Day 3 -picture of my friends

These are my most recent friends. Or a collection of them anyways. It's funny how people get to become your friends. When you’re a kid it pretty much depends on where they live and if your parents get along. Then various things like sports, style, music and coolness come into play. And the older you get the more you look at if your partners get along, if you work together and basically how convenient it is to hang out…

And then there’re obviously different kinds of friends. The ones you like to hang out with and call when something is going on. And the kind you can call even if nothing is going on and that will give you a hug when you’re crying without thinking twice about it and remember your favourite silly movie and get you your favourite candy when you’re coming over and never, ever make you feel like you have to pretend to be anything that you’re not.

I have some of each kind. I could have more. But I’m not complaining. I love and miss and cherish and feel grateful for my all friends, only in different ways.

Day 2 - the meaning behind my blog name

The meaning behind my blog name. well, let’s see… I’m foreign and I live in Idaho. The blog is about my life in Idaho. Doesn’t get much more straight forward than that.

I have another blog as well, which I have had for quite a bit longer. I started it because I was leaving Sweden (again) and wanted my family and friends over there to be able to stay updated with what I was doing without having to send out mass e-mails. Then Dylan and I went to South America and I switched languages and started blogging in English instead so his family and our American friends could keep track of us as well. Once we came back to the US I switched back to Swedish.

But what I found then was that I missed being able to write about everyday things without having to explain them all the time. Most Swedish people don’t understand stuff like Black Friday, Thanksgiving, March Madness, the GRE, crazy people at Wal Mart and Fox News without a pretty thorough explanation.
So I started this blog and even though I often feel like nobody actually reads it (except for Jean-Pierre) and sometimes feel like it just steels time from my other blog, I enjoy it and intend to keep it alive as long as it entertains me.

Blog challange, ok it's on!

I saw a different version of this a while ago and decided it was too personal and would be too hard to complete. Then Dylan’s cousin introduced me to this one and it seems nicer. The hardest part may be posting all those pictures, we have not been very good at taking pictures since we stopped travelling. Oh, well. I’ll try, and this is what will be happening.

Day 01 - A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
Day 02 - The meaning behind your Blog name
Day 03 - A picture of you and your friends
Day 04 - A habit that you wish you didn't have
Day 05 - A picture of somewhere you’ve been
Day 06 - Favorite super hero and why
Day 07 - A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you
Day 08 - Short term goals for this month and why
Day 09 - Something you’re proud of in the past few days
Day 10 - Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad
Day 11 - Another picture of you and your friends
Day 12 - How you found out about blogs and why you made one
Day 13 - A letter to someone who has hurt you recently
Day 14 - A picture of you and your family
Day 15 - Put your iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play
Day 16 - Another picture of yourself
Day 17 - Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
Day 18 - Plans/dreams/goals you have
Day 19 - Nicknames you have; why do you have them
Day 20 - Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future
Day 21 - A picture of something that makes you happy
Day 22 - What makes you different from everyone else
Day 23 - Something you crave for a lot
Day 24 - A letter to your parents
Day 25 - What I would find in your bag
Day 26 - What you think about your friends
Day 27 - Why are you doing this 30 day challenge
Day 28 - A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?
Day 29 - In this past month, what have you learned
Day 30 - Who are you?

So, day 1 and here are my 15 facts and a picture.




-I have attended three different preschools, three different high schools and three different universities. And I hope to add a fourth university to that list.
-I love running. Not every run is a good one and I don’t always love it while I’m actually doing it. But the older I get the more I feel like it’s really my body’s choice of exercise, it keeps me sane and makes me feel good and strong.
-I miss my family every single day and sometimes feel like a traitor for living so far away from them.
-I also know that I would never be happy living in my home town. I’m restless like that and need to move and do different things to stay happy.
-I don’t really believe in faith and that there’s only one person on the planet who can make you happy. But I have found a real good one and would happily have moved to Greenland for him. Good thing he’s only from Idaho.
-I really want to have children one day. Reason and logic tell me two years or so from now would probably be a good time. Emotions and biology tell me yesterday would be even better.
-In my next life I would like to be a ballroom dancer.
-I look a lot like my mother and brother.
-I have been a vegetarian since I was 16. Living in Idaho, it’s not always easy to explain to people why I don’t eat meat and sometimes even harder to find good food options. But I’m still happy with my choice and don’t miss meat one bit.
-I can make bread in a brick oven, the old school way. My mother taught me when I was little and I have yet to meet anyone my age that has that skill.
-I love to travel and want to keep doing it, always, although not as much and intensely as we’ve been doing it these last years.
-My favourite colours are maroon and purple.
-I cry real easily. Movies, songs, good news, bad news; it doesn’t take much. I get it from my mom.
-I have never wimped out on swimming once my bathing suit was on. I take great pride in this. I may say no if you ask me to swim, but if I say yes, then damn it I will swim.
-I hate monopoly. I’ve only played it once and don’t plan on doing it again.

Turkeyless Turkey Weekend

Back in Pocatello after a Thanksgiving weekend that was a disappointment in some ways and a pleasant surprise in others.

Disappointing was
-the fact that Dylan’s parents and brother and sister were not able to come down. The weather got in the way and you don’t want to mess with mothers, especially not Mother Nature.
-the lack of turkey on the Thanksgiving dinner table. Well, personally I could obviously not complain, it’s not like I care whether the people next to me eat bird or pig. But the kids were expecting turkey on Turkey Day and were very disappointed. Good thing they have an understanding mother who agreed to cook them one for the next day.
-that I saw nothing on Black Friday that was really unordinary. We went at 8 and it was really not that crazy at all. Like a normal Saturday close to Christmas-ish. The only place where the line was ridiculously long was Bath & Body Works… I was gonna get a chap stick but decided against it.

Pleasantly surprising was
-that we didn’t get in an accident heading out there. Not really, but I was nervous. The weather was bad and people drive like ass wipes.
-more quality time with Dylan’s cousins. The more time I spend with them (which has not been much in the past) the more I really like them. I’m so glad we have them as close as we do.
-that I actually got to go shopping. Knowing Dylan I was not expecting to, but Crystal invited me to go with her and I had a great time and found some good stuff.
-that a lot of the snow melted so the drive back was hassle free.

Not much, but something

An extremely unproductive day is coming to an end. Well, we did get winter tires on the car, which was well needed. And if paying somebody else to do the work and sitting on your butt at Les Schwab for two hours waiting can be called productive (which in this century I actually think it can) then I guess we kind of did get something done after all.

Jean-Pierre is debating whether to stay in Paris over x-mas and get drunk with his mother and aunts or go to Marbella to visit his father and his new, young wife. Neither option is very tempting and since he doesn’t have to decide quite yet he is hoping for yet another alternative to present itself.

thoughts on a snowy saturday

Homesickness.
Here we go again.

I don’t exactly miss my hometown, or the suburb I grew up in. Although I’m excited about going back to visit, I would never want to live there. I miss my family and friends, but not in a painful “I wish he or she was here right now” kind of way. Well, sometimes I do, but most of the time I just feel like it would be nice to see them more often, be able to call whenever, meet for lunch, just normal stuff like that. What I miss the most is feeling like I belong, fit into the context.

People here act like they’re from soooo far away when they’re from Washington or California. The west coast must be located right next to New Zealand from the way they talk about it.

Most people at work are from Pocatello, people’s old teachers come in to eat, old friends, family, acquaintances and such.
People say things like “oh, you must be Rachel’s sister, I went to school with her” or “your dad stopped by the shop last week, tell him I said hi” or “I’m in your cousin’s class, and our house is down the street from your mom’s”

Well, you get the picture. Nobody ever runs into my dad and if somebody that went to school with my sister were to walk in I promise to run naked around the restaurant.
The first real snow fell heavy over Pocatello today. Guess that’s what made me a little nostalgic. Good thing I have a family on this side of the puddle too, I’m excited to see them next week and even more excited to be spending Christmas with them in a month. I really don’t mean to complain, I’m good where I am and I am determined to make the very best out of our time here.
But when the snow falls, I can’t help but remembering all the snow that falls at home.

Culture, creepos and weirdos

Last night, after scoring some major culture points for watching Cabaret at the Performing Art Center, we took it down a few notches and went to 1st National Bar for a drink. Since Bobby knows pretty much every single person in Pocatello we weren’t surprised that he knew the couple sitting at a huge table by themselves and readily joined them when he invited us to. But right as everyone (there were like six of us) were sitting down, the couple got up and the girl mumbled something about being right back. Then she came back like ten minutes later with a bunch of CDs, a scarf and some other knickknack and explained that we had walked in on her dumping him and she had just collected all her stuff from his car.

That was awkward.

A few minutes later we were joined by a marine guy who slammed some beers and then praised alcohol since it allowed him to talk about the stuff giving him nightmares.

That was also awkward.

And finally we went to Charly’s where we ran into a guy who is a regular bar fly at work. He is all muscles and not much more. He wanted me to feel his flexed thigh muscles (quads, is it?).

That was not awkward, just plain weird.

Pocatello is home to a lot of weirdness. But I don’t know if we just happen to stumble upon it a lot or if we somehow attract it.

shopping and showers

We are going to throw a little holiday/end of semester shindig here in a couple of weeks. And when I say little, I mean little since our place is. But it should be fun still. We’re doing gag gifts and the dress code is either actually nice clothes (boring and safe) or the tackiest holiday sweater you can find. Or Santa I guess, I would not be opposed to somebody dressing up as Santa.

So anyways, today I went thrift store browsing for appropriate gadgets and garments. I didn’t find any horrific x-mas sweaters for myself (I’m thinking either a snowman or reindeer pattern would be nice) but I did find a music playing tie for D and some tacky plates to serve the food on.

I also found some odd wine glasses that I really liked and a gift for the baby shower I’m invited to next weekend. It will be my first shower ever, and not just baby shower, I’ve never been to any shower of any kind before. I’ve been invited to a few but never been able to attend. And then there was supposed to be some kind of wedding shower before my own wedding… not sure what happened with that one actually. All I know is I wasn’t invited.

But hopefully there’s no secret to showering besides showing up with a gift or I’ll make an ass of myself.

Pumpkin Spice and things that are nice

I have had a few comments lately (not here obviously, nobody ever leaves a comment here..) about my hating(?!) on America.
Well, I admit that there might have been some less enthusiastic postings lately, but hey…there’s no hating. There’s frustration and unfamiliarity and homesickness but no hate.

So, to make amends or whatever, here are some things I love about the US.

Malls. Seriously, I do. I know lots of people despise them and consider them a stereotypical symbol of everything that is wrong with this country. But ever since I first stepped foot in Mall of America, Minnesota I’ve been smitten. True, every mall I’ve been to since have been smaller, nothing beats the mega mall, but I still like the smaller ones too. I can spend hours looking for nothing and everything, time stops when I step into a mall.

Candy coffee. This is my own term for coffee tasting like Hazelnut, French Vanilla, Peppermint Chocolate, a million other flavours and my latest favourite, Pumpkin Spice. At home, a splash of milk in your dark roast is almost a sign of weakness. Here you have cowboys dumping tablespoons of Caramel Toffee in their coffee mugs. Love it.

Pretzels. However they come, soft with super orange, super fake processed cheese, tiny and salty, braided honey wheat, chocolate covered, I love them. A warm, fresh pretzel while shopping in a mall…. Oh yeah.

Thrift stores. Before coming here I had only been to Swedish second hand stores and unless you have enough money to spend your time in regular stores and are in Stockholm or Gothenburg, there’s really no need to bother. But here they are both cheap and places for great finds. Not always, but often enough.

Public restrooms. Not that I love being in them, but I do appreciate that you have them. Everywhere. And they are always free.

Okay there’s definitely more but that’s what I can come up with of the top of my head right now.

They say home is where your heart is. But your heart can be in more place than one. Home will always be Sweden. But home is also where my mail comes to, where I sleep and where my husband and cat are waiting for me.

Good parenting

Yesterday I had a 4 year old boy ask for rootbeer, which I brought him in a cup, and the first thing he did when he got his pop was to add sugar to it! He poured at least two sugar packets in there and his mom just laughed and was like “oh, that’s just how he likes it” like that was so cute.

Then a girl I work with told me she had a little girl ask for milk the other day but her mother said “no honey, you had milk this morning and there’s a lot of fat in milk, you should really have a coke instead”

Scary is what it is.

sick of kid's shoes and garden salads

Dear America,
you may not know this but not everybody has feet size 6 or bigger. Finding shoes my size is like finding good tippers at work; very hard and when they do come around, they’re still not for me.

Also, America (or should I say Idaho) since I have your attention. Some people don’t eat meat. That doesn’t mean all they want is salad, they might want something else, something cooked. Food. That’s still not meat. Did I loose you there?

And finally, America, this is going to be very hard to understand. You are not the only country in the world. There are lots, and I mean lots, of other countries. And, get this; people live in those other countries. So when somebody says “I am from Sweden” that means they are not American, not from your country, but from a different country. Know those little planes? Yeah, people travel in those. So even though a person was born and raised in one country, he or she may have travelled by plane and now live in a different country. Imagine that.

I'd rather eat my words than my food

I can’t believe the eggplant turned out so salty, I hardly put any salt in there. I can, however, believe the banana bread turned out so disastrous. Flour is not overrated.

So to sum it up: two hours in the kitchen, tons of dishes, barely eatable tofu-eggplant casserole and a bunch of banana mush in the garbage.

What a shitty housewife night, good thing there’s TV.

Dancing in my kitchen

Major housewife points to me today, I’m cooking and baking at the same time! Although the tofu-eggplant dish that’s in the oven right now looks kind of funky, I think it will taste ok still. And the banana bread that’s next in line to hit the hot spot shouldn’t be possible to mess up unless I forget it in there.

On the other hand I totally left the laundry on the line last night and when I woke up to slushy snow this morning, I thought “F*ck, but I am not going out there to collect drenched pants and shirts before work” and figured maybe it would get sunny later. But, it didn’t get sunny later; it’s been raining snow all day.

And then we have Dancing With the Stars on TV. I don’t care if people make fun of that show; if karma is good to me I’m coming back as a ball room dancer. Hair tight enough to straighten wrinkles. Sky high stilettos that I can hop, skip and twirl in. Feathers and rhine stones and a Crest white smile. Oh yeah.
When I was little I would watch ball room dancing on TV and give points to the different dresses and how they moved when the girls danced. If I was famous it would be for the sole reason of being able to be on DWTS.

Pain I deserve

Oh the pain, the pain. It’s intense, intense. When I have to use the bathroom, I look back, aim and then let myself fall onto the seat. Walking down stairs is the worst. Getting out of bed is not fun either. But who cares, I did it! I ran a half marathon and I did it well. Well enough, that is. I’m satisfied.

I don’t think I’ve been this sore since that body pump class in high school when I couldn’t even lift my arm to turn the alarm off the next morning. Or the very first time I snowboarded, that was brutal too. At least this is only in my legs, but it’s bad bad. Good thing I requested today off because I don’t think people would have been patient to wait for a server walking like a duck that needs to take a dump to serve them their food. I work tomorrow though; hopefully it will be a little better by then.

Now I’m waiting for Extreme Makeover Home Edition to start, I’ve heard they’re showing the Pocatello episode tonight.

watch my back

When I worked at that hideous call center back home the only thing that kept me sane was secretly checking my facebook and constantly letting people know how much I hated my job through my status updates. Then people at work wanted to add me as their friend and all of a sudden I had to watch my updates. Not that I thought they’d love the place either, but you never know.
Writing, posting, linking and simply putting personal stuff online can so easily come back and bite you in the ass. You have to be careful, but the only way to be safe is to not do it. I’m not safe. I should be more careful. I have already had do delete some old posts.

Anyways, life on the edge I guess.

D went to free Friday with our neighbour today. A PhD student scoring free food next to homeless people and alcoholics, how is that for morals? I don’t feel bad about it as long as the people in line with them have enough money for beer and cigarettes and he only takes stuff like vegetables and deli items that nobody else wants and that will go bad soon anyways. Knowing how much food we throw away at work I assume most grocery stores do the same. And it’s not like he’ll be a regular there.

Please, don't make me tell you I don't like you, I hate confrontations...

It’s really weird when people you don’t like, like you. We have a girl at work who is simply obnoxious. Everything about her makes me want to turn around and walk the other way. She looks a lot like Ursula, the evil octopus queen from the Little Mermaid, and she acts like an immature 14 year old on crack.

As far as I know, nobody really digs her sense of humour (stupid), her work ethics (missing without a trace), her looks (Ursula should cover that) or her loyalty (always talking shit about her co-workers) and rumours has is she might be getting booted soon.

But she likes me. I don’t know why. But whenever the manager or somebody else tells her she needs to quit gossiping and focus on her job (she really should) she gets really upset about it and comes crying to me. It’s awkward because I am usually pretty ticked with her already because I have been cleaning tables, seating guests and doing things like that, that’s her job. But then she comes and corners me in the coat room like a big sobbing monster and wants me to say sweet things about how unfair everyone is and make her feel better.

I honestly don’t know if she is only terrible at reading hints and clues, I mean it’s obviously not her greatest talent, but am I also subconsciously sending out the wrong signals?
I just want her to leave me alone, damn it.