WEEK NINE
Friday August 7
The french bread challah turned out nice. I know you were waiting with baited breath from the cliffhanger from last week, and now you know. I went to a Shabbat service at Auckland Hebrew Congregation, which is Auckland's only orthodox synagogue. After service, I went to a Shabbat dinner hosted by a Canadian-Israeli married couple here working in the community as shlichim. I got to know them, two other girls, and Ari was there as well. All young, and all nice. I should be getting some kind of kickback from Masa for the way I sing their praises…I was trying to convince this girl she should do one of the programs and I think that’s what the shlichim are here to do. But seriously, maybe that’s something I should look into… ;)
Saturday August 8
It rained, but I went out for a walk so I could get some fresh air. I've been meaning to go to the Red Cross op-shop so I made my way there. I spent the rest of the day/night making a pros/cons list for living in Israel. Yes, I'm at it again. And also drafting another idea of what I want to do in this next year. Also got to catch up on Pretty Little Liars. Suz ended up coming to check in on me because of the fit I was having over the episode ending. WHO IS 'A'?!
Sunday August 9 & Monday August 10
Work :)
Tuesday August 11
Two months! Read my month review >>here. To celebrate, I worked. :) This also marks one month being at Sal's.
Wednesday August 12 & Thursday August 13
Work :)
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WEEK TEN
Friday August 14
I was invited for a Shabbat dinner with the same couple from last week, but I wanted to stay home and make dinner for my family since I have hardly been home lately for dinner (and kind of been missing cooking.) I fried some chicken strips, sauteed broccoli and mushrooms, and made two loaves of challah. I met with Ari for coffee earlier in the day and he gave me the great idea to put chocolate in one of the loaves. It turned out amazing…it was gone by the next morning! It was a trial and error type thing for me since I hadn't done it before, but I melted down some chocolate chips, rolled out my three strands, smeared some chocolate in the center and rolled the strand and then braided them as normal. Next time I'll add more chocolate ;)
Saturday August 15
Today was Emerald's ball (or prom, if you will.) I didn't have to be at work until 5 so I was excited that I would be able to see her all dressed up. Plans changed and I didn't get to see her in her dress, but I did see pictures. She was so beautiful! Work went well, but I didn't realize that the bus runs a bit earlier on Saturdays for whatever reason, so I missed it and had to wait an hour to catch the next one. I'm not sure why people bring their boom boxes on the bus and play it like everybody wants to listen to it or why some teenagers are little shits. This one kid, I swear, every other word out of his mouth was the f-bomb. Like, dude, okay…you want to have a potty mouth, fine, but that was way over the top. Calm down. I have never been happier to be off the bus in my life. Suz is amazing for everything she does for me to make me part of her family, but I could never appreciate her more than when she picks me up from the bus stop at night!
Sunday August 16
I'm not really sure what's happened to me. I've started allowing Nelly (the cat) to sleep with me. She's all of a sudden become my best friend. I AM NOT A CAT PERSON! I guess for now I'm a Nelly person. And if you tell anybody about this I'll be really upset and never admit it, but I think I love her. Last night I decided to watch the season finale/break/whatever, of Pretty Little Liar. It was a slippery decision because I talk a lot, yell, and make noises at the screen…it was midnight, and I was taking a huge chance doing that because I didn't want to risk waking Suz, but I had to know who A was. It was literally killing me to keep quiet and not scream "REALLY?!?!" at the screen. This resulted in me starting the show all over today because there's a lot a have forgotten. Yes, I should've gone and done something productive, but I've been in a funk that I really need to figure out.
The french bread challah turned out nice. I know you were waiting with baited breath from the cliffhanger from last week, and now you know. I went to a Shabbat service at Auckland Hebrew Congregation, which is Auckland's only orthodox synagogue. After service, I went to a Shabbat dinner hosted by a Canadian-Israeli married couple here working in the community as shlichim. I got to know them, two other girls, and Ari was there as well. All young, and all nice. I should be getting some kind of kickback from Masa for the way I sing their praises…I was trying to convince this girl she should do one of the programs and I think that’s what the shlichim are here to do. But seriously, maybe that’s something I should look into… ;)
Saturday August 8
It rained, but I went out for a walk so I could get some fresh air. I've been meaning to go to the Red Cross op-shop so I made my way there. I spent the rest of the day/night making a pros/cons list for living in Israel. Yes, I'm at it again. And also drafting another idea of what I want to do in this next year. Also got to catch up on Pretty Little Liars. Suz ended up coming to check in on me because of the fit I was having over the episode ending. WHO IS 'A'?!
Sunday August 9 & Monday August 10
Work :)
Tuesday August 11
Two months! Read my month review >>here. To celebrate, I worked. :) This also marks one month being at Sal's.
Wednesday August 12 & Thursday August 13
Work :)
**************************************************************************************************
WEEK TEN
Friday August 14
I was invited for a Shabbat dinner with the same couple from last week, but I wanted to stay home and make dinner for my family since I have hardly been home lately for dinner (and kind of been missing cooking.) I fried some chicken strips, sauteed broccoli and mushrooms, and made two loaves of challah. I met with Ari for coffee earlier in the day and he gave me the great idea to put chocolate in one of the loaves. It turned out amazing…it was gone by the next morning! It was a trial and error type thing for me since I hadn't done it before, but I melted down some chocolate chips, rolled out my three strands, smeared some chocolate in the center and rolled the strand and then braided them as normal. Next time I'll add more chocolate ;)
Saturday August 15
Today was Emerald's ball (or prom, if you will.) I didn't have to be at work until 5 so I was excited that I would be able to see her all dressed up. Plans changed and I didn't get to see her in her dress, but I did see pictures. She was so beautiful! Work went well, but I didn't realize that the bus runs a bit earlier on Saturdays for whatever reason, so I missed it and had to wait an hour to catch the next one. I'm not sure why people bring their boom boxes on the bus and play it like everybody wants to listen to it or why some teenagers are little shits. This one kid, I swear, every other word out of his mouth was the f-bomb. Like, dude, okay…you want to have a potty mouth, fine, but that was way over the top. Calm down. I have never been happier to be off the bus in my life. Suz is amazing for everything she does for me to make me part of her family, but I could never appreciate her more than when she picks me up from the bus stop at night!
Sunday August 16
I'm not really sure what's happened to me. I've started allowing Nelly (the cat) to sleep with me. She's all of a sudden become my best friend. I AM NOT A CAT PERSON! I guess for now I'm a Nelly person. And if you tell anybody about this I'll be really upset and never admit it, but I think I love her. Last night I decided to watch the season finale/break/whatever, of Pretty Little Liar. It was a slippery decision because I talk a lot, yell, and make noises at the screen…it was midnight, and I was taking a huge chance doing that because I didn't want to risk waking Suz, but I had to know who A was. It was literally killing me to keep quiet and not scream "REALLY?!?!" at the screen. This resulted in me starting the show all over today because there's a lot a have forgotten. Yes, I should've gone and done something productive, but I've been in a funk that I really need to figure out.
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| BFFs |
Monday August 17
Well, guys, if I'm just being honest…I spent most of the day talking to one of my best friends and crying about decisions I want to make but scared and conflicted. It's a really difficult thing to talk about on my blog because I want my outward appearance to be that of a happy person enjoying everything New Zealand, but on the inside I'm missing Israel more and more with each passing day and it's tearing me apart because it's where I truly want to be. This is not to say my time here has been terrible, quite the opposite! How amazing and blessed have I been to be introduced to an amazing family who took me into their home and made me family, found a job that I quite like, and know that I'm in a beautiful country?? I genuinely appreciate all these things. I feel like my pride would take a hit since I said I would like to be here at least 6 months and then do all this traveling all over. I often wonder if maybe I haven't given it a real chance, but the heart wants what it wants and it wants Tel Aviv. I'm not sure what my plans are, but I'm looking into options. Basically, don't be surprised if/when I make an announcement that I will be heading there. We'll see what happens. Let's get one thing straight, I will not leave this country without doing some traveingl first! I may nix Oz and SEA and opt to do that another time, but I didn't come here to just see Auckland and leave. How silly would that be?
Tuesday August 18
I feel better today. More at peace with myself. First day I haven't cried in probably two weeks. Haha, but seriously. I worked tonight and it was just me and one other person. Tuesdays are usually pretty chill, but I don't know what happened…somewhere around 6:30, shit hit the fan. Phone/online orders were coming in like crazy, so my coworker was stuck in the back making pizzas. Meanwhile, my wings and mozzarella stick orders were stacking up and there was a line almost to the door. Thankfully everybody was super nice and understanding and I didn't have a (complete) meltdown. Well, I almost did because of an issue I wasn't aware of and it was too busy for me to wrap my head around it, but I handled it as best as I could. Slapped a smile on my face and hoped the customers couldn't sense my panic. I think for it being just the two of us, we handled it really well. Go us! :)
Wednesday August 19
I worked all day, and the first half of the day it was again just me and one other coworker. Thankfully, he didn't have pizza orders to fill so he could take the counter while I made the wings when it got busy. Wednesday is one of our busy days because Sal's offers a really great deal: buy one, get one free on regular or larger orders of wings. The past month we have been having 5 employees working the night shift because it would be that busy, but I guess the past two weeks it's kind of leveled off so they wanted to see how we would do going back to 4 since it's the only day of the week that we would have 5 employees. It went smoothly, thank goodness! Since Suz was picking me up, I stuck around a little longer to help with closing and hopefully that helped the other two closers leave on time.
Thursday August 20
First and foremost, and not that she'll ever see this probably as she doesn't have internet, but happy birthday to my amazing Nana. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for her. Secondly, ten whole weeks, wow! I worked the day shift and there were three of us for it…of course since there were 3 of us, it wasn't as slammed as the previous days when it was only two. Anyway, I love waiting on the customers. I am a fantastic chatter and sales person. I'm not pushy, but I do make suggestions/make reminders about drinks and sides (up-selling is your friend.) I really do want to see this location of Sal's succeed and acquire business like they have in the city so I try to be as friendly to the customers as possible to make their experience one that they would like to repeat. I know I sit around and whine and say I hate people, and yes, sometimes people are annoying and customer service can be tough, but I really love it. And by customer service, I mean in the restaurant business, not retail...I mean, I guess it would be about the same, but I take into account holiday shopping and I want NO part of that. It's always nice when you have repeat customers and you develop a sort of relationship with them…I think it makes them feel good and want to continue being a repeat customer. I know that's how it is for me. For example, I go to a specific (bank) branch in Little Rock because that where my favorite teller is. There are other branches sprinkled around Little Rock, but I go that specific one because of her. I don't know why other than I just took a liking to her. And that's how I hope to make people think of me. My coworker laughed and told me I should be a real estate agent. I'd be keen to look into that.
I know I've already shared a music video by this band (A Day To Remember) previously, but I'm going to share another one because I've been listening to them constantly lately. Maybe you'll like it too. :)
"Have Faith in Me"
Another band I listen to (Underoath) (that broke up early in 2013 (after having listened to them since about 2004-2005)) made an announcement this week that they are going to do a show in March 2016 with the above band. It'd be so cool to go to that...
Underoath / Self Help Festival
I've said this before, but for real...better updates to come. :)
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