The Wayfaring Wordhack

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.

 ...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.

 (March 5, 2024)

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.

 (Kifkon = Levantine Arabic for how are [plural] you doing?)

I am fine but in an odd limbo-mode with the return to Lebanon.  The mode isn't necessarily bad, just business as usual* with a helping of sliding back into a home after three months' absence.  I don't really recall this sensation upon my returns to Egypt after extended stays in France, but I think the difference boils down to the fact that in those other stays, I was not at my own home.  As much as I appreciate many things about my mother-in-law,** living with her for months at a time was seriously draining in a way that made it a relief to get back to Egypt and my own place, however hot, polluted, and noisy it was.

In addition to having my Color course at the end of this month, I have an overwhelming desire for a bit more structure and repartition of my creative forces.  Make that my "forces" tout court.

I haven't written in so long, and I want to be writing.  I find this talk pretty motivational:


I took the art courses to get better at illustration (knowing the courses are NOT geared to that, but any skills are good skills and many things translate between fine art and illustration), but I haven't worked at all on my picture books.

I was pretty single-minded with the course, and I feel like I wasn't present enough with the kids. That needs to change and I need to do better during the next module.

I want to get in better shape. There is nothing good about the shape I am in now.  I am not genetically predisposed to thinness, nor do I have what would be considered a good metabolism, suffering instead from hormonal imbalances that make attaining/maintaining a healthy weight more difficult.   Aside from being in my late forties now, I have been dealing with a two-year-long bout of tendinitis in my left shoulder (and I am a lefty), which was preceded with a knee-injury that also came and went with varying degrees of fierceness for a two year period (and I still get flare-ups when something else is out of whack).  All that to say, I've found it too painful for too long to be active.  And any claim to good muscle mass I once had disappeared in a scarily fast way as a result of my inability to function normally in my body.  I am fed up with it, though---and a bit scared that it is getting too late--and want to do something about it, even if it is just simple stretches every morning.  I may not be a waif, but I am (or was) a lot more flexible than many waifs I know, and even my flexibility is going, making me feel so old and stove up all the time.  So baby steps, but STEPS instead of just "waiting for the pain to pass."

I am at the "I have to get started making changes" stage but don't want to shoot myself in the foot or take on more than I can handle.  I am considering how all of these desires can be addressed with a "one degree of change" mentality.  I heard someone giving an analogy about how trying to affect permanent change à la New Year's Resolutions is synonymous to stretching out a rubber band. It does change, but when you release the unsustainable force of keeping it stretched, it returns to its normal shape.  I don't want to be the rubber band; there are only so many of those stretches and rebounds one can do before cracks start appearing in the rubber and the inevitable happens. By stretching the band just a bit at a time, you can more easily coax it into a new shape.  There are problems with the analogy but the point resonates with me.

We are probably going to take a short trip for my birthday, which means that any schedule I get going will temporarily be set aside again. But that is precisely the kind of thing I need to learn to deal with.  I ALWAYS get thrown off track by something not being the way it usually is, but as I have said before, we have constant disrupts to our everyday normal with J's work and our educational choices.

What works for you in trying to form new habits or keep habits going in the face of uncertainty and frequent change?  Do you track things, use daily lists, time slots, project files ...?  Ugh, my brain is still a bit jet-lagged; I can't think of proper terms.  Just tell me whatcha got, if you've got anything. :P

Enough about how I am.   How are you, and what are you up to?

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* You know, trying to judge when we actually have city water by listening for a pump to come on and praying we can get enough water into our tank not to have to pay a private company to come and fill it for us; not being able to drink from the faucets, dealing with cockroaches everywhere, neighbors afflicted with hearing loss, drivers who think everyone in the village needs to hear how loud their hotrods can be...  On the power front, things are better; e have constant electricity "switches" or micro-cuts (from generator to gov't elec) but so far only one 30 minute cut.

** An unfortunate incident happened in the extended family at the beginning of summer that doesn't involve me, husband, or kids (thankfully) that really brought home to me the depth of difference between me and my mother-in-law.  I already knew much about our differences, but oh my, her brain and analysis of situations and the way to proceed, does not AT ALL align with my own.  I like to think I am the one living in the margins of normal.

This has been a crazy month.  I thought to have some downtime between the end of my drawing time and the start of my painting class, time I could spend continuing with my drawing practice, improving and cementing what I learned.  But life had other plans.  I got exactly one drawing in.

With the two Easters celebrated here in Lebanon and Ramadan, the school attended by our kids' friends was out for three weeks.  So, we were inundated with invitations and activities. We went to a big Easter egg hunt in a park in the mountains, fossil hunting, lots of informal playdates, dinner with friends, and on and on.  And our kids worked several times on the fort they have built with friends at a nearby creek.  We also loaned (and are still loaning) our car to J's Lebanese cousin, G, because her son is using hers to attend his internship. I periodically have to borrow our car back and that weirdly makes me feel like I can't because I don't want to put G out.  

I also had crowns put on my top two front teeth by the most unprofessional dentist I have ever visited in my life.  It was a process so long and painful as to become almost comedic in its sheer badness.  What should have taken a week, maybe two, ended up taking a month.  The dentist said, "See you in 20 years," but I fear we will have to see him sooner. Not for dentistry--that will never happen again--but because he is a spearfisher and J is a spearfisher, and the two of them plan on spearfishing together. And the dentist would like to invite us out to dinner at a good fish restaurant he knows. Maybe I can ask J to get himself invited in the family's stead while the rest of us are in France for the summer.

If it isn't enough to have to fix my teeth, I have to get new glasses, after only a year of having these.  Progressive lenses are expensive! And the fact that I have to wear the glasses all the time now means that I am getting to where I can't stand the weight of my current frames.  My nose is constantly sensitive, and I feel my nasal passages are being pinched, meaning it isn't so easy to breathe.  So, I sprung for some reallllllly light frames. Only I didn't ask the price first.  OUCH.  But I really think they will be better--and I am stuck with glasses for the rest of my life--so I went ahead and got them.  They should be ready next week.

In the past month, our Internet went out twice, a week each time. And of course, my online painting class started just when I really needed access to the Internet.  

So, I lay all that groundwork to bring up the thing that was really hard.

Amidst all that bustle, not one but two families in our circle of friends here had their kids (one seven and the other four) diagnosed with brain tumors.  The 7-yo ( a little Lebanese girl) is reacting well to medication. She'll have another MRI on the 3rd to find out what the next steps are. But the 4-yo (an American boy) had to have emergency surgery. It went amazingly well, and I was able to donate blood for him.* They are still waiting on the pathology report.

This is such a hard, terrifying thing for the families to go through. I cannot begin to imagine the fear that gripped (and still grips) them.  It seems silly and self-centered to say how we have been affected, too, but yes, it *has* affected us and our kids. It makes it hard to be in a good state to get things done.   

We are going back to France for the summer in less than a month now (eep). I need to get myself together so I can prepare for that and take care of some remaining logistics.  It is going to be a quieter, more relaxed time there, but we already have two birthdays lined up--one a camping trip--plus visits to the south to J's family.  Also, I know from experience, there are going to be other things to either do or field, which for my personality is exhausting.  Still, I am looking forward to being a bit of a hermit when permitted.  Also, we travel before my painting class ends, so I will have a week of that to do in France. One of the logistics is figuring out the Internet situation.  Do we get a router for 3 months and then resign or try to do everything off a mobile phone data subscription?



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* I don't know if I already blogged about this--what stays in my head as something I would like to blog about and what actually makes it into pixels is hard to keep track of--but giving blood in Lebanon is a nightmare.  I tried to give before, only to be told I didn't have enough blood.  When I asked what I could do about that, the answer was nothing. I then, a week later during a personal blood test, asked a lab tech (a young 20s something woman) why I couldn't donate, she told me, "Women are not desirable donors."  Ugh. 

Since then, I have also heard about people being turned away because the hospital didn't want European blood, another didn't want American blood. Just turn around and go home if you have ever been to Africa...

I spent yesterday in bed for the most of the day.  Whatever crud the kids had, I seem to have gotten, too.  Only fever is the only unifying factor in how we have all been affected.  Ti'Loup's was vomiting, Farmer Boy headache, and mine is mostly respiratory.  Another difference:  Theirs was a 24hr thing, and mine is still going on. :-/ So I am wiped out today, too, which is not helped by the fact that I couldn't sleep last night from discomfort, fever, etc.  


Our Internet is not working today (using my phone's data to post this), and of course the house is a mess.  This is Lebanon, so a tech *could* come by today even though it is Sunday.  Because the family is at church, I have to stir my weary, aching bones to straighten the house a bit.


The art I was talking about before is found below.  Forgive me for not expounding a lot.

This was an exercise suggested in this video to get different characters than one would normally draw:


And this was just something from my mind:



I tried to finish it up yesty while in the worst throes of ick, but I see things I need to fix when I feel better...if I want to bother. :P

Went on a hike with the family today to Lake Chouwen* in Jabal Moussa.

Lebanon is a beautifully mountainous country with steep valleys and scads of interesting vegation.

A few photos for your enjoyment, but there are much more stunning photos on the net.  I am so out of photographic practice and just could not do the colors justice (and I just can't compete with drone-captured images for angle, etc).

Ti'Loup is always ready to strike a pose.  What a ham he is.



Going toward the lake:



First unobstructed glimpse from the vantage-point platform. (I don't know what happened to the image quality when I uploaded it, but I am too lazy to fix it):



The water really is this green:



On the shore at last:



Back out of the river valley, we sat down to have a meal at one of the two little restaurants in the village.**  So many types of fruits grow here in abundance.  Pomegranate season is almost upon us.***



Yonder is the way home:



Some views remind me a bit of Reunion Island, but there was a little stretch of the road that winds along that steep slope on the left that faintly recalled to mind a portion of El Camino de la Muerte in Bolivia.  Only this road was paved and I wasn't zooming down it on a mountain bike. :P I felt confident telling Ti'Loup that, no, we weren't going to fall off the side of the mountain.

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My post about the song in support of parents' right to decide on their children's education is a bit long, so I did not want to add to it.  However, I was thinking about how one nation's problems seem foreign, unimportant, and impossible to address to citizens of other countries.  Especially when each of us is already under some kind of "home country" stress, more true now than ever with elections, social injustice, corruption, a virus that has shut down the world*...

Yet, haven't many horrific situations in history started in just such a way?  A blind-eye to misgovernment here, a tiny revocation of freedom there, little by little habituating people to give up without a fight? To keep our eyes on our own problems so that we cannot be bothered to help others?  For my part, I hate talking about politics.  You can count on one hand--and maybe not use all of your fingers--the posts I have made in the almost-15 years I have been blogging.  And even writing this now, I have the feeling that I am bothering people, will be taken as a fanatic.  But I realize that my head-in-the-sand approach is part of the problem. :(

In France, education was obligatory for children 6 to 16 until a year and a half ago.  Not school:  education.  However, ask the general public and they will tell you it is school that is mandatory because that is the way the media presents "back to school" every year on TV and in the papers: "L'école est obligatiore de 6 à 16 ans" and no one corrects them.  Then the government lowered the obligatory age to 3. I told our inspector I thought it was a bad idea, but I didn't protest. I didn't contact our government representatives... 

Little by little, freedom by freedom.

Now this new law is attempting to make school and not education obligatory.  So, children, three years old, are going to be forced to pass the majority of their day in a school whether the children or parents want it or not.  If your three-year-old is not ready for school, it doesn't matter.  There are already so many problems in schools that need to be addressed, and now they want to add to the load of poor teachers who are already overworked in schools that are over-populated. (A sad corollary to this is that there is plenty of room in rural schools and yet the government makes it hard for people to live in the country, preferring to have everyone in easier-to-control/observe cities.)  

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* These thoughts were prompted by a question from queenoftheskies  who asked if kids are going to school here.  The answer is, now, yes.  However, in the spring, the government sent all of them home; families had to adapt, and guess what?  Many of them loved it, loved connecting with their kids and helping with their learning.  So the number of families who decided to home-school for this school year skyrocketed, which, as you probably guessed, caused a panic in the national educational system.  So now, we are in our second lockdown but kids are required to go to school, despite the fact that teachers cannot keep them safe, meaning the families are not safe either.  On the one hand, they shut down all sorts of services, small shops, restaurants, etc. but primary schools, enormous vectors of illness, are still up and running.