"Until You" - Dave Barnes = Song of the Day

This is my song of the day... why? Well, I was listening to a set list from the Dave Barnes & Matt Wertz concert from 2007 and realized, again, how much I love this song! So if you would like, while you are reading this, play the song and enjoy it, as I am while I am writing :)


Birthday Party, Trini Style

This is Siddi dancing around in her kitchen... She was a happy birthday girl! :)

This Sunday, was my darling Siddiqua's 20th birthday! (She makes me feel a lil bit old ha ha) So to celebrate, she decided she was going to make some traditional Trinidad food from her cookbook one of her friends sent her for her birthday. Matt and I went over with some wine, and spent the evening with Siddi, her two friends from Saint Lucia (Joy and I am not certain how to spell his name), and a Moldovian girl from Siddi and mine's French Class, who we call Lulu because her name is long and complicated, but begins with Lu so it's not just some random name ha ha. The Carribean people joined forces to make delicious chicken, rice with lots of good spices and veggies, and a salad. Later, we had this drink that is used in celebrations in the Carribean, called Peanut Punch (I do believe that is what it is...). From what I could gather, it is made with peanuts (go figure), milk, I think Joy said bitter, and rum. It was delicious! We spent the night exchanging stories and talking. I was able to learn all about growing up in the Carribean and how parents are with their children, as well as the little things from back home they all remembered. I guess it is rather common that Carribean children will be told to not do something, such as go outside after having been bathed, and then they always get hurt when they misbehave and go on outside. Joy said she had done this once, and ended up with a huge cut on her forehead because she didn't mind her teachers out at recess one day and stayed out of the area where they were fixing the roof. When her mom came to get her at school, she just looked at her and said, I am not taking her anywhere with me. ha ha ha She says, still to this day, whenever she "misbehaves" or something to that degree (she is around 23 now), her mom always tells her, you know that mark on your forehead? that's the mark of disobedience! ha ha ha Tough love eh? They were full of all these hilarious stories...

And this is Joy, telling one of her many outrageous stories :)

My Mother May be THE Queen, but I have officially taken over reign in the bread making department...

So as you know, I love making muffins (in fact, once I am done with this, I will be making some more for Madigan's and for around here ha ha). Well, I have decided to up my ante (is that how it's spelled?). I really do not like having to choose which bread I want to eat for the week, and then having part of it go stale and then mold because I do not eat it all in time. I was searching the internet for some recipes and came across an easy recipe for Pita bread. Naturally, I decided to try it out! My first batch was pretty legit, but the second batch was golden! (I tweaked the recipe in my own little way and received food masterpieces in return!) To say the least, Matt has been in Pita heaven (he tests everything I make to make sure I won't die... in other words, he just wants to eat it all ha ha).

Here is my pita dough batch #2 after it rose : (Take note of the size...)


And here is the dough when it plopped out of the tub to be punched down to release all the air :


And these are the nice lil dough balls that were created to roll out into pitas :


And this is what is left of it all after about two days ha ha :

Matt has introduced me to a desert that I guess is pretty popular up north with our neighboring Canadians. It's called a "Beaver Tail" which consists of a bread like a pita (so convenient, right?), nutella, and brown sugar on top, placed in an oven and all warmed up together... it is extremely good ha ha So I think each week, I will make a batch and have it be my bread for the week! (Look at me being all resourceful and house-maker like ha ha)


Postal Workers are all the same...

You know how you go to a United States Postal Office to mail a package to a friend or something like that, and generally you are in a good mood, regardless of how long the line is or whatever, and then you get up to the person working the counter and you just know they hate life. It always dampens your day without fail. Well, yesterday, the sun was shining, and I mean shining to the point where I had to wear my sunglasses. The first time since I left Colorado. So being in good spirits, I decided to walk to the closest post office to mail some letters I had written and pick up some more stamps. I was waiting in line, still happy, and then it was my turn. I went up to the counter and bidded the older lad a "Bonjour" and asked for 6 stamps to mail stuff to the USA. He was all put off by this. And like made a huffing sound, went and got his folder thing with the stamps, separated 6 out for me, entered it into the system, told me the price, I paid, and bid him a "bonne journee, au revoir!" (Good day and good bye!) and he said nothing... He was all pissy and it put a damper on my sunny day, up until I stepped back outside and the sun began to shine on me again... ha ha Lesson learned : if you hate life, work for a post office, or on the flip side, if you want to stay happy, don't work for the post office. (I suppose it's how you look at the causalty of it all ha ha)


I found my Dad in France...

As I was walking back from the post office to campus, I saw a man putting up a billboard up ahead. In my city, they do it old school style, where they have 8 posters that make up the entire advertisement and put them up with a giant broom/brush thing with some sort of adherent. I really love watching them do this actually, it fascinates me. I then realized that he had his dog with him. So the sight of a man putting up posters, with his dog by his side, in his coveralls, made me think that one day, I could see my dad doing that with little Kaycee Dean by his side ha ha ha Love you Daddio! (And my lil girl toooo!)


Dance, dance, dance...

Last night, I had my dance class again, as usual. We began with a review of the paso-doble we had learned last week, which is just pretty much walking and turning to counts ha ha. Then we got back into waltz stuff. For whatever reason, which I think it is because I have a dancing background, whenever the instructor, Simon, wants to demonstrate what we will be learning that day, something that is new to me too keep in mind, he always uses me to do it. It's funny because I have no idea what's going on, but just go with it! Last night, he demonstrated our usual waltz combination, which is a quarter turn, a half turn, quarter turn, and the usual 1-2-3 to get back on the right foot to commence again. However, after that he decided he would show everyone what we were working up towards, which is a quarter turn, half turn, half turn, half turn, and quarter turn. ***Side note: half turns are hard, small, and fast*** Luckily, I did well ha ha After class, he asked me if I had studied under another instructor for waltz because I was very stiff in my arms like a competitive dancer, and I informed him that it was my very first time ha ha He seemed amazed by that and just gave me a few pointers to be a better dancer. To say the least, I LOVE IT!

Afterwards, I went to Madigan's to see the fam that was working last night, and Guillaume was there. (Guillaume is the best friend to Paul, who is the French guy I dated for like a week... long story, don't go there. Just know this, French guys my age still have major mommy complexes, that is to say, why have a girlfriend when you have your mom to cook for you and do your laundry and baby you?) He asked me what I had been up to and I told him about my dance class and how we danced the waltz and paso-doble. He then proceeded to ask me what the paso-doble was by asking me if it was a hole in the butt? I did not hear that, I thought he asked me if I was tired from it, and I said "ca depend" which means, that depends. Yet again, he has confused me with his questions and we now have another inside joke to add to the list of all the ridiculous things I say to them ha ha He messaged me this morning not with a good morning or a bonjour, but a "ca depend"... smart ass.


Like waking up in Colorado...

The other day, I was talking to my dad and he told me of all the bad weather and horrific winds FoCo had been having... surprisingly the next day I woke up to high-speed winds and for a second I thought I had woken up at home! Then I came to. ha ha Well, this morning, I woke up to LEGIT SNOW. What initially woke me up was the familiar sound of a bobcat type tractor dragging its bucket on cement/asphalt, which was kind of the case but it was there way of snow removal ha ha. Because the sun has been shining intermittently, a lot of the snow on the branches has melted/fallen off, but the grass is still very much covered. From my room, I would guess it's a good 2 inches at least, and it's the wet snow. What's bizarre is that I did not fall asleep until about 1 or 1:30 last night and it was not snowing then, so it did all of this in a matter of about 8 hours! That, is unheard of from what I have seen, which usually consists of a really pathetic flurry attempt by the clouds. Here are the pics I took from my room this morning :)

This is the view to the left of my room... and the other pic is to the right ha ha

A special visitor comes my way!

Next weekend, Sara Price and I are going to meet up in Paris for a couple days, and then come on down to Besancon, where she is going to chill here with me until Tuesday! I cannot wait to see her, especially because our busy schedules during winter break didn't let us do so when I was at home! I cannot wait! :)


Well, that about sums it all up for me for now... Sorry it's a long one. Hopefully the lil titles and the pics help break it up a bit!

Miss you all!

All my love!

- The Pita and Dancing Queen (ha ha ha)