My Life...

Really is not all that exciting.  But for some reason, I just can't remember to update this blog!  There are days where I just go,go,go...but not very often.  But whatever it is I'm doing it sure is making my time here pass quickly, and for that I have no complaints. 
Last week seemed to be a pretty busy week, but was full of exciting things.  I'll give you a general idea of what my days consist of.
I go to the gym every morning (well...mostly every morning..I am now getting to that point where I hate when I DON'T go to the gym!) If I don't go it's because I have a morning commitment or my gym partners can't make it. (Which really doesn't give me an excuse, but I make it one!) Anyhow, so after the gym this is usually what happens:
Mondays: Trip to the market. I love going to the market...nothing like getting fresh fruits and vegetables to use for the week for eh, about 5-10 TL (depending on how much I buy that week) which equates to about $3-6. I'm talking bier (one) kilo (about 2.2 pounds) each of tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, bananas, oranges, lettuce, apples, anything and everything! It's amazing! I love it!

Tuesdays: Every other Tuesdays I volunteer with the Brownies for Girl Scouts. One of my friends, L, has a daughter in the troop so I go and help out with her.  It's so much fun and brings back lots of memories of my childhood days as a Girl Scout. Just the other day at our meeting they were singing the "Make New Friends" song and it brought a smile to my face as I remember us reciting the song often.

Make new friends but keep the old,
One is silver and the other gold.

A circle's round, but has no end
That's how long I want to be your friend.

Last Tuesday night, I went to a Bunco night with a bunch of other spouses.  Before moving here to Turkey, I had never heard of Bunco.  So one day, I decided to try it out and now I play all the time.  I think I like it so much because it requires no thought process or skill, you just roll the dice!! haha (how pitiful) It's a lot of fun and a good way to meet other spouses.

Wednesdays: I don't typically do a whole lot.  But last week was a different story.  One of (actually, a lot of them) the Bunco ladies LOVES to go shopping in downtown Adana, and has made her deals with a bunch of the stores.  Well, this last time she went shopping she invited us girls along. Holy cow, were we in Heaven!! She has this particular store that she buys Pashminas (or scarves as we call them) from and gets a really great price...like 5TL/piece! Here in the Alley (right outside the gates) we pay AT LEAST 8 DOLLARS a piece! It was chaos in that store when the 15 of us American ladies went to town! haha Not only did this store have a HUGE selection of pashminas, but also minx blankets, copper tea sets, towels, all kinds of goodies.  All in all, I think we estimated the group of us spent at least 1000TL just in that store.  This is what it looked like when we were done:

 It was great. I can't wait to go back and buy more! :) The crazy thing about these is in The States, they can go for $100 and more..and we can get them for $3 here. I will admit that you get used to how cheap things are around here real quick!
After we spent at least 40 minutes in that store, we headed for lunch. I have seen these things called "Doner"s all over the place, but have never tried one myself.  Well, now I can say I have and that I actually enjoyed it! They put shaved meat (usually chicken or lamb, this was chicken) on a piece of bread big enough to roll into a wrap and add lettuce, tomato, and pickle to it and tah-dah! you have a "Doner". It was rather tasty!



this is how they make it

 So, anyhow, after we all had lunch (for less than 5TL) we headed to a different store that had hand-carved, wooden, Pashmina boxes.  I had all intentions of buying one (as if I have all the pashminas to hold in this box, haha) but once I got to the store and all the boxes were picked over, I decided to wait until next time. You had the option of light wood, dark wood, lined, un-lined, square, octagon, windows or no windows.  I just couldn't decide which one I wanted so I decided to wait.  But don't worry, before I left there was something that caught my eye. J-Twice has been asking for a magazine rack/holder (whatever you choose to call them) and I just haven't seen any that had caught my eye, but this one did! And since we (or should I say, someone else so kindly) haggeled down the price (because that is how they do business around here) to 30TL (again, 20-ish dollars) I just couldn't pass it up.  Yet another Turkish treasure for us to take along in our adventures! After this, we all ventured back to the base and called it a day. It was a blast, and I can not wait to go again!

Thursdays: The second and fourth Thursdays I volunteer for the MOPS on base.  Only, I volunteer in the "MOPPETS room"...AKA....free babysitting for two hours while the moms enjoy a class.  It can be hectic some weeks, but for the most part, it can be a fun time. Nothing like coloring, playing with play doh, reading books, playing cars for a few hours, and socializing with the other volunteers.
Every Thursday afternoon, some other ladies and I volunteer for the coupon program. We aren't exactly sure how we got suckered into this, but we haven't quit just yet. LOL  Overseas bases can use expired coupons for 6 months past the expiration date; so a lot of VFW groups, nursing homes, school groups cut and send in coupons for us to use in our commissaries.  So we as volunteers get to open every package we receive, fill up ziplock bags, and disperse them around the base for the families to use. My mother now refers to me as "the coupon lady". HAHA Either way, I saved $33 off my grocery bill the other day by using the coupons! :)

Fridays: Friday is another day that I don't typically have a lot going on. Like, last Friday, I spent the rainy day at home cleaning and doing laundry..bleh, boring!! But this Friday night, I'll be playing Bunco again! woo hoo, here's to hoping to win an AWESOME prize!! (maybe that pashmina box!haha)

So, like I said...my days aren't always filled with much of anything exciting but I make the most of it.  And, my friends and I like to fill in with lunch dates, movie afternoons, craft afternoons, shopping, and soon...pool days!! Yay!! (And yes, mother, I know I need to be filling my days with school work!! Soon. I think. haha) While there are some days I wish I had a job, most days I enjoy having the freedom to do whatever it is I please!

Thanks for sticking with me through this long post!

Until next time...




Snow Tubing in Turkey

Ever since December, I have wanted to go snow tubing. The Outdoor Rec. Center here offers a day trip just about every weekend. In December, a whole group of us had planned to go, but plans fell through.  FINALLY, I got to go yesterday.  It was just going to be my friend,K, and I because no one else would go....J-Twice and his buddies were going to play paintball. Then, one of them heard I was going tubing and he decided he'd rather do that instead. In the end, it was K, J-Twice, his friend, and I.  This place was only 1.5 hours away, so it wasn't a bad trip. We got there....and were totally disappointed. For this is what the ground looked like:

Can you believe this!?!?! How were we supposed to snow tube in THIS amount of snow? Apparently the area did not get a whole lot of snow the past week! So, we grabbed a tube, we "hiked" our way up the hill, we looked around...and we sat there. Well, we didn't really sit there...we made snow balls and threw them at each other.  I was trying to be like Buddy The Elf, and stocking up on my snowballs. HA.HA. 

There were rocks everywhere...so we weren't too sure where exactly we were supposed to tube down. We all wondered how exactly we were going to do this and not hurt ourselves...and most importantly..did we really want to walk ALL the way back up the hill after we got down?!!

Finally, J-Twice's friend was a punk and pushed me down the hill. Which meant I pushed the lady and her tube that were in front of me. We went forward, we went backwards, we twisted and we turned, we dodged rocks and shrubs. We laughed the whole way down...and then the rest of the group followed. Except for K, her tube was deflating.

My toes were ice cold because my rain boots weren't doing too good of a job keeping them warm, my gloves were soaking wet from making snow balls, and we were getting hungry! I added another pair of socks to my cold toes, I switched gloves, and K and I decided to make it lunch time.

The Outdoor Rec. Center provided hot dogs and Coke, which the boys ate(I had one too), and K and I packed our PB&J, and other goodies.  After lunch was over and we were heated up by the sunshine, the boys were ready to go. Here, you can see them talking to the bus driver asking him if it were possible for us to leave sooner than scheduled. LOL. PUNKS!!! Unfortunately for them, the rest of the group was not ready to leave.  They still wanted to go down the hill a few more times. 

K had not been down the hill yet, so we had to do that at least once so she got her money's worth.  K and I headed up the hill after the rest of the group that wanted to continue on.  They had come up with the idea of making a train of tubes...it was hilarious. We had such a blast! I thought it was much better than going down on our own.  In this case, you were less likely to go tubing right into the rocks. Only, we hit a bump and you had to be sure to hold on to the person's feet behind you (which I almost let go! Not my fault his legs were short!!ha ha)  We did this about four times...and would have continued to do it many more times...except the hike back up the small hill was breath taking!! And not to mention, leave it to me, walking on ice is NOT  a good idea...because you are likely to fall and bruise your toosh and knee! :)

Anyhow, by this time in the day, lots of Turkish people were arriving.  They didn't have gloves, barely had heavy coats on, and were in their regular, everyday clothes. One guy went down the hill and was stopping himself with his bare hands..umm...COLD!!! They were using our tubes also, and quickly figured out that tube trains were lots of fun too.  The hill was nice and slick by the time all of us were done.

So, while there may not have been much snow and the hill wasn't as great as we wanted it to be, we still made the most of it and had a great time.  There was no hot cocoa or roasting marshmellows, but we had our lukewarm Coke and bags of fruit and chips! ha ha We can now say we went tubing in the mountains of Turkey.  (I even heard the ski slopes weren't that great around here, but it's all in what you make of it in my opinion.)

I certainly have not missed all the snow and ice all of you friends and family are receiving in the States, but it was nice to have one day to play in it, and not have to deal with it daily! It's pretty to look at, for a day! :)

Until next time!