So my daughter joined this group on Facebook.  When I clicked on the link to see more, I thought it was just hysterical.  The title?  

You Know You Grew Up in the Middle East If:  (italics things that I find especially true for us here in Qatar)

1. You can't answer the question, "Where are you from?" (And when you do, you get into an elaborate conversation that gets everyone confused and/or makes you sound very spoiled.) 

2. You flew before you could walk.

3. You have a passport, but no driver's license.

4. You think California is cold.

5. You watch National Geographic specials and recognize someone.

6. You run into someone you know at every airport. 

7. Conversations with friends take place at 6:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night.

8. Your life story uses the phrase "Then we went to..." five times.

9. You can speak with authority about the quality of various international airlines. 

10. You feel self conscious around all white people.

11. You get offended when someone turns down an offer for food.

12. You live at school and go home for vacation.

13. You treasure pork and root beer as highly-valued commodities. 

14. You have ever had to wait for prayer call to be over to finish shopping.

15. You are fascinated by any wildlife bigger than a gecko.

16. You know the true meaning of "football." (and in your mind can hear the shout, "GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!") 

17. You know that it truly is a small world.

18. You have ever gone to the "hammam" or endured a "shamal."

19. You get all the jokes in Aladdin.

20. Rain is still one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.

21. You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price.

22. Your wardrobe can only handle two seasons: hot and warm.

23. Your school memories include duck-and-cover drills.

24. You are used to being stared at. 

25. You think VISA is a document stamped in your passport, and not a plastic card you carry 

in your wallet.

26. You call a chicken burrito a "shwarma."

27. Your dorm room/apartment/living room looks a little like a museum with all the "exotic" things you have around. 

28. You've heard of or tried "hubbly bubbly."

29. You've woken up in the middle of the night to watch the Superbowl on cable.

30. You have sat in a "men's" or "women's" section in an airport, hospital, or restaurant. 

31. You know the geography of the rest of the world, but you don't know the geography of your own country. (Isn't Philadelphia its own state?)

32. Your best friends are from 5 different countries.

33. You're spoiled. You know it. You're VERY spoiled. 

34. You ask your roommate when the houseboy is scheduled to come clean.

35. You have never spent a summer with your friends from high school because you all go back to your home town/state/country June - August

36. Camping involves duning, getting stuck, and counting how many camels you saw.

37. A sports tournament involves flying to another country in the Middle East.

38. You remember when the first McDonalds in your country had its grand opening. 

39. You got days off school for Christian and Muslim holidays.

40. You secretely wished the rulers of other Middle Eastern countries would die so that you got days off school.

41. Not being able to eat in public during the day during the holy month of Ramadan. 

42. Traveling to the states required buying candy, CDs, and Abercrombie and Fitch clothing 

for your friends back overseas.

43. You are used to giving directions according to landmarks, not street names.

44. It's normal to wake up and have four or more Pakistani men fixing your AC. 

45. You didn't know how to do your own laundry until you left for college.

46. How come the houses in America don't have servants' quarters?

47. You are used to seeing Arabic commercials dubbed in British English about Lux soap, Carnation condensed milk and Dove shampoo. 

48. Seeing police drive on the shoulder of the road and cut people is not unusual.

49. You understand that being addressed as "ma'am/sir" by Filipinos is not an insult.

50. You know someone is referring to Pepsi when they say "Bebzi". 

51. Having a walled in, cement house is standard.

52. Ford Explorer sized cars seem small compared to Toyota Land Cruisers and Nissan Patrols

53) You could hear the call to prayer anywhere in the city.

53) You covered your lunchbox with SunTop stickers.

54) You ate La vache qui rit and thought the "Laughing Cow" was laughing because the cheese tasted so bad.

'Tis the Season (To Get Things Done!!)

Well, the Thanksgiving weekend is almost come and gone.  Luckily for us, we still have several more days of vacation, thanks to a handy little holiday you've probably never heard of called Eid Al-Adha.  (Which, by the way, thanks to Wikipedia, I can now semi-reliably inform you celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Issac out of obedience to God.)  There are some perks to living in an Islamic country after all.  Hubby is off work until Wednesday, while the kids and I are off until next Sunday.

Since that ends up to be a grand total of 10 days for me, I came up with a to-do list for the time-off.  Here's a little snapshot (which means it's the things I can remember off the top of my head):

1. Landscape the front yard'ish area (I just can't call it a yard - it's a 15' x 10' plot in front of the house)

2. Finish organizing the house so I can take pictures and post them here on ye olde blog.

That's pretty much the gist of the list.  I mean, it's broken down more specifically, but those are the two main basics.  Oh, and bake Christmas cookies.  Can't forget the Christmas cookies.

So today was the landscaping day.  Hubby and I went off to the local plant market and picked up some plants that were very familiar to us, being from Miami - bougainvillea and hibiscus.  The bougainvillea we picked is beautiful!  It's shaped like a tree and has branches from differently-blooming trees grafted on to it so it's producing purple, orange and pink blooms.  I also picked up some hyacinth bulbs that are just about to bloom - can't wait for that!!  

I've been slowly but surely getting other areas taken care of.  The books that were just laid onto the bookshelf flat have now been re-homed to a different bookshelf so that it looks neater.  Christmas decorations have gone up.  The master bedroom has gotten more orderly and pleasant looking.  Artwork is finding a home on the walls.  It's all starting to really come together.  

Tomorrow I'm planning on going through the kitchen and organizing the shelves, laying down shelf liner, and cleaning the refrigerator and stove.  I just don't know if I can contain myself, I'm so excited!!!

*Ahem*

Yeah, so I have to tell you about my new love.  No, I'm not leaving Hubby.  But I have been spending more time with a new friend - the rowing machine.  Hubby and I have been heading over to the school to exercise in the mornings.  Tired of walking endlessly around the track I headed up to the gym a few days ago and decided to try the rowing machine when no one was around in case I made a fool of myself.  I loved it!!  I'm enjoying the fact that I'm getting my cardio in and also working out my arms and back muscles. And it's great for me because I have and old ankle injury that rowing doesn't aggravate.  I'm starting small and working to build up my endurance, but so far it's an exercise that I'm finding challenging and enjoyable.  Hooray!!

Well, I should be off to bed - it's almost 12:30 am and I want to get up early to hit the gym.  (Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say!!!  Actually I just want to get there and get done before Mr. & Mrs. Fit-and-Snobby get there at 8:30 to do their 294 mile run and spot each other with free weights.  Ugh!)  I'm going to try to take pictures this week and get them up here.  Emily is having some friends over, so I'm motivated to have everything looking all beautiful all at once, LOL!!

A Nearly Perfect Day

Today just about everything went right.

When I got in the car to drive to work, the thermometer in my car said...78 degrees!!!!  I haven't seen anything below mid-80's since March, so that was so exciting for me. Of course, it was only 7:15, but it only got up to the mid-80's.  A beautiful day!

The kids were off school, due to parent-teacher conferences being held from 8 to 12 this morning.  Shortly into my work day, I realized that the teachers would be leaving school once the conferences were over.  Trying not to get my hopes up, I started hoping that we'd get to leave early as well.  I mean, face it.  There's not much to do at a school when there are no students and no teachers.  But no one seemed to know for sure.  The office manager, who was hired just before me in the spring, didn't know what happened and the principal was down in the gym all morning for the conferences.  We were bored silly up in the office, giggling and laughing and just hanging out.  Eventually, we made our way down to the gym and asked if we'd get a half day too.  To our surprise and delight, the principal said we would.  Whoo-hoo!!

I decided to take advantage of the time off and run up to the mall to look for a pair of khakis (which she needs as part of the school's travel uniform for her trip to Amman with the Forensics team next week) and a plain black blouse and pair of pants, which she'll need for her performance piece.  We found the khakis and a blouse, but before we found the black pants, we ran into friends. Emily stayed with them at the mall and hung out while Daniel and I went off to do the grocery shopping.  By 3:00 I had gotten the groceries and (most) of her clothing needs for her trip.  I was so excited as I had planned on having to do it later and now here I was, when I had planned on still being at work, having that done already!

Ibrahim agreed to drive carpool for youth group tonight, and then he ran an errand or two, so I ended up with over 2 hours alone in the evening.  And do you know how I spent it?  I did laundry (with a dryer!).  I made a huge batch of meatballs so that I can make our favorite family recipe for spaghetti and meatballs tomorrow.  I tidied up.  And I had an amazing peace about it.  It felt so good to just be able to care for my home in peace and not be in a rush and a feeling of being overwhelmed.  

I miss just being a homemaker more than I ever thought I would.  I've been so frustrated ever since we moved because I just haven't been able to get caught up and get the house fully in order.  Today, I was reminded of how good it feels to just care for my home and family.  

One benefit of living here in an Islamic country is that you get the Muslim holidays off as well.  So the second Eid is coming up  the day after Thanksgiving.  (Please don't ask me to explain what Eid is, or why there are two of them - I honestly have no idea.)  Now generally people get off 3 days for Eid, but since I work at the school I'll have off a week for Eid, plus Thanksgiving Day.  With weekends, I'll end up with 11 days off!!!!  I can't wait to just have some time to focus on finishing up all that needs to be done here at the house.  Pictures will then be posted, I promise.

In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away and hope for more days like this one!

It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year!

Here in Doha, that is.

Fall has officially arrived in Doha and with it a host of fun activities.  People finally emerge out of their air-conditioned cocoons and life bursts forth with a whole host of things to do.  Temperatures have cooled off to a relatively mild range of the mid-to high 90's (like I said, relatively mild).

This weekend, the kids will be joining their youth group of an overnight retreat in the desert.  It sounds like a ton of fun - dune-bashing, swimming at the inland sea, a barbeque under the stars and sleeping in tents on the sand.  While they are off enjoying that fun, Hubby and I will watching some of the world's greatest female tennis players face-off.  The WTA season championship is held right here in Doha and we've got tickets for Friday night.  One of the nice things about living in Doha is that things like this are dirt cheap.  I paid about $30 for two really nice seats at the match.  It should be lots of fun.  I'm hoping to see at least one of the Williams sisters play, but it's a round robin, so I'm not quite sure who will be playing when we go.

Also going on this weekend, the inaugural Doha Tribeca Film Festival gets underway with celebrities like Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorcese coming into town.  We probably won't be catching any of the showings, but it's neat to think that such exciting events are happening right here in Doha, a place that many people have never even heard of! There's also a walk for breast cancer that will be happening this weekend and several holiday bazaars coming up in the next few weeks.

Both the Doha Community Orchestra and Doha Philharmonic are just starting their seasons, as is the Doha Players (our local theater troupe).  

Also exciting news in Doha is that our first IMAX movie theater just opened up!  (Not that we ever go to IMAX movies, but it's good to have if we decided too).

Last year, we left town in late October and returned in early December.  Then there was settling back in and Christmas and we didn't get to experience any of the fun of this time of year in Doha.  It's nice to be able to have so many great things to choose from!

Whew! It's Been Quite a Week!

This week has been filled with a big high and one big low.  I'll get the low out of the way first so that we can move on to happier things.

On Saturday evening, Daniel was telling me that he didn't feel well.  He said he'd been coughing (though I hadn't noticed anything) and that he just didn't right. I shrugged if off, but let him stay home the next day as he did feel slightly warm in the morning.  When I went home at lunch (thank goodness we moved so close to the school!!) he felt warmer, but still didn't seem to badly off.  By the time I came home from school, he was significantly warmer and miserable.  We thought it best to get him checked, so I dressed him (literally - he couldn't dress himself, poor baby!) and Hubby took him to the ER (he's become the official parent to accompany kids to the doctor since he can often communicate better with them than I here in Doha).   His fever was 104.6 when he arrived, but soon reached a high of 105.8!  He was given an injection of something designed to bring down the fever, which it did. He was diagnosed with the flu (swine or otherwise, they are testing so we'll never know) and given a raftload of drugs, including Tamiflu.  

Happily, he has not needed even one dose of fever-reducing medicine since that first injection.  He's felt much better ever since.  He did stay home from school the rest of the week though.  (They are off school today and tomorrow for Professional Development days).  I figured since he was still coughing he didn't need to be spreading that all around. I'm just happy that he's well and back to his old self.

On the upside of the week, we got.....drumroll, please...A DRYER!!!  A dryer. A dryer.  A dryer.  It's an amazing invention, you know.  The first load I did was a load of towels.  When you have been using scratchy, stiff towels for a year and a half, the feeling of softness of a load of towels just fresh from they dryer is amazing.  I just kept rubbing my hands all over them and giggling.  

Then I did jeans and they came out soft and warm and weren't able to stand up by themselves.  And they were done in an hour!!  I got all 8 loads of laundry (I'd been saving it all up for the big arrival!!) done in less than 24 hours. That would have taken me days and days to do before since I'd have to line dry everything and wait for it to dry so that I could use the dryer rack for the next load.  I was so excited and I'm so thrilled.

But, we are in Doha, and that means that there's always a little something that goes wrong.  The guys who delivered it weren't putting in a vent hose.  So I asked them about it and in their broken English they informed me that it only puts out a little heat, so it's not necessary.  

Excuse me??

But they could not be persuaded and claimed to not have any on them.  Finally I let them leave, figuring it's just easier to install it ourselves than deal with the people.  Since I was desperate to do laundry, I just shoved the machine over to the back door of the kitchen, opened up the door and vented it directly to the outside.  Ingenious, aren't I?!

A Million Tiny Pieces (of Information, That Is)

Wow - it's done.  We moved.  

We moved fast.  We moved hard.  We moved until we were ready to drop and were left crying, in fetal position, on the crowded, dirty floor of our new home.  (Of course, that may have just been me.  Hubby is just slightly more in control of his emotions.)

And the house?  It's fabulous!  It's about half the size of our previous house, but it's so much better designed.  Here are some things I love about it:

The dishwasher is right next to the sink where it belongs, not across the room.  The bathtub is wide enough that I don't have to have my arms pinned to my sides when taking a nice hot bubble bath.  Oh, and the hot water heater must have some kind of control on it, because I haven't been burned once!!  Amazing!!   There's tons of cabinet space.  Their are closets.  Closets, people.  You never realize how much you appreciate something until you don't have it.

We are still working on getting everything in place, but once that's done, I'll post some pictures.  I'm excited to show it off, I just don't think you'd enjoy seeing the chaos that it is now.

Moving on, yesterday was a big, albeit unpleasant one, for my kids.  Braces went on!!  Emily just got hers on the top, bottom to come later.  Daniel only got them on his two front teeth for now, pending some necessary extractions.  But I'm amazed.  He has always had a huge gap between his two front teeth and in just a matter of hours, it was almost gone.  The doctor said it will be completely gone by Halloween.  How is that possible?!  He picked red (his favorite color) and Emily got green and orange, the closest she could get to the colors of University of Miami.  Believe it or not, I'm considering doing it as well, but just can't get over having braces in my 40's.  Any thoughts?

I bought my Thanksgiving turkey last night.  No guarantees I'll find them later, so figured I'd better grab one now.  Pumpkin pie filling, however, still eludes me.  I'm thinking I'll do pecan pie instead, but it just won't be the same.  Sigh...

Exciting news for Emily!  She has joined the forensics club here at school and tried out and made the travel team!!  She'll be traveling with the team to tournaments here in the region and competing against other international schools.  She's so excited!!  We are really proud of her and excited too, knowing that forensics is a great way to improve public speaking skills and make her into a more well-rounded person.

Daniel, too, will be getting to travel soon.  As part of the curriculum here at the American School of Doha, all middle schoolers participate in something called Week Without Walls.  Last year, the kids started school during that week, so Emily didn't get to travel, sadly. Daniel did take part, but 6th graders stay here in Doha and do service projects.  This year, he'll get to go to either the United Arab Emirates (Dubai/Abu Dhabi) or Oman in February.  Either one will be exciting.  They'll be doing adventure camps and other activities meant to stretch them and help them grow.  It's a great opportunity for him.

Well, that's our update from here.  It's been a busy week or two, but I'm hoping things will start slowing down now and we will get all settled in the house and in life in general!!  Thanks for hanging in there with me!!

Finally, Resolution!

So several weeks ago I mentioned that we had found a house we wanted to move to.  It was a perfect house for us for a number of reasons.

Ever since then we've been in a holding pattern.  Hubby's company, upon being given notice that we were moving, informed him that they expected us to fulfill the contract which THEY had signed even before we agreed to move into the house.  The THREE YEAR CONTRACT!!!!  This, of course, after they told Hubby when we moved in that he could take this house permanently and move out when he found something we liked better.  Now, remember that he took this house before I even arrived in Doha, so I had no say in the matter.

It seems that with the slowdown of the world economy, Hubby's company is also feeling the squeeze and was determined that no properties they rented would sit empty.  So we have been going back and forth with them in regards to whether or not we would be allowed to leave the house.  Finally, today, we got final permission to leave and move into the house of our choice.  Hooray!!

I'm so excited.  I really think this is going to be an excellent move for us and here's why:

1) We will be thisclose to the school.   Two minutes.  I timed it tonight.  That means I can drop off the kids quickly during our weekly half-days, we could walk to school once it cools off, if one kid has an after-school activity I won't have to sit there and wait for an hour, but can easily run home and back when they are done.

2) We will be surrounded by school staff.  This means loads of kids, mostly American or Canadian.  It will be really nice for me too, to have neighbors who are friendly.  Not like the man currently to our right, whom I've met a total of three times, each one to complain about something that wasn't even our fault.  I don't know everyone in the neighborhood, but I know a lot of them and I think it will be great.

3) We'll be more centrally located for things like carpools and such.  Where we are now, there's only one family from our church anywhere even close to us.  In our new home, we will be right smack dab in the middle of all the carpooling families so the kids can more easily be part of the "group."

4) The house won't require as much upkeep.  I think I mentioned that our current house is big.  About 4000 sq. ft, with 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, two kitchens (one inside, one outside), a loft, dining room, and both a family room and a living room. The new house is 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, with just one roomy kitchen (with place for a dishwasher right next to the sink, instead of across the room like here!), and a large living room.  I'm not sure how I'm going to fit everything in, but it will be a relief not to have to spend all of our free time cleaning.

So we are hoping to be able to start moving our things into the house over the weekend and be fully moved in by the end of the month.  It's going to be a busy few days, since we are hiring movers to move just the big furniture and will have to do the rest of it bit by bit in my car.  But I'm excited and can't wait!