What a SLUG!

*photo courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

This is me as it relates to my keeping up with my blog since I've been back in the U.S.  And I don't mean to be all "Oh, I'm so, so terribly busy with all my busyness and stuff," as though other SAHM's aren't just as busy or possibly busier than I am.  I'm not that self-absorbed.

But honestly, this has been the roughest adjustment period after a move....EVER. Randa is still not out of her mandatory "we moved again"depression and it's been 2 months. 

Remember the expression, "It's Africa hot?" Well, damn if Texas isn't Africa-hotter. I haven't the energy to get out of bed in the morning...which, less face it, is forced energy anyway having 5 teenagers all at the same time.  But good grief, you can just feel your sweat glands breathing heavily and telling your brain in the morning, "Aw, come on! We're exhausted already! Leave us be."

We're also fasting from dawn until sunset for the month of Ramadan right now. Yes, it is earlier than last year.  It's actually about 10 days earlier EVERY year as the Islamic calendar (Hijri calendar) is lunar-based as opposed to the Gregorian calendar (you know, the "regular one.") And while not eating really isn't that big a deal for us, and after the first day or two, neither is the getting started without that morning caffeine boost.  But going without water until 8:30 at night in 104 degree F heat is definitely a challenge. And it really does take a lot out of you.  So there's that....

AND trying to figure out how to enroll kids into what schools and with no documentation because the Egyptian Ministry of Education refused to release their transcripts to me because I'm not their father has been frustrating to say the least.  I may actually have this figured out now that I've made 9,006 telephone calls, sent 439 emails, and put 417 additional miles on my husband's Honda driving around scouting out schools in our area that aren't classified as "bad."

I am excited about our new house and would really like to get started fixing things that need fixing and gardening and decorating and putting a big chunk of those awesome "For the Home" and "DIY projects" items that I've squirreled away on Pinterest to good use.  But damn....it's Africa Hotter and who in the hell has the time? Once these kids get back in school (God willing, I'm able to enroll them,) I'm going to do at least one hour of gardening per day, one Pinterest project per week, and one chapter per day on my novel that is currently collecting dust in the back burners of this laptop. 

Rest assured. You, my whopping 3 fans, have not been forgotten.

Today Is 123-Friday!

In honor of my 123rd post on Squarer Pegs, Rounder Holes, I thought I'd mix it up a little bit and just write about all of the little blurb-y type things as they pop into my head. How is that different from my usual postings? Well, ordinarily I would have to scrunch up my eyebrows a bit and squint my eyes and focus really hard to stay relative-ish to the one subject. And what is the relevance of the 123rd posting? I like simplicity, counting, and while the number 123 is NOT a prime number, it does consist of the first 3 prime digits and so I like that. I like math. And I do hate round numbers so much, unless it's a string of zeros on the left of a decimal point as it relates to a check made payable to me.

Justin Bieber-  Really?! I mean, yeah, I come from the generation that brought us the likes of Milli Vanilli, Nu Shooz, and Tiffany.....but they didn't walk into glass walls and doors and then threaten to walk off of an interview set. Dude! Your following will ALWAYS be 12 year old girls. Game over.

American Football- I don't follow it anymore. Living in Egypt has sort of ruined sports for me since I don't give a crap about Al-Ahly soccer team OR Zumalek soccer team. I've heard people talking about NFL teams that weren't even in existence when I left the US back in 2001. So if your refs are on strike or suck now....I'd like to be concerned, but just can't be bothered. My apologies.

I attended high school (first 3 years) in Stuttgart, Germany and right now as I type this there is an all-year alumni/faculty reunion going on IN STUTTGART in conjunction with the Stuttgarter/Canstaadt festival and some of my friends are there now, reliving memories in our old school, football field, and stomping grounds and I am SOOO jealous that I couldn't be there with them. Hope you guys all have a great time. Go Stallions! Class of 1986 RULES!

Mosquitoes- I frickin' hate them. Especially those little tiny beige almost invisible ones that you can't ever kill until after they've drained at least 2 pints of blood from your fingertips, ears, toes, and legs! And then when you finally do, they explode with YOUR blood splattering all over the walls, curtains, and your skin where you've smacked 'em.

Why do we always run out of garbage bags when there is old food in the back of the fridge that needs to be thrown out? And then you leave it in the fridge because this inevitably happens at night and if you leave it on the counter as a reminder to throw it out, your whole kitchen stinks. But then you forget that it's in the fridge and needs to be thrown out and you don't find it again until you're ...that's right!....out of garbage bags again. Oh. And as long as I'm on the refrigerator  path, could you please...someone, anyone?....tell me what is the friggin' direct correlation between every member of my family and the top shelf of the refrigerator??? I use the top shelf for tall or "careful this is spillable" things or large things that won't fit on any other shelves. My kids (and sometimes my husband) will place the following things on the top shelf:  1 egg, a tiny dessert dish with 1/2 Tablespoon of fava beans, anything that requires use of the crisper drawer (because the crisper drawer is where they apparently hide things that they don't want to share with each other,) and the empty milk container. *sigh*

Word of Advice:  Never accidentally drop the f-bomb in front of your autistic teenager, because while MOST of her verbal skills are learned from movies and tv and books, the shit you DON'T want her to say in front of her grandmother to reinforce your shitty parenting skills, is EXACTLY what will enter (full time) into her vocabulary. *Score one more on my parental WIN card.*

Pinterest is AWESOME/DEVIL- I've now managed to complete 10 items from all the thousands of pinned items on my boards. Hey. That's not so bad considering we don't have craft stores or American conveniences here like chocolate chips, instant-ANYTHING (except coffee) or cool stuff like double-sided sticky tape or stencils. The entire DIY-concept is new to Egypt.

In a conversation on Facebook with my sister, MJ, last week, I decided that my list of favorite words included:  diphthong, bracket, penultimate, frivolous, superfluous, and sublime. My list, of course, is not limited to these. She prefers crapulence, kerfuffle, hornswaggle and canoodle.

I love my family...I want to build a garden-butterfly sanctuary in my backyard one day. Can someone tell me why leg hair after 40 is less frequently in need of shaving but some single damn chin WIRE because it's too coarse to be hair continues to pop out ever week or so no matter how often you pull the f***er out?! Will health insurance cover operations that shave bunions off your feet using lasers so it can be done outpatient? And why can't Rush Limbaugh just frickin' overdose already or spontaneously explode into little tiny piles of Rush-lets that only spew minute bits of bullshit at a time and are all polarized so that they can never be in the same place at the same time like tiny magnets? I think the movie "Idiocracy" should be run as a public service announcement to get intelligent people to do their civic duty and repopulate the planet with more intelligent life and stop waiting so damn long to have kids. You're NEVER going to be better "financially prepared" for kids. They will just suck MORE money out of you if you have more of it. Poor people know this. Just have them.

And I'll leave you with one last irrelevant thought:  Kids who are wearing their very last pair of hole-free jeans three weeks before payday will ALWAYS be able to find a tree to climb and "slide out" of it hooking the ass of their pants on that single spot of tree trunk that ISN'T smooth and rip a hole in the back. Murphy's Law? Yes. Me and Murph go way back.

Salivating on the Monitor

I made a mistake. I went back to Pinterest to look for a quick and easy recipe to make for tomorrow for lunch. Holy BEACH TOWELS, Batman! I'm drooling and now I need to change my shirt. I've run across recipes for spinach, onion, feta and hazelnuts salad, eggplant and chicken parmigiana, roasted tofu and pear salad, and baked egg cups (that I'd have to make with garlic cured beef instead of ham because we don't do pork.) I'm starving now....Hello, Pavlov? I'm your dog. Wanna quit with the damn bells already?

Now ordinarily this would not be a big deal...but my son was looking to make some extra cash before I sat down to the computer so I told him to clean the kitchen for 5 E.P. (Egyptian Pounds.) So, he has the counter rolled out into the hall blocking the doorway to the kitchen and there's really not much in the fridge anyway that would remotely come near the ingredients I need for ANY of those awesome recipes. (Except for the apple pies baked into the apples but let's not go insane here! It is after 11pm.)

I'm just going to eat the leftover rice and yellow lentils from dinner and maybe any salad the kids didn't snarf down. But I'm SO going to the open air market tomorrow and we are going to be back in the gourmet game, BAY-BEE! I'm back.  I'm hungry.  And it's on.

You KNOW You're Addicted to Facebook/Twitter When....

I need a 12-step program....like NOW. I have blown off making dinner two nights in a row, taken a three and a half week hiatus from writing and now am "holding it" until either I complete answering these last two notifications or my bladder explodes, whichever comes first.

I've reached rock bottom. I know that I'm pounding out this blog post as quickly as possible (because I have to pee really badly and I know that as soon as I get up from this chair, my 15 yr old daughter is going to hijack the computer from me and I'll never get to finish.) Apparently, social networking to this degree is a really bad thing. I managed to exhaust myself the last three days in an attempt to be the world's greatest and broke-est (is that a word?) literary agent with no access to t.v. or radio talk show hosts to the point that I managed to NOT send my kids to school today as I slept until noon. Wow. It's getting bad. DAMN YOU TWITTER! DAMN YOU, TOO, FACEBOOK! (Not really. I love you, both.)

OMG. I've got to stop. If you would like to become my sponsor and have managed to detach yourself from social networking websites for longer than one year, please contact me in the comments section below. I need help now....before I have to join another site. Thank you.

Ooooh, look Pinterest has some..................

Did You Know You Can't Flush When the Power's Out?

After 29.5 hours of no electricity, our power has finally been restored. What does this mean? Well, certainly NOT that I can plop down at the desk and start "pinning" like crazy although my left-mouse clicky finger is itching to do just that. Nope. I had to cook three days worth of meat that had thawed in my freezer before it started to rot. This, while a tad exhausting, actually works out quite well for me and my daily quest for "what the hell to cook."

Tomorrow we'll have beef and okra stewed in tomato sauce and the day after tomorrow....or whenever....I'll just thaw the garlic and orange roast that's cooked and in the now operational freezer.  I caught up on the dishes, washed the sheets that were in the washer all day fermenting in that nasty "wet dog" smell because the water was old. I fed my family the Texas-fried steak and convinced my 13 year old that he REALLY needed a nap. (Apparently, teasing and fighting the 11 and 12  year olds is exhausting work, too.)

Because we have such low water pressure out here by the beach, we require electricity to pump the water up to the upper floors of the apartment building. Soooooo, guess what we ALSO didn't have for the last nearly 30 hours? That's right. Water.  I did have water, but not via the faucet. I kept sending the boys downstairs with buckets and empty soda bottles to fill up from the house on the ground floor. Whatever. It worked. And I gave the bathroom a much needed cleaning and flushed a couple of times....just.because.I.could.

So, the next time your power pops off for a couple of hours during an electrical storm, just remember:  It could be worse. You COULD live in the Middle East where some idiot could be digging a foundation for a new apartment building and because he's doing it without the proper licensing or permission, his digger could cut a major grid cable in half and you could be a really long time without internet and the ability to read MY blog. And that would be terrible. Oh, the humanity!