Drumroll please…

Mister got a 2/2 on his French test; exactly what he needed! So it’s official. We’re moving to Guinea! T minus 18 days and counting!

newest music find

I watch this british sci-fi show on Hulu called Misfits, about this group of people who get struck by lightning or something while they’re performing community service and develop superpowers. It’s quite strange (which I suppose is typical for sci-fi), but it has the most amazing soundtrack. I heard the greatest song on the latest episode, and thanks to the Shazam app (and unlimited free tags courtesy of ebay), discovered that it was Until We Bleed by Kleerup feat. Lykki Li. I immediately bought it and have been listening to it on repeat ever since.

newest obsession

Who’s on First–French edition

Mom: Annie, what does ‘Je ne sais quoi' mean?

Me: I don’t know what.

Mom: You don’t know?

Me: No, it means, ‘I don’t know what.’

Mom: Ohhhh. I see.

Teehee.

And the original:

Who’s on first?

I Spy

This is the current state of my dining/living area:

Of note:

*You’re looking at about 1000 lbs of food and other consumables. (It’s important to note that not all of it is pictured here.)

*I’m not quite done buying said consumables.

*Apparently we will be living off of cheez-it’s, Diet Dr. Pepper and Viva paper towels.

*My last Georgetown Cupcakes for a very long time are sitting on the table. *tear*

*The last book in the Harry Potter series is also on the table, which I assumed I’d have time to read once I quit French. Oh, how wrong I was.

*They had stock at Trader Joes. Too bad this picture isn’t scratch & sniff.

*We only have to live like this for 4 more days!

Kill me now.

Mefloquine Monday's

From this day forward (or until I am no longer living in countries where you can contract malaria), Monday’s will be known as Mefloquine Monday, or, the day of the week I take my anti-malarial medication. Please oh please let me have hallucination-free slumbers and not lose my memory, like the guy in this episode of  This American Life (you’ll want to listen to act three).

Two questions

*If you had one day to spend in Paris, what would you do?

*What books have you been loving lately?

Check list

Everything seems like it’s coming together as far as the move goes.  In bullet form:

*Two very nice French testers have agreed to come in (way too) early next Thursday to administer Mister’s test. I’m pretty sure they deserve cookies (which, of course Mister would give them after the test as not to appear to be bribing them into giving him his required score).

*We’ve scheduled our pack-out and car shipment for a week from today. Our Houston pack out was a little crazy. We don’t really remember what we packed where, so we’ve decided to ship everything we own to Guinea (minus our furniture). I think it will be really good to be able to go through it again and re-assess what stuff we really need. I’m making an inventory this time…

*Although I have yet to make a list, I have started my consumables (and other) shopping.  Ummm…I’ve spent $1,000 on stuff already…and really, we have quite a bit more to do. Even though we’ve set aside a bunch of cash for this very purpose, it doesn’t hurt any less.

*My favorite Guinea related purchase? Pool hammocks! I sure hope we have a pool in which to use them!

*We’ve reserved our tickets to Guinea via Paris for July 18. Which is less than a month away. Yikes!

*We have applied for both our Guinean visa and that weird visa you need to travel through Europe. Fingers crossed it doesn’t take forever!

*We’ve decided on dates for our last trip to TX and UT. I have to get my car to Utah so we’re road trippin’. I love road trips!!

*I quit French class! I really enjoyed the people I met there, especially my wonderful fellow classmates, but that place was torture for me. I brought in cookies on my last day to try to make them remember me by my baking instead of my (many) public meltdowns. I make really good snickerdoodles, so it probably worked.

We still have a laundry list of things to do, but we’re really doing a good job of knocking it all out. Now all we need is for Mister to pass his test!

For Camille–Get baking!!

Easy & Delicious Baguettes

1 1/2 Cups Warm (105-115 degrees) water, divided
1 1/2 Tablespoons (2 packets) active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar, divided
3 1/4 Cups of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt

1. In a small bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the water, the yeast, and 1 teaspoon of the sugar. Stir just to combine and cover with plastic wrap or a plate. Let the mixture stand about 5 minutes or until bubbly or foamy.

2. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer or food processor, blend the flour, salt, the remaining 1 teaspoon of sugar, and the yeast mixture. Gradually add water, up to the remaining 1 cup, and mix until the dough forms a smooth ball that is not too sticky to handle. (If the dough ends up too sticky, add a little more flour.) Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead briefly, until the dough is smooth and elastic.

3. Cut the dough in half and shape the halves into baguettes. Grease a baguette pan (a perforated baking pan, available at kitchen stores) and place the loaves in the pan. Score the loaves down the middle, cover with a dish towel, and let rise in a warm place about 30 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.

4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 degrees and place a shallow pan of water in the bottom oven to create steam (I put the baguette pan on a jelly roll pan and just put the water in that). Bake the baguettes for 15 minutes or until they have a hollow sound when tapped with a knife. If desired, brush the tops of the loaves with butter halfway through baking. For a softer crust, brush with butter when they have finished baking (I did this and it is good).

Note: You can eat this bread while it’s still hot, but I found it to taste a bit better once it had cooled for a while.

*Abbie…who deserves credit for this recipe??

Weekend finds

I had a very fruitful weekend. I found bunches of peonies at both Costco and Whole Foods, and they are now brightening up my dining room table.

While visiting my friend Abbie, had the most delicious freshly made baguette. Turns out it’s the easiest 5 ingredient recipe with a secret weapon, a perforated bread pan. Of course I had to buy one, and have been munching on soft delicious homemade bread all day.

I think the greatest weekend find was this:

I have wanted one of these since I borrowed my friends back in October. It is the most amazing thing. You can make pretty much everything with it, even peanut butter and rice milk. We’ve had it for 24 hours and have already made 5 smoothies with it. I can’t wait to use it with all of the fresh tropical fruit I’ll find in Guinea. Ooh, and my dad’s chocolate shakes. Yum! The best part…it retails for 400 bucks and I found it for $225, thanks to Abbie (I’m still feeling a bit guilty for finding it first). Amazing!

Streets of Conakry

This is basically just someone taking video out the window as she’s being driven around town (and therefore a tad boring), but if you are at all curious to know what Conakry looks like (mom), check this out.

Streets of Conakry

Change of plans

We’re moving to a French speaking country (as you know by all of my whiny posts about learning the language), so obviously Mister has to obtain a specific language proficiency before he can be cleared to go to post. For French speaking countries (and for his position), that proficiency is typically a 3/3 (speaking/reading). For some reason he only has to get a 2/2, but was given the full length course in which to do so.  Mister has already learned a (super hard) language, so he has language learning skills. Skills that got him a 2/2 at his 12 week evaluation last month. Meaning, he’s pretty much already reached his language requirement. Which means post wants us there earlier, which, if I’m completely honest, is ok by both of us. Mister is itching to do some actual work (he thought he’d never say that…he loves the training lifestyle so much), and I am itching to be done with French. Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds, considering I’m moving to a country where I’ll be surrounded by the language 24/7, not just for 4/5 (4 hours a day/5 days a week….cute huh?) like I am now.

The thing that I don’t love is that we won’t know if it will really happen until he takes (and hopefully passes) the test the last week in June (that is if he’s able to get a test scheduled). Until we know for sure, we can’t really make plans. We would like need to visit our families in Texas and Utah before we go, but because we need to make sure he passes before we buy tickets, we’d have such short notice (like three days) that it will likely be prohibitively expensive to fly. I think the solution to that problem is to turn it into a road trip (especially since we’ll be leaving my car in Utah anyways), but with 23 hour drives to each location, that cuts into family time. So…ugh.

When we moved here in October, I felt like I’d have forever in DC before we left. Somehow, 8 months have felt like 1, and I’m scrambling to do everything I should have been doing bit by bit since we arrived. Man this process, and being in limbo, sucks. I was hoping that it’s just hard because it’s my first time, but one of the guys who has been doing this for 16 years confirmed my fears that it actually never gets easier.

Wish us luck!

I’m certain

It was Mark Twain (or Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Bullock, or Edward Ward*) who said that “the only two certainties in life are death and taxes.”

Well I’d like to argue that there are three certainties. At least in my world. Death, taxes, and that when Mister watches TV (no matter what time of the day/night), you can be sure that it’s either Top Gear, South Park, or Tosh.0.

Maybe being without cable TV in Guinea wouldn’t be such a bad idea…

 

*according to wikipedia’s ‘List of Misquotations’ page.

Yum

Is it just me, or does the French language make Bradley Cooper appear even hotter than he already is?

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Summertime eats

Nothing screams summer to me more than this:

If I pretend that the burger is made of beef instead of black beans and corn (although, it was surprisingly delicious), this is the exact meal I’ve requested for my birthday (in August) pretty much every single year since I can remember. The stars of course are the clam dip and baked beans, both family recipes.

I’ve been stressing over what foods I will need to bring with me to Guinea (we are allowed to ship 2500 pounds of consumables to last us the two years we’re there), which is extremely difficult considering I rarely cook, and I definitely don’t have any go to meals.  I have a feeling my consumables shopping will be little more than haphazardly throwing food in my basket as I wander through each aisle of Costco and BJ’s.

However, I do know that I should plan to bring the ingredients needed for the dip and beans. I can’t think of a better reminder of home.

Cool/Scary Things Mister Gets Paid To Do

If you were ever curious to know what Mister’s job is all about, (and to see some of what he spent his 8 months of training doing), check out this great video from CBS.

Family (and Corey), I think you’ll especially enjoy this.

DS is awesome.

Running, take 12 (give or take)

After Chloe and I put the Casablanca marathon in our sights, I figured I should probably start running again…and for real this time. I won a one month trial for Jiwok, a mp3 training program from France, and started this week with easy 2 minute run/walk intervals. You can use their music or your own (although I haven’t gotten that feature to work), and it provides audible prompts to let you know when to run and when to walk (although their idea of telling you to walk is to say “Let’s get going,” which I would interpret to mean time to run). Anyways, the first workout was a success (after a awkward start trying to decode their prompts). You’re supposed to run between 50 and 70% of your max heart rate, and for me (in my horribly out of shape state) that meant running 14-15 minute miles, or basically, slower than I can walk. But! I did it with no problem whatsoever, which is more than I can say for my recent past running attempts. I’m feeling really good about this. I think it’s going to stick.

I am a sucker for music with big dancy beats, especially when I run, and I just discovered the greatest song. I’ve been listening to it on repeat for the last hour.

Vampire Weekend vs Miike Snow–The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance

I loved it from the second it started playing, but at the 1:20 mark the beat kind of explodes and my eyes lit up, I got a huge grin on my face and couldn’t help but do a little dance. So so good. If you like it as much as I do, you can find it here.