Good morning!
Wow, I must have been tired last night because apparently we got some crAzy storms, that even knocked the power out (thank goodness for cell phone alarms!), but I didn’t hear a single sound!
I am usually the lightest sleeper in the world too – I could hear a pin drop in my sleep – but nope, not even a single peep out of me. Nice. :) Are you a heavy or light sleeper?
The clouds are slowly parting and it’s actually supposed to be a nice day, just HOT. Blazing hot. Like 110 heat index hot! How appropriate that the Iowa State Fair is starting this week. I just hope the butter cow doesn’t melt. ;)
Well since I got sucked into watching Twilight, then the movie Brothers last night, I never made it to the grocery store. It was slim pickins’ for breakfast!
I broke out some good ol’ reliable toast. :)
Butter on one piece, almond butter on the other. Chomp and go.
I saved the one last remaining piece of fruit in the house for lunch. :D
That would be one slightly banged up Pink Lady Apple,
with some luscious almond butter for dipping.
A Peach Chobani Greek Yogurt,
and some mini Larabars! I can’t believe I forgot these babies in my list of mini loves last week!
Like I said – I need to get to the store ASAP! 8O
In other news, guess what got delivered over the weekend?
A care package from Japan!!!!! I spent a summer living in Japan in college and have been obesessed with it every since. Reader Molly is teaching English over there right now and knows of my die-hard love affair, so she sent me a care package all the way from Tokyo!
Inside were some of my favorite goodies!
Tomato Pretz – like thin, slightly crispy pretzel sticks that taste a little like Ragu sauce. Pretz are hysterical – they come in flavors like “salad” and “shrimp” too! The flavors of random things in Japan never ceased to amaze me. Meat flavored fries, anyone? Yeah, that was different. ;)
She also sent me some YUMMY candies.
Including these grape gummy bites. Good me indeed!
All the grape flavored candy in Japan is UBER grapey tasting – it’s so insanely delish.
She also included this Black Thunder candy bar which I’ve never tried. Great name though!
Great TASTE too – omg! It tasted like cookies and cream ice cream!
Thank you Domo arigato Molly!!!! It was so nice to have a taste of some of my favorite Japanese treats again! :D
I’ve got a full day of work ahead of me, so I”ve gotta get this show on the road. Have a wonderful Monday everyone!
~~~~~
Do you speak any foreign languages? What language would you most like to know?
I took Spanish for three years in high school and still remember a bit of it. My in-laws gave me Japanese Rosetta Stone for my birthday last year, but I still have found the time to dig in. I would be elated to be able to speak Japanese. I’d open up a tour guide company taking Americans on culinary tours in Japan – yum!
I took Spanish for 6 years and still can’t speak a word of it! I would love to learn more though.
I love getting fun mail! I speak French (took 4 years in HS + 3 years in college, studied abroad in Cameroon [a French-speaking country in West Africa], and spent a summer in France] and Bambara… which is an African language spoken in West Africa. I am actually just learning Bambara right now. It’s fun, but challenging too!
Meat flavour fries?? Oh Japan is so cool!!
I speak a tiny bit of german, tiny bit of french, and er..that’s it!
eeeeeeeeee!!! so much fun! i spent a semester in south africa and i miss certain foods SO badly!! i found a website in california that imports south african foods, but it’s still SO expensive. maybe ill just have to go back? and they had the strangest foods ever – like chicken thyme flavored potato chips! haha that’s so exciting! i speak a teeny tiny bit of spanish and italian but i would give anything to be fluent in them :)
I’d go on your tour!! I’m usually a heavy sleeper!
Yay Molly! Everything looks interesting, that’s for sure. And anything that tastes like cookies and cream anything gets my vote!
I took French for four years in high school. I then went to France in 2006 after graduating high school, and I felt like I hadn’t learned a thing. I might try to pick that up again. I want to head back to France one day and I’d feel better knowing more of the language.
I can also pick up a little bit of German here or there. My step-brother is huge on speaking German, so I’ve grown used to some of it. I have an interest in learning more German and also Italian in time. Italian is pretty close to French from what I’ve noticed, so I think it would be easier than learning, say, Norwegian. My step-brother is working on that now. He knows more languages than I do (also has taken Chinese) and he’s only 17. I can’t top that!
Have a great day in Iowa!
I can’t believe you didn’t hear the storm! It was definitely a big one. Haha, and salad flavored pretzels sounds interesting.
I took French in middle school for 3 years, Spanish in highschool for 3 years, one year of Latin and 3 semesters of Italian in college (in preparation for a semester studying abroad in Florence). I can say that I know a handful of words. THATS IT. So sad.
I miss the fresh mozzarella and inexpensive and fabulous olive oil. I literally ate a caprese salad for almost every meal. Oh how likely we were to be able to live abroad…
What a fun care package!! I can’t believe it is fair time already…I’m so sad to be missing it! It seriously is the best!
I took German for five years and can only speak a little bit. I want to learn Spanish, but haven’t done that yet.
I heard about the crazy storms and flooding. I hope you guys get a break with the rain. I speak Spanish and also teach high school Spanish. I studied in Spain during college and it was one of the best experiences of my life.
I have a blog recommendation for you. This is a girl I went to college with and she and her husband live in Tokyo. She started a food blog while living there and has amazing photos and recipes. I think you would like it especially since you love Tokyo! It is http://www.tokyoterrace.com
Unfortunately, I don’t speak another language. And, I hate storms when I’m trying to sleep! It’s so annoying to be woken up at 1AM by thunder! Glad you slept through it!
Those look like very interesting treats! The tomato fries look especially appealing! I went o Australia a couple years ago and fell in love with their food too… I see some things like Tim Tams at Target every once in a while, it makes me smile :D Enjoy, while it lasts!
Where do you find the mini LaraBars? I have searched high and low in CT for them!!!
Lindsey, let me know if you get a response. I’m looking for the mini bars as well. Thanks.
Awesome surprise package!
I am fluent in Sign Language (it was a foreign language in our High School). I am familiar with conversational spanish, but I definitely want to learn more. I’d love to be fluent.
I speak Spanish, not fluently but I am still able to converse :)
I took French throughout high school and some of college – I used to be able to read it well but now I think I could barely understand it.
I am a light sleeper although there are a few random nights where I end up sleeping on my back – those nights I am the heaviest sleeper!
Pringles has a line of Stix that taste exactly like tomato sauce too.
I took 2 years of Spanish in high school. Would love to learn sign language.
How was the movie Brother’s? We have it sitting here from Netflix, but chose Faceoff instead last night. We didn’t even finish it.
my first language is filipino, then english…i can understand spanish. but i want to be fluent in korean language. i started this year to self-study korean. i just love their characters. :)
I love Tomato Pretz! I’m Japanese and still learning English, but… I guess Japanese is tougher than learning English… good luck!
Can’t believe you slept thru that storm last night!! My daughter did, too. It was SUPER loud & lasted forever!
What a fun (and yummy!) package!
I love getting packages! A little rush of excitement. Esp. from another country! Wowzer!
Molly is really sweet! :) interesting stuff you got.
I speak 2 foreign languages fluently and one more okayish… :)
I took 4 years of spanish in high school. It’s so strange what you hold on to because I can read and understand a lot more spanish than I can speak. My dream is to learn Italian!
How was Brothers? I really want to see it but I’m envisioning a lot of crying ..
I’ve never had much interest in going to Japan, probably would LOVE it if I went but I’ve always wanted to go to like Cambodia or Thailand or somewhere similar
I speak German : ) It’s a very similiar language to English in structure but the words are ALL very different, nothing like English/French/Spanish.
I took 2 years of Spanish in college, but I probably don’t remember a good portion of it. I would love to learn French. I dream of being an English as a Second Language teacher in Paris. Maybe someday.
great care package! i love pretz!!! SO addicting!
i would love to speak japanese and korean! =)
I took spanish all through high school, but learned the most while waitressing. I went to Mexico a few years back and ordered everything pefectly in spanish, but then couldnt keep up with the everyday conversation. oops! Oh well a girl has to eat, so at least I have that part covered! :-D
I was in Japan last year, lots of different foods and especially their snacks.
I didn’t care for the Brother movie and neither did my daughter and son-in -la
What a fun package! I speak a little Spanish (3 years in high school, 2 week mini immersion program in college in Costa Rica) but am nowhere near fluent.
I’m actually considering teaching English in Korea for a year, it was great to see this post!
Kudos to you for sleeping though that. It was SO. LOUD. I thought I was going to have a Dorothy moment at any time. I can’t wait to go to bed tonight, and hopefully catch up on the 2 hours of sleep I missed last night.
I was unable to sleep through the storm last night; it’s amazing that you didn’t wake up! You must have been exhausted. Needless to say, I skipped the gym this morning and slept in. I am a walking zombie right now.
I would love to be able to speak Mandarin and Italian.
I took four years of French, but I’m conversational at best. I can definitely understand the language more than I can speak it. I’d need some serious immersion to get a better handle on it. Love the Japanese treats…so special!
I’m the lightest sleeper known to man. I hate it. It causes so much issues for hubby and I when we sleep. Ugh!
Hm. Well, I partially speak French (badly). I would love love love to be fluent. I’d also really like to speak Spanish. It would be very handy living here in SoCal.
I can speak a Japanese a little – but I have always wanted to learn Spanish!
That is NOT much food for breakfast or lunch. You must have been STARVING by the time you left work! Pink lady apples and yogurt are fine and all, but I would have gone out to lunch before I passed out!
Oh, love seeing the Japanese food. Looks interesting.
I don’t speak any foreign languages. That doesn’t really bother me too much.
AHHH I love Japanese goodies! I speak only English fluently, but I have dabbled in both french and italian! I lived in Italy, so I can understand it spoken better than french… but I write better in french!
xo
Kris
My oldest daughter has been looking at colleges and one of her must-haves is a Japanese curriculum. She’d love to learn Japanese. This year in high school will be her 4th year of Spanish (our local HS only offers Spanish, French and American sign language).
In college, I studied Russian, after learning German in high school. Selecting a less common language (for the US, that is) must run in the gene pool!!
Love your blog! I was born in Iowa but migrated north by age 5 :) This is my first comment to your blog but I’m a frequent lurker!
Yay! I’m so glad you got the package Kristin! I wanted to find you more chocolate, but was a little worried it’d be melted by the time it arrived in the midwest. And now being home in Minnesota, holy moly it’s scorching over here in America!
Enjoy your treats, and I’m SOOO glad to be back and reading your lovely little blog on a daily basis!!! Makes my day!
Those snacks look so cool! My sister is really into Japanese culture and has tried a ton of their unique snacks and sodas. Some are pretty tasty (those cute panda mini cookies) and some are kinda weird (bean cakes?), but I love trying them all! The colorful packaging gets me every time!
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I speak Spanish fluently and taught it for two years. I also speak basic french and taught that at the middle school level.
I would love to learn Korean. I have many Korean friends from seminary and I’ve learned a few phrases but nothing conversational.
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