24 hours

The last 24 hours have been for the birds.  Is that even the saying? Now that I think about it it's actually funny but I'm also ready for a new day. The 24 hours actually started yesterday evening.  Every Thursday night we get together with a few families that are working with NATO and watch The Amazing Race.  I always bring the treats! I love to bake but last night was another story.  I decided to try out a new recipe of  peanut butter chocolate chip bars.  Sounded yummy.  It required a whole cup of peanut butter and if you have lived overseas, you know that peanut butter is gold! Literally.  I made the recipe as it says and put it in the oven.  My oven here has it's quirks.  It is always hotter then it says and it burns everything which means I have to keep a close eye on anything that is cooking.  The recipe said that it needed 45 minutes to bake so I gave Asher a quick bath.  I got Asher out of the bath and it had only been 15 minutes. I came in the kitchen to check the bars and WHOO it smelled like a big burning piece of meat.  I opened the oven and out came a huge cloud of smoke.  The bars were completely burnt to a crisp.  The bottom of the pan was pitch black and the top was still dough.  I was annoyed.  They weren't even at a point where I could somehow save them.  They were long gone!  I wasted a whole cup of peanut butter! Sounds silly, I know.  Instead of taking a homemade treat I stopped at the store and bought a bunch of candy bars.  I'm sure that is exactly what they were hoping I would bring. Not.  My house still smells like a burnt cookie.  Ryan was nice and came home and ate a few just pretending they weren't as bad as they looked. He could sense my frustration.  Poor guy probably wanted to throw up.

This morning was a continuation of a frustrating 24 hours.  We needed to get some signed paperwork sent to the states.  I have heard that the postal service here is far from top notch but I've never tried to send anything myself.  I do know first hand that it took my moms Christmas package over two months to get here.  I knew that I needed to get the paperwork sent off today in order for it to make it in time.  I had a friend explain to me how to get to the closest post office.  Ryan is now out of town and so I got Asher in the car with all of the paperwork and we headed out.  We drove around for a while and found the post office.  It actually didn't take too long but it's in a place where I don't prefer to be just walking around.  Luckily, I found a parking spot right in front of the post office.  I had the paperwork, checks, Turkish to English Dictionary, keys, wallet and Asher.  How was I going to hold all of this?  I left Asher in his car seat, loaded everything on top of him and carried that heavy little bugger into the post office still in his car seat. This doesn't sound like a lot but if you are a mom, you know. The first thing I asked was if I could buy two envelopes.  The guy looked at me confused.  I looked up the word for envelopes.  He then told me that they don't have envelopes for sale.  What post office doesn't have envelopes for sale?!! I asked if he knew of a place in walking distance that sold envelopes and he told me there is a grocery store a little bit down the street.  I put everything back in the car, grabbed Asher out of the car seat and we started walking.  After walking for about five minutes I found the grocery store.  Closed for remodeling.  Ugh...I kept walking hoping that another grocery store would be close.  I walked for another 5 minutes when I came to another store.  Doesn't open until 10 and it was only 9.  Double ugh. Asher was getting cranky and I was already cranky.  Did I mention we were both in pajamas?  Anyway,I looked around and saw a bank.  I don't know what I was thinking but I went in the bank and like a beggar I asked for two envelopes.  Luckily, the lady working was really sweet and gave me some envelopes!  I felt so weird for asking but I was ready to be done with this outing and so I gladly took them and started the trek back to the post office.  I made it BACK to the car and put Asher BACK in the car seat so that I could write on the envelopes and carried him BACK into the post office with all of my paperwork, dictionary, checks, envelopes (finally), wallet, phone and keys.  Sense the frustration yet?  I went in the post office and got the addresses filled out when the worker gave me forms that I had to put the addresses on instead of writing them on the envelope.  Why couldn't he have given them to me the second he saw me writing on the envelopes?  Asher is now screaming in his car seat and nothing I am giving him is keeping him occupied.  I got the forms completed and he put the first envelope on the scale.  It was one envelope with a piece of paper and a check and he said it would cost me 60 Turkish Lira (about 35 dollars) to send! Are you kidding me?  I asked him why it was so expensive and he said it's because the envelope was heavy. What? He was ripping me off. Nothing frustrates me more!  I forgot to mention that as I was having broken up conversations with him and we're doing our best to understand each other people would walk on in, hand him envelopes and ask him questions as I was talking.  No, I'm not in the middle of trying to figure something out with this worker you impatient people. I'm sounding like a crazy person right now.  I'm sure you had to be there but all in all, I got so frustrated I packed my things up, grabbed Asher and headed out.  I couldn't deal with this what I guess is called a post office any longer. I'll just have to deal with that on Monday.  Actually, Ryan will have to deal with this Monday!  Asher and I went home snuggled in bed and took a two hour nap.  That made things better.  The day continued with some more frustrating things such as my car was blocked in my a moving truck for about 30 minutes until someone finally came out and moved it and also Asher dumped his snacks all over the floor a million times today.  How did he keep finding different bags, bottles and packages of snacks to spill? 

I finally just let Asher destroy the house and watch Rio.  He broke picture frames, ate chocolate chips off of the floor and dropped my headband in the toilet.  That is just the kind of 24 hours it has been! 

Here is to a new day!