Holy Random Batman

ENTSCHULDIGEN - Wo Bist Januar gegangen?

Seriously.

Where. The. Heck. Did. January. GO?

Also - where that that German come from? Random. I have no idea why some german (or at least my brutalized version of german/swiss german) just randomly likes to pop into my head. Because seriously...I know no German. Psh. And even if I wanted to take up another language (which I kinda do) would I brush up on my french? Eh. Maybe. Would I try to take the little German I know and expand upon it? Eh. Probably not. Too much hacking and gagging. And besides that..there are only some words that I really like. Like entschuldigen or genau - such good words with minimal hacking and gagging. I digress - so, would I be interested in learning Spanish? Yeah. Definitely. Would I learn Italian? In a heartbeat - except that where else besides Italy are you gonna speak Italian? Besides speaking to like..my cat..I really don't know how often I'd use Italian...I love Italy and want to go back soon..but I have a funny feeling I won't be going there enough to keep up with Italian or justify learning it.

Wow. End tangent.

Anyways. So - 2010.

We meet again. Well. It's not like you LEFT or anything..and I've been here..mostly..sorta...kinda...present..at times...but still. What the heck twenty-ten.

Think you're so fancy with your double names eh. All 'I can be twenty ten OR two thousand and ten - bow down to me suckas'..and little did we know that you'd be the year that likes to fly by faster than all others.

I thought that all of 2010's brothers and sisters were flying by...last thing I remember is that we were partying like it was 1999...because it WAS 1999...and now it's already 1/12th of the way through 2010. Explain to me how exactly that HAPPENS please?

I think that I'm going to have to make a little request that this year be slowed down. And by slowed down...I meant stopped until I can nap until I'm completley caught up on sleep, catch my breathe, get caught up with all of the other things I've been slacking on.

Sometimes I feel like life is a whirlwind tornado that I just have happened to have gotten myself caught up in.

How bizzare, how bizzare.

PS - If you aren't singing 'ooooh baaaaaaaaaaby...oh baby! it's making me craaaaaaaaaaazy! how bizarre, how bizarre" after the previous statement...then my heart is a little sad. And you're leaving me wondering how the heck I got so old and how the years have passed me by - and how you ever managed to grow up without that song and referencing it EVERY time someone says 'how bizarre'. So please just pretend. Please?

So, if you (the whole 2.5 people who are probably likely maybe unlikely reading this) could try to attempt to figure out how to slow down time too..I'd appreciate if you could gimme a shout when you do. As I've said...I don't do science shmience stuff...but I can probably steal your ideas and defy the laws of...something...somehow. Which would be pretty cool. And it'd mean that I could nap all day...everyday. Awesome.

Literacy & Exhaustion

I am not a morning person. I'm just not. When I get in a routine and a schedule (see: going to bed at a decent hour and getting enough sleep) I can tolerate mornings..but I still don't like them. I especially don't like mornings on the weekend though..because weekends are supposed to be for sleeping and being lazy...and not for being awake and productive and a contributing member to society...nuh uh I say.

All of this is made a little bit funny sad ironic by the fact that during the summer...I'm up somewhere between 4am and 5am each and every Saturday from June --> October. Saturdays are early mornings...it's just a fact of life when you're living and working on a farm. Come November though? Saturdays are supposed to be glorious sleep in days.

Ha - at least that's what I thought.

Then I took up a job tutoring a little girl that I know and so far..it's been really fun. We've now set up a regular day and time to meet..so that's kind of nice because it just ensures continuity...but it kind of sucks that the regular time is 9am Saturday mornings. Sure it allows me to get on with my weekend right after that..but...uhh...Saturday? Saturday MORNING? Ew.

Alas...it is what it is. And that's b-r-i-g-h-t and e-a-r-l-y folks. And of course by the time I get there I feel like a zombie because my body is like...SATURDAY MORNING! SLEEP! WHY ARE YOU AWAKE AND ATTEMPTING TO FUNCTION! SLEEEEEEEP!

And the little girl is like this:
ERIN!YOU'REHERE!WHATAREWEDOINGTODAY?!DIDYOUKNOWTHATWHENYOUPUTTHE'E'ANDTHE'A'BESIDEEACHOTHERINAWORDTHEYMAKEAN'EEEEEEEEE' SOUND?!
COOLEH!
YOUTAUGHTMETHATLASTWEEK!
WHATAREYOUGOINGTOTEACHMETHISWEEK?
CANWEPLAYTHEGAMEILIKETOPLAYWITHTHEWORDS?
CANYOUCOMEOVERSOMEDAYANDWEPLAYPIRATES?
WHAT'SYOURFAVOURITECOLOUR?
ILIKEBLUE!
BLUESTARTSWITHA'BUHBUH'B!

And I'm like...Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Calm down there Peppy McPepperson...I'm excited that you're excited about learning..but FYI - It's Saturday....MORNING.

Luckily..my brain and I are on pretty good terms and it lets me stay awake for the couple of hours I'm there while we do some phonemic awareness stuff, practice stretching out some letters into words and play some games to help with vocab, phonics and a variety of dipthongs. When my brain is about ready to call it quits..it's time to go home where I can apologize to my body for waking it up early on a Saturday morning..and make up to it by having a delicious Saturday afternoon nap.

Oh - and just to confuse myself even more...this morning...I was all ready to go. I had my lesson plan and all of our activities planned..and I even had some extra stuff printed off in a couple in a few different areas on a couple of different areas (both higher and lower) in case there was a lack of concentration or some frustration happening and I needed to switch more than usual (like I had to last week..) and what loop was thrown at my tired, old Saturday morning brain? Oh yeah...just throw in an extra child for me to work with without any warning what-so-ever! No worries!

Luckily..it all worked out well..mostly because I was awesome and accidentally had double of almost activity I was going to do with her...which actually happened to be REALLY close to both of their indivdual literacy levels. I must have KNOWN on some weird deeper level that was going to happen. Even when I didn't have double the activities...I quickly converted what we were doing into a group activity that they could both manage...instead of something for one kid. I'm not sure whether flexibility is my middle name or if it's just awesome.

And yes, you may now call me 'the most awesome tutor who has ever existed and rocks the socks right off of everything'. I'd be okay with that...because...well..I even rock my own socks.

And on that note..I'm now rocking my own socks right into bed where I intend to nap for the next couple of hours. Ah delicious naps...whoever came up with the concept of you is a freakin' genius.

That should totally be somewhere in my next lesson plan....eh...I'll sleep on it.

Canadian Camouflage

I bet you never knew that Canada had magical powers. But it's true..I swear to you...it is..we REALLY do.

You see, around and about this time of year...we as a country have amazing magical abilities. In fact, we're so awesome that we're actually almost the mighty morphing power rangers - it's seriously true.

It's a funny thing about living in this area of the world...winter hits and everything is lovely and sparkly and white. The whole world glistens this beautiful glow...

And then...

It happens.

I'm not sure whether it's because of a national security threat, or it's basic training in the possible event of a national security threat....or if it's just because we're just too plain old nice for our own good...but it HAPPENS.

What happens exactly you want to know?

We CAMOUFLAGE. Together. AS ONE.

Like I said - we the Canadian people...are the mighty morphing freakin' power rangers.

You see, as the winter goes on...the snow starts to look a little...not so nice. It gets brown and kind of gross and instead of being its nice, white, lovely self regular white yucky ..it's this brown icky everywhere you look. So, being the far too nice people that we are...we don't want to make the snow FEEL bad...so we camouflageingly morph our cars to look exactly like it.

Don't believe me?

I came home the other night and said "who the heck is here driving a BROWN CAR?"




..and then I realized that it was my mothers silver car.

Classic case of guilt induced camouflage morphing.

Classic.

"Someone"

You know "someone" is way too use to being the driver when:

"Someone" is at some sort of an event which requires that ve-hic-le transportation.

Probably because "someone" lives in the middle of nowhere.

This may or may not be an artsy fartsy sort of event that "someone" was attending.

(I don't know why I felt it was impertinent to this story to include what event "someone" may have been at...since where "someone" was has absolutely nothing to do with anything to do with this particular story.)

ANYWHO.

So this "someone"...was waiting around in the lobby for the friend she was with to return from the washroom. While she was waiting she did what any car driver does as they're about to leave a place and head back to their car...she got out her keys, made sure she knew where they were and put them in her coat pocket for easy access once she arrived in the general vicinity of her car. This was done to ensure that jumping in the car and getting out of the cold could be done as soon as possible.

Because nobody likes to wait around while the driver searches for their keys, especially in Canada, in the WINTER. Duh.

As the evening wound down, "someone" and her friend said their goodbyes and then left this artsy-fartsy event...walking back to the car so that they could return home.

As they walked into the car park.... "someone" pulled out her keys and clicked the 'unlock' button and watched as the headlights flashed and the car unlocked.

Then "someone" stood there staring with her mouth agape at the car...wondering how the heck she'd opened up someone ELSES car.

Then "someone" wondered where HER car was and why it wasn't unlocking.

Then "someone" started looking around the parking lot like a fool...and it was only then that "someone" remembered that she hadn't driven to said event and was merely a passenger standing in a parking lot wildly flailing about, clicking her remote unlock car thingy while "someones" friend looked on with mild curiosity, a hint of amusement and a slight nuance of worry.









PS - I don't want to give it away or anything...but I MIGHT be one of the two people talked about in this story...and I'll leave you with that...you can decide whether or not you think I'm the idiot or the person watching the idiot...the call is all yours.

Sewing Escapades

My friend Steph is getting married in a few months. Infact, the ticker on her blog says it's only 129 days away! Whoa!

As her maid of honor, it means that I've got some jobs to help out with - and since she's a super creative do-it-yourselfer kind of girl and both her and her fiance are students on a serious budget, it means that there are tons of fun projects for me to partake in! It's fun to help out where I can, and I'm really excited to be a part of their wedding. I've been in a few different weddings in my day, and attended quite a few more, so I've experienced everything from the super expensive country club kind of wedding to the potluck at the rec centre kind of wedding...Both of which were perfect in their own special ways. That being said, I'm excited for Steph's wedding because even though I KNOW that no two weddings are the same....I REALLY just know their wedding it will be completely unlike anything I've ever been to or been a part of before and I'm so excited for her adoreable wedding at the cutest venue with a bunch of wonderful people!

Last weekend I headed over to her place while her fiance was out of town and we had some chit chats and catch ups and then she pulled out her newish sewing machine that she has been teaching herself how to sew on. Then my oh so domestic self (Please stop laughing - I can hear you from here.) attempted to pass along my somewhat limited all knowing and awesome knowledge of all things sewing.

My mother laughed and laughed. And then LAUGHED SOME MORE when I recounted that I has passed along my sewing skills - asking which sewing skills exactly I was refering to.

Either way - we were awesome and the project turned out famously!

See?


Getting the project started..



Look at me go!



Steph gives it a whirl! And rocks the sewing socks right off of...everything.


I'm so excited for our next project - because it definitely means that I'll be hanging out with one of my favourite girls while we laugh, giggle, chit and chat the day (and project to-do list!) away :)

Drywall Demeanor

We live out of the city - which means that when you're going INTO the city, you need to make sure you're getting everything you need, want or desire because you're not necessarily going back right away, and there is no point making extra trips when a single round trip is upwards of an hour or more round trip - just to get in and out - that's not even including the time spent doing whatever you need to be doing. Or the time spent in traffic. Or stopping for Ride programs. Or time spent behind some idiot going 20k below the speedlimit. Or you know, the other hilarities life might decide to throw your way.

So before heading into town...I always try to ask if there is anything people need me to pick up or do and remind them that I have my cellphone if there is anything that they think of that I can pick up while I'm in town doing errands or visiting friends or what have you.

Today as I was about to start heading back home, I got a phone call from my Dad, who is keeping busy working away putting the kitchen back together again. Turns out, he needed something and wanted me to pick up some more mud stuff for drywall - and of course I obliged.

Well, let me clarify.

After a few minutes of him trying to describe what he wanted me to pick up for him he eventually told me that he'd call and get them to get it all ready for me. He then gave me some very exact directions as to how to get there, which door to go in and the people I should talk to in the department I needed to go to....and THEN I was of COURSE able to oblige.

Anyway, so I showed up thanks to the precise directions and told them who I was and what I was looking for...and the man sort of looked at me, laughed and said so you're stuck doing the errands today eh? har har har. I sort of laughed a little and was like..yep..that's me..the gopher.

But then another man that worked there walked by and was like So you're the gopher doing the errands today eh?! Somebodys putting you to work eh! Har har har and I just nodded and smiled my sweet, innocent slightly confused smile and continued waiting.

After I signed some paperwork to put it on my Dad's account the guy pointed me in the direction of the warehouse I needed to go to pick up the stuff I needed.

I showed up, I showed the guys my papers and he was like....someones got you doing all the running around picking stuff up today eh! ha ha ha!

And I was like..uhh..yeah.

And then another man came out and wouldn't let me carry the stuff to my car...even though I assured him that I was quite capable of carrying a measly fifty pound box of stuff, he flat out refused to let me carry it and carried it all the way to my car for me and told me to have a good day now, and to make sure I had someone to carry that big heavy box out of my car for me at home.

It seems that they all were completely and totally convinced that I was a little incompetent girly girl and that there was no way in hell that I would be buying drywall material...for myself.

I really don't know what gave them that impression.

Okay - so I'm not a guy.

And granted, I didn't have any drywall dust and muck all over me.

And I have to admit, I'm not the most adept about all of these things - but all I had to do was ask for one thing...it wasn't rocket science. And I don't think that I messed up....but I just couldn't figure it out - why were they ALL so very convinced that I this little ditzy girl that only ran around doing errands?

After thinking about it for a little bit...I figured that it was probably the fact that I had forgotten my truck at home and was driving my car. Which subsequently was the only car in the parking lot filled with trucks.

But it's not like I was dressed in a completely impractical but oh so cute pea coat, pashmina and ballet flats in the middle of January in Ontario or anything.

Definitely not. I mean, I wouldn't do that EVER. Let alone at a building supplies store.

Yeah, it definitely MUST have been the truck thing. Oi.

Bites of Heaven

One of my Swiss girls sent me an email today.

The one who co-incidentally was from the same small town that I am from. It's funny, because despite knowing multiple people in common and frequenting similar coffee shops/restaurants/farmers markets/stores/etc. we'd never met here, back home.

Instead, she was forwarded an email from me that I'd sent to a mutual acquaintance and already knew a great deal about my life in Switzerland before she'd even arrived or ever made contact with me. We were both shocked to find that we were from the same small town when we met in Zürich (and it wasn't until later that she realized I was the same girl whose emails she had read..ha!) because we co-incidentally both happened to stumble upon and work for the same, very small, aupair agency in a small suburb outside of the city.

ANYWHO.

She rambled on about what was new, how we needed to meet up and her plans for life for the next little while.

And then she started talking about things she missed, but mostly..she was talking about the Luxembergerli.


Jenn in front of the Confiserie Sprüngli at Stadelhofen



The delish luxembergerli in the flesh.


Oh how my tummy longs for them. We'd buy the worlds smallest quantities because A) We were super poor and they were super expensive... thus we couldn't afford any more than one or two on our salaries..ha. B) If you bought more than one or two you'd end up eating them all. In a matter of a very short period...and then you'd explode. And you'd probably think that it was still worth it...because yes, they are THAT good.

At this point, I just couldn't help myself. I turned into Pavlov's dog...and basically started salivating while reading her email. She talked about how she missed them so much and how she was so tempted to order some off of the internet once she had enough money. I had tried for so long not to think about them. I'd thought about the kids, the mountains, the cheese, the trains, the views, the chocolate, the music, the 200 dollar bills that made you feel rich...but I had refused to let myself think about the luxembergerli.

So what did I do?

Your darn right I went directly to the Sprüngli website and didn't pass go.

My heart did a double take as I remembered Swiss pricing. But then I remembered the sweet delicious taste of the luxembergerli. Their light, fluffy creamy inside..with their flaky yet not pastry-like outside. The way they melted on your tongue..and the flavours. Oh the flaaaaaavours. Raspberry, Chocolate, Vanilla, Champagne...Strawberry, Lemon, Stracciatella, Mocca, Lime - DOUBLE CHOCOLATE. The list goes on and on and on and then on some more. You walk into the Confiserie and all you see spread before you is a delicious feast of multi-coloured bites of heaven. The strawberry rhubarb though? Yeah - they take the cake..or in this case..the luxembergerli. Just the right amount of sweet, just the right amount of tart...and an extra dose of awesome..just in case.

I tried to recover from the fact that they wanted 45chf (basically par with the Canadian/American dollar) for the SMALL container of the little bites of heaven. PLUS SHIPPING. But all my mind could think about was how much I loved them. How much I missed them. How just one little bite would mean I could magically take myself back there for an instant - So I recovered from my near heart attack..and I had almost stopped caring how much they would cost. I went as far as to go to the order page and fill out information. I wanted NEEDED one. And since I couldn't order ONE...a box would HAVE to do.

Until I realized that they don't ship them outside of Switzerland.

Grrr.

Stupid Switzerland.

Stupid Sprüngli

Stupid little bites of amazingly delicious bites of heaven taunting me from across the ocean with their perishable nature.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.




..And just because I hadn't made myself swisssick enough already today..



The view from the house I lived in. The sun setting over the Zürisee..