Why My Life is soooooo Expensive....THIS Week

There is a direct correlation between my husband's business trips out
of the country and the general maintenance and upkeep of our flat! What
I mean to say is, THERE IS A FRIGGIN' CONSPIRACY GOING ON HERE!
No, really. I mean it. He left for Greece 10 days ago and 9 days ago, Randa
pulled the slide bolt lock off the front door...which I still haven't put back on.
I have to unscrew the entire mount off the door in order to get the slide bolt
back on it. So, of course, I've procrastinated.

The week before he left, I pointed out to Mohamed that the kitchen sink was
draining a little bit slowly. He told me to just run some hot water down the
drain and whatever was stuck would free itself up. So, I went ahead with my
life as usual and figured it'll just be a little slow, no big deal. Then Samiya and
Aiman got this bright idea to help me. They figured that something was stuck
in the drain and took one of the 20-inch skewers from my grill and jammed
it into the drain of the sink, attempting to knock whatever food particle down
and saving the plumbing day! Well, they were not aware that we removed the
metal pipes that we'd originally installed and replaced them with these little
plastic accordion type pipes. So when they jammed the skewer down, they
punctured 4 or 5 holes into it which did fix the water clogged in the sink....but
it all came out onto the kitchen floor. *sigh* I eventually had to get a plumber
to come and snake out the pipes in the wall (yay...it's fixed) and it cost me 10
pounds.

Today I tried to take a shower to wake myself up and discovered that while
there IS hot water in the hot water heater, it comes out in a trickle. So because
I was really funky and sweaty, I had to take the world's fastest freezing cold
shower. I couldn't even wash my hair because I couldn't stand how cold it was.
I don't even know how to go about fixing this.

Ismail broke his glasses fighting with Hamo and I put them on top of the fridge
to fix them later. I cannot find them anywhere. I am afraid Randa found them
and threw them in the trash. That's all we can figure...they still haven't turned
up. That's gonna cost me another 250 pounds.

Now before all of this damage (except the slide bolt lock) I went shopping for
underwear because all of us needed them. I only buy cotton underwear. It's
healthy and it breathes and it lasts. I spent 172 pounds on underwear for all
5 kids, me, three undershirts, and one bra! Just one pair of underwear for me
was 17 pounds! Can you imagine???? Would you spend 17 dollars on one pair
of cotton panties for yourself? Outrageous.

Also, some idiot in the Egyptian government has decided to pad his bank
account or that of his relatives by killing off all the chickens in the country.
I'm 100% convinced that someone in the govt has some sort of investment
in the frozen poultry business. Since no one ever buys frozen chicken because
the fresh is cheaper, they're slaughtering all the chickens to force us to buy frozen.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't care. However, Randa has quit eating anything in the
protein dept except for chicken. So I'm forced to spend 12 pounds for a chick-sized
chicken that wouldn't feed one of us, let alone all of us. I hate corruption.

Oh, and one last thing.....I have FUSCIA hair. I know this has nothing to do with
my expensive high-maintenance home or my kids or my husband working abroad.
But I have FUSCIA hair. I'm 40 yrs old and I dyed my hair FUSCIA....What the hell
is wrong with me? I'm an American with 5 kids (one of which is autistic and shouts
a lot to herself in public) living in Egypt...THE LAST THING I NEED IS TO
DRAW MORE ATTENTION TO MYSELF!

I wonder if I can afford a week inpatient at the local mental institution.

So, What's Up With This Damn Economy Anyway?

So, I'm seeing that the whole "job thing" is desolate. My brother is
now heading out to California to work for a while and I've got friends worried about whether
or not they can hurry up and pay up their mortgage in order to only be one or two months
behind! It's not just in the US, either. Europe's job market can be described in a word: sucky.
Egypt has always had a fairly high unemployment rate....but now even Supermarket owners
are complaining that people are cutting back on food!!!! Now THAT is crazy. My question is
this: WHY is it that so many people are complaining about how broke they are and STILL
can afford cell phones, internet services, new clothes, shoes, Botox, new boobs, and fast food
meals each week?! Clearly, SOME of the people complaining about the economy are in fact
still living life as they have with little to no change. I'm one of those weirdos who can adapt to
any society (practically) and any situation. We moved to Egypt seven and a half years ago.
Having moved around all over the world my entire life, I never considered it to be more than
a slight headache or at most, a severe case of the hiccups. Most of my friends and family
thought that living overseas outside of the military or diplomatic community would bear to be
too much on us and the novelty would wear off and we'd be running back to the land of golden
arches, Wal*Mart (damn them all) and pantyhose sold in plastic eggs 24 hours a day. They
were wrong. While yes, I miss the hell out of most of the modern conveniences that I grew
to consider "normal", I have realized that I CAN live without them.
We have always lived "bare bones minimum" since we've been married. I think the only
extra we ever really had was a $24.00 a month satellite tv bill and an affection for flavored
fru-fru coffee beans. Still we always bought generic store brands vice Starbucks. Now that we
are in Egypt, we're even more skeletal in our purchasing. We own our flat outright. Paid for it
with cash in full 6 years ago. Great investment if you can pull it off. When we bought this place,
the price per square meter was a little under 1000 Egyptian Pounds. Today it's 3 times that!
Also, since we live in a city full of public transportation, we do not own a car. This saves a ton of
money on car payments, insurance, maintenance and gas. Of course, in the US, outside of New
York, downtown Baltimore, Boston or Chicago, this is not just an inconvenience. It's stupid.
Suburbia requires a vehicle. But NOT a Suburban or some other gas-guzzling SUV.
In Maryland, I bought ketchup on sale. In Egypt, I make my own. (Really easy, too. I mix equal parts of sugar and tomato paste, add a pinch of salt, pepper, cinnamon, ground cloves, cayenne pepper and 1 T of vinegar a little water to desired consistency and mix.) Now maybe
you're thinking, "How much can she possibly save making her own ketchup?" Well, here ketchup
is pretty pricey. So I can actually save quite a lot. One jar of tomato paste costs me the same as a small bottle of ketchup. That jar of tomato paste can make me the equivalent of 6 bottles of ketchup. I also have learned to make brown sugar (they don't sell it here) and clarified butter (just wanted to learn.) I bought a sewing machine and make my own bedsheets (fitted ones too)
and curtains and throw cushions and big cushions so the kids will stop fighting over "my seat"
when watching tv. And I'm no Martha Stewart, either. I did try to make a dress once. It took me
a year and a half and it came out really funky. Not bad on a first try but not anything I'm patient enough to try again anytime soon.
At the end of the day, I guess I probably average spending about 60 dollars a day here (if you look at the Egyptian Pound as equal to the US Dollar...which it isn't actually. That'd be 10 dollars
a day....but if you think of it this way...the amount of work to earn 1 dollar is the same as the amount of work to earn 1 pound.....it's all same.) That daily average covers food, bills, incidentals like dentist, medicines, stitches for the kid who refused to stop swinging like tarzan on his belt he'd attached to the hinge of his closet door, etc. Not bad, huh?
Granted I could quite easily return to the days of Sonic burger drive-thru trips once a week or pre-packaged shredded cheese from the grocery store and buying an automatic drip coffee pot with an alarm clock in it at 3 in the morning JUST BECAUSE I CAN.............but why? Why
not use the money for something better like spending a fun day at the zoo or the beach with my
kids and my husband. Really, it's all about prioritizing.