Chicken Heads for Dinner Anyone?

Greg and I started buying whole chickens versus packaged chicken breasts. It's 1/3 of the price! For a month it was going great . . . until 2 weeks ago. I come home from church, while Greg stays behind, and I get out the chicken to make dinner. Well . . . things appeared . . . different. There was this stringy wormy looking thing hanging off on one end. Hmm . . . was it a spinal cord? I cut it off and toss it in the garbage. Then I look inside to see a little red heart DANGLING from inside. There were some other fleshy items in there, as well. Hmm . . . thoughts rushing . . . are there always hearts inside and I never noticed? Is it safe to cook with them inside? Ew! Can I actually pull it out myself? At this point I am REALLY wishing Greg was home. Not knowing what to do, I just lather it up with oil, as usual, and throw it in the oven, chicken heart and all. Then the panic sets in. What if I kill us both by eating this chicken? Should I take it out and pull out the heart? So I turn to Google, which usually gives you answers to everything, but this gave me NO ADVICE. Well, we ate it and survived . . .

THIS WEEK! We open the package and tucked underneath the chicken's body is a NECK AND HEAD WITH A FACE completely smashed flat, flat, flat. Wow, that was a surprise. So Greg holds the body and pulls the neck nice and tight while I cut it off. Can you believe I'm saying this? Then we look inside and it just does NOT look right. It looked like something was ROTTING in there. But really, what is the inside of a chicken neck suppose to look like, anyway? Greg gets brave and starts picking at it and picks out what looks like CORN. Greg comes to the conclusion that it is FOOD THAT THE CHICKEN ATE that is STILL IN THERE!!!!!!!! Gross!!! We discuss not knowing what to do and he rinses out the chicken. Suddenly everything looks fine and edible again. The heart situation was there again, but Greg was brave and ripped everything out. What a sweety. Normally I've got a really strong stomach and love to look at dead animals but something about this raw chicken- EW! I couldn't handle it. Well, we've now eaten that and survived. But after this second experience, we have decided to never buy a whole chicken here ever again. We can wait 8 more weeks and just buy more expensive chicken in the mean time. 

This experience has made me curious about food and the future. We ARE hoping to someday live in Africa, or somewhere crazy. What kind of chickens are available there? I don't know if I want to know. But maybe the last experience will just become normal meal preparation. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Well, I have this week off. It's my last break and then only 6 more weeks of work!!! WOOHOO!!! I can't wait to say good bye to child care. I always feel funny saying that because I want to have a baby- which is obviously childcare- but everyone knows it's different when it's your own. I guess I'll just say . . . I AM SO DONE TAKING CARE OF OTHER PEOPLE'S KIDS and cleaning other people's houses. I'm just done with it. Goodbye hopefully forever. 

Greg took his last exam yesterday and now he's working full time at NATO. So far it's been a really good experience and he's really glad he's doing it. He's been looking for jobs and finally found something that has a lot of openings. They don't pay a ton, but that's ok. That will just take care of itself. It's pretty wild though, because his recent interest (I don't remember the name or what it even is) there are positions everywhere. We could end up in Louisiana or New Jersey. Anywhere! It's exciting! It's pretty wild because as much as a pain moving has always been- I couldn't feel more relaxed about our next big move (you know, when he hopefully gets a job). I mean, really, what is stressful about moving to a city where everyone speaks english and there is a Walmart? What else do you need? Being able to ask someone a question and completely understand what they're saying back to you just sounds like heaven to me. Once I'm in the U.S, how could I complain about anything ever again? Even though I really want to live abroad again, I'm excited to have the convenience of the U.S for awhile. It will be comforting.

We've been busy lately. It seems like we go thru a week of t.v watching every night and then a week of plans then next. It's hard to find the balance. Friday night we went to our Salsa class and learned more moves and Saturday night we went to a Middle School play. It was The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, which is my absolute favorite story. I love everything about it. A girl in our ward played Susan and we're good friends with her family so we went. They scored us some free tickets and took us home. It was great! For a middle school production it was really amazing! Pretty funny, I was SO disappointed with Lucy (my favorite character) and she was Greg's favorite! Usually we are on the same page about those things. The costumes were amazing! They made this short little guy the White Witch's servant and they made him bald with a white beard and he just looked CRAZY!!! I couldn't believe how good they did with make up and everything. Greg and I couldn't stop laughing at first just because he looked so wild! It was a lot of fun. Then last night the same girl and her sister sang at a jazz club. It was really cool. It was the school's jazz band but the whole performance was in a real jazz club. It was such a good idea! It was a great atmosphere and made it a lot more fun! While we were there Greg got some food and on his way back to his seat dropped a saucy chicken wing between some woman's legs. Ha! I wish I saw it! By the way, this is the Osorio family. We've yet to get a picture of them, which is just ridiculous. We love them to pieces and are closer to them, than anyone. Oh yeah, earlier that day we went exploring to find a morning market in Brussels and found police all geared up in helmets and shields everywhere! We were wondering what was going on and stumbled upon this fairly big group up Muslims and one of them was shouting into a megaphone. We were really wondering what he was saying. I wasn't nervous until we were passing them and Greg says, "Don't speak any english." Yeah, that DOES make me nervous. But as far as we know, nothing happened. Who knows what it was even about.

Thursday is a holiday so we're going to Brugge with a friend and another couple, whom all recently moved here. We're gonna rent bikes and ride all around. We love Brugge. I wasn't sure if we'd be able to make it there, again, before we go home. This will be nice. Friday is a Flower Ball for the ward. I'm really excited. Everyone goes to the dances, but we never have 'cause they're always far away and go 'till 2am. Can you believe that? But this one is in our ward building and starts at 7:30. So much more doable. I'm really excited. I'm pretty sure everyone will dance. I'm sad because this is in the way of Salsa, but oh well.

Greg and I discovered a new obsession: HEROES. Oh my gosh. There are hardly words. We just wanted to try an episode because it was such a hit and we were instantly hooked. They are 40 minute episodes and we watched 7 in a row the first night. We couldn't stop ourselves. We only had time to watch a couple more the next day and then I decided I couldn't handle anymore, which made me sad, but they are just too gory. SO MUCH BLOOD!!! Oooo it makes me shudder still. I'm really sensitive to stuff like that and when I walked to work the next couple days I couldn't stop thinking about all the bad images I saw. I became really paranoid. Greg wasn't surprised when I told I had to stop. I've never seen such gore on t.v! I felt like I was watching a horror film. So disappointing because the story line and whole idea of the show- is absolutely amazing. Is it sad I'm talking about t.v this much? Greg and I have been watching Chuck. It's completely stupid, but it's fun! We've started watching it during Sunday dinners for some reason. I think it's because it's clean and we don't have to feel bad about watching it on Sundays. That probably sounds hilarious. 

Greg is really missing his guitar. I don't feel bad for him. He gets it in 2 months and will never have to part with it again. Then I'll be without a piano for who knows how long. Greg acts like we'll get me one really soon but I'm not counting on it. I thought I'd have enough money in our savings when we got home, but it's basically gonna all be wiped out once we pay for our plane tickets and pay back Greg's school loans. I've been feeling pretty rich the last 9 months, sitting on a ton of savings, and in the next two months it's gonna be wiped clean. WHY!!! Oh well, I guess that's what it's there for, right? I hate starting over. I like having money in the bank. I liked having my clientele. Pretty soon we're gonna be broke and I'm really wondering if I'm gonna make any money at all.

Well that's a depressing note to end on, but I really don't have anything else to say!