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I am happy to say I'm thoroughly enjoying doing Advent activities with the kids. I know we are making sweet memories when they excitedly declare, "This has to be a new tradition, Mom!"*

The other day, we painted cookies for our neighbors and postman, something I haven't had the spoons to do since I was pregnant with Ti'Loup. I had only done it once before, and this time everyone got to participate. My husband said it would be wonderful if, years down the line, the kids all wanted the cookie cutters that have become emblematic to our family holidays, like my friend

asakiyume shared about her fondness for her family's angel cookie cutter (her family tradition of painting cookies was where I first heard of it; I won't link to her post since she's in the process of making some entries private, and I might end up with a dead link🙃).

Here are some of our creations. No natural dyes this time. We experimented with juice from preserved cherries, but it wasn't very nice.

We still have no idea when the family will be reunited in Lebanon, but our busyness is making the time pass in an agreeable way, and for that I am thankful. J is keeping busy, too, even taking up pottery lessons, which he has wanted to do for years. Contrary to when we lived in Egypt and were separated for the summer, he's finding the time is passing pretty quickly and he isn't miserable without us. 😂

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*I introduced mint steamers to our hot beverages this year, which are usually hot cocoa and hot apple cider, and the kids want them on the rota. Just an aside, in case I haven't said this before: The French do not believe in peppermint flavored candy canes, much to my dismay come Christmas time for the past 20-plus years I have been living here. So this year I cracked and bought some off Amazon.

The kids say Christmas Bark and Peppermint Bark making (OK, eating!) have to be new traditions, too, in addition to cookies. In non-food related traditions, they also want to do Time's Up Christmas Version (we make up our own prompts and play, kind of like Fishbowl) every year.

For the past couple of weeks, I have repeatedly found myself telling people, "This separation from J is really hard on the kids," making it sound like I am dealing just fine and would be OK with all this living apart, spouse-in-potentially-dangerous situation* if not for the little ones. But then I forced myself to look deeper at how I am actually coping and:

I have been baking. A lot. <--at least one of you knows that is one of my stress/coping mechanisms. I was going to make a list, but who needs that?;

I have been snacking between meals. <--I haven't don't this in years. My body is not happy with me;

I have a hard time overcoming lethargy to do anything creative, both writing and art endeavors are currently sputtering and fizzling;

I have resorted to playing a mindless video game on Ti'Loup's iPad.

I could probably list a few more telltales that, yeah, I too wish this situation would resolve and our family could go back to normal. And then I feel enormous amounts of guilt because I am primarily concerned about my family and not all the Lebanese and others who are suffering so. I know that this is natural in a way--I know I can't do anything under my own power to bring about peace--but it still smarts that my empathy level is clocking in so firmly at "numb."

I also hate the planning we are having to do concerning J's vacation time next year. We are trying to spread out his days so that he can come home every two months or so. It is sad to think this conflict could be going on all next year and trying to decide when we can go back, and should J keep the big flat just for himself, and...and...and...???

Despite the stress (struggling to find the right label), I would not say I am depressed. I am still finding enormous amounts of joy in my surroundings, drinking in the beauty of autumn in our little corner of the French countryside. I am having fun reading and discussing things with the kids. I love our family game time and watching my kiddos' joie de vivre.

With the holidays coming up and the desire to make sure it is a beautiful, meaningful time for the kids (they aren't taking it well that J will not be able to come home for Christmas, nor can we fly to Beirut for the holidays because--hey, ho! who has $7,000 lying around to spend on airfare), I need to get more energy and oomph...but without passing through Guiltyland.

And all that is why I have posted a thousand times in my mind but never written up an entry for DW. But, it is life, and I do want to document it.

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*There have been several strikes in both areas we frequent as a family and near to J's work. It is unnerving.

Have I ever said here how happy I am that we kept our house in France when we moved to Lebanon? I think I have. A couple of times. But that doesn't stop me from continuing to want to express my gratitude. We are so blessed to have our home as a safe haven in this time of intense conflict in Lebanon. Yes, J has to be in Beirut for work and can't leave, but the kids and I are removed from the stress and noise and fear.

We should have gone back to Beirut this coming Sunday, but not only are those plans scratched on our own part, Air France has suspended all flights until at least Oct 26. We have friends who have now left Lebanon, planning to return (or consider return) only after the holidays. This alleviates them of the burden of constantly assessing how Israel's war on terrorism is evolving. J and I haven't really discussed how we will decide when it is safe to return, but I have ordered enough firewood to see us through the winter. We heat exclusively with wood here in France.

Now I am wondering if I should mulch my fallow garden plot in anticipation of being here next spring and summer. I won't re-skin the greenhouse--I don't even know if I could do that without J (but I bet I could with enough determination and the kids' help)--but it would be nice to have some of our own food next summer. Farmer Boy told me he really misses the garden and growing our own veggies. I need to evaluate what are the things I can do for as little effort with as much payoff as possible that won't gut me if I have to abandon them midway due to a return to Lebanon. What will set the land up for success without draining me or resources if all comes to naught?

Mulching seems like a pretty good plan. If I don't have a garden, oh well, I am just out some time and hay and the land got a nitrogen boost. More nettles in my future, but that is not that big of a deal if we don't go back and I am ready to pop in some seeds or plants.

There are a lot of other things I can do this fall, like finally prune all the trees and bushes I haven't been able to take care of the past couple of years. I am still a bit tired from our recent trip to the States, but I need to shake it off and make a plan to get through the Limbo in a healthy way.

...has been nagging me for weeks. And yet, as per my usual feelings, once I get the window open, I feel rather unmotivated and instead wander away, leaving the check-in for another day or month.

Our return to France went well overall (none of the Murphy's Law travel mishaps rated on the Absolutely Catastrophic Scale), as I mentioned. One thing I didn't go into was finding a nest of 10-12 mice in a drawer when we arrived at midnight. We dumped them out the front window, leaving the shredded debris of papers to be sorted later. Happily for us, if not the mice, the mouse invasion came to a quick close with the demise of two adults the following day in strategically-placed traps.

I was happy to note that my allergies were much less debilitating than they were last summer, and after suffering a mere three weeks or so, I was feeling pretty normal. Sadly, near the end of that J had to return to Lebanon for work, a whole 3 days early due to an error on the part of the travel agent which was, sadly, irremediable.

And the day he left, Ti'Loup started experiencing weird stomach pains, involving extended burps and bouts of nausea. We are still running tests to find out what is wrong, for lo though we are three weeks on from the onset, he has yet to kick whatever it is. He has an appt for an abdominal ultrasound on Monday. I hope we'll get some answers. At least the virus that all three kids came down with, beginning with Farmer Boy last Wednesday, has run its course, and they are all back to normal in that regard. Dealing with feverish kids, who are delirious during the night hours, is no fun, let me tell you.

And in the midst of this all we have had our second year running of bats believing our house to be an ideal place to start a colony. It began with me finding 4 momma bats and their babies stuck in our sink one morning. That same day we found 15 more (14 adults and one baby) hanging in the living room drapes. We have found way more bats in one go than last year, and there continues to be bats getting in--and tragically, babies being abandoned--but overall, I feel there is less death than last year. I gave up keeping any kind of total, but I hope we are at the end of it for this year. I hope to get someone to come install a net on our chimney pots to keep this from happening again next year, if indeed that is where they are getting in. I can't think of any other places...

On the art front, I have been productive despite a slump in motivation and the typical artist angst of "What am I doing? Who do I think I am kidding?" which are completely silly thoughts to have since all my endeavors are just for my pleasure and fun. I am such a perfectionist (a ready-made excuse for failure if ever there was one) and have a supremely realistic view as to my lack of je ne sais quoi (call it "spark" or "genius") in terms of artistic skill. This is a deadly combo when contentment with one's creations is at stake. Still, I carry on, knowing that this too shall pass. Been creating one way or another for long enough to know that for truth.

There. I have posted something. Hooray, for I consider that a good first step in overcoming the blah.

Post-script: And a second step, ahem, would be to do some housework. I feel so blah about housework that the lethargy is crippling. But if only I could get everything in order, I would feel so much more relaxed. Seeing as how we will be having guests very shortly, I really, really, really need to get on the ball with it.

...after a Day of Travel yesterday that seemed to check all the Murphy's Laws (thanks

rimturse for pointing that out), we are back home in France for the summer. We have a ton of stuff to do over the next coming weeks while J is here with us (before he must return to Lebanon for work), and I pray Murphy keeps the rest of his laws to himself as we try to deal with them.

There might be more posting as we settle into what I hope will be a peaceful season.

Current Music: Maggie Rogers - Dog Years; Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence;

(2 April 2024)

This has been such a busy season for my family. I feel like we are in GO mode all the time. I have been creating so much, but because it is more illustrative, it just doesn't feel very apropos to this community. However, I will keep posting our art prompt adventure. I do hope to paint soon, too, but I am not putting any pressure on myself.

Our prompts this time around were: Spring and Agamographs! I only recently learned what agamographs were and therefore had no experience making them. Enter YouTube. Since we had "spring" as our other prompt, none of us went with the more graphic style that seems to work well with this type of art. I learned quite a few do's and don'ts in this process, such as: Small details are pointless because they will be lost "in transition."

It would have been better to do videos of our artworks, but I don't have that kind of patience or bandwidth. Hope the photos will at least give an inkling of the final products. 😄

First is a photo of the completed artworks before cutting them up, along with the first construction steps (sadly, I forget to photograph everyone else's before they cut and pasted them. As I said, this was a learning process):

I did mine in acrylic with some colored pencil for details.

Daughter's (watercolor):

With hers, we learned the folly of using too-thin paper for the base layer.😣

Middle child's (marker):

Youngest child's (marker, soft pastel, colored pencil):

Have you ever tried an agamograph?

(16 March 2024)

This "week's" challenge was Birds! (Weeks in quotation marks because we are doing a "painting birds" class together as a family and it is taking us longer to find days when everyone can paint and learn together. We still have one more segment, but we have finished the bulk of the lessons now.)

Enjoy a sampling of family fun exploring feathered friends.

Lots of playing with mixed media happening.😊 One of the most freeing things about this process is learning that I do not have to be married to a decision I make and can always paint over it and try something else.

For example, I painted a bird out of my composition because I wasn't happy with it. I don't like the resulting colors on the background. And that is OK because I can either move on or paint over the background again and then draw or paint another bird.

My daughter is loving the theme and even got bold enough to paint in a background!

(March 5, 2024)

Artful Prompting, 6

#inspiration #process #creativity #artist #Resources

This past week's prompt was Self Portraits, and thanks to Sandi Hester and her self-portrait tips video, I wasn't even apprehensive about doing it. I set out NOT caring about a likeness, just painting colors and shapes, and it was great fun. And they don't look anything like me. Except I do wear glasses and usually have my hair in a side braid.🤓😜

These are in order from left to right. The first one was done on super-cheap sketch paper. You can even see around my "artistically" applied gesso coating that the paper actually has a purplish cast. Anyhow. I began this with a blind-contour sketch of myself, and oh how I wish I had photographed it. It was charmingly hilarious as most blind-contour drawings are. I used acrylics, which I am not used to, so many skin areas are chalkier than I would have liked. I had a sunburn from skiing--silly me forgot the sunscreen--so those red splotches are pretty true to life. And I actually love the look of the red blobs of color.

I painted the second one while using the first one as a reference without trying to copy it. It was also done with acrylics but on watercolor paper. In fact, I re-used a painting of my husband's which was painted in response to our 4th prompt (the one I didn't share. He begged me to recycle his paper, so there you have it). I was in a hurry--needed to take the kids to music--and so I really rushed it, not correcting wonky head, etc., and I think I will go back and retouch it. Not to get a likeness or pretty picture but because it was fun.

The third one was done in a cheap sketchpad, beginning with a "head shape" laid down in Jackson's Watercolor Brush Pens (light brown and red). I used some Faber Castell Watercolor Pencils to get more shapes and then some gouache to smooth out the patchiest places. Like Sandi, I tried to hold my brushes and pencils very loosely and "awkwardly," in the interest of not being precise and trying to get some fun quirks. I will definitely be revisiting this prompt.

Husband and Daughter both did just one self-portrait in paint:

Each of the boys did two, one version in colored pencil and the other in acrylic when I insisted they use paint, too.😄

I think the green nose is to spite me🤣 when I told him to try using some different colors because I couldn't see his "paint" nose and mouth, only the pencil lines beneath.🤪

(posted 26 Feb)

For anyone keeping count, you will know that I didn't post our 4th prompt. We all did it, but none of us felt very inspired to share it. That happens. This past week, our prompts were Etel Adnan (a Lebanese American artist, poet, essayist) and China. None of my family felt very motivated by this one, either. LOL

Etel mostly painted abstract landscapes in flat color planes, so I got some photos of Chinese landscapes and did a dozen or so thumbnail sketches with color pencils* to decide on my layout. I tried to keep my colors in line with what I think she might have used but did not base mine off a specific palette of hers. She mostly (exclusively? I dunno) used a palette knife, but I couldn't find my smaller one and used a brush in some places.

This is not a style I have a particular affinity for, but I admit to not being displeased with the final result. (The taller mountain in the right is actually more purple, but as usual, the photo did not want to play nice.)

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*Not the best medium choice because one cannot get the same effect as with paint; and so it was hard to judge colors, etc. I wanted to go with a different palette, but my husband said he liked this particular combo and thought I should go with it.

13 February 2024

Our third foray into art prompts resulted in "Elder Son" and "Utensils." Oooookay. How odd to have gotten two family members in a row. So, some of us chose to draw utensils and some chose to draw with utensils.

This one is from Elder Son who did NOT have to draw himself (I just love the earrings):

Daughter's take on her brother with utensils. Elder Son must be hungry:

Husband's (he used: a skewer, a bottle cork, a pastry brush, a fork, a sponge, and his fingers):

I tried a couple, the first (blue background) was done with a pastry brush, sponge, gloved fingers, and a bamboo skewer. The second was done with a sponge and a plastic fork:

The likeness is not there, but hey, one can't be hard on oneself when painting with a plastic fork.🤣 And that made this a very liberating experience. However, my boy has the most beautiful mouth, and I really hated that I couldn't capture it.

While watching YouTube videos about mark-making, I came across an artist, Sandi Hester, who is really fun and whose work I will watch more as I delve into the illustrative side of what I want to do. The kids are also enjoying her, and Daughter's blue outline came about from a video of Sandi's. We have done many faces since watching that.

(These posts are pretty much copy-pasted from the art forum where I first wrote them)

29 Jan 2024
Two Fridays have come and gone since my last posting about my family's art prompt adventure. It isn't because we haven't been doing it, but because we bit off more than we could chew! The kids drew three prompts: The name of my youngest, one of their uncles, and Claude Monet!

So, two portraits (should you chose to interpret the prompt that way, and most did/do) and the style of one of the fathers of Impressionism. Whom, it turns out, my children did not know much about--no worries, we'll learn like we did with Georgia O'Keeffe--but they didn't even have a good grasp about what Impressionism is. They were discouraged and unhappy with any results they were getting, and this was when I realized just how much art baggage and assorted culture I have picked up over the years. I incorrectly assumed that with a little "YouTube refresher" everyone could be on the same artistic page I was.

So we voted, midweek, to drop Tonton (endearing term for "uncle" in French) from the challenge. That still didn't get us closer to knowing how to approach Impressionism, particularly Monet's style, who, unhelpfully to us, did *not* paint a lot of portraits.

Another vote decided we would extend this challenge for two weeks, and I dug into some fun activities with the kids, geared to get them to loosen up, "dab" the paint, and be conscious of values. That culminated in little copies of Claude Monet's painting "San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk."

(Monet did this in oils and we worked in watercolor, making it harder to get his "blended dabbing;" but watercolor is definitely faster and easier to work with/clean up after with kiddos!)

They started to have more fun, which is the point of it all, but there are still pockets of resistance in my seven-year-old.🤪

On Friday, I will have portraits or "figures in a landscape" to show for those who are willing to have me share their work.😝

I have learned:

- additional things about Impressionism;

- some of the limits of the prompt challenge; but

- how to roll with changes to accommodate the goals of having fun with learning and creativity. The beauty of our learning style is that we are on no one else's timetable but our own. We can slow down or speed ahead as we want.

How did you creatively play this week? Learn anything you'd like to share or make anything you would like to post?
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(Follow-up posted 13 Feb)

I promised follow up on the Monet inspired paintings of my youngest son. I will share mine and then what my youngest son did. Because "self-portrait" is also an upcoming prompt, each person is not obliged to draw/paint themselves when their individual name is picked. So, Youngest Son, not too thrilled by Monet, chose to be inspired by George Meouchy, a Lebanese artist, whose exhibit we visited recently.

Arches Oil Paper, 23x31cm (9x12in)

This was immensely challenging, and I almost threw in the towel multiple times. I painted him a tad thicker than he really is, and trying to get proportions and a believable figure showed me just how much I need to do more work with anatomy. It is frightening and amazing how the smallest of brushstrokes can totally alter something.

And Youngest Son's George Meouchy-inspired rhino, a whopping 50X60cm (20x24) canvas panel, acrylics:

I love how brave he was in going big. Momma needs to take some lessons!

I am having one of them. Just to give you a couple of the highlights, without entering into all the personal minutia:

On Monday, we had a picnic with many of our friends at a local park, and one of the boys, an 8 year old, went missing. He was playing down at the creek with one of my boys and some other kids, he decided to climb back up to the play area by himself. And he failed to tell anyone a) that he was going to the creek with the other kids in the first place, b) that he was leaving the creek. Without going into the topography, it is hard to explain what happened and how scary it was (a missing kid is ALWAYS scary!), but the boy got turned around somehow and fell into a steep ditch. It took us over two hours to find him, and it was, in fact, the municipal police and a government search and rescue team that finally located him. Needless to say, that evening I was completely wiped out. It didn't help that my own son had not asked for permission to go play there. We often play there--have even camped by the creek--so I wasn't afraid for him; it was the lack of communication that was upsetting.

Tuesday morning was kind of a blur; and the afternoon cleaning for friends to come over, then having those friends over, theh family football (soccer). The evening was hassle with insurance (not me dealing with it personally) for the knee-surgery that J wanted to get done in his time off, but the insurance kept giving him the run-around. He is now going to have to postpone it until this fall.

Wednesday started off like a day at the races with J wanting to have an intense (philosophical) conversation over breakfast before I was even fully awake, and I had to rush away from that to a friend's house so I could teach her to make bread, and then I had to rush from there without even having lunch to a prayer meeting that I was leading. Once home at a little after three, I finally ate and then had to fix supper early for J to take on his night shift.

I was looking forward to finally relaxing in the evening but was faced with...um, let's just summarize by calling it a plumbing problem. It involved a brown eruption, blocked pipes, gloves, lots of disinfectant, two bottles of Drain-O type products, and good ol' manual (gloved!) labor to clear out. Oh, and a garden hose. And a scoop. Ahem. All that spilled over (excuse the pun) into Thursday, and we didn't even sit down to lunch until 2p.m.

Is it any wonder I have a stress/fatigue-induced fever blister? Since I am mentioning health, I will just say that I FINALLY got around to making an appointment with a dermatologist today about a persistent itch I have had on my back for the last two or so months. I know I should have taken care of it early, but it is one of those things.... *sigh*

Annnnnnyhow. All that to say, I WAS going to start posting about the art prompts my family and I are doing but just thought I needed to get the other stuff off my chest first. And now the ramble has gone on so long, I can't possibly put all that info here. I will copy over, piece-meal, the posts I have made about our "Artful Prompting" on the art forum because when my access runs out to the community, I will lose those posts forever.

I thought I would share a new creative challenge my family and I are undertaking this year. Who knows if it might spark some ideas for anyone in need of such creative prompts.

The kids and I filled a tin with slips of paper inscribed with a hodgepodge of words (seasons, places, noodles <--7 year-old's contribution; he's so excited for it to come up in the rota), including artists, art movements, and techniques. Each Friday, we draw our prompts from the box (two to three) and then have a week to produce art based on them. We will start off Friday night with exploring the words and watching documentaries about the artists/techniques, and so. Even my husband is doing it with us.

The words for our first week (which we are doing now) are: Collage, Cyanotype, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The weather has been very non-conducive to cyanotype creation, but thankfully, we had lots of attempts from last year that we could use, especially useful given the "collage" aspect of the challenge.

I came up this challenge for multiple reasons:

1) I want to explore different ways of thinking, seeing, and doing, especially with an aim toward loosening myself up for children's book illustration;

2) I want to create with my kids and continue pushing them to stay in touch with their creatively fun kid nature, which is not always easy to do as many an adult can attest. And sadly, I think they might be picking up on my critical self-talk and discontent;

3) I find art a fabulous way to learn about the world, present and past, which ties into our wholistic approach to education. My kids and I have already had discussions about history (Dustbowl and Great Depression), geography, Native American spiritual beliefs, language for self-expression, moral issues (Georgia O'Keeffe's life--or commentary on her art--is not considered suitable for kiddos as many documentaries made me understand with the various tags of "kid-friendly"😜).

Our rules are: Have fun, Don't whine or complain, Creatively follow the prompts, Be encouragers.

My flower and the "feathers" (prints of Lebanese cedar needles) fulfill the cyanotype criteria, and watercolor experiments make up the other pieces. I didn't use a reference for the skull; just made something up.

My boys (yes, they have long hair) were inspired by O'Keeffe's lesser-known depictions of kachina dolls, and my daughter went for the floral take:

My husband is at work, so I can't ask his permission to post his.😉.

My kids, especially my daughter, has a strong aversion to abstract art, so tomorrow, I hope to do an activity that invites them out of their comfort zone to try it, even if they don't end up loving it. I think O'Keeffe's watercolors will be just the thing for inspiration.

ETA: art by Ti'Loup(left) and Farmer Boy(right):

This post brought to you thanks to

mallorys_camera, who has told me more than once that my ordinary might hold interest for those not living in this country. Herewith a little anecdote of everyday Lebanese life.

What is a person to do when she needs to buy groceries but has neither US dollars or Lebanese lira, only euro? If you answered "pay with her credit card," you would be wrong. After the series of crises Lebanon has undergone and most notably the collapse of Lebanese banking, no one in their right mind would pay with a credit card* here for fear of the official exchange rate and banking fees.

The first thing she would do would be to drive to one of the many, many currency exchange bureaus who operate with the black market rate.** However, when this outing happens at 3:00p.m. on 31 December, our intrepid shopper finds the bureau closed. What to do, what to do?

She calls a freelance money exchange operator (broker?), someone who deploys his couriers on scooters throughout the city! This particular individual speaks impeccable English (buy hey, many Lebanese do) and works all the time with the staff at the French embassy.

OK, the "she" business is getting old....

So I send the broker a WhatsApp message*** detailing that I need 300euro in USD and 100 euro in Lebanese pounds. Pronto. At the supermarket in a neighborhood near me.

Deal!" he promptly responds.

"When will he be here?"

"30 minutes tops. Promise."

"OK, I'm going to start my shopping. Have him text me when he arrives. I'm wearing sweats, glasses, and my hair is in a braid." (Yes, I am glamorous; glad you noticed.)

"Deal."

Thirty minutes later, I finish my shopping and position my cart by the checkout stands. Just then my phone dings.

"He's outside by Starbucks."

I go out and start looking around. I feel a bit like someone about to make some kind of illicit deal in public. I almost wave to one man I think might be the courier, but it's not him. No one is by Starbucks that isn't a customer...

And then, there he is; short smiling man with a bulging bandoleer bag, who makes a beeline for me.

He hands me a massive wad of 100,000 notes-- millions of lira--which I am not going to stand there and count, so I shove it in my purse. I give him 100 euro. I then give him 300, and we count it together. I feel like the dollar amount he gives me is pretty high for the rate I am used to, but I haven't checked it in a while so say nothing. After a "thank you" and cheerful goodbye, I head back inside to pay for my groceries.

A couple of hours later, I see I have a missed call from the broker. I call him back, and he asks me how much money I gave the courier. 300 for the dollars and 100 for the pounds, I say.

"Oh, you asked for the equivalent of 330 euro."

Oy! Indeed I had. Typo. Oh, how embarrassing. But the courier hadn't said anything!

The broker, so kind and understanding, "Don't worry! These things happen!" ****

We agree his courier will swing by the embassy and pick up the missing 30 euro from J at work.

Lebanon is a very service-oriented country. :P

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* Online banking payment options like Revolut are starting to become a thing, and J has an account he now uses for doing the groceries. I, as a US citizen, without US residency or US bank account couldn't set one up through my French bank without lots of hoops and paperwork.

** Snippet courtesy of Wikipedia entry on Lebanese pound: From December 1997 through January 2023, the exchange rate was fixed at LL 1,507.50 per US dollar.^[4] However, since the 2020 economic crisis in Lebanon, exchange at this rate was generally unavailable, and an informal currency market developed with much higher exchange rates.^[5] On 1 February 2023, the Central Bank reset the currency peg at LL 15,000 per US dollar.^[6] By mid-March 2023, the "parallel market" rate had fallen to LL 100,000 per dollar. (Today's rate is 89,700 LL to 1 USD) The term "parallel market" sounds so nice, doesn't it?

***Hardly anyone (businesses included) uses the regular phone lines because they are way too expensive. WhatsApp is where it's at.

****Actually, the first time I used his services, HE misread the amount I wanted and brought less dollars. :P

I have not been faithful about keeping this space up to date. Too much going on and not good enough Internet coverage to make it worth the struggle. In a nutshell, as you know, the year fell apart from its predicted end with the conflict between our neighbors to the south.

I did go home to France with the kids, where I proceeded to get some gardening done between the rare bouts of combined wellness and dryness (it literally rained for weeks on end, and the viruses came thick and fast and circulated mercilessly between the four of us). Going back home was not in vain; I now happily have six new asparagus plants, which will be just about ready to harvest when we leave Lebanon for good. If we leave when planned. More on that in a minute.

I also pruned almost all of my red raspberries; transplanted--with the kids' help--my golden raspberries; tip layered multiple shoots of my tayberries; transplanted thornless blackberries; and--again with the kids' help--got one of our strawberry beds thinned out, weeded, and covered in landscape fabric (not a favorite technique of mine, but let's face it, when you have a lot of land and don't live on a place year-round--and even when you do--you spend a LOT of time weeding if you don't use some serious suppression tools). I planted some garlic cloves in the chicken run and also stuck a few hazelnut cuttings in the ground to see if any take. Wild ones do when we use them as support posts in the garden, so there is no reason I shouldn't get some nice starts from this named cultivar.

My husband joined us on Dec 16th, and we spent Christmas with his mom and brother at our place (where we possibly got them sick; they are sick now, but was it our fault?). I got a horrible ear infection and couldn't go down with J and the kids to see J's dad. I have no more pain, but after three weeks and two courses of antibiotics, I still have mucus in my sinuses and a constant whine in my right ear. Thankfully I had no pain while flying back to Lebanon.

So, yes, we are back in Lebanon, despite there being no improvement in the situation, instead arguably a worsening. But it is not frightening on a personal level. There is danger in the air, but we are not the target or near the areas/people that are. And so we will remain here en famille until something changes.

In thinking about what I want out of 2024, I reflect on what did not go exactly as planned in 2023, namely fully participate in my painting course this fall. I would like to just move on and paint my own stuff, but I feel I missed out on some fundamental concepts despite completing the exercises at a later date. I can certainly be excused for my lack of focus. While I have access to the course until next fall, I think I might be better served to retake the course now, on my own. It won't be the same as doing it with all my fellow students, but I am still part of the community as I shared before.

My main objective is to "sit and seek" through January in terms of what I want of the year, especially on a spiritual level, but in terms of art, I am sure enough that I will re-take the painting class, then commit to one painting a week. I also want to work on the illustration front and must think of beneficial objectives to move me forward there, too.

I would like to write, but at the moment, I am not at all in that headspace.

My head is in a sort of limbo thanks to J's boss, who does not like anyone being here with their families. J just applied for his 4th year, which would begin 29 Dec 2024, and we have heard a rumor that two requests for the 4th year were denied. There just happen to be two colleagues here with their families, J and one other. We should have already found out if we were staying or not, but Not-Nice Boss decided to circumvent the normal chain of information, go behind everyone's back, and send his verdict straight to Paris. It is a mess to explain, but suffice it to say, Not-Nice Boss didn't want to risk justifying his decisions (one person asked him to do so, and he was highly offended that he should have any kind of accountability to those beneath him. He Spoke. So Be It. Great boss material, yeah?)

So, until we are certain of our stay, I don't know how to go about settling in to this (possibly) last year. We had thought to visit the States (first time in over 9 years) at the beginning of summer, but if we move back to France this winter, that won't happen.

Enough rambling. I hope your 2024 is off to a great start. Despite the meh tone of this post, mine is fine; and it is nice to be back in our community of friends.

About to sit down to a feast with the kiddos. So grateful for all we have and those we know.

May you all have a blessed day.

I had a most amazing thing--a bright and happy thing--happen to me, and I think the world needs more trumpeting of news of that sort.

My art course just wrapped up, and there is a paying community alumni can access once it is over. I decided because of the financial and time burden, I would not be continuing. I said my goodbyes and expressed my appreciation for the course and my fellow students...and woke up to a message from one of the other students saying she would like to offer me access to the community for a year. She said she appreciated my contributions so much over the courses, all the time and effort that I put into helping others, that she didn't want to see my time with them end. I was very touched but felt I couldn't accept. Yes, the money is one issue, but the time-involvement "required"* is even more of a hang up for me.

Before I could graciously formulate my refusal, she went ahead and paid it, telling me that she did not expect me to be there all the time, no obligations.

I was so honored and touched by her gesture and the outpouring of love when the others knew I would be continuing.

______
*There are no requirements, but I am not a half-measures person when I commit to something and I put a lot of time into something I am dedicated to seeing through.

We are back in France as of midnight Monday, and the return has not been an immediate easing of stress and the haven of peace I craved.

- Arrival at the final airport - very nice to be greeted by kind neighbors, but joy was dampened seeing our damaged luggage arrive. (Two suitcases completely unusable and the third highly unlikely to survive another trip);

- Immediately tried to start car upon reaching the house, only to find the battery dead. (Kind neighbor installed one of his the next morning, so I could do groceries, while charging ours, which was thankfully not completely out of commission forever);

- Unpacked and found J's very expensive Petromax lamp had been stolen from one of our suitcases. (J kindly went through the efforts of filing the claims. Pessimistic Me thinks we will likely get zero in damages...);

- My French phone card was not waiting for me and was not delivered until Wed afternoon, and even after I got it, I couldn't activate it because without it, I don't have Internet. Had to wait until kind neighbors got home at 8p.m. to activate it with their Internet and finally let J know how we were doing;

- Found the house invaded by mice (they had even chewed a hole in a canister lid to get at some poison I had in reserve); even the bread I brought from Lebanon and had left in a sack on the counter had been gnawed the next morning. Two traps caught two mice Tuesday night and one this morning.

- Our brand-new lawnmower refused to start for me on Wednesday, the only sunny day we have had so far (kind neighbor came by to help me with it today and even he struggled to get it going. But after lots of tries, it is finally running again);

- our other mower has a flat tire;

- The archway leading into our front yard has collapsed and will have to be rebuilt, pronto. I think my wisteria will survive, but I am not sure about the canes on the tayberry planted on the other side will give fruit this coming year;

- Yesterday our furnace (connected to our 10 radiators) sprang a leak. Thankfully the plumber was able to come the same day (after telling me he couldn't make it until the next morning) and repaired it. I spent copious amounts of time collecting the water draining all over our dry wood before help came;

- I have now been coughing and bone-weary for a solid month, as have the kids. This makes me very short-tempered and not good company.

On the bright side:

- I received my asparagus plants and got them in the ground;

- I pruned my raspberries;

- I transplanted some thornless blackberries;

- as my newly-turned 13-year-old-daughter said, "No one is likely to bomb us here, Mom." Very bright side, indeed.

We will fly out Monday in the afternoon, at a later time-slot than normal, which will give us only a 2hr layover instead of almost 5. Huzzah! And our lovely neighbors are coming with two cars to take us home, keeping me from having to arrange a taxi-van. I am so grateful to them, especially since we live an hour away from the airport and arrive at 10:30 p.m.

Another wonderful thing is that we were able to change the departure date for our pre-paid tickets in December, so this flight isn't costing us anything. A true blessing given the unplanned escapade to Cyprus and all the expenses thus incurred!

So, J and I decided the kids and I will go back to France until Christmas at least and give the world a chance to calm down. My flight back to Lebanon from Cyprus was bumped up a day, so we are returning tonight. J will book us flights some time between Saturday and next Tuesday back home, where our super kind neighbors have offered to pick us up at the airport, even though we live an hour away and arrive at 10:30p.m. I feel great peace at our decision that is pro-active and has many upsides.

It is such a blessing that:

- we kept our home in France;
- we home-educate our kids (this is a HUGE decision factor of stay-or-go for other families);
- that this is a great season for me to be back working in the garden, planting/moving trees and such;
- we will spend autumn in the house and can heat it, which will be verrrrrry good for it. Houses don't like to be empty;
- we don't have to live in constant fear of having to be forced to flee.

The downside is that J must remain in Beirut for work. We have obviously gone months apart before but never in such circumstances. I sincerely don't think anything will happen to him, but it will be wearing on us just the same.

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The Wayfaring Wordhack

Valises in Lebanon

Recent Entries

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