Swimming

Not surprisingly, since we've moved here we swim a lot more often. As a result, Lyra's pretty comfortable in the water. I've always felt that swimming lessons were one of those must-do things every parent should enroll their kids into. And I still feel that way - but so far, we haven't had Lyra in any lessons (other than about 3 lessons we went to when she was 1-year old, but the pool water was only 75 degrees and that was just too cold for both of us). Since moving here, we have a pool in back and a pool at the health club, plus practically everywhere you go here there is a pool. So far, Lyra has been learning by just horsing around in the water - with a few tips and pointers thrown in here and there.

Last year, Lyra made the leap from needing a swimming vest to being comfortable swimming around without one. She still didn't venture too far away from the side of the pool, but was willing to swim about 5-10 yards toward us. And for the most part, she still needed to be in water that wasn't over her head.

This year, it looks like Lyra will learn to be a lot more comfortable swimming down into the deeper areas of the pool. She's been able to tread water a little bit and is feeling more and more comfortable with diving for pool toys down into the deep. Sooner or later, I still want her to get some swimming lessons, but for now - I'm just glad that she's getting a lot of opportunities to swim and get comfortable in the water.

Over the winter, we've had a bit of a break in swimming. Our pool out back doesn't have a heater - and I was surprised how many months of the year it's really out of commission. Part of it is that it doesn't really get a full day of sunshine until mid-April and that's about when it's warm enough for me. Russ got into it sometime in late March I think. Then in about late September or mid-October it's again too cold. So a good portion of the year where we really don't use it. We've thought about getting a heater - would cost about $1,400 or something like that. But never did it - and now there's only one more winter left in our stay here.

The pool at the health club is temp controlled - so we can use that a bit more. But after about November and until the end of January it's too chilly for swimming - at least for me it is. So, we do have a couple months of the year where we don't swim that much.








Sorry for the recent pause in blogging. I've had a few issues getting pictures to post onto my entries. And rather than figure it out, I've been a bit lazy.

Cats and Dogs

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

View from my chair

Here's what I look at every day from the chair at my desk.

This is one of the stations for the Dubai Metro. A couple months ago, the Dubai Metro put all their station names up for sale. So, companies, individuals, or anyone who wanted could put in a bid to have the naming rights for different stations. I haven't heard who won - so couldn't tell you what the name of this station will be. But just like everything around here - they probably will never go by their official name.

Our street is 23b Street. No one, not even taxi drivers seem to know the name of our street. Well, maybe some of the taxi drivers, but not all of them. So, how do we tell people where we live? We start from a commonly known landmark and then give directions. Our street is "from the Spinney's roundabout take the road to the t-junction, turn left and our street is the second left".

So, this station will probably be known as "the station opposite the Fairmont hotel".

These Are NOT Some of Her Favorite Things

Last night at bedtime, Lyra came up to my room while I was changing into some PJs to lounge around. When she came in my room, I was already changed and she said to me:

Lyra: Wow, that was quick. Have you already brushed your teeth?
Me: No, I'll do that later. (Thinking of the glass of wine I was going to have after her bedtime.)
L: I always like to do the hardest things first.
M: What are the hardest things?
L: Well, not really hard, but the things I don't like. Like brushing my teeth and brushing my hair. I don't really like to do that, so I do that first.
M: What about putting on your pajamas?
L: That's easy. But I don't like putting my pajama top over my head. That makes me feel weird.
M: Well, if you don't want to wear a pajama top, that's ok, too. (Knowing that there's no way Lyra would go for that - she likes to have her PJs on.)
L: No, I can put them on quickly or sometimes they can unbutton.

As we were in my room, I was getting my clothes out for work the next day and sorting through my sports bag to get fresh clothes for yoga. When we were done getting everything ready for the morning, I said to Lyra:

M: I'm glad that's sorted! That's one of my least favorite things to do.
L: Why?
M: I just don't like to have to put away all my clothes that I wore today and then figure out what I'm going to wear tomorrow. I'm glad to have that done and ready for the morning.
L: I like choosing clothes. But I don't like putting clothes away, do you?
M: No, not really. But I like having my room tidy, so I try to put them away.
L: I don't like folding. That's why I like to wear dresses. Because it's only one thing and then when you take it off, you only have to fold one thing.
M: (hmm, interesting insight - I didn't know this) Well what if you have to wear bloomers or shorts with your dress? Then you need to fold two things.
L: Well, I guess that's the thing about nature.
M: (not exactly sure, but thinking she means - well, that's how it is sometimes). You're very good at folding. I'm surprised you don't like it - usually we like things that we're very good at.
L: Yeah, but I don't like it. But Baba does. He likes folding.
M: (nearly laughing) Hmmm, I don't think so. He does it because we have a lot of laundry, but I don't think he really likes it.
L: I think he does. And so does Myla (the woman that come to clean the house).
M: Well, Myla probably doesn't like it either. Not many people do.

Lyra LOVES this

It's Raining Mud!

We've been having quite a bit of rain lately. Well, quite a bit by Dubai standards. According to the weather service, the storm patterns off the Indian Ocean are coming in further north than they normally do - and so we're getting more rain. And it's quite nice, actually. It's been keeping the weather a bit cooler and vastly more pleasant this spring than last (can you really call it "spring" when your temps are in the 90s and near 100?) On the east coast of Dubai, it's much more common to have rain - and there are actually some cities there that are quite green and lush. But the Hajar mountains run down from north to south and usually all the rain falls before the storms can get over here to us on the west.

I heard the rain around 3am this morning as I was in bed. Usually, when it rains here, the rain lasts for about 15 - 20 minutes. Long enough for the rain to pick up all the sand and dust in the air and rain mud all over everything outside. It's not the cleansing soaking rain that we're used to in the mid-west. But today, it rained for several hours - a slow steady rain. And by the time I was up this morning there was enough wetness to actually start to feel like things were getting cleaned off a bit.

Yesterday, there was a small sand storm, so everything (EVERYTHING) was coated in a fine dusting of fine powder. So, at first, the rain was just creating little mud puddles on everything. When I got into my car and switched on the windshield wipers the sand was whipped up and smeared all over the windsheild. However, as I drove in, the rain got heavier and did a nice job of washing off the front and top of the car - the sides are still in need of some serious washing down.

When I look out over the gulf, there look to be some huge storm clouds out there. I'm not exactly sure which direction they're moving, but if it's coming this way, we're going to have a doozy of a thunderstorm today. I missed the last one when I was traveling - so it would be great to see huge booming thunder & lightning.

Is Yoga a Cold Prevention Remedy?

For the past couple years, I've barely had a cold. I've been feeling clever thinking that my yoga routine has been keeping the colds at bay. Many yoga practitioners swear by the benefits of yoga for preventing simple diseases (like colds) - and even in helping to alleviate more complex things like asthma. When I'm not traveling, I try to go to yoga 4 times a week.

But then last week, I started getting a cold. Since I've been travelling, I haven't been going to yoga as regularly as I normally do, so I'm left wondering if my drop off in yoga left me more vulnerable or if it was just my imagination that yoga was keeping the colds at bay. Certainly, since I've returned home and re-started my yoga routine, I seem to be doing better again (that is until yesterday when I felt the full-on return of aches). That could also be because I went to the water park on Friday in brisk windy 70 degrees. Who's to know.

There are two poses that are supposed to be particularly good at helping your immunity.

The shoulder stand (no, this is not a picture of me) is called the "queen of poses". As you do this pose, you are tucking your chin into your chest and massaging your thyroid gland. This is supposed to help release a lot of toxins from your thyroid - which can only be good, right? When I first started doing this pose, I'd actually get a bit claustrophobic because having my chin tucked in so far made it more difficult to breathe. So, you do have to figure out how to breathe a bit differently, which forces air into new parts of your lungs - also helping to clear areas of your lungs that don't normally get much air.

If you're good at this pose, you should hold it for 1-3 minutes. Usually, I end up holding it for about 1 minute in my classes (or some variation of the pose).
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One word of warning, this pose requires some warm up - so don't just try it - first do some full-body stretches beforehand..
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The headstand is another great pose for helping your immunity. Yoga theory holds that there's great benefit in being upside down (inverted). It helps to direct blood into different parts of your body and forces different breathing (as in the shoulder stand). The headstand is particularly great for helping to deliver blood to your head - specifically to your pituitary gland. This gland helps regulate several hormones in your body and can be a great source of benefit for many different symptoms. But specifically for colds, it helps to clear your chest of congestion and directs a different pressure onto your diaphram to breathing into different areas of your lungs.

This pose doesn't require much warm up - but you may want to do it against a wall if you're worried about falling over.


So, the next time you feel a cold coming on, give these two poses a try for a couple of days and see if they help.

Enough About the G20 Wives

I don't know why, but all the news feeds I get seem to dwell on the G20 wives (and now the NATO meeting wives). They keep lamenting Mr. Angela Merkel - he being the only non-wife at many of the spouse events.

Last night, I dreamt I was on a business trip in Cairo with all the management team in the Middle East. And like the G20, there were spouses along for the trip. Somewhere in my dream, I realized I had been given the itinerary for all the spouse events. And by the time I realized this, the meetings were nearly over. Being a dream and all - of course it made sense that I didn't realize this until later.

Once I realized, I was in a huge panic trying to find the meeting rooms where the business meetings were going on. And I kept being pulled back into the spouse meetings because for some reason Lyra had come along with me and not Russell. So, of course someone needed to watch her - and there was no time for my meetings or finding my meetings or even understanding what was going on. And I kept saying to myself, next time I really can't bring Lyra on a business trip.

Turns out all the spouse events were being held in my hotel room and the bell hop kept warning me that someone was running up a huge telephone bill by making international calls from my room. Plus, they kept trying to delivery someone else's laundry to the room but I wouldn't sign for it or accept the charges. Needless to say, the laundry service was fairly miffed and kept bringing around other spouses to tell me that I should take the trousers. But really, they were red flannel with matching red fez and I could see no way that I would actually use them.

In the end, a giant snowball the size of a small car flew across the sky and hit a radio tower which fell across the hotel and we all fled as a fire ensued.

I Guess It's Been Raining

So, we left for Turkey last week on Wednesday. Evidently, it started raining and didn't stop until we returned on this Wednesday. We missed quite the storm I'm told. One of the women in the office relates that she and her husband were driving in their Hummer when thunder went off right overhead so low and so loudly that it shook the car. I love a good thunderstorm and I'm a bit sad to have missed it.

Others in our building reported that they could feel the building sway in the gusts of wind. Hmmm, we're only on the 19th floor - I'm not so sure about that, but I'm no physicist or building engineer so maybe it's possible. I can only imagine the swaying that was going on in the Burj Dubai. Our crews are working on the 14oth through 150th floors of that building. I'd like to hear the stories they have to tell. Another reason why I'm thinking I wouldn't like to live in that building.

My number one reason for not wanting to live on the 150th floor of the Burj Dubai - the elevators. I cannot imagine how totally boring it would be to ride up and down those elevators every day. Even if they have some special high speed lift - it can't be high speed enough. Can you imagine getting to the underground parking and realizing you left something up in the flat - and having to go ALLLL the way up again to get it. Aggggh - I don't have the patience. Living there would eventually drive me batty.

Turkey was fantastic - as usual. I'll say it again - Istanbul is one of the world's best cities. We were glad to have some cool weather and rain just as a break from hot and sunny Dubai (little did we know how much we were missing back home). The first day or so were quite gloomy, but after that the weather got pretty good. In Cappadocia, we were surprised to find nearly 3-4 inches of snow. It certainly made the landscape beautiful - and if possible even more magical. But we weren't ready for snow and hadn't really packed for that kind of weather. That didn't stop us from getting out to tour and even taking a couple of hikes. The last 2 days were stunning. We took a hot air balloon ride (a first for all of us) and then a nice long hike on the last day to put an exclamation point on a fantastic visit. Pictures are coming.

Tasmanian Devil

Russell finds an amazing amount of information on You Tube.

Recently he was searching for Tasmanian Devils (don't ask me why). The adults are pretty fierce, but the babies are so cute! Click here.

Editors Note: April Fools, you've been Rick Rolled. Yes, amygirl, trying to share my pain. Not such a clever April Fools joke, but I tried.