The Blue Nile

Stephen and I went on a date last Friday night that was quite different than our past dates. Since we like to try new things, especially food, we went to a little Ethiopian restaurant called the Blue Nile down town on State street. I had no idea what to expect, but it was really different than anything I've ever had.

In Ethiopia the whole family eats off of one giant plate with this spongy bread called injera. They used it to pick up the food to eat with because they don't use any utensils. The bread has a bitter taste to it because it is fermented for three days which somehow helps create the sponginess. Then they feed each other instead of themselves. Some of the food reminds me of Indian food but only in texture. Its really spicy and mushy which makes it hard to scoop anything in your bread to eat it. I probably would never go back there because I only liked, maybe, half of what was on our plate, but it was a really fun experience. If I had known the bread was fermented beforehand I would never had eaten it, so sometimes it best not to know what you are eating until afterwards.

After dinner Stephen took me to the Jordan River just past our house so I could catch a bullfrog! I couldn't believe Stephen would actually take me to catch frogs, but to catch my own bullfrog is on my bucket list, so we went a hunting, but didn't see anything except a bunch of crawdads. I think we may have gone at the wrong time of the season. Stephen said he told one of his buddies at work what we were going to be doing that night, and his friend totally thought Stephen was joking.
 Friend: "No really what are you guys doing tonight?"
Stephen: "Really, my wife actually wants to go catch frogs."
Friend: "Dude, you married one of the biggest Idaho girls I've ever heard of!"

Haha, I do have to admit I took that as a huge compliment. I am proud of being a little ol' farm girl from Idaho. Sometimes its hard being in a big city where most people don't really understand where you come from, but I am proud of my roots and will always go back to them. I can't wait to have kids so I can teach them things about the great outdoors and take them camping and fishing and frog hunting.

Tidbits

I haven't had a lot of time to update this thing so here it goes in a nutshell.

• A few weeks ago I went to Twin for a weekend visit while the boys went on a boys trip rafting the Salmon river. I couldn't wait to go home and see my mom and sisters--I had, had two bad weeks at work and needed a break. We decided to do a girls weekend while our husbands were gone, and I think that was one of the best girls nights I've been to if I don't say so myself. We had a day with all the kids playing in yard in the sprinklers and day with just us girls crafting and decorating cakes. I didn't have a lot of time to show the girls how to decorate very well, but they all did an awesome job on their cakes. Mine looked really bad a: because I didn't feel like frosting a cake, b: the icing I made was too stiff, and c: I made mine look horrible on purpose so the girls would feel better about how their cakes looked............ok that last one was only a half truth, I just really didn't care about my cake but the next time we do this we will take a whole day and I will teach them all some  sweet decorating skills, and our cakes will look awesome!

 You gotta love baby bums!

 ...and Becky bums!

 Becky was so proud of how well she iced her cake so smooth.

  I was showing Becky how to do a rose, but her plastic tips don't work too well for this.

 My cute mom!

 We didn't have time to decorate the cakes before everyone had to leave, but they sure looked good.

•  That same day we did our cakes we found out that Aunt Kathy was in the hospital and it didn't look good. Mom was on the phone all night with her siblings and debating whether or not to wait until the morning to drive to Boise. You feel so helpless in moments like these especially when they are not anticipated. Later that night Mom left for Boise alone because they were going to take Kathy of off life support as soon as Michael flew in from Arizona. She past away early Sunday morning just a few days after her 60th birthday. I drove back to Twin a day and half later to pick up Trish and drive to Boise for Kathy's funeral; she had a really good turn out and the family did a wonderful job on the service. My favorite part was when Grandpa said he could imagine that Kathy's calling in heaven was to help the children who had prematurely left this earth. Aunt Kathy was a great mother and  grandmother to all her children. I will miss you Aunt Kathy.

• I've been working at my job just shy a year now and I have to say I didn't think I'd still be working by now. After all the drama with work a few weeks ago I decided that it was time for me to leave for good and find something else to do for a while. I decided I'd stay until the end of the month, but then something happened and it looks like I'm stuck here for a while longer. With work, if you lose a big account to another rival company you can get fired for losing the company money. I had a few "complaints" from a large account that I was half in charge of two weeks ago. The guy talked to me about a few things, but also talked to my boss about a few more things he didn't mention to me. I got a few phone calls and texts from my boss explaining the situation a day later telling me to shape up and make sure I was doing a good job at this particular account because he threatened to drop us. I didn't feel that anything I was doing was the cause of this decision, and told my boss what I was doing at the account and that I felt good about all my plants.

• I was called into the greenhouse last week so my boss could talk to me. I had no idea what it was about and showed up in the conference room along with another guy I work with who is in charge of the other half of that big account. When I saw him my first thought was, "oh, they're finally deciding to fire me; that guy must have dropped us and gone with another plant company". But much to my surprise I was told that the guy told my boss that he only wanted one person watering his plants and wanted me, in particular, to be in charge of all his buildings in the area. He told my boss, "I either get Christine for all my buildings or I drop you." I have to admit I was a little relieved, but at the same I was thinking, Crap! Now how am I supposed to quite? Haha, it felt good to finally receive a little recognition for the work I do for my customers, but I still want to be doing something else I enjoying doing more like landscape design. So I decided I'd stay with this job a while longer and see what it gets me.

• Lastly, I have to complain about my house. Stephen and I have been working on our living room for two months now from ceiling to floor. This project, I thought would only take a few weeks and here we are going on three months. So I told Stephen our goal is to finish the room by the end of the month. We have had a lot of set backs because of unforeseen damages, costs, and time loss. We have been out of town almost every weekend it seems so it feels like we get nothing done. We both hate having to come home from work every night to work on the living room. I can't hardly stand living in this mess. I don't cook, clean, or do laundry any more like I used to because all that comes last on the list of things to do. I am so sick of painting and sanding I don't care how the room looks anymore as long as  it just gets done so I can put up furniture and pictures and make my house feel like home again. I've even let my yard get out of control with weeds because we've been so engrossed in the living room!  There are so many flaws because a: this is our first house and first time having to fix things ourselves, and b: I refuse to paint the walls for a fourth time.....even though they need to be. I only ask you if you come to my house, not to point out any of the flaws with the painting on the walls, the textured ceiling, or the wood floor because I already know how horrible it looks! But I'm willing to live with it because its my house and I can, and I'm sick of painting. The end.