Soul First Living

Bahrain Breakfast & More on Grocery stores

Okay...does it get any better than this??

 

 

Oh, wait...it does!

Breakfast on the balcony...

But wait...it gets EVEN better...

That's me enjoying my delicious coffee...and darn it...I had to use whipping cream for my creamer this morning. I couldn't find "half & half" - and the skim milk wasn't cutting it. If anyone knows what they call half & half here, please let me know.

For now, I'll just have to bear the burden of using full fat whipping cream. (Not much of a burden as my tastes lean toward the full fat, decadent end of the spectrum.)

Hubs and I went to one of the local grocery stores last night, called - Geant (gee -ont) - and I picked up these fabulously yummy little pastries.

These are those yummy pastries on the balcony...I sat out there for a couple of hours this morning - enjoying the life and feeling immensely grateful.

This is my ideal...no pressure, a balcony, a great cup of coffee, something tasty...where I can just relax and soak it all in. Aahhhhh.

The pastries taste like a brioche or very light egg bread. They are truly as light as air...they're like cream puffs without the cream...and not too sweet. (American pastries have a tendency to be altogether too sugary - bleh.) These come plain and with powdered sugar. (I got some of both.) I'd originally gotten some for myself then happened to think that hubs might want some...and frankly, I love him, but I didn't want to share mine. (Ever seen the movie "Nemo"? - Remember the scene with the seagulls? "Mine. Mine. Mine...)

(I can get real growly and protective about my food.) Lucky for me that hubs isn't that way as I'm always snarfing off of his plate and whatever he has...case in point, he bought 2 german pretzels last night even though I didn't want one because he wanted his all to himself...and he was right, when we got to the car, I wanted a little "taste"...didn't take any more than that because they were dry.

That said...I do share (reasonably) well.

Back to Grocery Stores....(and this doesn't have anything to do with prost*tutes)

If you're ever in Bahrain, you should know that in departments like bakery or produce where you serve yourself, it's not like in the states where you bag it and then it's weighed at the register.

They have a person in each of these departments. Their responsibility is to weigh your item and price it. (I even saw them seal the bags so that they couldn't be reopened...although the gal weighing my shallots didn't do that with mine. Makes sense to seal it so that customers can't go back and add more to the bag after it's already been weighed and tagged.)

I found it interesting that it's done this way even on base. You select your items and then they are weighed and priced before you leave that department.

And, if you fail to get them weighed and take the items to the register - as I did last night with the bakery goods - you have to return to that department to take care of it. They can't look it up for you at the register. (I didn't get these weighed because I didn't see the guy.) The gal in the produce section was right in the middle.

We got most of the items for our usual Christmas Eve dinner - and some necessary kitchen tools - at Geant, but we hd to go to Al Jazira to get the pork. (Geant only serves halal meat.)

Al Jazira has a "no muslims allowed" pork section for the rest of us heathens who thoroughly enjoy our pig.

(I can't imagine life without my North Carolina pulled pork bbq...mmm. And, can you imagine beans without ham hocks? God forbid! - that' what's wrong with the "nips and tatties" in Scotland, by the way...no ham hocks!)

And, it really is a "no muslims allowed" area...not that they'd want to go there anyway, I suppose.

We got some gorgeous boneless pork loin and picked up some ready made tortellini filled with Parma Ham and Parmesan. Quite good.

That's all for now...I am off to get my hair done...that's another story. My sister-in-love and I got into the hair dye - it didn't turn out as well this time. Maybe it was the LACK of alcohol involved. We had some hard cider when we did it the first time.)

Shooting and Life

What is it you want in life?

What stands in your way?

That's me...I've always wanted to shoot skeet...ever since I was a kid, I've pictured myself shooting skeet.

I first learned to shoot when I was about 6 years old - Hey, I'm southern, and we lived on a farm. There were tons of guns around, my brother has always hunted, but I never picked up shooting as a sport.

My daddy wanted me to know how to shoot in order to protect myself if needed.

Then, I married my hubs and his dad shoots competetively.

So, about two years ago, they took me out...and I LOVED it!!

I even hit the first clay - mostly thanks to my father-in-law's sound guidance. He told me exactly where   the clay would come out, how it would fly and at what point I should try to hit it. (That's my father-in-law at the right.)

On my first time out, I hit something like 10 out of 25...not bad for a first timer...and all thanks to my father-in-law's coaching.

In my last post, I talked about how much I didn't like self-help. Frankly, anything that presumes to take away your power or make it lie outside yourself or God, is going to take you down a path that's going to lead anywhere except to your happy place.

That said, I absolutely believe in getting help from people who know more and are further down the path than you are.

However, to think that someone can "do it for you" or has something you need that's crucial for your happiness, is anything but the truth.

In this picture, I'm out with my "new to me" Binelli 12-gauge and about 7 or 8 guys - 2 of whom are tops in the country in their division. One had just returned from a competetive shoot in Europe...so, these guys really knew what they were doing.

You better believe I was doing exactly what they told me to do. I learned a TON that day about how the target flies...and about how I need to think and behave in order to hit the target.(Notice my father-in-law watching right behind me so he can see what I'm doing right/wrong...still have to learn, amongst other things, to lean INTO the gun.)

Life's not much different.

Here's a couple of things I've learned from shooting and how it applies to getting what you want:

1. Keep your eye on the target, not on the end of the gun. (Focus on where you are going, not on worrying how you are going to get there.)
2. Know how you work best with the gun...I learned that I do well starting with the gun down instead of starting at my shoulder. (How do you work best?)
3. Listen to all the advice and instruction. Try it all. That's how you discover what works best for you. (At some point, you have to trust yourself. But it's not a blind trust. It's a trust built from having studied, listened, and tried.)
4. Get so used to the gun, that you don't even think about aiming. Get to the point where you just KNOW that the gun is part of you. (This is a real example of how to manifest. Most people treat it like magic. It's not.There are very real energies at work. When you learn how to work with them, you can move forward in a state of serenity and knowing.)