Almost Complete

I've made a bit of progress... Here are some pictures of the transformed living room:

Before

After

Genius, That's What I Am

Cooking beans or legumes of any kind has been a pain in the hiney for the most part since I've been living on my own. Why you ask? because I have no pressure cooker. Now that may not seem like a big obstacle but what that means is that it would take me 6 to 7 hours to cook beans. No lie. And they STILL didn't come out tender like I like them. I would soak them overnight to try to decrease the time it takes to cook them, but to no avail. I had to set aside a whole Sunday afternoon to dedicate to being at home so I could watch the beans (I've come to learn that beans in Angola are different from beans in the U.S. They're extra hard or something, because beans in the U.S. don't take that long to cook even without using a pressure cooker.)

So I was desperate to find a solution to this irksome problem. I need to eat lots of beans (for protein) and I had resorted lately to buying canned or bottled pre-cooked beans here and there, but I don't want to create an unhealthy habit so I needed a more permanent solution. And that's when it hit me: If I don't have the time nor the money to hunt down a decent pressure cooker, I'll MAKE MY OWN!
And so, in an amazing feat of engineering skills and innovative brainstorming, I give you, the Elisa Pressure Cooker Extraordinaire:


It worked like a charm. I'm not even kidding. The beans were tender as can be and the infused flavors of the condiments were absorbed by every delicious grain. I had some major water spilling going on until I learned how to work with the right amount of water... so I created a big mess. But it was SOOO worth it, the beans took about an hour to cook.

Mission: Accomplished :)

Something New

There's been a few new things in my life lately:

Trying out a new fruit: Fruta Pinha (Pine Fruit), properly named since it looks like a pinecone...

My new handmade Namibian sandals, perfect for traipsing up and down the busy streets of Luanda

My place received a new coat of paint. Barbie Pink paint, that is. Believe me, I had nothing to do with the choice of color :S

Random Pictures from Here and There

Sweet smooch from le boyfriend

Glamour shot in the bathroom, lol

View of Luanda at dusk from the 12th floor. Lots of construction going on!

Kickin' it with Rafaela, a SDA semi-celebrity :)

Tightening them dreads...

My buddy Junior (Eugenia's son)

After a long day out at the boats

Backstage of Rafaela's concert... with Isa, pretty girl with a pretty voice :)

Mama hard at work with the dishes

Yummy In My Tummy

My recently domesticated self loves eating some good food made from scratch... I try to keep it as healthy as possible without sacrificing yummy-ness:

Delicious vegetables pot pie

Vegan Pizza made with whole-wheat flour crust

and pumpkin-seed cheese (invented by yours truly).

It was off the hook... (honk honk!)

Shaking My Head Real Hard

Boy oh boy how time flies when you're having fun. OR when you're super busy... either way, it's been far too long since the last time I wrote a post... I know, I know, I hang my head in shame for disappointing all of my faithful readers *cough*Adyanez*cough*... heeheehee

Where to start? Since I came back from vacation I've been hard at work putting all kinds of projects into motion on the job front.

I've also been working hard on the weekends trying to get my students ready for their first recital... but sadly this time around I wasn't able to bring back any music accessories so we're struggling to keep a lot of the instruments in shape :( We're in dire need of some pegs, bridges, and shoulder pads for the violinists and some reeds for the saxophonist, and we need music stands and... oh I could go on for a while but you get the point.

ALSO, I have decided to take songwriting more seriously... I've written 3 songs already and if I can keep it up, maybe I'll be able to record a CD soon. (No, not in a 'I wanna be famous' kind of way. I'm way too old to start a new career now hahahaha).

Let's see... what else... le boyfriend and I are doing really well despite the difficult circumstances. I'm serious about this wonderful man of mine ya'll... enough said for now :)

Anyways this year I'm pretty much being a grown-up and really careful with my money (what? no more elaborate trips to Europe? Gasp!) so I can pay off my debts and save up for grad school. If all goes according to plan, I'll be back in the academic grind in the fall of 2012. I can hardly wait *said in unenthusiastic monotone voice*.

That's pretty much all that's going on with me... I guess I will bid you adieu. But before I go, I leave you with these amusing little pictures:

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. There IS a hole carved into the middle of my living room floor. Turns out, my apartment was built on top of the reserve water tank that feeds water to a group of apartments... so when the city water cuts off we can still have running water. Well, the owner contacted some plummers for some routine maintenance. They came, tore into my floor, cleaned and changed some parts, and then their workday finished. So they left the hole like that. Until the next time I happen to be home during working hours (they came on Friday, which was a national holiday, so I was able to spend the day at home to let them in...). I know... I'm so mad at this situation. SMHRH.

That is all for today.

P.S. I have a "My Day in Pictures" post planned. That should be fun :)

What's Been Going On: In List Form

Ok... so I've been very busy lately which has caused me to slack in the posting of the blog... but I'm back to give yall an update of what's been going on.

-Eugenia had her baby girl about 4 weeks ago. She's such a cutie! I've gone to spend a couple of weekends with her to help her around the house and to help watch the firstborn because he's such a hyper little creature. I don't know how she manages to take care of the cleaning, cooking, feeding the baby, watching the firstborn, etc when she's home alone. Madness I tell ya.

-Moises got married (Moises and Eugenia are brother and sister, so a very eventful month for the family). Filo, the oldest sister who lives in Namibia, came up for the wedding and to spend some time with our baby niece. Fun was had by all.

-The music students are showing lots of progress... we're working on our repertoire for a sacred mini-concert we hope to have at the beginning of next year. So excited about it all!


-My puppy got stolen. My cute little puppy, who was so smart he was already potty trained at 6 weeks old, needed to go outside to pee and asked me to be let out first thing in the morning as usual. He usually goes out, roams for a minute or two, pees, roams for another minute or two, poops, roams for another minute or two, and then runs in all happy looking for his bowl of milk. I was getting ready for work, but I soon noticed he hadn't ran back in after a few minutes. I went to look for him in the front yard, called and called and looked EVERYWHERE. I woke up my neighbors, who loved him like their own and helped me by dogsitting when I traveled. They helped me look for him, they even went out to the opposite side of the building where the guards sit and interrogated them. Nothing. Nobody had seen little Bongo. I felt like slapping every resident of this city for a while. I get so mad when something like this happens (to me or anyone I know). I've never lived in a place where you can't just have things and enjoy them. You get a iPod, it gets stolen. You get a decent phone, it gets stolen. You buy a decent car, it gets broken into and whatever is inside it get stolen. You get a puppy, it gets stolen. Seriously people, can yall learn to just live and let live? SO infuriating!

-Work has been insanely busy. I've been all over the place between projects in Soyo, Cabinda, and Luanda. And starting in January, I'm gonna have a HUGE year-long project that is going to keep me so busy because it'll be on top of what I already do. But it's because of this project that I get to have a trip to Carrollton... (aka my vacation trip to DFW is paid for!) so I'm quite happy about it :)

Anyhow, I just wanted to end on a positive note. I gotta run now, but hopefully I'll have some time to update the blog with some pics and MAYBE a video or two if the signal decides to behave...

Later!