Waiting for Christmas.

The Christmas this year will not be white, and it probably won't be cold either. To create the Christmas feeling, people here in the south like to get crazy with the decorations. In our neighborhood there are houses with the prettiest lights and decorations outside right now. We don't really have anything outside but we did do some decorating inside. I wanted a real Christmas tree and since we could get a small one for 25 dollars it wasn't hard to get one. So here's some Christmas pictures!

Today was a happy day: I got to eat my first cucumber! What a feast! It was the very best cucumber ever,  juicy but still crispy with a wonderful mild flavor. Nam! I love cucumbers!!!!!!!

I was surprised that the cucumber had spikes on it.  I had to scrape them off with a knife before we could even slice it. I would have never known they have spikes if I hadn't grown my own.  

I think I will go in the garden in the middle of the night to get another one. 

Well, it is almost the end of the month and then it's Christmas month! Time goes by so fast, it's crazy.

Tonight it's pretty cold outside or at least compared to what it's been like in the last few weeks.. I wonder if we're getting a cold December. It would be nice but at the same time I don't want it to get too cold because it might kill my plants. And I don't want to kill my cucumbers. They are growing, and soon I will have more than I will know what to do with. I'm planning on having the first ones this coming weekend.

We had a food day at work today and everybody brought something. It was so good! I made an apple pie but I was out of both vanilla sugar and cinnamon so it was missing a little flavor. I'm doing really good at work, we have all kinds of different goals to meet monthly and looks like this month I'll get some really good ratings. I know it doesn't really matter in the long run since we're moving out the country next year and all that, but I like when I get good numbers, kind of like getting a good grade in school. Plus, if my ratings are good I may get a better schedule next year.

Our plans are still a little open because getting my citizenship is gonna be a long process, but we are still looking at late spring or early summer for the move. I'm most of all worried about getting our cats over, they will not like the plane trip. But I'm not leaving them behind because I'm sure they will rather suffer one day of flying instead of living the rest of their lives with some stranger who will probably not take care of them like they should be taken car of. Talking about cats, I've gotten myself into trouble by befriending some alley cats, and I hope they'll be okay when we move. They don't belong to anybody, they just live in the neighborhood, and I think there's probably other people who are feeding them too.

 

How do you resist these faces??

We went to Walmart a week ago and I accidentally found the best cheese ever. It is so much tastier than the other cheese they sell here in the US. Now I will have a reason to go to Walmart every now and then since I otherwise almost never shop there.  Here it is:

Ha! It is straight from Finland! No wonder it tastes superior!

We also tried to go to a park we never been to before last weekend, but it was really a fail because we were eaten alive by mosquitos. It was pretty though and we'll go back if it gets colder. 

I got a few pictures before we ran out of there. 

That's it. I will post pictures of the first cucumber we'll eat this weekend, so stay tuned!

Busy week at work behind me finally. It is time to relax and enjoy the November sun!

I am so proud of my little garden. Everything is growing just like it's supposed to and we've already had a change to enjoy some radishes. I'm expecting cucumbers some time in December, hurraa!

This salad has home grown radishes and parsley in it, yammy!

Cucumber flowers are pretty!

Pepper plants.. I have some growing inside in a container too.

The grape tomato plants are growing too!

Happy girl!

Oh... we had some friends over last weekend and I found a super yammy chicken recipe online.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/124/Lime-Marinated-Grilled-Chicken

It is really easy and the chicken was so tasty!

I haven't updated in a little while. I don't think it's been busy, not much has been going on. And I was sick, a cold. Almost lost my voice completely when I went back to work because I was still recovering and I had to speak on the phone all day. But now it's weekend again and I'm taking it very easy. Did some grocery shopping in a new supermarket I found today. It's called Bravo and seemed like most of the customers were Spanish speaking.. it was a pretty small modest store but they had some really good prices and everything was really fresh. I dragged Chris with me and I think he was not so happy to shop there but hey, we got a some cheap good food!

Thanksgiving is around the corner and I guess that's cool.. I don't really care that much about it though, and then I found out I have to work Christmas day.. a ten and half hour shift. I'm really mad about it because I was told when I started work there I would get Christmas off if I volunteered some other holidays. So I worked July 4th and Labor Day. But now they decided Christmas is just a normal working day and we get it back on the 26th.. how stupid!!! They don't even pay any extra for that, what a greedy company I work for!

So happy to be almost done with this year. We're about to finalize some things with my citizenship at the beginning of next year and then hopefully head over to Finland for a long time at the end of spring. We're gonna try to get in to some school programs and Chris will get to start up some Finnish studies. I can't wait. We're both so done with life over here, and time couldn't go any faster.

Meanwhile, when we're still here, we try to make best out of what we have. And this certainly is not a bad season to be in Florida at all. Weather is really pleasant and all that. Here's a few pictures from the last few weeks.

Time to roast some Marshmallows!

Chris, Terri, Macky and Skippy enjoying the fire.

Can you see the bear in the coals? :P

Had a pizza baking day.. Chris made his first pizza!

Went to Vero to get some sea weed for the compost.

The radishes are not quite big enough yet..

Aaannd... it's a cucumber flower!