Our Marine Ball was held on Thursday night so instead of spending the day cooking a turkey and trimmings, I spent it doing hair and makeup! Though I did miss the leftovers today, it was a great event last night, despite that damn winter beard I swear my husband grows just to annoy me! This isn’t the best quality picture in the world but I think we look cute.
For my fellow Americans, I hope your Turkey Day was equally wonderful; for my international friends, I hope you had an enjoyable Thursday 
oh the shame…
I took these pictures yesterday afternoon to serve as my before pictures. Even knowing that we will never have guests here in Saudi, this state of affairs is terrible. Between the tubs of Christmas decorations, the stacks of empty boxes, the Welcome Kit stuff that needs to be returned to work, the piles of clothes to donate, and the boxes that haven’t been unpacked since I arrived, these two rooms are a disaster.
Red circles= empty boxes
Yellow circles= clothing to be donated
Fuchsia circles= Welcome Kit stuff to be returned
Aqua circle= clothing to be sent to my sister
(excuse the weird curves- these are merged from several individual pictures)
I focused on the back bedroom (the first picture) because it is the bigger room and the one I thought would be easier to deal with despite its size. The smaller second bedroom is the one where my cleaning lady just dumps anything she isn’t sure how to handle and so it is full of just random stuff (and as you can see) empty boxes.
That said, did take a few minutes to clear the empty boxes out of the smaller bedroom which made an immediate improvement as pictured below. I don’t have any pictures of the bigger back bedroom because I kept working until after the sun set and so the lighting made it impossible. I am about halfway through that room which makes me happy- I intend to finish it tomorrow and then hopefully still have time to work on the second smaller bedroom as well.
Between the Eid al-Adha holiday and the Veteran’s Day long weekend, today is the first day of a 10 day vacation from work; add in the 2 extra days I’m taking and I’ve got a nice little 12 day holiday ahead. I’m heading to Paris to meet my mom and aunt on Monday night; until them I’m holding down the fort for work (we always need coverage in country even when the office is closed). Brad is already home in Iowa so I have the house to myself, and- as usual- I have a list of projects I hope to get done before I head out of town.
I want to clean out the two guest rooms, boxing up the last of the welcome kit to return to work and getting rid of the stacks of empty cardboard boxes from my mail-order addiction. I need to always have a few boxes on hand to mail stuff out, but the current stock is excessive. I want to open up and unpack the last few boxes that were shipped here from DC last year. I’m pretty sure I don’t need the contents since I have done so well without them, but you never know. At the very least, I should be able to get rid of some stuff.
I’m giving myself today to lounge around, read a book, and generally be lazy because the last couple of weeks at work have been tiring. Tomorrow, I’m determined to tackle the big back bedroom- I’ll take before and after pictures to help keep me accountable.
Unrelatedly, do you like my newest side table pictured above? He is the cutest camel ever with lovely big feet. I named him Mustafa. My husband is a bit worried I’m naming the furniture, but really I ask how anyone could resist naming this little guy? If I start naming the couch, well then that might be a sign I’m teetering on the edge…
