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.

Yukon on My Mind

steamy....
   sweaty.....
       sultry...but not in a sexy, New Orleans late September kind of way....

stinky....
   funky....
      damp...that's the dirty laundry piled up on the floor in front of my washer...

empty....
   dusty......
      dry....that's the  inside of my roll-on deodorant bottle




this is the summer from Hell.  I have showered more times per day than an automatic car wash runs when giving away free washes with every tank of gas purchased.  my permanent hair dye washed out after two weeks due to frequent washing. i look at pictures of Alaska, polar bears, popsicles, ice cubes and toboggans just to cool off. the kids broke one of the fans. i offered to exchange the guilty party for a new fan but the guy thought i was joking and held out his hand for the 110 pounds that a new fan will cost me. my hilarious youngest son cut out the picture of the fan from the box and gave it to me. he said this fan will still provide air even in a power outage. who knew that a finger poke to the forehead could make someone cry?

i look at the 10-day forecast and it's as though the guy just made photo copies of the same forecast back in late May and then took a 3-month vacation. 0% chance of rain, 0% chance of rain,  0% chance of rain.

maybe we should move out of Africa and into Alaska.


    

Funky Errands

Here is a journaled out version of what I did this morning. I'm telling you, I am exhausted just re-reading it. And I have a serious impulse to take another shower. But for any of you who don't believe that I'm as busy as I am, here's proof:

‎0800 Egypt Local Time (ELT) - Answered phone (wake up call from neighbor)
0830 ELT- Finally got my arse out of bed, showered, made coffee, got dressed and left.
0930 ELT- Arrived at school and picked up Mohamed's administrative records.
1000 ELT- Went to the high school to find out he's 4 points shy of being able to register there and unless the grade curve drops in the next couple of weeks, he'll have to go to trade school. This is not good.
1030 ELT- Arrived at bank, got number, found an empty seat right under the air conditioner vent. Very glad I brought my book.
1045 ELT- Smelly, disgusting guy takes empty seat next to me and proceeds to clear his throat and cough a lot. Begin to wonder if he has tuberculosis or just smoked too much hash last night.
1049 ELT- Smelly, coughing dude REMOVES HIS SHOES AND OH DEAR LORD WHY DID I LOOK? He hasn't cut his toenails in 6 years apparently. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
1055 ELT- Smelly, coughing brain surgeon wants to know how the number thing works...specifically, "How do the tellers know what number I have in my hand?" (Uhm, because you hand them the fucking ticket after the computerized number board announces that they're serving your number.)
1059 ELT- Wondering how Mubarak was so successful with his evil plan to make the majority of Egyptians morons.
1115 ELT- Smelly, coughing, toenails dude is now aggravating some young man to his right. Thank God. He'll now be coughing somewhere other than on my shoulder.
1138 ELT- Number 117 is called. I'm number 118 so I get up and run to the open space between the only two teller windows open waiting for my numer to be called.
1145 ELT- EFF-word. Apparently, numbers don't mean shit around here. 6 customers who've already been at the teller windows have been called back by name. What gives people? Whatever. At least the gnarly toed dude is hacking his lungs on me.
1150 ELT- Still waiting. What is that smell? OMG. It's me. I was sweating so bad outside that my sweat under all these layers of clothes (that are still soaked from while I was outside) all smell like Fritos. Wondering if the smelly, guy was really smelly or if it was just me smelling me.
1155 ELT- Really self-conscious now. OMG. Did I really forget to put deodorant on?
1202 ELT- NOW SERVING 118.....Oh, thank God.
1204 ELT- Exit bank and go directly to buy garbage bags, ground beef and cookies.
1217 ELT- Start pulling clothes off as soon as the front door slams shut. Shower. Dress. PUT DEODORANT ON....twice.
1300 ELT- NAP

Heat and Discouragement

I shouldn't complain about the heat. I feel like an a-hole. You know like that lyric in Denis Leary's song? "I walk around in the summertime saying, "How about that heat?" And it's not like I'm a firefighter up in Colorado Springs or something. (Lord, please bring them rain.) And I'm not a Bedouin living in a tent in the middle of the Sahara or something. So I don't have air-conditioning. We do have ceiling fans and if worse comes to worst, we can always walk down to the beach (if the damn tourists will move over and leave some space on the sand) and enjoy the breeze and the cool water. So what if it's 86 degrees F with a relative humidity of 66% making it feel as though is is 106! It could be worse. (Not that I'm asking for proof of that, Lord.) In Dhaka, Bangladesh right now it's 84 degrees F but their relative humidity is at 87%. If the relative humidity is 100% is it raining? Indeed.

So, I've been researching publishers and editors online and WOW. There is so much to learn. I am not certain if I want to self-publish. I know you get more profit-wise but I don't know that I'm that much of a control freak and really...who has the time? I get sick of my own self-promotion just spreading around my links back to this blog. I love the attention but honestly, if I have to beg for it, People. It's just so anticlimactic.

A very, dear friend of mine (you're all dear friends but this one I've been friends with since 1987) read all the chapters of my novel that I've written so far and she said that it's kinda of memoir-ish and that the character I wanted as my main character...next to myself...is sort of hanging out there. So that was disappointing. BUT,
still encouraging. I can fix all of that later if I can just sit down and pound out my story. I'm starting to sleep an awful lot lately. I could be getting sick. But I think it's just the heat. So if I can just tie a cotton scarf on my head to keep the sweat out of my eyes and sit down and type my heart out, I can go back and edit the crap out of it and tie it all together later, right?

My mom once told me that the devil's favorite tool is not lust or envy or any of the glamorous sounding sins. It is discouragement. Because when we are discouraged we tend to doubt ourselves and then we give up. Giving up prevents us from being the most or best that we can be. And I thought about that yesterday. I thought about it a lot. And I know that I'm sabotaging myself by allowing the heat and lack of time (really, lack of MAKING time) and whatever other excuse I can think up, to prevent me from completing this work.
(Honestly, that could all be said for me failing miserably at this dieting thing, too. But that's another bridge to jump from later.) So, I'm going to do this. I'm going to write. And for once in my life, I'm going to COMPLETE this task before starting another. (Pinterest, your lovely DIY projects will have to be put on hold.)

I AM a writer. I will write.

NO I Don't Know Where the Promenade Deck Is

It's 5 million humid degrees outside and it's 1 a.m. and my kids are "bored" and begging me to entertain them and I would LOVE to play "TAG with a Cattle Prod" and I'll be "IT" but I don't have a cattle prod and I already made the rule that we can't run in the house.  And for the record, my name tag, if I were required to wear one for this SAHM-gig, would read MOMMY and not "Julie McCoy - Cruise Director" so it's not my responsibility to entertain you people.  This is a really small apartment packed to the gills with hot and sweaty people and no air conditioning. It's not the Love Boat.

Have I mentioned it's hot?  I HATE the summer.  Winter is cool because, even if we don't have heat, we can put down area rugs, pile on the blankets, wear two  pairs of socks and snuggle.  But summer? YUK. You can only BE naked. I mean, what's after that? I don't even plug in the water heater in the summer. And you'd think that that would provide us with cold showers all around, right? Wrong. Egypt is so damn hot that the cold water comes out of the pipes hot. Yup. Like solar powered water heater without the inconvenience of putting all those little solar panels up on top of the building.

So I've got the box fan blowing on me on high and hoping that my computer doesn't overheat because you know, NO AIR-CONDITIONING. I'm going to go take my fourth shower for the day and hit the sack. But I'll be dreaming of the Yukon, baby. And snow and polar bears drinking icy bottles of coke. And maybe I won't wake up so sweaty tomorrow.