Oooooh...and this...and that one...oh! and definitely that!

I have been in a shopping mood as of late...not that we can afford it...but alas, sometimes you *need* a few things ;)

Actually, there were a couple of things that we did need to get for Felix for the warmer weather months (and a couple of just fun things for him too!)

Here are the few things we bought him lately...

 This book is adorable... we bought it because "Boris and the Snooze box" (another book by the same author) has been read a thousand times to Felix...he absolutely LOVES it...hopefully this book will also become a favourite (the illustrations are awesome and the story is very entertaining and funny).

 Like the above book....we have a cd called "Science is Real" by "They Might Be Giants" that is a huge hit around here....so we bought this one in the hope that it too will be a hit (waiting for it to arrive still). This children's band is awesome! They are educational (even my husband and I learned some new things while listening to their cd!) and totally fun.

 Calm and beautiful....LOVE LOVE LOVE this cd! We have been listening to it as a family in the car and we can hear Felix singing along to it from the back...too adorable!

 Natural product to keep bugs away in the Summer months? Yes, please!

 Adorable new print (Wingin' It) from Applecheeks (cloth diaper)....totally unnecessary since we have enough cloth diapers and he will (hopefully!) be potty training soon....my one frivolous purchase because I just couldn't resist! 

 We LOVE our Aden & Anais swaddle blankets we got when Felix was first born (still use them today!). This is a dream blanket I ordered for Felix...a light Summer blanket. He loves blankets at night and I just don't want him melting away during those hot evenings. 

 I ordered another swim diaper (Totally Twilight by Applecheeks) for him for daycare. We have a swim diaper at home for him also, but needed a second one for daycare.

Still in diapers and still need some bum cream now and again...I love this product...they have so many different yummy scents and the cream is safe on cloth diapers too! 

Have you done any fun shopping lately?

uncovered treasure....

In the mid-seventies and most of the eighties my mom and her sister (her only sibling) lived in two different countries...my mom in Switzerland and her sister in Canada. They grew up in Austria together and both later married and moved away. My mom did live in Canada for a few years in the late sixties early seventies (before moving permanently back here with us in the late eighties). Back then, as you can imagine, there were no phone plans...long distance saving packages etc... snail mail was at the time cheap(er) and fast(ish). My mom and aunt sent cassette tapes to each other (also letters, but to my glee, lots of cassette tapes too) to keep up with each others lives. My aunt recently came upon her little treasure of old cassette tapes from my mom (she kept them all!!! She is that kind of person...my mom has no idea what she did with hers (she is that kind of person ;) ). These last few months I have had the pleasure of listening to them. It is a surreal experience to hear your own mom talking.... when she is 29 years old! (I am about to turn 33 tomorrow) It is almost like listening to a diary if that makes sense? She talks about day to day stuff....things that were going on with the kids, family, friends, recipes, grocery trips (the prices!) shopping trips, vacations etc...my oma is on a lot of the tapes too!!! Which is amazing! I love hearing her voice again (she passed away three years ago this November at age 92). My mom and oma bicker back and forth and laugh...it is truly amazing (I know I am over using that word today, but it applies so much!). There is one tape where she is complaining about my kicking her so hard (a month before I was born)...she is trying to pick names for me on another tape. There are also lots of tapes where we as kids are on them...singing songs, telling stories about our day, thanking my aunt for sending us cool things from Canada that we would never get in Switzerland. 

It is also at times heartbreaking....hearing the tapes from the beginning of my mom's relationship with my dad (head over heels in love 1975) to during/after the divorce right before we moved to Canada (1989 the last tape) where the sadness and defeat just seeps through the speakers. I am trying to just concentrate on the good though. I feel privileged to have such access to our past. It has been an amazing (I swear that is the last time I will use that word!) discovery to say the least!

 

My friend's husband has been kind enough to transfer the first box that was found to cds (he cleaned up the sound and everything!). I just bought this cool gadget to (hopefully!) convert the rest of the tapes (and a few old fairy tale cassettes I saved for Felix from my childhood) to the computer and into cds as well. I basically want to make sure we all have lots of different copies of these tapes to hold on to for a long time :)

Have you made any great discoveries lately?

Light...

On this dark & very rainy day...I choose to daydream....

Being brave...

...yesterday was one of those days where I just questioned myself....what are we doing? are we on the right path? have we totally gone insane? is this actually going to work? what if it doesn't? 

i *might* have had a little meltdown and pity party...but I was put right back on track...by Justin. It really helps (ridiculously so!) to have a great partner in this crazy life. 

I've been worried...what if it doesn't work out next year? what if all the schools Justin applies to will want years and years of experience? what if they aren't hiring at all next year!? I mean our window is quite small for international schools....only in Switzerland and only in the German speaking parts. Justin signed up with an "agency" of sorts that specializes in recruiting teachers for international schools all over the world. He was going to attend an international schools job fair in January of next year (through them)....but even the contact said that he shouldn't bother with the Toronto job fair (not many European schools attend), that if he could, he should attend the London job fair (impossible for us). BUT! Justin still gets access to a really good database for finding teaching positions and other help from them....which is good. Our next step is to officially compile a list of all the international schools in Switzerland with address, contact info., teaching techniques/philosophy (to personalize the cover letter) etc on each school. That way, come the new year, when it is time to start sending out his resume, we have everything ready to go and can just check off the list the schools that have received his resume. We also want to put them in order of most desired schools first (taking in account area, schools/daycare for Felix, general living must haves etc)....in case he gets more than one offer for a teaching position. 

We have been planning and researching this move for over a year now. We are planners and "waiters" (waiting around until the thing we planned for finally happens...waiting in suspension as I like to call it). We have to constantly remind ourselves to simply live. Live in the now. It is hard....so hard, but I am trying. I am just sooooo ready to be where we want to be and start to finally settle down and make roots. I want our own living space again....I want our special things around us....I want to not be planning big moves anymore! I want this dream to be THE dream finally. 

We thought moving from BC to New Brunswick was THE dream. Our big wish was to run our own hobby farm one day. It took a lot of courage for us to admit that the dream we had been working towards for a long time and talking about since we got together, was not us anymore, maybe it never was. Justin said we were brave for being true to us, to ourselves. We are brave not to settle. We are brave for going after a different path...a different dream. I am so ready for it. In the mean time though, I am going to take it all in. Day by day, we will get closer, but until the big reveal....I am going to enjoy the in between. 

Fingers crossed to see you again in 2014!

 

Happy Sunday to you...

I hope you got to relax and take everything in this weekend...

Clothing swap, vino and tastiness...

....tonight i am heading out to a friends house. She is hosting a clothing swap and it includes wine and tasty treats to boot! I think this is such a neat idea and definitely will steal it in the future (possibly in Switzerland, with fabulous new Swiss friends and fondu! ;) )

We were all asked to bring clothes that we want to get rid of (excellent idea, especially in the Spring time when everyone seems to be in a purging mood) and some kind of homemade treat. 

I do not have any clothes to bring :( ...I purged everything right before we came down to Ontario and literally only have a few items of clothes with me (and need every piece until we move to Switzerland next year). Being the lovely friend that the hostess is, I am still allowed to participate! YAY! :) 

My homemade treat is chocolate fudge (because, you know, with Easter having just passed...we need more chocolate) and I am bringing mango chutney (locally made) as a hostess gift. I think tonight will be a blast! Have you ever been to or hosted an event like this before? 

I cut it into strips and then into smaller square-ish pieces...I went a little crazy and added marshmallows on the top (more so because I didn't want leftovers in the cupboard that would end up getting eaten in a desperate moment late at night.... ;) 

Fudge recipe:

2/3 of a cup of carnation milk

2 tbsp of butter

1  2/3 of white sugar

1/2 tsp of salt

1 tsp of vanilla extract

2 cups of mini marshmallows 

1 1/2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

 Line an eight inch square baking pan with waxed paper...set aside...

Combine sugar, evaporated milk, butter and salt in medium saucepan; bring to rolling boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil 4 to 5 minutes or until mixture starts to thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in marshmallows, chocolate chips and vanilla until marshmallows and chocolate melt and blend.

Pour into prepared pan. Chill until set (about 4-5 hours) and cut! (Store in refrigerator in a sealed container).

A spring in my step...

Things are slowly warming up around these parts (we will ignore all the cold days this week, but concentrate on the lovely warm-ish day yesterday).

Last weekend the bunny came for a visit, it was a good long weekend (we will ignore the sick toddler that took no nap on Sunday and was miserable beyond belief...and we will also ignore the crazy skin rash that erupted on that same toddler when he took a small wooden Easter toy cart into the bath with him...a "gift" from Oma ;) ). On a side note, the rash cleared up within half an hour....it was quite shocking though....we felt horrible for him. I don't know what the hell was on that cart, more likely in the paint that it was painted with. Needless to say, it is in the garbage now.

On a happy note, there was chocolate....and good food...and family. :)

 

cousins...

On a fantastic note...Justin got accepted to both University's that he applied to! He will definitely be going to teacher's college this Autumn! Which means, one more hurdle towards moving to Switzerland has been jumped successfully!