food?

when my sister talks about food, she doesn't talk about fruit, vegetables and meat. she asks 'did you buy any protein?' or says 'i don't really eat carbohydrates'. and while i understand it is useful to know what's what and what one needs, i find it a bit odd.

Christmas

so for the first time, i was the person organising Christmas. and i'm glad to say it went off without a hitch! we did things just like when my mother was alive. i wish she could have been there. but all in all, it was great. i'd made enough food for us without having to have left-overs for days, making for a much healthier week. it was pretty perfect. the only downside was not seeing the cousins - after all, we'd celebrated 3 Xmases in a row with them. but we skyped to catch up, which was nice.

the tree

as my sister and father were spending Christmas with me (yeah!!!), i had to get a tree. originally, i was adamant i wanted a real one and had seriously looked into renting one (they then replant it for the following year - you can have the tree 3 years in a row) but as they don't deliver across the border, it was getting really complicated. but i was really unhappy about getting a real tree that had been chopped off as it seems like a complete waste of perfectly good tree (the lungs of the earth after all!), especially for a mere 2 weeks of it being up. and again, the logistics were not made easy by my having quite a small car. 

while all these thoughts were spinning in my head, i went to get some tree decorations. and thought they had some really nice trees. and only realised later on that they were fake. really good fakes. i mean, until then, all the fake trees i'd seen looked terrible. most of them didn't look anything like a tree, other than the general shape. but these ones had needles and all, like the real ones. and it came in a box that fit in my car. perfect. 

the only thing missing was the smell. after all, that's half the fun of a Christmas tree. so i went to the flower shop and got some fresh pine tree branches, which i covered the unnatural looking 'feet' with. worked like a charm.

when my sister and father arrived, i couldn't wait to see how long it would take them to figure out the tree wasn't real. my sister couldn't quite see the point of this one part of the tree but didn't actually work it out until i told her. ditto my father who was even slower on the uptake. despite seeing a part of the branches that is completely unnatural (near the trunk), you could see he was shocked when i told him. 

mission accomplished!

practise dying without a smile!

it was the last improv session of the year. we'd had a pretty good session, all 'end of the world' themed, as it was the last day before the supposed Mayan catastrophe. when i left, our group leader asked me to practise dying without a smile over the holidays. i was a bit surprised cos i hadn't 'died' at all that evening but it's true that it's a lot harder to do in improv than in a play. in a play, there's the build up, the mood, etc. in improv, you have no clue what's going on from one minute to the next and the point is generally to be funny. and i must admit that every time we've suddenly turned serious, the rest of the group's laughter means it's impossible for me to keep a straight face. still lots to learn!

turning left

we weren't many at our last ballroom session of the year, but it was good. we did the usual three dances but this time with loads of music (there's generally more steps practice than dancing to music), basically showing us that we were getting there. we've only just learnt to turn left on the waltz, so we avoided that and just turned right most of the time and as far as we only did that, we were all pretty good, even if i do say so myself.

snowshoeing

it snowed quite a bit during the week and although there wasn't much left in the morning, i knew there'd be some in the mountains. time to go snowshoeing. 

i drove up to my 'usual' spot and discovered to my delight that no one had been there yet. it was pristine. and the snow was deep. i was up to my knees in it (and when i stuck in my pole, it went 90% of the way, so i'm guessing there was about 80cm of the stuff. it was really hard going at first, seen as i was making the track, but it was great. not a sound, gorgeous scenery. heaven. until i got to the 'no access in winter' sign - although the risk of avalanche is small in the Jura, there was one just the day after i'd been last year, which had swept off a couple of people. although there didn't seem to be any real risk, i didn't want to chance it so i ended up going back. looks like i'll have to find a new spot!