the apartment, part 1

Now that my mom came to town (woohoo!) I finally cleaned the whole house all at once. Quite a task. Before a whirlwind hits again, I snapped some pictures so you can finally see the place...six months after we moved in.

It's an extremely strange layout, and there are some big spaces that are kind of giant hallways, rather than actual rooms, but we've used them as rooms, and haven't figured out what to call them. So they're more like "this corner" and "that area." Well, here goes. I'll start where you walk into the house and move from there.

You walk up a steep, narrow, 18-step staircase to be greeted by...shoes. How exciting.



Then as you turn around to face the room instead of the wall, you see one of the "halls" that doesn't really have a name.



If you walk to the other side of the "hall," you find our art corner, part 1 and part 2.





Standing in between the art corners, and facing back toward the entryway, you see this:



In the middle of this hall is a great sky light, which brings in a lot of natural light and nourishes this great plant we inherited from the previous residents. If you are still standing in the spot the above picture shows, right behind you is a gigantic closet with two parts. One we use as a utility/miscellaneous closet



and one as a clothes closet.



Also in that area we've designated a "sports shelf," to keep our climbing, baseball, basketball, and biking equipment handy.



Of near the shoes, there's a room that in the past has been used as both a bedroom and an office. Currently, it's a multi-purpose room, holding my desk (this is where I labored to finish my thesis):



the "maker corner," where we keep every odd bit of junk to take apart and rebuild into new things:



and the computer our employers keep for job purposes, but that we rarely use (not that we don't work--we do, just use our computer instead):



More in another post...

count down

We've been counting down every day Justin has been gone. We started with 101 days, and a chain the stretched across the wall. It was depressing, seeing how long it was. But slowly, slowly, a link at a time has disappeared.

The other day, Juma commented that he missed Justin so bad, and that as soon as he sees him, he's going to give him the biggest hug ever!

We miss you, Justin. Five weeks! Five weeks!

juma-ism

Juma: from the couch Mom, come here.

Sarah: What's up, babe?

Juma: I'm not sure you want me to tell you this, but...

Sarah: trying to balance the role of parent with confidante What? You can tell me, it's ok.

Juma: I think...I think I'm addicted to resting. I've been resting on this couch for an hour.

dragon and lyra

I'm pretty sure we're the worst pet owners ever. Ok, maybe we've just had bad luck.

Yes, we've had yet another pet funeral.

Actually, a double pet funeral.

Juma's two green anole lizards, Dragon and Lyra, died within a couple weeks of each other. Juma figures it was a communicable lizard disease. I doubt that, but whatever it was, we'll miss watching them chase crickets.

We always have a little funeral to help Juma cope and grasp, in his six-year-old way, a little bit about death. This time, we buried them in our backyard under a homemade gravestone.

(Juma thought the digging was a blast.)




Goodbye Dragon and Lyra!

grandma's summer reading club

Justin's Grandma Beal was a great reader, and encouraged her 13 grandchildren to read by starting a summer reading club. A certain number of pages or books earned them prizes, and at the end of the summer she'd treat all her (reading) grandkids to ice cream, toys, videos, and even grand prize money. (Justin and I, already big readers ourselves, and a bit old for the club, got the satisfaction of being able to exchange books and opinions about them with Grandma.)

We lost Grandma Beal to cancer just four days before Juma was born, this week seven years ago. Justin's mom, Vicki, re-instituted the reading club for her six grandchildren.

Juma's was a little reluctant to start, but since I allowed him to read in bed before he falls asleep, he's been reading three or four books a night. That kid, like many, will do anything to put off sleep. He's already earned the first two levels of prizes:

a slurpee




and a dollar store purchase of his choice



I've also continued to read to him, especially books that he believes are a bit hard for him. Lately, we've read The Indian in the Cupboard, the entire Great Brain series, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, and How to Eat Fried Worms, all books I read when I was a kid. We've also read most of the Harry Potter books, but have taken breaks as things get a little scary for him. We are currently paused in the middle of the Order of the Phoenix.

As for me, (Grandma Beal would like to know) I'm currently reading When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists, In Fact: The Best of Creative Non-fiction, and Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, and Speak Peace in a World of Conflict.

summer day camp: cabinet of curiosities

Juma's second week of day camp went wonderfully. He felt like the hours and days just flew by. Here are the things he created and collected.


The cabinet




Inside the cabinet




a magnifying glass



A globe




a flower




a flea circus




decorations of the inside of the door




a mummy's coffin




a mummy's coffin, opened




a castle




a bird on a bird stand




a skeleton




a ship in a bottle




a rock




a merman with spears that shoot fire and smoke




treasure maps

10 years

Happy Anniversary to us!

(1999-2001, 2003 no digital camera...)

2002




2004




2005




2006




2007




2008




2009

summer day camp: big ships

Juma attended a day camp at a local hands-on museum this past week. The theme for his class was Big Ships, and each day they build a small model of a ship out of wood, and learned about what the ship does. All week long, they worked on one big ship. He had a ton of fun designing, painting, nailing, and gluing.

Here is Juma proudly displaying his work.

A tug boat, complete with magnet to pull along the big ship (see below):




A "booby tender," the ship that takes care of all the buoys.




A coal carrier, complete with little bits of coal:




A submarine:




And the big ship itself, a battle ship, equipped with more guns than the entire US Navy:




The battle ship also comes with lifeboats:




And on the disheveled inside, you can see the engine (roundish, on the left), and some prisoners with guards watching them:

po box

Justin got a PO Box, so send him a letter!

PO Box 210
Chake Chake, Pemba
Zanzibar, Tanzania


He's also managed to send us some pictures of his adventures. Here's a sample.

He rigged up a "tripod" using basic tools, so he can take steadier pictures of documents in the archives. He photos things like court cases, newspapers, citizenship applications, and even a few "Top Secret" files. Shh, don't tell.




This is the fruit/vegetable marketplace during a rain storm. This is the "dry" season, so it rains every once in a while...like every day. The fruit in the foreground are oranges, partly peeled, which is how they are sold if they are to be eaten right away.




Every day, he eats lunch at "Obama Restaurant." This is a pretty typical meal of rice, sauce, fish (that's the head there on the right, behind the rice), greens, mango, and oranges.




Here is a typical bookstore; they shelves are usually under-filled like these ones.