Boy am I full!!

I just haven't been able to stop eating!  Between the different meal schedule culture here to trying new things to the different and heavier food we've been eating, I find I'm almost always full, almost to bursting.  I know that doesn't bode well for my girlish figure, but I'll have you know that I am exercising too.  Hopefully they will balance each other soon.  I tried to wake up at 4:30 this morning and almost did (next time I'm just going to get up even if it is just twenty minutes before my alarm goes off) but ended turning off the alarm and sleeping for another three and a half hours.  I still did the aerobic exercises I've been doing in the States, I also went for a walk this morning with my friend, Marina, and her daughter, and then later went for a walk around downtown Zagreb.  It's a really neat old city.  According to Marina, I didn't even get to the beautiful, old portion yet.

They eat breakfast (we ate ours a little late) of dried meats cheese and bread.  Then we ate lunch around noon and had burek sir a kind of fresh cow's cheese baked in a philo dough crust.  Very tasty.  Along with some more dried meat, cheeses, pickles, a red minced sauce of sorts called ajvar and a kind of sauerkraut called zelje kiseli that you put pumpkin seed oil on, and of course bread.  Then a snack of home-made cookies with jam in them and chocolate milk, with a nice guest named Radmila.  Then on my downtown walk I tried some bread with chocolate in the middle, another kind of burek sir (this time with bits of pumpkin in it) and a yummy drink of soured milk that tastes like buttermilk.  Then Marina wanted to stop at a cake and ice cream store called Vincek whose specialties include a chestnut ice cream and chestnut paste eaten with a dollop whipped cream (they even taste good when all mixed together).

Finally after coming home and falling asleep at the computer desk in my room, we ate a more German style dinner of sausage with mashed potatoes, cooked cabbage with beans and some mustard,  horse radish and really tasty mayo...and of course bread.  Needless to say, I don't think I can eat another thing.  Especially since my stomach has gotten used to smaller portions and sparsely spaced meals, over the last two or three months.

However, as overloading as my food intake may sound, I was able to squeeze in some fun sight seeing and photo opportunities.  On my walk this morning, my friend showed me an old military base turned University, that was in used during the Yugoslavian occupation originally built for WWII.

 Most of the larger buildings are slowly being converted, but there are several smaller buildings that lie dormant, and are, in most cases, in disrepair.  There was even an old bunker and random street lamp we saw all over grown in the more wooded area that Marina tells me was used for training at one point.

Downtown, I was able to see the beginnings of Christmas decorations being hung and other traditional businesses that spring up around the Christmas season. We went to the post office so I could look at stamps and even went into the big cathedral in the center of town.  I was very impressed here.  In contrast with many of the cathedrals I saw in France; this one was clean, dust free and inside, everyone was very reverent.  Marina said, that because since religion generally plays a bigger role in peoples lives here, more donations are made and better care is taken of the church as a consequence.

I had fun with my Croatian lessons today.  I looked up the word for "name," and while Radmila was here, seemed to delight everyone with asking the names for everything on the table.  That and trying to say thank you and "tastes good," for the food we were eating, in Croatian.

I was also able find a unique connection with Zdenko, Marina's father, in talking to him about the apples on the table that came from his garden and house in the country, then sharing about my own horticultural adventures of this last summer.  He had a good time going through the flash cards I had made and helping me to try to master the Croatian alphabet.  My friend's Teta (aunt) Ana is convinced that I'll forget how to speak English by the end of two weeks.  Overall,  I'd say it been a filling but wonderful day.

~ Fraise

Coming to you barely alive........

That's right folks, I said barely alive, as you would be too after  spending about a day and a half in airports or on planes.  I'm so glad to be on solid ground, even if it started raining just before I touched down here in Zagreb, Croatia.

So how did I get here, you ask?  Well, a good friend of mine happens to be from this delightful country and needed help kid wrangling.  Long story short I got the job, so here I am. ☺

I started out in the good old Salt Lake airport, from there stopped in Minnesota for a three hour layover, then a 8-9 plane flight to a thankfully almost empty flight to Charles de Gaul in Paris.  From there thanks to my excellent french and a few wrong directions from the crew at the Air France desk (I think she was just having a bad day), for another hour and a half layover.  This gratefully, allowed me to sample a bit of heaven on earth, (French yogurt is to die for!!!).  Then lastly onto a noisy puddle jumper with BritAir along with about half the plane full of silly southern french men out on holiday to go game hunting in Croatia, all of which with the sense of humor of a 14-year-old boy. ^^0  True men always do as my husband likes to say.

So here I am in the lovely home of my dear friend's parents, about to bed down for the night at what is here 8:30 pm or 20:30 for you die-hard euro-standard people, like myself.  I can't wait to see what happens next on this exciting two week saga in in the old Austro-Hungarian empire (aside from this rearranged keyboard, that is). 

Wishing you laku noć, and slatki snovi.

~ Fraise

Yes, I'm still alive

so yeah.....
I know, I know.  I'm falling back into my old habits.   But it's my birthday today, so you can forgive me right?

I've been busy too.  We had to move locations at my job and I'm getting ready to go out of the country for two weeks on the 16th.  I've also been busy with some projects, which are here for your viewing pleasure:

I've made this hat pattern several times and it has always turned out really cute.  This time however I decided to use my baby yarn and add a Scandinavian snow flake design.  I know it's hard to see since the pink doesn't exactly stand out against the white but it was my first time ever doing a fair isle style knit pattern.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  I only wished I had done one more row of cables as the hat is a little shallow.

A bracelet that I crocheted using a baby headband pattern that my boss had me try out with some yarn she had to see if she had the right gauge yarn.  (She didn't).  However, I loved the pattern and decided to see what it looked like using a gold pearl cotton I have that has metallic gold fibers wrapped around it.  I love this one especially since when you hold it in the sun it actually looks like crocheted gold.

This one is a hat I made for a gift.  It's the same hat pattern I've always used except I added a colored sripe and used some pretty shiny ribbon to knit some of the rows.  I think it really turned out nice, as it was hard to come up with a fun thing to do with brown neutrals.

This is a type of scarf that you knit on circular needles that connects and forms a pseudo turtle neck that you can wear scrunched up or up over your nose.  I tried a pattern with a new stitch called he feather and fan, that results in this sort of wavy look.  I had knitted several rows and couldn't figure out why it kept decreasing.  I looked up a yarn over and lo and behold I was doing it all wrong and had to start over again.  I had fun working in a bouclé yarn to make subtle stripes.

I finished the crocheted embroidery floss yarn scarf and thought you's like to see it on.  Over all it went really fast and I like the way it looks much better than before I re-did it.

These last two are head bands that I did using store bought elastic head bands from the dollar store and adding crocheted flowers leaves beads and buttons.

Overall I feel like I've been very creative and that I have learned a ton.  Now if I can only get caught up with Christmas presents. ^^0

It's been a While

I'm sorry that I have been so out of touch, I know that two months is kind of a long time.  I was busy with work and then due to other stresses going on in my life have been putting off writing.  From college rush to sending friends off to visit family in Croatia......I hope to get myself back on schedule though, from this point on. 

You'll be pleased to know that I was successful in starting a daily work out routine that I have been able to stick to.  I worked out every day for 6 days straight the first week but the second week after two days, got a cold, that I am still trying to get over.  I hope after all this resting that I will be able to resume my exercise routine sometime in the next few days  I had my husband make us a work out calendar so that I have to color in each day that I exercise.  It's been fun to see the green triangles fill in.

Over the last week I was able to work on a few hand projects too, that I can't wait to share with you....I just need to to find a model to help me take some pictures.

Hope your week goes well.

~Fraise

Blackberry-ing!

I forgot to tell you how much fun we had pick blackberries with my mother-in-law yesterday.

Sooooo yummy!!

Purple fingers!

Next week: blackberry and apricot jam!

Due to Computer Upgrades.....

I know today is Friday, and that's two days later than I usually post but my father-in-law bought me a copy of Windows 7 to pay my husband back for the computer he built out of our old computer stuff. So as you can guess, my husband was all too excited to get my operating system loaded, ie reformatting and re-installing for the last day and a half. Oh well I got some lovely photos for you in the mean time.


You will be proud to know that I was successfully able to exercise on three days over the last week including yesterday.  I mostly rode the bike but I was successful in getting to all of the exercises I wanted to yesterday. I weighed in at: 181.

As for any projects or progress this week I decided to work on a project for myself that I packed away and found again recently.  It's a scarf crocheted from embroidery floss.  I started it back in 2005, I think, and worked on it on and off through 2007.  When I pulled it out, I realized I couldn't remember what stitch I had been using and that I had a better pattern in mind to make it more appealing, so I took it apart and wound it into what I thought would be one ball, but in fact turned out to be about 4 smaller balls and one large one.  It turns out that I had crocheted to a point then flipped around to the other end then crocheted to a point and then did the same thing again a few more times.  I can't really say I knew what I was thinking back then, but since then I have grown so much in my knowledge and technique that I was able to turn this project for the better.

On a side note I also bought myself a present on Wednesday.  I was buying some yarn for a project I'm going to be starting soon and I mistakenly happened to wander over to their books section and pulled out a book I've checked out from the library more times than I can count, Kyuuto! Lacy Crochet:

I first checked out after seeing it somewhere online, since I love japanese sewing books.  It's lovely, and the patterns are so pretty that I have ended up using them for gifts several times.  Chronicle Books, who publishes the "Kyuuto!" series of craft books has a really wonderful repertoir of craft and sewing books I would suggest.


Anyway, happy week everyone.

~Fraise

Weekly Thursday......weigh-in???

Okay so I went to war with the hedge next our driveway and after a day long battle, I prevailed but not without casualty....my hands.  I managed to either tire the muscles or bruise my palm pads, or something because yesterday I had no proper strength in my hands and it hurt to grip things.  Anyway, I decided to do nothing with my hands yesterday, meaning I also didn't get my blog typed. ^^0

I improved my score!!!  I exercised 2.5 days!  I say 0.5 because yesterday I did about half of the exercise I usually do on the bike.  I also finally weighed and measured myself again...so here you go:

Weight: 180 lbs
Bust: 39.75 "
Waist: 33"
Hips: 47"
Thigh: 24.13"
Calf: 15"
Ankle: 9.5"
Upper Arm: 12.25"

I know that this is not an improvement since the last time I weighed and measured, however I'm trying to do my best not to dwell on the negative and move forward.  Anyway, onward and upward!

As for my productivity this week, it did consist or more than a gladiator fight with a shrub.  I successfully completed a hat for a friend's birthday present.

Here is her daughter modeling it for you (sorry for the blurriness of the photos). 

I decided to include two corsages this time.  I very pleased with how they turned out.  I've been wondering if I might actually be able to sell these on my Etsy shop.  Do you think these would sell?  Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.

I hope that you're last week turned out well, and that your next week is awesome and fulfilling.

~Fraise