A yoga article, by me!

So here is the big announcement I alluded to the other day...
I have an article in the Rhythm of the Home Summer edition! It's on how to develop a home yoga practice that works for you. I won't share too much more because I want you to go over there and check it out. And all the other great stuff! I haven't even had a chance to look at everything yet because I'm too excited! haha And I have to give a shout out to my friend Pete who took all the pictures. Yay Pete!

Home

Heather, Lauren, and Andi after watching the first Sex and the City movie...


I'm having a late night screening of the first "Sex and the City" movie. It came out 2 years ago, a few weeks after I got married, a few months before I left for Cairo. No matter how many times I watch it (read: a lot) all those emotions come to the surface for some reason. I know that most people feel that movies mirror their lives in some way, or that we can all say we're a "Carrie" or a "Charlotte," but man! This one rang true. I can still remember sitting in the theater watching it with my girlfriends, thinking about the broken heart they helped me mend, and how I would likely be breaking theirs when I left them at the end of the summer. Sigh. Of course, there are all the funny moments and the fashion moments to ease the pain a bit. But in some ways, those parts make it that much harder. Because those are the moments that you live your friendships. The day to day. The "guess what song is on the radio right now?" phone calls. While I have as much contact with my friends as I could ever hope to have considering that they are an ocean and a continent away, it's the day to day that I truly miss. And knowing that the sequel to this silly movie that somehow defined that time in my life came out this weekend, well, I think that just brings it all back up again.
But don't worry ladies, I'll be home in 19 days.
Love you.
p.s. My 100th post! Kind of lame that it took me almost 2 years to get to this point, but hey, it's still worth celebrating...

Whatcha makin'?

All sorts of things! I'm feeling very productive this weekend. Oh how I love when Ira turns in his grades! In the past 2 days I've made Peach Basil Cobbler, a headband, a skirt, chocolate peanut butter milkshakes, lentil burgers, mended a few things, worked on a summer sweater for Ramona (who else?) But my favorite are these...

Sorry about the blurry foot, but this shot was the best of the lot... I don't really have a pattern, I kind of just modeled them after some of her other pants. This is the 2nd pair I've made. I promise next time I'll pay more attention to yardage and such.


And just one more. Because those cheeks might be the best thing I've ever made from scratch.


What are you making this holiday weekend??

Miracle bottle

No, not THAT kind of miracle bottle. I'm talking about GSE, or Grapefruit Seed Extract. About a year and a half ago I went to Vermont to study with Christine Hoar at Bristol Yoga. While she has a wealth of yoga knowledge she is also an Ayurvedic practitioner and advises me on health issues. When I last saw her, I had only been living in Egypt for about 4 months so I hadn't really gotten a handle on how to treat "Mummy Tummy", as we delicately call it. Those that have traveled south of the border may refer to it as "Montezuma's Revenge"? You get the idea. Christine has traveled to India several times and she suggested GSE. I couldn't believe that no one was using it in Egypt! It's not that the water here is dirty, on the contrary, it's so heavily chlorinated and chemically treated to take OUT all the bad stuff, that it's bad for you in other ways, but it doesn't make you sick. So why do we get sick? Well, the fruits and vegetables are fertilized a little differently than they are in the States. They often times use human fertilizer instead of animal. I know, gross. Although, I have to say I'm kind of starting to get over it. I mean, poop is poop, right? Well, except that I guess this kind can make you a lot sicker. This is where the GSE comes in. This is what we use to wash all of our produce. It's highly concentrated and we just add several drops to a big bowlful of water and let things soak for about 20 minutes or so. It works really well and I think I can confidently say that we haven't gotten sick since we've used this method. So there's the fertilizer issue and then there's the 3rd world country issue. There isn't a board of health going around to inspect all the restaurants to make sure they're clean or that their workers are practicing proper hygiene while preparing and serving the food. I know you are all buying your tickets to Egypt right now, aren't you?! There's just no way to avoid the possibility that you might get sick. Eating at a "good" restaurant doesn't make you immune. There is a tragic story about the juice bar at the Four Seasons that infected dozens of innocent brunch goers. So we can either never go out to eat, or just accept that this is where we live and this sometimes happens. I had that attitude until the other day when I got so sick I was sure I'd never get better. I was worried about taking antibiotics, being a breastfeeding mama. What could I have eaten?! This is the game that you play, you think about everything you've eaten and everything you've come in contact with in the past 2 weeks. THEN I started thinking about all the kids MY kid has come in contact with and where THOSE kids have had their little fingers. Forget it. It's a germ spiral that never ends. So I made myself a little tummy tonic that did the trick.

Tummy Tonic
glass of sparkling water
1 tablespoon grated ginger
5 drops GSE

I had 2 glasses over a 4 or 5 hour time period and felt all better. No drugs! Yay! The armfuls of gladiolas that Ira brought me didn't hurt either...

New Beginnings

I'm not even going to make excuses for my absence this time. I'm pretty sure this was my longest hiatus from the blog. Yes, there has been a lot going on, but there's always a lot going on. But it dawned on me the other day that if you are taking the time to read my blog, then I should be taking the time to write it.
So what HAS been going on??
Well. Since I last wrote, (I'm not going to mention the date, even though you can scroll down and look for yourself. Ouch.)
Ramona got 2 teeth and one sassy personality...
We went to Hurghada
One of my best friends came to visit
I've had lots of fun with friends
I taught a partner yoga workshop
We went to Ain Sukhna
I've done a good bit of sewingWe MOVED. Just up 2 floors, but it was kind of sad. Mostly because the reason the space became available was that our good friends Yasir and Sufia moved to Doha.
As sad as I was when we first moved into that place, so many happy things have happened since then. We've done a lot of living! We brought our baby girl home to that flat
And let's not forget the mural
It was sad to leave the mural
But Mama has already promised another one...
So the most exciting news came in the form of an "acceptance" email of sorts. More on that in a few days...
So I'm back. Although, we are leaving for home (yippie) in a few weeks so I can't promise for how long. But in the meantime, here's a sunset from our new porch...

Food

I think by now everyone knows that I like to cook and bake. I love sharing recipes with you, it's what I would do if you were actually here sharing a meal with me. I may even write them on one of these cards
So here it is, another recipe post...
We had a sandwich night a couple of weeks ago and instead of making something we always have I used some toasted Roggan Bread from Fino and made a white bean mash, topped it with long thin strips of cucumbers and shaved Petit Cantal Cheese. It looked promising, but begging for a colorful side dish. Enter the apple slaw...

Neither Ira nor I are fans of overly creamy slaw and, truth be told, I would rather use a dollop of sour cream than mayo, but the market was on a sour cream drought that week so mayo was what I had to work with. The whole thing really came about from what we had on hand. The best kind of recipe, I think! It was a perfect, crunchy companion to the sandwich. And I ate the leftovers for lunch the next day. Sorry, Ira!

Apple Slaw

half a head of purple cabbage, thinly sliced
one apple, thinly sliced
one handful chopped cilantro
1 tbs. mayo (or sour cream!)
2 tsp. celery seed
black pepper and salt to taste

Toss the cabbage, apple, and cilantro with the mayo and celery seed. Season with salt and pepper.

stockpile

In the past week I have had at least a half a dozen ideas for blog posts. I spent half the week writing them in my head, and the other half deciding which one to write first. Now it's a week later and I didn't post any! So I'm just going to pick one and go for it. We went to Memphis and Saqqara 2 weeks ago on a trip with AUC. As I think I've said before, one of the perks of Ira working there is they schedule these days trips and weekend excursions each semester. This one was nice, it was hot but not unbearable. It was our first time taking Ramona on one of these adventures and she did pretty well! Mama was super freaked out about the sun and loaded her up with sunscreen, a hat, long sleeves and pants. I am somehow convinced that this little angel is going to leave Egypt one day looking like a vintage leather handbag. Anyway, we loaded up the diaper bag and off we went. Our first stop was Memphis. Yes, I made tons of Elvis and Graceland jokes. I was also the only one laughing at them. It's kind of a sparse site, with a few nicely preserved column bases, statues, and a sphinx. I don't know how many of these trips I have to go on before I figure out that there are thousands and thousands of pieces of thousands of artifacts and all the sites kind of look the same. This one was a little different because there is a pristine Colossus of Ramsesses II, it looks as if they dug it up yesterday. There was a crew filming there, which was kind of interesting. They were NOT happy about the tourists interfering with their shot. Maybe next time they won't shoot in the middle of the day on a Saturday! It was nice that they had all their big fancy lights set up because it made my pictures really nice! We didn't spend too much time there before we were off to Saaqara. We arrived and were about to go underground into a well preserved Old Kingdom tomb when Ramona started fussing. I was hoping I could wait until we were on the way home, or better yet all the way home, before I had to feed her. But apparently that wasn't going to happen. So I asked Louise (the woman who organizes all the tours) if I could hop back on the bus and feed her. I could tell she was overheated and hungry. I decided to unbutton her shirt a little bit to let her cool off. She was really fussing at this point and in my haste I accidentally pinched the skin of her neck. I have never heard a scream like that in my life. Not at birth, not the when she was up all night with tummy troubles. Never. It almost made me cry. And then there was the bus driver. The well meaning, but really annoying bus driver. He kept coming back and asking "can you help me?" (translation: can I help you?) At first I was so frazzled and overheated myself that I was thinking "what the heck does he need help with and why is he asking me now??!" It was sweet of him to want to help, but at that point it was just making things worse because I couldn't give her my full attention and by now I know she was starting to feel my tension as well. So I had her lying on the seat next to me, I drank a little water and started over. I picked her back up and she was able to nurse a little bit and calm down. Of course by the time Ira and the rest of the group came back, she was back to her smiling self. I'm sure I looked like a bad version of a Cathy cartoon. Ira carried her the rest of the time, we got some fun pictures of her and got to see some wonderful stone buildings. The first in the world, in fact! I hope you enjoy the pictures...