You'd drink it, right?!

Gosh, what some people will do for drunkedness!!

Mein brewmaster is at it again!
Chris continues to brew and bottle homemade beers as often as the kits arrive. He enjoys brewing and has generated quite a following at the chancery.

His latest is a maple syrup beer, now gestating in the front bedroom (since we NEVER get house guests... hint hint family and friends). Beer drinking friends are patiently awaiting its due date.

School Bento Boxes

Last year, preschoolers had snack time at school. We went through numerous ziplock bags for carrots, pbjs, goldfish, you name it. Occasionally, I would be at school during snack time and see a few cute little bento boxes being pulling from tiny backpacks. This became my mission... find these bento boxes!

I finally got around to searching for said boxes a few days before school started. Why I didn't do it a few WEEKS before school, while we were still in the States, is irrelevant (you know why... new baby memoryitis). I found a few really cute ones online, but I wasn't keen on the small fortune prices. After searching several places, I bought some on Amazon (from www.easylunchboxes.com) for about $12 for 3. One DAY after ordering online, I walked into a Korean grocery in Dhaka and found some little divided tupperware containers for even less. Of course, I bought a few extras (hoarder that I am). Now Ceiba and Chris are stylin' for lunches and snacks every day.

 It seems silly that such a little thing can bring joy to me in the mornings when packing lunches or snacks, but it really does. They are cute, easy to use and GREEN, which makes us all happy. It's actually even a little fun to find just the right snack to fill each little hole, knowing Ceiba will light up when she opens her backpack each day for snack time.

Road Work

In the summertime, most travelers in the Midwest cuss the construction workers for screwing up their vacation road trips. People sit for hours in traffic on hot summer days while IDOT/MODOT/whoeverDOT workers lean on stop/slow signs. While I'm sure there are state workers in the US who earn their paychecks out on the roadways, they'll likely never work this hard :

The work involved in asphalting the roads here is jaw dropping. Most tasks involve hours of manual labor from underpaid workers whose stomachs are rarely full and lives are shortened by the working conditions. Workers are either busting bricks with a hammer, shoveling hot asphalt onto a bicycle or old women are fanning caustic flames under 50 gallon drums of fire hot tar.

So to the government road workers back in the States, appreciate that $50 an hour. Here workers barely make $0.50 an hour, and they don't have air conditioned cabs.

Groundhog Day - Mama Style

Yesterday, sleeping in sounded delightful, but as we have 2 small children, that really wasn't realistic. Some days I can lay Avocet in bed after a morning feeding, and persuadeeeeee Ceiba to lay in bed with the portable dvd player and quiet movie for maybe an extra hour. Poor parenting, I know, but sometimes ya just gotta do it. And the night time feedings take several precious sleep hours out of most nights for me. But Chris was out town, out of the country for that matter, for work, and Ceiba had dance, so no sleeping or trying to sleep in for us.

We got up on time, even managing to Skype with grandparents for a couple minutes before having to bid them adieu in order to make class on time. On Fridays, our house help have the day off, so I loaded up the kidlets in the car and off we went to ballet class, early too, I might add.

Upon arriving at 0850 for the 0900 class, the lights were off and no one around. One would think my brain might kick in at this point, but alas it did not. So we turned on the lights... and the fan... and the a/c... and pulled out some chairs... and sat alone... and heard noises so thought someone MUST be getting things ready... and then sat some more. I wondered if I'd missed a memo about a holiday or got omitted from a phone tree for a sick teacher. I read the bulletin boards and saw the instructor's name and number... so called her to ask if I'd missed the memo.

Nope... just showed up on Friday when ballet is on Saturday. Wrong day. Nice.

I had felt so accomplished for getting out the door, kids dressed and fed, me dressed and fed, drove ourselves, didn't turn on the wrong road (like I did last week... when the driver called off on SATURDAY),  and we arrived a tad early. But instead of watching others scramble to kick off shoes and push tushies into the room 5 minutes late, we sat in the dark and waited. Ooops.

Then we missed Bollywood dance, which was scheduled on FRIDAY, because both girls were fast asleep and it was pouring rain. So today, we went BACK to ballet class, where I got to be the 5 minute late- kick off shoes- push tush parent. Don't I get 'atta girl points for yesterday? Please.