Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What's Been Making Me Smile...

Again, looking for reasons to smile. Life's still beating me up. My nanny quit and gave me almost no notice. Also our bank is charging us for 3 ATM transactions that never went through. We're still trying to get it straightened out. Grrrrrr.

But I refuse to stop the 'smile' posts. They make me feel better.
  1. Tea and conversation over a plate of cookies (see prev. post) with my new friend MaryEllen.
  2. Kenny saying, "Woohoo, I'm a MAN!" when he's happy about something.
  3. Unusually warm weather, lingering longer than it's supposed to
  4. My Hubby washing dishes for me 2 days in a row! (my least favorite job on earth)
  5. New friendships and experiences as an English teacher at Nate's school.
  6. Our anniversary is coming up.
  7. I gave my 4th grade students English names today and the chubby kid who is always trying to make everyone laugh said he didn't want to be "Kevin"; he wanted to be called "Kung-Fu Panda" instead.
  8. Thoughts I'm entertaining about writing a children's book...
  9. Navajo bread and molasses
  10. These cute kids:

Monday, October 13, 2008

Frugal, Healthy-ish Cookie Recipe

I will be trying these later today...


Carrot Cookies


INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons orange zest
1 egg
1 1/4 cups grated carrots
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
2. Cream butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Add egg and orange rind. Stir to blend.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Add to butter mixture alternately with grated carrots. Mix to form a dough.
4. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Cookies will spread slightly. Bake for about 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned around the edges. Loosen cookies with spatula. Cool on rack.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2008 Allrecipes.com

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Much Ado About Garbage

Ok, you read this and tell me if I'm being an unreasonable American here.

Our garbage truck comes around every other week to collect our trash (that in itself is a tragedy. Every other week? Come on!). Sometimes the driver of said garbage truck fails to announce his presence when passing by our gate.

Now, normally I'm not a paranoid, "conspiracy theory" type of person and I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt. BUT, I am the only foreign person in my entire neighborhood and I do deal with racism on some level almost on a daily basis, so could the garbage truck driver not caring about my garbage possibly have anything to do with the fact that I am an American and he's afraid to deal with me because he thinks I may require him to speak my native tongue?

Man, that was a long sentence.

Back to the garbage guy.

Two weeks ago they came by to collect our trash and since they had breezed by two weeks before that without stopping, we literally had a garage full of maggoty, rotten... there are just no words, believe me, for what was piled up in there. I was frustrated to tears because I couldn't get the lady (a lady--and I use that term lightly- usually goes with the truck to collect the fees.) to understand that we needed them to actually pause and blow the horn at our gate in order for us to hear them. She refused to admit that anything was amiss and she kept saying over and over again that she pounded on the gate, blah, blah, blah.

Hetee came out and tried to reason with her and she quieted down a little. I'm tired of getting chewed out by people who are supposed to be quiet and just collect my garbage and garbage money. I mean, I'm not asking them to do it for free!

So anyway, apparently they still have not understood the concept of blowing the horn on the big loud truck they have (I think that they think it will use more gas or something ??) because today, lo and behold, I hear a banging noise at the gate and a woman screaming at the top of her lungs: "Khogoo uguurei!!!!!!!!!" (Give me your trash)

Oh, and they had a new set of shenanigans all planned for me today, as well. I handed the garbage man my bathroom trash can to empty into the truck, just like everyone else does and what does the idiot do? He throws my entire trash can into the truck! I said, "Hey, give me my can!" He laughs and says, "We're taking it." At that point, it had been in the back of a garbage truck so I probably should have parted with it right then and there.

The guy did gave it back though, and I'm still trying to work up the nerve to bring it inside and wash it. Disgusting.

On the other hand, I guess it's a good thing I only have to deal with them twice a month. Any more than that would just be torture.