Doings

For those of you who keep track of our oh-so-exciting lives, I'll fill in the boring (and not easily made clever or funny) details.

We're leaving for Cairo in a week and half, Monday the 27th of July, and so have been tying up all of the loose ends involved with moving to another country. I am constantly amazed by how much one can spend at Target with a cart that really isn't that full. $15 for one Rubbermaid tote isn't that bad, but when you buy three, the numbers start to add up. And Old Navy must love me for all of the clothes I have bought in preparation for the next few seasons, both for the girls and Edwin. I've just come to accept that one of the prices of living overseas is paying more for clothes. Sigh.

To make room for all of the new clothes, we've been cleaning out closets. I've discovered, like my sister Laura has, that with every move one grows more ruthless about what you really want to haul around with you. That shirt? Sure, it I still could wear it, but do I want to? Off to Goodwill!

To make sure I still fit in all of the clothes I've been buying for next summer, we bit the bullet and bought a treadmill, something I'd never thought of owning until I added up some numbers: 1 me + 2 seats in the stroller + 3 children = not enough room. Sigh.

I'm also bidding adieu to the rest of my possessions for the next 2 or 3 months and trying to decide what we really can't do without and then deciding whether it is worth taking in our suitcases. I've decided to take my knives, and I'd really like to take my knife sharpener, but we'll just have to see.

In addition to bidding adieu to my possessions, we're also bidding adieu to all of those friends that somehow we didn't get around to seeing until the week before we left, which has involved a lot of cooking. I think I'll be ready to quit cooking for awhile (which incidentally I'm writing this post to avoid) after this last go and abandon myself to the luxury of everything-including-McDonald's-will-get-delivered-to-your-door when we get to Cairo. Ahh, third world countries....

And of course, we've been working our way through the requisite barrage of paperwork, shots (that was very popular with the girls), passports, visas, travel arrangements, moving arrangements, housing arrangements, disposing of everything we'd like to leave behind, and trying to think of anything else we might have forgotten.

Kathleen and Sophia are dealing tolerably well, although Sophia has recently decided that she only wants to eat food while sitting on our laps. Kathleen is coping by putting her swimsuit on every day in preparation for going swimming frequently in Cairo. She's also excited about eating all of the treats we bought at Target.

And my balm in Gilead? An Egyptian woman, named Re-Re, who will come every week and clean my house and do my grocery shopping for me. Although I don't deserve it, I sure will enjoy it!