Of Pyrex and pencils

Here's what I want: an pencil sharpener that works and pencils with leads that don't break! It's that simple; these two things would make large parts of my life so. much. easier. And yet, this seems like too much to ask. We are drowning in pencils around here, since they seem to be the prize bag and holiday gift du jour (heck, we even gave them as Valentine's gifts ourselves this year), but the quality of these pretty, fancy-colored pencils is crappy. And good old yellow number 2's aren't any better--I don't know how many times I have sharpened one from my current carton only to have the lead crack and break off immediately. I sometimes repeat the sharpening 3 or 4 times before a lead lasts long enough to use for homework. Which is why I finally ordered an electric pencil sharpener last night, because at the very least, I can make this whole infuriating process faster, though I can't really improve it much more than that until I get some decent pencils!

Ironically, the very best pencils we have ever used came from a basement discount store in Qatar called Al Rawnaq. My boys and I love these pencils; indeed, they have one each in our tin of drawing and coloring pencils we take everywhere with us (the tin and the colored pencils also came from this same store and they're all superb). And I have one unsharpened pencil left from the package I brought home from Doha over two years ago. Funnily enough, I recently went on a search to find more of these pencils to replace our shoddy selection and discovered that they aren't sold in stores in the US. Yes, Faber-Castell Matt-Grip Super Dark triangular pencils (with or without erasers) are apparently quite popular in India and Asia and the Middle East, are shipped from China, and are almost unavailable in the United States except via the web and a foreign supplier. You should have seen me trying to do conversions from rupees to dollars last night!

So, in the end, I ordered 10 packs of our wonderful pencils and the electric sharpener, and I am planning on sighing in satisfaction when I use them together in the not too distant future. Huzzah!

Which makes me think of another seemingly inconsequential decision we made this week. We have a joke around here that if we were suddenly to become millionaires, the only thing the husband would want is a matching set of functional food storage containers. (That's right; we're high rollers.) While up in North Conway for one of the husband's conferences, we visited the Corningware, Corelle, and more outlet and realized that we could replace all our sub-standard containers with Pyrex glass in one fell swoop for less than $50. Not really millionaire money, is it?  So we took the plunge and brought home 2 sets and found room for them in our cabinets, banishing the others to obscurity (and potlucks and school lunches and other places we don't care about). Problem solved! For peanuts. 

All of this reminded me of something my father said when he was visiting earlier this month, alluding to the situation of farmer's wives throughout history who have dealt with daily inconveniences and things not quite working the way they should and yet made do, day in and day out. And I realized that while there are quite a few things in my life, often quite important, that I simply can't change, can't fix, there are also many things, simple things I can fix quite easily. So I should get busy fixing as many of those as I can while I wait for the rest to sort itself out. Hence, my new Pyrex and pencils doctrine: it really is the little things, often. And I'm embracing that. Finally replacing my inadequate hutch upstairs with a perfectly wonderful cabinet from Craigslist that will nicely hold all those errant linens? Pyrex and pencils, people! What else can I fix?!!

New to New Hampshire

Some random observations after living almost a month in New Hampshire:

• The weather in this neck of the woods is cray-cray right now!  Last week alone, we had 40 degree temperature swings, from the low 40s in the morning to the low 80s by the end of the school day.  My thin-blooded boys are not amused, and re-learning to wear pants is going to be a huge ordeal for us, apparently!  And the fog/mist/evaporation that happens in the mornings is impressive--whole mountains disappear, and everything looks like it's floating!
• When you live in New England and fall arrives (it's officially here, they tell me), sweaters are a big thing.  I went into TJ Maxx yesterday, and the racks of the usual suspects had all been almost entirely replaced by racks and racks and more racks of sweaters.  Loads and loads of them, though the majority were mostly shades of heathered grey, which seems like the color you would most want to avoid in the deep midwinter, but what do I know?  Not enough about sweaters, apparently!  Except for one or two little cardigans I wore in Doha and a thin layering sweater I wore while traveling, I haven't even looked at most of my sweaters in years except to move them from one box to another.  Time to bust them out, I guess!
• Groceries in NH are not as expensive as they were in Qatar (thankfully), except for bacon, which is just as expensive as it was there, for some unknown reason.  However, things aren't as cheap as they were in Utah, so I have begun to shop the sales again and try (AGAIN) to meal plan.  And I found out about a produce market in Vermont with super low overhead and great prices, which is basically a converted garage, but they have affordable peppers and nectarines, so I'm not complaining!  Between the market and my newly acquired slow cooker, I'm prepared to make affordable meals, so we won't starve or go into hock trying to buy food.
• Shopping in general is actually a bit of a challenge.  There are lots of little boutiques that sell things I would never buy, some antique markets that sell things I can't afford, a few thrift stores with the usual mish-mash of items, and then just a few stores where you go to buy everything else, such as (a not-quite-super) Walmart, Kohls, Sears (yes, about to go out of business), JCPenny (also bankrupt), K-Mart (one foot in the grave), and the aforementioned TJ Maxx.  A shopping mecca this is not.  There is a bigger selection of stores in Concord, an hour away, as well as the nearest outlet mall in Tilton, also about a hour distant, but so far I haven't wanted to trek down there, so I have made do with what we have locally and supplemented with Amazon.  The UPS guy and I are very well acquainted by now!
• The New Hampshire state motto, Live Free or Die, is taken quite seriously here.  There are very few laws.  For example, it is completely legal to shoot a turkey on someone else's yard/land and you can tap any maple tree you want on public land for your own use.  And yes, we have laws here about shooting turkeys and tapping maple trees.
• New Englanders loves their festivals!  Every weekend now there is one we could visit, each just as fun as the last!  Two weekends ago we went camping (ooh, sooooo cold in the tent!) in Vermont and then stopped by a flea market we saw on our way out of town.  Later that day, we headed to the King Arthur Flour festival, also in Vermont, and sampled gingerbread, smoked raspberry maple jam, homemade caramel, lemon bars, chewy granola, and local chimichurri and cheese and pesto and truffles and maple cotton candy and cornbread, and then the boys got to make their own flatbread and decorate maple leaf cookies.  It was delicious and free and fun, just like every festival we've been to so far.  Last weekend, we went to a Shaker family festival (not sure the Shakers would have approved) but we could have gone to a family fun festival on the local ski hill, Whaleback Mountain.  The choices are endless!  And they tell me the frivolity continues through the winter months, so there is more to come!
• Another crazy thing about living in New Hampshire, especially in comparison to living in ultra modern Doha, is how OLD everything is.  I walked out of the town library today (formed in 1802) and realized that almost every building I could see was at least 200 years old and some older than that.  And the same is true where ever we roam: Hanover, the next town over, was established in 1761.  1761?!   It boggles the mind!
• And last but not least...I couldn't figure out how to delete this extra bullet point, so look what's down below: photos!
  
  

  

  The camp we went to had new-fangled handcarts to help us take our gear to the campsites.

  

  Our newest tent, piled with all sorts of gear whilst I try to create some order! 

  

  The family at sunset!

  

  There were also sheep and border collies along with the goats.

  

  Pony rides!

  

  We got to make fairy crowns!

  

  You can see the Shaker grand hall behind us as we shiver in the afternoon chill!

  

  And fairy houses!

  

  Making apple cider with an aged cider press (eating apple cider ice cream they
  had churned themselves at the previous station). 

  

  E hiding behind the mask he made. 

  
  

Settling but not settled

We've had a lot of firsts this past week: the husband's first day of work, the boys' first physicals in three years (still in good health, thankfully), the first day of school, the boys' first non-bunk beds (at least in our own home), new 20" bikes for both boys, our first town farmers' market, the husband's first trek into the trails behind our house, my first forays into the local grocery shopping and thrifting scenes, signing up for our first ski and snowboard lessons (when in New England, after all), our first day with our new church congregation, and on and on.  It's been a whirlwind: people keep asking us if we are getting settled in, and I always feel like the answer is no because we keep doing new things.  However, by that measure, we may not be "settled in" for quite awhile, because we seem to encounter something new to do almost every day.  Which is good, of course, though a bit exhausting.  

The unpacking continues, relentlessly, unfortunately, and I am losing some of my motivation to finish it, because so soon we will have to pack everything up again and move to a more permanent place, but that strategy, not unpacking, really only works for a few things, so it's not really a good solution to my lack of enthusiasm.  I am also dressing up our unfinished basement for the boys.  So far, with just the addition of a big square of carpet, a shelf with bins of their toys, their school desks, and a giant ottoman that is far too big for our current bedroom or the living room, the basement is their favorite place, so I want to keep the fun going by adding some simple fabric panels to separate the play area from the storage area and use some existing shelves to separate the laundry area as well.  The husband has also decided that since we had to get cable to get the internet and the x-box has been in storage since we moved back to the States, he is going to set up a TV down there as well, for gaming and watching sports, which means we will be getting our first television since we got rid of ours after we were first married.  So it's basically going to become the playroom mini man-cave of everyone's dreams down there pretty soon...plus laundry!

Which means, yes, we are settling in, slowly but surely, but we are still far from settled.  I did have a burst of affection for my new home the other day, while I was in a neighboring town exploring an architecture salvage store, a couple of thrift stores, and a clothing store featuring local, indy designers on my way to an awesomely cheap veggie market.  The sun was shining, but the weather was pleasantly cool, the stores were intriguing and filled with all sorts of colorful people and bizarre items, I kept having the most random but entertaining conversations with chatty folks, and I found some great deals along the way.  This really is my kind of place: a quirk around every corner!

Bike #1, a thrift store find!

Bike #2, a new purchase, with lots of bells and whistles and seven gears.

First day of school!

Sampling basil jelly and pickled fiddlehead ferns at the farmers' market.

Our first signs of fall!

The 400 acre wilderness behind our house! 

Putting together the new beds, a joint project.

Unpacking and more unpacking

Oh my goodness, unpacking is trying to kill me!

All our stuff arrived here Friday, and so of course we spent the rest of the day and the weekend unpacking, during which we realized the following:

1. Our Filipino packers in Doha, while extremely careful, were, shall we say, quixotic in their packing choices and less than descriptive in their labelling.  Every box is HUGE and filled with the oddest assortment of things.  Towels coexist with camping supplies next to boxes of files topped with placemats, all in one box.  And that box might be labeled "Towels and Office."  So unpacking has been a bit chaotic, to say the least.

2. While I was packing up boxes one at a time in Utah, trying to get stuff out to the storage unit, I didn't do such a good job labelling things myself, even though I know better!  In fact, a few times I didn't write anything at all on those boxes, as if I thought I was going to remember their contents.  NOT!  I haven't even tackled any of those yet, since I am sure they are not essential items and that particular voyage of discovery can wait a bit longer.

3. We have a LOT of towels.  I do remember deciding I didn't want to replace all our towels, I decision I still stand by, but one of the results of having 5 bathrooms in our last house is that I never really looked at all the towels at once since they were spread out all over the place.  So having them all here, coming out of box after box (they liked using them as packing material, clearly), is shocking. Note to self: NO MORE TOWELS!

4. I know this is crazy to admit, but I have really missed my kitchen paraphernalia!  I was so happy to unpack my dishes and my pans and especially the bin of new kitchen fun my parents got me for my birthday I haven't yet had the chance to use.  I haven't uncovered the silverware yet, unfortunately, so it's still plastic for us, but having platters and bowls and donut pans at long last has been oddly satisfying!

5. My boys are far too distracted by bubble wrap and tape to be much use with unpacking.  They also get derailed by the contents of boxes and bins, which are, to review, randomly assembled, meaning a toy could surface at any point, after which the boys are off to play with said toy, their "favorite ever."

6.  Our new couch is far too big.  While we were in the store, we sat on many, many couches, and we made a very careful, calculated purchase based on comfort, durability, style, etc.  In the store, our couch seemed a good size, not enormous like all the huge, over-stuffed options we avoided, but not too small like several of the fairly uncomfortable, trimmer options we also tried.  But then we tried to get it through the door of the storage unit, and we realized it was bigger than we thought but we hoped for the best.  And Friday it took three men half an hour to figure out how to get the couch through the doorway and over the stair railing and into our living room.  Getting it out of here will be virtually impossible; they suggested selling it to the next tenant!  They didn't take the legs off, which can be done, so it may be slightly easier to remove than to put in when we try next year, but I am so annoyed that the couch is this big to begin with.  Who designs couches that can't fit through standard doorways?  Why would one do such a thing?  It's preposterous!

Here we are eating take out pizza on an overturned box and a
laundry bin!  Livin' the dream, people!

At our local farmers' market with leaves just beginning to turn!

We bought a new (ish) car!

Is there anything more soul-deadening than shopping for a car?  The process is equal parts delusion, disappointment, despair, and bitterness.  The lies of "sticker prices," the smarminess of salesmen, the relentless dancing around the question of price, the constant up-selling, the complete disregard for anything you might be saying or any preference you might have, the never-ending emails and phone calls and promises no one has any intention of keeping...it's all too much!

And yet, since we sold our last car in Doha (couldn't have imported it because of US emissions and manufacturing standards or we would have just brought it along with us), and we're moving to a place where the husband will be commuting to work and, you know, there are winters in them thar woods, we need to buy not one but two cars in fairly short order.

So last Monday afternoon, after we got the kids back from their penultimate urban gym class, we headed off to visit some dealerships.  And first we went to Honda, because I have loved our last three Pilots, and we thought we might go with them again.  And I was hopeful, because we knew exactly what we wanted, and we were going to pay IN CASH for it right then and there (thank you, Sidra severance), and I said as much to the salesman: "Listen, we have cash in hand for this purchase.  We want to buy a Pilot.  We do not need a test drive.  We do not need to be convinced of anything.  We want to buy this model with these features or this model with these almost identical features, but we do not care one little bit about the color, inside or out, and we want to walk out of here as quickly as possible.   What can we do to make that happen?"  And I thought that if I were a new car salesperson, that would be music to my ears and I would be tying myself into knots trying to cash in on this easy sale.
 
But no.

Instead, we had to go outside and look at the new Pilots (very similar to the old Pilots only with less cargo room--say what??  That's half the appeal, Honda!), and the model in which we were not interested, just because that's how the schtick goes, apparently.   And I got very impatient, even more so while they were working out their "deal" which really wasn't that much of a deal and trying to locate examples the models we were requesting at one of their "sister" dealerships.  (They only ever succeeded, much later, in locating just one, so these sisters seem to be in a dysfunctional relationship).  Let's be clear: I am not a bells and whistles girl.  I like towing capacity, cargo space, third row seats, and reliability.  A working radio is nice but not essential.  The end.  Vector whatsamahoozits and tri-climate thingamajigs do not impress me.  What impresses me are transparence and speed in the car buying process.

But no.

Eventually, we had to leave. They had no models like the ones we wanted, they couldn't find them elsewhere, but they wanted to take as much of our money as they could while we were waiting.  So we left.  We had other makes of SUVs to test drive, potentially, if we couldn't find a Pilot and some used Pilots to track down on the way.  We proceeded to our next stop, a GMC dealership that had a very lightly used one year old Pilot.  Turns out, our salesperson was very new and refreshingly unaware of what he should be doing so he kept deferring to a very, ahem, experienced older gentlemen who made the realization that someone somewhere had screwed up in obtaining this vehicle.  Turns out, they probably paid more for the car than they should have.   But the older man also realized they could rectify the problem if they were willing to take a loss with this couple who clearly knew more about Pilots than they did.  There was some dickering, we pulled the Carfax just to be sure we had a winner (one owner, 6 months and then repossessed, low mileage, no accidents, pristine maintenance history), and eventually the husband got the car for almost much, much less than Trucar said we should expect to pay for this model in this condition.

And you know what?  It's perfect!  It even has leather seats, something I had given up on because the new models with leather were so much more expensive than those without.  And the boys love it: E wanted to spend the night in it!  And it's exactly what we wanted and needed and the second place was so much nicer to deal with I left both with a car and without a migraine!  And the finance guy there was even a Jordanian who was so happy to hear that every Jordanian we have ever met has been one of the nicest people (100% true, by the way--Jordanians are universally lovely in our experience!)

So so SO relieved to cross this one item off our ever ballooning to-do list!  Huzzah!  Which means, if you see a large black Honda Pilot driving by you as you cross the United States this summer, it's probably us, happy as clams and packed to the gills!

A whole lotta nothing turns into something!

Do you know what happens when you are job hunting for quite a long time with no definite end date and lots of potential stress waiting around every corner?  Well, if you're me, what happens is you vow not to worry unnecessarily about the future, because what good will that do you besides tying your stomach into knots, and instead you throw yourself vigorously into the most programmed, detailed, it-will-be-fun-if-it-kills-us-all summer EVER!  So that is what I have been doing for the past two months, since school got out and my children flipped out and I tuned out my deep, deep anxieties about the future.  We have seen movies, gone swimming, participated in reading programs, attended an urban gym/parkour class, enrolled in library craft classes, visited museums, raced go-karts, and played endlessly with any available cousins.  And it has been very fun, if a bit exhausting (my boys have started to rebel at the constancy of it all, actually, so it's good summer is winding down), and it has successfully kept my mind off the future and made me a busy little bee, which was part of the purpose of my whole elaborate plan in the first place!

But now, finally, we can all take a break, breathe a sign of relief...and let the real stress begin!  Because we have at long last decided where we are going: New Hampshire!  The husband has been hired as the Director of Pharmacy for the Telemedicine group at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.  Hooray!  And now we can stress about real and immediate issues, like packing up what we no longer need, finding a place to live without visiting, hiring movers, buying a new car (or two), getting the children enrolled in school, and last but certainly not least, making sure we are all appropriately prepared for a New England winter after our sojourn in the desert!  (What do you call these things?  Boots?  What now?)  In addition, we are going to fit in two family reunions and a cross-country drive before we reach New Hampshire, so there's all that to factor into the plan!  More posts to come chronicling our progress as we inch toward Lebanon (NH)!

But first, to catch up and for posterity, a few shots from our summer revels, in no particular order because that takes too much brain power for me to manage just now!

A cousin's 2nd birthday to start things off right, with cake and ice cream!

Pleasant View founders' day parade, complete with loads of candy and
popsicles thrown to the crowd!

Standing at attention and clapping at the parade.

A visit with high school friends of the husband's.  We also attended
the husband's 20th high school reunion, but managed to
 leave without taking any photos!

Baseball with the Ogden Raptors and more cousins!

Haircuts at an old-fashioned barber shop.

Learning to change the oil with Uncle J.

Wheeler Farms outing with Auntie L. and Baby E. 

Ogden's awesome Arts in the Parks program!

And the sister Science in the Parks program as well.

Giant bubbles with more cousins.

And climbing trees!

We love our lazy rivers!

Walking home (early) from the oppressively hot 4th of July parade
with our California cousins.

We made and decorated cookies after the parade... 

And launched a few early fireworks (getting all 4
to smile at the same time proved too much for us... 

...time and time again)!

Inside a giant globe at the Ogden Tree House museum, where we went often...

to play chess...

and dress up with our Ogden cousins who were our constant
companions this summer...

...for lots of silliness and fun!

School really did end as promised

The last week of school was a very emotional time for everyone around here.  Unbeknownst to me (because I am dumb), my children had apparently sublimated all their feelings about leaving their school and friends in Doha, jumped aboard this school here, and clung on for dear life.  Fortunately, they fit in marvelously here; unfortunately, when this school ended, all those unresolved feelings came rushing to the surface in wave after wave of emotion.  It was a difficult time, to say the least.  E melted down one night, tearfully pleading with us not to take him to another school, to let him just attend the first day of first grade here, asking why do you have to leave the country when you lose your job, and asserting that he absolutely did not want to attend a school where he had to speak a language other than English.  For the record, his school in Doha was English-speaking, but all his anxieties were manifesting themselves in less than logical ways, of course.  J was a bundle of nerves, ready to cry in an instant, constantly bemoaning the fact that he wasn't going to see his friends here soon (which is sort of true, though we did give our phone numbers to several of them and encouraged them to tell their moms to call to set up play dates--but we are trusting second graders, so I'm not holding my breath).  It was all sorts of sad to see them grappling with the grief they clearly hadn't addressed when we were leaving back in February.

And yet.  The last week or so of school was actually very fun, as you can see from the pictures below:

E went on a walking field trip to a park down the street, and I came as a
chaperone.  Here we are taking a selfie while eating lunch.

E and friends made going down the slides much more exciting for everyone!

Here is E leaving school one day that week, clearly not sad.

J also had a field trip, to a local bird refuge and I was a
chaperone once again--here he is showing me the
poop identification station.

And here he is waiting for the next station to begin.

I think I wrote a little about the boys' teachers here in Utah earlier, but I have to say again I was very, very pleased with the ways in which they embraced the boys and integrated them into their classes so quickly.  Clearly, they did such a good job the boys were able to forget, at least temporarily, all the chaos around our moving, and for that I am grateful.  Their work gave me a few extra months to get adjusted to everything myself, so I was better prepared (if caught unawares) when their emotions finally rose to the surface.

Here is J with Mrs. J, who loves math and boys and hugs!

And here is E with Mrs. E (I only just now realized both their teachers'
names corresponded with the boys' names--again, as i said, I'm dumb!).

And on the last day of school, during a fun field day celebration,
a fire truck showed up right at the end of the day and sprayed all
the kids--clearly, we were not apprised of this tradition and did not
dress appropriately, but J thought it was pretty great any way,
if really cold!

And finally, because I can't resist, here is E's Kindergarten
 "graduation" picture.  Isn't this ridiculous??  Apparently, they came in
and dressed up the kids without telling the parents, and then
sent home these pictures as a surprise.  They are cute but silly!