heart shaped waffles

 My mother's house always seemed to me like one big giant storage closet. The beds that we slept on growing up have two different storage compartments, which consist of six drawers and a giant gap under the bed's wooden planks (what do you call these?) for storage. Plus a giant closet construction from floor to ceiling surrounding the beds that hold, oh many, many things. We also have a villa in Alexandria that holds several auction bought items (my dad was a fan.)

Naturally when moving back, before buying anything I check with my mother first:

Hey mom, I want to buy a sewing machine.

Oh no need dear, I have a very good one from the eighties, it's with it's wrapping paper, I never sewed.

Then why do you have it?

Oh I really wanted to sew but never came around learning.

 So my mom gave me her brand new eighties Pfaff sewing machine... I have grand dreams, once I finish yelling at workers, employees and random people down the street (the last one I was just kidding) to show up or simply do their job right. hmph!

So while poking about the many, oh many drawers that I just told you about. I came across something interesting. Hey mom, you know what this is?

I'm not sure, your dad brought it home back from one of his travels. He never explained what it was, so it sat there.

Did it not come with a manual?

It was in German.

Looking closely it dawned on me "hey mom, you know what this is? It's a waffle iron! a heart shaped waffle iron" my mom's response was "what's a waffle iron?"

My mother doesn't know what waffles are, or maybe she recently tried one, but it just doesn't ring a bell.

Today, that waffle iron that sat there for years and years waiting for it's mystery to be solved, was used for the very first time-- to make a very special birthday boy his very special breakfast. And what better shape to serve some hot crunchy waffles than this?

 (recipe from here, but my next trial will be this one, I just need to plan ahead)

My mother is trying these next!

Have a lovely weekend!

Peace.

Updates for family and everyone else...

... we are still here, only slower (internet) and dustier (country).
Things take their sweet time in Egypt, so we are still waiting for the good people at our local phone company to hook us up so we can give our business to one of our (hopefully) trusted internet companies, so THEY could hook us up. Till then, I check my email via my Blackberry (I so miss my iphone! but one shouldn't complain about owning a Blackberry, or so I keep telling myself) And we still have this strange USB (super slow and often time annoying) internet connection.

This week on the calender we have another electrician coming to fix what the first electrician pretended to fix.

Our brand new stove is getting it's oven checked by the stove company, because the oven doesn't work.

The cleaning lady (My youngest needs her room to get vacuumed and mopped at least every other day, also her AC filter needs to get cleaned every other day 'cause of her condition) I am looking forward to her.

Update driver's license. I am driving around with my old (expired 07) one!

 Couch? (we currently don't own one.
 
And last but not least I am hosting my brother's birthday at our place (I so wanted to bake him a cake, but we'll see what happens with the stove peeps, ey?)

I can't bring myself to take my camera for captures these days, hopefully the inspiration will come back soon.

Till then...

Peace.

{this moment}

I am breaking the no words rule this week, to share with you an Eid tradition that started, oh about six years ago. Every Eid we eat out, get invited or simply make our own pancakes breakfast. The main two ingredient are all of our growing family must be present and it has to be Pancakes.

Eid Mubarak!

Peace.

Mokattam Hills...

...Is our old neighborhood here in Cairo/Egypt. The whole neighborhood is over a giant piece of rock. This neighborhood five years ago was dubbed-- by my husband and his friends: Middle Earth. Because five years ago this was exactly what parts of Mokattam looked like... dark, bare, rocky and completely alien... We've come a long way. Tall buildings stand where once giant ditches laid. Paved roads cross through giant pieces of rocks. The city has crept in. (or rather up!)

 Yet still we suffer from massive storms of dust, and right now they just started the yearly burning of the rice straws in the fields-- resulting in massive smog clouds traveling from the northern sea (the Mediterranean)  upstream (which is confusingly south, a unique feature for the Nile river) where the old city lays. Rice smog is added to the already existing pollutants and everything is trapped between mountains and beneath cool air.

 So far our whole family has been suffering from sore throats, coughing attacks and my youngest is on sever medications for her asthma condition. Egyptian buildings are not built to prevent dust or heat penetration. So when dust storms attack outside, there is no refuge. If it's hot outside, it's boiling inside. And in winters the weather is as cold inside as it is outside. It doesn't get to freezing temperatures here, but when it's in the fifties all the time, your bones start to complain, and smiles become a rare commodity.

There are of course solutions to conquer construction defects, but they come at a high cost and a long process of dealing with Egyptian workers, of whom their reputation of unreliability has proceeded them time and again.

The simplest solution for the time being are double layered super thick curtains. That we plan on armoring ourselves with as soon as this coming long eid Vacation is over (Eid Mubarak Everyone!)

 Complaints aside, I must say, I truly love our new home. There's still alot to be done, but we are now proud owners of (finally) a working natural gas stove, a refrigerator and one bathroom has a water heater.

Breath easy everyone.

FYI: All captures are from our old Cairo place

Peace.

Cairo time...

Blogger speaks Arabic now...

It always throws me off when I look at my page and I am asked to sign-in in Arabic. I mean, what's up with that?

(my mother's chandelier)

I have good news for everyone. We are finally moved into our old mokattam apartment from my mother's place. It's insanely dusty, the girls are coughing right and left, but we are content... well for the most part.
It's true that we are currently  still waiting for a working stove, so we could rest our guts from places like this one:

Yet we are thankful for the fact that we could eat meat outside. (it's quite tricky to find vegetarian options in Cairo. With the exception of koshary and ful)

The above part was good news for us. The good news for you is I actually found (stole) sometime to upload of photos to my computer. Hooray for that!

Unfortunately I realized I didn't capture any major Cairo scenes. (hmmn?) well, we actually still haven't gone sight seeing yet, since we are here to stay, we figured take care of business first and then act like tourists. My photos seem to be exactly the same like American photos... how did I manage? I do not know!

:: At a private sporting club near my mother's place (the girl's favorite spot in Cairo so far)
:: The girl's gave away most of their fries for little miss whiskers here. She was quite the character.
:: Fanoos Ramadan, or noos ra dan  a la Biba pronunciation.
:: Getting on the Egyptian highway to the other end of the city for an iftar (breaking fast meal) gathering.
:: Egyptian sunset in said gathering.
:: Exotic rides.
:: and finally a girl getting off her car ride.

Peace.

Egypt

... I was told I wasn't clear yesterday about our move, so here it is in simple form:

We moved to Egypt from the U.S about twenty days ago. We are still in transition mode, and we are parked at my mother's place until we fix up our old Cairo apartment. Maybe another week or so.  Until then, my posts will be sporadic. Check on us, we are still here.

Leaving you with my latest Egyptian band discovery:




Peace.

A bumpy ride

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for your patience. I have no photos to share with you today (not because of the lack of photos, or subjects to capture... on the contrary, it's just a little bit too complicated right now) we are currently living out of suitcases (twelve to be exact, why all the luggage you ask? ... read on!) in Cairo/Egypt at my mother's place. We found out that our path shall take an extreme turn sometime early June I want to say... hence the strange scattered sentimental blog posts here and there for the past couple of months.

We are here (in Cairo/ Egypt, my homeland) to stay, until our path takes us to another adventure.

A few things to share::
 Jet Lag::

Jet lag = not fun
Jet lag with kids = extremely challenging
Jet lagged kids = Oh my goodness! (we are over this stage now, thank goodness)

The Holy Month of Ramadan::

We are currently in the last ten days of Ramadan. trying to get things done during this month is extremely challenging. Ramadan this year fell on summer months: long days+ soaring temperatures. In a place like Egypt this means weird working hours, so say you're trying to fix up a place to live at. tough luck, wait until Ramadan is over.

Transitions for little ones::

All of us are still adjusting (and re-adjusting) to Egyptian bugs and Egyptian food. We are hopeful that "this too shall pass."
Homesickness-- Mei is hit the hardest I think. She told me she misses trees! I mean Cairo is quite green for a city in the middle of the desert (God bless the Nile River) but we can't compete with the land of the great lakes. Palm trees anyone?

Language-- again Mei is trying and is not very happy about it. She picked up on people with an accent in English, so now she thinks she's speaking Arabic when she uses broken English or rather Engelesh! (she never fails to make me laugh this little one, even in times like these!)

Right now we are doing some more waiting... waiting to move to our place, waiting to settle, and waiting to start new routines.

I should tell you about driving in Egypt, but I figured it's so interesting, I might dedicate a whole post for it.

Till then...

Peace *wink*

(sorry for the awkward format today, can you tell we are all over the place? can you?)