Floral Scented Breezes

It wasn't exactly hot today, but there was no doubt that winter has passed. Even at eight in the evening, the smell of flowers was heavy in the air, and there was enough warmth and light to finish up some yard work. Maybe one of these days I'll share about my attempt to mow the lawn with the ancient push mower...I call it an attempt, because eventually the neighbors decided I wasn't just celebrating Earth Day, and offered the use of their motorized mower...Anyhow, I'm more interested in sharing our little beach venture today.

In case I haven't pointed it out before, we like going to the beach. Today, we took advantage of the lovely weather, and set out in search of a beach free from people. Shockingly, we actually found one. Moolack Beach was just the place. Thanks to a horrendously steep and treacherous approach, as well as a wild wind that did its best to make sure my eyes were being attacked by my own hair or sand, no one else really wanted to hang out on this pristine strip of sand.



It is amazing the bits of wonder there are to discover around the beach. I love having a chance to focus on the details.



If I ever visited this beach before, I missed out on the most fascinating part. There is an entire foreign landscape, made up of hairy rock formations surrounded by tide pools. These weren't the type of pools where you find animal life, but we could definitely imagine some tiny community living in this other worldly place.



Well, it's getting late, and my brain is shutting down, so I'll end before I really start to ramble. Just wanted to share some of these photos while they're still ultra fresh. I have some other beach photos form earlier in the month that I'll have to post before long as well, but for now, I'm off.

The Flower Obsession is Back!

Spring. It's a tough season to miss. Despite gray skies and cool temperatures, it comes in with a flash of color that dares the world to pay attention. We've actually been pretty lucky over in this little corner of Oregon this spring. Gorgeous sunny days have snuck their way in, giving the opportunity to really enjoy these bits of joy that defy the cold embrace of winter.
One of the many benefits of living in my grandparents old home, is being able to enjoy Grandma's beautiful flowers. While the yard may not be quite as immaculate as when she was around to take care of it, memories of her are clearly in bloom.



I've been enjoying my new iPhone, which is much easier to hook up and download pictures from than my old phone was. This means being able to share some of my Instagram entertainment as well. All that last set of photos were of the camellia bush at the side of our house. It has been absolutely fabulous this spring.

The neighborhood has a nice variety of other flowers around, so here are a few other offerings from around the block.



In the few free minutes we have free from the store, we have driven around to enjoy the beautiful nature that Oregon has to offer. My next post will cover some of the more dramatic views that we've partaken of, but for now, we'll stick with the flowers :)



Yes, Spring is definitely in the air around these parts.

Happy All Hallows Eve

It's Halloween. How did that happen all of a sudden. Weren't we just experiencing lovely summer weather a couple weeks ago? Now we're socked in with clouds that can't seem to stop dripping (although we really can't complain in comparison to the mess in the East! Blessings on those poor folks...)

For some reason I have a poem I wrote in college stuck in my head. Okay, the reason is pretty obvious, seeing as you it was all about Halloween. I was in this creative writing class, where most of the students seemed to think that their writing was so far beyond the understanding of mere mortals that any interpretation or critique was clearly nothing but foolishness.

No doubt, it was arrogance that provoked me to write a poem in a standard rhyming format, littered with innuendo regarding the world of masks we live in, and how only on this classically darkest of days can my real self be revealed. I wanted them to sweat through interpretations:

It's Halloween, Oh Halloween,
A night by ghouls and goblins seen,
Oh what a dream, a perfect dream,
To dance with death on Halloween.

It's getting dark, I see a spark,
I wonder, could it be a lark,
Or could it be, a breath so free,
That only darkness lets me see.

A mask comes out, a scream a shout,
Now freedom, true, can come about,
etc, etc.

I can't remember the whole thing verbatim, but you get the gist. Seems to me, my classmates weren't quite so savvy.

Anyhow, I'm dressed in black today, in silent witness to the bygone era of trick or treating in the past. I left my eyeliner stitch marks by the wayside this year, figuring they wouldn't fly so well for postal customers :) All the same, I'm full of memories of years gone by. Mark and I did get a little pumpkin to carve and stick outside our door, although it'll be after 7 by the time I'm home, so we're not likely to have any trick or treaters this time around, but at least a couple cuties have come through the shop today, so I'll enjoy it all I can.

How Cool Can 80* Be???

Portland is going through a touch of a heat wave these days. Fine by me, but the natives are grumbly. You'd think 300+ days of gray, drippy, depressing weather would be enough for them, but apparently that is not the case. After two days of weather over the 80* mark they start to let me know how unfavorable they find the temperature.

Having a shop that sells chocolate, and also caters to an older set, running the air conditioner on these toasty days is essential. Now, I will admit that temps over 100 can be a bit much, but it's still a far cry from the intense heat in Redding, CA, or the extreme humidity in Hong Kong. All the same, I've enjoyed telling the people who have commented on how nice and cool it is in the shoppe today, that I have the thermostat set at 80. Guess it just shows how relative things are...

We're hoping to do some deep cleaning here at the shoppe this weekend, which will no doubt make us even more thankful for the cool breeze. We want to get things looking all nice and fresh before we load the place up for the holidays. Guess I'll be pushing for the blessings of commercialism this time around...like I said, it's all relative.

Czech In A Deep Freeze

I grew up in the tiny town (Europeans would scarcely even call it a village) of Horse Creek, California. Our house was tucked right into the side of a mountain in a lovely valley along the Klamath River We used to joke that the population of 115 included both humans and animals. The scenery was beautiful, but the climate was extreme. In the winter, we didn't always get a lot of snow, but the sun never shone on our house, so the yard often grew a veritable forest of frost. I can remember years so cold that my sister and I would curl up on the couch as close to the fireplace as we could get, with blankets piled high. I was familiar with the cold, and the crazy part is, I loved it.

I think the turn in my personality took place around the time I broke my back when I was thirteen. Whether it was the life changing accident, or merely natural teenage body changes, I flip flopped in my temperature gauge. I was no longer the little girl begging her mother to let her wear shorts when it hit 60 degrees. Instead, I developed into an absolute sun lover. This was highlighted in my years at Simpson University in Redding, CA, (where temperatures could reach into the hundred teens even in the late summer) and turned into an obvious life style choice when I moved to Hong Kong.

But what did I chose to do after making it obvious that I love the sun and being warm? Did I move back to California? Did I settle down in the tropics? No. First, of all the absurd things, I spent a winter in Alaska. Then, I moved to the Czech Republic, where the winters are slightly less bitter, but still no picnic. And this year, I decided to journey back to Czech for the winter. Um, come again? What was I thinking.

Naturally, this year is one of the coldest on record. It's like I completely forgot that when we flew out in November of 2010 that Europe was going through a blizzard which shut down airports as soon as our flights got through. When my husband said he needed to go home, I said, okay. And what did I end up with? This:

No, my hair didn't go permanently white due to the horror, it only froze after the walk where I encountered this frozen puddle.

As well as these breathtaking views.

The lowest temp I've seen thus far is -22C. While that might still not rival the temps I experienced in Alaska, it's still ridiculously cold. Especially because here, I don't always have a car to just jump into. If we want to go somewhere it requires walking, and sometimes spending a couple hours just hanging out in all that icy brutality. No, I'm no longer the little girl who thought living in Antarctica would be "cool."

Safe and Sound

One day I think I was teaching my CAE class about sayings like "safe and sound." It's kind of a strange thing to try and translate. Anyhow, I just thought it would be good to inform everyone that we are now in America. We had a bit of a time getting here thanks to the blizzard that hit the Czech Republic right about the time we were leaving. The drive to the airport was rather harrowing. We left at about 11 and were in flying snow the whole way, but arrived in plenty of time to have a bite to eat and say the ever difficult goodbyes. Definitely not an easy thing to do, but we made our 5:55 AM flight with no problems.
Of course we then sat in the plane for more than an hour while the de-iced the wings. It was a pretty serious event actually. We were rather amused to watch it all, and thankful that we had a couple hours scheduled between our flights in Frankfurt.
When we got to Germany the airport looked decent. There wasn't much snow and things seemed to be moving pretty smoothly. They were a bit intense at the security check, freaking out over drinks we bought inside the Prague airport and making us chug them, as well as doing a special check in a separate room of our wireless keyboard, but we passed the inspection and got easily onto the plane. Only to sit there for more than two hours. That's right, two hours of just sitting on the tarmac waiting for them to de=ice the wings. And the pilot originally told us it would take twenty minutes. As our four hours layover in San Francisco began to dwindle I was a bit worried that we'd have a tough time making our connecting flight as well as making in through customs. Hard to hold on to the truth that God is in control, isn't it?
The flight was long. I think it's even longer when you're 6'4". They don't make it easy for tall men, and the plane we were on was kinda ghetto. We're talking seatbelts from I don't know when, and the old TVs in the middle of the aisles. The one closest to us happened to be going out and had a strange red glow around it. People wearing pink on the screen were wearing red on the functioning screen up the way. Ah well. One way or another we made it to San Francisco.
I tried to chose a decent line for Immigration, and failed. We ended up being almost the last through, even though we went there as quickly as we could. But we passed through it in really no time at all. All our papers were great and they didn't even look at us as we went through customs. In the end, we had an hour to breath and make some phone calls before heading over to catch our plane.
So after a whole lot of stress, the trip itself went as perfectly as possible. There was no running in airports, no lost luggage, and no strange questions along the way.
We were happy to meet my parents, get a little food in our bodies, and head off to bed.
There is definitely some jet lag in there, but at least we're through the process. Today we're taking it easy. We met up with my nephew Ryder for brunch at Shari's so Mark had his first big American breakfast, as well as seeing his first yellow school buses in person. It's so strange as I'm seeing all these familiar things and he's seeing EVERYTHING for the first time. It's literally like an "American" dream. The scenes from the movies are suddenly right in front of us. Rather surreal for him.
This afternoon we're hoping to see Jessie and then tomorrow we're hitting the road for Idaho.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers for safely and we'll see what the next chapter has in store for us here on this side of the world.

Almost There...

Oh packing, how do I loathe thee? I'll not count the ways.
To do a thing so tedious would take to many days.
I dream of lofty weight limits, and luggage flown for free,
Of locking you without a fear that they'll safely let you be.
And then there are thoughts about airports, that flutter through my mind,
They seem to do so many things that make peace hard to find.
I do recall much sweeter eras of travel from the past,
When all those hard goodbyes didn't have to come so fast.
But now we all must live in fear of idiots with power,
Dreading the scans, the endless demands, and worries about two hours.
I'm ready just to have it done, and to be safely through,
To leave behind the stress and scales and be "home" fresh and new.

Any ideas what I've been up to today? Not to mention what every waking moment has been focused on for the past week or so. Hard to believe that tomorrow we're heading off. It sounds like we're going to make a night of it. Mark's sister will come in the afternoon to sleep for a few hours, then we're leaving about midnight so we should make it in plenty of time for our departure. Our flight leaves at 5:55, so we have to be there now later than 4. Pray that the road conditions are clear. It's been cold and icy with snow for the past few days. We've got roughly 2 or 3 inches at the moment. I don't think any fresh came down today, but it sure is cold. When I was in Prague on Thursday there wasn't any snow, but it can still be treacherous for driving.
We're also hoping for no flight delays. At the moment we should have plenty of time for getting through the whole immigration process, but delays would add stress to it all, so prayers for a smooth process all the way through would be immensely appreciated.
Hard to believe the time really is almost here. I'm in that holding pattern at the moment where most things are done, but I'm just not quite sure what to do with myself until it's really time to go. And the more times I check information about luggage and flight delays and weather the more freaked out I get. Unfortunately, even looking at wedding things freaks me out right now because I start seeing how close it all is and how I have no clues about anything and no job and and and... Breath. Do. Not Hyper. Vent. I. Late.
God is in control. I've seen that time and time again throughout this process. You'd think that would teach me to finally get over my habits of worrying and freaking out, but it seems I haven't grown up that much yet. I still fail. I still look at the daunting tasks ahead of me and question everything. Even those things I know to be true. There are so many things to be thankful for. So many reasons to rejoice. And in 48 hours I'll be flying over America. And in 72 hours I'll be sound asleep in McMinville (hopefully, if jet lag isn't to silly with me.)
Pause.
Sigh.
Keep breathing...

So comes September

It's September...and I'm still in the Czech Republic. Not teaching mind you, just being here. It's kind of eerie. Today I was out walking the dog and watching the school children. It seems almost wrong to be here and not be teaching. But that appears to be the way things are, and now that my employment visa is finished there's nothing I can do about it. I now have up to three months in the Shengen Zone as a tourist before I must return to the US. Hopefully I'll be home before then, but it all depends on how quickly we can get the visa process finished up.
For the time being, however, I'm trying to make the most of things. The weather, which has been grim for most of the summer, has not improved. Surprise, Surprise. But such is life, and having lived in Oregon for a number of years you'd think I'd be well accustomed to this way of being.
This past weekend I didn't travel very far away physically, but I did take a journey back in time. I went for Karina's birthday party on Friday night, and stayed through for the celebration of the Waldstein Festival on Saturday. Last year we were totally out of town and missed the whole thing, but all my other years I've had a chance to at least enjoy a portion of this blast from the past.
The highlights this year:
1.) I've never been a big sausage fan. For those with any sort of background on my life, my food picky-ness is, well, epic. I'm the girl that people dreaded having to feed because you never knew what I might do. Not to mention how my poor dear mother felt putting up with me. While I did manage to put away 8 hot dogs in one sitting (not my finest hour!) anything more "interesting" than a hot dog and it's mysterious composition has caused me to turn up my nose. This year, however, I decided to be brave and join the crew in tasting "Certik" (pronounced Cher-teek) on the recommendation of Caleb (for those who know him.) This particular sausage is long and thin and totally black on the outside. It is wrapped inside a large potato pancake that has first had garlic ground on top of it. Fortunately the inside of the sausage was not black, and the taste was pretty innocuous. Needless to say, I still don't really want to know what it was made of, or why it was black in the first place, but I got the whole thing down with the help of a giant Czech pickle, another thing I had to get used to at first as they taste more like a cross between a sweet and a dill pickle from the US.
2.) The battle! Unlike two years ago when they constructed a make shift bridge to battle on, this year it took place in an old overgrown soccer field. It was a lot easier to see this time and I even managed a few good pictures.



3.) The pottery in the market was fantastic. Unfortunately, at this point in time the last thing I need to be doing is buying something big and fragile to try hauling back to the States. Fortunately, Karina bought something, so I could at least rejoice in her pretty new blue mug :)
In all it was a fun weekend, and included seeing lots of friends that I don't see much of anymore now that I live a whopping 30 minute train ride away. And, of course, they'll all be a whole lot busier now that school is back in.
Of course there are other things I've been doing to occupy my time besides the weekend travel. I've been taking pictures of mushrooms of course. Not that I've really changed my feelings about mushrooms, but there are so many different kinds here and I'm pretty fascinated by them.




To my knowledge, none of the above photographed mushrooms are edible. I think it's funny that the red ones are sort of the definitive image of a mushroom, and yet they're very poisonous. I just always picture a cute little forest mouse sitting under them. Guess I wouldn't want to eat the mouse either...
These little beauties, on the other hand, are most definitely edible.

I whipped up these delectably delicious cookies yesterday and the whole family has been enjoying them. Good to know I can still make the classics. I made Mac and Cheese last week as well. Nice.
On a final note, I've also been taking some serious time to work on my literary achievements. Not only have I been reading a lot, but I've also been writing and have made it past the 100 page mark! Pretty impressive since I couldn't even begin to tell you the last time I did that. Not since High school when I actually managed to complete two novels. So perhaps the old dream is not as dead as it may have appeared for several years...it remains to be seen if anyone will want to actually read it, but there's always hope. So while everyone else is heading back to school, at least I'm finding some way to make myself useful, or perhaps it's better to say, to keep myself busy...

Small Obsessions...

Recently I've become a bit fixated on DM. I don't know what it is about the place that draws me. Something about those rows of colorful cleaning products and beauty supplies. I can just wander around the little store here in Marianske Lazne for ages.
I first went in a couple weeks ago looking for toothpaste, or maybe just a place to pass some time. A place outside the cold rainy weather that has been a blight on me most of the so called summer.
As I walked the aisles it just felt so fresh. Everything was so new and bright. It's amazing the power of marketing as well. I found that I wanted to put these things in a bag and carry them away with me. Somehow just possessing them would bring a little bit of that purity and newness into my life as well.
I'd been in other DMs in Cheb and the like, but there was something about this one that just made me want to stare at the products, to run my finger across the plastic bottles, to try for a hint of the perfume on the testers, to ponder what it would be like to use this, that or the other thing.
I ended up there long than anticipated because there was no one to let me back in the house, so I figured I might as well. I ended up creating a little wish list of excuses to come back to the store, and finally left with the toothpaste and a bottle of lychee-watermelon energy water. Unfortunately it tasted more of artificial watermelon than of lychee, and I can't say it gave me much energy, but it was worth a try.
Several days later I was back. This time to stare at the bottles of nail polish on the wall. I have four or five bottles of polish that I've been carting around the world with me for quite some time now. It's mostly for my toes. I started painting my toe nails around the end of high school. Generally, I've stuck to really mild colors. Silver, opalescent pink, lavender, and one type that perfectly matched the carpet of my apartment (almost called it a flat after so many years...) in Albany. I think it has something to do with the fact that I've looooooong hated feet in general, and my own feet in particular. By covering the nails in something light and peaceful it helped to negate some of their ickyness, at least on the surface and to casual observers passing by me when I'm wearing flip flops or sandals. But last summer I had a pedicure in Pasadena and opted for a lovely shade of blue. It inspired me. It somehow made my feet stand out as something other than my feet. Not anything beautiful or particularly likable even, but at least less repulse than usual. I'd tried a dark blue that I had with me about a month ago, but it was a bit too much. It needed a subtler touch, so I spent a considerable amount of time perusing the shiny glass bottles of vibrant colors, looking for just the right one. In the end, I did find a nice sparkly sort of turquoise-ish blue. The funniest bit is that, when I went to show it to Tammy this past weekend, she had bought the shade lighter that I had also been going back and forth between. Who'd a thunk?
The weather has been extra bad this week, temperatures only going up to the low teens (which would be like the lower 50's) so I haven't been back in a while. I've pretty much decided my next purchase will be some sort of cleansing mask. It's rather hard to decide on the best one with my language skills, but the desire to somehow do something good for my skin is prompting me to head back to that lovely store...
(Note: you really should check out the link. It'll take you directly to photos of the type of store in question and you can enjoy that brand new feeling too :)

My Neck of the Woods

For the past few weeks my life has fallen into a pattern. When the weather is good, it can be quite positive. When the weather is not so good, it's rather problematic. I guess when I was a kid I had slightly different ideas about things. I remember a time when I was ALWAYS hot. Mom had to put a limit on when I could wear shorts. I would eagerly check when the thermometer when I was languishing in the heat, only to be disappointed that it was not yet 72 degrees, and therefore shorts were a no go. But since my back breaking experience in 1992, my life changed to where I was far more likely to be cold, and my real love of the sun grew and grew.
All the same, I've been outside for several hours, rain or shine, reading or writing in my journal. I've definitely made up for all the time that I was missing out on reading during this year, and have already finished two books, with a third (over 600 pages long) almost finished as well. While I know I should really be working on my own writing (and have written more than 30 pages on a story myself thus far) it's been great to let myself escape into the stories of others, getting a feel for different styles of literature. The three books I've read, The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L Sayers, and now Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy, are all very different in style and character development which really helps me to come up with new ideas for what I'm working on.
Anyhow, yesterday, when I was on my way home, I was suddenly inspired to start taking some pictures. So here is a little glimpse into the places I've been wandering on a daily basis.


Both of the benches here are ones I've sat on for my little reading writing times.


There are a couple of different Colonnades here in town. On days when the weather is quite rainy I spend a lot of time here in this one. There are some benches under the roof, and not usually very many people, so it works out nicely. And right now the flowers are particularly lovely. I'll admit, I went a little silly and took some self portraits as well. Yes, I'm still a poser.



From here I wandered down the path toward home. As I've said before there are a lot of springs here. I wanted to get a picture of these little stairs down to the spring, but had to walk on slippery stones across the creek to get there. I was a bit nervous about the way, but managed not to slip and drop my camera. It amused the little old lady walking by with her dogs.

I also decided to enjoy one of the springs. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the water, but I do try on occasion for my health and all :)




And then I continued along and took a few more as I left the park.


This next one I took for Julie, even though I'm not sure she ever checks my blog. Mom, you might have to make sure she gets a load of this one, seeing as how she loves that green glimmer on a gray rainy day...
These last two are from the way up to the house once I come out of the park. I'm always intrigued by the mirrors, and I love the name of the street because it's the same as my birthday ;) Kinda nice having my birthday be a national Czech holiday as well as a common street name!

So I hope you've enjoyed this little drift with me...and I'm definitely hoping the sun comes back by the weekend as the internet so sweetly promised me this morning...