IT’S FREAKING FINISHED!!!!!

I mean what a relief. I worked for 11 straight hours with Tom and two workers (and all of the orphans for the last couple of hours) to finally finish my freaking playground! We cut about 100 square meter sections of grass, loaded them on a huge dump truck, then unloaded and put them on the playground. We got all of the sod put down at 8pm and realized we still needed 4 square meters of grass. My body is going through complete shock having worked all day since it normally does nothing athletic besides walking around town or throwing a baseball with Tom for an hour. I’ve been shaking for hours and had several dizzy spells-I’m not joking. I have 3 massive hand blisters and am filthy, but it is done, so I am happy as can be. The pictures on today’s blog will be of the progression of the playground that only took 2 months to complete. It feels good to have that and America Day all wrapped up. They both ended up successes, but I sure did learn a lot about how things work here while working on these projects. Hopefully I can learn from that and avoid some of the pitfalls I found in my future projects.

Last week was really low key. It was my boss’ birthday, so I didn’t see him at all last week. That means I spent very little time at work. I read a bunch, started working out for the first time since last September, and relaxed. Now that the projects are done, I will be spending this week planning the Egypt trip, reading a ton, and looking for a new house. My land lady told me she is not moving out and her son is going to move in with her. That means that I am not happy and leaving as soon as I can find a new place. Renting homes and living alone are just two things that they don’t comprehend well here. I think she never planned on leaving and thought I would just let her stay there after I saw how nice she was. WRONG! I am going to head up to Sheki to help Magda with a marketing project on Thursday (should be my first hot all day bus ride of 2007-can’t wait!) and Friday. I think we will go hiking in the mountains around Sheki during the weekend, so I’m really excited about that. It should be a nice and relaxed way to spend my bday. Tom takes off for America on Friday, so we are cooking a Mexican feast for his office and a couple of other friends on Tuesday night. We will see if they like enchiladas as much as they liked lasagna.

Well Ron and Becky will be here a week from Friday, so that is exciting. I sent them a wish list that includes ladder golf, a 9 iron and some golf balls and other miscellaneous fun things! Alison takes off this week for a tour de Europe that will end meeting us in Cairo and then coming back to AZ with me for a few days. It will be fun to show the family my new home country and to see their reactions at my current life style. I’ve always been the odd ball of the family, so this should just further enforce that in their minds…

Happy Memorial Day Everybody!!!!