Yeah, I finally began to study today for the first time in days. I was really unmotivated for a number of reasons. But mostly because I'm a lazy miserable homesick brat. It's the fourth of July tomorrow, and all my family is telling me there fun plans, and I'm so jealous. I wish I could go to the barbeque with everyone, but I can't this year. I'll say, I never really appreciated family gathering so much in the past, but I guess I'm starting to get a little sentimental as I approach my 30's. Anyways, I've kept busy during my strike.
I baked a cherry pie:
I made my first Зелник со сирење (Pastry with cheese):
I discovered the mysterious hssss that made my husband think the a/c was broken. After some investigating, it turns out that one of my canned cherry jars didn't make it and started to leak and release gas. That was the hsss'ing sound. Well, dummy that I am, decided to help release the gas, so that I could throw away the bad cherries and the jar exploded all over my kitchen. I had cherries at least 4 feet from the crime scene. In an attempt to hide the evidence of my housewife failure, I decided to clean the entire apartment from top to bottom.
Which was rather convenient, because afterwards, my husband called and told me that we would be entertaining guests that evening. Which I did so, very successfully. I say that, because I've had some rather terrible experiences in the past with entertaining Macedonians. Like for example, not standing up and greeting the guests at the door, not walking the guests to the door or car at the end of the night, not making sure their drinks were full, not making enough food, or not having some sweet to serve with coffee, etc... And I heard about it from the husband or his mother. I kind of developed a phobia when guests come over because of the damn formalities. But this time, I decided that I wasn't going to pretend I was some native Macedonian housewife. Rather, an American who choose to live in Macedonia, that keeps a average clean house, is not working at the moment, is somewhat polite, and will make and serve food if she feels like it. And it just so happened that I was in the mood for making food, and so I did. My house was clean enough (actually cleaner than usual, due to the event that occurred earlier that day), I kept the drinks full as best as I could, and the our very small living room table didn't have an ounce of room for more food. My husband was so pleased at the end of the night, and so was I. But mostly, for not freaking out because I'm not perfect. I mean, who set the damn standards in this country for hospitality anyways??? I think even Emily Post herself would struggle here.
I baked a cherry pie:
I made my first Зелник со сирење (Pastry with cheese):
I discovered the mysterious hssss that made my husband think the a/c was broken. After some investigating, it turns out that one of my canned cherry jars didn't make it and started to leak and release gas. That was the hsss'ing sound. Well, dummy that I am, decided to help release the gas, so that I could throw away the bad cherries and the jar exploded all over my kitchen. I had cherries at least 4 feet from the crime scene. In an attempt to hide the evidence of my housewife failure, I decided to clean the entire apartment from top to bottom.
Which was rather convenient, because afterwards, my husband called and told me that we would be entertaining guests that evening. Which I did so, very successfully. I say that, because I've had some rather terrible experiences in the past with entertaining Macedonians. Like for example, not standing up and greeting the guests at the door, not walking the guests to the door or car at the end of the night, not making sure their drinks were full, not making enough food, or not having some sweet to serve with coffee, etc... And I heard about it from the husband or his mother. I kind of developed a phobia when guests come over because of the damn formalities. But this time, I decided that I wasn't going to pretend I was some native Macedonian housewife. Rather, an American who choose to live in Macedonia, that keeps a average clean house, is not working at the moment, is somewhat polite, and will make and serve food if she feels like it. And it just so happened that I was in the mood for making food, and so I did. My house was clean enough (actually cleaner than usual, due to the event that occurred earlier that day), I kept the drinks full as best as I could, and the our very small living room table didn't have an ounce of room for more food. My husband was so pleased at the end of the night, and so was I. But mostly, for not freaking out because I'm not perfect. I mean, who set the damn standards in this country for hospitality anyways??? I think even Emily Post herself would struggle here.
to kills fleas and ticks. But when we went to the pet store, we found out that they banned the sale of tick collars, for safety reasons. I think insects sucking the blood from my dog and spreading disease is much more of a safety concern, but I don't pass the laws here. However, they did have a medicated collar for fleas, so we purchased that one instead. Apparently, it's not as strong as the tick one, but what choice do we have? Hopefully it will work. Here's a video of little Max in action:
, add a cup of water, and place it over heat. In the summer we use these miniature 
to save money.
of your choice, or any coffee brand that is very finely ground. 4. Wait until the coffee starts to bubble and rise, and then remove it from the heat and slowly pour into cup, dividing it equally between two cups, if more than one cup was prepared at a time. 
Just finished the best dinner ever. The neighbor came over tonight, as he usually does, once or twice a week. Mostly to entertain and make fun of America, especially 
. I usually don't care for his company because he smokes a lot and drinks far too much rakija (home brandy); but he always provides a little bit of wisdom for me each visit; and tonight was no different. 
