TEN

Salwa turns 10 today. The big 1-0. In the double digits. My 3rd baby. She's always sweet and considerate. Salwa has always been adorable, loving and helpful. I can't believe how grown up she's getting. Here are just a few of the many wonderful moments she's given me.

Just a baby, like a doll.

Soulful eyes on this one.

Cutie in bangs.

Striking a pose.

A happy girl.

Ready to party one Eid.

Proud Egyptian.

Growing up.

A free spirit.

With a great sense of humor :)

Sitting pretty.

Flying high in a hot air balloon.

          

Becoming a young lady.

Someone get me a tissue.... Happy Birthday Salwa!

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Light At The End Of The Tunnel

I can see it. Thursday is Zayneb's last exam and the official start of mid year break. It's been a month of exams and studying and nagging and all around general yuck. We'll have 16 days off and I plan to make the most of them.

We might go away for a few days to a resort or something, not sure where yet but it will be great to change scenery. Otherwise, inshaAllah, we'll go often, stay up later, watch movies and sleep in. Being in study mode makes it hard to feel free to relax and be carefree with outings, etc. because of the guilt. School is serious business here, people. Intense.

 Last week we had a kind of dish party to celebrate the end of exams. Even though we weren't done, most of our friends' were, and planned on going away, so we had it early.  Everyone brought a dish, savory or sweet and we met at a nice cafe.  My contribution:

They went fast! Some people smuggled some home, too.

This big orange cat was hanging around the whole time, sitting next to us and I just loved him. 

He was my buddy!

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Accessories And Storage

I got this idea from UmmSultana who got the idea from  Already Pretty about how to store brooches. I jumped into action and decided to use a crochet/lace type length of ribbon I had. I figured the holes will make it easy to pin brooches to it. So I nailed it to the inside of my wardrobe door like so.

Then I simply pinned all my brooches on there and they are easily visible and accessible. What do you think? I love it!

My mom gave me this cute little hanger for jewelery and I was really wanting something to hold my costume jewelery so this was perfect.

So I pinned this coat on Pinterest months ago and also blogged about it here.

 Since then, I got a simple pea coat but, really what I loved was the cute polka dot bow. So when I saw a bit of the same ribbon that my mom had, ding! Light bulb. I made this bow and sewed it to a pin. Here it is on my coat.

Lovely. I love little projects. Simple things, really. They make me happy :) What do you think?

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Egyptians And Facebook

Ever since the revolution a lot of Egyptians have discovered Facebook. Or "el face" as some here like to call it. So naturally I've gained some of them as FB friends in the past several months and I've noticed several trends. Let's go over a few, shall we?

Fake names. I suppose it's the big scary internet and people don't want strangers to know their real name. And I suppose there's still a bit of that Arab thing where people aren't supposed to know a woman's name. But, but BUUUTTT, only people you friend will know it's you! Do they not want to be search-able to long lost friends or school mates?  I honestly had to defriend someone who's name was something like shghewlsi ghsajldji . Really?

Thinking Facebook is a political site. Because FB was a big part in starting the revolution, some have gotten the idea that it's sole purpose is posting about protests, politics and the sort. Some even have Mubarak as a profile pic (barf) Post a regular status once in a while folks.

Pictures of blond children. This is rampant and frankly a bit creepy to me. Arabs love to post pictures of cute blond little cherub children. They don't have pics of their own children but they have tons of photos of foreign ones. A recent one I saw looked right out of Toddler's and Tiaras, you know, the kiddie pageants. I thought it was horrible but everyone was like "zay el amar!" saying how beautiful the child was. One woman had a little blond girl as her profile pic. What? Why? How does that represent you or your family? How would that make her own daughter feel?

Friending anyone who sends you a friend request. This is women here, but a lot of them will add anyone who friends them. Not only is it stupid,  it's counterproductive to most who don't want men seeing their profile. If you don't know a person well, or at all you have no  worldly inkling  just who is viewing your profile.

Using Facebook to sell and annoy.  People here often have fb pages to sell their wares but they annoy you with "event" invites every damn day. I use quotes because these events are often not an actual event, but just a way to annoy you. Or they'll tag you in a pic of their Avon stuff. Obnoxious.  They also over charge for stuff. I saw Old navy gloves that were on oldnavy.com for 6US$ and they were listed for 160 LE! (6$=36LE) Loreal mascara that's under 6 dollars was listed for 100 pounds. And people buy it.

Just a disclaimer, I'm not saying all Egyptians do these things but it's common with a lot of the ones I know. 

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Monotony And Such

So my kids are in the middle of mid year exams and it's really quite hellish. They started late December and the last exam is Jan 26. All spread out. And days off in the middle.They just go to the exams. It sucks because you don't feel like it's really days off. You know how school here is intense and you have to study. I really can't wait until it's over and we have a little break. Back to school Feb 11. It's hard to get the kids to buckle down and study when it's over such a long period of time, we're all pretty much over it and counting the days.

I recently had a woman come help me clean. It wasn't the first time, I've tried that a couple of times before but this is the first time I was satisfied. This woman was nice, pleasant (she sang while she cleaned), cleaned things that she saw need cleaning without prompting and did a great job, mashaAllah.  I spent the following couple of days randomly marveling aloud at things that were cleaned. "She cleaned the tops of all the spices!" "She scrubbed behind the sink!" "OMG,  look, behind the fridge!" (Wasn't there a Seinfeld episode like that?) You could tell she really took pride in her work. I'm thinking I can have her come in every week or so to help with the bigger jobs, inshaAllah.

I have a bit of tonsillitis but hopefully I'm nipping it in the bud with antibiotics and will soon be able to swallow food pain free.  Speaking of food, here's what we're having for dinner today.

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Nails

I do enjoy the nailpolish. I like to experiment with different looks and  Pinterest  always gives me new ideas.

Here's a few manicures I did recently.

There's gotta be a better way to store this stuff.

Basic French with a little flower sticker.  In the middle of the night I found out it's glow in the dark. I was like whaaa?

Here I thought I'd just do a  nice orange but then...

Got the idea to use tape and add black.

Purple

With glitter.

A whole mess of experimentation.

I sometimes have to stop myself from taking one manicure off just to try another. I try to keep it for a day at least. I'll even do one hand and the other hand another color, just playing around.I've even gotten good at painting my right hand.  Do you like painting your nails?

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Squee!

I just wanted to share this little moment of happiness with you all.

2 weeks ago we forgot Safiyah's scooter at a outdoor cafe and didn't realize it until we were home. We tried to find a number for the place but couldn't and we figured it was long gone. Safiyah was sad but got over it since then. Fast forward today, we were sitting at that cafe again and my mom said I should ask if anyone found it. I genuinely scoffed at the idea and said "no way".  I mean I was sure that if someone saw it they'd take it home. And if someone who worked there found it they'd take it to their kid or sell it or whatever. My friends said I should ask, you never know and there's nothing to lose. I said, ok, I'll ask. I went in and said that we forgot a scooter here and he went into a room, I thought OMG, surely it can't be...and he walks out with Safiyah's pink scooter! I was floored. Tears came to my eyes. I mean, it's not the scooter. It was the fact that they kept it and waited 2 weeks until we asked about it. Safiyah was thrilled and my faith in humanity was restored! :)

I'm thinking maybe I should be less cynical sometimes yea?

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