Laowai

I was at my childhood home and now I’m at my Switzerland home. I’m very grateful that I got to go to Grandma Dice’s funeral. Brian was a trooper – balancing his demanding work plus all the bits of work that go along with getting the girls off to school. It was a difficult few days but it was also good. At her funeral my love for Grandma Dice just swelled when I was surrounded by all the important people who loved her just as I did. Her funeral brought together all of my cousins – such a rare thing now that we are all grown up. We cousins stood around and reminisced and laughed about our memories of Grandma and it felt really nice. It was a lot of that very best emotion – laughter through tears. It will be so strange to not have Grandma in her house, welcoming us in her kitchen just as she has done for all of my life. Now she will live in a special attic of my mind. I will always recall what a kind, smart, warm and beautiful person she was. 

Here are all my smiling cousins. Brianne (on the far right) wore one of Grandma’s dresses!

I took a few photos of photos. Grandma’s on the left below and then front and center in the middle photo.

I had a great time, as usual, just hanging out with Mom and Jennifer and Jenna. 

Well I’m about to leave for my trip to Grandma Dice’s funeral. But I’ll post a few photos before I go.

The snow is all gone now but Bea sure enjoyed it when it was here. She made a mini igloo on our patio:

Here’s Claire’s desk after we cleaned up. She carefully arranges her one-thousand trinkets. Oh my!

Here she is with her Austrian friend Clara. Yes, Claire and Clara.

More images of my work in progress quilt. I ordered some backing fabric to be delivered to the US while I’m there. I think Grandma Dice would be OK with me taking advantage of her funeral to also get my hands on some pretty fabric.

We noticed some trains were cancelled in parts of Switzerland because of avalanches (Lawinengefahr) and heavy snow. I think that’s very unusual.

One last photo from Bea’s room. Look at all the beautiful snow!

Brian’s company had a fun outing last night – a dinner on the Fondue Tram. Everyone packs onto an old-style tram and as you eat and eat and eat fondue you get to ride all around the city of Zurich. So good and so fun!

It’s also so hot! A bit like a cheese scented sauna. They have little squeegees at each table so you can wipe away the condensation and see outside.

My Grandma Dice passed away on Saturday. She was the best grandma anyone could hope to have. It’s hard to imagine that she won’t be around anymore. I felt blessed that I was able to see her and hold her hand and give her one last kiss when I was in Michigan at Christmas time. I’ll be traveling home for her funeral and it will be wonderful to be with all my family and to remember her. 

Here she is in July in her garden. I loved her so so much.

This week has been nice and quiet. Brian is in Chicago for the week.

Now that the Christmas decorations are put away I need a little plant life to brighten up the dark days. I made a new fabric bucket to hold these grape hyacinths.

We’ve been getting lots of snow. In the evening when it’s quiet I can hear the tinkling of the bells on the sheep and I look out and see that they often have a dusting of snow on their backs.

After the festive season is over I rely on candles and citrus and plants and hot drinks to keep me happy. After I cut up an orange I put the ends on the radiator to dry. They add a bit of scent to the air and then I scatter them around and enjoy the little jolt of sunny color. When I went out to buy firewood on New Year’s Eve – the hardware store was giving away free mini oxalis plants. It’s still looking healthy. Delightful!

I’ve gotten back into my sewing room this week. I’m trying to decide what to do with these snowball blocks. I’m thinking of my Grandma Dice lately. I thought of how she always made nine-patch blocks and used sashing between them. So maybe I’ll add sashing – something I’ve never done before. But what color…

I’m looking forward to having Brian home this weekend and I really hope the snow sticks around for a while.

Well Christmas vacation has almost come to an end. Bea and Claire return to school on Monday and I’ll be packing up the Christmas decorations. The girls and I have had terrible sleeping habits. That will, sadly, have to come to an end tomorrow. I had a pudding-making streak for three days in a row. First I made butterscotch, then banana and then chocolate with cinnamon. I don’t usually like bananas but using banana infused milk made a really yummy pudding and I used brown sugar instead of white to make it even better. I just used a basic recipe from Mark Bittman – it uses whole milk and it is thickened with corn starch. It’s nice that the recipe is quick and makes just four servings – no tempting leftovers.

We’ve also been enjoying more snow. We went up in elevation just a bit today and found some great sledding snow.

We pulled the girls up a long gradual hill in the woods. Well, I pulled Claire for a while and then I was too tired. So Brian showed off how fit he is and pulled both girls up that hill! I huffed and puffed just pulling myself up the rest of the way. Then we rode down that long gentle slope on the sleds – so fun!

I guess all that pulling tired Brian out. He had to have a snow nap and the girls covered him in a snow blanket.

UPDATE: One more pudding – because I’m pudding crazy and we had some mascarpone cheese.

We went to the snow on Brian’s last day of vacation. We went to a ski resort that’s close to us called Flumserberg. We had just a little walk – hopping on the sleds whenever the trail went downhill. The wind was really blowing hard and we got a little chilly so we had lunch and went home. Bea is such a snow lover these days! She really would be happy to live in a snowy place all year round. It was nice to see some real snow for the first time this winter. And then last night we got an inch or two of snow in our town. Since our windows are slanted the snow tends to stick to them and we feel like we live in a giant igloo.

You can’t buy red hots or molasses over here in Switzerland but you can get these special New Year apples. They must put a sticker on the apple while it’s growing because the color is in the real apple skin. Nice!