Jenyfer Matthews

My trip back to Egypt went smoothly enough, in spite of a surprise re-route through Paris. I was worried about that – can you blame me after the trouble I had on the first part of my trip?? – but it all went well enough. I am almost positive two of my bags were over the weight limit but with the distraction of re-routing me and the children either the gate agent didn’t notice or chose to let it slide. Phew.

I arrived in Cairo three hours later than originally scheduled, just before iftar (the sunset breaking of the fast during Ramadan) and was a little concerned about that timing because typically nothing happens for about two hours after that. It was in fact the most efficient arrival I’ve ever experienced. I was through passport control in about five minutes and all of my bags came through one after another, bam bam bam. I was through customs and driving away in half an hour. Unheard of. The call to prayer (and the signal to eat) came as I was waiting for my driver to bring the car around. The timing worked out in another way as well: the roads were nearly empty so we cruised home in no time.

I can almost hear you thinking what’s the catch. Well, let’s just say I would advise you never to assume an airline with have the sense to throw a tarp over your luggage, even if it is raining steadily for a five hour layover. All of my bags were damp and the contents of two were actually wet. One quilting magazine and some other assorted paperwork were soaked. It could have been worse I suppose – at least all my new books were well protected (I tend to pack with lots of plastic bags, against interior explosions of shampoo, etc)

I’ve been back a day and my bags are unpacked and put away, until next time. I am however still settling in. After being in the quiet of the north woods for six weeks, things here seem really loud. Air conditioners perpetually blowing, two toilets running, traffic noise – not to mention the children. It will take me a little while to tune it all out again.

It’s quiet in other ways though. Two of my closest friends moved away at the end of June. No more girly chats, no more wine nights. No more silly text messages throughout the day. I’m sure I’ll find ways to fill in the gaps and distract myself but for right now it all feels a little hollow.

School starts on Sunday. I’ve been ALONE for more than half an hour since the end of June and I’m looking forward it. I haven’t been able to write since two nights before I left Minnesota and I’m itching to pick up the story again…

I’m in my usual stressed out, pre-travel packing mode at the moment. You might think that I’d be an expert at packing by now…yes and no. Stop by friend and author Shelley Munro’s blog to find out what special packing challenges I’m facing this year. Leave a comment and you’ll have a chance to win a PDF copy of SEPARATION ANXIETY.

I’ll be back with you, live from Egypt next week. Have a great weekend and send me positive thoughts for a smooth trip back!

Summer started so early in Northern Minnesota this year that most of the berry season was finished before I even arrived. I’ve had many fewer raspberries this year than usual and even the blueberries we picked a few weeks back were nearly a month earlier than the typical season.

As warm and sticky as it was last week, it seems that summer is ending a bit early too. The wind started howling a few days ago, whipping up the water on Lake Superior to nearly surfer sized waves. With the wind came cooler temperatures. Much cooler temperatures. Cool enough that many more deer are beginning to show up in the yard in the mornings and evenings, looking for corn. Cool enough that I’m wearing socks to bed and pulling on a thick quilt at night. Cool enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see the leaves changing color next week.

Too bad I won’t be here to see it.

The children and I will be leaving for Egypt on Sunday, where it most definitely still summer. I’m trying hard to look forward to that – to the fact that in Cairo I still have time to wear the two new sundresses I ordered for myself that only just arrived in the mail here. I’m looking forward to the start of the school year and having a little more time to myself during the day. A change of scene has given me the time to recharge my creative juices and I’m bursting with new ideas for writing and quilts and cooking and…well, lots of things.

But I still wish I could be here in Minnesota to see the change of seasons from summer to autumn and from autumn to winter. I wonder how my husband would feel about commuting…

I have less than a week before I reverse my course and go back to Cairo. Where did the summer go? I feel like I just got here. And need I say that all my plans for my summer education program for my children went right out the window? I had planned to make my daughter do 10 minutes of math a day, my son read and do a bit of writing. To date we’ve done absolutely nothing. Since school starts about a week after we return and we’ll all be settling back in and getting over jetlag, I’m guess that nothing will change once we get back.

Sigh.

My bedroom at my father’s house is a very stressful place right now, surrounded as I am by a mountain of Amazon boxes. I’ve been in denial, but I won’t be able to keep that up. I really need to make a start on packing. And I know that I’ll feel better once I can see the floor again.

I am happy to say I’ve made good progress on my next book while I’ve been here, in spite of falling asleep while writing the other night. I woke up a short time later to four pages of k’s. Overall, I’m going home with about 20K words than I came with – best yet, they don’t weigh a thing

I keep hearing from everyone here how hot it is. Frankly, until they mentioned it, I didn’t really notice. Compared to what I’m used to in Cairo, it’s been absolutely heavenly. I think I’m in the minority though.

The foxes are either hot or very, very relaxed.

I think they mistook the function of this pool of water – or maybe they like the bird flavor!

I love this pose. It makes you wonder what he was thinking as he gazed at his own reflection. Mirror, mirror, on the wall…

How would you caption this guy?

Today it’s cool and damp and drizzly. Uncomfortably sticky, perhaps but NOT HOT.

We were surrounded – a herd of does and fawns on one side, and a pack of foxes on the other, all of them hungry. They were discontent, one step away from an angry mob – my only advantage being that they didn’t actually have pitchforks or fiery torches. I did the only thing I could do in such a situation: I walked outside armed only with a red plastic coffee can in each hand – one filled with corn for the deer and one filled with whole roasted chicken pieces for the foxes, chicken that my step-mother had bought and roasted especially for the yard pets.

After I poured out the corn, I did as my step-mother the fox tamer instructed and sat in the grass with my arm extended, offering a drum stick. As much as the first fox to approach wanted that chicken, he wasn’t quite sure about me. He got close enough to me that I could hear his little feet in the grass and the snort from his nose as he assessed the situation. When he decided that I looked like a bad risk, he danced away a short distance watching me. He still wanted that chicken. I admit a certain amount of relief. I stood up slowly and walked over to the little knoll they like and left the chicken pieces there.

They seemed to enjoy their dinner, as they didn’t immediately disperse after. It seemed they knew that their regular chef wasn’t home and they were in the mood to put on a show for her understudy. Kind of like school children do when they have a substitute teacher! The deer eventually chased several of the foxes on to the roof of the shed up the driveway and shortly after they all left.

The next morning I was two hours later than they all would have preferred for breakfast as well, and lucky for me there was only one hungry fox out there still loitering and hoping. We were both in luck: I only had about enough left for one fox anyway and he got it all. My step-mother can tell them all apart. The only thing I could tell is that this fox wasn’t worried about me at all – he just wanted his breakfast. He pretty well stood his ground as I approached the knoll. If I had wanted to sit in the dew-wet grass in my pajamas, he probably would have stuck his head in the bucket and gotten the remaining chicken for himself!

I locked the doors before I went to bed. The way the animals all seemed to know that a newbie was in charge I was a little afraid that the bears might decide to let themselves in for a midnight snack!

The only thing better than a swim in a cold lake on a hot summer day…

is a beer margarita on a hot summer day!

My son is off on his overnight camping trip with his grandpa and step-grandma – and I’m on fox feeding duty this evening and tomorrow morning. The question remains whether I’m brave enough to try hand feeding them and whether or not they’d come up to me if I did.

Stay tuned and have a great weekend!

Who needs a trip to the zoo when you have creatures like these visiting the yard on a daily basis?

My stepmother has made pets of several foxes in the area. At least a few of them come around for breakfast and dinner a couple of times a day.

My stepmother has also got a couple of “pet” deer. One of them will even let her pet them when she is in the mood for an ear rub.

I myself haven’t seen many bears in the yard personally, which is why it was that much more thrilling when this guy showed up on Monday evening.

He didn’t look so very threatening, grazing on clover in the yard – but I still took these pictures from the safety of the house!

When he started to look too comfortable and got too close to the house, my father shooed him away. They can be incredibly destructive to things like bird feeders. The deer were keeping a close eye on the bear as well.

Is it any wonder the children prefer to play in the clearing, closer to the house??

I’ve heard about the fabulous blueberry picking opportunities in the area nearly every summer I’ve visited my parents, but have never gone picking myself until this weekend. There is an area up the Gunflint Trail that has been cleared at different times by forest fires where the blueberries grow plentifully. I could tell you more specifically where we went, but then I’d have to kill you.

It was a hot day and very still – and it takes longer than you’d think to fill up a gallon sized ice cream bucket even if the berries are fat and juicy!

If I crouched too long, I’d get stuck in that position.

But standing wasn’t so much better!

Even after we’d been out there a couple of hours and I’d filled my bucket 2/3 of the way, I still couldn’t stop. We had decided to go back to the car and maybe find another spot but I kept having to stop and pick just a little more because the berries were so pretty!

As you can see, all that hard work paid off in the end. Is there anything better than fresh blueberry pie?

The first week we were on vacation we were staying in a hotel while my daughter attended a tennis camp. The room didn’t have a refrigerator, so we were dependent on eating in restaurants. At first I was looking forward to it – any day I don’t have to cook is a good day.

I quickly went off eating in restaurants. Is there anything on any menu that isn’t deep fried and / or covered in cheese? It’s as if these places are looking for ways to make things as unhealthy as possible. And the portion sizes are ridiculous – even when I ordered a half order of pesto for my son it arrived in a serving bowl and was enough to feed at least two adults.

The children’s menus were just as ridiculous. There weren’t so very many options in the small town where we were staying so we ended up eating at Perkins (a large chain) a lot. If you ordered the macaroni and cheese from the children’s menu, they gave you an ice cream scoop sized portion of pasta and a small side order of your choice. I understand that the children’s menu covers a wide age range and that not all children have the same appetite, so I didn’t think much about it the skimpy serving until my son ordered the “dollar pancakes” one evening instead. The pancakes were actually $1 cheaper than the macaroni, but the stack of pancakes they brought him would have been more appropriate for a truck driver. Where is the rationale in that?

I finally managed by skipping meals or picking off my children’s plates.

It’s not a whole lot better now that I’m at my father’s house however. My step-mother plays dirty: she is a great cook and she spoils me rotten by not only making my favorite entrees, but she also makes dessert every night. How am I supposed to resist carrot cake with caramel frosting, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, or ice cream with fresh raspberries? And just in case I could resist all of that, she bought my favorite mint ice cream bars as well.

She looks perfectly pleasant, but she’s evil, I tell you. Pure evil. No one could resist her wiles – I don’t think I’ve been hungry since I arrived. I’m powerless in her grasp – and it would be churlish of me to refuse her hospitality. I’ve gained about five pounds in my first week, and at this rate even my baggiest pants won’t fit by the time I leave. I’d have to kayak all day, every day against the wind to keep up with this intake.

Three weeks (nearly) down, three to go…