Pricemart & My Christmas Wish List

Well, it's been kind of a slow week. I've been you know...doing the usual things like cooking and cleaning and cooking and cleaning some more with some toddler entertaining and tweener raising too. Oh boy. Exciting days here.

I did go to Pricemart this last week, which is always a little fun. I like to see what they have in. We just got a membership not that long ago, so it's still new to me and I like to have an excuse to go there. This week, it was to look for a new cordless phone. A lot of the stuff they have is from the US. It's fun to see all the American brand stuff, but some of it, I still pass up because it's priced so dang high. For example, honey. You can buy a big bottle of Honduran honey for 1/2 what the American brand honey costs in the same size bottle. What's the diff? No complaints here on Honduran honey. They have fresh produce, meats, bakery and cheeses. But the prices are comparable if not more than at a regular, no membership needed grocery store. Where they have the best prices is buying in bulk such as boxed/canned/bottled foods, garbage bags, paper goods, etc. If you shop Sam's or Cosco you know what I'm talking about. They have good prices on toys too. Especially now.

We are coming up on the Christmas season, and Papa and I...well I have been trying to talk to Papa about what we are going to do for the kids. As you know we have our Christmas tree up. Oh! Did I not tell you all that yet? Here's a little photo spread:


Setting up the fake 9 ft tree. Why we got a 9 foot tree I have no idea. A tad tall for our bare little living room.







Here is the Christmas tree decorated and lit. Yes, it's blurry. Oh well. I need to review the picture taking manual that came with my camera. The tree looks really nice. It's only missing those icicle things I usually put on the tree. I couldn't find any at the stores.

I was thinking if I had a Christmas wish list - what would be on it? I already have gifts stashed away that my parents wrapped and left for us to put under the tree. But other than those, I don't think I will be getting anything else. But that's okay. I'm sure one day when Papa's business has become well established he will probably knock my socks off with some kind of gift. He's such a romantic and loves to give gifts. But...as it is, money is tight and I can live without silly Christmas presents. I mostly like to see the kids open their presents. I am so excited this year to be all together and have a hay day Christmas morning...or eve, whichever we decide to do. They usually celebrate on Christmas eve here in Honduras.

So here it goes anyway. I'll do a top 10 most wished for things this Christmas. Not in any specific order. I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head.

1. Snow - it doesn't even feel like Christmas and often feels silly to have the house decked out.
   
2. Berry Spicey/Apple-Cinnamon-y/Evergreen-ish scented candles- I bought some "Christmas" scented oil for L30 ($1.75) at the mall that smells like pine trees thinking maybe it would make me feel more in the mood. It's okay, but there is something about candles that I like. Sadly they didn't have anything else even close to those cozy baked goods smellin' oils. I'm sure I might be able to find some candles at another store. But then it wouldn't be on my wish list.
   
3. New cute shirts- I'm feeling like a bum in my tank tops and tee-shirts.
   
4. Hot Hot Hot heals - I need like 3 or 4 pairs. My 2 pairs are not doing it for me.
   
5. A new printer- I got a free Dell printer with my computer and wouldn't you know...you can only buy replacement ink cartridges from Dell and they don't ship to Latin America. Would it even be worth shipping in the first place? So I just want a new printer.
6. Spanish Lessons- I cannot even begin to tell you how hard and restricting it is not being able to communicate. We just can't afford lessons right now. Yes, I've been trying on my own, but it's very slow.
   
7. Good books to read- I need an escape. Computers can only bring you so far, but curling up with a good book with a great story...now that will transport you.
   
8. Curtains- It just gets old with no curtains and the sun blasting in. I feel so exposed.
9. Storage cupboards/shelves- I don't know about too many other homes around Honduras, but the homes here are not built for people that want to store anything. We have bins stacked in Brother's room and in the bathroom. Trying to find what you are looking for is very frustrating. The kitchen is less than adequate for storage space too.
   
10. Robo vacuum & cleaner- This one vacuums and this one cleans. Oh please Santa!!
    

What's Crackin' ?

One of the problems about living in Honduras is finding convenient and somewhat healthy packaged cracker type snack foods for kids. Especially when one of those kids has a genetic propensity for high cholesterol (Sister). Most of the fats used in the crackers they sell in the stores are made with all the bad fats. Like shortening (aka Manteca here), or Palm oil or some kind of hydrogenated vegetable oil. All of which are bad, bad, bad. Especially to the cholesterol conscious. Even the bread at the grocery stores is made with the bad fats. I had to search and search until I found one that does NOT have some kind of hydrogenated fat listed as an ingredient. If it's palm oil they use in my bread listed as "vegetable oil", at least it's not providing as much fat as the the others I looked at and it also has enough fiber to be worth eating.

No wonder so many Hondurans have big bellies. Oh, if you didn't know that about Hondurans, it's true. It's very common to see. Lots and lots of belly fat. Maybe that's another topic since today I'm doing show and tell of what I made for the kids in an effort to avoid these saturated and trans fats in the snack foods the kids want and enjoy.

Sister is supposed to keep her saturated fats around the 9 gram mark per day. That is not easy to do and it's hard to abide by this when she is the pickiest eater that I know who also loves all the junk foods that kids love. She has a selection of about 5 healthy things she'll eat every day depending on her mood. Thank goodness for Pricemart selling Jennie-O's turkey burger patties.

Crackers for snacks - they usually go over pretty good and they travel great. I've experimented with 3 different kinds of crackers so far, but the overall family favorite were the home made graham crackers. The wheat thins were a no go, except for me. The banana ones were so-so. I still need to try making soda crackers and I'd like to try a different vanilla cracker recipe too.

I'd write out the recipe I used, but I ended up kind of creating my own and did not write down what I did. This is very common for me. I seem to have a complete inability to actually follow a recipe. Usually this is in an attempt to make it lower in fat. For these crackers I know I used skim milk and less butter. Here are some links of recipes I looked at if you'd like to try making these on your own.

I made a log of dough and sliced pieces out and flattened them on the pan.

Here the crackers are all flattened and pricked with a fork ready to go into the oven


Hot out of the oven. Good eats!