blah, blah, blah, frustrated and annoyed

Sometimes having your family employed by the government feels a lot like trying to get something done at the DMV. Add in an 8-11 hour time change and only 3 overlapping work days and that just sweetens the deal.

Right now we have 4 outstanding administrative issues waiting to be resolved. 2 of them are months old and have required countless emails back and forth, extra paperwork (which is awesome when you don't have a printer or a scanner, but things need to be printed, signed, and scanned), lots of emotional energy, and just general irritation.

The two more recent ones are similar in nature, and will probably follow the same pattern: need more info, need more paperwork, need more *something* that they really don't need, but whatever.

Add to that the extra administrative hoops involved with our move, the shipment of our Egypt stuff, and the shipment of our car and it's a little much. BTW, our car did get on a ship, but what we thought would take a week or two is actually going to take a month because it is being transported on 3 different ships, which means our kids will continue to fight every time we get in the car. I can't really blame them though. Look at this pitiful picture of them on the way home from buying a drying rack for our clothes. (yes, that is the rack that they are holding up.)

 

We could rent a bigger car, but it would cost about $100/day instead of $400 for the month. For that kind of price difference we can put up with a little pushing and shoving in the back seat. Besides, the bigger car only had seatbelts for 5, so we wouldn't be much better off anyway.

And then today I realized that we've been here for a month already -- 1/2 of the time that we were in Egypt, but I don't feel comfortable and settled here like we did there. I'm sure it's because we were in a hotel for over two weeks in a different area of town, so I shouldn't even start to compare until we've been in our house for a month, but still . . .

The best part is that baby isn't sleeping because of her teeth and I'm not sleeping because of the baby and Josh isn't sleeping because of both of us and because of the mattress so I'm just having a big unreasonable cranky pity party today. So I thought I'd share.

***blah, blah, blah, I'm fine and I'm thankful that we're all healthy, well fed, have a beautiful place to live, insert any number of things I could write in a gratitude journal here ________. I'm just irritated with a lot of little things today, including the fact that my daughter is happy with everyone else, but starts crying every time she sees me because she wants to nurse, probably cause her mouth hurts, but it still drives me crazy.

fit for a king

or in this country, a Sultan.

One of the not-so-nice things about our house here in Oman is our mattress. Because we were a last minute addition to the embassy here, the office Josh is associated with had to beg and borrow the furniture for our house from different departments to supplement the few pieces that they had available.

And the furniture in our house is perfect – except for our mattress. It is b-a-d. Like, time to be put out on the curb bad. I’m not terribly picky, but when I pulled off the sheets and saw how skeevy it was I insisted that we had to go buy a new one. That day.

On the bright side, we finally decided to upgrade to a king size bed. All these years we have stuck with a queen mattress because we have lived in so many different houses and many of our bedrooms wouldn’t fit a king size mattress. But hopefully Josh has been promoted enough times to rate a house with a big enough bedroom for a king bed. Cause after all these years of 3 and even 4 bodies squished together, I am done sharing such a small space.

Perfect right? Not so fast. Unfortunately it takes 2 weeks to get the mattress, so in the meantime I’m sleeping on the scary, gross one and trying not to think about what made it scary and gross. :happy thoughts, happy thoughts:

 

New country, new look

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 . . .

The Happy Homemaker presents: How to make peanut butter

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.

Ground them up until they were very fine. 

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).

Blend it all together and taste. 

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?

Throw in some almonds and repeat the process. 

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!

Feeling good about myself . . .

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.

only a little bit further!

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.

 

Caleb, working on his diving

 

Calvin going in headfirst -- love Bob's expression as he's coming up for air.

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!

more sandy videos

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.

He is risen indeed

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.

catch a wave and you’ll be sitting on top of the world

One of the best parts about our weekend in the desert were the huge sand dunes (as long as we weren’t driving over them) and sandboarding. They had some sleds too, but the real fun was in strapping on a snowboard and hitting the sandy slopes.



I love Calvin's twitchy dance at the beginning -- he was trying to swat away a fly . . .



The worst part was the trek back up the long hill, slipping and sliding the entire way. For each step up the slope, we slid back about 1/2 a step. Between the heat and the steep incline, it was a great workout. I only managed three runs before I had to quit and head to the pool. Too bad the Bedouins didn’t have tow ropes!



Calvin and Carter were both professionals by the end. The sand was really soft so the only pain in crashing was getting the powdery fine grit out of your mouth, nose, and ears.



At the base of the dune looking up at Carter.



getting locked in



Ready. Set. Go!

I had a great video of one of Carter’s perfect runs, except it turned out that I didn’t. I thought I hit “record,” but I missed the button and only started recording after he finished. I don’t think you want to see the video I actually took of the sand and my foot.  Here's a different one that includes a pretty good wipeout.





And what was Camille doing? Our very sandy beach bunny was cheering us on at the bottom of the hill (and eating a tiny bit of sand.)

something you won’t see in America

Posted on the “classifieds” wall at the grocery store near our house. Interesting, huh?

I don’t know why, but every ad includes the person’s race.

When we were in Egypt, we were told by several people, “Oh, try and get a [insert race here] maid, because they are cleaner than [insert different race here]. Seriously.

There’s a weird sort of accepted racism when it comes to maids. In Egypt there was a hierarchy that extended to pay as well. Egyptian maids were generally paid the most, then Pilipino, Indian/Sri Lankan, and finally Sudanese. I think that was the order. The general idea though was that certain races were known to be cheaper labor. It wasn’t just expat folklore, this info was printed in the Welcome to Egypt booklets that were readily available to expats.

One difference here is that you won’t find Omani maids. All household help are what they call TCNs, or “third country nationals.” They live and work here, but aren’t native.   

I don’t know which race is considered “better” for maids here, but all these workers sure think listing their race is an asset to finding employment!

say, "Hello" to my little friend

Are you still jealous?

a bazillion and one pictures of our house

This is our house – one half of the nicest duplex we’ve ever lived in. You can click on any of the pictures to see them up close.

   

Our front entry. The doorway on the right leads to this living room.

 

and connects to the dining room through the archway.

Then into our kitchen. No dishwasher, but there is a washer and a dryer.

 

Upstairs is the master bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom is the size of a living room, but it’s nice to lie on the couch and read while the baby plays on the rug. Especially when the boys are playing with Nerf guns in the living room downstairs. I also love the huge bathtub, but the small hot water tank runs out before the tub is filled (each bathroom has individual hot water heaters). Still trying to figure out if it can be adjusted so I can fill the tub up all the way.

 

Looking from our bedroom down the hallway toward the boys’ bedrooms. Carter’s room has two twin beds so Caleb likes to sleep in there with him.

   

Calvin’s room is also the guest room. It has it’s own bathroom and is almost as big as the master bedroom. Caleb and Camille will eventually share this room on the right. When she moves in there, I’m sure he’ll want to sleep in his own bed again.

 

Now head back downstairs and out front. . .

 

Josh pulling in our front gate in our tiny rental car. I need to get a picture of all the kids in the backseat. Once we had to give someone a ride and it was me and the four kids all in the backseat – the 4 of us crammed up against Camille’s car seat. You can take the family out of Egypt, but you can’t take the Egypt out of the family . . .

The picture on the right shows the cutout detail that is in several places on the exterior of the house.

 

The back of the house from the kitchen door. There is quite a bit of space to play soccer, except they keep kicking the ball over the (really tall) walls. Calvin has had to make a few surreptitious rescues already and his hands and feet are getting raw from scaling the rough walls.

Someone must have known I was coming. Tomato plants! These will die because of the heat, but Lucy said she loves to garden and suggested planting in October when it gets cooler: tomatoes, basil, cilantro, parsley, and more.

This is where we’re putting down roots for the next year -- unless they kick us out sooner. Come and visit – we have plenty of room for you!

just call me "Madame"

That is my new name. I can’t say that this is true across all of Oman, but all the house help I have met so far call their employers “Sir” and “Madame.” As in, “is Sir at home this morning?” (he wasn’t.) or “Madame, do you want me to hold the baby for you while you eat breakfast?” (I did.)

Crazy, huh? I feel like I’m faking it most of the time – I couldn’t possibly be old enough or powerful enough to have someone call me Madame. It’s like I’m the ruling class in a Jane Austen movie or something. And it sort of does feel like royalty when you’re finished eating breakfast and you get up to clear your cereal bowl and Lucy swoops in and says, “Oh no, Madame! I will get that for you.” CRA-ZEE.

She gets here at 7am, lets herself in with her key, and by the time I get downstairs around 7:30 she has already washed the dishes from the night before, wiped down the stove and countertops and has probably swept the backyard or taken the clean clothes in off the drying rack. I asked her to help Caleb get his cereal one morning so now whenever Caleb comes down she gets his cereal bowl out, pours his cereal and milk, and carries it to the dining room for him. She treats all the boys like little princes and would wait on them hand and foot if I would let her.

She does everything I can think of around the house until 3:00 when she heads home. Washing dishes, clothes, ironing, making beds, sweeping, mopping, taking out trash, putting away groceries, baby watching . . . I was even cooking beef stew this afternoon and she came in and helped me prep all the vegetables.


I talk about her being our “housekeeper” because I think it sounds more empowering (or PC) than “maid,” but in the embassy information packet they had an entire section devoted to Hiring a Household Servant, so I think calling her our “maid” might not be so bad after all.

Tomorrow is our weekend so Lucy has the next two days off. The boys (and I) are going to be in for a shock when our dishes don’t magically disappear from the table and we actually have to clean up after ourselves. Only four days in and Madame is already spoiled.

“He’s got the whole world in his hands”

That’s what I was whispering to myself as we were driving out into the middle of nowhere on our way to Wahiba Sands. We went from highway to winding two lane roads to a single lane blacktop to sand. And then we kept driving. For another 45 minutes. I swear it was well over an hour, but Josh promises me it just felt that way.
It was bad enough on the winding roads through the mountains when the impatient drivers would pass on blind corners with no regard for anyone coming the other way. One dude was the best “chicken” player I’ve ever seen – he pulled straight into oncoming traffic to pass a slow moving bus and didn’t blink as the oncoming car swerved onto the shoulder to avoid hitting him head on. The crazy part was that the oncoming driver didn’t seem phased by it either.
Whatever. I’ve seen bad drivers before. But driving out into the middle of endless sand just about put me over the edge. I should have known when we pulled into a gas station at the end of the blacktop and had to let air out of our tires so we didn’t get stuck in the sand that it was not going to be as easy as pulling up to the local motel 6. I knew we were going camping in the desert, but I pictured it kind of like the Palm Springs/29 Palms desert – out by the windmills. Drive off the main road a few hundred yards, bumping a little bit over the sand/gravel and there you go. Not so much.
This was slipping/sliding/Laurence of Arabic sand dunes. Big ones. And inside my head, a small voice kept telling me, “You’re crazy. Do you know how far away you are from any type of emergency services? What if your car breaks down or you roll off one of these massive hills of sand?!” Since we had driven through at least two hours of nothing even before venturing out into the sand, I knew it was a really long way to any sort of civilization. And driving over the sand felt like hydroplaning on the freeway – 45 minutes of feeling like your tires didn’t have secure contact with the road and you could go sliding out of control at any minute.
Of course I was the only one having these logical thoughts – the rest of the family was having fun riding the sand waves. Meanwhile I was wondering if I had packed my special yellow pills . . .

a whole lot of nothing but sand . . .

You know you’ve gone too far when you see camels roaming free . . .
Logically I knew we were fine, but the safety girl inside me was having a fit. The drive back out of the desert was much easier. Partly because I realized that the sliding feeling was normal and didn’t mean that Josh had lost control of the car, but mostly because safety girl was happy we were finally headed in the right direction.