January Blahs

Don't know about you all, but if it weren't for the fact that Lilia's in school, I would be seriously tempted to go somewhere on vacation about now. The weather's lousy (we are supposed to get temps down to zero Fahrenheit in the next couple of days, which for here is pretty cold) and the streets are icy after a couple of days of frozen rain . . . and we only have about 1 in of snow, which is enough to make walking treacherous but not enough to DO anything in (especially for the kids). And after our second family round of stomach flu in a month (from which I still haven't completely recovered), it would be nice to get out of here for awhile.  But it ain't in the cards.  Oh well.



We did manage to make up our New Year's party after the first round of stomach flu. We had raclette and the kids drove Thorsten's model train.



We also had a visit on January 6 from the "Sternensinger" , who come to your house collecting money for the poor, and then bless your door and sing you a song.

Johanna and Frida have been up to no good as usual. On Saturday they got hold of Linus' school notebook and glued the pages together, and yesterday they pulled the leaves off of our fern plant. Here is Frida dressed up as a princess (fairly innocuous, you'd think). . .



 . . . but Johanna flipped out because Frida's head scarf belongs to her, and she didn't want me to take a picture of Frida.



Thorsten found Johanna's dramatics to be pretty amusing.



Johanna also got invited to a birthday party where there was face painting. It was hard to convince her that the makeup had to be washed off before going to bed.



And in preparation for the Arctic weather coming our way, I harvested most of the leeks still in the garden, along with a couple of miscellaneous radishes and carrots. We had squash-leek soup last night.  Mmmm.

Despite the wintry weather, the days are clearly lenghening, and I suppose it's about time to start planning this year's garden. I just put in my seed order . . . I hope we'll have tomatoes, squash, eggplant, physalis, cucumbers, melons, peas, bush beans, pole beans, radishes, carrots, corn, onions, kohlrabi, cabbage, salad, spinach, and brussels sprouts this year, along with dill, cilantro, basil and all the herbal perennials that don't need replanting (alas, I killed my rosemary plant, so that will have to be replaced).  Also I am planning a bed of asparagus (I read that the slugs don't eat it), although it will be 3 years before it can be harvested. We should also get rhubarb and strawberries, and, I hope, a decent raspberry harvest . . . maybe some red and black currants, too, with a little luck. There, I feel better already.  :)