| New Year's day, 11.17 a.m. I just got up, took my ferritin pills and thought about that tradition in some countries that you dress up in all new clothes on New Year's day. Then I told myself that I'm too lazy for that now, put on my dressing gown, sat on the sofa and turned on my computer (love laptops, love wireless internet). Somewhat over an hour ago, my hubby kissed me goodbye to go to the gym, first session, an attempt to rid himself of those marriage pounds. That's his resolution for this year. Accordingly, mine should be to cook less. I suppose we'll just have to see about that.  New Year's morning, hubby out, time to reflect! (Not that I have the time, rather that I feel like abusing the one I have for it.) One should probably do that on the last day of the year, but we didn't get to it. My aunt invited us to the New Year's Eve lunch concert at the Zurich Tonhalle (one of the best concert halls around what concerns accustics), so we spontaneously spent 3 hrs. on a cultural highlight and I had promised to prepare dinner for the party that night, so we had to shop and cook a little bit. And I had to finish making a gift for a friend who'd made us a so-called "advent calendar". Funny, yesterday, I wondered whether Americans know that tradition. It's a lot of fun and usually quite an effort. You can do it to almost any extent. Basically, you can open a "door" every day of December, until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (depending on the traditions). Sometimes, there's just a picture behind every door, some people put a verse or a story, some put gifts (of all sizes). One year, I decorated 24 matchboxes and filled them with tiny stuff. Another year, I took flowerpots and decorated them (dog head, mouse, aircraft carrier, one had a fisher sitting on the rim, fishing for fish in the pot, a paper flower, etc. This year, I made paper bags of all sizes, decorated them with Calvin snowmen and a few other funny winter drawings and filled them with different kinds of sweets, games and other fun stuff. And my friend did the same for Tino and me. Highlight: earrings from Venice, made of the famous Murano glass. Fancy, Venice is just around the corner here! (Loving Europe!!) Looking back on last year: rough, very rough study stuff, wrote 3 papers in 1 year (madness here, difficult subjects, linguistics isn't that much fun and that's why I'm studying translation and not some fancy shmancy science of languge), worked at a self-service restaurant in a training center for two summer months (never again), worked on my marriage (we're doing just fine!  ), made some money on a great job that pretty much allows me to choose when I want to work and that I can do at home (love my profession for that, all you need is a laptop and internet), got two nephews (girls session is over, it's the boys now!), one on September 8th, the other on Santa Clause day (December 6th) and the older one is growing like bamboo, while the younger one still is super cute  . My parents moved back to Basel (lovely appartment, love it there) where I had spent my kindergarten and elementary school years, said goodbye to a very good school friend who'd failed to pass the 1st year twice (very, very sad she's gone!!!), spent one week in a new vacation house of my uncle's, up in the Alps, great place, so much to do in the area (hiking, walking, seeing, bathing in hot springs... with snow in September) (in a village where they speak Rumantsch, the most important swiss minority language, said to be dying out, but they keep it alive), loved my hubby, learned about God... Plans for this year: Passing the exams for the last sem, ester (first school thing this year), managing to write a Bachelor paper, finishing my studies, find a job, start saving money for... a house, one day... and ITALY! We're finally going back to Italy, seeing my hubby's relatives, seeing the country, swimming in the see, eating pizza and pasta, buying a new wallet for my hubby, camping, having fun... In 2007, we got married. At the end of the year, we draw Bible verses for the next year. 2008, Tino drew our wedding verse (Psalm 37,5), this year I did. In EN, it's something like "Command your ways onto the Lord and he will do it well." Fancy! When I opened the curtains this morning, a wonderful day welcomed me. It snowed last night (naturally, we were still up to witness it) and today, the sun is shining. I suppose I should do something for my fitness as well and go for a walk. New Year's day, 12.06 p.m. A Happy New Year everybody! |
