A List or Two

10 Things that Make Me Happy:

1. Christmas shopping for Lane is D-O-N-E!
2. Not only are we done with her Christmas shopping, but we also got her Baby's First Christmas ornament picked out (oh, so stressful).


Don't even tell me this wasn't worth 100 minutes of my time.

3. I made a chocolate cake. It's cooling in the kitchen. Tomorrow I'm going to practice decorating it as if it were Lane's birthday cake.
4. Lane's yeast infection is finally gone which means we have been back to using cloth diapers for a week now!
5. The sun came out today.
6. My husband empties the trash every. single. night. And never asks me to do it.
7. Milk went on sale for 1 lira per liter. I bought 24 liters. We should be good on milk for a couple of months.
8. Lane has learned how to clap and wave "bye-bye." She is SO stinkin' cute.
9. Shannon bought me purple daisies today when I sent him to buy bread (he bought bread too, don't worry).


Pretty, huh?

10. Our babysitter fixed my 5-lira purse today (some of the decorative fabric had started to unravel) while waiting on Lane to wake up from her nap.

10 Things that Frustrate Me:

1. Carrefour went up on their price for chicken breasts, which means I practically wasted my time by walking there to buy meat.
2. Our "toilet room" has a funky smell emanating from it. It's either because it's a) the building's "potty shaft" and other peoples' stink is coming into our apartment, or b) the cockroaches are conspiring for their territory back.
3. Our internet works sometimes. And sometimes it doesn't.
4. Our phone works sometimes. And sometimes it doesn't.
5. We were advised last week to be prepared for our heating bill to be around $200 per month once it gets cold. We have no control over this, as each apartment in our building splits the cost evenly, the rates are astronomical, and we can't turn our radiators off.


This is the culprit! The good news? We can hang some of our laundry on it to dry!

6. Now that summer is over some things are getting really expensive: for example tomatoes, at about $3 a pound. Other things should not be expensive (like broccoli), but people at the bazaar try to rip me off because I'm a foreigner.
7. Amazon.com really needs a better way to narrow your searches.
8. As a woman, I'm not really supposed to be out alone after dark. With winter coming, this means that my "curfew" is soon going to be about 6:00 pm.
9. Ground beef is 22 lira a kilo here. That's $15.71 a kilo, or $7.14 a pound. We will be eating spaghetti exactly once this month.


Yikes!

10. Our dishwasher has been having problems. The dial gets stuck more often than not, which means that I have to periodically nudge it along. This means I have to pay attention to what time I started the dishwasher and check on it every 30 minutes.

Culture shock is starting to hit. The days are starting to get shorter. It's starting to rain a lot. And I'm starting to miss home.

As another friend of mine put it, I need to remind myself of only one thing: this is the best possible life for me. God has planned my life from before there was time. He knew I'd be here. He is the God who sees. He sees me. And he knows my heart and how I feel. He has not forgotten me.

He sees me.

Ode to the Pumpkin

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love autumn. It's my favorite season. I think its roots are in the fact that I'm from Alaska, where fall lasts all of about 2-3 weeks, and there is really only one kind of deciduous tree (birch), so all the leaves on trees in Alaska turn pretty much the exact same color. It's pretty, really it is.


Fall in Alaska: a photo I took when we hiked Skyline last September.

But.

When I experienced my first real fall at the age of 17 and a freshman in college, autumn officially became my favorite season. The University of Idaho has a gorgeous campus. There are probably a hundred different kinds of trees on the campus: maple, oak, birch, willow, and so on. It was so different than any autumn I'd ever experienced before. For the first time in my life I understood the purpose of leaf bags and I was amazed at the creativity of God when he designed so many gorgeous, vibrant colors of tree leaves.


U of I's "Hello Walk", leading up to the Administration building. photo credit

Anyways. All that to say I love fall. And if you'll remember from this post, when I think of fall, I think of pumpkin.

Oh, how I love the pumpkin.

Soon after arriving in Poland on All Saints' Day of 2002, everyone was deciding what they'd bring to our group Thanksgiving feast. I volunteered to bring pumpkin pies with little thought to the fact that I'd only ever made a pumpkin pie by using a can of Libby's, and I hadn't brought any with me. Fortunately I'm pretty smart (or so I like to think). I was able to find a pumpkin with little trouble. And I was able to turn that beauty of a jack-o-lantern into purée. Here's how:

Let's assume that you begin with something that looks like this:


A large slice o' pumpkin.

You'll want to do this to it:


Clean that sucker out! Save the seeds for roasting, if you like: they're full of vitamins! (I eat them, even though I don't like them, because I know they're good for me.)

Turn that baby upside down onto a baking sheet or broiler pan covered in foil (it makes clean-up a lot easier).



Now cover that bad boy in foil (unless you had a whole pumpkin and just cut it in half: then you don't need the foil, just put the cut side down on the foil).


The foil traps the heat and the moisture inside, effectively baking the pumpkin.

Put it in the oven and bake at 350° or 400° for a couple of hours, or until the pumpkin starts to do this:


The flesh of the pumpkin is falling away from the skin. If you're baking pumpkin halves and can't see if it's doing this, prick the flesh with a fork. It should be very soft.

Let the pumpkin cool for a bit, maybe an hour. Then scrape all of the orange flesh out.


Mmm, pumpkin carcass.

It's done! Put all your pumpkin purée in a bowl and refrigerate! You can freeze it in portions the perfect size for your recipes. A can of Libby's is almost two cups and is the amount called for in most pumpkin pie recipes. A cup is just the right amount for these delicious cookies. And if you want to freeze some in ice cube trays, you could use them to make homemade pumpkin spice coffee creamer.


The final result.

I am so glad that I learned how to do this almost eight years ago. It has freed me from feeling like I need to have those 14-ounce cans of pumpkin in my pantry in order to enjoy the holiday season. While in the U.S. I gladly use canned pumpkin because let's face it, it's a lot less work! But this is really, really simple to do, as long as you can find a pumpkin! If your purée turns out a little stringy, use it in bread or muffins, because the strings dissolve and you can't tell at all (some people can tell when you use stringy purée in pies...I am not one of them). And then bake the pumpkin longer the next time.

Tomorrow I'm going to try out that recipe for homemade coffee creamer. And later this week I'm going to buy some more pumpkin to roast so that I can make some pumpkin bread...

Oh, how I love the pumpkin...

It might not compare to my love for the pumpkin, but what do you think about my new blog layout? Spiffy, huh?

Window Shopping

When you live in a different country, everything is more difficult.

Take Christmas shopping, for example. We want to keep things simple for Lane. I believe that most (American, and probably other nationalities as well) children have way more toys than they need or can fully appreciate. (But I don't really believe this about books...we want her to have an abundance of books. Plus, I'm really tired of reading the same 10 that she has over and over and over again!). However, I'm only aware of 1 store in Istanbul which sells children's books in English...and even then they don't have a large selection.

Then there's the toy aspect. You can find toys here. There are a select few stores that either carry toys or are specifically toy stores. But the selection is so limited. And because of my belief in wanting Lane to have fewer but nicer toys, I want to make every purchase count! It's not like you can do research on which toys you want to buy and then go out and buy them.

So what's a mom to do?

Head to Amazon.com, of course!

We've made Lane a wish list for the relatives' perusal, composed of toys and books that we think will be played with like crazy, stand the test of time, and will make it into our bags no matter how many times we move. I want to buy her everything on the list. But we're keeping it simple. For Christmas, Lane will be getting these from us:



Her first doll, made by Haba.


A couple of these books by Sandra Boynton.

And that's it. Well, we may buy her some Christmas pajamas, but really, that's it.

But I already know that she's getting these from other family members:


Letter Link Bath Crabs. The girls I used to nanny for had these and loved them. They have capital letters on one side, lowercase letters on the other side, they link together so you can spell words, and they're squirties! Now if only we can get a bathtub to use them in...


Haba first blocks. I am so excited about these!

She's getting other toys too from other family members, but I don't know what yet, since they haven't been bought! And some other books have already been purchased:


Quiet LOUD by Leslie Patricelli


Little Giraffe Finger Puppet book. Lane has Little Polar Bear and loves it, so I'm super excited for her to get more of these!

Then, Lane has a birthday exactly 4 weeks after Christmas! It'll be her 1st birthday, so it's a big deal! But once again, we're trying to keep it simple. We're getting her some more blocks:


Haba blocks. Can you tell I'm obsessed with Haba?

And this:


LeapFrog Letter Factory dvd. She doesn't watch her 2 Baby Einstein dvd's very often (her attention span lasts about 7 minutes), but I know I'll tire of them quickly once she does like to watch tv!

And we're getting her another book for her birthday. We haven't chosen which one yet. And that's it. What do you think? Have we done well at not going overboard? It's so, so hard as I'm sure all you parents know. I want to buy her the world. I think she needs every toy made. But I know she doesn't. After polling friends the general consensus was that around-1-year olds enjoy books, blocks, puzzles, and shape-sorters. So I'm hoping she gets some of those things! And I just figured she needed a doll...I mean, she is a girl!

Any other suggestions out there before we finalize our purchases?

On another totally unrelated note, my baby girl took her first steps today. Sigh. She's not even 9 months old yet. She's growing up too fast.

Randomness

It seems that since October started we have just been so busy! For starters, we began language classes again, so now that we have those classes and a babysitter coming three times a week, we're busy with class, homework, making sure there are snacks (for the tutor), and making sure the apartment is clean (for the babysitter...Turks are apparently very judgmental and picky when it comes to a clean house). We also had a guest for a couple of nights, had lunch with my old Turkish teacher, started planning our next vacation (it's a surprise!) went to a birthday party, and Shannon has just been working a lot. So, it's just been busy, busy, busy around here!


It's cold enough for a hat now! (Plus, if you look closely, you can see her 2 teeth).

I feel like I have gotten some "big" things accomplished, though. I washed the cushion covers on one of our couches. Shannon spilled coffee (oh, ok, actually Lane did it, but it was Shannon's coffee!) on one of the cushions so I took the cover off and washed it. After I put that cover back on and it was next to the others, it was apparent how dirty they all were, so I had to wash the other covers as well! I perfected my chocolate chip cookie recipe (outside-of-the-United-States version). I have been keeping up with vacuuming our apartment and keeping it dusted. I've made lots of baby food in the last week (pumpkin, green beans, avocado, and apples). I redesigned the blog (I'm still not happy with it but it will have to do for now). And I got a lot of necessary emails written, finally.


Mmm...chocolate chip cookies!

Our heat got turned on this past Friday night! That's a big deal over here, because unlike in the US where apartments just have thermostats and you can turn the heat or the air on as you wish, here the entire building's heat is controlled by our doorman...I think. Our doorman came by and asked us if we wanted the heat turned on, to which we heartily replied, "Yes!" (In Poland and Ukraine the entire city gets heat at one time and I had assumed it was the same here. It appears as if it's not the same, but I'm not entirely sure exactly how it works here. All I know is that I don't get to decide that I think it's time to turn the heat on!). This past weekend was so dreary...Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were cold and wet (in the upper 40's or lower 50's (9°-12° Celsius) and it just poured down rain all three days. We pulled out all of our winter clothes and put up our summer clothes. We got out our down comforter. Lane was wearing legwarmers (thanks, Diana!) under her clothes and even sleeping with them and socks under her pajamas. We were very grateful when Mr. Doorman turned the heat on, and Lane started sleeping through the night again (I think maybe she had started to wake up in the middle of the night because she was cold and not be able to get herself back to sleep).


This is what it looked like for 3 or 4 days last week.

So, that's been life around here. I've also been pondering two questions that maybe my readers can help me out with?

1) Concerning proper blog etiquette: How do you go about answering questions that readers post in your comments section? Do you answer their question in your comments? Or do you go to their blog and answer there? I'm never quite sure what I'm "supposed" to do and end up doing a combination of both and then feel guilty, like maybe I chose wrong. Help!


Playing in the grass for the first time! (Yes, for the first time. All previous times she has either cried at being put on the grass or it's been too wet).

2) As we are approaching the holiday season for the first time as a family with children, we're thinking about traditions that we want to begin for our family: Thanksgiving traditions, Christmas traditions, birthday traditions, and so on. We know that Lane will be too young this year (and probably next year as well) to remember them, but we thought it would be good to start working on them, thinking about them, and planning for them. This brings me to my question: what do you do with your family/children to make holidays special? My friend Margo makes her kids birthday pancakes in the shape of their age. My friend Tina's kids get new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve and then sleep in them that night. We're considering "stealing" these and making them our own traditions as well! I'm looking for any and all ideas, because we want more suggestions to steal for our own family! Please comment and let me know what you do in your family!

So, there's a bit of randomness to satiate your dying curiosity as to what's been up in Scarbrough Land. I'm going to be trying out some new recipes in the next week or two, so check the recipe blog for updates on anything I have success with!

Our "Bathtub"

Some of you may remember that when we first arrived in Istanbul I put forth the question: "how do you give a baby a bath when you don't have a bathtub or sinks large enough to bathe a baby in?" Numerous people responded suggesting that either we a) buy a baby bathtub or a bucket of a kind, or b) give Lane a shower.


Our "bathtub."

If you look closely at our "tub," you can see that there is a seat in it, and the deepest part is only about 18" in diameter. Also, notice where the shower doors open. We have to step up onto the seat in order to get in: the doors don't open the other way, so you can't step into the deeper part or lean over the edge. I'd hate to be 8 months pregnant and trying to use this thing! Plus, the fiberglass has cracks in it and it doesn't drain very well. I hate this tub/shower/whatever-it-is. I'd love to take a real bath. Maybe in January when we move we'll have a real tub.

Anyways, I did not want to buy a baby bathtub, because I don't like buying things that I only use for a little bit and then just sit around taking up space. (Previously we had something similar to this, which we loved: it doesn't take up hardly any space at all. But you can see that there was no way we could use it in this shower/tub contraption.) When I tried to give Lane a shower with me, she freaked out and was not a happy camper...I think the noise of the water hitting the bottom of the "tub" scared her. So we bought a baby tub. It's hideous. It's pink.


The baby bathtub.

Back when it was super hot we'd let Lane play in the water on the balcony. She didn't love it (she'd slide around a good bit), but I think it cooled her off a bit. The funniest part of this to me is that we've only given her an actual bath in the thing once because after I'd bought the tub I tried giving Lane a shower again and she loved it! So, we always just take a shower together. She's a big fan of the shower hose since it's shiny.

Anyways, I had promised that I'd take pictures of our horrible shower/tub and realized that it had been 3 months and I hadn't taken a photo yet. We'll only be living here for 3 more months, so I thought it was now or never, because I'd probably forget and then never have a photo to prove the idiocy of the shower in our 1st apartment in Istanbul.

So there you go: proof. Proof that some people should have chosen something other than engineering to major in, and they should have gone into a different field of work than bathtub engineering. This is the dumbest bathtub design I've ever seen.

In the Kitchen

My day was spent mostly in the kitchen, partly thanks to my trip to the Sunday Bazaar. I just found too many things that I needed thought looked good and couldn't leave without.


2 kilos of zucchini for baby food, stir-fry, zucchini bread, pasta primavera, and minestrone soup.


200 grams of walnuts for granola bars, oatmeal, and zucchini bread.


1/2 kilo of spinach for minestrone soup. And something else...to be determined.


3 kilos of pumpkin for baby food, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, and maybe an attempt at homemade pumpkin-spice coffee creamer.


1/2 kilo of green beans for minestrone soup, stir-fry, and pasta primavera.


1/2 kilo of plums.


A kilo of onions. For everything.


A kilo of mandarins. (Yup, mandarins. I thought they were limes too at first glance).


A kilo of potatoes for minestrone soup, baked potatoes, and mashed potatoes.


A kilo of grapes.


200 grams of cranberries for granola bars, oatmeal, and snacking.


A kilo of carrots for minestrone soup, stir-fry, pasta primavera, and maybe a first-time attempt at carrot soup.


1/2 kilo of pole beans for baby food.


A kilo of apples for muffins and applesauce.


1/2 kilo of broccoli for stir-fry, pasta primavera, and maybe with baked potatoes or fettuccine alfredo.


200 grams of almonds for snacking on.

Not a bad haul for $30, huh?

A Trip to the Store

Today I made our bi-monthly trip to Carrefour to buy some food staples that we were out of. Usually I buy our produce at the bazaars and I buy things like flour, sugar, and eggs (either really heavy stuff or really fragile stuff) at the small stores that are only a 5-minute walk away. But some things are just a lot cheaper at Carrefour, and some things I just can't find anywhere except Carrefour. So, today I got this:



a pack of napkins
spaghetti noodles
fettuccine noodles
olive oil
chickpeas
diced tomatoes
2 liters of milk
chocolate chips
breadcrumbs
a block of cheese
4-pack of baby yogurt
4-pack of strawberry yogurt
2 avocados
1 head of lettuce (not pictured)
250-gram wedge of Parmesan
dried oregano (or thyme...the word is the same in Turkish so I'm never really sure...)
dried basil
dried onion flakes (kind of like onion powder, but not. It's the closest we can get here, though.)

I am always amazed at how expensive food is here. In North Carolina, I could feed Shannon and myself for $50 a week. We ate well. I shopped sales and used coupons, but even if I hadn't used coupons, I probably could have done it on $60-65. Enter Istanbul. We definitely spend more on food and toiletries here than we ever did in the States.

So, here's something for you all to do, if you want to and/or are bored and up for a challenge. Sorry, no (big) prizes this time.

Try to put my groceries in price order from most expensive to least expensive (per item). If anyone can get this list correct, maybe I'll go buy you a fun pair of earrings. A hint: the Parmesan was the most expensive and the oregano was the least expensive. You cannot participate in this if you live or have lived in Turkey.

And, for fun, what do you think my grand total on groceries was? Remember, I got no meat and no produce (except for 2 avocados and head of lettuce).

Maybe one day I'll have perfected the art of sticking to our grocery budget. But for now...each month I go over. Sigh.