Yesterday...

...was Christmas!

And I turned 29. Woohoo!

But really, I don't feel much older than 17 years old. Mentally I think that will be my age forever. 

It has come and gone. Quick as usual.

Morning gift opening was fun. Very much like being a kid again, and I think I surprised Matt with all the gift shaking and guessing I did. 

A big 'THANK YOU' to everyone who got us gifts (namely our parents) even when we told them not to. I particularly liked my moms hand made scarf and hat and imagine that it took quite a bit of time to finish. It's very snazzy and I will wear it proudly. 

I must say  that the most interesting gift we received was from my in-laws. Glenda and Walter truly out did themselves. They gave us steaks. That's right. Red Meat. Wow! Is this not the coolest gift idea or what!? Who knew that you could have animal parts shipped to someone in the mail? They are supposed to arrive sometime in the next week or so in a box of dry ice. I am so excited! This gift possibly ranks in my Top 3 All Time Gifts Ever Received list. First place obviously goes to my mom and dad for my Care Bear Cousin (Swift Heart Rabbit) the best childhood doll a kid could have. Next would be the wedding ring that Matthew made me with his own two hands. And then would come the steaks. Yep...my doll, my ring, and my steaks. 

We spent the rest of the day lounging around the house, reading books, baking a pie and preparing a cornish game hen dinner (which according to Wikipedia is not a game bird at all, just a young farm raised chicken). I finally managed to make a non-lumpy gravy, a good way to start year 29. Perhaps all my cooking endeavors from now on will be closer to perfect.

We head out to the cabin/cottage tonight to spend the weekend with Matt's family. I'm looking forward to it. Sounds like Walter might be breaking out the Snowmobile! Good times for everyone!

M.

Tomorrow...

...is Christmas. 

It is incidentally also my birthday. I turn 29.

The last year of my life in my 20's. I'm not sure how to feel, but there is an overwhelming sense that I need to make this one worth it. My 20's need to go out with a bang (a year long bang). 

I'm not sure how I'm going to do that. I don't think I really do need to know how, but i'll be sure to let you know when the epiphany hits me. If I don't figure it out, Matt will. Being married to Matt is one big adventure anyway. That boy has a enough dreams for the both of us, and I'm pretty sure that by August we will find ourselves some place where no one speaks any English and the food is generally unrecognizable. 

Also, a few random interesting bits. 

a. I have a sore developing right under my nose. It hurts like hell and looks like it's only getting bigger. I blame winter because right now winter is to blame for everything.

b. Matthew chipped his tooth the other day. We are debating our plan of action, which will probably include a trip to the dentist and an exorbitant bill. It's that, or returning to the ways of our great grandparents and just living with a chipped tooth.

c. Watched the weirdest movie EVER last night, with Mick Jagger in it. It's about hippy rock stars, gangsters, nudity, drugs, bookies, velvet and guns. I would call it Psychedelic. If you are brave, check it out. It's called Performance.

d. I'm addicted to Bon Iver's song Skinny Love and play it about 5 to 20 times a day...in a row... You should listen to it to. You can find it on my Facebook. Go listen and join in my addiction.

e. Today's Headline Reads: "Consumer Spending Down!"

Noooooo!!!! Really???? Who knew an Economic Downturn would do such a thing?!

I hate headlines these days. They are so redundant and meaningless. If they aren't stating the obvious, they are adulterating the truth (a la Fox Network style), or trying and scare the crap out of you (a la CNN style). As an aside, I personally think that it's a good thing that consumer spending is down. Less crap going into our land fills and maybe helping people differentiate between what they 'want' and what they 'need'.

Sorry the blog is so random and boring these days. The truth is, when winter hits the Midwest, you basically seal yourself into your apartment with as many canned goods and limes as possible and wait for it to be over. In short, there isn't a heck of a lot going on right now. It's hard work making something out of nothing, but I do my best. I'll try and get more photos posted sometime soon as well.

Merry Christmas people!

Lots of love from us to you!

xo.

Stupid Cold is Right!

I am slowly turning into a pile of dust.

My skin is beyond dry. I need one of those special pack sacks that carry only water...the one that has a tube running from it straight into my mouth. 

This death-by-skin-dehydration is pretty common for me during the cold months, but this year it's so much worse. My body must think that since I spent last winter on a beach, this year I deserve twice the cracked and flaking skin. 

I forgot how much winter sucks. 

The daily degradation of my skin paired up with the lack of insulation in our 100 year old apartment and the suspense built around wether or not Matt's car will start every morning, is a very cruel reminder.

I don't think Matthew will ever let us live in the midwest another winter. He's practically filling out the paperwork himself to make me a permanent resident of India, which apparently I can do because of my genetics. One passport at a time my friend! I haven't even got my US Green Card yet.

For those of you that are interested, the Green Card thing is still keeping us in a tight holding pattern. 

Nothing will move forward until I get my Police Check in from the RCMP. When that finally arrives (God Knows When!) then it will be about another month until I have an interview with at the American Embassy in Montreal.

This waiting game we constantly play with various government offices is tortuous. 

I'm convinced that the system is set up this way, with endless wait times for documents, cryptic instructions on how to fill in your application forms, and expensive fees, purposefully to deter people who are either not determined enough to go through with this demented process or who are too poor to afford an immigration lawyer. 

We are close though. I can feel it. And even though we have no lawyers, and we have no money, soon I'll have a Green Card that will let me work in a country that apparently has no jobs...and THEN...THEN it will all be worth it!

Yeah for me.

Staying Healthy in Minnesnowta

It's late and for some reason I can't sleep. 

Could be the half bag of licorice I had just before dinner that is keeping me up. 

Plus the muffin from the batch I just baked tonight.

And of course the handful of chocolate chips I downed while making them.

In short, I'm a bit wired. Also, I have a tummy ache that echoes vague memories from my childhood after a binge at the local candy store. Hopefully I will be a fully recovered adult tomorrow.

Winter has officially hit Minneapolis, and apparently it's early.

When I say 'officially' I mean that the snow that has fallen is obviously not going anywhere. Unlike Toronto, the Minnesota variety of white stuff does not melt or become slush. It stays white and fluffy or it compresses into ice, but it does not go away. My footwear has been reduced to a single pair of water resistant hiking shoes insulated with the purest wool socks around. I've also started to habitually wear long johns underneath all my jeans without even bothering to check weather reports or peek outside my window. After it drops below -10 Celcius it doesn't really matter.

It takes me about 15 minutes to PREPARE to leave my home as I attire myself in full winter protection. Gone are the days that I would run outside without a scarf or hat on (cause it just wasn't cool back then). Now I refuse to even open my front door without two sweaters on, my massive MEC coat, mitts, toque and mom-knit neck warmer. Matt has started calling me 'Grandma' because of all the knit wear that has made its way into my wardrobe. Well, that's 'sexy grandma' to you!

In other news...

Matt and I are doing our best to reduce some of our costs of living. It doesn't have as much to do with the ever popular Economy Crisis which is seemingly the reason for many peoples woes right now. No, it has more to do with the fact that we have started making Health Insurance payments here in the USA. It's such a weird concept for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely aware that Canadian Health Insurance is not free...I know that I pay for it through my taxes. However, I couldn't help but feel ripped off when Matt brought home his paycheck one day and it had been cut by about $150. He finally passed the 3 month mark at his job which qualified us for Health Insurance. It was a bittersweet occasion; celebratory because I could finally stop obsessing over some inevitable freak accident (like spontaneously spraining my ankle) that would consequently cost my unborn grandchildren a lifetime of hard labor to repay the doctors that fix me up. On the flip side, it was a big downer because it means every month we lose $300 out of Matt's income. 

$300.

$300!!!

That's just slightly over our monthly grocery bill. To have the cost of health care spelled out like that in one swooping blow was a bit of a shock. And what's worse is that it's shitty health coverage (or at least I think so. I'm sure that it's not that normal to have full dental and soothing massages included in an average health plan.)

In any case, at least we have something. Something is better than absolutely nothing, even if that something sort of sucks. Aside from my candy binges, we are keeping as healthy as possible on illegally smuggled Cold Fx (can you believe they don't have it here!) and lots of orange juice. 

This also brings me back to the cuts our budget is taking. Last week we did a big grocery shop and I made an important resolution: To stretch out the food we bought for as long as possible. 'As Long As Possible' has turned out to be just under 2 weeks for a $90 shop. Not bad if I do say so myself.

This has been made possible by a few factors:

1. Less Meat.

Matt maybe hasn't noticed, but i've been cutting our meat portions and increasing the vegetables. Actually, I'm sure he's noticed, but he's just being nice.

2. Insane Pizza Deals.

You can buy 5 frozen medium pizzas here for $10! So weekends have become 'Pizza Weekends where we dine like kings on $2 pizzas. So not healthy, but oh so good.

3. Eat Everything.

Tomorrow we need to go shopping again. How do I know this? 

Because we are down to 1 egg and a half container of yogurt, and because Matt would disown me if that was what I put on the table as our next meal, it's officially time to restock. 

I'm not sure how much money we will save this way, but it's worth experimenting with for now. It's definitely not as much as we need to offset the cost of our health care in the USA. If I really wanted to do that i'd have to crack down on the amount of beer and wine we drink every month. Hey, when you're living through a Minnesota winter you have to keep warm somehow, right?!

Notes to Self

It's officially done. Matt and I sent off our JET applications to the Japanese Embassy. Now all we have to do is wait around until January to hear back. The whole process has been a lot like applying for a Green Card.

Lots forms to fill out, statements to write, documents to scramble for at the last minute. 

They want everything in triplicate, which totally ate up our paper supply. I will say though, that the Japanese officials are easier to get in touch with than the American ones. At least they let you leave a message on their machine and call you back with answers to your questions. Reaching American officials is about as easy as E.T. trying to phone home.

And once you do get through, they're mean. The Canadians aren't much better, but at least that part of the process is over, since Matt was approved for an Immigration Visa.

So now that I'm done I have a bit more time on my hands. I had cut my hours down at the Steeple People, where I volunteer, but look forward to getting back to sorting through vintage clothing and berating people for shoplifting from a non profit organization. The Steeple People (or Greeple as Matt likes to call it) is a church run thrift shop that sells donated house hold goods and clothing in order to donate the profits to local community organizations. It's a fun place to work, lots of busy people cleaning and sorting and is the kind of work I enjoy. I don't get paid, but I do get to take home items that may not be 'sellable'. So if there is a tiny snag in that cute Banana Republic sweater, they won't hang it on the floor. It gets sent to a recycling plant to make some sort of product that soaks up oil spills....OR....it ends up in my closet. 

Today is Black Friday. Apparently there is supposed to be some extreme shopping going on, as tradition dictates. I don't quite get it, especially during our current 'Economic Crisis' (I'm lovin' all the new catch phrases that Americans come up with for describing stuff. This one is almost better than Weapons of Mass Destruction...seems to instill about the same amount of fear in people. I guess that's the point though.) Why the day after you eat a big fat (not to mention pricy) greasy turkey meal is reserved for blowing even more of your budget, I don't know. 

Our Thanksgiving was pretty fantastic. We had turkey dinners twice. An early Thanksgiving was celebrated at Glenda and Walter's last week because more family was going to be around. I've never had a 'turkey roll' before, but I like the idea of spiraling spinach in between turkey meat. There must have been 3 different kinds of dessert and so many leftovers. Then we hit the table again at Ryan and Randy's for a scrumptous bird, loads of gravy and mashed potato's, and a pecan pie that almost ushered me into a diabetic coma after the first bite. I swear, I don't want to eat again until Christmas. 

I should get going. I've promised myself to walk to the library before I start my shift at the Steeple. I'm reading Nelson Mandela's "Long Walk to Freedom". Great book. It's just amazing that people fought so hard for freedom. I've never had to so much as lift a finger in a fight for my racial rights. It reminds me again how lucky we are in North America, and that's something to be grateful for.

Room With A View

Winter is here. 

Even if there is no snow, you know it for sure when you can feel the cold frigid air seeping through the crack of the closed front door. I can pinpoint exactly where it is that all the heat in my apartment is escaping, it might as well be water running through those gaps.

A particularly cold location in my home is the bay window in the living room. It's an old window, with no caulking, so it's a given that when you sit beside it it feels like you need to put on an extra sweater and maybe some leg warmers. Matthew has actually started to call me 'Grandma' because of all the knit-wear that i've suddenly taken on. 

However, the window is a great place to write.  I like to surf the net and write my blog here so I can look up every so often and spy on the neighborhood. 

I've been observing my 'hood for about 2 months from this little perch of mine.

I feel sort of like a house cat that sits and watches through his owners glass. Actually, used to think that cats sat by the window wishing to be released outside, but now I think that they just like the anonymity of the situation. They can scope out their terrain without any mouse, bird or squirrel having any idea that they  are being studied. The cat is secretly planning his hunt and when the right moment comes he'll know exactly when and how to strike!

Well, at least that's what I think, mostly because that's how I feel, though I'm not planning on doing any rodent extermination any time soon. What I mean is that I love to watch when no one else is looking. 

It's pretty fascinating to observe the system of your surroundings unfold, and there is definitely a system.

The bus arrives at its stop every 15 minutes.

The three college roomies, or as I like to call them the triplets, on the third floor of our building are always dashing out the door at around 8:30am, probably late for class.

The man with the black Converse walks by every day at 10:30 am, always in a Westwardly direction.

Katie, my second floor neighbor, is constantly parking her car, then leaving again, then back again re parking her car. (I still don't know what kind of job she has that requires her to come and go so often.)

2:00 pm the mail man arrives.

The first of the month you can see the garbage pickers weaving in and out of the nearby alleyways with shopping carts and pick up trucks, looking for treasure junk thrown out by moving tenants.

And at least once a day, a cyclist almost loses his or her life zooming through the two way stop at Bryant and 24th street. 

This is pretty standard stuff, standard for my street because we live right at the corner of a busy residential road that leads to an even busier one.

Two blocks away is a commercial area with restaurants, bars and of course the ever exciting liquor store, so their action sometimes trickles down our way. 

Every now and then you'll see something really out of the ordinary. The other day I spotted a well known homeless guy standing at the bus stop across the street. The bus came, but he didn't get on. He was waiting for someone. Then a car pulled up, he got in and they pulled into the alley. Moments later he came sauntering back out, lifted his arms in the air and did a couple fist pumps. I imagined at the time that he was yelling 'Adriane!' 

Total drug deal. Wow. Is my neighborhood cool or what?!

Catching Up

It's been a long time since I hit the blog. I think a whole year, almost to the day.

It must have been somewhere in Pakistan that I stopped writing. Internet service was sketchy at best and it's easy to stay away from the web when you are enjoying the people and mountains of such a unique country.

Since then so much has happened.

Matt and I finished our year of traveling abroad. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and a bunch of other far away places were visited and loved. There were also some places we did not love at all, but that's traveling. 

We returned in August of this year, just in time to pick up our car from the abandoned car lot in Vancouver. 

Technically we had 'abandoned' it, in front of my cousins house, and fully intended to retrieve it upon our return to Western Civilization. It sat there for just under 11 months until someone decided to write a few choice words on the side of the car with a paint marker, words I won't repeat here because I think it goes against my Blogger Agreement. The graffiti turned our beloved little rusting Honda into a crude and obvious eyesore. Shortly after that the license plates were ripped off, likely by a coalition of neighborhood parents that banded together after their children came home with an entirely new vocabulary due to our car. In any event, it worked. The week before we arrived home it was towed. Luckily we had no problem locating it, the fine wasn't too ridiculous and the graffiti came off with a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of Goo Be Gone.

Our return home was exciting. 

After the 'car incident' we crossed into the US and spent some time in Oregon visiting friends, camping and soaking up the gorgeous weather. 

We road tripped across the country to Fargo in time to attend Matt's brother's wedding. 

We were reunited with family that we missed immensely. We met our new nephew, Ethan, who was born while we were away. We gorged ourselves on food we hadn't eaten in months. 

Steak was a personal favorite. Matthew started eating hamburgers everyday.

There was always a story to tell and an interested ear to listen.

After the initial hoopla of it all, things adjusted back to 'normal', or what Matt likes to think of as 'boring'.

Lots of adult decisions had to be made that neither of us had made in a while.

"Where would we live? What about jobs?! Oh my gosh, we are almost broke!"

Also, there were many responsibilities to attend to that I had ignored blissfully while traipsing around South Asia.

My taxes were long overdue, and I almost positively owed the government money.

I needed to sort out my Green Card paperwork with the US government.

My teeth needed a serious cleaning intervention and I was desperate to get hold of some Western birth control because the non-prescription India stuff i'd been using for the last 6 months was slowly turning me in emotional monster.

We decided on Minneapolis as a place to live out the fast approaching winter. It's a 3 hour drive from Matt's family and a 2 hour flight from mine, so technically it's half way between both.

Our apartment is old, warm and cozy and we enjoy the location.

Matt was able to pick up his old job, which was great cause money was getting tight. 

I filed my taxes and was even able to pay what I owed.

I am in the final stages of my Green Card application and am crossing my fingers that I will have it by January.

Until then, even though Matthew and I have been legally married since 2006, I officially cannot be 'living' in the US.

By 'living' here, that would imply (at least to a border customs guard) that I was somehow allowed to stay indefinitely or was intending to work. In fact, I'm allowed to do neither until my Green Card is approved. So until that point, my status when I cross the border is classified as a 'Tourist', and I can 'visit' (not 'live') with Matthew for up to 6 months. It's a lame situation, but it's the only legal way to play this game. 

So that is how we went from 'there' to here.

Matt works, I play the waiting game with the government and we both agree that once winter is over we need to do something a little more inspirational than what we are doing now.

What can I say, as much as I missed my family and friends and wanted to come home at the end of our trip... 

As much as I was happy to have an apartment again, a phone, a fridge, a bed and a new pair of jeans...

As much as I enjoy cooking my own food, eating meat every stinking night, drinking real wine and grocery shopping...

...there is something inside of me that wants to go back. 

I know. It's crazy.

You think a year would be enough. Apparently travel bugs die about as hard as Amebic Dysentry.

So we have started to apply to JET, a Japanese teaching program that hires assistant teachers from all over the world to work in Japan on a year to year contract. If we are accepted, we will be in Japan by next August and may not be back for a while. Our application is due at the end of this week and I'm both nervous and excited about the possibilities that lie ahead.

---