First post of the year

Yeah, January is almost way done already. I have a feeling this will be a fast year (again). We got some big plans for the second part of the year, but seems that for right now the theme is work hard and hold tight.. we'll see.

We went to Busch Gardens today so here's a few pictures of some animals we saw. We've got passes so we can go as much as we want for a whole year.

 

 

 

Here's also some updates on my garden. The cucumbers are gone, some weird bacterial disease killed all the plants in a few days. But everything else is doing good. The lettuce is crispy and tastes delicious on sandwiches, the baby carrots are sweet, the tomatoes are still green so still waiting for them. The parsley I planted inside back in June was almost gone but when I took the container out, it started growing like crazy. Even the dill that died moths ago in the same container is now coming back! 

 




To finish this off, I wanted to shine light on one of the most ridiculous behaviors I have experienced in the American society: giving and receiving gifts and the rituals related to it. There's actually a lot that could be said, but I'm even going to get into all off it, just to point out the weirdest parts.. Anyway, the first thing is the thank you cards people send after getting gifts. Give somebody a wedding gift here and next week they send you a card in the mail that says "thank you for the toaster". Or how about this. I went to somebody's first birthday party a few years back and  some lady in the party was writing a list of all the gifts the kid received and who it was from, so the parents can send everybody personalized cards as well.. how about just a simple thank you to the guest in the party?? Somebody I work with told me her mom gave her a thank you card for the Christmas present she gave her.. and they live right next to each other and see every day!! All I can say, sorry people, think I'm rude or whatever, but I'm not gonna be a part of that nonsense.

 The other thing I wanted to mention is the habit of returning the gift somebody gave you back to the store. Yeah, you read right, after the thank you card is posted, they take the toaster to the store and return it or exchange is for something else instead. This is why December 26th is a crazy shopping day here: it's time to return the presents. I think it's just way too sad and there's not a whole lot to say about it. Not everybody does it, but seems that most people do.

There is some odd things people do for their social purposes  here that's for sure.

Oh well, time to go. I will now go and make a smoothie, yay!!