Today was sort of unbelievable in the categories of sequence and content. I thought for best effect…I would give the play by play. I hope you really get a charge out of having an insider’s look!

8:00am-Breakfast and kid’s devotion

9:00am-Began homeschool work for the day…amazingly calm and enjoyable today!

10:45am-Began our journey to the American Consulate Representative. We needed documents notarized giving my mother permission to sell the property of my grandmother, who passed away two years ago. Evidently, being executrix isn’t enough to give her the right to sign official documents in our name. We have been jumping through hoops trying to figure out how to get this notarized and sent to her…and then we find out about the Consulate in our city!

11:15-park and begin to ask directions to this office. We were told it was beside the Gap store downtown. (GASP! YES! we have a Gap! NO we cannot afford to shop there because of the crazy tariffs!) My husband literally asks 6 different people about the Gap. BUT, I still argue my point that he wasn’t asking the people with the right profile. He kept asking gypsies where to find the Gap. I don’t know for sure…but I have a feeling an 18 year-old girl would be a more likely candidate for knowing about this particular topic.

12:00pm-found the Gap and the Consulate. Amazed by the steel elevator door that ONLY opens at the Consulate floor. (no other hallways or doors around) I was equally thrilled by the bullet proof glass and multiple digital locks. It was like being on the set of “24.” After some explanation, money paid, and stamps, we leave to find a cargo place to get it there soon.

3:00pm-home after cargo, lunch and a couple of other errands.

5:30pm-my children bring home to me gorgeous wild flowers that they have picked outside, and a HUGE turtle in a box. “No, you cannot keep the turtle and give it walks everyday. I don’t care if you already named it Littlefoot.”

5:35pm-I go outside to get back the ball from the bigger kids who refuse to give my son our ball back.  Bullies!  While I am there, we free the turtle from its box, and I notice the car of the repairmen that are coming to fix our hot water heater.

6:00pm-my bathroom is flooded with brown water and incredible, bone-like pieces of lime that had settled on the inside.  I was told it would be 150 Turkish Lira to have it repaired.  I only had 100 Turkish Lira in my wallet.  So, I call my husband to bring home some cash. His telephone is switched off, (mental note made to kill husband) so I go to borrow from my neighbor.  She graciously gives and all is well. In the middle of all of this, I have a son who is whining because I turned his turtle loose to the wild.  It is very hard to have two separate conversations going in two separate languages.  I was afraid I had told the repairmen that I set the hot water heater free to the wild. Or even worse, “Jack, don’t worry the turtle is happy inside the hot water heater.”

6:30pm-Hot water heater is finished, I am signing paperwork, and repairmen are trying to leave.  In the midst of this, my son feels it is a good time to confess that on the way downstairs with the big box and turtle, he fell, spilling the turtle to the ground and bruising up his elbow.  “You SEE!  I have to keep him cause now he has a knot on his neck cause I dropped him and I don’t even know where he is!“ Poor Littlefoot.

It is 7:48pm.  Homework left to finish and a bathroom that looks as if a huge mud ball exploded.  At least I can say, as I reflect on this day, that I set a turtle free!!!

Tash