Thanks for the encouragement that saying something is better than saying nothing at all. You all may come to regret those words . . .
Josh is off in America this week for work. I’m happy that he gets to go, but I’m happier that I get to stay and finally feel settled in our house. I know it was hard for him to pack up and head out right as we finished the last of the unpacking of the boxes. We have a few more things to hang on the wall, but I’m out of supplies. Hanging on cement is a pain in the behind — we have special hooks with needle-like nails that are supposed to go into the concrete without breaking it up, but we’ve been having about a 50% success rate in this house. And I’ve had to strategically place a few photos to cover up some of the crumbling holes in the wall where they failed. Whoops.
My mom requested photos of my garden. Here’s what I have so far. The big pots are beans, squash, chard, and some other seeds that I forget, but will recognize when they pop through the dirt’s surface. The smaller pots are for baby lettuce and basil. The stuff that is already growing are my chili, tomato and eggplant transplants that I got at the nursery. And a big pot of mint.
I need to grow some more herbs here because they always look wilty and sad in the grocery store. In Bahrain, they were all grown locally so we had lots of cheap beautiful parsley, mint, basil, dill, and cilantro in lush bunches for a quarter apiece. The herbs here look like they’ve been transported by camel in the desert sun and they all smell vaguely alive, but not appealing. When I get another 10 bags of dirt I can fill my other pots and plant parsley, spinach and cilantro. (Basil and mint are already on their way.)
Looking down on my L-shaped yard (it continues on another 20 feet down the side of the house). In the sunny spots in the dirt next to the fence I have sunflowers, squash and tomato seeds planted. Hoping they grow in the sand.
Meels has this yucky loose tooth that has been hanging for almost 2 months. I’ve been willing it to come out since she won’t let me touch it. It’s turning gray.
Meanwhile every other tooth is dropping out of her face — ones that weren’t even loose a few weeks ago. The tooth fairy gives her 10 dirham (about $2.75). She told me she thought the tooth fairy should bring her 100 dirham ($27). Maybe if that terrible top tooth ever comes out . . .
More changes today. Gum chewing gone wrong. I cut it all out and then evened out the ends. She probably lost 5 inches of length.
Saturdays are for yard work, right? Our compound has neglected our yard so we decided to take matters into our own hands. The boys were happy to hack away at this dead tree, removing all of the dried out branches.
We have plenty of dry wood for a future bonfire. The kids broke it down and are storing it for when we get a fire pit. Too bad I have one of those in storage . . .
Yard work completed, we are headed to the ambassador’s house this afternoon for an embassy BBQ. A “Welcome Back Now That It’s Not A Million Degrees Outside and We Can Get Together Outside” party. I think I know maybe 5 families out of over 200 people, so we’ll see how this goes.
