Chillin' Our Way Through January

       The beginning of January has been a tumult of emotions. First of all, we continue to miss family during this time. We've happily been able to skype with family lately, which has been very good. Yesterday we started our second semester and were reminded of some of the joys and stresses of our work here. Rewind... on Christmas by the Julian (old) calendar, we were invited to our former host's home to enjoy a masa and share the holiday with them. Here are a few picture of the wonderful time we had with them.

 

  So, I know we have a post titled "Cooking With Shelbi," but these treats have just been such an important part of our time during these holidays, we needed to show them here where you are more likely to stumble upon them.

Shelbi's family has sent a package and just look at these smiles. We were surprised with some wonderfully warm Smart-wool socks, head-warmers, and a cookie-cutter kit. All of these very practical gifts we have put to immediate use.

 

Our neighbor woke us up (old) Christmas morning and gave us what you see below. We didn't quite understand if anything was expected of us when she gave us these gifts, so we just smiled and said, "Thank you" as many times as we could. After asking later we learned that nothing was expected of us, but that this is either a regional tradition or a neighbor being neighborly or a little or both. Our neighbor speaks a little Romanian, but mostly Russian. Still, she is very amiable, as you can see.

 

 

 

Earlier today, just before dark, it began snowing. For a good hour it dropped heavily, covering the trees again. It was so beautiful I had to take a little video. As we've mentioned before, we've never lived in a truly winterly place. Texas doesn't quite quality as a winter wonderland every year, so we're experiencing something new but exciting with the snow. It still makes us giddy when it falls :)

Here is our lunch today. It was just so colorful and strange. Pictured are pickled tomatoes, pickled cucumbers, scrambled eggs, salami slices, and a bit of bread. It was great. My partner and our school director have given us large jars of preserved items, including cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, and others. They also gave us compot (natural fruit juice), so I know we will make it comfortably through the winter with these. The tomatoes below were some of these.