Friday, November 30, 2012

Fun Photo(s) Friday

076
Why is he so mad? What has that poor car done? Why?! WHY?! (Kudos  for the correct spelling , a rarity)



And the big news of the day...


078
Another classic example... "Army Fear." Good stuff.


080
In case you couldn't tell what was in the little baggy. Growing up so fast!

Me: Hejjo, are you sure you don't want to put the tooth under your pillow for the tooth fairy?

Hejjo: Yeah, I'm sure. I want to keep this one because it's my first.

Me: Well, you could write her a note and ask her nicely to leave it for you.

Hejjo: That just doesn't seem fair. She leaves me some money but doesn't t get to take the tooth? I would feel bad asking her to do that.

Me: I understand. We'll save this one then.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

In the basement with Felix

Me: Felix, you hold this basket while I put the clean clothes in it.

Felix: OK. But I'm a little afraid to be down here. I'm afraid of that thing we saw, that moved, remember?

Me: Don't worry Felix, I'm with you, and maybe we can look around and figure out what it was.

Felix:  Do you they have panthers in Poland?

Me: Hmmm...  I think panthers like to live where it's a bit warmer, so probably not.

Felix: Do they have crabs in Poland?

Me: Well, crabs like to live in sand, usually near the ocean, so maybe they have some in North Poland, on the coast, but probably not in Krakow.

Felix: Well, I just can't think of what else it could have been!


075






Friday, November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving Day

 It was a success! Everyone loved the food, as foreign as some of it was to our Polish family, they deemed it delicious and even offered to make a few of the dishes themselves for next year's gathering, with the aid of a recipe or two. 


 I didn't make my own cranberry sauce because we couldn't find frozen cranberries anywhere in the store. Martin ground our cloves by hand. If you need a meat thermometer go to IKEA first to get one, don't bother looking anywhere else. If you need a whole turkey go straight to Stary Kleparz. They will have one waiting for you and will offer a "Happy Thanksgiving" on your way out. A reminder that you are not the only American in Krakow attempting to recreate the most important of holiday feasts. It made me feel a little less lonely for home knowing that.

 Everything  from the pie crust to the gravy, was made by me, with my own two hands and with a lot of help from my good friend, butter. And of course, Martin, who was sent out on on wild goose chase after another in search of the final lingering ingredients.


Thank you for all of the comments on my last post and personal emails giving advice and offering luck for our first Thanksgiving here in Poland. It gave me a much needed boost of confidence and a bit of motivation to make it all work out.  And it did!



068

Monday, November 19, 2012

The Thanksgiving Hunt begins and a trumpet solo.

I'm pretty sure that if the title meant that I was actually going out to shoot my own turkey, the task would be less daunting then what we are about to embark upon.

Gathering the fixin's for a good ol' American Thankgiving. With ye ol' blog writer as the sole cook. Some of you just gasped. That's ok.

We need to talk. About Thanksgiving ingredients and how lots of them just don't exist here, or if they do, they are hiding in some far off corner of some abandoned Lidl or Biedronka or Tesco or Segros or Makro or Kuchnie Swiata or Alma or Carrefour or Real or Lewiatan... am I missing one... oh yeah, Zabka, or any other obscure, or not so obscure member of the above grocery store chains.


I plan on making 4 side dishes, two desserts, and one turkey.

-mashed potatoes
-sweet potato casserole (with the sugar and the what not and the deliciousness baked in)
- broccoli cheese casserole
- stuffing (fancy stuffing with sausage and nuts and cranberries)
- cranberry sauce

-maybe some rolls

-punpkin pie
-apple pie

- any turkey that will fit in my oven that is slightly larger than an average microwave...God help us.

The list:

Canned pumpkin... I've given up on this one entirely and plan on roasting the pumpkin on our front porch and making my own gosh darn pumpkin puree for pies and cookies. It is NOT a complete Thanksgiving unless there is some form of that orange gourd somewhere on the table. It will not stand! Canned pumpkin  Poland  Look into it, I promise you won't regret it.

Nutmeg. A spice, usually in the ground variety. I know they have it in the whole variety. But then do you just grate it? Process it? The whole thing or just the nut? Gotta have it. Don't know how to get it. Would like to have some of it. Need it by Thursday.

Brown sugar. Ok, I'm cheating here because we do think we have found brown sugar. Alma came through on that one but I haven't opened the box yet. Kuchnie Swiata has it at an absurdly expensive price if all else fails. Another product that I am completely shocked Poland doesn't have everywhere. Their sugar aisle has every kind of raw and natural sugar you could want. It has every kind of flavored sugar you could want. But no brown sugar (the kind with molasses). Why, Poland? Why?

Velveeta. Honestly, I would be both ecstatic and  a little disappointed if Poland actually had Velveeta. Just a smidge of dignity can keep this heart attack inducing processed cheese product off the shelves and at the cost of a little of my own dignity, I might pay upwards of 20-30 bucks to have it for my broccoli casserole. (and queso... ya'll, I just forgot the name "queso"... and had to Google the words..."Mexican cheese dip"... to remember what it's called... what is happening to me???!!!) Velveeta. Stat!

Turkey. Only at the butcher will I find a whole turkey because in Poland, I have been informed, turkey's only come out "around the holiday's." When asked for a specific date we were told... 3rd week in December. Clearly "the holidays" in Poland are about a month behind. Although their holiday decor is already up and Christmas lights are twinkling, just like back home.

Jellied Cranberry sauce. I'm not even gonna ask. ( I want the kind with the lines and indention's from the can. The kind that comes out of the can in one big log...mmm...cranberry log...)

Wish me luck!

On a completely different note, but with perhaps the same amount of entertainment quality...

I dedicate this video to my friend Lacey. Martin's cousins came over the other night and showed us this on Youtbe ( all three of them are concert musicians). I don't know what this means about what Polish people think about America, Americans, beauty pageants, American musical talent, or anything having to do with choreography. Just a long list of thoughts on all that. Anyway, I dedicate this, once again, to Lacey. Because she and I were in band together in the 4th and 5th grade. She played the trumpet, I played the clarinet. And while we never got much further beyond those two years I know for a fact that she could have done a better job than this young lady. But a more comforting fact is that if this had been her she would never have been caught dead in that outfit or that performance thereby saving all you from what you are about to experience.

I'm sorry.


Now if you'll excuse me. I have a pumpkin to disembowel and roast. Because that's what we do around here at 10pm on a Monday night.


Sunday, November 18, 2012

Where we live: Before and After edition

Every time I talk to a family member on Skype for the first time they ask to see the house. I forget that none of my family has ever been here. I think my brother-in-law was in Krakow in 1997, and maybe my youngest brother spent a day here when studying abroad in Italy. I don't know. Other than that, none of my family has made it to Poland ever. And certainly none of them has ever been to Martin's family home. And neither have most of you...

The top floor of the house, the top apartment, was used as the boys area when Martin lived here int eh early 90's. After his family moved to America it became a sort of landing pad for members of the family who were in between homes, or studying, and then, of course, reserved for Martin's family during the summers they returned to Poland for long visits. So, the upstairs, where we live, has never really been treated as a full time family home. It has served this purpose, but never for more than a year or two at a time and otherwise it has been just extra rooms for sleeping, until now.

I'm saying all this to soften the blow of what the rooms looked like before we fixed them up. Just in case anyone was wondering. All of the before pictures were taken the first week we were here.



Here we enter the apartment.

Before: That is one looooong and narrow hallway.

This picture is taken from the other end. Rugs, that's it.

"Front room"

That little the door in the center of the room is to a small toilet and sink area. It smells like death so we don't really use it. But it's nice to have in a pinch. Surprisingly not that big a deal to only have one bathroom for our whole family.

Kitchen:



After:

Lot of onions. Lot of potatoes.


Living Room
Before:



In between:


After:
I love the color on the walls. Just a light, warm blue color. Really pretty. My goal is to hang as few things on the walls as I can to keep the room feeling big and open. Unfortunately this means that there is still a bit of an echo which can also make it feel a little less cozy.



The Malm  thingy turned into a art area for the kids. They love this space and so do I. They spend so much time there now, coloring, cutting and pasting. Those buckets are supposed to hang in the kitchen I think. I don't know. But they hold all the colored pencils and glue and staplers and beads, etc.

Bookshelves: Not many adult books unfortunately. Al of those are still packed in Texas waiting for our forever home.


Lina and Kacio's room
Before:  Looks a lot like a jail cell. Felt a lot like a jail cell.


After: Still very much like a jail cell. With two little inmates, constantly fighting over who can wake the other one up first.



Lina's princess bed. 


Boys' Room
Before:

After:










Bathroom. I only have an "after" picture. But you can just imagine it completely empty.



The catch-all room. Two fatal flaws make this room basically a huge closet and storage space. 1) too small for a bedroom... 2) frakking cold, really cold, as in see-your-breath-when-you-breathe cold no matter how high the temp. on the heater. Insulation issues. I was hoping to turn this into a little studio for sewing and keeping knitting supplies, etc. I even painted it a really pretty light turquoise blue. But I don't know if I'll be able to stand the cold. So, for now, it's a huge storage space.

Before:

After:



Now, I know what most of ya'll are thinking after seeing these pictures... "Wow, she home-school's, "crafts," cooks and bakes, is learning a whole new language and culture, gives birth to 10 + lb. babies AND her house is immaculately clean. How does she do it all?"  I know. I know. I am that amazing......... and so is the lady who came to clean our house right before these pictures were taken, it only took her 5 HOURS to mire through all the muck and grime to unearth our humble abode (sometimes amazing people just don't have time to clean., that's my excuse explanation)... except for our room because it was just too much of a wreck for her to get into...

Our room
Before:
please, everyone take a moment to notice the light fixture. It is still here. Three spotlights hanging from an old retractable cord. I hit my head on it all the time. Sorry, Mike, I know it was totally rad back in your day but now it's totally gross. We can't be bothered to change it. It is just our room after all. Nobody can see our shame in here...



After:
...unless I post it on the internet! What the rest of our house usually looks like. And sort of representative of just about everything I do. A little haphazard and a little sloppy, but at least I try. (Martin "makes" the bed every day. I can't be bothered...what's the point? It's just gonna get messed up again later anyway! ;) No. Seriously.  )

An entirely new looking house brought to you entirely by IKEA, Martin's ability to figure out any instruction booklet they could slang at him, and my ability to  keep the baby from eating all the screws. 


This is where we live folks. 
The end.




Friday, November 16, 2012

Fending off Obesity Friday

If you are feeling a little, oh, I don't know...flabby, on this lovely Friday then I invite you to join us in a little exercise...home school style...

Warm ups.






Get the blood flowing.





Keep that heart rate up (in more ways than one).







Don't forget your core.








*And when you've completed your workout, make sure and drink lots and lots of...





*Translation... Water.

Happy Weekend to you all. Tomorrow... Before and After pictures!

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Some things.

We were walking in a little town today called Dobczyce. On the sidewalk in front of us was a dog with no owner, chewing on the raw leg of a pig, hoof and all.*

An entire line of cars was being held up - beginning with a bus and a concrete truck - by an old, old, old, man, on a bicycle. This was funnier than the dog with the pig leg. You had to be there.

I have not gone on a single outing in the car here without seeing a man urinating in public. Most of them were drunk, I hope.

And yet I don't hope. You see a lot of drunk people here. Mostly men. And they are everywhere. It's not necessarily because Poland has more alcoholics than other countries, I don't know and don't care to find out the stats on that. It's just because there are more people out and about I suppose. You just see more of life here. And that life includes men who are drunk my 11am on a Thursday morning. It's sad. Sigh.

And speaking of  drunks and other things you wish your children didn't see on a daily basis... billboards here are scan.da.lous. Scandalous. And you know whats even funnier. Twice now I have seen entire ads on billboards either be officially censored with signs over the offensive body parts, or simply scratched out by the locals. Awesome. Awesome, I say! Good for them for standing up for they believe in. Both ads were ones that I was personally hoping the children wouldn't see, but alas they are exactly the ones they giggle and point at. Double sigh.

And speaking of Puritanism being in my bones, what with being American and all that. Can you believe that crazy election in America?! Clearly Puritanism is not running rampant over there. Triple sigh.

Now that I'm all "sighed" out I will replace the sighs with an "awww."


Someone turned two yesterday...



  An apple pie, with a flame-kissed crust. Because we have a lot of apples.


And there could only be one thing better than that to make me go "awww" and that would be a new niece or nephew... WHICH I HAVE!!!

And she is the most beautiful, tiniest thing,I have ever seen over Skype in my life. She will not be tiny when I get to hold her for the first time but that doesn't mean she can't wear my hand knits or get to know me over the computer gosh darn it.

Spoiler alert, Teresa, but I had to put a photo of *something* I made. 


*GGGGRRRRBBBBLLLLEEEESSSSS... Martin is MAKING me add that *of course* it was a a pig leg form a butcher's shop and the owner of the shop had given it to the dog as a treat. It was not as if, and I quote, "the dog had gone out and slaughtered some pig and dragged it's carcass onto the main square and everyone was ok with that." It is a regular country after all.



Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Internet troubles.

I have many things to post. Pictures and words together. But I can't get any pictures to upload, the internet is just so slow right now ad Martin has to have it for work, so I can't bog it down. I hope to work on it later this week.

Peace be with you.