Happy Birthday

to me!!!

Yup, tomorrow is my birthday. I will be turning 29 years old. I thing I will stay at 29 for a long long time. What do you think? Twenty nine is a good number, right?

A little annoyed though and even though I still have one day left (tomorrow) I’ve only received one birthday card. Yeah, I’m throwing myself a pitty party!

Thank you to my dear friend who did think of me and send the card out early and I already received it yesterday. Thank you!!!

I know my parents and my sister will be sending or already sent the cards out, but it kind of depends who sent them out. My parents have been staying at the summer house all summer and they are still there. They don’t come to the city too often, so it could be that my mom asked my sister to get a card from them. The thing is with my sister, she’s ALWAYS late sending them out. So I’ll probably end up getting it sometime next week, or the week after that. Agh, I guess as long as I get it.

And to all the other family members, well, I don’t know. At the moment I’m thinking that I probably won’t be sending them Christmas cards, and for those that have birthdays between now and Christmas, they won’t be getting a b-day card. Yeah, sounds mean, but that’s how I feel at the moment. I’ll probably get over it and end up sending all the cards out, but sheesh people, is it hard for you to send me one card?

It’s not like I’m asking them to come see me, or take me out for lunch, or dinner. They live thousands and thousands of miles away, in a different continent. They should send me a card and make sure I get it on time, not a month later.

Maybe I should call, text, e-mail them all a month before and let them know, that it is time to get a card and send it out. On average, it takes about 2 weeks for me to get it.

Blah.

I guess I could still get it tomorrow. We’ll see.

Oh, the Princess is coming down with something. I swear, we can never avoid any kind of cold/bug/what-ever-you-want-to-call-it. So now she has a cough and a snotty nose. Oh, and wait, I think I’m feeling something too. Great! Just in time for my birthday. I might as well start getting drugged up now.

We are planning on going out to dinner. Probably Red Robin since it is kid friendly and they do pretty well there. After that, I don’t know. Maybe walk around the mall. Maybe I’ll go to Victoria’s Secret and get something there. I did get a gift card to VS from that same dear friend who’s card I already received. I really could just stay home and do nothing, as long as we are all healthy.

I’ll let you all know what we’ll end up doing. Goodnight!

Yay!!

Lithuania wins their first U18 European Championship.

Read about it here.

Has it really been THIS long?

Fourteen years ago, after a 10+ hours flight, a Boeing airplane don’t remember what number) landed in Los Angeles International Airport. It was my very first flight. It was the very first time that I saw palm trees. It was first time flying overseas. It was first time that we left my sister behind and did not know when we will see her again. It was my very first time arriving to USA.

WOW!! I can’t believe it’s been fourteen years. F-O-U-R-T-E-E-N YEARS. I was only 14 years old when I came here. Which means I’ve lived half of my life out here and the other half in LT.

I remember everything so clearly. Saying bye to my sister, niece, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. The whole trip to US. We had to spend the night in Denmark and I remember going for a walk that night and it was so windy and cold, that we barely saw anything. We just wanted to get back to the hotel. Then the long flight over the Atlantic ocean. It was the second time I got my period and I was wearing white pants and was sitting next to my dad. Yeah. I won’t go into the details. Just want to thank to whoever thought of long shirts.

The customs took forever! Seriously, over 3 hours. The family that was waiting to pick us up was all worried. They were taking us to the place in LA and the drive from LAX was just horrible. The freeway seemed to be so bumpy that I almost threw up. It probably had to do a lot with just being out of the plane, but still. Some freeways are still bumpy, but I feel fine driving on them now.

So much has happened in those last 14 years. Again, I won’t go into the details now, I’ll leave it for another day.

If you were to ask me if I would change anything in those last 14 years – I’d say of course! I am  happy where I’m at right now, but I wish some things would be different.

December 1st

Wow! I just can’t believe the year is almost gone. Where did the time go? I remember getting ready for the last Christmas. Making a ham, a potato salad and a few other Lithuanian dishes.

I love this time of the year. I love everything about it, except…

…except being so far far away from my family. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband and my kids, and they are my family, but I’m talking about my parents, my sister, my nieces that are like daughters to me, my grandmother, my cousins, and the list could go on. I can’t even talk to them whenever I want to, because you know, it all adds up. I would love to talk to my parents every day, like I used to when they lived here. Now I’m lucky if I talk to them 1-2 a week. More like one time, unless I have to tell them something or I need to ask them something. It sucks. It totally sucks!

I would love to live there! Or at least somewhere in Europe. I know I would see them at least twice a year, probably more. And I could talk to them all the time, because they have plans for the cells that work in whole Europe. I would just have to pay a monthly fee and I could talk to them always. Agh, this is not happening, or at least not any time soon, so I need to snap out of this dream that I’m having and get back to the real life. V said that he would like to move there too, but first we need to come up with something that we could do out there, because he doesn’t speak the language. And honestly, I don’t think he will ever know it fluently. Because it is a hard language to learn.

You might ask why no one comes and visits me? Well, there is a lot of things going on. Like my mom can’t leave her mom (my grandmother) because she had a ………. and my mom is taking care of her. My sister and her husband work and they can’t take that much time off, plus the tickets are so darn expensive that they can’t afford it. My dad, maybe, maybe he’ll come next summer, or next Christmas. The only person that might come to visit us next summer is my older niece. But that all depends on her school. She’s been having some trouble with school and her grades, umm, kind of went down the hill, so if she brings them back up, she might fly over here in summer. I hope she does better at school and I hope to see her.

So that’s what’s been on my mind today.

Although there is one thing that I’m looking forward to this Christmas (well not really a one thing, but you know what I mean) is that my cousin Daiva will be coming with her boyfriend. Yay!! She lives in CO and they will be driving up. Not sure for 100% tht they will be here, but pretty sure, as they are already planning their trip.

Anyway, thanks to listening to my Saturday night thoughts. Now I’m off to watch some TV and to hang with my hubby. Oh, and have a glass of wine.

President of Lithuania

Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus was chosen a person of the year in Europe. Here is a little article I found in one of Lithuanian newspaper Lietuvos Rytas.

Pretty cool, huh?

I’ll try and find an article in English.

Chanterelle mushrooms

Have you ever had these Chanterelle mushrooms? They are so good! I was never able to find them out here. So every time I’d go to Lithuania and if I end up staying there in the late summer, I always used to eat them. My mom used to make them for me. I don’t even know how many times I had it this time. They are so yummy!

So the other day we went to Costco and I saw some sitting there on the shelf. I made them last night. Yum! I’ll be going back to get some more.

The preparation is very easy. And when I say it’s easy, it is easy. Wash the mushrooms well. Cut up in bite size pieces (I prefer on a smaller size). Put a lot of butter/margarine (whatever you prefer) in a skillet, throw in onions and mushrooms, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Boil some potatoes to go with it. And you’re done! Enjoy your meal. Too bad I didn’t take a picture of it….next time.

Growing up every fall we used to go pick mushrooms from the forest. We’d leave early morning while it’s still dark out. There used to be a little of a drive, depending on how far we wanted to drive. But if we went one way or the other, there was always at least a couple hour drive. We’d pack up some food, as we knew we were spending the whole day at the forest. Everybody had their own basket. Only the sizes were different. My dad, of course, used to have the biggest one. He was the best at finding mushrooms. I would walk with my dad and he would ask me if I see any, and I wouldn’t, and he would see a few right in front of us. Mushrooms would be hiding under the leaves, or in the moss. He would then cut them and put it in my little basket.

At lunch time we would eat our packed lunches on the blankest in the forest. The food would taste 100 times better than at home. I guess it’s the outside and the fresh air would do the trick. We would even sometimes take short naps after lunch. Only the kids of course. Or just lay on the grass and enjoy the freshness of the forest. More mushroom picking would follow after that.

The only part of this mushroom picking I did not like, was when we get home with tons and tons of mushrooms, we would have to clean and cut them up. It used to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I don’t miss that part at all. After mushrooms would be clean and cut up, my mom would can some of them, dry up some of them, and there would be a little left for eating that day or the next. Most of time it would be the next day, because that day we would be so tired that we wouldn’t even want to think about eating.

 Chanterelle mushrooms were not the only ones we picked. It was one of the many more different kinds we would find. (I don’t know all of their names in English) Not the poisonous kinds of course.

Did you know…

…that Lithuania won a 3rd place in European basketball?! Yeah!!! I was there to watch all the games and it was just so cool to see all the people get so excited. One time I got to go to a restaurant/bar to watch a game with my cousin. It was so much fun. And they of course won! It was a very close game. Russians took 1st place. I just think its cool that we are in the top 3. Lithuania it’s such a small country and to make it to the top 3, wow! A lot of the players are playing in NBA and for them to take time off and to go back and play for their country it was really nice! And I know there are some Lithuanians that are playing in NBA and they chose not to go back to Lithuania and play for European championship. I won’t mention they’re names, but they could’ve went back.

Here is one of who knows how mane clips of when they came back home as a bronze medalists. All the games were in Spain.

I’m back

We are back from our vacation. Those 4 months went by way too fast. Once I got there, at the end of May, I thought WOW, I’m gonna be here FOUR months! Thats longer than the summer. Then days, weeks were going by so fast, that those four months were not enough. I loved being there. Being with my family and friends, watching my kids play with their cousins, their grandparents was just amazing.

I’ll have to keep this short this time as I am getting tearry eyed just thinking back and missing everyone and wanting to be back there again. We just came back last Monday, so everything is still very fresh and I’m still having a hard time talking/writing about it. This might sound silly, but that’s just me.

Bulviniai blynai (potato pancakes)

So last Sunday I decided to make a Lithuanian dish – potato pancakes. (sorry, don’t have a picture, but next time I make them I will take and post a picture) Its kind of a lot of work if you don’t have this potato grinder (its a machine that grindes potatos). Now some of you think whats a big deal to grind a few potatoes using a hand held grinder? Well it is kind of, not kind of, actualy very hard to grind a 10lb potatos bag. I haven’t seen to buy one out here, and trust me, we looked everywhere for it (well actually my parents did). So my parents ended up bringin one from Lithuania, and now that they moved back there, they left me theirs as they can get another one out there. Anyway, where was I…uhhmmm….potato pancakes, thats right. So Sunday was the first time I got to use the machine. After I was all done cooking them, you should have seen the look on Viktor’s eyes. He could not believe I made them! He was so happy! That is one of his favorite Lithuanian dishes. And even Lukas ate. He had one and a half potato pancake.

We’ll see, maybe I’ll surprise him this weekend with something else yummy.

Welcome to Lithuania

A little funny video I found. Enjoy!