Category: weeknotes

weeknotes 52/23

last week of this cursed year! ?

i got some nice gifts for christmas! tons of socks and fun underwear, nice body shop thinguies, a pessimistic towel, a seed calendar, a couple of books (one about stationery and one about nature!), a set of ramen bowls, some fun legos, as well as sweets. i must have been a really nice person this year!

miraculously, i’ve managed to stay covid-free despite living with 2 infected people for a couple of weeks, thanks to a lot of strategic masking. hurray! now everyone is healthy covid-wise, but the boy seems to have a sore throat…

we’re spending new year’s with the family, to make up for christmas fiasco. normally, i would prefer a quieter celebration, just me and the boy, thinking about the year and making plans… but since christmas was a subdued affair (and mom was sad about it), we decided to come together to celebrate this “little christmas”, as the old people say. one of the good things about being here (apart from the family being here, safe and healthy) is all the clementines from my parents trees — they’re the best! ?

i hope 2024 will be a better one, with more good health! how brilliant is a new year that starts on a monday? i love it so much!

just life weeknotes

weeknotes 50-51/23

on the last week before coming north, we cleaned up the house, made some last christmas shopping for the children, wrapped up the presents and ate everything from the garden — i even made caldo verde with the leaves of the broccoli plant! :)

on the first days in the north, i saw my niece LJ, the cutest 5 month old ever! she’s in a really nice phase now, laughing easily at everyone and charming us all.

then we drove further north to be with the parents for christmas… only to find them infected with covid. :( so it’s a bit of a lonely christmas this year, every branch of the family in its own home, and the boy staying with his own parents. my ears hurt from all the mask-wearing, but so far i’ve managed to stave off an infection. fingers crossed it stays that way and that everyone will be bug-free by new years!

because there’s not much to do, i’ve managed to do a bit of reading to wrap up the year: i’ve finished the sweetness at the bottom of the pie, bird by bird, check & mate and olive kitteridge, as well as a few children’s books. each one of these was great for its own reasons: some for the surprising format, some for being really well read by the author, some were just comforting in their predictability… it’s been a good year for books.

just life weeknotes

weeknotes 49/23

a mostly quiet week, spent running errands and trying to get the presents for all the family. i finished 2 very short audiobooks: how to keep house while drowning and train dreams. the first in particular stuck with me, its compassionate advice applying to much more than just house chores.

we’re full on “pre-christmas mode” around here, and one of the things i must do is to use the vegetables i have in the mini plot before we head north. so today i took all the chard and did a nice stir-fry with it. it’s still amazing to me that i can grow these things with some seeds and a bit of dirt!

and on the same vein, sometime ago the town was offering some free 300L plastic composters, to those who wanted them. i signed up for it, and forgot about it until they emailed me last week! so this week we had a little workshop to learn how to work with them, and will soon be receiving the dalek-shaped contraption. i can’t wait!

and last but not least, this gorgeous hoopoe, just chilling. :)

weeknotes

weeknotes 44-46/23

there hasn’t been a lot going on — mostly listening to the boy coughing and being in pain, testing his blood, and trying to rule out diagnoses one by one. as time passes and bloodwork get more complicated and increasingly specific, so too does the worry increase… right now he’s on his second course of oral corticosteroids, which are thankfully keeping the cough at bay. they’re not without drawbacks though. :( fingers crossed this mystery will soon be figured out.

to pass the time, the days have been filled with light entertainment. together, we watched nyad, tenet, the awakening of motti wolkenbruch, the diplomat and the lost city. plus, i’ve watched bridgerton and read lots of light stuff (department of speculation, in real life, ali hazelwood’s novels, sheets) on my own. currently making my way through my name is lucy barton and the high mountains of portugal (a book i picked solely for the intriguing title).

in better news, the little raised bed we installed a month ago is full-on producing already! radishes, lettuces, spinach and chard are making their way into our salad bowls, and it feels like a little miracle of mother nature. i didn’t expect things to grow so much this late in the year, but the weather has been quite warm and sunny, even in november.

speaking of miracles, we saw an osprey the other day, hovering around the salt ponds in town! raptors are not our speciality at all, so it was extra satisfying to be able to not only see but identify one so clearly. we’re now up to 130 birds in our life list, and i’m getting a little competitive. :)

and last but not least, swimming. a lot of swimming has been happening lately, and it makes me happy. the pool is some 6kms away, but i can ride my bike there through the salt ponds and get some extra workout. plus, our local municipal pool is glorious: olympic sized, wooden ceilings, huge windows that let the sunlight into the pool… and for less than 1 euro each visit. i’m so grateful for this luxury.

weeknotes

weeknotes 42-43/2023

– i finally reached inbox zero on my work mailbox! ? this is a rare event, which happens only every few years for me. it feels amazing to see that folder empty, and i’ve been doing my best to keep it that way. the boy has been helping with the most difficult stuff, and iris, our new teammate has been a steady blessing too.

– the lebkuchen dough is ready for its 2-month rest, ahead of advent baking season! our trusty food-processor almost died in the process of making this sticky dough, the poor thing.

– my father reports that the olives from our olive tree that he took north some weeks ago, are eatable! two weeks with running water to lose the acidity, and now they’re ready to be seasoned. amazing!

– the rain is here, and there was so much wind last weekend that lots of trees fell down all over town. it’s kind of heartbreaking, seeing big trees drop like that and be immediately cut down.

– i’ve been playing with dall-e, the image engine. at some point it gave me this lonely santa, who looks like something out of a movie. what’s the story here? who is he waiting for?

– after a month or so of respite, the boy’s non-stop cough is back again… sigh.

– i’ve been a bit restless with my reading, dipping my fingers in lots of different books and not finishing that many, but last week i read through “making comics” by lynda barry, which is a bit like jumping into her art class and given assignments and exercises to do. i wish the library had more of her stuff.

– we watched the one piece live action, and i loved it!