More pictures from our walk yesterday.

I hope you are all having a great weekend so far!

All photos taken by me with my Lumix.

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The very next day after my last post (complaining about the freezing weather here) the weather was warmer. It was almost normal.

Today, it was still warmer.

No wind.

I am a happy girl.  :)

In celebration of the lovely weather, we took a walk today up a little mountain road near our village.

It was awesome!

I am ready for summer and sad that we only have one or two kinda warm months out of the year. We have about six months (sometimes more) of winter weather here. I would be lying if I said that I loved winter that much. :)

It is tolerable because it is so terribly beautiful.

First three photos were taken with the Nikon D60 and the last three with the Lumix (point and shoot).  All photos were taken by me during our walk today.

More photos tomorrow! I promise.

I finally finished all my ironing yesterday. Still haven’t cleaned out my fridge but did mop the apartment today. I just never feel like I can ever really get on top of housework since it is always a work in progress.

Vilay has been on medical leave due to a fractured hand. It has been about five weeks that he has been home with us. Five weeks too long. :) Him being home is the equivalent of having two (perhaps three) extra children in the house. He should go back in a couple weeks. Then, I should have more time to update the blog and Facebook. I am surprised my family hasn’t left me any emails asking where I disappeared to the last few weeks since I haven’t been posting updates on Facebook.  Which brings me to the fact that I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.

It is the easiest way to communicate with family and friends quickly and all at once. So, it is a keeper even if I do have issues with it.  More and more of my family is joining Facebook and I adore seeing all their photos and reading about what they are up to.   I just need to figure out how to set it up so that only one group of people can read some of my more personal updates.

While some of the people I went to high school with are still good friends most of them are faint memories.  I am not comfortable with everyone that I went to high school with or know in passing being able to read my most intimate updates.  That is where my issue with Facebook lies.  I know I can fix it but need time to work out how to do it.  Meaning…I need to google how to do it and then walk myself through it.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Now more than ever I remember why I HATED winter before moving to Switzerland!!!

On my way home today from the grocery the wind whipped freezing cold air straight through my very being.  I had a flashback to when I lived in Ohio and would run to my car as fast as I could. I would jump in my car and slam my door shut on winter! Winter was never happy and would howl all around my car and push it with force as I drove on in spite of it.

Today, I finally realized that it wasn’t really winter that I hated.  It was winter wind!

After moving to Switzerland I found winters to be gentle no matter if the snow was higher than my head.  Here even the snow feels soft and powdery under your boots as you walk making you think of sand on a beach. The sun kisses your face and warms your bones here in the Jura of Switzerland…Even in winter. I would often find myself stopping to gaze over the snow covered mountains in no hurry to go home.

All of that was until this freezing cold winter wind hit our cozy snow covered mountains.

Now I hate putting on my coat because I know it will not be enough to keep that vicious winter wind out. I practically run to the bus stop, the grocery store or anywhere else that forces me out of the warmth of my apartment. I detest this old winter wind more than I ever did in Ohio.  It makes me ache for the gentle winter that I had grown to love and even look forward to.

This past week the winter wind has been so hard and bitter that even the snow crunches. I had forgotten that for my entire life snow only crunched when you walked on it.  In Ohio, we never had the soft powdery snow that I have come to know since moving to Switzerland.

For the first time since moving to Switzerland, I find myself  HATING the fact that it is winter.

When I come home out of the freezing cold, I slam my door shut on the winter wind.   The winter wind howls outside my windows and pushs hard against my shutters making them rattle.

I grumble under my breath, “Go away winter wind!  You are more than welcome to go back to Ohio and leave my gentle Swiss winter alone!”

We have another week of this horrible wind and then I hope winter goes back to normal for the Jura.

Photos below were taken a few weeks back when it was still possible to enjoy winter. :)

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It is as if I can hear the white horse in the front talking…

“Oh my! Do you see those two back there?”

“How embarrassing!”

“Getta room why doncha!?!”

**********

Very busy weekend for me.  I have been spring cleaning BIG TIME!

When I feel the need to clean I let it flow.  There has been no stopping me.  I have mopped the entire apartment.  I have wiped down all the wood furniture and window ledges with a wood cleaner.  I have cleaned all the windows and mirrors.  I have ironed all the kids clothes because I decided I would like to start ironing.   Ha!  We’ll see how long that lasts.  I swept down the couch and chairs.  I cleaned out the kitchen cabinets and on top of the cabinets.  I cleaned the entire bathroom from the top to the bottom.  I cleaned our computer and television with a wonderful new product that is safe for electronics.

Actually, it doesn’t really sound like I did so much.   I think it was just that all of this was in between all the regular cleaning, cooking and childcare that I do on a daily basis.  Before my kids, I could knock all that out in a good part of a day.  It has taken me three days!!!

All I know is I am dog tired but it feels good to be in a very, very clean apartment.    I still need to clean the refrigerator and iron all my husband and my clothes but that has to wait because tomorrow is laundry day.  WOOHOO!  -  That was a woohoo said with a whole lotta sarcasm just in case you didn’t hear it.  :)

Boring week here.  Sorry guys!  Perhaps if the wind dies down a little we will get a walk in around the village tonight.  If so, I will be sure to bring my camera along!  We have had a mini snow storm and it is all white and pretty here again.

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Emmie Cat loves to jump up on top of the kitchen cabinets to sleep, watch us or escape from the kids. She was up there today as I was preparing lunch. I was making spaghetti bolognese.

Chopping up the onions made me cry. Those onions were strong! I glanced up at Emmie between my tears and saw what you will see in the videos below.

Poor Emmie.

Soon after we finished our two videos she decided her favorite spot was not so wonderful after all. She jumped down and went to her second favorite spot in the apartment to sleep. I found her hiding in her room as my kids like to call it.  It is a walk-in closest where her litter box is kept. She was hiding behind her fortress (two suitcases stored on the very top shelf).

Her eyes were fine.  :)

Have been super busy with laundry the last two days.  The dryer in our building isn’t working very well.  It is a nightmare for me to wash a week’s worth of clothes and not be able to dry them in the dryer.  After trying to dry towels for over four hours I gave up and pulled them all out to dry up in our apartment on the radiators.  I have had clothes drying all over my apartment radiators and various chairs for two days!

Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe – I will try this recipe next time. It looks yummy.

At the end of the video Vilay forgot to stop the camera from filming.  You will see a quick swipe of our kitchen floor as I ask him if he pushed the button again to stop the video.  You will, also, see Emmie’s dishes and some sleds.  We have no room in our apartment for all the winter gear.  So our kitchen has become the storage area for the two bags full of hats, scarves, gloves, snow pants as well as the sleds.  I will have to put up a picture of that organized mess for you all to see.  My husband hates it but there is really no other place for it all that really works.  Plus, the radiators are right there for all those wet gloves, hats and scarves after the kids come back in from playing out in the snow!  Oh, that is when I don’t have the radiators covered with our clothes.   hehehe.

It was cute that in this video Emmie tries to back away from the edge of the cabinet as if that is really going to help. I am not kidding about how strong those onions were!!!

Now I am off to finish taming my laundry monster…………

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On the way home from the grocery I stopped to talk with a neighbor that has lived in our village her whole life.  She tells me about how she would take long  walks with her children in the forests around here.  They would picnic and play in the forest before returning home.   She tells me about how her mother would take care of eight children with no washing machine, dish washer or sweeper. Through our talks I get little glimpses of what it was like to live in our village when she was young.  She tells me that it was very hard and they were all very poor during the second world war.  Yet, there was much love and laughter in her family.  I can see that she carried this on to her own family and now she is enjoying the families of her children.

I really enjoy our talks.  She is such a happy and secure woman.  She doesn’t mind growing old.  It is just a part of life.

We talked about the huge sun we have today and how we can smell spring.  She told me she can hear the birds chirping from her balcony.  She told me not to be afraid to approach people and talk to them here in the village.  I could feel that she thinks of me more and more as one of the villagers and less and less as a foreigner.

It is nice.  I am starting to be accepted into our village and it does make a difference in how I feel about my life here.

Thank you all for understanding about my need to just talk on this blog.  When I started this blog I really didn’t worry about what I talked about on here.  It was my place to let it all out and to share what my life is like as an expat.  I would sit down each day without any real blog post in mind.  I would start typing and the post would grow from word to word.

I will still put up my photos as I have always done from the beginning.  However, I am going to go back to the style of writing I had when I began this blog.  Meaning there is no style.  :)

Last year was very hard for me.  I think it was one of the hardest years of my life.  Finally, it is getting much easier for me.  I feel a determination that I haven’t felt since I left college.  I am not afraid and I know that I will be OK.  I am ready to push myself like I have never pushed myself before.   No matter what, I understand that my life is easier than it was for the woman that I talked with this morning.  Even if her life wasn’t always easy I am sure she she still enjoyed all the things that made her happy.

She helps me to remember what is important.

Our happiness doesn’t come from money, a job or other people.

Happiness comes from within us.

I am finally grounded but at the same time I am ready to take off into the wind.
What I have today is happiness.

I love shadows of trees on the snow.

I love to watch my son shovel snow with his snow disk.

I love to watch my children play.

I love that my husband will drag our Christmas tree to the community compost after Christmas is over even if he doesn’t even really like Christmas trees.

I love our little red train and the beautiful horses that we see almost daily here.

Have a great Saturday!

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to tell you all that I am not perfect.

That I have made mistakes.

That I have put my foot in my mouth so many times that it is…laughable.

That I am not always a good mother.
That I am not always a good wife.
That I am not always a good daughter or sister.
That I am not always a good person.

Courage to face myself and all my imperfections and weaknesses.
Courage to be better and to work harder.

Courage to be honest.

I am me.

From now on I will write on this blog without fear.

I will turn 40 this year.

For some reason this means so much to me.

It means I MUST grow up and I MUST be myself.

At 40, I see no reason to not be me.

Hell, who I am trying to impress?

No one. Exactly.

So, here I go with this big bad blog and my big bad self (hahaha).

I have no idea what I will post every day.  However, I have decided that it is better to post something that is apart of me instead of posting these empty (for me) posts that I have done for months now. I have a voice and I think it is good that I use it here. If I cannot use MY VOICE here then I see no reason to continue blogging.

So, I am going to be courageous. I am going to be honest.

For me.

This is MY blog.  I so need it to be MINE again.

I do have a name.

A real name.

It is Tracy.

I hope you stick around to hear what I have to say. If not, I really wish you the best. :)

It doesn’t matter because when I started this blog it was for me.  When I finish this blog (if I ever do) it will be for me.

I am sharing ME with YOU.

That is blogging in a nutshell.

We search for shapes in clouds all the time since we have an abundance of big fluffy clouds here. My seven year old daughter told me that she saw a farting pig in this cloud. I don’t see the pig but I definitely see the fart. :)

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If you haven’t noticed before, I like trees. A lot. I take pictures of trees more than I care to admit.

The tree with the knotted bottom was just so incredibly beautiful to me.

Trees struggle and grow.  When it starts to be warm trees bloom in a fit of new life.  They are bare and silent in colder months. Through all the changes in the seasons, trees grow. They adapt. Trees are strong.  They inspire me.  They give me strength when I lean against them or when I see them all straight or twisted.  All trees have a story if we stop long enough to discover what they have to tell.

“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree,
or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”
Henry David Thoreau, 1817 – 1862

If you click on the image above you will see a glimpse of our red train (near the middle) as it started into the forest.

The clouds are incredible here. We are rarely without a blue sky and huge marshmallow clouds floating around in it.

Our little red train passed us for the fourth time. :)

Winter sky.

Tree buds are a sure sign of spring.

Another tree bud. I knew that I smelled spring in the air yesterday. See? It wasn’t just wishful thinking. Spring is coming.

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When I opened the windows to air out the apartment this morning I could smell spring. It smelled so good outside and the sun was so warm on my face. I knew right then and there that we HAD to take a walk.

So, we did.

It felt great to be out in the mountains soaking in the sun and breathing in all that fresh air.

Vilay thought it was funny to take a photo of me fiddling with my camera.

I asked him to take another photo of me posing for my (other) camera that I let him use sometimes.  :)

There aren’t many photos of me since I am usually the one behind the camera. It is nice to have two cameras for this reason and I am finally getting over my camera shyness.

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