News

As in many ‘new’s. You know, many new things. Ok, lame title, but I'm feeling lazy today.

Earlier this week I finally met a friend, who I have never actually met before, but have known for several years now. We first met, by blog, long before either of us knew we would be meeting here in Amman. Donna, of Email From The Embassy, (please visit, read, subscribe – you’ll be glad you did) is as wonderful in real life as she is in blog form. She probably thinks I am liar now though. I know that I’ve blogged about how pleasant the weather here is, and yet she arrives in a heat wave! Heat made tougher by the fact that everyone is running their ACs and the power is flickering worse than we’ve ever seen it here. Sorry Donna, it really does cool off, and the power is usually much more sane! At least the sky is beautiful blue… it’s nice to re-discover that color, isn’t it?

Speaking of crazy electricity… it seems many are having appliance issues these days. It does go hand in hand. Our water filter died, as did the oven. Neither died quickly though, which made us all suffer. Facilities would repair them, they would work fine for a few hours, then die again, only to be revived the next day. Finally, both were declared officially dead, and replaced. Look! A shiny new stove! Although like the last, it doesn’t quite fit in the space. There’s a concrete base that is a tiny bit too small and so the stove must be set up about 4”. Good thing I’m tall enough to reach… I only receive minor burns.
Also, school has started. I wasn’t organized enough to get first day of school photos this year. I was pleased to just get them to the bus in time! But here is a first homework of the year photo. Pixie is a great supervisor.

Not that they need school to learn everything, they’ve been having fun with a science experiment book and Brain Pop (an animated educational online site that the kids really enjoy).  They recently did a simple experiment with ice, salt and string, The salt makes the ice stick to the string so you can pick up ice cubes. I need to really start paying attention now, when they come in and ask “Can I have this, this, and this??” This experiment was pretty tame, but … maybe I better find that book and read it too?

Yes… Pixie is supervising again. She is a very educated cat.

Speaking of learning. Yesterday was the first day of Taekwondo classes for both kids. They had a wonderful time in class. The coach had them working out very hard, but they were laughing and having fun too. Honor had only ever taken a few classes, and never tested for a belt, although she remembered a lot anyway. Brian had tested to blue belt, first stripe, but as he has been out of practice for over a year, the main instructor said to start with white belt, and Brian would quickly work up and test soon, skipping belts until he caught up again. Brian was good with this. I think it took some of the pressure off of him to remember everything at once! I was pleased to see he kept the flexibility that he’d worked so hard to gain in his previous classes.

Another new thing, which is actually an old thing that broke but is now newly fixed, is my label cloud. Yea, it’s silly, but I like it and I’m glad I fixed it. Besides, I don’t think anyone really cares about or uses the tags, except me, so turning it into a simple toy might give it wider appeal. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with the layout of my blog. I’ve messed with it a little, but I’m not satisfied yet. Expect it to alter a bit in the future as I try to clean things up a bit.

And one more photo before I end this post… what happens when you leave the potato and onion bin open in your house?

If you don’t know, I have a couple of cats who are willing to investigate for you!