IyI Bayramlar

Well today this week the Moslem's are celebrating Byram which literally means festival but this festival is Seker (Shey-ker) festival. Sounds like sugar doesn't it...well it is. The festival celebrates the end of the Ramazan fast with the day that Muhammad received the Koran. So yesterday at 7:34am for our big mosque, the men went to the mosque to pray and then back to their homes where lots of traditions start to unwind.

The day before the women were crazy busy cleaning their house from top to bottom and buying lots of sweets, mainly chocolates and other yummy food. They have bought themselves new clothes and yesterday they were all dressed up in their best. First they go to their oldest relatives home and they greet their relatives by kissing their hand and then pressing the hand to their forehead to show they respect them highly. The older person will in turn give pocket money to the young children. The visits only last at max 30 minutes which is unreal for middle eastern visiting but their are many more homes they must go to. So the day is spent visiting and then they return home and get ready for the visitors that come to THEIR house. CRAZY.

So yesterday i went to our next door neighbors house (Tuba and Tonsil) to wish them Iyi Bayramlar. I also put together a little gift bag for Mert their 4 year old and their was pocket change inside!!!.

They opened the door and I think they were surprised that I was there but Mert saw the present and was like SUPER excited. Their family was visiting them so I was introduced to the family from Istanbul. Mert came over and kissed my hand and put it on his little cutness of a head. He's seriously one of the cutest kids i've ever seen. So, now the next three days, there's visiting and sweets, and chai and yeah. Iyi Bayramlar!

The Ball

It's two weeks late but Eric and I attended the Air Force Ball on base along with 500 other people. They were trying something new this year and decided instead of a sit down meal we would all stand around and enjoy the 4 hour evening that way. Well it was a insanely stupid idea. Once we got a drink in our hand there was no way you can eat because one hand holds the drink and the other the plate so how are you supposed to get the food from the plate into your mouth???!!! So everyone started walking around the club trying to find somewhere to sit. 500 places to sit exactally. One friend suggested we all lay down around the commander's table and eat off our cheasts. That would have been something.

Katie was so gracious to come over and do my hair so i wouldn't have to worry about it and then Shannon from across the street took our picture. Here they are!

Sich

Hello nose...anybody there? I would really appreciate it if the snot party could come to a close because it's time to get up off the couch and pick up the "fake snow" of tissues I've created on my living room floor. Although the movie watching and excuse to fold all the laundry in my house was kind of nice I am done with that plan.
Life is rolling along here at rapid pace. Saturday is the half marathon and unfortunately I have not been training for it. I think maybe once Eric deploys again I'll be more serious about my sporadic love of running. So here is the deployment news:
Eric goes to CST (combat skills training) November-December 17th in Wisconsion. At which point I will go to Iowa City and hang out with the family for a couple months and also make a trip out to Cali. When Eric gets done with CST I'll retrieve him and we'll take a couple weeks leave for Christmas with the families!!! Then we'll head back to Turkey and Eric and I will have a month before he actually deploys (Feb 2-Aug 2ish). I'm still thinking about what i'll do when he's gone-as far as staying here or visiting the states for a while.
Turkish is going so well, I feel like we are learning so much each day and it's a lot of memorization and work to keep it all in but I'm not at a breaking point yet so we're doing good.
Maybe I can even hang out with the Turkish international students at Iowa when i'm back home. Well, hope all is going well for ya'll.

Mommy, what's a Sniffleridge?

The other day i was talking, as usual, to my mother and as you all well know i don't speak English very well so i mess up my words a lot or make up words. So i had said something wrong...Nardist i think. So then because of our love of the game balderdash she sent out an email to the family members asking them to come up with a definition for Nardist. My sister Christie replied and also gave us these hilarious bits:

Foodgitives: The food on one side of a plate that escapes to the other side. (Hall 1985a: 31)
Furnidents: The indentations left in carpet after moving heavy furniture (Hall 1983)
Glackett: The ball inside a can of spray paint (or other aerosol can) for stirring the contents inside the can. (Hall 1984: 38) (This object is known as a "pea" in the paint industry.)
Premblememblemation: Whenever you drop a letter in the mailbox, you always re-check to make sure it's gone down. (Hall 1984: 66)
Pyramonster: That thing with one big eye on the back of a dollar bill. (Hall 1986: 67) (The pyramid on the Great Seal)
Sniffleridge: The groove running between the nose and the mouth (Hall 1984: 92). (The real name for this structure is the philtrum.)
Timefoolery: Setting the alarm clock ahead of the real time in order to fool yourself into thinking you are not getting up so early.

ACKY-sounds just like it's spelled, tastes the same too.

Well my friends, I'm retiring from the food preparation career I've done so well in for a couple of recent instances that will forever be burned in my brain. I mean how could things have gotten so crummy?
Item One: Laura thinks she can replace red pepper slices with crushed red pepper spice.
This day was going really well, Eric started coming home for lunch which is wonderful because I can see him during the day and he can have a little bit better food that what I may have packed in his lunch. So this day I was making a pasta and the only ingredient I didn't have was the red pepper. Crushed red pepper turned out to be a wonderful sensation and a surprisingly spicy dish to my husband who is only served meals that his horribly sensitive wife can handle. I ate one bit and ran to the sink. ACKY!

Item Two: Not long after that I was trying to be more inventive than the average sandwich and made a turkey wrap with mayo and mustard spread on the tortilla and then tomato, lettuce a little salt and pepper and turkey inside. Eric came home and ate everything on the plate except for that. There was a small bit taken out of it however. When asked about it he remarked, "It's just too flavorful, it's kind of ACKY."

Item Three: One day after that I needed to make dinner quickly after our language classes that we have Mon-Thurs which has cut down on the time i need to make meals. I decided that I would try, for the first time in my life...Shake and Bake, it was somehow in the pantry and all you need is Chicken and the Box so why not? Eric asked me what was for dinner when we got to class and I told him, "Shake and Bake". He had never heard of it before, which amazed me and instantly got me asking him, "You mean you never saw those commercials or people in your class never said the popular phrase, "It's Shake and Bake and I Helped?"" No, he hadn't. Well we sat down and cut into our first piece, rather excited to see if this could join the ranks of hot dogs in Mac and Cheese for our list of survivor meals. Both of us kind of wrinkled up our noses and chewed those bites for a long time before gulping them down with the effect of the adam's apple falling from chin to chest in Cinderella when the Duke learns he will not be beheaded but he has to try the glass slipper on every maiden in the kingdom. (we just rented that last night). It was so bad I had to take pictures of Eric eating it.

Item Four: Made muffins for Barnes who just had knee surgery and decided to make jumbo ones but then the muffin cups wouldn't fit in them so i sprayed the pan. The muffins refused to come out of the pan and were undeliverable.

Item Five: Yesterday I made more muffins for Barnes who just had knee surgery and made regular sized ones, they are burnt black.

So, I hear by announce my retirement from the profession of Domestic Goddess. I'll be making applications to AHA (average housewives anonymous).

Hey Manta-rena

Last night Eric and I went out with Sarah and Dave for Manta which is a delicious pasta with beef or lamb inside served in a white and tomato sauce with yogurt and garlic sauce over the top and your choice of spices to sprinkle on top.
But before we got out there we had to drive through the crazed streets right before the breaking of the fast for that day. This month is Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) a month of fasting from all food and liquid from sunrise to sunset from the first of the month till the end of September. Turks who are pregnant, taking medication, sick, traveling, or children do not participate and then also some Turks choose not to participate on their own (similar to Catholics not participating in lent). From a personal perspective I have participated in this fast for two years and it is extremely difficult-one year I got kidney stones at the end! This affects us only in a couple ways:
1. restaurants in small towns will not be open until sunset, so if we travel we need to pack our own food.
2. restaurants in Adana start to get packed right around sun down and the food comes out as soon as the last call to prayer begins. But we, as Americans shouldn't eat near the windows during the day as it would look completely disrespectful.
3. Price inflation in the markets and sometimes restaurants anywhere from 15% to 50%.
4. When driving around sunset, Turks are RACING home to eat and driving can get quite dangerous.
This leads me to our interesting trip into Adana that night for our dinner date. The driving was extremely crazy and very packed as everyone was rushing home to break fast.
Anyways, enough about that...dinner was amazing and then we went back to their beautiful home for ice cream and conversation until about 11:30. It was a wonderful evening.

Turkish done right

Well Eric and I have been doing almost 2 weeks of new Turkish classes now. Finally i feel like I am learning the language the way that i need to be taught. Lots of repitition, lots of practice, lots of homework, very logical. I love it!
I'm getting all the charts and words and memorizing and speech helps that I can. I am so so so pleased with the teacher and the way he instructs. He constantly goes around the room and makes every person say every phrase he puts on the board. If that doesn't make it permiate your brain I don't know what will.
The class is from 5-6:15 monday through thursday so poor Eric rushes there from work and then I try my best to have dinner at least prepped before I go to class so that we can eat right when we get home. It's a small inconvienence.
Well, that's the update for today. I'm going to try and get the months groceries this afternoon and do a PILE of laundry.

She's BAAAAAACK

Hello Friends,

Sorry for the major disapperance. I now have the house settled except for the office/music room/guest bedroom/Air Force apparel room. I have also been busy trying to get the Key Spouse program up to speed and ready to run on auto pilot.

Then this weekend we went to the Med to go camping with Frank and Katie, Alicia (a brand new Lt. straight out of college), Tristan and Shannon and their three boys.

The trip there took about 3. 5 hours but it went by very quickly due to lots of things to keep us busy. Doing our scavanger hunt, listening to a sweet mix cd that Frank made, and finding out mroe about Alicia. When we got there we set up camp and dived into the sea. Salty, and beautiful just as I remembered. This time we were smart and brought goggles so it wouldn't sting the eyes so bad. We also got really sweet Aqua Socks to keep our feet safe from the rocks. We wanted to go swim out to a cave so we walked down the beach and I got chicken after 5 minutes trying to swim. It was NOT happening. Alicia was my partner in crime on that one. I am just not a great swimmer, daring, i don't like my head underwater in open sea, so that is just one place i won't be adventerous.

It was too windy for campfires but we brought a coleman stove so we made hot dogs and brats on that, can of beans and corn heated over the flame. We tried to rinse off in the sinks but we were big sandy sticky messes.

Super windy once we wound down for sleep and as soon as the wind died down the kids started wailing. Finally 2 hours later we packed them up and they left at 6:00 am. We made pancakes and sausage for breakfast and then packed up and got home around 2:00 I would say it was a learning experience but well worth it.