seven months in

greetings friends and family! i am excited about this update as it captures just the everyday life kind of stuff here--which i have realized many of you enjoy seeing these kinds of images and hearing about these daily ins and outs. so, let's start of with one of my favorite activities to do here in the city: shopping. if you know me well, this activity is one of my favorites where-ever i am and with who-ever is right there beside me. i especially love bargain shopping and this process of bargaining here has become quite fun and a great way to build rapport with the folks i see each and every week. and of course it provides great language practice! so, this week i came across this amazing hoodie in the m'dina. i was really excited about it cause i have been wanting something with script on it. and this shirt has a great message: always nothing bad (essentially). this script here is really stylized and can be found in Quranic type of writings or artwork. then on the back of the hoodie is a less stylized script--which i could read at first glance. this one below took my lang helper to help me in figuring it out. sadly, i am realizing that when you live overseas the expat community can sometimes be equated to a revolving of old folks leaving and new folks coming in. i am sure other folks that are studying in other parts of the world can relate to this. it reminds me a lot of the college campus--always in the rotation of coming and going. there was yet another goodbye party this past week that i attended to see of a fabulous lady. above is the couscous that was served to us. it was really, really good--some of the best yet i think i have had. this was just one table's serving--there were two other tables. this lady leaving was pretty loved! below is me and her before leaving the farewell party. she is really cool. so, i decided to take a couple of days to wash all the farosh and pillow covers while my roomie was out of town. this has been quite a process (i still have covers on the line drying). but it has been fun and they look really great now! our house helper lady was really glad that i was doing this i think. she also enjoyed showing me how to restuff the pillows. she was proud of what i had learned. here are the pillows stacked up ready to be dusted, then stuffed back into the covers.here are the covers out on the line--it thankfully hasn't taken loads of time for them to dry as they are made of upholstery fabric. the sun has been shining in the mornings and i have been trying to rotate them to get maximize their light exposure. fun, fun, fun! so, here comes the fun part! getting the stuffing back into the cover. i thought it to be interesting that the word our house helper used most in teaching me the proper way to stuff them was slowly. at one point i did not heed her advice and heard a stretching of the seam i didn't want to hear. there was no apparent damage--but it reminded me that some jobs must be done slower than others and this was one of those. :)

so, then came the beast! i was actually complimented when our house helper lady asked how i had gotten these off by myself. i told her this was like sport/fitness for me. thankfully getting the farosh covers back on the faroshes hasn't been too bad. just two more to go! i have to say that it just feels good to have them cleaned. do you ever have that feeling--just when the house is cleaned and picked up. it just makes me happy--maybe i am a nerd. well, i hoped you enjoyed this update with a look at the oh-so-normal day to day life things here. i can't believe seven months have passed. i feel like i am still so new here, yet i feel like sooo much has happened that it sometimes feels like i have been here longer than just seven months. i took my lang exam last week and that went really well actually, so i am super grateful for that. i am hopefully going to be taking a course similiar to the R-dan one i took back in Sept, except this one covers the Big Eid. i am excited to learn the vocab and hopefully be able to see more as to why and how this celebration is celebrated. i am also looking forward to Thanksgiving next week! we have a few things on the agenda to celebrate--so that will be fun. with Christmas decorations going up quickly after T-giving. then the week after i have travel plans out of the country! these next few weeks will be quite a fun ride i think:)

thanks again (always) for your continued support. it means so much. really.