cuties cuties little cuties

i've got so much to do before going to london on tuesday but i'm hooked to my crochet hook and cannot stop. look what i've just made:

little cutie, isn't it?
little tiny crochet shoe for a little tiny baby deniz. hope he likes it. i love it. have to make one more and then two more for a little tiny baby called maja that my friend agnieszka had a couple of weeks ago. wish i could make those little ones for a little tiny baby of ours. one day, one day.
and i got some cute pillow cases (from our local grocery store (!) for 1 lira each (that makes around 30p)) that will turn into a quilt for someone's (maybe our) little baby:

cuties cuties love you lots little cuties

p.s. you can get the patterns for the little cuties here. sylvia has got lots of patterns for VERY cute cuties there - i personally love them all!

official letter

i had to go to the office that deals with my application for turkish citizenship to show them that i have changed my address. fortunately Iwona was with me and spoke with the lady behind the desk on my behalf. the lady looked at the copy of my turkish visa (i thought i was so clever and already made two copies of it) where the new address was typed in and told us that this was not enough, that what was needed was a declaration confriming my new address.
eh ???
this is how we sorted it out. we left the building. we saw a guy with a typewriter. we asked him. he typed the letter. we paid him 5 liras. we went back upstairs. the lady looked at the letter and told us to go and get a stamp from the office manager. we went to the office manager. he stamped the paper. we went back to the lady. gave her the paper, said thank you and left. phew!

dealing with turkish officials is hard.
fortunately, there are guys on the street with typewriters.

update on my hair trauma

after washing my hair three times and screaming every time i took my towel off, and after calling Iwona thousand times and asking her what to do, i’ve decided to leave the whole thing to the professionals. i went to the first hairdresser i came across – which fortunately was not far from my house – so i didn’t have to scare too many people on my way . i’m usually quite doubtful about going to turkish hairdressers – they are usually very crowded and noisy – it seems that whole families go with the person who wants to have her hair done, and it’s usually full of children running around and young and old women all talking loudly and at the same time, smoking cigarettes, drinking the famous turkish tea. going to a hairdresser is a whole family event. but since i made my decision and did not have much choice anyway, i walked in. it wasn’t too bad, there were only a few women inside, and it turned out that they were not waiting in the queue, but just sitting there, talking, smoking cigarettes, drinking tea. i explained what my problem was and it didn’t seem to be a huge problem to the hairdresser, who turned out to be very sweet and lovely. and within around two hours i spent there i met at least 5 women who just popped in to say hello and sit and talk a bit, have a cigarette and a glass of tea. it was weird, every woman had a story to tell, some already knew others, some were complete strangers, yet they all seemed so at home there. they talked about their lives and problems and what they cooked for dinner. and about their children and about their neighbours and friends and husbands and shopping and prices. i just sat there and listened and smiled and tried to make sense of it all. it seems that turkish hairdressers serve not only as a place where you can have your hair done – but where you can come and meet other women, if you have nothing else to do. you can share with others what’s on your mind and you can listen and give advice or just smile and then go your own way.
and when i was leaving (very happy with my new colour - which doesn't bring to mind the colour green when you look at it any more - and (turkish) hairstyle) the hairdresser invited me to come again, but not only to have my hair done, but just to come and sit and talk and have a glass of tea....and who knows, one day i might.

does it have to happen every time?

my new hair colour is greyish verging on lovely greenish s**t.
it's definitely not natural coffee like it says on the box...
HELP! i want to scream scream scream, what should i do now? go to a hair dresser and have a colour done PROPERLY or shall i wait a couple of days (though i can't possibly wait that long!) and put another colour on by myself? what would you do? HELP HELP HELP!!!
my poor hair, i'm so sorry i'm treating you this way - always experimenting always trying to treat you with as low cost as possible, not giving you enough care and attention...no wonder you look so unhappy now.....i promise i will never ever buy another hair colouring kit from a drug store and colour you myself. i promise i will always always go and let the professionals treat you with care you deserve...

but, really, what should i do now? and why does it have to happen to me every time i do something to my hair? why why why? help help help!
hmmm, on the other hand, coffee, natural coffee, before it's roasted, is green! so maybe the box didn't lie after all. damn.
p.s. and kemal says: not agaaaain.....
p.p.s. and it's not funny!

the book

i stayed at home all day today with a book i borrowed from Kamila yesterday. the book is really good - i can say that because it keeps me completely preoccupied, even when i'm not actually reading it, i cannot stop thinking about it, it's like i've stepped into its world and cannot get out. i've wanted to read it for a while now - my friend Agnieszka posted a copy to me long time ago, but it never arrived (blame the turkish post, i guess). so now that i have it, it's double precious. and i just can't put it down (there was this internal fight i had to go through - should i stop reading and write about the book on my blog, or should i just ignore my blog for a while and just keep reading, guess the blog won since i'm writing this now, ha ha). anyway, the book i'm reading all day today is this: it's full of sentences that i would like to write down in my notebook or on pretty pieces of paper and hang them up around the house and memorize or read every day or send to all my friends or talk about or ... write in my blog. anyway, if you haven't read the book yet, i guess, don't wait for me to copy large parts of it here (which i'm very inclined to do) - just get a copy and read it, it will take you only around a day (but don't plan anything else for that day, cause you won't be able to do it anyway). anyway, i think i said enough, so now, please excuse me, but i have to go. i need to read more.

in heavenly mood

today we went with Iwona and her kiddo to visit our other frined, Kamila and two kiddos of hers. husbands at work – girls are having fun.
sometimes it pays off to be unemployed, ha ha ha.
Kamila lives in a big spacious house beautifully located on a farm with olive groves, orange orchards, a strawberry patch, and rocky hills in the distance - in other words, heaven
– only an hour drive from antalya.

and what the three of us did in this heaven was:
talk and talk and talk while drinking gallons of coffee and eating tons of
1. havenly cheesecake that Kamila baked for this special occasion
2. another heavenly cheesecake that Iwona baked for this special occasion
3. equally heavenly peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies that I baked for this special occasion
and
from time to time checking what the kiddos were doing:
- one kiddo, the smallest one, was clearly in heaven - happily sleeping on a couch unaware of his surroundings, apart from the moments when he felt hungry and had to be fed by his mama
- another kiddo (slightly bigger one) was also feeling heavenly happily playing with her toys,
- and the third kiddo (the biggest one) was in a toy heaven of his own.



leaving the heaven was hard, but before we left we got:
1. heavenly organic cheese from the farm
2. heavenly organic tomatoes that taste like...yes, you guessed it, heaven!
3. heavenly cheescake that the angel Kamila baked for this special occasion
4. heavenly bread
5. heavenly mood
which I think will stay with us for ... heaven only knows how long.

the reasons i love antalya

i really love my new city antalya. it's such a nice place, i love exploring it with my darling Iwona, she's been here for a while already and knows lots of little tiny streets and little tiny shops that i would never find or be brave enough to venture into on my own, so i love meeting with her and wander around and find things out - what's where and for how much. and though things are not immediately available like in london for example, where you go to john lewis and buy everything you need - every yarn of every colour you can conceive of, every craft tool you are surprised that even existed. here, we need to search for things, walk around, ask questions, get funny looks, and make fools of ourselves, but when we do find what we are looking for, it makes us that much happier - and gives us that much more satisfaction and excitement. and so recently we've decided we needed some erasers and linoleum cutters to make some stamps after falling completely in love with Geninne's gorgeous hand carved stamps and her great tutorial on how to carve them. so one day we set off in search of a linoleum cutter, though we didn't even know where to start nor how to say linoleum cutter in turkish. we assumed that a shop with art supplies might have such things or that at least they would point us into the right direction. it took us a while to find such a shop (there is only one in the whole of antalya!). but find it we did and to our greatest surprise mingled with a feeling of total victory - they had the cutters (even two types, though the cheaper type was described as crap, so we bought the more expensive one, to the shop owner's great satisfaction - a win win situation, I guess, ha ha). finding erasers wasn't hard - every stationery shop we saw had a big selection - from cheap (i.e. described as crappy) ones to more expensive types (i.e. the ones that do their job of erasing very well, ha). we bought a few from the medium price range and our new hobby of carving stamps begun. now, we need some ink and ink pads - but that will be the subject of our next exploring trip, how exciting.


oh and one more thing. my friend Kamila has a new lovely baby - a cute little guy called Deniz who looks like this:

with such gorgeous friends like mine and cute babies around - how could I not love this place?

goodies of antalya

on a dreary rainy dark day like today, when the wind outside makes wheezing sad sounds and scares you off from going near the window, when the thick, black clouds hanging low over the mountains, creep with their thick fingers on to your balcony and bring the unwelcome promise of heavy rain any minute, when you are sitting under a blanket and stare thoughtlessly at the tv set and your mind is blank, it's a good idea to: squeeze and drink divinely sweet juice from the little packages full of sun enwrapped in orange skins - the goodies of antalya, and feel like summer again.

i want to make

the basket out of the entangled pile of string is finished. and I love it.

i want to make five more!

coffee and a slice of banana bread

I'm happy to report that the dying bananas were perfect for the whole wheat banana bread. and I'm happy to report that I managed to bake it last night and it came out de-li-cio-us. and I'm happy to report that the pile of entangled string was disentangled last night also and the string started to take the shape of a lovely basket for our bathroom. and I'm happy to report that the rest of the dying bananas were stored in the freezer for smoothies, as suggested by Amy (thank you, Amy!)and I'm happy to report that I managed to make a coffee for me and Kemal WITHOUT burning the milk. So, I'll leave you now and will go and enjoy the coffee with a slice of the de-li-cio-us banana bread in the company of my darling Kemal, whom - I'm happy to report - I love, love, love.

dying bananas

I think I am the most disorganised person on the planet! I do thousand of things at the same time, finding it hard to do something until it's finished and done. I wake up and eat some breakfast and switch on my laptop and while reading all the lovely blogs I am addicted to, I put a coffee pot and milk on the stove - and while I'm reading or writing, the milk boils all over the stove and burns - like now, for example...I buy a huge bunch of bananas to make a banana bread and then the bananas die because I forget about them, I buy a ball of string to make something nice out of it and the ball of string becomes an entangled pile of string instead of a lovely basket or a placemat or whatever that would be useful in some way. I buy a notebook and write down day schedule, and cleaning schedule, and work schedule and exercise schedule and cooking schedule, etc. and then I wake up at 11am and all the lovely schedules must be rescheduled....and then I remember to put the laundry in the washing machine, but on the way I see a pile of dirty dishes to be washed, so I start washing them, and while washing them, someone calls me on skype, so I leave the dishes and start talking for a couple of hours, and then I remember about the laundry and go to the laundry basket but on my way I decide to have some coffee so I put the coffee pot and the milk on the stove and go back to the laundry and then I see some dirt on the floor, so I take the hoover and start hoovering and then I hear the sound of the milk boiling over, so I run to the kitchen to clean the smelly burnt milk and then I remember that it's time to cook something for Kemal who's coming back from work soon, so I quickly start peeling some onions and veggies and in the meantime, I check the internet, and then an hour passes or two and then I remember about the laundry, so I go to the laundry basket and sort the laundry by colours and then I finally manage to put one load into the washing machine and then I remember about the dinner so I run back to the kitchen and carry on cooking, but then someone calls me on skype again or I switch on tv, or I remember I was going to check something on the internet, then the washing machine beeps which means that the washing is done, so I run to take the laundry from the machine otherwise the machine will keep beeping and beeping and then I find out that the dryer on the balcony is full with the laundry from couple of days before that I forgot about, so I pick it up first and leave it on the bed to iron later and in the meantime I see that the flowers in the pots on the balcony are almost dead of thirst so I run and grab the watering can and then I remember about the dinner so I run to the kitchen and if the dinner is not burnt yet I remember about my coffee which is already cold by that time so I decide to make myself a new one, so I put the coffee pot and the milk on the stove and remember about the wet laundry so I run to the balcony to hung the laundry and then I see the flowers which haven't been watered yet, so I go back for the watering can, but when I go to the kitchen there is a lovely smell of milk burning on the stove and so I have to clean the stove again and in the meantime I check the dinner and decide to make a salad too, so I start washing the lettuce and veggies for the salad and my coffee gets cold, then someone calls me on skype so I talk with them for a few minutes, then I decide to finally do something about that pile of entangled string, so I start disentangling it, then I remember I was going to call Iwona to ask her about something, then the bell rings and I open the door with the phone in one hand, pile of string, watering can in the other and tripping over the hoover, it's Kemal, he comes in, kisses me and asks: what have you done today? and I say: nothing, nothing really..while still talking to Iwona on the phone...and I quickly run back to the kitchen, and.....you can guess the rest. So I think I really should go now and do something about the dying bananas, my plan is to make a whole wheat chocolate chip banana bread (I found the recipe here, looks yummy), I'll let you know how it goes.
P.S. Hmmm, I'm having second thoughts about this banana bread. I've just remembered I have to go shopping (today is the bazaar day) and do a translation for my cousin Monika, so....dear dying bananas, please hang on in there for a wee bit longer ...