These are a few of my favorite things...

I have found myself randomly singing the words to that song from the Sound of Music. You know, the one that starts off going "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..."  (Bryan likes to make fun of me because I totally sing the wrong words for most of the song, but oh well.)  Whenever I start singing the song, it makes me think of the things I've been especially enjoying recently.  It's the simple things in life that bring me the most delight and pleasure sometimes.

Bubble baths.  Pink grapefruit scented bubble bath soap, a candle, quiet, a good novel, and over an hour to just soak in hot soapy water in a bathroom that feels like America.  I have taken more baths than showers over the past two weeks and am loving it!

Candles.  There's something just so peaceful about a lit candle that brings calm to my soul. I have been trying to remember to light candles and not be so stingy about using our stash from America =P

Plants.  When we moved into our new apartment, we inherited quite a few plants, both big and small.  We already had two of our own that were hand-me-downs of sorts from others who had moved back to the US.  And within weeks of moving in, we discovered a plant & flower market, where we bought two really cute little plants and two orchids.  I've really been enjoying watering them and watching them grow.  Is it weird that I take such delight in watching little sprigs pop out one day, and then over time turn into full blown leaves? 

Sometimes I don't really know what I'm doing, like how often to water them or how much water to give them.  And I at times worry they will die.  But there is something comforting in knowing that really all I can do is hopefully give them the right environment -  sunshine and water - and that beyond that there is nothing I can do in my own effort to make them grow.  And yet they do.  We even bought some sweet pea seeds (one of my favorite bath & body work scents - wouldn't it be awesome if that scent was always being given off by a plant in our home?) and some soil so that I could try planting them and see what would happen.  I haven't tried it yet but I'll let you know how it goes.

Orchids. Some of you may know the story of my first plant, which happened to be an orchid.  For our first Valentine's Day as a married couple (which coincidentally happened to be just 2 weeks after we got married) Bryan got me a potted orchid.  He knows how much I like flowers, and so it seemed like a good idea because it would last longer.  I had never taken care of a plant before so I was worried everyday that I was going to kill it for about the first month or so.  Then I got the hang of it and it became fun.  Everyone told me that orchids are hard to care for, but for some reason ours flourished and continually bloomed new flowers for an entire year.  A year after we got married, we moved out here, and so I had to part with my orchid.  It was sad.  And so, I asked Bryan if he would get me another one after we moved out here. 

We had been on the search for the past year and a half, and with no luck.  I saw orchids everywhere - in bathrooms, at pizza hut - but never in a setting where they were for sale.  So you can imagine my excitement when we found the plant & flower market near our new apartment, where Bryan and I promptly bought two orchid plants.  Sadly though, I think they have both already died, true to most everyone else's experience with trying to care for orchids =(  I'm not sure what was so magical about that first orchid, but I'm still glad for the experience because I think it made me feel more comfortable with caring for plants, and maybe someday I can get an orchid to live in our new apartment.

Knitting.  This is the 3rd time in my life I've 'started' knitting.  The first was when my grandma taught me as a young child.  The second was in college when my roommate re-taught me and I really got into it then.  And about a month ago I re-learned for the 3rd time - not doing something for years will make your brain rusty and forgetful, but luckily it's like riding a bike.  Since we had limited luggage space when we moved out here, I opted to leave my yarn, knitting & crochet needles, and other knitting stuff in the US, in hopes I could find that stuff out here.  I have been on the lookout for them for the past year and a half, with no luck, and I had basically given up hope.  About a month ago, a friend who recently moved here decided she wanted to find yarn and learn how to knit.  Within half an hour of searching online, she had found a location of a yarn store that just so happens to be - yep you guessed it - right around the corner from our old apartment. *sigh* Of course, leave it up to me to live right around the corner from a yarn place and yet not find any yarn for a year and a half. 

Anyway, another friend found a website that has videos to teach you how to knit and I re-taught myself that way.  I learned how to cable-knit for the first time and made a cute little scarf and hat for our friends' 3-year-old daughter, Bree.  I'm currently working on a scarf for Bryan, with two more orders for a friend in our small group and my cousin Jeremy (who used to live with us up until we moved).  Sadly though I think I went a bit overboard on knitting because last weekend my left arm started to ache pretty bad and Bryan put me on a mandatory break from knitting.  I waited 5 whole days to knit again, but to no avail.  After knitting just 20 rows of the scarf, my arm started aching again.  But I'm not ready to give up yet.  I've still got at least 2 more scarves to make!

Coke Classic

So I haven't written for awhile and you may be wondering what we've been up to.  Well, after reading this post you might think we've lost it.  We've been into collecting coke glasses, and that's really all the news I have for you.  The first week of October brought two major holidays in this country, and to celebrate one of them, McDonald's had a special promotion.  If you super-sized any meal, you would get a free coke glass.  Considering a chicken mcnugget meal is only $3 US dollars after super-sizing, that's a pretty sweet deal.  There were 6 colors in all to collect: purple, lime green, blue, gray, pink, and the classic coke bottle color - a sort of sea green.  Of course they were advertising "Collect them all" as most promotions like this usually do.  In the past I've always found myself wondering who would ever really want to collect an entire set of fast-food or cereal free give-aways.  Until now.  The answer would be ME.  I've become a collect them all fanatic.

It all started with our friend Lynn who saw this promotion at a McDonald's at an airport in Tokyo.  She really liked the gray cup, but through some communication mishap she ended up having to buy two meals, because the first one didn't qualify, and when all was said and done she was left with a purple cup, not a gray one, and not enough energy to fight for the color she wanted.  Nevertheless, every time I went over to her place I was practically drooling over her coke glass.  But alas, we do not live in Japan, and so there was no way to acquire the cup.  That is until about 2-3 weeks ago when the first sighting of McDonald's in our country having the same promotion occurred.  Lynn quickly went to get her gray cup, and a texting frenzy commenced where our friends were constantly filling one another in on what McDonald's in which locations had what color cups available.

Our friends Josh & Marilyn (my college friends) have been living the true expat life that many expats do when they aren't sure exactly how long they are going to live out here (read: buying only what you think you absolutely 'need' and just trying to get by with the rest).  After arriving, they only had one bowl and were sharing it for meals for months, and they have only had one glass for the entire past year.  This combined with the free coke glass promotion created the perfect storm and birthed in them the ambition of acquiring a complete set, one of each color.  I think that's what started the rage.  Why not get food you can eat and a really attractive glass that you like so much you'd actually pay for it, all for the price of a meal you'd pay for anyways - especially when you've been living with only one glass for an entire year?

Bryan and I started to find ourselves wanting every color too.  We found ourselves, along with our other expat friends, stopping at every McDonald's we happened to be nearby to check what colors they had available, and inevitably eating way too much McDonald's in our quest to "collect them all." (Note: A super-sized meal in this country is the size of a regular meal in the US - medium coke and fries, and many of us were switching out the coke for an OJ to try to make ourselves feel better - so that doesn't seem as bad, but it was still pretty sick how much McDonald's we all ate, I'm not gonna lie.) But alas, we had jumped in on the game too late because by the time we started collecting, the first two colors (grey & lime green - which coincidentally happened to be the one color I wanted the most) were no where to be found.  Everyone was on the search for us, especially Josh & Marilyn, who were well on their way by this point to getting two full sets.  

They even went searching for a lime green cup on a weekend getaway to another city, and found them!  Wanting to get 2 of them (one for us, and while they were at it, one for themselves so they could work toward 2 full sets) they badgered a customer behind them to supersize a meal, offering to pay for half the meal if he gave them his cup.  By this point they had already eaten Mcdonalds maybe over 10 times in the past 2 weeks in their quest to "collect them all" and they didn't want to eat two meals, so they paid for one meal and then got the guy behind them to supersize and give them his cup. And he ended up giving it to them for free! We hypothesize that he was so thrown off by these Americans who so badly wanted a lime green coke glass that they would put themselves into the awkward position of begging a complete stranger to supersize his meal, that in the end he had pity on them and just gave them the cup for free.

Towards the end of the promotion, all the left-over colors from the previous weeks started coming back out all at once.  (Prior to this, you could only get two colors each week and when the week was over they switched to the next two colors.)  At this point Jeremy (my cousin) and Bryan & I had 5 of the colors, but each still needed a gray cup to complete our set, while Josh & Marilyn needed one to complete their second set. I got a text message from Jeremy informing me of a certain McDonald's that had the coveted gray cup.  Within hours, Josh & Marilyn had traveled to the thus said McDonald's and repeated the same tactics they had employed for the lime green cup, acquiring 2 gray cups with the purchase of only one meal and the badgering of only one unassuming customer that day.

And so this little tale has a happy ending, though I can tell you one thing's for sure.  I don't want to eat McDonald's again for a long long time.