Laowai

I finished my little craft project and our dining room is looking more pulled together. Our home is a huge canvas of white – white walls, white cabinets some white floors and lots of white furniture. Hopefully this will liven up our dining area a little – I got the idea from the picture at the bottom. It’s just made out of quarter circles of painted paper glued onto a big piece of cardboard. Brian installed the light over the table this weekend so all our evening meals don’t have to be romantic candle-lit affairs. I didn’t photograph the other side of the room because there is still a gigantic mountain of cardboard there. I think cardboard recycling day doesn’t happen for another couple weeks.

Posting pictures of my rooms motivates me to get organized. Stay tuned for the guest room/office. We just put the bed together last night so it’s getting closer to being ready for visitors.

Did I mention that spring felt really close here? Uh no – I was completely wrong. We had to bundle up and put our boots on once more today. 

Getting ready to add some color to our very white walls.

Just got back from a little walk in our town. We went up the hill this time and found the big playground that we heard about. I think we’ll spend lots of time there this summer. Bea played with some Swiss kids that were about her size. The walk is up, up, up all the way but it’s not too far and most of it is along a pleasant little foot path. I took some photos on the way back down, down, down.

Some typical Swiss looking homes

All these quaint old Swiss places are juxtaposed with lots of modern architecture. And there are 4 or 5 big cranes in our little town – all building very modern looking apartment buildings.

There are a few of these signs around town that tell you when and what to recycle or other things that are going on. I think this one says Friday gift collection (no idea what that means) and vote on the weekend.

Proof that spring is close here – witch hazel

No clever or timely title for this post. Oh well. Here are the random photos from this week.

Putting together our wardrobes last weekend – what a big job.

More coloring on big paper.

A big nap after we spent half the day in the city meeting new people and shopping.

Hope you are having a good day. We are off to investigate a big playground that we heard about.

"Kiss me mommy and a heart will be on my face"

I did find baking soda and baking powder. They are sold in little envelopes about the size of a business card – 3 envelopes are sold together but it still makes for a measly amount. I also had to buy sugar – the largest container looks to be about 6 cups of sugar. I guess the people here just don’t do so much baking. 

 

I finally had a little bit of baking success – Bea and I made banana bread yesterday. The recipe I like to use calls for chocolate chips but they don’t seem to have chocolate chips and I couldn’t find a dark chocolate bar (Bea was getting antsy). So I just added some raisins and it turned out yummy. When we have sweets and treats I like them to be homemade. Now if I could just find some molasses I could make Grandma Dice’s extremely comforting molasses cookie recipe. 

I spend a lot of time in the grocery store these days. Bea is patient sometimes and other times… not so much. The grocery stores I go to are not large but it takes me forever to interpret things and I just want to explore everything they have.

The produce is good and you can buy things like mushrooms and potatoes in little wooden boxes that make me happy.

Cheese is a whole other can of worms. The cheese is yummy, but I stand there forever at the large cheese section trying to figure out what type of cheese we want. Only some of the grocery stores have cheddar and it’s not bright orange like back home. At first Bea would whine that she didn’t like the cheese but I think she’s getting over it and is more accepting of pale yellowish colored cheese now. Today there was no cheddar so I chose this one based on the nice illustration on the package. Smart way to shop huh – I guess I’ve been known to do that before.

We ventured out to a town called Rapperswil today. Zurich is at the top of Lake Zurich and Rapperswil is near the bottom so it’s a short train ride from our home. The little town is dominated by a castle that dates from the 13th century. We just wandered around the cobbled streets, popped into a church and heard some great organ music and had a nice lunch before hopping back onto the train. The photos are so very dark – it looks like night in half of them. I’m anxious to go back in the summer. It’s such a quick trip and apparently they are famous for their rose gardens. The photos don’t show it very well but the mountains make such a gorgeous backdrop all over the town.

I just couldn’t leave my sewing machine alone any longer. So I thought up an excuse to get it out. We have some new friends here in Zurich who have just had a baby. I have a little gift for the new baby – these will be for the new big brother.

They’re just little stuffed bugs to toss around. Hopefully a two-year old boy will like them. I got the pattern at the goody-goody handmade blog. It’s really a pincushion pattern.