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!

One week in

I am finishing my first week on the detox diet. Side note. I have to keep saying 'detox diet' rather than just 'detox' because in my work in social services, 'detox' was the time you spent in hospital at the beginning of your recovery from drugs and/or alcohol.

Anyways, today is the first day I feel really good. Not great, but really good. I opened for work today and it was the first time I didn't feel like I needed caffeine. No headaches. Just a wee bit of muscle tension. But I actually had energy! I was still looking longingly at those muffins, though.

I just got a vegan cookbook from a friend and I'll be getting another tonight, so hopefully that will help me with my meals. Maybe I could get you all to rally 'round Josh and get him to do the diet with me. :) When we were shopping yesterday he said, "Would you want to get a rotisserie chicken?" I looked and him and he said, "Oh, you can't have chicken?" And this was while I was struggling particularly in the cheese isle. Later he brought over some pies (pies here are savory, meat pies, not fruit pies) and said, "You can make these for my dinners to make it easier to cook for me." Bless his heart, he's trying to be helpful! :) He did pick out some nice necarines and plums for me.

An American's take on British food

British food has a bad reputation, particularly Scottish. Um, I think I can second that, but visit this site to see some reviews on British food done by an American living in Scotland. It is very amusing. :)

Detox: Day 3 or Has it Only Been 3 Days!?!?

Well, I am having a hard time of it so far. The first day I was just a wee bit hungry. The second day I was starving and had a splitting headache all day. Today I just had a headache all day.

Yesterday was my first day working while on the diet, and I had to do an early shift. I was SO tired all day long! And SO hungry! I was looking at muffins that I normally wouldn't care for and think, "Oh, that looks so good!" When I made customers drinks, even an almond soya latte sounded good. The only thing in all of Starbucks that I can have is Calm or Refresh tea. By the end of the day I was so sick of tea!

I hadn't realised how much the caffeine I had on my shift curbed my appetite until yesterday. I normally would not bring anything to eat at work. If I got hungry I might have a croissant, but I normally didn't get hungry. A strawberries and cream frapp would fill me up for lunch. Healthy, I know. But yesterday I was starving by the end of the day. I brought a wee container of pistachios and was munching on them for strength anytime I went down to do some paperwork. That was all I had. By the end of the day I was sick of pistachios...and tea!

It was a little better today. I didn't have so much of a splitting headache, though I really banged my head up good. I was cleaning the pastry case and I bent down to wipe down the sliding glass which I had taken out of the case. I knocked my head really hard on the metal tracks in the case where the glass goes. It was like in the cartoons where everything goes black for a split second and you see stars. I thought I was going to pass out for a minute it hurt so bad. I think I asked my coworker if I was bleeding or something. He said I had a DENT in my head! Well, it's gone the other way now and had made a nice nickle sized lump with a red line on my forehead. Didn't help my headache.

Anyways, back to detox. I really horded the snack foods because I am such a snacker and was worried that I would get the munchies all the time. Well, I've got plenty of snacks now, but I'm having trouble with meals. Last night I made a nice bean chili and added a bit of TVP. I cheated though because I didn't plan ahead to soak the beans. That's ok. I was in a bit of a panic, though, because I can't think of what to make for meals! I think I just need to become more familiar with what I CAN eat (rather than forcusing on what I can't). I decided to make some Spanish rice tonight (MMM...it's simmering just now!) but I didn't have any jalapenos. So I went down to Margiotta's (I SO love having a shop just around the corner). I looked around a bit (avoiding the meat section) to see if they could give me any inspiration for other meals. I was looking at the pasta sauce. I was thinking of the Ragu I have and home and thought "Oh, yeah. I can have that." I checked the ingredients and I think I'm clear. I already bought some rice and millet pasta, so I think that will be our next meal.

Everyone who did detox said they felt great. So, I'm hoping it will kick in soon. I think it was harder having to work during the first days. If the weekend is as nice as today was I am going to get out for a walk.

Detox

I have been threatening myself to do a detox diet for some time now, but I have not had the courage. Well, I decided that probably the only time I could get myself to do it (at least for the first time) is during lent. Today is the first day.

This will be the most difficult lent I have ever observed. This diet is basically vegan, wheat-free, sugar-free, caffeine (!!)-free. When I was on holiday I had gotten off caffeine, but it seems that since I have been back for one week I have become addicted again as I am nursing a headache just now. I am not looking forward to the next 2 days where I will be opening without my latte.

Anyways, some things I CAN have which I will be taking advantage of: rice or almond milk, rice or millet pasta, tofu (not a big fan in the past, but what can I do!?), TVP (haven't tried yet, I'll find out how it is), wheat-free rye bread, egg substitute. I am supposed to eat as much as I can as raw as possible and try to buy organic. I will have to plan ahead to soak my pulses overnight and try to cook my veg as little as possible. I am happy that I can eat fruit, but since we got here I have not bought a ton because it is so expensive and goes so quickly. I do want to join a box scheme, but my schedule is so sporadic and I will not be here the same day every week to accept it. I have already been to the healthfood store twice to stock up and have a delivery coming Friday. :)

Well, we will see how it goes. I am 9-stone now. I don't have a LOT to lose, but I'm curious to see how much I lose by the end.

Oh, by the way, I am not detoxing for the purpose of losing weight. That will just be one of the added perks.

Oh, and if you are reading this Michelle, don't worry. We will still have Chicago-style deep-dish next week. ;)

So glad I was up!

It is not uncommon for me to stay up too late on nights Josh is doing an overnight, such as last night. So then it is likely you will find me still in bed around 8 the next morning. Well, for some reason I was up a little after 7 today! Good thing, too. At around 7:50 I saw the Royal Mail truck drive up. They had a parcel for me! It was something I ordered and was expecting, but...7:50AM?! AM?! I did recieve a parcel a couple of weeks ago at 8am. And on a similar note, there is construction going on across the alley from us. They don't mind mind making a lot of noise at 7:30 on a Saturday morning.

My Mom

Steph posted a really fun picture of her mom and encouraged us to post pics of our moms, too. Well, I think it's supposed to be for those who are moms, but I wanted to play, too. :)

The first pic is a little before we moved from Chicago to Edinburgh. The second (with my brother, too!) is before we came back to Edinburgh when we visited home last April.

My mom is really fab. She has been so supportive of her only daughter being swept away by some boy to live in another country for who knows how long. When I felt lonely and sad she sent me a box of yarn for something to do on long, dark winter nights. She spends too much money sending carepackages filled with goodies that we miss, and other things we forgot we missed! :) She has had to endure countless questions from family and friends about what we are doing and why she let us do it. She doesn't take the criticism others give about our decision, but patiently explains again and again why we are doing it - even when she may not be completely sure. :) She reads my blog and posts comments. She enjoys my pictures. She helps me support Janelle. And one thing I appreciate immencely: she is a good mother-in-law to my husband.

Sun!

You will all be happy to know that the sun is now shining full and bright through our french doors! We are going to celebrate by cleaning our windows.

Another plea

I posted a few posts back about Janelle and the money I have been raising for her to go to a better school. Thank you so much for the people who have responded. I am still in need of over half the amount. If you have been thinking you would like to help, please click on the 'donate' button to the left of the screen (below the yellow chat box) and you can donate through paypal. If you do not have paypal and would like to help, please contact me and we can figure something out.

Obviously this is an ongoing project. If you feel that you would like to sponsor Janelle once a month or on some sort of regular basis, that would be fantastic! I do keep track of how much has been given to me for her throughout the year and when there is a decent sum of money I wire it to the family.

Janelle's parents are so greatful for the help and they send me emails and pictures every so often that I can put on the yahoo group. Janelle is also aware that there are people who have never even met her that are taking an interest in her future.

I know we are inuntated with people asking for donations every day, but the thing I like about this is that ALL of the money (I pay for the wiring fee myself) will go to a specific person. No administration fees. I personally know the family and that they are wonderful people. I do enjoy 'watching' Janelle learn and grow.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know it's a day early. Today actually marks five years and five months of marriage.

We were never ones for celebrating V Day. At least not on the day. We would normally just cook a meal together or go out to eat on a different night. It is so expensive to go out to eat here that we never go out for dinner. We went to a place for lunch today called Buffalo Grill. It is sort of a Tex-Mex-ish style restaurant in our neighborhood. It was nice to eat at a REAL restuarant for once rather than just a cafe. Anyways, I had a hankering for a good burger, and it was good! They served it with fries (it actually said 'fries' on the menu!) and they actually had American mustard! Josh kept trying to talk me into getting dessert, but I'm just as happy having dessert at home, which is cheaper and tastes better.

After lunch Josh took me to the local flower shop to buy me some flowers. AAWWWW! I think he probably wanted me to get a bouquet of something, but I picked out a stem of lilies (which is what I really wanted when I got my tulips last week) and 3 gerberas (my favourite). I can't wait until the lilies start to smell the flat up.

It was such a nice day of bumming around town and spending time together. Now Josh is off to work and I am settling in for another night alone. Thanks for the nice time, Sweetie!

Dishes!

I'm sure you call can sympathise with me that dishes just never end! Doing dishes is a bit more of a chore here than it was in the States. I have never had the convenience of a dish washer, but I did have the convenience of 2 sinks. You know, you either fill one with soapy water and rinse in the other, or you pile the dirty dishes in one and wash in the other. Most kitchens here just have one sink. Oh, I forgot to mention that we also have no hot water in the kitchen. Well, the hot water just trickles out of the hot tap (remember, we don't have mixer taps) Here is how I have to do the dishes:

1. Fill electric kettle with water and heat up.

2. Put dish soap in washing up bucket and run some cold water into it.

3. Start putting utensils, plates, and bowls into bucket.

4. Pour hot water into bucket.

5. Fill kettle again and heat.

6. Clean out sink.

7. Put up foldable IKEA dish rack and utensil holder.

8. Pour more hot water into bucket and in other things that may not have been able to get rinsed well enough since we do not have hot water.

9. Wash what I was able to fit into bucket and place it in the sink.

10. Put more things into bucket.

11. Rinse everything from the sink under FREEZING COLD water and put on dish rack.

12. Warm hands in dish water.

13. Repeat steps 9-12 as often as needed.

Since we only have the one sink we have to put all of our dirty dishes on the counter. We don't have much counter space so dishes have to be done quite often. If I am doing any cooking or baking I have to do dishes in order to have space, then I have to do dishes again because I just dirtied a bunch.

I am so sick of dishes right now.

Our Town

I mentioned my walk a couple of posts back. I just wanted to share a few pictures. I took some photos of our neighborhood and at the botanics. I did not feel very creative, so this is more of a documentary. Of course I forgot to take pictures of our road! I wanted to take a picture of the alley I walk through to get to work. Forgot that too. It's cute. Cobblestone road, stone buildings
This clock tower is down the road from us. We here the bell chime every hour. I quite like it. I think it is quaint. It was funny when we first moved in, though, that the time was 11 minutes slow. Then someone changed it and it was 8 minutes fast. I think it's right now, but we don't always hear it since it is not warm enough to have our doors open.

Another view of the clock tower. On my way home from work.

Stockbridge is the name of the community we live in. I haven't read enough about the history of Stockbridge, but apparently it was a meat and fish market. We do have a butch and a fishmonger (and a cheese monger, too! I just like to say that word). The name of the road I work on is called Baker's Place. I like that because there is an Italian bakery just next door to us (and the cheese monger is next to them!).
This is at the botanics. You might not be able to see it very well, but this frost covered lawn is littered with crocuses. It was pretty, but it made me so sad to think of all of the blossoming trees and daffodils that I was so excited to see a couple of weeks ago now covered in frost.

The wildlife was abundant. There were loads of birds. You could tell the squirrels are used to being fed. Anytime I approached a group of them they would run up to me (just about 2 feet from my shoes!), sit up, and look at me like "Did you bring me something?"

It was so peaceful there. I love being this close to botanic gardens! The walk is very not peaceful as I have to walk on main thoroughfares the whole way, but the peace is instantanious. During the day the park is just filled with moms (or nannies) and their kids feeding ducks, pensioners getting in a nice walk, and photographers. The gardens are walled so the cars wizzing around outside sound like they are on some distant highway. One of my favourite parts is the rock garden. There are waterfalls. Even though manmade waterfalls are kind of cheesey, it is still relaxing. The sun was shining. Even though the thermometers probably read 38 degrees, when the sun is shining in a clear sky it warms you up so much. I was thinking how nice it would be to sit down with a cuppa! - that's 'a cup of tea' :)

I was so inspired to buy a plant but I couldn't find anything that I liked in the shop. On my way back home I stopped by the florist and picked up some tulips. They are so beautiful and they really say "SPRING" to me! My heart fills with joy every time I look at them.

I will be putting more pics on flickr.

Success!

Modified to add photo. Be sure to look back a few posts for the photos I was finally able to add.


After several tries with different recipes I was finally successful today with a loaf of bread! It rised (raise? rose?) properly and everything. I haven't sliced into it yet. We will try it with dinner tonight. I am making stroganoff in the crock pot. Josh will have salmon since I know he doesn't like stroganoff (and I don't like seafood). I don't usually make different dinners, but I had such a hankerin' for stroganoff and I don't want to make Josh eat what I know he doesn't like. He's normally a pretty good sport. Salmon will be easy in the grill.

We just had our dinner and it was delicious! (the dinner as well as the bread)

Fab carepackage!

I was so excited to recieve a parcel today. Especially since most of the mail (when we get mail) has been for our landlord or former tenants. :(

Some of our friends from our church in Chicago sent us a carepackage. They sent us things we miss like poptarts and twizzlers and some extras like stuff from Trader Joe's (aw, I miss that place!) and...um...tissues. Yeah, they don't have that here. :) Just kidding!

We also got a CD of the men's choir that Josh was in at Moody (listening to that now) and a barista doll. HA! I laughed so hard. I'd post a picture of everything, but I still can't post pics (I also already dug into the twizzlers).

Thanks, guys!

Another foodie post

I should first make note that this is my 200th post. Woo-hoo!

I am alone tonight. Josh is on one of his overnight shifts. I usually like to get settled for the evening with a cajun chicken breast made in the grill and a movie to make myself so tired I wont have a problem sleeping alone. Alas! We have been through the mid-winter blahs and the many DVDs mom and dad have been so kind to send us (as well as the ones Sam and Peter loaned us) were watched long ago. And Anne of Green Gables is on loan. *sigh* I guess I will have to READ or something. :)

Another thing I am making tradition on these solo nights is I try to bake at least one thing. Last week I baked chocolate muffins with dried cherries. Good fresh out of the oven, but a wee bit too dry after they cool. The week before I baked rye bread. I'll just say the weather was so nice the next day that we went to feed the duck. :) Tonight I tried my hand (for the second time) at pretzles. OH! I didn't tell you about the first time!

So I made the dough and everything. Realised immediately (well, after I mixed all of the ingredients) that the recipe called for instant yeast. I have not even seen instant yeast here. Since it didn't say in the instructions, I did not allow time for the yeast to become active in warm water. I didn't want to waste the ingredients, so I let it rise for a very LOOOOONG time. It did rise, but not amazingly well.

I then had to divide the dough and roll the bits to make ropes and fashion them into pretzles. Here is when I realised an even graver mistake than the yeast. I was to put 3 TBS baking soda in a skillet of water to boil (par boil?) the pretzles before baking them. I put it in the pretzles! And I doubled the recipe, so there was 6 TBS of baking soda in the pretzle dough!!

Again, I did not want to waste the dough and rolling the dough was such hard work (especially since it didn't rise much) so I went ahead and made them just to see how they would turn out. They looked pretty good and they smelled wonderful!

I had to pop onto my American Expats forum to see if I would die from so much baking soda. They know everything there! :) The initial bite was good, but after the first few seconds it tasted extremely salty and had a very bad aftertaste. I went ahead with it and when Josh came home I told him what happened and thought that if I made some nacho cheese it would mask the taste. So we popped in a movie and had our little snack. Well, the cheese was good. The rest are still sitting in the freezer as Josh swears he will eat them one day.

So here is my second attempt. I remembered this time to save the baking soda for the water. :) I must say, they are (as they say here) FAB! I went weak in the knees when I took my first bite. Oh! How I missed thee! I have only been able to enjoy soft pretzles at the German Market during the holidays. I am going to have a hard time saving some for Josh!

My back is doing better now. It still hurts and I know I have to be careful, but at least I am more mobile. Yesterday I asked Josh if he wouldn't mind cleaning the tub for me before he went to work so I could take a hot bath. He said, "Only if you don't get stuck in the tub while I'm at work!" The bath definately helped and I sat on a heating pad all day.

I should add that Josh recieved his unconditional acceptance to the University of Edinburgh. I don't think we really feared that he wouldn't be accepted, but it is nice to have. Josh is happy about the unconditional part. He wont have to read Latin or French to a board before he is accepted. :) Now we just wait on Oxford and see if he gets any funding. This should all happen in April.

Why does it always happen when I'm on holiday?!

Some people prefer to be sick on their days off so they don't have to call in sick to work. I actually prefer the other way around. I DON'T want to be sick on my holiday! Well, I'm not sick, but I am still homebound. My back is acting up. It has not been this bad in over a year. I was just bending over yesterday and *SNAP* instant pain. It was probably a bad decision to walk a mile to church and back. It wasn't that bad until I sat in the pew.

I must comment about the church we visited yesterday. First of all, there is ALWAYS tea and coffee after church. So we stayed for tea and coffee. We were nearly instantly approached by people and kept up conversation the whole time we were there. They were interested in US! Imagine that. And I wasn't made to feel like a horrible person for working at Starbucks. They invited us back for the evening service, too, but didn't make us feel pressured that we had to settle down in their church and sign up for a list of activities.

So that was a good thing. But on top of my back pain, I was feeling a bit homesick. As far as I can remember, it is the first time I had a general feeling of homesickness rather than missing people or certain things, or just the general overwhelming feeling of being in a new place and having to learn new things every day. The days are getting longer, though. I am so, so, so looking forward to summer! We are really going to enjoy summer in our new flat. We have loads of windows french doors that open up. We are close to the botanics and the river. And in just a little over 2 months my parents will be visiting! Yeah!

Go Chicago!!

Da Bears finally made it into the Superbowl again after over 20 years! Yes, I can say I remember 20 years ago. YIKES!

Watch the Suerpbowl Shuffle for old times' sake. You can laugh. I did. :)


Super Bowl Shuffle - video powered by Metacafe

It's that time again!

In just a little over a month it will be time again to pay for Janelle's tuition. If you can help, please click on the 'make a donation' button to the right of the screen (under the yellow chat box) and give a donation via paypal. Otherwise you can send a check to my mom or Josh's mom who can deposit it into our account. When I have enough money I will wire the money to Ramil.

For those of you who don't know, I have been organising the raising of funds to pay for tuition for a wee lass in the Philippines. While public schools are available, they are overcrowded and do not offer an adequate education to help a child succeed. We are paying for Janelle to go to a private school, which means we need about $500. If you can only give $5-10 it is certainly very helpful. Josh and I usually end up paying for a large portion of this. We enjoy helping our friends in this way, but if we can get others to help that would be fantastic. There are friends and family members who have already given so generously in the past couple of years. Please consider giving just a little bit and tell a friend whom you think may be interested in helping, too.

I have started a yahoo group for those who have sponsored in the past. It contains some messages and pictures from the family. I sent some invites earlier and some have not accepted the invite. If you did not recieve the invite and are interested in joining, let me know and I can resend it.

Let me know if you have posted money to paypal or sent a check out for us.
Thanks.

Taking Care of Business

It has been a very long, busy week, so this is the first chance I have had to talk about our trip to Glasgow Tuesday. I am happy to say that we are no longer on Josh's student visa! We now have a residence permit (limited leave to remain) for 2 years.

Tuesday we had to pack up all of our important documents: passports, marriage certificate, birth certificates, bank statements, leases, proof of employment, everything you could possibly think of. We didn't want to miss a thing. We didn't want to shell out the payment and have them say "Oh, you don't have such and such" and lose that large wad of money (yes, they keep it if you are denied the visa). Do you know how unnerving it is walking around with all of the important stuff on you? If we didn't have this done in person we would have to send it in and not have it in our possession for up to 14 weeks. No thank you!

Anyways, we trecked over to Glasgow where we had an 'appointment' (arrive between 1 and 3) at the Home Office. We had to go through airport security. They kept our Motrin and my compact mirror. They kept Josh's mobile, but not mine (guess I look innocent enough). Then we had to sit in this room on metal parkbenches. No music. No TV. It was so cold and uninviting...and BOOORING! And, of course, no mobiles so I couldn't play my games. :( We waited for ages for our names to be called.

While waiting we were able to hear everyone else's business broadcasted through this speaker. Well, it wasn't intended to be broadcasted, but we could certainly hear what was going on. They had speakers on either side of the glass so you could hear what the person on the other side of the glass was saying to you. We felt bad as they denied one guy his visa, but we also wondered about his IQ level. He was getting his PhD and working full-time (strictly forbidden). Things seemed to be going smoothly with most people, so our fears of being denied arbitrarily were dissiminating.

When our names were called a nice man looked through our documents. He was funny and eased the tense situation. He told us what we already know about this visa: only 2 years, no recourse public funds. This was just a step to make sure we had our documents together. Then he directed us to a window where we could be rid of my 3 1/2 week's wage. Then we waited again. When our names were called our documents were looked over again and we were told the same important information: only 2 years, no recourse to public funds. We were told to wait another 30 minutes to get our passports back.

So we waited a total of 3 hours for this wee piece of paper in our passports. It's good to have that done. Our employers are relieved (and so are we!) as our visas expired 31 Jan. If we were somehow denied we would have had to pack up in leave in one week!

We were told one thing I still think is funny. The Fresh Talent Initiative is a Scottish program and rather contraversial because it doesn't include England. Englands population is not suffering like Scotland's, so Scotland came up with this initiative to allow graduates of Scottish universities to live and work in Scotland for 2 years. Brilliant plan. They get educated people to work and pay taxes in Scotland. They are buying products in Scotland and such and such, helping to boost the economy. Anyways...the thing I thought was funny is that while Josh is only allowed to work in Scotland, I am free to work anywhere in Britain! :) It was a bit more relaxed with me on his student visa, too. He was only allowed to work 20 hours during term, but I was allowed to work full-time.

I really miss...

Things I miss about Chicago

family and friends
the girls
Deep-dish pizza (I know, I learned how to make it, but it takes hours! and I could just call Giordano's and have one at my door in an hour!)
Paper Source
The Spice House
Jamba Juice
Cold Stone Creamery
Panera Bread
free things:
movies in the park
concerts in the park
Ravinia
library passes to museums
the lake
the lakefront path
a real autumn
a real summer
the el
neighborhood festivals
Hobby Lobby
Hancock Fabrics
Chipotle
Kohl's
a stoop to sit on or grill on
Target
Sulzer library
Lincoln Square farmer's market
Costello's
Meyer's Delicatessen
Potbelly
Millenium Park
living across from a large park
neighborhoods are like stepping into a new city (Belmont, Devon, Pilsen...)
always somewhere to go, something to do if you so desire

MLK memorial

Last night Josh and I had the opportunity to take part in a Martin Luther King, Jr memorial service at the High Kirk, St. Giles Cathedral. Our friend William is a minster there and invited us and several of his other friends to do readings and music for the service. It was a joy to take part.

Exploding smoothies

Last week I went in to work to find an explosion had happened sometime during the night at our door. This week there was another explosion, but it was inside.

It all began last night when I recieved an email about smoothies that were being recalled. I went and got them out of the fridge and proceeded to open, dump, and pitch, like we do with any food or drink that we have to bin. When I opened the smoothie it exploded all over the sink and on my clothes and face. EWW! I wasn't going to do that with 6 more smoothies, so I just binned them. We were closed and we had already taken out the rubbish and that was all that was in the bag, so I left it.

When I opened today we were walking through the dishwasher room (where said bin and smoothies were) and the girl I opened with said, "There is a peculiar smell in here." That was when I looked past her and saw smoothie sprays all the way up the wall, on the ceiling, on the floor, all over the sink and table top. It did smell really bad and I got to clean it up. Well, I cleaned what I could. I figured we would have to get one of our less vertically challenged partners to clean the ceiling. What a day! And I was so knackered! Well, it does still give me a chuckle thinking about it. :)

I have added more to my list on the last post. I hope you looked at them. I might just have to add more, later (including how to scrub crusty smoothie off the wall).

Things I have learned to do since moving to the UK

I'm not saying these are all directly related to living in the UK, but some are.
I'm sure the list will grow over the next few days as I think of more.

1. Convert measurements and temps. Well, I haven't learned the conversion, it is all from memory, and some of it is just guesswork. I still rely on my American measuring cups and spoons.

2. Pack my bags well enough at Costco to carry it all home on the bus.

3. Make barbecue sauce.

4. Make Chicago-style deep-dish pizza! MMM

5. Make bread.

6. Make yoghurt. (am I seeing a pattern here??)

7. Grow sprouts.

8. Translate Scots. Well, at least I can recognise the most common words used.

9. Make a mean caramel macciato...and everything else on the Starbucks menu. (wouldn't fly in the US, though)

10. To squeeze things into every imaginable space in our flat (I THOUGHT I had already learned that!).

11. Spinning wool. Well, I still haven't quite gotten the hang of it.

12. Needle felting.

13. Selling on ebay.

14. First aid, CPR included.

15. Sudoku

16. To skimp on meat and use cheaper ingredients. Use mushrooms for some recipes (bolognese) or just use less meat and more pulses (legumes) and veg and add more spices for flavour.

17. How to say 'good-bye' when you are done with your transaction at the till. It is not just a simple 'thank you.' Rather, 'cheers, that's lovely, thanks so much, bye now!' You can also add 'fantastic' and 'magic' in there somewhere.

18. My accessories for grocery shopping: backpack, shoulder bag, Tesco green bag, and wheeled carrier. Those are for larger shops. Otherwise I just get delivered.

19. Dry all of my clothes on a drying rack.

20. Queue, queue, queue. Queue for EVERYTHING!

21. Write and say the day and month backwards. (Today is 9.1 or 9 Jan)

22. Learn the currency. It was baptism by fire since I still had to look carefully at every coin when I got my job at Starbucks.

23. Say 'zed' instead of 'zee' for the last letter in the alphabet.

24. To look right, then left (then right and left and right and left, as there is no reguard for pedestrians) when crossing the street.

25. Pack my own groceries (very quickly!).

26. Turn off and on electrical equipment 'at the mains.' It took a few times of preheating the oven to find it wasn't even turned on.

27. Watch VERY carefully where I step as so many people overdrink, and they get sick, and, well, you know.

28. To do without an umbrella and just carry a hat.

29. To distiguish if it is all day rain or momentary rain.

30. Do the dishes with just one sink.

31. Use the electric kettle anytime I want hot water.