18 February 2011

Today, I found out that my Grandpa had a stroke the other day and was moved to a hospice house for the last bit of his time. It was really sad to hear this and when I called him, it didn’t make things any easier. He was asleep when I called and we talked very briefly and after he said, ‘good night,’ a couple times I got off the phone with him. Sad.

I decided not to mope around all day, and make the most of it despite the sad situation. First, I stopped by Herekino School and dropped off a CV for relief teaching. The woman behind the counter was very nice and I hope to hear back from them soon! They only have 34 students in the whole school, split between 2 teachers. Sweet! Next, I went into town to do our grocery shopping for the week and pick up a few random things, like a yoga ball and a carboy for brewing beer. I went into the wrong paint shop to purchase the carboy, so that will have to be done another day. This really was an exciting day cause it was the first time I drove my new car, so I was able to do all these things independently. Also, it was good to get used to this new car, (a 1997 Toyota Starlet), driving on the wrong side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car and use my left hand for shifting gears- very different.
After running around, I stopped by the workshop to say hello to Dave and let him know my Grandpa wasn’t doing well. Then, headed home and started making pickles. We have collected about a dozen pickling cucumbers that I started slicing, sanitizing the jars and making the brine. They ended up turning out great, except for the recipe for the brine had way too much salt in it, so next time I would reduce the brine to ½ what the recipe calls for. Here’s the link: http://www.texascooking.com/recipes/edillpickles.htm They really taste just like Claussen pickles, just make sure you reduce the salt.

Dave came home a bit later and we made a nice dinner. We watched the sunset while we ate our salads: mixed greens, garlic, balsamic vinegar, cherry tomatoes and avocados. The other part of the dinner was some delicious red snapper that Meg had caught, which Dave stuffed with onions and pan-fried and there were potatoes with rosemary, and garlic on the side. We ate this inside cause it was really late and the mozzies (what they call mosquitoes out here), were eating us alive.