Well, it's been a long day. And now I'm so tired I just want to have a nap, but I don't like taking naps so late in the day so I will prop my eyes open til I feel more alert in a couple of hours.
I wanted to get up at 9:30 this morning to get some baking done, but I fell back asleep til 11, and then it was non-stop baking and getting ready so we could leave the house by 2. I managed to get everything done but just barely.
Didn't eat til lunch, which was at 4. I'm at the in-laws now, and I wasn't sure what we were going to have, but it was something we have had before, which my MIL calls negresco. I'm not sure why it's called that, or what the word means. It's basically pasta tubes cooked with some kind of white sauce and this time there was small pieces of shredded chicken in it. I can't remember if there was mozzarella cheese or not. In any case, it was good and I probably ate a little too much.
I'm now trying not to have my fingers and toes freeze off. I forgot that they leave all the windows / balcony doors open here at the in-laws, and with no heater it gets pretty darn nippy! At our apartment, we have the air conditioner / heater unit in the bedroom, and I'm generally in the bedroom for most of the day so when I get cold I can just turn the heater on for a bit. Thankfully there's a nice warm blanket on the bed, so at least I won't get cold at night.
I tried not to cry this time when hubby left. Last time he went to Kuwait and I didn't expect to cry but I guess I couldn't help it. And so this time, I thought, well, it won't be so bad, I'm already used to living with the in-laws and all that, but, once again, I did cry. Not as much as last time so maybe that's a step in the right direction. It seems silly, I've been living here for 10 months now, it's not like he's disappearing forever or something. Oh well.
Oh. When I was baking this morning, well, I found a way to butter the pan without having to get my fingers all buttery. When I was living in the States I would just use a paper towel or napkin, but we generally don't have those in our apartment here, and so I found that if you use a fork, you can kind of spread it around with the fork and not have to get your fingers all greasy. But for some reason today, while the first dish cooperated just fine, the second did not, and so I had buttered fingers. lol
We've been trying to figure out where the mosquitoes are coming from at our place. We have screens and so they shouldn't be getting in that way. Hubby thinks maybe they are coming in through the a/c heater unit, but I don't know. He'll check it out when we get back after his trip. It's really quite irritating to be woken in the night by mosquitoes buzzing in your ears. In any case, I'm going to insist that we get a mosquito net for the bed. Even if we kill the ones we see before sleeping, I don't want to have to worry about it while we're asleep. So the net will help.
Okay, enough rambling. Time to find something else to keep busy and occupied!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Pancakes and chicken
Nothing terribly exciting going on.
Still construction going on across the way. I'm getting pictures and I got a short video yesterday. I will miss some of the action though when hubby leaves for his trip and I stay with the in-laws. I expect by the time we come back to our apartment they will be done tearing it down.
Hubby thinks they will build a new building, which means, of course, a lot of noise. And it seems, from what I have observed in many spots, that they do a lot of the building at night. Maybe not on all buildings, but on a lot of them that I saw.
Right now they are using some kind of jackhammer or something but we can't tell what for, as they're using it on the ground and it's just behind the building right in front of us. Perhaps breaking down the concrete or whatever that they've been sledgehammering off the building. It's making huge dust piles. I imagine when we get back to the apartment after being gone that there will be quite a layer.
:::
Hubby told me last night he was going to go into work a little later today, so I was thinking perhaps I would make pancakes in the morning. When we woke I asked him if he wanted pancakes with maple syrup and I was surprised he said yes. He doesn't generally eat breakfast.
So, I looked up a recipe and got to work. Didn't take too long and they were SO good. A taste of home I suppose. And there's nothing like real maple syrup. :D
I brought a bottle of syrup with me when I moved here as I don't think it's generally sold here. If it is in one of the larger markets I imagine it would be fairly expensive.
The other day we found worcestershire sauce, which I had told hubby about (and which we had fun pronouncing), and so we picked some up and it wasn't too overpriced, but looking at the soy sauce I decided that I would check in a larger store and see if it was any cheaper because the cost was exorbitant. I don't need it that badly.
:::
After the pancakes were done, I got to work on the chicken that we had thawed out from yesterday. This chicken was frozen. It came here from Brazil! World traveler chicken. Been more places than I have! lol
Anyways, it was a whole chicken, and we were going to grill it, so I had to get it into two halves.
I wasn't sure that the knife we have could handle it, but I set to work. And was almost immediately totally grossed out. lol
I've never cut up a chicken before, and cutting through bone is honestly just kind of disgusting. The bone marrow or whatever is all... you know... marrowish. lol
Well, I got the darn thing cut in half but pretty much decided I wasn't eating any of it after what I did with it. So, hubby had one half today with dinner and he'll have the other half tomorrow.
I'm not opposed to eating chicken, and if hubby had cut it up I probably would have been fine with eating it, but seeing the bones cut and stuff was just too much!
:::
I think I'm getting better at working the gas stove/oven. I think the only thing that is a little difficult is that even the low setting on the stove just isn't that low. Not like on an electric stove. So I have to be more careful with everything. But, I haven't had anything burning in the oven like I did the first couple times and I'm learning my oven's particular quirks etc.
I do have a concern about when the gas tank runs out. Because it's not like you just go down the street and get it filled.
Guys drive around or rather bike around and they bang on the cans while riding through the neighborhoods so you know that they are there and basically you go out on your balcony and shout down at them that you want a tank, at which point they stop and bring one up to you.
They take your old tank which is empty, and give you someone else's tank that was empty and refilled. So you never have a nice new clean tank. They are always dirty and grungy and I really hate it but there's no other way around it unless we live somewhere that has a direct gas line into the house, and I don't think that's too common.
So, all in all, not the easiest thing to get the tank replaced. Gotta wait til someone comes by with tanks.
And if you're in the middle of baking a cake, or cooking dinner, or whatever.... well... that sucks. lol
:::
I do still have pictures but too lazy to upload right now. If I don't get to it in the next couple days, I'll have plenty of time while I'm doing nothing at the in-laws. *sigh* lol
Still construction going on across the way. I'm getting pictures and I got a short video yesterday. I will miss some of the action though when hubby leaves for his trip and I stay with the in-laws. I expect by the time we come back to our apartment they will be done tearing it down.
Hubby thinks they will build a new building, which means, of course, a lot of noise. And it seems, from what I have observed in many spots, that they do a lot of the building at night. Maybe not on all buildings, but on a lot of them that I saw.
Right now they are using some kind of jackhammer or something but we can't tell what for, as they're using it on the ground and it's just behind the building right in front of us. Perhaps breaking down the concrete or whatever that they've been sledgehammering off the building. It's making huge dust piles. I imagine when we get back to the apartment after being gone that there will be quite a layer.
:::
Hubby told me last night he was going to go into work a little later today, so I was thinking perhaps I would make pancakes in the morning. When we woke I asked him if he wanted pancakes with maple syrup and I was surprised he said yes. He doesn't generally eat breakfast.
So, I looked up a recipe and got to work. Didn't take too long and they were SO good. A taste of home I suppose. And there's nothing like real maple syrup. :D
I brought a bottle of syrup with me when I moved here as I don't think it's generally sold here. If it is in one of the larger markets I imagine it would be fairly expensive.
The other day we found worcestershire sauce, which I had told hubby about (and which we had fun pronouncing), and so we picked some up and it wasn't too overpriced, but looking at the soy sauce I decided that I would check in a larger store and see if it was any cheaper because the cost was exorbitant. I don't need it that badly.
:::
After the pancakes were done, I got to work on the chicken that we had thawed out from yesterday. This chicken was frozen. It came here from Brazil! World traveler chicken. Been more places than I have! lol
Anyways, it was a whole chicken, and we were going to grill it, so I had to get it into two halves.
I wasn't sure that the knife we have could handle it, but I set to work. And was almost immediately totally grossed out. lol
I've never cut up a chicken before, and cutting through bone is honestly just kind of disgusting. The bone marrow or whatever is all... you know... marrowish. lol
Well, I got the darn thing cut in half but pretty much decided I wasn't eating any of it after what I did with it. So, hubby had one half today with dinner and he'll have the other half tomorrow.
I'm not opposed to eating chicken, and if hubby had cut it up I probably would have been fine with eating it, but seeing the bones cut and stuff was just too much!
:::
I think I'm getting better at working the gas stove/oven. I think the only thing that is a little difficult is that even the low setting on the stove just isn't that low. Not like on an electric stove. So I have to be more careful with everything. But, I haven't had anything burning in the oven like I did the first couple times and I'm learning my oven's particular quirks etc.
I do have a concern about when the gas tank runs out. Because it's not like you just go down the street and get it filled.
Guys drive around or rather bike around and they bang on the cans while riding through the neighborhoods so you know that they are there and basically you go out on your balcony and shout down at them that you want a tank, at which point they stop and bring one up to you.
They take your old tank which is empty, and give you someone else's tank that was empty and refilled. So you never have a nice new clean tank. They are always dirty and grungy and I really hate it but there's no other way around it unless we live somewhere that has a direct gas line into the house, and I don't think that's too common.
So, all in all, not the easiest thing to get the tank replaced. Gotta wait til someone comes by with tanks.
And if you're in the middle of baking a cake, or cooking dinner, or whatever.... well... that sucks. lol
:::
I do still have pictures but too lazy to upload right now. If I don't get to it in the next couple days, I'll have plenty of time while I'm doing nothing at the in-laws. *sigh* lol
Sunday, January 10, 2010
4 days, 2 rooms
They are still demolishing the building across the street. Slow progress but progress nonetheless. I'm getting a couple of pictures a day, so when they are done, or at least until I can't take pictures where they're working at, I'll post them. It's nice to see how far they get every day. I'm sure it's not a well paid job but I wish it were for their sakes. It's not easy work. At least it's not summer so the temps aren't awful to work in.
:::
I swept a couple of days ago. I didn't get the whole apartment, just the 2 front rooms. There was quite a pile of dust. It was only 4 days since I had swept the time before, so it wasn't like I waited a month or something. I'm pretty sure the hacking away at the building across the street is contributing some, but it is always pretty dusty in this apartment anyways.
Anyways, it seems that the broom will be a close friend of mine as long as we live here. lol
:::
I've been doing a lot of baking. More lemon bread, though I changed a few things in the recipe, cutting back on some of the fat but still leaving it very moist and too yummy!
I'm getting ready to bake a batch of lemon bars for hubby to take with him to Kuwait. lol
He wanted some to take so I don't mind. He'll be leaving later in the week.
And since I'll be at the in-laws, I decided to bake myself a couple of loafs of quickbread to take with me so that I have something yummy to eat that I like. What I like as a sweet or snack, and what the rest of hubby's family likes is a bit different.
So I'll be busy baking this week.
:::
Alright, the weird spots on the wall where the paint is kind of bubbling up... still don't know what it is. Hubby thinks it's just water leaking in the walls, but I don't think straight water would do this. Maybe it's water leaking but there's something in the paint that's making it bubble? No idea.
Both of these pictures are taken on the same wall, about 5 feet apart. It is a wall going down the hallway between the bathroom and the kitchen, but there are no appliances or anything on the other side of the wall. It's just a divider wall. Of course, there could be pipes inside the wall there that I'm not aware of but it seems like a weird place to have them to me.
:::
I hope it's nothing major. But we repainted the whole apartment before moving in and the walls were fine. In the period between painting and actually moving here, this started happening. It's not decaying or whatever at too rapid a pace, but it does still seem to be progressing.
Anyone have any ideas on what it could be from?
:::
I still have some more pictures to post, will try to get them up in the next couple days or so.
:::
I swept a couple of days ago. I didn't get the whole apartment, just the 2 front rooms. There was quite a pile of dust. It was only 4 days since I had swept the time before, so it wasn't like I waited a month or something. I'm pretty sure the hacking away at the building across the street is contributing some, but it is always pretty dusty in this apartment anyways.
Anyways, it seems that the broom will be a close friend of mine as long as we live here. lol
:::
I've been doing a lot of baking. More lemon bread, though I changed a few things in the recipe, cutting back on some of the fat but still leaving it very moist and too yummy!
I'm getting ready to bake a batch of lemon bars for hubby to take with him to Kuwait. lol
He wanted some to take so I don't mind. He'll be leaving later in the week.
And since I'll be at the in-laws, I decided to bake myself a couple of loafs of quickbread to take with me so that I have something yummy to eat that I like. What I like as a sweet or snack, and what the rest of hubby's family likes is a bit different.
So I'll be busy baking this week.
:::
Alright, the weird spots on the wall where the paint is kind of bubbling up... still don't know what it is. Hubby thinks it's just water leaking in the walls, but I don't think straight water would do this. Maybe it's water leaking but there's something in the paint that's making it bubble? No idea.
Both of these pictures are taken on the same wall, about 5 feet apart. It is a wall going down the hallway between the bathroom and the kitchen, but there are no appliances or anything on the other side of the wall. It's just a divider wall. Of course, there could be pipes inside the wall there that I'm not aware of but it seems like a weird place to have them to me.
:::
I hope it's nothing major. But we repainted the whole apartment before moving in and the walls were fine. In the period between painting and actually moving here, this started happening. It's not decaying or whatever at too rapid a pace, but it does still seem to be progressing.
Anyone have any ideas on what it could be from?
:::
I still have some more pictures to post, will try to get them up in the next couple days or so.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Strawberries you say?
Been busy around the house but nothing much new apartment wise. Still trying to get a handle on the best way to clean with all of the dust. We need some mats for the kitchen and bathroom. That should hopefully help a bit with tracking since the floors are always dusty, whether I clean them or not. lol
:::
For the past couple of days we have been woken, and then I hear all day, the sound of some guys across the street who are demolishing part of a building with some kind of ... I dunno what, sledgehammer? They stand on the top of the building and hit at the part below where they're standing. Um.... hello?
Anyways, not sure if they will take the whole building down or they are just taking the top floor off. I have taken a picture each morning, and you can see where they worked at, so I'll see how it goes and what happens tomorrow morning. If they keep working I'll try to get more pictures and then I can post the progress.
:::
I took a whole slew of food pictures the last few days.
My brother in law works for a company that exports and imports fruits and vegetables, and he gave us a bunch when we were over at the in-laws place on new years day. We got 8 bell peppers, some mushrooms, and a bunch of strawberries. So, I've been busy trying to use all that up. And taking pictures of my efforts.
For now, here is what I did with the strawberries. It's a quick bread. The smell is still strong in the house and hubby is even now in the kitchen cutting himself the first slice.
Will post some more pictures in the coming days.
:::
Still having foot problems. Insha'Allah it will get better soon. Still not positive what is wrong with it, but tried switching shoes last night so hopefully that will make a difference. I try to stay off my foot but If I stay off my foot, that means I can't do anything around the apartment.
:::
For the past couple of days we have been woken, and then I hear all day, the sound of some guys across the street who are demolishing part of a building with some kind of ... I dunno what, sledgehammer? They stand on the top of the building and hit at the part below where they're standing. Um.... hello?
Anyways, not sure if they will take the whole building down or they are just taking the top floor off. I have taken a picture each morning, and you can see where they worked at, so I'll see how it goes and what happens tomorrow morning. If they keep working I'll try to get more pictures and then I can post the progress.
:::
I took a whole slew of food pictures the last few days.
My brother in law works for a company that exports and imports fruits and vegetables, and he gave us a bunch when we were over at the in-laws place on new years day. We got 8 bell peppers, some mushrooms, and a bunch of strawberries. So, I've been busy trying to use all that up. And taking pictures of my efforts.
For now, here is what I did with the strawberries. It's a quick bread. The smell is still strong in the house and hubby is even now in the kitchen cutting himself the first slice.
:::
Still having foot problems. Insha'Allah it will get better soon. Still not positive what is wrong with it, but tried switching shoes last night so hopefully that will make a difference. I try to stay off my foot but If I stay off my foot, that means I can't do anything around the apartment.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Lemon or lime?
I made the most scrumptious bread/cake a couple of days ago. It's actually called lemon yogurt cake or something like that, but you bake it in a loaf pan, so to me it seemed like it should be more like a bread. But, it seems to be more dense and sweet, perhaps something like a pound cake? I'm not sure as I remember having pound cake though so I can't be sure.
It called for lemons but I just used lime since that's what we had on hand and it seemed interchangeable enough with the lemon bars.
There was a bit of a mess with the lime/sugar syrup that was supposed to be drizzled over the top, but I got it on well enough.
The taste is really just out of this world. For mom and dad - remember the lemon bundt cakes you used to be able to buy at Raley's? It tastes kinda like that. SO GOOD!! Hubby really likes it as well. So, happy with that. And the bottom didn't burn, so that's a plus. lol
:::
In other food related news, I made fettuccine alfredo tonight for the first time. The recipe was good though it was a bit heavy. It called for a less fat cream cheese, but I think I was lucky enough to find regular cream cheese. In any case, it was good and hubby agrees that it's a keeper.
:::
We went last Friday, new years day, to the in-laws for lunch. There were assorted cousins and neice and aunty there, so it was nice to see everyone. I didn't even mind spending time there as a guest. Though I'm not happy about going to live there again while hubby is away on his trip that is coming up.
I took some food pictures but don't have them edited yet, so that will come later, in a day or two perhaps.
:::
Not sure about trip dates. Possibly this weekend or the next. I'm trying to be positive about it, as one of the reasons for the trip is to bring in new business for hubby's company, and that is important. But I still don't like being without him in a country that is not entirely familiar to me. I still don't know the language and I don't go out of the house by myself. When he isn't here it feels too limiting and a bit scary. I know my in-laws could help with anything I needed but it isn't the same as having hubby here.
It called for lemons but I just used lime since that's what we had on hand and it seemed interchangeable enough with the lemon bars.
There was a bit of a mess with the lime/sugar syrup that was supposed to be drizzled over the top, but I got it on well enough.
The taste is really just out of this world. For mom and dad - remember the lemon bundt cakes you used to be able to buy at Raley's? It tastes kinda like that. SO GOOD!! Hubby really likes it as well. So, happy with that. And the bottom didn't burn, so that's a plus. lol
:::
In other food related news, I made fettuccine alfredo tonight for the first time. The recipe was good though it was a bit heavy. It called for a less fat cream cheese, but I think I was lucky enough to find regular cream cheese. In any case, it was good and hubby agrees that it's a keeper.
:::
We went last Friday, new years day, to the in-laws for lunch. There were assorted cousins and neice and aunty there, so it was nice to see everyone. I didn't even mind spending time there as a guest. Though I'm not happy about going to live there again while hubby is away on his trip that is coming up.
I took some food pictures but don't have them edited yet, so that will come later, in a day or two perhaps.
:::
Not sure about trip dates. Possibly this weekend or the next. I'm trying to be positive about it, as one of the reasons for the trip is to bring in new business for hubby's company, and that is important. But I still don't like being without him in a country that is not entirely familiar to me. I still don't know the language and I don't go out of the house by myself. When he isn't here it feels too limiting and a bit scary. I know my in-laws could help with anything I needed but it isn't the same as having hubby here.
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