Happy Thanksgiving to my family and friends.  I hope you are all enjoying this day with those you love and are able to fill your bellies with plenty of yummy food.

They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here in Egypt, though I am not averse to celebrating it myself.  Just not quite the same if you're the only one celebrating and there aren't any of the usual trappings.  Being with others who celebrate is what makes it so great.

Maybe next year I will get it together enough to make a Thanksgiving dinner for hubby and his family.  I wanted to the first year I lived here and this year I just kind of fizzled on it.  Perhaps due to being sick or who knows what.

I heard it was snowing in the UK and I was a little sad that the weather here is decidedly not really in the realm of Fall yet much less Winter.  It was 77 or so today.  Maybe this is what it's like to live in Los Angeles for the holidays.  Northern California gets more seasonal weather than those living down in the southern half of the state.

In honor of today, here is a little friend I found some years back.  He always makes me smile.  :D

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The weather has been strange actually.  It takes a long time until it seems to finally settle down into Fall here.  We had temps as high as the 90's just a couple weeks ago and the high 80's the past week or so, but I think it's finally made up its mind now and hopefully we won't see anything above the very low 80's and even that should go soon and we'll have 60's and 70's and I can complain about how cold I am.  lol

We finally stopped using the a/c for the season and have yet to use the heater, so at least we're saving some money on the energy bill.  We just have the lightest of blankets on the bed, I'm not sure you could even call it a blanket, but I'm at a loss as to anything else to call it.  Pretty soon we'll take the "winter" blanket to the cleaners so we can use it and put this light one away.

The water heater in the bathroom will probably start staying on more now.  During the summer it's not on as much because it's so hot you don't need that much hot water.  And the water stays pretty warm anyways without the heater, but boy oh boy in the winter you really want that hot water.  I just wish the hose we use in the bathroom had hot water.  Boy that water is a shocker in the cold of winter.

We did have a hot water heater in the kitchen so I could have hot water to do dishes, but there is some problem with it and it's not working.  I think we'll need to get it fixed soon because it gets pretty cold in the house during winter and I can't be washing dishes in cold water.  My hands will get frostbite or something.  lol

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Alright, I will endeavor, now that I have the new computer, to finish editing the pyramid walk pictures and get those posted in the next week or so.  Hurrah!

Todays video is of the roof on the buiding across the street.  It seems every year they get a sheep to slaughter for Eid and they keep itup on the roof until they kill it.  Well, we've also seen a mother cat and kittens on the roof recently and so this video shows both the sheep and one of the ktitens.

Here is a link to the video on youtube:  video

I have to say, it was nice hearing the sheep make his blaaating sounds.  Something different anyways.  And definitely nicer than the continual sound of traffic we hear.

Now, even though the sheep is gone, I still hear the kitten at times.  Or some kitten anyways.

The other night when we were coming home from the in-laws, we walked into the entry  for our building and there was a mother cat standing and two kittens feeding from her.  While standing.  The whole thing seemed very strange and they were apparently skittish of strangers and so the mom started walking to avoid us and of course the kittens followed.  To tell you the truth I'm not even sure they were both her kittens.  You never know!



Happy gobbles to you all, enjoy your parades and football and food. 

Again with the plague

Well, where to start?
I know I won't remember half the things I wanted to write about.  I suppose that's what happens when I wait so long to write.

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We just finished celebrating Eid al Adha, which is our second holiday of the year.  It always falls a certain number of days after the first Eid, which is celebrated at the end of our fasting month, Ramadan.

This time we went to my in-laws on both Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  I was able to meet a cousin who was visiting from Jordan and also to see some other cousins that I see a few times a year.

My mother in law was busy in the kitchen as always, and I got to eat fattah both days.  Fattah being the rice/garlic dish that I absolutely adore.  I even had a dream about it a couple of weeks ago.

It's customary for people to slaughter a sheep/goat on this Eid (or have the butcher do it) and then they share the meat out with those less fortunate and also with friends and family, so there is usually sheep during the Eid meals as well.

Unfortunately, on the second day, Wednesday, it seems I came down with the plague.  Hubby has been sick for a week or so and I don't think I have what he has, but maybe he gave me his sick germs and they just mutated into something different in me.  Also, half the family seemed to be sick while we were visiting for Eid, so I guess it's going around.

Hubby was nice enough to do most of the dishes yesterday and also boiled a chicken to make me chicken soup.  Which was yummy.  I'm thankful he is able to help when I'm sick, as I surely wasn't up to anything yesterday.

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Two exciting things to share.

I finally got a new computer, alhamdulillah!  I didn't get to pick it out but it's pretty spiffy.  It's loaded with Windows 7 which I have never used before and which I really haven't taken the time to figure out, but so far it seems like there's some nice changes from the other versions of Windows. 

This means that I have no excuse not to finish editing pictures and posting them here.

The second item of excitement was that we bought an iron!  Woo!  lol

This may not seem exciting but I couldn't wear a lot  of the clothes I have because we didn't have an iron.  Oddly enough they're kind of expensive here.  Which I really find strange.  You can certainly get some cheap ones, or cheaper rather, like the ones that weigh about 5 tons and have no steam or anything to them, and you can get some super fancy ones as well.  We went with something in the middle.

Now we just need to get an ironing board.  lol
I was ironing a skirt the other day on the bed and it's a little bit of a challenge but it can be done.

Hard to iron hubby's shirts though without the board.
Insha'Allah we will get a board this week.

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My "baby" boy turned 16 on Tuesday.  I am sorry I couldn't be there to celebrate with him.  Sometimes I worry about what I'm missing, and I know we both miss spending time with each other, but for now this is where I'm at.

It's hard to believe he's so old though.  I barely feel older than 16 myself!

I never imagined having kids when I was younger.  In fact I definitely didn't want them.  But I am so happy that I had my son and the chance to watch him develop and grow.

I certainly don't wish kids upon him anytime soon, but I think I will like being a grandparent.  All the fun with not so much of the responsibility.  lol

Well, happy birthday to my bubba.  Love you and miss you.

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Alright, last item for the day (will save some items to post in a few days insha'Allah), here is a link to a video I took a couple of weeks ago.

One afternoon I heard some drums down on the street and decided to see what was going on.  I went out onto the balcony and saw that there was a guy who was playing a drum and he had a dog that danced on his hind legs to the drumming.  Amusing.  And the drumming was nice as well.  Of course, donations were accepted.

dancing dog video