is how sad it all made me. I’m glad to have my things in one place, but my – how time marches on. One group of items is from a life I put on “hold” while I went abroad. In the time we were away my husband’s mother, uncle, and grandmother died, as did my own mother and grandmother. So many memories of them surfaced as I found old letters, photos, and objects that reminded me of them. The arrival of our air shipment contains the items of a life cut-short. We never planned to stay in Egypt forever, but we never had a chance to say a proper goodbye to Egypt and all of the people who we saw on a day to day basis either.
The only thing I can try to do now is weave the strands of my lives together and hope that the new pattern is pleasing and strong…
I admit it: I have a slight addiction to purses. It first became apparent to me when we moved from our first apartment to our second in Cairo. I had way more purses tucked away in my wardrobe than I thought I did.
Looking back, I know how it started. For years and years I had a standard black leather purse and a standard brown leather purse and that was it. As a student and then a first-time-working person, I didn’t have much money for frivolous things like purses. Years later, when our financial status started to improve, I started to buy a new purse here and there – always with the rationalization “I don’t have any cute purses!”
Now I have almost nothing but cute purses. I have backpack purses in wine and teal printed with elephants that I bought on a trip to Cambodia, a couple of avocado green purses, a giraffe print purse with red trim, an eggplant colored purse, an aqua blue purse, a red patent leather purse my husband bought me in Italy, a couple of straw purses, big purses, tiny purses, evening purses, and… well, you get the idea.
It’s absurd really – I don’t even like to change my purse. I hate to move everything from one to the other and I’m always rushing around so much that I rarely leave myself time to switch purses. Once I put my stuff in a purse it usually stays there for a few months.
Absurd.
I have recently come to realize I have a similar problem with boots. I love boots but I don’t own so many for a couple of reasons. One is that there is no real winter in the Middle East so I didn’t really need boots there. Also, I’m fairly picky about my boots; I want real leather but I wasn’t about to pay real leather $$$ prices to walk everywhere through the trash on Cairo streets. I have a couple of pairs of leather anklets in brown and black but I’ve been looking for taller boots for some time now.
There are things that attract me to boots as well. I love silver studs. And fringe. A fellow soccer mom wore some cowboy style boots in a dull copper finish to a game last Saturday and I nearly swooned. (The above elements need not be included on the same boot!) I adore my new red cowboy boots so much I almost hate to wear them anywhere lest I scuff them.
I didn’t realize how transparent I am with regard to my love of boots until my friend saw these at a thrift store and bought them for me:
Every girl should have a friend who would get her such wonderful boots – did you see the fringe??? – but let’s face it: you wouldn’t look at these boots and buy them for just anyone, would you? I think she’s got my number. I haven’t worn them yet because it’s been wet and they are suede but I like just having them.
Which is of course how I ended up with so many purses…
There was a time, long ago in what seems like an alternate life, when I set a goal to try a new recipe once a month. Since this year was one long disruption, needless to say I didn’t stick to that goal. I did cook here and there, but mostly I stuck to favorite recipes that I could make from memory. Most of the time I was happy if I could make reasonably balanced meals – new and interesting wasn’t on my agenda.
With life finally settling down, last week was one of the best ones I’ve had for cooking in a long time. I made some old favorites and tried some newer things as well, including jambalaya and cream of cauliflower soup. Those are not technically “new” recipes to me, just things I don’t make all that often.
I did try one new recipe on Saturday morning though and I am pleased to say that in spite of some initial skepticism from my children, it was a total hit – Pumpkin Pancakes.
I pretty much followed the recipe as is was except that I followed the suggestion of one of the reviewers and used 2 eggs instead of 1 and upped the spices quite a bit. The result was wonderful. The pancakes were pleasantly pumpkin-y but not too sweet. The next time I make them, I’ll likely try replacing some of the white flour with wheat germ or ground flaxseed (Ssshhh!).
The rest of my kitchen equipment is due to arrive tomorrow morning from Cairo. Once I get it all organized and put away, I won’t have any more excuses not to cook (except time!). My current goal is to cook a nice meal at least 4x a week. The other three nights? I think may need to assign those nights to the other three members of my family! It may mean Cheerios for dinner but I could live with that once in a while if it meant I didn’t have to cook every night
I have always found music to be a real mood-lifter and just playing the radio while I putter around the house helps tremendously as I go about my day. This catchy little song by Andy Grammer has really been uplifting and appropriate this week:
Keep Your Head Up – Andy Grammer
The glow that the sun gives
Right around sunset
Helps me realize
This is just a journey
Drop your worries
You are gonna turn out fine.
Oh, you’ll turn out fine.
Fine, oh, you’ll turn out fine.
But you gotta keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh.
You gotta keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh.
I know it’s hard, know its hard,
To remember sometimes,
But you gotta keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh.
I still have not heard when our air shipment from Cairo will be delivered from Detroit, but since I am tired of living my life on hold I do believe that I’ll be going out and buying some paint and a paint brush to get started on the first of the dressers anyway…
Remember how I said I had planned to bring the dressers inside, off the screened in porch, so I could complete the refinishing process, but that I decided to wait so that the movers would have a place to put the boxes?
Well, what I don’t have is our shipment but what we did get was a nice soaking rain shower with wind that lasted all night. I thought I had pulled the dressers in away from the screens enough, but I was wrong. The nicer, older, darker one got wet. Not soaking, but damp enough that I can feel the wood on the newly naked and unprotected top is rough when a couple of days ago I had sanded it satin smooth.
Grrrr…
Looks like I might end up refinishing the entire body of the thing after all, but in the meantime I am moving it inside to dry off. The movers can just work around it.
This has been a long week and it’s only Wednesday.
I’ve been a bit down the last couple of days. Maybe I’m just tired. Or demoralized. I feel like I never stop bustling around doing this or that or the other thing and yet I’m still surrounded by disorder and chaos and mess. Everywhere I look there is just stuff that needs to be put away. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong exactly, except that perhaps I am trying to do too many things at the same time. I’m keeping up but seemingly not making much headway.
I am a person who likes to finish projects. When I start a quilt, I finish it. Rarely do I work on more than one at a time, unless they are different sizes and are at different stages – one might be in the quilting process when I start another. I can typically finish hand-quilting a queen sized quilt in 6-8 weeks start to finish. I hate that I had to leave my quilts behind in Cairo ten months ago, particularly one that is unfinished.
The same goes with writing books and I’ve had an unfinished manuscript hanging over me for a year now.
When I consulted with my father about how to refinish the dressers, he suggested that perhaps wasn’t the best time to take on such a project when I’m so busy otherwise. I can see his point of view but here’s the thing: we need the dressers to put away some of the stuff around here and I need the creative diversion. Yes, I admit it: I actually find the process fun and it makes a nice change of pace from washing walls and breaking down cardboard boxes.
My plan was to put down a tarp and some cardboard in what will eventually be my sewing room downstairs and bring in the dresser I intend to paint so I could work on it this week. Then the movers contacted us that our air shipment from Cairo was in Detroit and would be released from customs any day. I decided to hold off on moving the dresser because when the air shipment comes, many of those boxes will need to go into that room. I can hardly complain because the shipment contains my kitchen items and most of my quilting supplies and quilts, but it does delay my finishing the dresser project. Great – more boxes to unpack.
{Insert whining and moaning here}
And just think: if we end up finding a house to buy this spring, we’ll get to do the pack-up-and-move routine this time next year too.
Sorry for the late post today, but it’s been a crazy busy weekend:
* I froze my butt off watching each child play a soccer match on Saturday morning. It was about 50F but the wind was whipping across the flat fields at about 30mph! FYI – I was not the only parent out there all bundled up like this:
(I got this coat at a church rummage sale for $2 )
* I hosted a slumber party for my son’s upcoming birthday with three little boy guests;
* As part of the party, I ate a Happy Meal at McDonald’s so that my daughter, not allowed to attend the party with the boys, could have the Halloween bucket the meal was served in;
* I stayed up later than I wanted to so that the boys could have their fun and I bit my tongue when one of them dropped his smore on my recently cleaned carpet;
(Incidentally, I am thinking of cutting off friend birthday parties at age 10!)
* I drove 2 1/2 hours one way to Toledo to meet a friend who had a BMX bike to donate to my son.
And I did all of the above while on the verge of having a major muscle spasm in my lower back from all the furniture sanding I did on Friday. Thank goodness for heated car seats…
Tomorrow is little man’s actual birthday. I’ll be making a cake and wrapping presents before I lay on the floor for a while for some back therapy.
I’ve been having a lot of fun unpacking boxes – so many things I’d pretty much forgotten I still had!
We moved fairly frequently when I was growing up, so there are a lot of things that I got rid of that I sort of wish I’d kept. I did keep some things though. Like this:
(click any image to enlarge)
Remember these? The records might be worth something (to someone) if I still had the sleeves they came in. Who knows – I haven’t opened all the boxes yet!
I went through a phase where I went to the TG&Y every week and bought several hits off their top 10 display for the week, which means there are some pretty questionable choices in this stack! There are also quite a few Elvis singles included – both mine and also some that my mother bought when she was a teen.
I haven’t even opened this box yet, but the label made me laugh. “Fragile” indeed! Remember when stereos came in single, stackable components?
I do still have cassettes to play in my dual cassette player too. What a mix of genres! There are cassette singles in the box as well – the music industries answer to 45rpm’s before iTunes was invented
I could always fire up one of these more portable puppies too! They look so giant now compared to ipods!
Yes, I have vinyl albums (and a turntable) too. Don’t you just love the “limited edition” albums with the picture printed right on the vinyl? My daughter asked to hold one because she had never touched an album before – then she asked if handling it would “smudge” the lines. Young whippersnapper! Vinyl is making a comeback because it’s actually more durable than digital.
This really is a treasure – from my husband’s childhood. I had never seen the schoolhouse before. I love the metal bell on top!
None of these little people have a cell phone to call home if they fall off the dangerous merry-go-round, but never fear – there is a phone booth nearby!
I would have thought that the children were too old for the Fisher Price toys but they asked me if I could buy them more. Only on ebay…
I’ve been asked many times the secret to my slim figure. It is in large part due to metabolism. The other two things that have worked wonders for me at times when my weight has crept up higher than I’ve liked is breastfeeding and manual labor.
I’ve been done with breastfeeding for years now, but manual labor just keeps presenting itself. There are still boxes to be unpacked and furniture to be moved around but at present my biggest chore is the yard. It’s autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and it is called “fall” here for a reason.
The leaves are currently falling like snow and I’ve already decided that I like “fall” more when it happens out in the woods, away from my house. (Isn’t the above picture gorgeous?) I have no less than ELEVEN large trees in the backyard of this house – which seems like a lot for a suburban house! – and most of them still have the majority of their leaves. That is scary to me because I spent two hours raking and moving leaves on Sunday afternoon and by the time I was done the yard looked as if it had never been touched.
My next house is going to either be surrounded by concrete or evergreens.
I wouldn’t bother raking the leaves, but what else can I do? I know well enough that if I don’t move what is already down, the leaves will only get deeper and heavier. And wet. Moving dry leaves is a pain but moving wet leaves is a real PITA. Also, this is a rental house. If I kill the lawn by leaving the leaves to sit around, I’ll just have to fix it later anyway. (Been there, done that – learned my lesson!)
I should have taken the hint when I found that the landlord left a nearly new, pretty snazzy leaf vacuum in the garage.
I bought a lawnmower on clearance yesterday, one that also mulches and has a bag. Not much grows in a yard with so many trees except ivy and moss, which is how I have gotten away so long without mowing. I only bought a mower now because I am desperate. I thought I could use it as a lawn vacuum of sorts. In addition to the trees, the yard is full of paving stone paths and irregularly shaped flower beds which are alternately covered in mulch or lake stones – all of which is concealed at present by ankle deep leaves. A leaf vacuum doesn’t work so well on mulch or rocks and all the irregular beds certainly does make mowing something of a challenge.
If this were MY yard to do with what I pleased, I’d take out at least half of the trees and knock out all of the wonky flower beds. Simplify. You can’t grow veggies in a shady yard and if I am going to have beds, I’d rather they were full of food producing plants.
You might wonder what I am doing with all the leaves anyway. Apparently the city will send around a truck a couple of times a season to clean up so people just dump the leaves in the street. With everyone doing that at the moment, the streets are all lined with so many leaves that driving is a bit hazardous (I surely wouldn’t want to be the mailman right now!) There is a wooded area behind the house that the neighbor invited me to dump leaves and grass clippings in. OKAY.
The backyard also has a fire pit… hmmm… a cold front is supposed to be coming through…
I write books for fun so why is it so hard to write my own bio? I am an American currently living in Cairo, Egypt. Aside from writing, I'm a married mom of two under ten, a decent (if reluctant) cook, an encyclopedia of random scientific / medical facts, a wine lover (but not a snob!), and a Capricorn. I love to travel, spend time with good friends, and laugh at life's surprises. View of life - definitely half full.
