Caught up on some Calvin and Hobbes today.
Seriously- how can you not love or want a kid like this, right???? ;)

I mean... he does 'have an imagination'

Slow Cooker Granola (and a few other things)- so many reasons to grin!

About a month ago, someone gave us a crock-pot. Really and truly. We were grinning so big we couldn't see to walk. No kidding.

It works great for baked beans.

It works great for soup.

And today, I'm finding out if it also works great for granola (click here for the recipe I modified) (I'm thinking it will). 

I can't stop grinning! :)

The heat's on. Yes. We have heat. As of last Wednesday...so- about 10 days already. 

The little hut in the courtyard of our cluster of apartment buildings has a wizard occupying it. I mean a shoe repair guy. But he is a wizard. Yes He Is. Thank you Mr Shoe Repair Man- my boots are fantastic!

After 1 month of visiting the torture chamber gym next door (Pilates and aggressively ferocious stretching yoga) I can actually do some of the things. Wheeee. 

We had pancakes for lunch. With cottage cheese. Oh Yum.

And we still have leftover baked beans in the fridge. Oh Yum Again. 

(And- we're supposed to have snow beginning tomorrow through Tues.)

And I hope you're smiling, too!! 

 

Guess what? It's someone's birthday! Happy happy birthday to my own dear sweet lovely mom! She's hopefully eating some kind of cake today. I wish I could bake her one.

did you know that lots of women everywhere just wish their family would bake them a for real cake for their birthday? Did you know that what some of them really really want is a homemade cake on their birthday? So if, by some odd chance, you're a guy reading this AND you have a dear sweet lovely wife...DON'T forget her birthday...and DO bake/commission a homemade cake for her.
;-)
Xo

WW I

It will soon be 100 years since the start of World War I. I've been reading some interesting (way more interesting than history class ever was) articles about the things that led up to WW I.
Time magazine recently had an interesting post on the first Balkan War.

Time's photoessay.

And Mental Floss magazine (blog posts) has been doing a series of articles.

Did you know that during the first Balkan War aircraft was used for the first time for offensive military action? And, I think I read it was also the first time to see trenches used during combat.

and did you ever think...

that I would post again
this sooooooon?
;)

No more worries! The water came on yest sometime after noon. Ahhhhhhh. I tell you- that (white ceramic 'thing') in the smallest-room-of-the-house was so happy when I wiggled its little handle. It gurgled with happiness. So did we.

And by this morning, we had hot water, too! What more could you want?!? (Mind you- in this building, hot water is only on part of the time ever. Like Tues and Thurs mornings, every evening and (all day, I think) Sat and Sun. I mean really- what would you need hot water for the rest of the time? Eh?)

I 

I made lunch the other day. It took something like 17 matches to get the oven lit. I. Could. Not. Believe. It.

This just cracked me up.

On a serious note- something I've thought of often the last 7 years, shared by an acquaintance: If there's one thing I've learned in my xx years of life it's that I never know WHAT (speaker's name) is going to do tomorrow. Best not to say stuff like- What was he/she thinking? I would NEVER do that!!! Pretty good advice, I think.

We've eaten more super yummy grapes right off the vine this fall than I ever have in my life. And that put me in the mood for grape jelly. A totally unheard of thing here. Seriously. They eat lots of fruit/berry preserves but no one ever has had grape jelly (until one of us makes it and shares it). Pectin is also hard to find here. I hunted around the market yesterday and found some locally made stuff and some Polish stuff. Got 2 pkgs of each. And 3 kgs of grapes. Which tasted good but were not exactly as juicy as I'd hoped. Did them up tonight. There are 8 sm to med jars of (hopefully) jelly cooling in the kitchen now. It didn't look too hopeful in the 'setting up' deptartment. I finally retreated to my room so as to quit looking at them. See the thing is- the pectin here just isn't SureJell. SureJell has it down pat how to do each fruit/jelly/jam. This pkg had 1 set of instructions for everything. (Tremble. I'm scared, Mommy. Ok, not really. Maybe.)

And then there was the email with this pic in it. Enjoy your upcoming sugar high, America!!!! ;)

:)

There's a torture chamber small gym across the street from us. We go when we can. This pic has nothing to do with that. But it is kind of cute... and, as K pointed out- Granny totally missed that ping-pong ball... but maybe she's good advertising anyway???? She sure is cute at any rate!

from the weekend

Nazar found these! With Grandma or Grandpa's help. He was sooooo proud of them!

Showing off. But who cares?! She's too cute. And completely FULL of vim and zip and vigor. 

K playing with the kids. I sat in the swing and watched! ;)

Trying to hatch the watermelon ball... (it didn't work)

So cute I should be a girl! 

Find of the weekend! An old (and genuine- as in- Nina's grandparents used it) wooden hollowed out log used for grinding/pounding cereal grains into submission. Now the hunt is on for the pole they used to pound the grains. (Note- it's now used as a catch-all inside the door!)

baby piggies! 13 of them! And they move fast and constantly. And they looked for all the world like rats.

Oh- and we have a crockpot! Yay!!!! :)

October

In Ukraine...there will be pumpkins and squash. Always. Lots of them. These from this weekend. The board in the foreground? That's where they chop them up for animal feed. The nicest ripe ones will be eaten by the family as porridge...often mixed with rice.

Soon to be November, I'm sure. And just where did the days go? Not long ago it was New Year's. Now it's nearly the end of the year. Old Year's. Or something.

It's that time of year when there's no heat but you wish there was. You do laundry and hang it on the lines and it's still damp 2 days later. You use your camel hair blanket (just in case you don't remember this subject which some people thought was seriously funny... harumph- you're just jealous...I'm sure!) plus wear all the pj's you have and are glad to stay under the covers as long as possible. You can use the balcony as a 2nd refrigerator. It's warmer outside than in and you're never quite sure how to dress because being inside won't give you any idea at all about what it feels like outside.

And...part of the fall routine here in this town, apparently, is shutting off the water to the whole city. Yup. You got it. The Whole City. No One Has Water Right Now. No ONE. (That means we don't, either.) That means the smallest-room-in-the-house ummmm (smellsLikeAnOuthouse). heh. That means I took a 'bath' with 2 cups of water tonight. (You want to know more? Oh.. ok. 'nuff said about that!) That means my hair needs a wash and will continue to need a wash. That means we're just Really Glad we actually did a load of laundry yesterday while we still had water. That means we ate at a pizza place for lunch today and closed our minds to the haunting monsters-under-the-bed question- Just how are they washing dishes back there with no water?

Ah yes. Never dull here, oh no it isn't! 

How is it nearly a month (AGAIN) since the last post? What is up with me?
Well... this blog never did have any obligations attached to it (in my mind) so I guess nothing! Nothing is up with me. I do have a pile of stuff in my head and on my hard drive that I eventually plan/want to write about. But.
So what is up? Life for one.
And, amid the busyness of our day to day life, life has also been this:

We took a long walk in a park and saw a lot of bridal parties... including this one (well- ok, this is just the bride and groom and photog) on the way home. 

Someone in this building has twins. The double stroller is always parked under the stairwell in the entrance of the building. In fact, looks like 2 strollers there. I've been seeing this all summer.

And ok- it's not summer anymore. This granny was out in her garden working the other day. This is definitely a huge part of life right now as people clear out the last of their gardens. This one was in a large field near our apartment building. Several dozen families (I'm guessing) have plots in it and on a good sunny day the place is crawling with people.

Anyone know what this plant is? There's a large field of it nearby...

ahhh- it's sideways... ooops
Well anyhow- anyone know what it is???? I thought a weed; K says Can't be- it looks too planted. 

Sorry California. You want poppies? We got 'em. And they're purty, too. And they're still (again?) blooming. :) They are happening!

And this. Canola. Rape Seed. Can you double-crop this stuff? Because it sure seems late in the year for it to be blooming. And will it actually produce a harvest? What say the farmers?

And these Very Cheery Beauties!

And, of course, Life has been food. I love food. ;)
Someone fixed fixed this (German eggs in mustard sauce) for our lunch a month ago in Germany. There is no good pic online that actually resembles what we had (and what I tried to recreate last week). But here's a verbal depiction:
-White sauce (about a TBS of flour's worth) with about a TBS regular yellow mustard
-Served over hard-boiled halved eggs and boiled potatoes.
I'm not a huge fan of German food but this qualifies as comfort food, in my opinion. It is creamy yellow (what's not comforting about that?) and mild and delicious. You can play around with the amount of mustard. The veggie broth in the sauce adds a nice flavor. I did NOT use boullion cubes- they're full of MSG you know!
and another day's lunch- savory millet- this needs some work yet. I didn't make it into patties but served it in place of rice with meat. Flavor was good but definitely need to start with less liquid and add if you need more. Wished it were drier. But going to try it again and see how it goes.