Saturday at the Pool

Today is Saturday, March 24th and my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Ma! I went to bed last night at about 11pm and woke up this morning at 9:10am. That is the longest I have slept in a long, long time. I guess my body was really tired. I probably could have slept longer because the reason I got up was from a knock at my door to clean my room. I forgot to put the "do not disturb" sign on my door. Duh! I was actually glad she woke me up because I might have missed breakfast.

Breakfast for me was just a lot of bread products because my stomach has been hurting since about 8pm last night. I'm okay just ate something that didn't agree with me. I'm drinking lots of water so I don't get dehydrated if you know what I mean. Lunch was also a Clif Bar because I was nervous to eat anything else. I brought Clif and Luna bars to eat every day :)

This morning there was a bride and groom taking pictures around the hotel. It was neat. The bride was amazing in a typicaly wedding dress and the mom (I think) was dressed in this beautiful African Dress with a big, beautiful head piece. I wish I had my camera. I wanted to sneak a pic.:)

I went to the pool today and did a little reading and work. It was nice. The pool is really beautiful. Here is a pic (at Becs' request):

As I was sitting by the pool I was thinking how disappointing it was that there are no lizards here. At the last hotel I stayed at (La Palm) I saw several walking around the pool. Not to be out done by the La Palm lizards, a Labadi Beach lizard showed it's face as I was leaving the pool.

Tonight I have been invited to have dinner at a work colleague's house. She invited me over at 6pm and I plan to take a cab. Don't worry Ma, I asked the driver who has been taking me around during the work week if it was safe and he said "yes" and it should cost about $3.

My hotel has it's own private area on the beach as well. It's actually pretty nice. There is a bit more litter than I care to see but its not too bad and there are little sand colored crabs running around on the beach...like the ones we saw at Virginia Beach.

Tomorrow I plan to work more - maybe go to the pool and maybe tomorrow I will go to Global Mamas, the shop Rebecca recommended. Even if I don't go tomorrow I will definately go sometime next week. On Thursday, I am going to Cape Coast to visit staff at the University and I think there is a shop their too.

That's about it for Saturday. Still looking forward to getting home!

In Ghana (yes, again)

So my Ma asked if I would blog while I was away and I couldn't refuse. I know she is less interested in what I am doing than just wanting to know that I am safe. How could I refuse that?

So I left DC yesterday Tuesday, March 20 at 11pm (EST) and arrived in Accra, Ghana at 2:30pm (Ghana time) on Wednesday, March 21. As most of you know we just arrived home on Sunday morning from a week long cruise in the Caribbean which was too fab! Yes, I am a little crazy. I will try to put some pictures on the blog of our trip when I get home. Anyhoo, I had enough miles to upgrade my ticket to business class which made my trip a bazillion times betters. There really aren't words to describe how much better business class is on an overnight 12 hour plane ride. It's just so much more civilized. I could actually recline to sleeping position and slept about 6 hours on the plane. I NEVER sleep on planes. I'm dreading the plane ride home because I don't have enough miles to upgrade on the way back. Boo, sad.

It's 90 degrees here and humid. They will start their rainy season in about a month. The hotel I'm staying at is nice but I haven't really got to explore yet because I have so much darn work to do. I ate dinner in my room: grilled spicy chicken with jollof rice and have been working since I got here. The power went out while I was eating for about 40 seconds and went off while I typing but this time it was out for about 20-30 minutes. Ugh! I hate that part.

I have to say...getting a little tired of the work trips, especially the international travel. Not sure what i'm going to do about that right now. My poor little guys were in tears when I left. I miss them so much too (and my big guy).

Here is my room:

 

Bathroom

 Room 1

 Room 2

It is a much, much nicer room than the hotel I stayed at last time.

Good night!

Homemade Ice Cream

Do you think scrambled egg flavored ice cream would be good? I don't! I'm trying to make homemade vanilla ice cream but it smells like scrambled eggs. You have to cook milk with 2 eggs and sugar until it is a thin pudding consistency. I stirred my mixture for about 45 minutes and it never turned into a thin pudding consistency it went straight to scrambling my eggs. I strained the mixture but it still smells like scrambled eggs. I'm going to put in the cream and vanilla mixture, cool it and see what happens. Sadly, Jason just bought vanilla ice cream at Trader Joe's and it taste pretty damn good. Why am I doing this?

To be continued...

New Beginnings

I have a new job. I started on Monday but I am taking the rest of the week off so I that I can reboot. On Monday, I spent most of the day filling out paperwork and taking a tour of my new building. I feel like a kid, getting to know my new building, figuring out where the bathroom is, where the cafeteria is and trying not to get lost.

It's fun and exciting and seems silly. I'm happy.

I miss my friends at my previous job but I know we will always be friends. Besides, I'm only 8 blocks away or so, on the other side of the national mall.

My great friends and colleagues took me out to lunch to celebrate new beginnings. I'm so fortunate to have such kind, fun, good humored, and thoughtful friends. We had a delicious meal at Oyamel and laughed and talked. It couldn't have been better.

(Doris, Amy, Becs, Sarah and Joan)

I'm hoping with my new job, that I will have more time to write on the blog and start again to share our goings on.

Using my beads

I have a lot of beads. I have gotten in and out of jewelry making for the past six or seven years or so. It seems to go in fits and spurts about two to three times a year or less. I have taken a few classes here and there (even got to use a mini torch to make silver pins) and quite enjoy it but time is always an issue. I got into it again about two months ago and so far I have made two necklaces. It usually takes me a weekend to make a necklace, it's just that I don't do it every weekend.

One of the necklaces that I made is out of string and includes glass beads (that sparkle like a crystal), swarovski crystal pearls and coin shape pearls. I really love the coin shape pearls; they are one of my favorites. So...this one is made out of three strands of beads that I knotted on string. I put them all together and fastened them with a clasp. After I finished it, I took it upstairs to show Aidan, who at the time was laying on our bed watching a movie. After he looked at it, I layed the necklace delicately on top of my jewelry box. When I came upstairs about an hour later, I found my necklace in a knotted mess on top of the dresser. Oh my goodness I could have died. It took all my strength to keep it together. Aidan was playing with it and made it into one gigantic knotted mess. After about 45 days of cooling off, I finally, one night, had the patience to try to fix it. It was after the kids were in bed and I was watching Jersey housewives (New York is my favorite but I'm totally addicted to Jersey and DC housewives too). I had to take all the strands off the hook and use tweezers to work with the knot. About two hours later (seriously!) I fixed it and was able to wear it for the first time.

With this second necklace, I am trying a little bit more technique mixing materials. This one is made with silver chain, swarovski crystal pearls (lt grey), rectangle faceted black onyx and Norwegian blue moonstone. I wrapped each of the beads and then hooked them together. It is a longer necklace, I didn't measure it but it is probably 36" or so. I made the entire thing this weekend and Aidan helped me pick out the beads. Leo and I made it while Jason and Aidan went to the DC United game (DC United lost 1-3 and the 1 was from on own goal-pathetic really). Leo watched looney toons while I made the necklace and watched it get longer and longer, he even put one of the beads on when I wasn't looking. :) He is so helpful.

Favorite article of clothing

I am getting ready for bed. I undertook my usual ritual of walking in the door after getting home from work, heading upstairs to change out of my work clothes and putting on my comfy clothes, usually my pajamas. So I look into my closet and my go to shirt is an OLD, OLD shirt. It is a nursing shirt from when I had Leo! I know! It is totally OLD. I love it. It is black, loose but not long, light weight, three quarters sleeve and it is the softest cotton I have ever felt. I don't know why I love it more than any other shirt that I own but I wish I could keep it forever. I CAN NOT keep it forever. It is so much better than an old t-shirt. I have never really had a favorite old t-shirt.

What is your favorite article of clothing? The article of clothing that you wish would last forever. That you could wear every day if could?

I'm upstairs sitting on our bed. Leo is sleeping, snoring actually. He feel asleep at about 6:50pm. Jason is downstairs playing Wii FIFA Soccer with Aidan and he is losing. Aidan just ran upstairs saying he beat Daddy.

New Moon Release

Today is the release of the Twilight New Moon DVD. Yeah!!! Last night they had a midnight release party at borders books so Doris and I decided to go. We thought about it all week. To be perfectly honest, I just didn't think I could stay up until midnight but yesterday at about 4pm we decided to give it a shot. We planned all kinds of activities for ourselves so that we were not sitting around getting tired and wanting so desperately to fall asleep. We left work at about 5:45pm to make the 7pm showing of the movie Remember Me with, of course, Rob Pattinson. Apparently Doris said the movie got a D+ in the reviews so we were feeling a little ambivalent about going but this was not about the movie it was about seeing Edward. We both thought the movie was good. It wasn't great or anything but we thought it deserved more than a D+. It is a really sad story in many ways but it was good.

After the movie, we went to dinner at a trendy Sushi restaurant in Rockville (well it was as trendy as you can get in Rockville). We had this amazing crab and avocado salad and then we both order sushi which came out really pretty and colorful and most importantly delicious! We then had a chocolate molten cake with warm bananas and vanilla ice cream dessert. By this time, it was about 10:35pm and we were feeling pretty good. The restaurant was just getting lively because apparently they bring in a DJ at 11pm and set up the area more like a night club with a little dancing and swanky seating.  We thought we'd better head over the new moon party since it started at 10pm and we didn't want to miss anything exciting and especially the give-aways if there were any.

We got to Borders at about 11pm and we were totally DISAPPOINTED. It was such a buzz kill. There was hardly any one there--maybe 25 people. And of course, as we expected they were all 20 years younger than us except for the moms that brought their tweens. It was Lame with a capital L. We sat around answering trivia and guessing who said what quote. Doris raised her hand to answer one question and the woman running the show said "mom in the back" and Doris looked behind her and of course everyone behind her was 14 or 15 and we started cracking up--Doris was the mom in the back! Finally it was time to get in line to buy the movie and we were standing there and Doris said, "OMG, we are SO lame, Amy!" and the two women (yes women!) in front of us started to crack up and said "we thought we were the only ones." Doris laughed and said she didn't mean to say that out loud. Apparently these two women put their kids to bed and came to the launch party too. In any case, we had a great time last night, we stayed awake until after midnight and I got the New Moon DVD! Yeah!

Amy: Team Edward
Doris: Team Jacob
Heather: Team Edward
Crow: Team Jacob

Which team are you?