Long week

It has been such a long week. I am taking on extra shifts because I am saving up for a sewing machine. It is still not every day, but it is a lot to me. I still have to be on my feet - all day; chatting with customers - all day; acting cheerful - all day; smiling and refraining from telling rude customers how much they grate on me - all day; carrying milk jugs up the stairs - all day; trying to squeeze in breaks, banking, ordering, cleaning, temperature checks, stocking, phone calls, and other odds and ends into an already poorly scheduled day with not enough coverage. Work is really getting to me. It's not work itself, just the management of it that makes me want to run screaming from the store, pulling my hair out.

Today I got something in my eye. Our espresso saucers are fragile and shatter very easily. So I accidently knocked one on a mug (not the first time I have broken one) and I felt a spray of something hit my face and get into my eye. I thought, "This would be very bad if I have a shard of porceline in my eye!" So I held my eye open and ran upstairs to a mirror. Sure enough I saw a white fleck about two millimeters big resting carefully on my iris. I knew I would have to flush it out with water, but I also know I am a wimp when it comes to water in my eyes. So I just did it, because, well, I didn't want to lose my eyesight! I held my eyelids back and scooped water into my eye. When I looked again at my eye I saw the white fleck now resting on the inside of my bottom eyelid. Thank goodness for finger nails! My pinky nail was long enough to reach in there and scoop it out.

After that I was a bit shaken up. I was worried that I might still have little shards in my eye. My boss gave me some money and let me go to the chemist (fortunately just up the road) to get some eye wash. Again, not looking forward to it as it meant holding a wee cup of wash over my open eyelid. I did this to both eyes just incase anything got in the other eye. So that was my excitement for the day.

I love it when we change the clocks forward. We just did this last weekend. I know we are a couple of weeks behind you all in the States. It is 7:00 and we still have another hour of daylight! Yippee!! The only thing is, it is no longer light when I walk to work. :( That's ok, just a couple more weeks...

Just 13 more days until the Feezor's visit us!! Yay!

Not fun

Our early morning slumber was disturbed by the phone. We didn't answer it because it was not the phone family calls on. I remember saying to Josh, "We will have to call them at a decent hour and tell them NOT to call us at 4am!" Yea, you think silly things when you are startled awake.

When I heard the voice on the phone I thought it sounded a bit like Josh's mom, so I went to listen to the message. It turned out to be the alarm company that our store uses. The alarm was going off and since no one else responded, I was the lucky winner!

I debated going out there because I really didn't think it was my responsibility. I don't get paid to be on call at all hours! But then I thought of the neighbors and felt bad if the alarm was still going off. These store alarms here just go on and on and on until someone shows up at the shop to turn it off. They are not normally attached to a company that calls whoever is responsible for the store.

So anyways, off I went in my pyjamas with Josh in tow. He did not want me to go alone incase there was an intruder. I remember thinking that this better not be the new company that would be delivering our food, because I thought today was their first day. I didn't hear the alarm once I got outdoors, but I knew I should check it out anyways. As I rounded the corner, sure enough, there was a truck about to pull away. It was the new food company. Appearantly they were doing a trial run before they start (next Thursday) to make sure all of the keys and alarms work, and that they could get the deliveries done in time. Well, their code had not been inputed into our system yet.

So I locked up, got back home after 5:00, and tried to get a wee kip before heading back out at 6:10. Yes, I had to open. At least Josh did not start work until 1, so he got to sleep in. I ended up having to stay even later do get the things done that I was supposed to. So my day started at 4am and ended at 4:30pm. :(

One weird thing is, I was actually dreaming about work before we got the call. I was counting the safe, but for some reason the safe was not open. I had a wad of cash in my hand and could not get the code to work. The alarm started going off and the police showed up. I didn't know what to do with all the money in my hand, so I popped it in my apron pocket. Well, where else should I put it? ;)

My husband thinks he's a Brit

He now insists on eating every meal with a fork AND knife. And not only that, he eats with his fork upside-down and uses his knife to push the food onto the back of the fork.

He also says, "aye." :)

boring

I have been pretty boring with the posts (and not-posts). I was looking through our pictures and realised that I had not posted our pictures from our second trip to St. Andrews last July. So I posted them on flickr. Seeing as how the trip was 8 months ago, I don't really remember what to tell you about it. I do remember that we went to the castle which we hadn't done the first time. There was a tunnel and a counter-tunnel. The tunnel was dug by an invading army, the counter-tunnel met them successfully. I don't remember the rest of the story, who won, what happened to the castle at that time, etc.

HAAR

This is another picture I came across. It is the best one I could get of the Haar (sea fog). It comes round summertime and is as thick as pea soup. If we get a warm spell the cold sea air says, "We'll have none of that!" and attempt to take over the city. While warm and cold are duking it out we are covered in a fog that makes it tricky finding your way around (and it is a bit chilly, too). Oh, I just remembered. It must not just be a summer thing because this happened during Christmas. We went out to a midnight service in our neighborhood. I found it very disorienting and wondered often if we were going the right way. I'm glad I had Josh with me, though he did tell me we were in one location, yet when we turned the corner we found that we were indeed somewhere else. We were still on the right track, though.

"I'm in heaven!"

This is the text I sent to my husband when I walked into the fabric store after walking him to work. I hadn't really found a good fabric store since moving here, but a while back I saw this place when I walked Josh to work. I was finally able to go there Sunday. I was looking for fabric to make pillows. I spent about an hour just looking at upholstry fabric, which they had more of than other fabric. Then I went on to look at patterns and started getting all sorts of great ideas for things to make. Then I realised...I don't know how to sew. Then again I realised...I don't have a sewing machine. I did just finish (well, almost) a quilt (which I had been working on for like, 3 years) by hand, and I did sew curtains by hand, but I don't know anything about following patterns and I am certainly not going to do all that sewing by hand. I did dream though. I even dreamed that I could make baby bibs and blankets and handbags and things and sell them on ebay and then I could quit my job....ahhhh!

Well, I think I will still keep my eye out for a cheap sewing machine.

Real Life Meet Ups

It is so much fun to meet people you know online. I have gotten to do this a few times. We got to meet Erin, who was extremely helpful in our move over here. Her husband was studying at New College, so he showed Josh the ropes. I went to a small gathering of Edinburgh expats. We met up at Starbucks and chatted about coping in a differerent culture. Josh and I went out to Stirling to a larger meet up of expats around Scotland. It is so refreshing to be able to chat with others in your same situation; venting, ranting, laughing.

Friday night Josh and I went to Brett and Joanna's. We had already met Brett at the previous gathering. They have been in Scotland much longer than us, but recently moved to Edinburgh. Brett has been frequenting Starbucks where we can have a wee chat if I have time. They are vegan, so Brett offered to cook us up a nice vegan meal, which basically follows my detox diet. He made us a nice American comfort food: sloppy joes! It was so good! And since I have to be wheat-free as well, he bought wheat-free rye bread at the bakery down the street. We must have spent most of the night talking about vegan cooking (poor Josh!). They lent me a couple of cookbooks which is great because now I find myself saying "I can have that?!" I just have to be creative with tofu.

Well, we had a great time. All of these people I have met are from my American Expats forum. If you are an expat or thinking of becoming an expat, I highly recommend visiting this site. There is a wealth of information there. And not only is it an informative site, it is also a community. I have found myself asking unrelated questions, venting about work, asking for recipes, etc. I've gotten a lot of ideas for my detox diet from other members. It's great!

Almost there!

Thank you to all of you who have so generously given to help support Janelle's education. I would really like to wire the money during the next week. I am in need of just $50 more (above wiring fees and what we already would like to give). If you were thinking of giving a little, please considering doing it soon. Just click on the 'make a donation' button at the right of the blog, under the chat box, to donate through paypal.
Thank you.

Bad Girl

I broke my diet. I had good reason! We had guests over last night. Those who know me know that I enjoy having guests and cooking for them. I don't really want to serve my guests beans. We had this planned before I decided to do this diet and I already know what I wanted to make. This diet breaking was a planned thing.

I made one of my favourite meals for Americans and those who have never tried this dish: Chicago-style deep-dish pizza!! We also had hot and spicy wings (I asked Josh to get buffalo wings. It was one of those things where your sweet husband offers to run out to pick something up for you and he gets the wrong thing.) and garlic bread with roasted garlic. For pudding we had cinnamon rolls. It was worth it just to hear Michelle gasp at the mention of cinnamon rolls. :) Appearantly she had been having a strong desire for them since Christmas.

So now I have to deal with the leftovers in the fridge. Fortunately it is not so much that Josh can't deal with on his own (there can never be too much pizza for him!) but this morning as I was rinsing out the dish I baked the cinnamon rolls in I was thinking "A cinnamon roll would be really nice right now!" :)

I'm back on my diet now. In fact I am trying to fast at least for the morning to maybe speed up the process of getting that junk out of my body, maybe. I am already hungry though! I can't even go til noon!