"But don't you get bored?"

One of my internet-buddies, Terry Border (wire-manipulator-extraordinaire), published an interesting discussion on his blog about a phrase he finds to be particularly annoying : "They must have too much time on their hands." You see this line pretty regularly in response to interesting pieces of art, video, and music people post on-line. I hadn't really noticed before he pointed it out, but he's right - it's everywhere. I don't think it's usually meant as an insult, but it does have some pretty sad implications. Terry challenged those of the "too much time" declarations to try using some of their own passive-entertainment time (be it watching tv or surfing online) to create a little content of their own instead of dismissing the work of others.

In response to Terry's post, I wanted to write a little bit about a phrasal-pet-peeve of my own - one that I think comes from a similar mindset: "But don't you get bored?" During the past nearly-three years that I've been a stay-at-home-me, I've heard this line at least once a month, if not more. Each time another friend or acquaintance finds out I don't have a job, this is the response I get. "Aren't you bored?" "Don't you get bored with nothing to do all day?" "You must be so bored - have you had any luck looking for a job?" Each time I hear one of these variations, as well-meaning as I think they are intended to be, it surprises me all over again - the implication being that if you're not working, there isn't much of anything else to do. When did this happen?

I've found the past two years to be much more fulfilling than any in my working life. I now have the time and, even more importantly, the energy to explore things that interest me and to develop my hobbies. I have time to keep up with the chores and errands so C doesn't have to. I have time to focus on our meals. We both have more time for relaxing, we are under much less stress than we were before and we're the healthiest we've been in years. I don't understand how that can be seen as boring.

Despite the recent renewal of interest in craft and cooking and all those other grandmotherly skills our generation shunned just a few years ago, it still seems like most people have few or no hobbies that they pursue on a regular basis. I'm at a difficult point in this post now, where I don't want to come across as smug, but someone's going to think I am anyway, so here we go: more people need to turn off their tvs and step away from their computers for just a few hours a week and spend some time for their brains and bodies. (I'm sorry!) Once you get used to entertaining yourself, I think you come to find it a much more enjoyable way to spend some time. I'm not saying to never watch tv, to never use your computer (pretty sure a certain someone would consider kicking me to the curb for that kind of remark) but I do think it's far too easy to get in the habit of plopping down in front of one (or both) at the end of a long day or in a spare moment and lose yourself. A little tv is fine, a little computer time is good, a few video games are great, too. Sometimes, though, it's nice to do something else.

Confession time: before we moved here, C and I had quite the World of Warcraft habit going. We told ourselves that it was okay because we played together, so it was bonding time. We played with our friends, so it was social time. More than anything though, it's escape and it shouldn't have become nearly as much a part of our lives as it did. If I had spent half the time I spent playing that game practicing my banjo, I would be able to play that thing by now. If I spent half that time writing, I would have a passel of stories in my hands. If we spent a quarter of it exercising, we wouldn't recognize ourselves. It went from an occasional diversion to our only diversion... and ultimately, for us the only answer was to quit entirely - it isn't one of those games we could play casually.

So now, in the wake of my gaming addiction, in the aftermath of employment, what do I do when I'm feeling bored? Here's a small section from my 'always something to do' list:

Food stuff:

• Cook something to freeze
• Look for new recipes
• Read about new ingredients
• Send a favorite recipe to family and friends
  

Creative stuff:

• Draw a picture
• Sew something
• Knit something
• Crochet something
• Take apart something you made but never used - arrange materials for reuse
• Write a story or a joke or a list - anything
  

Social stuff:

• Write an email (a long one - not just a couple lines)
  
• Write a letter
• Write a postcard
• Ask random questions: learn new things about a friend or family member
• Browse online and start bookmarking gifts for future birthdays and holidays
• Play with your pet or pets
  

Healthy stuff:

• Go for a walk
• Stretch
• Do a fitness dvd
• Eat a piece of fruit
• Go for another walk

Indulgent stuff:

• Take a long bath
• Take a nap
• Sit in the sun and relax
  

Random stuff:

• Learn a new skill or relearn an old one(think girl scout/boy scout stuff you know you forgot - knot tying, cloud identification, first aid etc)

Stuff you'll be glad you did once it's done:

• Deep clean one small thing
• Quick clean everything (I'm a big fan of putting a cd on and spending one song per room seeing how much I can get done)
  
• Go through a cabinet or closet and find things to give or throw away

Sorry to have gotten so long-winded on this... turns out I had more to say than I thought! Anyway, I'm done now but would love to know what you think about it - and if you have any suggestions for the "always stuff to do" list, I would love to see them in the comments. I'm going for a walk.

It's oh so quiet - again

My parents are now safely back in Pennsylvania and I have to admit our apartment is way too quiet. Taco and Waffle keep looking for their grandma to play with the laser pointer with them and I keep looking for the bags of pastries dad would bring home from his morning walks - we were spoiled!

We started off their two week visit with a sunny trip to Mt Moléson for some sledding. Before sledding, we took the cable car all the way to the top to enjoy a breathtaking view. The weather was perfect and clear - mountains in every direction. We grabbed a couple drinks and enjoyed the sunshine while watching the skiers and snowshoers. As we headed back down to start sledding, I must admit I had my concerns. When my first hill of the day proved to be more ice than snow, I didn't get any less concerned. After a couple more hills, though, everybody got the hang of it and we all survived despite a couple tumbles, a lot of snow in the face, a lost-then-found glove for C and the incident where I ran over somebody's hand (ouch!).

After a full day of sledding, everyone was starving so we met up with Dani and Steph and headed to Café du Midi for some fondue. We opted for the full three course meal - a plate of local cured meats with bread and butter (Dad proclaimed this greens-less dish 'The best salad ever') followed by fondue with bread and potatoes and ending with meringues and double cream.

We all spent the next day chewing ibuprofen and comparing bruises. On Tuesday, we went to the University to meet up with Dani for lunch and get a tour of his department. Dad was impressed with the University's lecture rooms and took several pictures. We went to the Villars café afterward and enjoyed some nice chocolate and coffees - the dark chocolate with a saffron center was my favorite by far.

On Wednesday, mom and dad and I headed to Zurich for a walking tour in the morning followed by lunch followed by meetings with a colleague for dad and lots of shopping for mom and I. We spent an hour in a huge toy store,where we bought nothing, and followed it up with another hour in an English-language bookstore, where we bought several things. We returned to the station to have some drinks and wait for dad to finish up after which we all headed to dinner.

We had another day of relaxing on Thursday - Chinese carryout and LOST on dvd.

On Friday, mom and dad went to Gruyères to see the cheese museum and walk around the town and castle. Friday night, our friends Oli and Célia brought their two kids and joined us for dinner - chicken tortilla soup, which seemed to be a hit as I had only the smallest dish of soup left over!

On Saturday, mom and dad left early to spend a weekend on the Glacier Express, sipping wine and looking at many many miles of Swiss countryside. They spent a total of ten hours on trains on Friday, but mom said it was the prettiest scenery she's ever seen in her life and now we look forward to taking a ride on it one day. Mom and dad spent an extra day exploring and came back on Monday. We all had raclette for dinner and passed out from cheese-overconsumption.

On Tuesday, Oli took dad to see the fire station here in Fribourg - he came back with a ton of pictures and cool publications.

On Wednesday, mom and dad headed to Thun for more castles and exploration. Thun is one of my favorite places to visit here and I was glad they had a chance to go see it and good weather to enjoy the views. Wednesday night, Joël took dad shooting while mom and C and I stayed home and relaxed.

Thursday night everybody but C, who wasn't feeling well, went to Steph's parents for a delicious Vietnamese dinner - no forks allowed! We gorged ourselves on grilled duck, mushroom omelet, soup, shrimp and a plum dessert. We had a great time, eating and laughing and talking until late and despite the required use of chopsticks, we all left with pleasantly full bellies.

On Friday, we did last minute laundry, shopping and packing. Mom and dad had never had donër kebab so we grabbed some for lunch - it was a hit. Once all the cleaning and packing was done, we stayed up late finishing the last season of LOST and early the next morning, mom and dad were on their way to Munich.

Whew - too much fun for one post!

Resolutions month one - checking in

The problem with February is all our excitement is coming at the end of the month, which is why I've been neglecting the blogging. My parents are here for a visit now and we're having all kinds of adventures, however I'm going to save those stories for another post and spend this one checking in on how I'm doing on the resolution front.

One goal was to read at least one new book per month - that one's been no problem. I read The Year of the Flood in January as my brand new book. I enjoyed it but not nearly as much as Oryx and Crake, its companion book. I thought The Year of the Flood started off much slower and, though I know the sing-songy poem-hymns are supposed to be pretty integral to the story, I found them distracting. Once the new characters in the story introduced began to intermingle with the more familiar characters from Oryx and Crake, I thought the book picked up and got more interesting. Of the two, I think Oryx and Crake is the more re-readable.

In addition to my new book, I also reread Lord of the Flies and Brave New World as I haven't looked at either book in easily sixteen years and was interested to see how well, for me, they've stood up. I remembered large sections of both but was surprised to realize I had completely forgotten both endings - I remembered a ton of detail and names but somehow my brain lost the ends. For February, I've started reading Jim Crace's The Pesthouse but am really finding the writing style to be an obstacle to getting into the story itself. I keep picking up old favorites from my shelf rather than The Pesthouse - I have to really make myself keep going with it.

Enough about books. I still haven't roasted a chicken.

As for my making something weekly, I've done tolerably well. I sent off a little watercolor painting for some friends to hang in their nursery for their soon-to-arrive bebe and I knitted hats for both my parents. I've done some sketching for a project I'm doing with a friend. I have done absolutely no writing at all. I have been practicing my banjo, though. CLAW ham-mer CLAW ham-mer CLAW ham-mer.

Haven't attempted a dessert but that may change soon since my mom brought me a big new cookbook that's really got my brain going, my hands itching, and my tummy growling.

I haven't yet tried to break the walking record but I've been at the gym a ton in preparation... okay, maybe not a ton, but three times a week easily.

As the the three new countries? Knocking two of those out in March - we're heading to Munich in a couple weeks and then I'm off to Milan for an overnight while I happily help Miz Asharah lug her dance-goodies to a workshop.

This one time, I totally spoke some French. Fer real.

And have I learned any German yet? As Mr K would say, in his best "Old Swiss Guy" impression...

NAY NAY NAAAAAAAAY.

What about you? How are your resolutions holding up?

Sledding

Waffle-opolis!

This past weekend we took advantage of both an Easyjet sale and my in-laws' hospitality and hopped a plane to (less-than) sunny Brussels for some frites, waffles, touristing, beer and family togetherness.

We arrived a couple hours later than we had planned thanks to flight delays but all of our travel-stress vanished as we were greeted with a Southwestern-inspired meatloaf and cheesy-chili-rice - mmmm!

The next day we all slept in a bit late. Once everyone was awake and dressed and fed, we ran some errands and did some shopping. We ended up at a huge culinary store that sold pretty much every food-related item available in the history of all things nom-worthy. Behind the butcher counter, a hoof beckoned from the Spanish ham it was still attached to. The muddled scents of the cheese counter almost knocked me blissfully out. Rumor has it the chocolate aisle glows with an inner light and someone mentioned hearing harps while passing through... but I couldn't make it past the cheese and chips and crackers. Among other things, I found red onion chutney kettle chips that were luscious as well as bacon-cream-stuffed crackers that we actually forgot to eat!!!

On Saturday we awoke in a more timely manner as we had "things to do" and "places to see." We figured out the bus and the subway and headed to the downtown area. We checked out the Grand Place before heading to the Musical Instrument Museum, which was really well done. Upon arrival, you're given a pair of headphones. As you walk from exhibit to exhibit, the headphones play bits of music related to the display you're looking at. In an effort to stall on our return to the cold just a bit longer, we had lunch at the museum's restaurant, where Mr K learned that "filet americain" is Belgian-French for "steak tartare" which is Switzerland-French for "MEGA raw cow - moo moo." Mega-tasty raw cow, that is...

After lunch, the parents headed back home to care for the doggies while Mr K and I went off in search of a brewery my touristy book mentioned was worth touring. We only had a vague idea of where to find it, so we did some wandering through some of the more colorful parts of the city before finding it. The first thing that hit me was the smell - like plants and rain and peppery mold, but in a pleasant, nose-tingling way. The tour was self-guided and finished with a taste of two of their beers. I'm not a beer drinker, so Mr K won out on this one as I took a sip of my two beers, made the requisite "yucko" face and passed them to him. We got a tee shirt and a pack of beer to take back and share with the parents and made our way home for dinner - mmmmm veggie soup!

On Sunday, we headed back out in search of the Comic Strip Museum. It was fascinating to see so many original pages by so many different artists - the shrunk-down printed page does not even begin to do justice to the colors and lines and details in these originals. Comics (generally of the non-super-hero variety) seem to be much more popular here. The book shop in our mall has a whole hallway of the large-sized hardback format that is the most popular here. Sadly, they are expensive - usually 15-20 dollars/francs per book - a far cry from the 2.50-4$ soft copies in the US. Despite the price, I'm tempted to pick up a few for the French practice. After the museum, we met a friend who showed off the Mannekin Pis before taking us to a pub, where Mr K tried a variety of beers while I sipped a couple of the fruitier variety. I was interested to find that each beer comes in its very own distinct glass, no two beers alike. Our favorite was the Kwak glass. After a couple hours of sipping and catching up, we went for a short, waffle-punctuated walk before heading home for some hot chili and a rousing loss-er-game of Trivial Pursuit, Ancient Edition. I forgot how much fun that game is, even when you have no idea what the answers are!

The next day we headed back to Switzerland, stopping first at possibly the greatest art supply store I have ever seen in my life. We left with only four new pens, thanks to our already-stuffed backpacks. (Oh yeah - I forgot to mention we took only backpacks this trip - I felt so Euro-backpackerly!) At the airport we took advantage of Switzerland's not being part of the EU to hit duty-free for some chocolates. Back home, we cuddled the cats and collapsed to dream of frites.

And waffles.

Swiss Cookbook "Vegetable Soup"

One of the treats Christmas brought me this year was the fabulous Betty Bossi Swiss Cookbook - in English, even! Betty Bossi, it was explained to me, is sort of like the Swiss equivalent of Betty Crocker - think home-cooked meals that are hard to mess up. The recipes in the book are divided by region and ranked by flags - three flags is what your Swiss grandma might make while one flag is a more modern take on traditional ingredients. Two flags is somewhere between those two. The first thing I did was flip to our region, where this vegetable soup recipe, a three flag, immediately caught me eye. As far as I can tell, this is basically Soupe de Chalet, which we absolutely love. Pasta, cheese, cream, spinach - what's not to love?

Vegetable Soup
Prep time - 40 minutes or so

1 TBSP butter
1 leek, white and light green thinly sliced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 kohlrabi, diced (I substituted a waxy potato, diced small)
1 carrot, diced
2 cups vegetable stock
2 ounces dried macaroni (about a quarter cup, uncooked) [I used whole wheat - it was tasty]
2 tablespoons milk
1 can of white beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup cream
3 1/2 ounces of baby spinach
2 ounces grated Gruyere (It's all about the cheese, so definitely spring for the Gruyere... though, honestly, cheddar would probably be nice, too - just not American Swiss cheese)

Melt butter. Cook leek and onion over medium-low until softened. Add kohlrabi (or potato) and carrots. Add stock and turn up heat. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about ten minutes. Add pasta and milk and bring back to a boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer for another ten minutes. Uncover and add beans, cream, spinach, cheese and warm through over low heat.

Season with pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

PS I changed the measurements to a more US-friendly version... if you want the original grams and mls, let me know!

Resolutions are so boring...

... nonetheless, all two people who read this blog are about to be subjected to mine. Honestly, I've never been much for resolutionifying and this is probably the first time I've taken the trouble to write any down in years. The main reason I'm writing them here is to remind myself - feel free to send reminders of your own if (when) you catch me slacking off.

I want to read a new book every month - fiction or non-fiction, but I'm not talking grocery-store-best-sellers. I'll try to remember to tell you what I've picked and, afterwards, if it's any good.

I am going to roast a chicken - it's silly that I've never tried, but it's true! Feel free to send any tips and recipes if you have them.

I'm going to find something to blog about at least twice a month. I'll try to make it interesting.

I'm going to create something every week - be it a doodle, painting, crafted project or piece of writing. When my whatever doesn't turn out perfectly, I'm not going to worry about it.

I am going to hunt down and perfect "my" from-scratch go-to dessert. Then I'm going to make it all the time. Again, suggestions welcome.

I'm going to break my long-walk record of 12 miles in one go... 18 would be nice.

I'm going to visit three countries I haven't been to yet. (Already have two planned, so maybe this one is too easy?)

I AM GOING TO START SPEAKING SOME FRENCH ALREADY. Enough stalling. Maintenant!

I'm going to try to learn a little German while I'm at it because I should. Genau.

I'm sure I'll think of some more - and you?

Edit#1:

I'm going to make a skirt - and actually wear it.