Don't Judge

Happy Friday to you all, wherever you are in the world!  It's a beautiful one in sunny Vienna and I'm happy to share with you my inspiration for the day from Kālidāsa, the 4th Century writer:

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Look to this day: For it is life.  Are you inspired yet?

Now, don't judge, but below are the first few pictures taken with our new dslr camera!  I'm still trying to get used to it -- and I've been told that it takes some time -- so please be forgiving in your observations.  Fear not, though!  I'm motivated, and most inspired, to continue developing my craft of photography and in time (I hope) we'll all see some improvement.

Orchids in front of the dark night

Grand Hotel Wien

"Life of Pi" on the Kindle, "Gregs Tagebuch Von Idioten umzingelt!" in classic book form.

Empty cup of tea outside of Blueorange

 David's first picture :-)

Ode to April Rain

We've been experiencing proper spring-like weather these past few weeks.  One day it's cold and rainy, then the next, it's sunny and warm.  I love how predictable the unpredictability of spring can be, don't you?  It keeps me on my toes.

 April Rain Song

By Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.

The new painted egg we bought this year to add to our Easter tree

Saturday morning's leftovers

Vienna City Marathon 2012

Vienna City Marathon 2012

David and I are playing in a slowpitch softball league this season

Can't put away my fuzzy winter slippers just yet!

My purple friend.  I love how she glows in the morning light.

Have you guys heard of the Tyler Candle Company, the small family run business from Tyler, TX?  David's little sister gave us one of their candles when we were last in the States.  I am officially obsessed.  The candle scents are incredible.

On another note, have you all read the NYT's The 45 Places to Go in 2012 article yet?  Vienna's number 24! 

When I'm Alone

Being alone isn't so bad.  It's being lonely that's tough.  I've been alone this week since David's in London, but I've kept myself busy enough not to get too lonely.  "Busy" to me, looks like this:

Lesson planning

Fun activities for learning consonant digraphs

My children's book library.  It's small, but something.

And while I plan, oftentimes, I have a movie on in the background.

I certainly don't eat lunch out every day, but yesterday I spoiled myself at Cafe Wortner :-)

Ich übe mein Deutsch mit einem deutschen Buch.

While I was enjoying a Melange and my book, the city maintenance men came by and turned on the fountain.  I guess we're officially out of the freezing temps.  Spring is here!

Fortunately, my main squeeze comes home tonight and then we begin what promises to be an epic weekend.  I wish you all a fabulous couple of days too!

A Winter Weekend

How was your weekend, friends? David and I had a super relaxing weekend (mine actually seems to be an extended one since I'm in bed today with a weird dizzy feeling). On Saturday we went to Vienna's main public library for the first time. I've been to my district's branch many times, but its selection of children's books is quite small and I needed to find some more great children's literature for my tutoring sessions. The children's section (Kirango) at the main library is sensational, however! The English language section isn't anything special, but wow, their German language section is the cat's meow.

What a fun Saturday this little one was having!

After the library we went to the Burg Kino and saw the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. How amazing was Rooney Mara? But how disappointing was David Fincher's film adaption of Stieg Larson's book? Oh well. This always happens with books and movies. We should have known this would be no exception.

Sunday was equally relaxing. We only left the house once to take a short walk around Karlsplatz. Inside the apartment we watched the very last episode of our favorite TV series of all time, The Wire.

I really don't know what to say about this series. I feel like a part of me died yesterday. What will we do now without Bubble's sweet heart, Jimmie's creative absurdity, Lester's exceptional police work, or Omar's profound observations on life and money? How did you all cope when you finished the series

All in the game, yo. All in the game. ~Omar (best character in The Wire)

I don't think I would last very long in the game. ~David (feet pictured above on the couch)

Holiday Highlights

Happy 2012, friends!  How was your holiday break?  David and I had an epic 3-week trip home for the holidays.  It goes without saying that just being in the presence of my family was the highlight of the trip, but here are some memorable moments worth spotlighting:

Crissmass Cup 2012

Mexican food

The green light bulb in church

Mom's bluebirds

Dad's breakfasts

Kimmy's new glasses

Mexican food
Grove Park Inn, Asheville, NC

Malaprop Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, NC

Lydia's cross-stitch

Mattress on the living room floor

Andrew's poached eggs

Kisses from Lilly in the hot tub

The Wire

Meeting Hilton

The Richardson's Party

Getting lost in Decatur, GA

Family "Renunin"

Mexican food

Her family

His family (with our new little addition!)

The Spa at Grove Park Inn, Asheville, NC

The famous family light bulb (only imagine it green, with a few more silicon spikes).

I hope your holidays were full of good times too.  Und ich wünsche ihnen einen guten Rutsch und ein gesundes neues Jahr 2012!

Warmth, in all it's forms

What makes me happy?  Especially when the weather turns cold and wet?  Warmth.  In all it's forms. 

Tea or Coffee?  Well, that's not fair question, is it?  I love and need them both.  But this Tea Cosy from Felt, a New Zealand site for handmade goods, makes me feel all warm and toasty inside.  It has inspired me to make the steaming cup that I'm sipping as I blog right now.

[ Source: felt ]

Yoga.  One of my best friends from my Deutschkurs is a yoga teacher.  She's has one of the biggest hearts in the world and is the BEST yoga teacher I've ever had.  She's been giving me and a couple friends from class lessons over the past few months.  I'm totally hooked now.  The day we get together is my favorite day of the week.  

Here we are after yesterday's lesson in Stadtpark.  It was forecasted to be the last warm day before fall really set in so we decided to practice in the park.  Sadly, Noam and Lisa (the 3rd and 4th from the left) are leaving us to move to Israel and this was Noam's last practice (Lisa's will be next week).  We'll miss you guys!   

Tutoring English.  Now that the school year has begun again, I've started back with tutoring!  I get the same high from tutoring that I do from yoga.

Here's where I tutored today.  The Stiftung der Theresianischen Akademie in Wien is a private boarding school governed by public schools laws, which was founded by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1746.

Time with my husband.  While he works hard all the time, David's right in the middle of a couple of very busy weeks at work.  Consequently, we haven't been able to spend much time together, nor we will for a little while longer.  But last Saturday and Sunday, rather than working long hours at the office, he worked from home.  This weekend, he'll be doing the same.  But even if we can't be hiking, or cycling, or sitting in a cafe together, just being in the same space with him makes me feel warm inside.  Cheesy, but true.

Fall, winter, spring, or summer, I'm lucky to have a lot of warmth in my life.

Vienna has turned cold and wet.  But, warm still.

Lazy weekend turns very exciting Monday!

Do you enjoy lazy weekends?  I love a good, lazy Saturday & Sunday.  David, on the other hand, prefers being busy and productive all seven days of the week, with the occasional Saturday or Sunday (never both) to pause and catch up on his reading.  This weekend, however, we stayed close to home the entire two days.  We acted like vegetables, laid like broccoli. 

In any event, this was a particularly good weekend to be at home.  While I could not care less about American football, there was a particularly interesting game being broadcast on Europe's ESPN America network.  Our undergraduate Alma Mater played their bitter rival, the University of Florida, in the Swamp.  The University of Tennessee lost, which is never any fun, but it was pretty cool for me and David to see the Vols on TV in Vienna. 

During the game, I started a new cross stitch project.

Saturday night, we made another tasty dish from Mollie Katzen's healthful vegetarian book, The New Moosewood Cookbook.  Her Broccoli Noodle Casserole is perfect for Vienna's chilly fall.

And Sunday, we cleaned, cleaned, cleaned,... 

... because we have two very special visitors arriving in Wien today!  My mom and sister land at 5:35pm tonight!  Ahhhhhhh!

Schlafen Sie gut!

Good news! Our bed and mattresses arrived yesterday! We've been sleeping on an air mattress since the end of February (that's got to be some kind of world record!) and the inevitable slow leak materialized this weekend, so it was perfect timing that the deliveryman appeared yesterday afternoon. Our goods were originally scheduled to arrive at the end of April, but for some reason (which we're still not completely sure of) we were informed that the delivery date was pushed back to mid-June. Well it's mid-June now (almost 4 months later!) and our beautiful bed is settling in and becoming acquainted with its new room.

Grüne Erde (Green Earth) is the manufacturing company from whom we ordered our bed, mattresses, and nightstands. All of their products are hand-crafted from local, organic, and sustainable materials and produced right here in Austria or our friendly neighbor, Germany. The company uses only high-quality textiles from natural fibers in their hand-sewn mattresses which are good for humans and the environment. Their products are simple and uncomplicated and make me feel like a calmer, better, fresher person.

If I had all the money in the world, I'd buy all of my products from this store. Well, first I'd donate all the money necessary to animal shelters around the world so that pound puppies had a more comfortable life while waiting for their families to take them home. Then, I'd buy monthly plane tickets for all of my family members to visit us in Vienna, and I'd fund research to find a cure for Crohn's Disease. I'd also sponsor See Beautiful. After all this - in addition to feeding the hungry, eliminating Global Warming, and replacing global conflict with cooperation (with money, right?) - I'd buy my living, beauty, and fashion products from Grüne Erde.

Alas, I don't have all the money in the world. What I do have though is a loving and brilliant husband, two soul sisters who happen to share my blood, supportive and generous parents, interesting and intelligent friends, a warm home, delicious Apfeltascherl, and a bed from Grüne Erde.

I wish you a good night's sleep tonight. As for us, we'll be hunkering down and sleeping all weekend long!

Just assembled!

All dressed up and ready to be slept in!

Bread Pudding

Lindsay here!

Thursday was an unusually chilly day and I had a craving for something warm, comforting, and homemade. First, I thought about vegetable soup. Then after thinking through the preparation process I decided that all the chopping and dicing required for this dish was too much work for me. Not to mention, the root veggies I would need to buy for the dish are no longer in season and therefore pretty expensive here. So, I moved on.

I was flipping through my beloved source of vegetarian food inspiration, The New Moosewood Cookbook, and came upon it. "It" was Bread Pudding. . . and oh. my. gosh. . . scrumptious! This "poor man's pudding" was just the thing to warm us up inside and fill our home with the aroma of Christmastime (without emptying the wallet!).

This is a fantastic vegetarian cookbook with recipes that focus on whole and local food that are simple, healthy, and sustainable. (If I can follow the instructions, anyone can!)

First time really baking in our convection oven. Sure, we've heated things up using the microwave, grill, and oven functions, but this was the real test. Everything worked flawlessly.

For my Austrian friends: I couldn't find vanilla extract at Billa, but I did find this vanilla Bourbon sugar packet. It was either this or scrape a real vanilla bean. I decided to make things interesting and throw the sugary-whiskey packet into the mix (I compensated and used little less sugar).
I must say, the combination aroma of cinnamon, nutmeg, and Bourbon was almost as good as the taste. Let me know if you want the recipe!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Added on June 13, 2011

I've had a couple of requests for the recipe. It's posted online here with permission from the author. I encourage you to consider buying the book, though. Mollie Katzen has beautifully illustrated and hand-written each recipe herself. Just flipping through it makes me want to sit down and doodle. The book also makes for a very special gift. (Mine was a gift and I think of my friend every time I use it.) And, if that doesn't convince you, maybe the fact that the book was listed by the New York Times as one of the top ten best-selling cookbooks of all time will.

Guten Appetit!

A Room for Guests

Your room is ready! We hope you like it. Bitte kommen Sie!

No More Piles of Clothes

We're officially settling in! Our closets and our couch finally arrived on Friday. It took 3 months, but everything arrived safely and was assembled in less than 3 hours. Now we can pick our clothes up from the floor and put them away, properly, in their place.

Closet #1: Guestroom closet. That's for you folks!

Closet #2: Our closet

The couch! We thought we ordered a tan colored sofa, but it arrived silver. We actually like it better so I guess, "all's well that end's well."

Now, we just need a mattress and a bed. They've been ordered -- back in February! -- but they're not scheduled to arrive until mid-June. Oh, Austria. You and your delivery time-frames are special.