The Wayfaring Wordhack

...getting on the plane for France.  Little vacation before the big move back.  Lots of pottery in the luggage.  Hope it survives!!!

ETA:  One bowl broke, but I am sure it was my fault. I must have squeezed another object in too close. 😢  I loved that bowl (hence why I brought it back, obviously); the good news is if I could make something like it once I can do it again.  Of course it won't be the same--that's the way of pottery--because it was made with Lebanese clay.  Alas.

 I suffer from migraines, trigged by a couple of things, but as a storm came in yesterday, I was painfully reminded of my sensitivity to barometric pressure.  I know I exacerbated the migraine with my living room cleaning (allergy to dust mites), but the onset of the pain was ferocious and sudden, sending me to bed with painkillers.  I fell into a fitful sleep where I dreamed of having a headache and needing to lie down.  Dreams of being in a snow storm with risks of avalanches burying me where I was cowering with my headache were followed by me going from bed to bed in strange houses, seeking rest and relief.

I woke with the headache about an hour and a half later, long after the meds should have done something.  Then, about 20 minutes later, the storm finally broke and the headache dissipated.

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* The avalanche fears were probably brought on by nearvy construction work and noisy neighbors, which made me think of the several buildings that have collapsed recently in Lebanon.

Saw the surgeon this afternoon, and good news (at least to my mind), the angle of my bones does not merit an HTO. The angle is 0.8% past the allowed deviation, but still small enough for this surgeon to think it doesn't warrant that kind of correction.  Instead, he thinks a partial knee joint prosthetic is the way to go.  This seems less traumatic to me, has the same "life span" as the HTO, and has a much shorter recovery time.  I will probably get the operation after we come back from France in March.  Getting an estimate to run by insurance first.  I am not sure I will get a second opinion on this one because, as the doctor said, I can get more injections, but they don't last long and do nothing to prevent further wear.

 A heartfelt seasonal greeting from the depths of The Ick.  All five of us are suffering from the virus that seems to have blighted Lebanon this Christmas.  But we are so happy that we are all in the same country together this year.  Yes, our neighbors to the south are still flying their drones, making sure to start them last night--they literally came into my hearing range when the church bells started chiming for the midnight mass--and keep up their flight this day; but there is no war at the moment to keep our family apart.  

I hope you are all having a healthy, joyous day with those you care about. 

OK, nevermind.  But I will post this to say:  Miq was here.

I shall preface my kitty introduction with the reason we adopted her:

Our kids have been overall good sports at the international living, but for various reasons, proper to each child, life abroad is wearing thin for at least two of the three.  This is problematic because J and I are not quite ready to return longterm to France.  In talking things through with the kids, we discovered that one of the chafing points of not settling back down in France is that we can't have animals.  Well, J and I have made several international moves with cats and know what it entails, so we decided that we could get a kitten.   For the kiddos, this means another another point of stability in their lives, another loved being, to make any subsequent moves with us.  

One of J colleagues showed him a photo back in March of her pretty (pregnant) cat, who happened to look a lot like a cat his mother once had (with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen).  After talking it over, we decided we would adopt one of the kittens when it was weaned and surprise the kids.  The kitten was old enough (by Lebanese standards) to get before we left for France this summer, but a) we thought her still too young, and b) we didn't want to cause her trauma by bringing her home for a week and then having to find someone to look out for her for a month while we were on vacation.  Happily, the cat owner was willing to keep her for us until we returned.  We didn't breathe a word of it to the kids.

For weeks before we traveled and during the whole month of July, the kids, especially Farmer Boy, kept on and on about how he wanted a pet.  He was researching sugar gliders of all things.  Everyday, "I want a pet.  I need a pet."  To which I took to answering with, "When we get back to Lebanon I will pet you."  Of course this (mildly) irritated him because he thought I was merely making a word play.

The first day back, I bought all the supplies for the kitten and hid, and that night Julien brought the kitten home after work.  We snuck her inside and then opened the cat carrier.  Soon, strident meows were heard throughout the house.  However we are blessed (yes, that is sarcasm) with a plethora of feral cats that visit our garden and circle our building, so at first, no one batted an eye.  But finally, Sprout, the most observant of the bunch realized the sound could not be coming from outside and she dashed up from the couch and set off to find out what was going on.  She discovered a beautiful white kitten exploring the craft room.

Sprout scooped her up, and it was love at first sight.  After being repeatedly assured that it was their cat and no mistake had been made, the kiddos decided to name her Pearl.  They call her their little sister.  And the funniest thing is, when we were pregnant with Ti'Loup, the name we had picked out for a girl was Inji*, a name that means "pearl."

So meet the newest member of the family:




She is a Turkish Angora (or a mix; she doesn't have papers).  True to the breed characteristics, she is super friendly, outgoing with strangers (didn't even take a moment to hide and get her bearings when we brought her home), extremely playful.  And Vocal.  She is a looker, but her voice!  It cracks me up. 🤣 I have a knack for creating with my hands, but a singer I am not.  And for that, Pearl takes after her "momma."**  But she is thinking about taking up pottery, or at least playing with the potters' things.😝

 

The cat owner wasn't very knowledgable about Pearl's exact birth date.  The vet agreed with me that it was--if not on, then very close to--April 21.  So 21 April it is, so she can share a birthday with another special someone in my life.🥰

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*We had a lovely Egyptian friend named Inji and she told me it was Turkish for "pearl."

** I don't actually call myself her mom or her my daughter.😜

 ...apparently a three-month, one-day deep hole, according to my last post.  Momma mia, has a lot happened in those three months.  Seriously, where has the majority of 2025 gone?

First of all:  Going downtown to a studio to take pottery lessons (mostly for things I can and have learned by myself, thanks to YouTube) and to transport all our greenware there to be fired was not sustainable. SO:  We bought our own firing baby; yep, we are the proud owners of our own kiln.  Thank God for J's salary in Lebanon.🙏  And while it is a learning curve to use one (especially here in Lebanon with Electricity Issues™), it is such a joy to have control over the process. We have many lovely pieces now and plan to keep making more, more, MORE!

Which we actually need to do because J and I will be participating in a pottery fair a month from now.  Here are the pieces I shared for the fair's promotional use:



The above are made using local clay (part of the 50kg I mentioned the post linked below).  As you might be able to deduce, I absolutely love carving and sculpting with clay.  You might recognize this next piece from my last post:




The color on the top of the frills is a bit darker than I wanted, but it is still OK. Glaze and learn; glaze and learn.  "Make and accept there will be breaks" is another mantra. Oh the beautiful pieces I have lost. Even the one above piece is slightly damaged at the base of one of the frills because of a glazing accident, preventing me from selling it in good conscience.

As you can imagine, with the purchase of a kiln and a pottery fair to produce for, there was a lot of making going on in June.  In July, the family and I traveled to France for a brief stay to visit home, family, and friends.  It was difficult going back for a "short" time because many tasks on a homestead need more than a few weeks of sustained labor.  Only one more year to go on the Lebanon contract.  What's next? Only the Lord knows.  The kids want to stay in France, but with J's job, that might not be a possibility just yet.¹

As soon as we got back from France, we welcomed home a kitten we had anticipated adopting before she was born. I will give her her own intro post.😻. And I'll get to start using my "kitty" tag again.

The pottery hole is deep, yes, but wide as well; it needs SPACE.  Therefore, we did the logical thing and sold our salon furniture to make room for crafting. 🤣. We were throwing pottery on our terrace, but what with all the leaves and bugs getting into our clay, we decided it would be better to work inside.  Many Lebanese homes have a "formal" reception area in addition to a family living room/den (or they have a very large room divided into two spaces: Fancy receiving side and comfy, everyday side.  We didn't get much use out of the fancier stuff and figured it was better to offload it now and use the space to our liking rather than having "extra" furniture to get rid of before our move next year.  And with a kitten in the house, the sooner the better for the state of the merchandise. 😜

The same morning the buyer came to pick up the furniture, we packed up the kitty and went to resort for the weekend with friends.  Whoosh, there went most of the money we got from the furniture sale.  I don't feel like getting myself into a bad mood right now, so I won't talk about the quality vs price disconnect that exists here. Suffice it to say, it was waaaaaay overpriced for what it was.  Not all was bad, though.  We had a great time with the kids and friends, and (cue a tiny bit of sarcasm) thanks to Farmer Boy losing his glasses, I was on the beach early morning and saw a baby sea turtle making its way to the water.

Despite the verrrrry early hour, I called J and had him bring down the kiddos for their first-ever sighting of a baby sea turtle.  This wee one was apparently the last to make it out of the nest, so we were very fortunate I happened upon it when I did.



(yes, my boys have long hair)

This species of sea turtle is black as a baby, unlike the ones we saw hatching in Mayotte. I went back through my entries tagged "Mayotte" but didn't find any that showed the baby sea turtles we saw hatching there, but I know they were much lighter in coloring, like this one here (not my photo). 

This is our little guy after I rinsed him with some sea water because he (or she. LOL) was so covered in sand, he was having a hard time moving: 

 

As soon as we got back home, it was, yep, you guessed it:  Pottery time.  But last night, after doing scraffito on my latest tumblers, I declared I wouldn't do anything pottery-related (besides unloading the kiln this afternoon as soon as it has cooled enough) until I have A) finished (not to mention started) the sermon I have to preach this Sunday, and B) done the latest art prompt the kids and I are working on.  We have missed the art prompts, which fell by the wayside last summer when we were stuck in France and couldn't come back to Lebanon.  So, at the kids' request, we have begun again.  Can't wait to start sharing our makings.

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1) We have started the What's Next? process, which entails perusing and evaluating J's options.  Mayotte is possibly on the table again.  I had a lots of ups and downs there, and it is not my first choice.  I would, as I told J, prefer to discover some place different.  However, he loved Mayotte, and I am willing to go back if it makes him happy; I only asked that it be a last resort.   As always, we can orient ourselves towards certain options, but like with any job, we aren't the only ones deciding where he will be assigned/what post he will get.

 Hello, Internet friends.

Long time no interaction.  So long, I don't even know how to start a post.  Just writing about inanities feels like a waste of time, but laying out all the heavier stuff feels very unfair.  I know this is my blog and I can write what I want, but just unloading All The Stuff and then possibly (probably) disappearing for another few months seems a bit pointless and unfair.  All that means I have written and consecutively erased five openings to this entry.

Anyhow, let's just do the abbreviated version:

- The hyaluronic acid injection has finally made a difference in my day-to-day pain level in the arthritic knee.  While it is not perfect, I am much better. However, I still wake in the night from the pain and am feeling the effects of several months of broken sleep.  This, coupled with my allergies (also mostly better this year because of meds), has meant that I am often tired physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

- The fatigue is also likely in part due to walking alongside a friend whose daughter is dying of a brain tumor.  I don't pretend to be some super friend who is really there with her all the time and is carrying any kind of load other than being another mother with a child of the same age.  

- Our contract in Lebanon is about to enter its last year.  That, too, starts to take a toll because we are now entering "what's next?" waters and all the weighty decisions and discussions that always accompany this phase.  I am not complaining about this because it is the life we have chosen. This is just me recognizing patterns and accepting that this is the way it goes.  In some ways, I have already "started checking out," as one friend puts it.

- Ever since discovering pottery upon our return to Lebanon in February, I have thrown myself wholeheartedly into it.  I have loved all of it until getting things back from the glaze firings.  What should be a lovely, crowning, fulfilling moment has so far been one of serious disappointment.  All my hopes of beautiful pieces have not been realized as my ignorance about glazes and what they do has meant all my efforts have churned out tripe.   Our teacher is not big on the artsy side or experimenting, so her glazing instructions were very rudimentary.   I should have started with training wheels (i.e. one glaze at a time, simply applied) instead of trying for special effects.  But I had bigger ambitions (Drat you, Pinterest!)!  *sigh* So disappointing. And expensive.  Pottery is definitely a more expensive and time-consuming hobby than oil painting.

- Oil painting. Haven't done much of it of late.  I might try to paint tomorrow.  J has been gone to France since the 10th and will be back on Saturday, so it might not be the best time to pull out paints.  I should clean instead. 😜




 

I am happy to say I'm thoroughly enjoying doing Advent activities with the kids. I know we are making sweet memories when they excitedly declare, "This has to be a new tradition, Mom!"*

The other day, we painted cookies for our neighbors and postman, something I haven't had the spoons to do since I was pregnant with Ti'Loup.  I had only done it once before, and this time everyone got to participate. My husband said it would be wonderful if, years down the line, the kids all wanted the cookie cutters that have become emblematic to our family holidays, like my friend asakiyume shared about her fondness for her family's angel cookie cutter (her family tradition of painting cookies was where I first heard of it; I won't link to her post since she's in the process of making some entries private, and I might end up with a dead link🙃).

Here are some of our creations. No natural dyes this time. We experimented with juice from preserved cherries, but it wasn't very nice.



We still have no idea when the family will be reunited in Lebanon, but our busyness is making the time pass in an agreeable way, and for that I am thankful. J is keeping busy, too, even taking up pottery lessons, which he has wanted to do for years. Contrary to when we lived in Egypt and were separated for the summer, he's finding the time is passing pretty quickly and he isn't miserable without us. 😂

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*I introduced mint steamers to our hot beverages this year, which are usually hot cocoa and hot apple cider, and the kids want them on the rota. Just an aside, in case I haven't said this before: The French do not believe in peppermint flavored candy canes, much to my dismay come Christmas time for the past 20-plus years I have been living here. So this year I cracked and bought some off Amazon.

The kids say Christmas Bark and Peppermint Bark making (OK, eating!) have to be new traditions, too, in addition to cookies.  In non-food related traditions, they also want to do Time's Up Christmas Version (we make up our own prompts and play, kind of like Fishbowl) every year.