Quilty

I've always admired my mother's beautiful and seemingly effortless quilts, but my preteen attempts at sewing a 12" block together quickly discouraged me from perfecting the skill. I felt like I spend more time threading the needle or repairing a mistake than I actually spent sewing or quilting. For a friend's Christmas present, I decided to give her a practical gift since I knew she would be moving soon. So, with a lot of help from my ever-so-patient mother,  I spent about a month working on and finishing my first 'real' quilt. I'm proud to tell you that I've nearly perfected the skill of fixing my mistakes, even though threading a needle still sets me back quite a bit.

This new hobby has really become something I enjoy doing, especially during those long winter nights. Despite the fact that quilting seems like SUCH an old woman pastime (yes, go ahead say your sarcastic remark, I know you're thinking it. But then, no more judgement :), I've found it nearly therapeutic this past year probably because it's one of the few things in my life where I can see where I'm going, and see the progress along the way. From the beginning stitch to the finished product, every time I work on it, I walk away seeing the progress. Whereas so much else in my life relies on believing that the progress is happening but not seeing it yet. Anyway, it's a good feeling to work with your hands and finish a project, right?

Have a look at 18 months worth of long winter nights:

The quilt that began it all (on the right)...I still haven't quite finished quilting that one. And another quilt to match on the left.

I wish I would haven't started with a simpler design. Hey, go big or go home, huh?

A quilt Beth and I worked on together for a friend.

Another joint effort. A quilting circle of one isn't much fun. This is primary made from leftover fabric and old shirts.

The latest and greatest! ;) For my Granna!

Beth's in on the fun too!  This is one of her masterpieces - the cat likes it too!

Progress

We are slowly but surely making progress at our new place. We've added a few pieces of furniture since this particularly long cleaning weekend that I'll try to add soon.

Some creative moving. The movers (a some guy painting downstairs) stuck the couch out the window in order to angle it in!

After all that hard work, this is where they deemed the furniture should go. :) men. haha

The next day, borrowed a vacuum cleaner to clean the couches.

We felt like pioneer women washing cushions with our bare hands and hanging them on the line to dry! We obviously aren't as good as pioneer women, though, because we were soaking wet!

That's a lot of cushions that got washed! We're still waiting for some of them to dry.

dar jadeeda

Take a glance at our new house. These are the "before" pictures. Hopefully, we'll be able to show ya some progress soon!

After topping a flight of stairs, you step into our hallway. I love the tile and arched doorway!

one of the bedrooms - pre junk.

a partial view of the living room. Can you spot the palm outside?

kitchen sink, with more pretty tile!

Cabinets galore!

Our little balcony! We're so excited about being able to be outdoors.

the kitchen counters need a lil work. ;)

Apparently one toilet isn't enough. I don't get it either.

So that was just a glance, you'll have to come for a visit to see the finished product. ;)

Gruesome Gossip

In American (and African society, as it turns out), we wink at it, laughing when someone calls us out on gossiping. It seems that women everywhere are prone to attempting to the fill the gaps caused by their insecurity with cutting others down. James tells us that the tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. In Arabic the word for gossip (يقطح ويريش ekuT Ha warayesh)  literally means to tear off another's flesh and pick it apart into little pieces. What an mental image that is! Let it be a reminder to us the next time we're in a situation where we must choose to speak words of life or death.

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." Ps 19:14

the yellow ones

Last Sunday afternoon we decided to find some greenery to fill our apartment. 

We hailed the taxi and with big smiles told the driver, "We want to go to a place where they sell flowers and trees that you plant in the ground." Well, I meant to say flowers, but I actually told him I wanted to plant leaves in the ground. He got the idea. 

He didn't know of a place so he called his buddy and took us to a nearby nursery. 

So now we have some lovely flowers adorning our window sill. ;)

Flowers always remind me of the brevity of life:

The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of God lasts forever!

Bnaya found the open window to be most intriguing. 

On the way home one day, we realized that the music that the taxi driver was playing was actually rap in the local dialect. Generally, we can't understand a word of the music because they listen to French or traditional Arabic music. So we were thrilled and asked him who it was singing and how we could get the music. He literally drove us to the music kiosk and bought the CDs for us while we waited in his taxi. It was really nice! I'm sure he made a little money out of the deal, but still he was more than willing to help.

I think all these great taxi drivers have spoiled me, but they aren't all like that. One morning last week, when the taxi driver didn't know where I wanted to go, he literally told me to get out of the car and get another taxi!! I was appalled! It's such an unnatural, inhospitable thing for someone to do here. Like I already mentioned, they are usually more than willing to help. I found another taxi, said the exact same thing, and got to where I needed to go, no big deal - just 20 minutes late and a little shocked. ;)

Hearty Fruits

These past few months of Arabic learning have definitely had some ups and downs. Some days the "logic" of this language utterly blows my mind. Other days, I don't know if I've lived here long enough or if some things simply make sense.

For instance, today I learned that the word for a fruit seed (from an apple or orange) is called قلب (Kelb) which is the same word used for heart - but not to be confused with كلب (kelb) which is the word for dog. We once told a taxi driver he had a kind heart...or dog. Who can really know? So fruits with few seeds have a heart but things like watermelon or cantaloupe, well, they obviously have hearts (plural). And there's your Arabic lesson for today and most of what I remember from 2 hours of study (I kid).

Festive Happenings

I feel quite behind on the blog updates. Sorry to the masses who read this, I know you've been dying for a new post, but this one's a little random. ;)

With December came the hunt for Christmas decorations. This year more than ever I realized that decorating for Christmas doesn't necessarily make me feel religious but American. It's the attitude of my heart that makes Christmas so special as I reflect on the greatest Story ever told, but it's the decorations and delicious food that cause me to identify with my home culture.

We started with a Charlie Brown tree that we found at a used clothing/nik nak store called the freep.

We also found this funny ornament. It says,"First Born (Mom's Favorite)." Which I feel is quite accurate for me...and all my other siblings - Mom makes us feel like each of us is somehow her favorite, even miles away. ;)

December 1 a local French store hoisted up their selected number of trees and we upsized (don't worry we didn't abandon the Charlie Brown tree. It got decorated with a string of popcorn and placed on the opposite side of the tv). We were also able to watch CBC's Christmas program! At random sections, David O and Scott R sounded more like chipmunks than grown men though.

Bnaya even got into the Christmas spirit by unraveling half the ribbon in North Africa. We decided she just meant to be festive because out of 4 different colors, she only unravelled red and green and...well, just look at that "I didn't do it" face.

It got a little chilly here for awhile, so I was quick to bundle up - 2 pairs of pants + 3 pairs of socks + feet on top of the space heater = it's just time to go to bed and get under 3-4 blankets!

Spent one Saturday morning baking 8 dozen sugar cookies for a friend's English Club, where we were able explain the reason for the season!

yum, yum!

And one of my favorite events of the season was singing Christmas carols with friends! It was delightful. It is, however, not exactly easy to take a photo while holding an open flame...sorry for the blurriness.