A little fresh, I think...

After all, we barely know each other...

I will definitely be one of those mothers who posts daily, nay, hourly anecdotes about her adorable children.  In the meantime, I will instead post about my temporary pets.

Its been raining for weeks now.  I find these little muddy paw prints pretty much everywhere.  Its actually very useful for discovering when the dog has managed to sneak into a forbidden room.  Like this morning when I got back from church and discovered a meandering paw-print-trail through my bedroom, evidence of an exploratory foray into uncharted lands.  

New friends...

Meet my two new best friends!

Simon

Smokey

Despite a little bit of whining (Smokey) and an insatiable need to climb to the top of every object in the house (Simon), I think I'm going to like spending time with them very much.

Aaaahhhh...

After a brutally long flight back and a week of jetlag-induced sleeplessness, the muscles in my neck and back froze into painful knots.  I decided to treat myself to a massage.


I chose Le Royal's spa because it was cheap, a masseuse was available, and they offered access to their steam rooms, sauna and hot tub before and after the massage.  Also, because Le Royal looks exactly what I imagine the Rameumptom or Tower of Babel looked like:

Tam, my massage therapist, was amazingly, wonderfully, brilliantly, awesome.  It felt a little like she was scraping and removing the knots from my muscles.  During the first thirty minutes, she must have exclaimed eight or nine times "Oh - your back is soooo tired."  Yes, 32 hours in Economy seats will do that to you.  


I thought we'd moved on from that line of thought, after she moved on from my back.  But, at the very end of the massage, she began crunching the muscles, bones and sinews at the base of my toes, on my left feet.  


"Does that hurt?" she asked.  
"Yes, very much..." I answered, thinking 'Please don't re-break my foot!' 
"That's because this is your back (*reflexology)!" Long pause. "Your back is sooooo tired!"


By the time our hour was up, Tam had successfully smoothed out many of the knots and muscle aches, leaving me pain free and able to finally sleep through the early morning call to prayer.

ALOT of jetlag...

I have been back in Amman for six nights.  I have heard the morning call to prayer at the end of every single one of those nights (for enquiring minds, the prayer, which takes place between the very beginning of dawn and sunrise, occurred at 5:09 this morning).  I have also hear everything coming before and after those prayers: neighbors walking around in heels inexplicably at 1:30 a.m., the roars of some street racers at 3:22 a.m., a cat fight at 4:47 a.m.  In other words, I am suffering from an extreme case of jetlag.  


I made a rookie mistake - on Friday, after church, I took a *short* nap, which turned into a 6 hour nap.  From noon to six p.m.  Which naturally lead to staying up until three in the morning.  Which then led to sleeping in until four p.m.  Which then...well, you get the picture.  


So, I am awake, listening to the call to prayer, cursing the Anna of Friday/Saturday/Sunday, and hoping to sleep tomorrow.

Its true, Michael McLean...

I cryyyy the daaay I taaaaake the tree down...

Monopoly...

So, it took awhile but I won! And I didn't even cheat! But Katie definitely has a taste for the power that comes with establishing a Monopoly so I'm not sure what the outcome of the next game will be...maybe she'll follow Mom's advice and form a corporation?

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun...

So, we worked on a little project tonight.  A small preview of amazing things to come...