Thursday, January 20, 2011

Obsessed with Haricots

Are you wondering what haricots are?? That is the French term for beans. I have never been obsessed over something like beans before, but it is driving me nuts that I can't find the ones I am wanting. Great Northern Beans. How hard can that be? We can't get much farther north without leaving civilization!

I think Scott is lucky that I have had a very open mind about being here, because if I didn't, his life would be very miserable right now. The grocery store would be enough to just put me into a big depression. As I said before, I am not into cooking. When I have a recipe, I follow it to the T. Very rarely do I substitute things, because I don't know if it will ruin it or not. I'm just not adventurous in the kitchen. (Nor anywhere else, for that matter!)

A stop at the grocery store takes me at least twice as long as it would normally. Alot of that is because I just don't know where everything is yet. However, another chunk of that time is spent wondering what I can use instead for the item that I can't find. This morning my list contained 3 items, and I was in there for at least 20 minutes. Of course I can never get out of the store with just the items on my list. However, the 3 items on my list were things I needed to add to the stuff I had at home to make homemade pizza (kind of.........if you call have the refrigerator pizza dough homemade (like I do!)) Do you think I can find pepperoni? Of course not! Or, at least not the way I would buy it at home. At home, you can buy it already sliced. I didn't even know you could buy pepperoni in the big tube-summer-sausage-like-casing. Good Lord! Does that mean I have to cut that entire thing into thin little slices? Apparently so! What the heck does a person use a thing of pepperoni like that for? I should probably get started on that now, as it might take me all day to do! Maybe I will need to invest in a food processor? AND, I had to buy raw white beans to substitute for my Northern Beans. I don't know if that is the right substitute or not, but I'm going to give it a whirl. I've never cooked beans from their raw state before. We could be in trouble. Maybe I should go buy some nose plugs? They probably don't have those here either.

Another obsession I have now is following the exchange rate. It is VERY disturbing to me that I am losing money by exchanging it over to Canadian. The lady at the bank says it's usually the other way around. Well, wouldn't you know it! I move to Canada and now the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar. UGH! We have probably already just thrown at least $100 out the window in this exchanging (or selling) thing. That was another thing that I wasn't sure about when I went to the bank this morning. I wrote a check from our Bismarck account to our American fund account here and then asked her what the exchange rate was. She asked if I was buying or selling. What?? I'm just exchanging it lady. LOL! Okay, that is pretty dumb on my part, but I have just never been the one to deal with stocks/bonds or buying/selling. That is Scott's job. I know now, that I would be selling my American dollar...........at a loss! I am going to wait to do it, because I will lose about $30 on the $1000, or $3 on the $100. Even losing $3 disturbs me. I'm probably stupid not to do it though, because it could be worse tomorrow, or whenever it will be that I just HAVE to do it, in order to pay the mortgage. I am going to turn into a money hoarder. That's probably not a bad thing though.

5 comments:

Megan said...

It sounds like you need a care package of Jif, Pepperoni, & Great Northren Beans!

Stacy said...

HA! Yes, I do!

Kara said...

Oh, Stacy! I am so excited you posted you are blogging again! Fun to hear of your adventures! It sounds like you need to take a weekend road trip to Grand Forks and stock up! I know Canadians used to do that all the time when I went to college there! You'll get it figured out....and then when you move back there will be things you miss from Canada! We'll miss you today at our Girl Scout meeeting! Jadyn said, "It just won't be the same...." Well said, J!

Michele said...

It seems hard now, but I just know you'll adjust in time. At least you've got a little extra time for the grocery store because you're not volunteering at Cub Scouts, Girls Scouts, school, etc. - YET!

Nancy said...

I'm glad you're blogging again too! What an adventure you guys are having and your kids will come back speaking French so they'll be able to either take French here and get an easy A or take Spanish or German!