Oops!...I did it again

I put myself through the anxiety of flying. Not once, not twice. Six times. In two weeks.

Every single one of those flights was stressful in its own way. The first couple were ok, except for taking off on the Airbus A380. I had gotten geekily excited when I found out that we could book our Dubai-Singapore leg of the journey on the A380 within our budget. Little did I know that these beasts take off at the speed of a snail. And when you have the sort of "I know better than the pilot" flight anxiety, you begin to convince yourself that the plane has neither gathered enough speed to lift off nor is the take off "normal". However, it was an experience.

The return journey of that same leg was, shall we say, more upbeat? As in, the plane was dancing for approximately 5 of the 7 hours of the flight? My nerves were definitely in a state. The silver lining however was that if you tense your muscles for 2 hours straight and have that much adrenaline pulsing through your body, you're eventually going to wear yourself out and fall asleep as a result. So I did manage to get a couple of hours of sleep. When I did groggily wake up, we had hit the sort of turbulence that compels the captain to turn on the fasten seat-belt sign. But, I was still luckily quite exhausted and managed to survive the whole ordeal without any tears! Saba 1 - Turbulence 0.

It was also the first time I was genuinely worried during landing. I'm normally the biggest fan of landing, since it means we are getting closer to the ground. On this particular flight, the captain just couldn't balance the plane, and he touched down so slightly, only to bounce and then touch down again...and to top it off, the plane leaned to the right a little too much...lovely! 

Despite all of these stressful hours spent 38,000 feet above ground, I did manage to get a bit more sleep while we were grounded in Dubai for over 4 hours due to heavy fog. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I ever did leave Europe.

Pics of the holiday and some sightseeing tips will follow once I'm over this jet lag!

Sx

Well done Coca-Cola

Guys. I have to hand it to Coca-Cola for designing a Saba-proof can. So the other day we were in the supermarket and I was craaaaving a coke like crazy. So I got one. After we got home and had unpacked the shopping, I thought to myself (oh so smartly)

"I'm gonna stick this can in the freezer so that by the time I'm done changing into my pjs it'll be nice and ice cold" (yes, I was gonna drink coke before bed. I'm an adult thankyouverymuch)

Aaanyway. 

Two days later, I open the freezer to fish out ice-cream or some other health damaging pre-bed snack when I noticed the can....

Louis, what I feel is correctly, commented that Coca-Cola must've paid someone to test this, figuring there would be some idiot in the world who would forget a coke can in the freezer.

We were too afraid to leave it anywhere where it could do more harm, ie anywhere I would have any say over where I could interact with it, so we wrapped it in a bag and stuck it in a bucket in the spare bathroom.

Lo and behold the next morning it was in tact and on it's way back to being a liquid. After I got home from work I decided, ooooo I'd really like that Coke now...but it was warm by that point. Sooooo, I put it back...

...in the fridge (have *some* faith in me people!) but then forgot about it for another two days.*

However, when I did eventually sit down to drink my coke, not only was it cold, it was surprisingly still fizzy.

Well done Coca-Cola. Well done.

Sx

*my memory is comparable to that of a gold fish, and the only way I manage to hold down an admin job is to carry around a notebook at work and write down every-single-thing-in-the-world.

Sometimes

Sometimes, when life has been giving you a lot of lemons, your wonderful husband comes home with a bunch of flowers.

And things are just instantly better.

Sx

New Glasses!!

I went for an eye test the other day. The results were shocking really. My eyesight had not changed since my last eye test in 2011. Not.a.single.bit.

In my 16+ years of wearing glasses, every single time I went for an eye test, the results showed my eyesight getting worse. Year. After year. After year. After year. It's a wonder I don't wear some form of binoculars really. You get the picture. Except for one year, when my eyesight actually got BETTER. Apparently that can happen. 

The thing is, every time I tell people that I've been wearing contacts for 15+ years (cuz I hate my glasses and avoid wearing them in public), they're always like "get LASIK!". And my reply is....uuuuuuhhh no. I'm terrified you see. I don't quite know why, but I know that I'm terrified. Also, I had heard that your eyesight needed to be stable for 2 years before going under the beam, and well, that had never happened until now.

And sometimes I wonder whether I've probably spent more money over 15 years on contacts then I would have doing corrective eye surgery. But the other night, I decided to calculate it. 

Thus. If I spend approximately £20 a month on contacts then:

£20x12 = £240x15 = £3600

And, frankly, £3600 is less than, say, two Chanel handbags. Which makes me feel a lot better that, no, I have not spent a small fortune on contact lenses. In fact, if you only count the two years that I have not had a change in eyesight (which is not accurate because you'd have to wait two years before surgery) then you'd get:

£20x24 months = £480.

No one's gonna fix my eyes for that little (and if they could, I'm not sure I'd want them to!). 

So Lasik, you'll have to wait. 

Sx

These are my new frames that I get to pick up from the opticians soon (selfies are not our friend).

~2013~

Am I the only one or has 2013 whizzed by? I can almost remember sitting down this time last year to write about the things I was thankful for in 2012. 

There have definitely been some trying times over this past year. Having my career up in the air was one, but I am now in a role that I love for a company that I can see myself staying with for a while. In the last 12 months, I've changed jobs twice and careers once (*ahem* once more since my last change. Ja.). This is going to sound cheesy, but I never thought I could actually enjoy what I do, and now that I do, I'm so thankful (and so scared that I'm going to jinx it!). I'm looking forward to learning a lot more and for once giving myself the chance to exceed at something. Of course this doesn't come without the doubts I instil in my mind, but it's a learning curve to trust that I have the ability to excel rather than inadvertently stand in my own way.

2013 saw an abundance of parties and various road trips, where we met so many interesting people. Living as an expat of course does mean that many of them have moved to other corners of the world, but a lot of memories were made and it's nice to look forward to seeing these friends in new and exciting cities. It's always refreshing to meet people who you know you'll want to keep in touch with long after your travels. 

Travelling was pretty fantastic in 2013. Cape Town in February, Sharm El Sheikh in August, Dubai in October and then Yemen in November! Phew! A couple of those trips were done alone, so hopefully in 2014 all my travels will be with Louis! There are plans for travels to South East Asia and the UK in the next year, but I hope that we'll find the time and money to go on some city breaks in between as well, since I'd love to go to Istanbul and Beirut. 

I am also really happy that this year I managed to get my act together and go home to Yemen for a few days. To say it was an overdue visit would be the understatement of the year. My soul was undernourished in the family department for sure, and though three days was a little bit too short, it's better than nothing. Seeing (and, embarrassingly, meeting for the first time) two of my nephews was beyond exciting. I made friends with  the 3 year old one (the other one is only 5 months!) and I miss them both so much.  

And that pretty much sums up my 2013!

-| In 2014 |-

1. Be more considerate. I have a habit of putting myself before anyone / anything. I think that this has come on as a result of trying to care for myself, but taken too far. I've yet to find a balance between making sure that I don't compromise on my well-being and making sure that I think of how my actions and words affect those around me. So that's something for me to work on in the new year.

2. Save up for a camera and take more photos! 

Good Bye 2013!

Sx 

 

Seed Mix

I am no domestic goddess. I normally do more eating than cooking. My brothers lovingly commented that I'd probably starve in university due to my inability to cook. It's a miracle I have a husband of 4 years. 

Anyway. I was inadvertently once introduced to a seed mix by The Food Doctor while I was in the UK. I bought it and started sprinkling seeds on my salads and muffins, and anything else really as a nice source of some healthy oils. Then my local Tesco stopped stocking this particular product. So I looked at the ingredients and decided to start making my own mix. I would buy Tesco's 4-seed mix and top it up with some poppy seeds since they have some nice health benefits too.

Since coming to Jordan, I've been too lazy to recreate the mix. Until now! I got my act together, bought some linseeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and poppy seeds and I thought I'd do a little post and spread the joy of seed mixes :) Now I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure you can use different seeds to the ones I've used here ;)

Sx

The stars of our show.

Brown linseeds & sunflower seeds.

Pumpkin & sesame seeds.

Couldn't find these in a bigger container.

Put in as much / little of each seed kind as you like into a dry container. I tried to keep them equal.

Shake it [like a polaroid picture] and enjoy!

Christmas Wishlist

I know it's been a long time since I've done one of these posts, but, as Christmas is around the corner, it's a perfect excuse to make a wishlist! I always claim that I'm super duper easy to buy gifts for. A simple gift card from the right shop is enough to raise my spirits. 

So, here's my last (and pretty massive, I know) wishlist of 2013!

Sx

****************************************************

Speaking of gift cards, you can't go wrong with an Amazon gift card. I would personally use it for Kindle books, stationary and some other pretty random things for the house.

I've had my Kindle for 2 years now and I can't go anywhere without it. My model is the one with the keyboard, so finding decent yet fun covers is a real struggle. I'm loving the idea of putting your Kindle in a chic envelope, or using this colourful birds cover to help spot it among the mess in my purse!

Envelope//Birds

I'm still vying for one of these CSC babies. Gorgeous colour.

From here.

Travelling in style is, unfortunately, not my style but I'm hoping to change that in 2014. Can't go wrong with a bright, leather travel wallet, to store all your essentials. I always carry my passport, itinerary, travel insurance details, important numbers and a few passport photos when I travel. They'd look a lot nicer in a wallet like this! 

Asos Premium.

It's winter again and Amman is getting cold. I've managed with staying warm by throwing on a coat until now but I'll soon need some heavy duties earmuffs and mittens to brave the weather. And who said earmuffs are only cool until the age of 4?!

Earmuffs//Mittens

Though it's the beginning of winter, I am a believer in looking ahead. Looking ahead in these oh so fetch Ray-Bans [I just watched Mean Girls, can't help it].

Fetch, non?

Last, but by no means least, a girl can dream in a little Tiffany bling :D

In case you're wondering, here & here.