1st day back

i got 7.7 hours of sleep, an accomplishment that i proudly relay to mohammad. he's properly impressed as he should be. as he should be. i woke up excited--with a purpose. back to work! back to routine! i decided to walk to work. mr. al helaal was skeptical. "take the bus," he coaxed. "you have heavy things to carry." i smiled and shrugged. "it will be ok with my backpack." so he conceded but not without a grimace. he doesn't like me to experience any difficulties. poor guy. saving a wife like me from challenging situations is like holding out your hand to stop a tsunami.

speaking of tsunamis, one time mohammad told me there was an earthquake in alaska and that they were expecting a tsunami. i looked it up and reported back. 3cm tsunami. we thought that was so funny.

back to my day, we had a really nice time together walking to work. the sky was clear and the moon was bright and the sun was rising. we even got to walk through our favourite park. mohammad noted branches that he felt were too low for safety. we talked about many things. 

it took me 42 minutes. we 'kissed' goodbye at the elevator and i re-entered the world of work.

then i spent the bulk of the day adding to a list of things to do that grew longer and longer as the day went on. there's too much to do. we had japanese chicken curry for lunch. i really wanted to find a sweet thing after lunch but i chewed mentos peppermint gum instead. 

i ended up staying to 6 working on timesheets.

back at home i ate cabbage rolls and chatted with mom for a while.

the latest news on our marriage registration is that they just have to do some security checks (on me) and that they may finally be done in one or two weeks. pray for us.

these days aleppo has been colder than vancouver with night time temps below freezing. mohammad is always clad in hat and scarf, layers of jackets and sweaters. two pairs of pants. one time i convinced him to put on dad's big thinsulate gloves. he feels like a boxer with them on, but they're warm, ok. mom and i don't like how cold he has to be all the time. the scarf i brought him is red and orange. these are women's colours in syria, apparently. but he saw another guy wearing such a colour so he feels brave enough to wear it in public. still his daughter was surprised to see him in it. he laughed and explained that in canada men wear this colour. one day it was raining so hard that all the streets were flooded and mohammad was soaked through all his layers and sloshing in his shoes. that's while using the rusty umbrella i gave him. outside of aleppo they even had snow.

here's a gorge pic or 2 of sarah:

gotta go, little sis is swatting at my typing fingers and gnawing on my thumb.