Author: Robin Chartier

I got tired of looking at the same background every day and wanted to brighten things up. Still deciding if this is a permanent look or just temporary while I design something else . . .

I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why make peanut butter when you can just buy it at the store?” Well, we’ve been eating natural peanut butter for years, since Calvin was old enough to eat PB&Js because it doesn’t have any sugar or hydrogenated nasty stuff in it. Yes, the oil on the top is annoying and yes, it does tend to slosh over the side the first time you try to mix up a jar, but I’ve found that storing it upside-down helps to keep the oil at the bottom and I’d rather work a little harder at mixing peanut butter than eat chemically altered oil that is going to harden my arteries. I’ll leave that job to bacon.

So anyway, we’ve been eating Trader Joe’s natural peanut butter for the last 3 years and have gotten spoiled. Alas, there is no TJ’s here and the only natural brand of peanut butter looked a little bit sad. No big deal, we bought it anyway and are going to try it. But then when we were walking through the bulk barrels section of Carrefour where they have actual open barrels of spices, nuts, grains, seeds, etc, I had the wild idea of making my own peanut butter. I guess that’s what happens when you have extra time and energy on your hands because someone else is doing all the laundry, mopping and most of the dishes.

So I bought 1/2 a kilo of roasted, salted peanuts. That’s about a pound for those of you not using the metric system. Yes, I know raw unsalted peanuts are better for you, but I like salt.

Then at home I got out my hand blender (new, since my trusty Braun is in Egypt somewhere – but at least this one is 220v so I don’t need to use a converter now), that has a mini food processor attachment and threw in some peanuts.

I would normally add some peanut oil, but I couldn’t find any at the store so I used grapeseed oil (a healthy oil with no taste that is great for cooking that I used to buy at TJs).

Hmm, super salty. It tasted very peanutty, but also like you just ate an entire bag of baseball peanuts and sucked on the shells. Yummy, but too strong. Next time I’ll do 50/50 salted/unsalted. But for now? I have some unsalted almonds and even though I’ve never had it, TJ’s carries natural almond butter right next to the peanut butter. So I know it is possible to make almond butter. Maybe mixing them would work?

Add enough oil to make it spreadable, mix them together and refrigerate.  The almonds reduced the saltiness and added a nice sweetness. Win. Win. I’ll have to do a taste test between mine and the store brand and see which one we like better. At least this way we don’t have to stir in the oil that sits at the top of the jar!

as a mom and an employer after going to the pool yesterday and seeing a nanny/maid go swimming with the kid while the mom sat in a deck chair relaxing with her ipad. Oh, and did I mention the nanny was fully clothed? Yep, she plodded into the pool in pants and a polo shirt so the little girl (about 5 years old) could swim.

Nanny looked like she didn’t mind (except for the cold water), but how uncomfortable to swim in heavy wet pants and a shirt? Poor nanny.

Walking down our street toward the pool. It’s only about 2 blocks away from our house so it’s easy to throw on suits and head over there for an hour. The dude in the background is some guy the landlord hired to paint the metal detail on the fence and around the house. This relatively small job took him two full days. Needless to say, we found out he was being paid by the hour.

Camille loves to float in the boat — especially when her brothers or dad do cannonballs and we can ride the waves created by the big splashes.

 

 

Mmm, yummy pool water. :shudder:

I did get in the pool (in an actual swimsuit — no swimming in clothes for me!), but I had put the camera away by then. It was a little too cold for my taste, but Camille and I had fun floating around on her boat. When we left, nanny was still swimming and I was really hoping she had dry clothes to change into for the walk/drive home!

Me sand sledding — it was hard to get going fast, but keeping your feet in the air and trying to bend the sides of the sled up to reduce the surface area helped. It would have been much faster if we had one of those circular discs like in Christmas Vacation.

Calvin working on his carving skills.

I can’t believe this video (below) didn’t come out. I pressed record before the camera focused properly and was so focused on holding on for dear life that I didn’t notice until I was playing it back later. I’m showing it to you anyway so you can see Josh’s awesome driving skills at the end when he accelerates at the bottom of the hill.

You can totally hear the stress in my voice as I’m telling Carter to be quiet so I can focus on being freaked out. We were driving straight down a steep sand hill and it was not my favorite part of the trip.

This video is in focus (yea!) and shows how rough a ride it was in parts.

And finally, Carter and his love affair with camel racing . . . he kept hoping a camel would try and outrun our car each time we passed one.

Easter Sunday in Oman. I’m just going to call this the year of the non-holiday because ever since we left the states back in December I have stumbled through all the special days: Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day (and we were even in America for that one), St. Patrick’s Day, and now Easter week. I’m sure it has to do with hardly knowing what month we’re in since our weather isn’t “seasonally appropriate” to what we’re used to (but I’m not complaining about 90 degrees in April – it’s lovely). Anyway, I forget the holiday is coming and then I remember almost after the fact, “Hey, it’s _____ today!”

That’s the way Easter snuck up on me. It was only when we got to church on Friday morning (virtual Sunday) and it was Good Friday that it really registered that Easter was two days away. And here since Sunday is a normal work day, it was certainly not a “normal” Easter.

We went to our church’s sunrise service at 5:30 am. There were several other congregations meeting on the grounds in different areas/halls at the same time (or even earlier!)

All these seats were filled by the end. There were at least 500 people at the service we attended.

Watching the sunrise – I could have used a few more hours of sleep, especially since this cute thing is getting two new teeth and teething and sleeping don’t exactly go together.

But at least I was functioning better than Bob, who spent most of the service slumped in Josh’s lap and immediately went back to bed when we got home at 7am.

Everyone lining up to take communion at the end of the service. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken communion on Easter morning, since we usually have the somber communion service on Good Friday and then the celebration on Sunday morning.

Church was nice. It was fun to see all the Indian women dressed in their beautiful saris and it was impressive to see how many people came to church before heading to work.

We were not those people. We went home and everyone fell asleep for a few hours. The Chartiers certainly aren’t morning people, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate Easter in Oman.