WORK DAMN YOU!!!!!!!!!

I have been trying to write a post everyday for the past 5 days. Apparently both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are hating me right now and don't want to do anything I try to make them do. Anways!








I am still alive. I had a job interview on Monday and I haven't heard anything back yet, but I am still really hoping that I get the job there because it would be perfect because I would work like 5 steps away from Ro. Not that I need to be right next to him 24/7, but it would definitely be nice to have a ride to and from work everyday. Since I haven't heard anything back, I am starting to assume that they found someone "more qualified" which means they found a Chilean with an English teaching degree. They are more qualified than me because I am a degreeless loser. So, as I wait patiently for a call back from that possible job and an email back for an interview at another possible one, I have been once again left with more time on my hands than I really need. I have watched Phantom of the Opera twice. And have searched the house high and low 3 times for Moulin Rouge, but I still can't find it. I am starting to think that Ro hid it from me so I wouldn't be able go on one of my Moulin Rouge rampages where I watch the movie every single day and burst out singing along with it...or randomly burst out singing one of its songs as I go about my normal day... I only do that sometimes. Not very often. I have also been for lack of a better verb, scratching the floor with steel wool. Ro's dad dripped a lot when he painted the walls so now it is my job to scratch it all off. Unfortunately that means that most of the wax comes with so I will soon have to learn how this cera roja crap works and how to take care of this kind of floor. Or I won't. I haven't decided. It would look "rustic" if I just left it. A little shabbiness never hurt anyone. With all the scratching comes a lot of red dust so I have to sweep and sneeze a lot too. Other than that, life has been going by just the same as always, slowly. It is once again the end of the month so Ro is working a lot taking advantage of all the shoppers who seem to have ran completely out of food after the 18th celebrations. Rent is paid, wahoo! I have a home to live in, we still have gas to cook and shower with, and we even have a few noodles and half a bag of mashed potato flakes in the cupboard to eat. So, for now we are alive and well and only waiting for something great to happen.



Ro's uncle and his girlfriend have been in Santiago for almost a week now, they live in Puerto Montt. They have been telling us of how wonderful and "country" life is down there. I am jealous and have been plotting in my head ways of making Ro take me down there to live. They can buy a 50 kilo bag of potatoes for 3000 pesos! Not that I really ever need THAT many potatoes at one time, I don't think I would even be able to carry it, how lumpy and uncomfortable! But the thoughts of leaving this city and moving somewhere less city have been polluting my mind and I think if I could get Ro to see how life could be, he would like it too. Anyways, I don't really have anything else to write about... I made brownies the other day and burnt the bottom and edges, but the middle tasted just fine. : )

The Celebration is OVER!

I didn't take any of these pictures. I got them off google.


To start out September 17th, we started in the evening. Rum and Coke with potato chips and salsa golf. (ketchup and  mayo mixed together)

+ +

7:00AM September 18

11AM Woken up by Ro's dad who came over to paint the downstairs of our house. One huge cup of coffee plus

and constant thoughts to self that included, "I am not going to throw up, I am not going to throw up!" And "I CANNOT barf in the blue toilet!" And, "I am never trying to keep up with the boys again!"

I managed to keep my face out of the blue toilet. Yay! But, then I realized that I needed to take a shower and get ready because we were supposed to be at Ro's grandmas for a bbq at 1:30. 

2:30pm we arrive at Ro's grandma's and are immediately served an empanada.

Yum, that helped me feel a little bit better. After downing the empanada and a glass of coke, I was offered....

Chicha, wine and other forms of alcohol. I sipped on a glass of chicha and was offered

choripan. This is like a spicy sausage and at the bbqs that I have gone to with Ro's family this is always the first thing served off the grill. I ate one, Ro ate 3. He is obsessed with choripan, he probably could have eaten 10 if there would have been enough. 

Next came lunchtime. We had the various types of meat, beef, pork ribs, and chicken. I had a chicken leg and a small chunk of beef. I love eating beef that Ro's uncle cooks on the grill because he doesn't cook the life out of it and it is still a little bit pink. YUM! Ro's mom's side of the family cook the meat like it has the devil in it and the must rid it of all badness it turns out chewier and harder than the deer jerky my dad makes. ANYWAYS... After lunch, Ro and I decided to go back to our house so I could lay down and sleep and try to feel better. The was maybe 5pm... While taking a nap Ro took advantage of the fact that I was sleeping and put his PC in our bedroom even after I specifically said that that computer was never ever allowed to be hooked up in our bedroom. So when I woke up even though I did feel better, I was crabby. So I went downstairs to drink some water and get ready to go back over to Ro's grandmas for the rest of the day.

I bought myself a 5 liter bottle of water for the weekend. I drank 3 glasses in a row before we left to go back to Ro's grandmas house.

At about 8pm we were all sitting around the table, of course drinking. I had another glass of chicha and then decided I needed to try another drink. I know there is a name for it, but I don't remember what it is.

It was basically white wine with chopped up peaches floating around inside. YUM! We watched some special of the bicentenary and after that Ro decided to go back to our house to bring a bunch of games. He brought the Xbox 360 and the guitar, drums, and microphone so we could play Rock Band; cards; dice; and Jenga Xtreme. We ended up playing dice and cards until 4am. So, we went home and went directly to bed!

Only to be waken up at 11am because Ro's dad came over again to paint. Sigh. So, I got up and decided that I was going to make pizza. I don't know why, but it just sounded really good, and we had almost all the ingredients. Ro and I went out to find a store so we could buy some cheese and meat to put on top the pizza. We drove all over and ended up going to a little tiny store. We bought cheese, ham, salami, and mushrooms. Of course we also bought 3 empanadas because while we were in the little store the empanada man came and we couldn't resist. So we ate an empanada while I was getting the pizza ready. 

Yummy pizza!! Then at about 8pm we went back over to Ro's grandma's with Ro's friend Nico. Nico fixed the cd thing for their computer because the little girl broke it and shoved bread inside it. We were going to play Rock Band, but we decided to watch Tomb Raider instead. Then we watched the movie Wrong Turn. It was kind of dumb. After that we started drinking some more rum. Of course we also had empanadas de queso with pebre. More yum. At this point I felt as though I was going to explode.

We played cards for awhile and then dice and then suddenly it was 5am! And Ro remembered that we have to wake up and drive to the beach to pick up his mom and sister. So, off to bed. Before going to bed I downed a gallon of water, some Tylenol, and Pepto Bismol.

After feeling like garbage and sticking my face in the blue toilet, we made some sandwiches and headed for the beach. Blah. My guts were screaming at me the whole time, but we stopped in the middle so Ro could buy some new sunglasses. He also bought himself an empanada and me a bottle of Fanta. Ro ate half the empanada and gave me the rest. When we reached the beach we were given beer and that actually made me feel a lot better. Then we had to sit down for lunch. Which just happened to be leftover bbq from the night before. I had the smallest piece of chicken and some beets and some kind of bean. I was so ready for a nap, but we still had to drive back to Santiago and of course it was going to be a long ride home because a lot of people went to the beach for the weekend and were also driving back to the city. On the way back I had some more Tylenol and more Pepto and tried to sleep. Then Ro told me to keep him awake because he was tired and falling asleep. I gave him some Pap and played rock music and talked to him to keep him awake. On that ride home, I realized that people here apparently don't replace their brake lights when they go out and almost pissed myself twice because we came up to some of these fuckers very quickly and thought we were going to hit them. The ride wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but when we were pretty close to Santiago the road was very plugged and we hadn't stopped completely, but I could have walked faster than what we were moving. By this time Ro had drank the whole bottle of Pap. My fault. And all he could think about was our blue toilet. We finally got to Ro's parent's house to drop of MIL and SIL and the nasty little thing they call a dog. Ro went straight to the bathroom and I went straight to Zoe. Zoe didn't come with us, she stayed with Ro's dad instead. After that Ro told him mom that we are leaving right away and she got mad that we weren't going to stay for teatime. We finally got back home around 7:30pm and I tried to clean up the house a bit, but failed and just put my pjs on and went right to bed. And now, the weekend is over and I am very very glad because I'm sure I easily gained 10 pounds this weekend and I really don't think I could eat another empanada.

Um.....

Last night my husband and I were playing WWE in our bed. This can be dangerous because our bed is very old, very creaky, and we have been know to break it. Anyways, he started it. He stopped while holding my ankle and trying to pinch me in the thigh skin where it really really hurts. Then he started laughing. Lucky for me he didn't pinch me because I have been known to knee him in the nose and other places after he pinches me in the thigh skin. I was kind of confused, usually I have to fake that I am laying on my arm wrong to get him to stop and let me readjust before he continues. He held my ankle up and said, "Look at this hair!!! Its like 3 centimeters long!" then he said, "Oh my god, don't you ever shave anymore?!"
Then I took the opportunity to "accidentally" kick him in the other places. I asked him (in a very angry voice), "How do you expected me to shave my legs when I have to take an almost caveman shower?"
Then he said, "You can't shave when you take a caveman shower??"
Me: "Your face 8 billion less square inches than my legs and you don't shave your face when we you take a caveman shower!"
Ro: "I don't shave in the shower."
Me: "Well I do!!!"
Ro: "Can't you just shave without water?"
Me: "Can't you?"
Ro: "Yeah, but it hurts and leaves red bumps"
Me: "And what do you think it does to me!?"
Ro: "Okay, okay, I'll buy gas tomorrow."

The moral of the story is, I no longer have hairy legs, but Ro still has a hairy face. Its not like I don't shave just because I don't feel like it.... like some people.....

Brands

As I currently ponder our next trip to the grocery store, I have been thinking about brands and how I have very little knowledge of the brands here in Santiago. Almost all of the stuff I buy here, I usually buy the cheapest brand, or the brand that Ro's mom always had in the house. In Montana, I would always buy the cheapest of everything except when the penny pincher coupons came, then I would use those and buy whatever the coupon was for. In MN, I ate whatever my parents bought, and if we were to move back there, I know what to go cheap on and what not to. So here's my list of what I bought there, and what I buy here.

FOOD

Ketchup
US: Heinz                                                                  Chile: Carozzi or JP

Milk
US: Cass Clay or the cheapest at Sam's (1%)             Chile: Lonco Leche sin lactosa semidescremada
                                                                                    *I don't drink this... yuck! But Ro does.
Spaghetti Sauce
US: Ragu traditional or Hunts mushrooms                     Chile: Carozzi salsa lista or Mama Mia
                                                                                   *occasionally spurge and buy Great Value veggie.

Bread
US: Cash Wise Split top wheat                                    Chile: Ideal integral

Noodles
US: Sam's Bakers and Chefs elbow mac.                     Chile: Carozzi espirales or spaghettini

Soup
US: canned Food Club                                                Chile: powder Maggia

Mayo
US: NEVER MAYO always Miracle Whip!!               Chile: Hellman's Light

Mustard
US: French's                                                                 Chile: JP

Mashed Potato flakes
US: Idahoan Baby Reds                                               Chile: whatever's cheapest
                                                                                    *usually make em from scratch!
Orange Juice
US: Minutes maid frozen concentrate                            Chile: Andina or Watt's 100% jugo
                                                                                     *Ro doesn't drink this....

Powder Juice Mix
US: Kool-Aid                                                              Chile: Livian
                                                                                     * I don't drink this very often....

Rice
US: Minute                                                                  Chile: whatever's cheapest
                                                                                     *I fuck it up everytime...watery or crunchy...sigh

Margarine/butter
US: Country Crock/ Land o Lakes                               Chile: Next margarina/never butter...

Ranch Dressing
US: Hidden Valley Ranch                                             Chile: Great Value (Walmart brand)

Honey Mustard
US: Newman's Own                                                     Chile: Great Value

Barbecue Sauce
US: Sweet Baby Ray's                                                   Chile: Hunt's or Great Value
                                                                                      *have a great homemade recipe!!
American Cheese
US: Baker's and Chef's                                                Chile: Santa Rosa Cheddar
                                                                                    *It's not really cheddar....

Canned Tuna
US: Chicken of the Sea                                               Chile: Robinson Crusoe

HOUSEHOLD SUPPLIES

Napkins

US: Mardi Gras                                                           Chile: Lider brand

Toilet Paper

US: Charmin or Cottonelle                                           Chile: Lider or Comfort

Paper Towels

US: Scott                                                                    Chile: Nova or Elite

Dishsoap

US: Dawn                                                                  Chile: Quix or if I spurge, Dawn

Toothpaste

US: Crest                                                                    Chile: Ro uses Colgate, I always bring Crest!

Floor cleaner

US: Mr. Clean lemon                                                   Chile: Lysol disenfectante, the blue kind.

I am sure there are more things, but I can't remember right now. And as far as fresh fruits and veggies go, we buy most everything at the feria. We buy carrots, potatoes, kiwi, bananas, cilantro, tomatoes, and onions at the feria. In the US, we have fresh food from the garden and trees in the summer and fall, canned food from the garden through the winter and store boughten frozen or canned fruits and veggies also. In the US I buy canned mushrooms, here we buy fresh mushrooms at Lider or Jumbo. And we rarely buy meat because we can't afford it, but when we do, Ro's uncle has some connections and gets some beef for cheap. In the US, I eat the beef my dad raises and it is obviously much more delicious. All other meats that I eat in the US like fish, venison, pork, or chicken usually comes from the stockpile my dad has in the deep freeze. The fish is obviously caught by us or a relative, the venison usually shot by my brother, pork from and uncle that raises pigs, chicken from an uncle or frozen chicken breasts from Sam's. 

Well...

So, we are out of gas again, I thought the califon was more broken, but we are just out of propane. For those of you that don't know, the califon is the thing that heats the water, its hooked up to the propane tank. Ours happens to not work properly it only half heats the water, but at least we have warmish water to shower with. Except when we run out of propane.
At the moment we just have one propane tank that we use for both the stove and the califon. So, we have to drag the tank into the bathroom, hook it up, then go into the kitchen light the califon and back to the bathroom for a shower. If we want to use the stove, we have to drag it into the kitchen hook it up to the stove and cook. Eventually we will have a smaller one that we can fit under the kitchen sink so I don't trip on it and that one will be used just for the stove. Then we can leave the larger one in the bathroom. I'm not sure what to do about the califon. I think we should talk to the landlady and explain to her that it is a piece of shit and also tell her that the 2nd plugin thing in the kitchen doesn't work so that she can get them fixed. Ro doesn't want to because he doesn't want to cause problems. Well, I strongly disagree, we are paying to rent this place, we were told that everything worked properly and we were also told that a new kitchen window was going to be put in because the one that is there now is broken. I also don't think that we should have to pay the August electric bill since we moved in on the first of September.... but hubby is going to pay it anyways. He really needs to learn about renting from someone... we have rights even if we are renting the house from someone, he just doesn't understand because he has never rented before.

Anyways, this post is supposed to be about the hmmm... shower... bath.... throwing buckets of water on myself... whatever that I had to do this morning because we are out of gas. I think it is hilarious and was laughing at myself through the whole process. Here's my play by play hehehe.


Step one, heat water with electric teakettle thing.

Step two, pour hot water into bowls and pitchers, just fill each thing half full. I filled the teakettle 3 times before I had enough water.

Step three, get all your clean clothes ready, find your towel, and take strip.

Step four, wash hair with cold water. I stood over the side of the tub with my head upside down so I wouldn't get myself wet with the cold water. Brr!! I had an instant headache from washing my hair.

Step five, squeeze as much of the freezing water out of your hair as possible and condition.

Step six, take one bowl of half hot water and add cold water til its full. Get in bathtub, sorry if none of you are enjoying a lovely blue tub. Crouch down like a cave man and splash your legs with the water. Lather up and rinse. This should use 3/4 of the bowl of water.

Step seven, splash remaining water on arms and lather up.

Step eight, take a pitcher half full of hot water and add cold water. Rinse arms and pour the rest into the bowl you just used. Add a little bit more cold water... to make the hot water stretch a bit.

Step nine, kneel in bathtub, don't slip and bash your elbow on the wall. Dunk your head into the bowl and sort of rinse the conditioner out of your hair. Then take the bowl and pour it over your hair and try to rinse some more out.

Step ten, take the other bowl and add cold water dunk your head in again then pour it over your head.

Step eleven, take the final pitcher of water add cold water. By this time you should be pretty wet and you can  stand up later everywhere else. Then rinse with the last of the water.

Not only does taking a shower/bath like this save gas, it also saves water. Unfortunately it isn't very comfortable and it feels like it takes 5 times as long as taking a normal shower.

But at least I am clean and I have clean hair!!! :o)

I better get back to scraping the cracked paint chunks off the walls!!! We will be painting soon!!! The paint is in the living room and I have been resisting opening it and painting just one streak on the wall so I can look at the color for 2days!!!!

Cooking with nothing... Recipe

At the moment, Ro and I are broke, mostly because I don't have a job and because we just moved into our own place and had to buy a lot more things that we realized. But, we are making plans to get out of this hole in the near future. For now, we have the bare essentials for groceries and have been eating noodles everyday that we have to cook here since we go to his grandma's house on Saturdays and the other on Sundays for lunch. Well, today I am not in the mood for noodles! I am sick of noodles! So, I dug out everything we have for food and realized it was pathetic and that we can probably unplug to fridge to save energy. So, here is a new recipe I just invented and am waiting for it to be cool enough to taste it.

Mystery Monday Meal


Ingredients
2 1/2 cups warm water
1 chicken broth cube
1 packet of baked chicken seasoning that came free when we bought mashed potatoes one time....
the last cup of milk
the last of the rice, approx 1 1/2 cups
2 in by 1 in chunk of cheese
Aluminum foil
Neosporin burn cream
Hot pad or cheap dish towel, preferably hot pad....


Mix chicken broth cube, seasoning packet, and warm water together.
Add rice and milk.
Pour into baking dish.
Cut or tear cheese into small pieces place on top of everything.
Put in oven, be careful not to burn your finger hairs off when lighting oven, it smells bad.
Realize that you probably should have covered dish with aluminum foil, pull out dish, be careful not to burn your finger, if you have a hotpad this won't be a problem, if you are using a towel bought from the kid that stands between McDonalds and Lider asking for money and selling towels, be careful because they are very thin and the printed pattern on them melts.
Put back in oven bake for 30 min and check on it. Poke with a spoon, if the rice is done, pull it out, if not leave in oven til the rice is done.


Hopefully enjoy......but if its gross, sorry.

Never, ever, ever!!!

*Its quite possible that culture shock may be getting to me again...so,
*If you don't want to read bitching then go away and read some other blog about someone that is overjoyed with their perfect life!

I hate being a housewife and I see no reason ever that I would ever need to do this again!! I hate cleaning by myself, I hate cooking by myself, I hate making the bed by myself! But more than anything, I hate the feeling that I have when my husband is working and comes home tired. I hate the feeling that I need to be the one that cleans and takes care of everything just because he is working. And I really really hate the fact that he takes complete advantage of the fact that I am not working! So, for that reason, I am going back to job hunting and have a fresh handful of CVs printed out. In the mean time, I have cleaned the bathroom, kitchen, living room, and backyard. I have washed all of the clothes that need to be washed. I have organized my dresser and closet and realized that I own very very little clothing. Sigh. But I do have a nice collection of shoes, though none of them are anything really amazing.

 Now that everything of mine is unpacked, my hiking backpack that I just bought keeps looking at me. My mind is wandering and I know this feeling. The feeling of wanting something different, the need to pick up and go somewhere. That damn travel bug has been pestering me.? Well, I guess a mini-vacation is going to have to be planned. I don't care if we go for a weekend to cajon de maipu as long as we get out of this damn city! I can't even go to sleep at night without laying in bed thinking about what the hell is going on in the street. I swear 500 cats live on this street and for some reason I think our backyard is the headquarters of the cat's nightly mayhem!! First it starts out with cat fights under Ro's taxi that usually ends in a pile of cat shit and piss that I have to clean up the next day so my "special" dog doesn't eat it or drag chunks of it into my house. Then they proceed to the backyard, if they make it past the fight. It must be some kind of entry fight.... the backyard is filled with the whores and the night goes on with the horrible screeching that comes from cats procreating, if you have never heard it, LUCKY YOU! I lay in bed and try to think of horrible ways to get the damn cats to go away. I want to set a trap and catch them and bring them to the vet and get them all fixed and release them into the wild, and I mean like halfway from here to the beach not in this city.

On another note, I have been doing other things to keep myself busy in this crappy housewife situation. Today I am making bread. At this very moment the dough is "resting" ...I guess from all the hard work that it has done today. Within the next 2 hours I will be munching on warm bread with melted butter oozing out of it! I have also decided to get back into crocheting and finish the blanket I started a hundred years or so ago. It was so long ago, I don't even remember what more I need to do before I put it all together. I have also been considering crocheting some kind of net like bag to stuff our grocery bags in. We do have a few of the reusable ones, but we use the plastic ones in the garbages instead of buying garbage bags, so sometimes I don't like using the reusable ones. And right now, they are taking up way too much space in one of our 3 cupboards, so they need a new home. Okay I better get shit done.

Moved... belated post!!!

We MOVED!!!! Finally! Well, actually we moved a week ago, I just have been too busy to put up a post! I have been busy because it was a three family move. Ro's parents and sister moved out of the house we were all sharing so we had to help them move, then Ro and I moved out of that house into this one. Before we even got settled in this house (not quite there yet!) we had to help Ro's aunt, uncle, gramma, and two cousins move into the house we were just living in. Yeap, lots of moving, lots of helping. Although most of my helping was to watch over the little 18 month old cousin. So here we are! In our nice 2 bedroom house. We have the downstairs organized and the only thing left to do down there is hook up the washer and for some reason that has been causing problems... something about the faucets that are supposed to hook up to the washer not being the right kind. I say just change the damn faucets, but everyone says why change them if you can find the attachment parts... somewhere. Well, we haven't found that somewhere yet. So, no washer and a mountain of dirty clothes. Our house looks a bit pathetic right now. We don't even have a couch. We have a "pouf" as Ro calls it, just your average bean bag chair and we also have this foam thing that Ro sits on... it can be folded out into a bed. I am pretty sure it is some kind of common child's room accessory. So, our first big purchase for this place will most definitely be to buy a living room set. We have a beautiful old table and chairs set. I love it and I am so glad we found such a great deal, 70,000 chp for the table and six chairs! We are very grateful of the gifts that family has given us for our new place. His grandma bought us a washing machine and it came with a free microwave. We also received a medicine cabinet type thing and a little "balon de gas" from his aunt and uncle. My parents bought us, well me, a kitchen in a box set for my birthday so we have everything basic that we need for the kitchen. His parents gave us their old fridge and stove and his dad is going to buy the paint for painting the downstairs. It is going to be so nice once everything is finished. The upstairs of our little house is still a mess. Our room is pretty big and we have our dresser and bed organized and set up. We have two closets, neither of them in our room, but one is going to be for me and the other for Ro. The closet in the extra room also has a big storage space above it, so Ro will have that place to put all the crap I told him I didn't want in our house. Like his bag full of random cables for charging things, old phones, old phone lines, old cable boxes, crap that I would have thrown directly in the trash because it just takes up space. He also insisted on bringing a broken keyboard, not a computer one the musical kind. It is missing 17 keys and doesn't work. Why he needs something like that, I have no idea, but he insists that he can get it to work...not that that will matter because of all the keys missing. After moving I realized just how must stuff we have. I am trying to get the clothes organized because we have all of our summer clothes packed into our suitcases. Sigh... we have way too many suitcases. Hopefully I can get everything put away in the closets and we put the smaller suitcases inside each other and store them under our bed. It will take some time, but eventually our little house will be a home. : )

*If anyone knows a good place to buy material for a good deal, please let me know! The back door needs a curtain ASAP walking past it to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night creeps me out!!