A Feast For Crows

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

i did like this one quite a bit. the different POVs were interesting. i think my favorites were the parts set in dorne and braavos.

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This is from our shooting excursion today.  This is the shotgun portion!

grandma

grandma is here!  she arrived today and has already read a bunch of books to lumi.

my domestic life

kind of a boring day puttering around getting ready for grandma's visit.  i cooked meatloaf, and i feel frumpy.  and i have had a *lot* of acne lately, and i don't know why.  the water?  my washing technique?  the lotion?  stress?  diet?  

and lumi seems to have had a potty training regression, which we know to expect but is somehow always depressing.

social event

we spent a lovely afternoon with some kids from lumi's daycare and their parents.  it was really great -- lots of fun conversation.  and all of the other parents work at accenture, and they actually knew what teradata was before meeting us!

hair

i got my hair did today!  it's a darker brown with some ombre.

just a boring day at the office

but then a nice evening at home.  kimmo made us a huge salad with lots of watermelon on it.  and lumi ate kidney beans.  we are quite fortunate that she loves kidney beans so much -- all it requires me to do is open a can of them, rinse, then heat in a pan with a little thyme.  then we can keep them in the fridge and she will eat them cold.  she would probably eat them in a house, with a mouse, etc.

crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic

i love news stories like this:

BBC Europe correspondent Christian Fraser says the delicate brush strokes of Elias Garcia Martinez have been buried under a haphazard splattering of paint.
The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says.

shooting trip

i just booked this for next week when my mom comes:

Programme B includes
4 rounds of competitive shooting: AK47 x 15 shots, M16 x 15 shots, Pump-action shotgun x 5 shots and Sniper riflex 5 shots. 
Private transport
English / Czech speaking guide
English speaking fully qualified instructors
Winning diploma awarded to the Top Shot !!
A sandwich and beer after shooting

It's going to be AWESOME.

game of thrones

we have started watching the 'game of thrones' series from tv.  i'm still reading the series, and i'm in book 4.

the series is fun to watch because it looks beautiful, but otherwise it hasn't been very satisfying.

horky

it's really hot today -- i heard the high was 37.  we had thought summer was on its way out and then blammo!  pool time!

prague pride

we went to a prague pride event today!  it was their kids' thing, and honestly it wasn't very fun for lumi.  but i think most of the stuff was directed toward older kids, and that's ok.  plus it was really hot, so kimmo could barely participate.

socializing

we spent a wonderful day today with another couple who have a kid at lumi's daycare.  we had a little hike in the forest, and a pleasant lunch, and then hanging out at their house while the kids played.  both members of the couple are a lot of fun to talk with and we're hoping to see them again soon.

more photos

we go in spurts with the picture-taking, and i want to do better.  we realized that we already don't have 'enough' documentation of lumi's early months.  i am now going to try to take at least one photo of lumi per day.  let's see how long i can keep the chain going.

gluten-free sucks

this gluten-free thing is not really working.  we have done 4 days so far, and if anything, i feel *worse*.  i know it takes time to get out of your system, blah blah blah, but the truth is that i wasn't feeling bad while i was eating gluten.  pudgy?  yes.  but bad? no.  and here is the thing: eating gluten-free in prague is really hard.  

it's not that it takes a lot of willpower, like if the gluten-free option doesn't look tasty but the gluten-full option looks delicious.  it's hard because it's really really difficult to find gluten-free food at a restaurant.  dinner and breakfast at home are not bad at all and of course there are a lot of options.  but really, when you're out it is hard!  and of course my czech language skills are terrible, but i know the word for gluten-free (bez lepkova!) and it doesn't seem to help.  most people don't know what that means, and even if you can explain it, sometimes people will say something has no wheat flour in it even when it does!  i understand that vegetarians here have a similar issue, in that they might get served something with ham chunks in it because it's just a small amount of meat, and meat is not the primary ingredient. i have seen people insist that there is no flour in a dessert even with a little cookie on it, because it's primarily fruit.

so when i finally find something, it's not actually all that healthy.  eating gluten-free is not like a low carb diet where you can just buy a hamburger and not eat the bun, because if the bun has ever touched the burger, that burger could have gluten on it, and the damage is done.  if you have an issue where gluten tears apart your GI system, you cannot risk that exposure.  so that only leaves potatoes, and vegetables cooked separately.  most czech meals come with sauce, and sauce almost always has wheat flour as a thickener.  soy sauce has gluten, so almost all asian food (again, in restaurants) is out unless you have the language skills to really specify it (and i do not).  what was available today?  i bought yogurt from the grocery store and then ate this potato-bacon-sauerkraut mix.  it was heavy and not very appealing, but i didn't know what else to get. i'm eating worse than ever now, and feel bloated (and the absence of bloating is supposed to be one of the great benefits of eliminating gluten from your diet).

so, what are the options?  i could bring my lunch to work.  this wouldn't be so bad now when i'm working in the office, but it wouldn't really work for the teaching days.  and also it would hurt our already scant social life if we couldn't go out to eat with people.  or i could try to switch to some other crazy diet, and then continue gluten-free with kimmo in the evenings if he wants to do it (though i'm not sure he is too eager, because he really misses the beer).  the beer is a big hindrance to low-carb plans in general.  maybe just eat muesli and yogurt at lunch?  i need to keep thinking about this.  in the meantime, however, i think i may drop this gluten-free thing.

i'm just a cliche

my student sent me some photos he took of the lumster. i like this one because i think i look like a typical mother. my kid isn't doing anything impressive, but i'm looking at her like she is a genius and like i couldn't be prouder.

Purchases

I bought a sewing machine. I only sold the old one last summer after I realized that I was not a seamstress, and had been only wishing to be handy with thread and fabric. But then a couple things came up recently, little repairs that were very tedious by hand but would have been simple with a machine. So I bought a used one for not too much money. Now let's see what I will do with it, if anything.

dieting

kimmo has been hassling me for a while about 'paleo' diets and how they are supposed to be healthier for you, etc.  while we were in finland (after i hit my customary ok-now-i'm-relaxed-so-i-will-list-45-ways-to-improve-myself thing on day 5) i suggested trying it for a couple of weeks when we arrived home.  he agreed and seemed eager...until i told him there was no beer involved.  i have no idea what kind of articles he was reading that made him think that paleo diets included beer, or maybe he just didn't think fully through the consequences of no grain, but anyway that is a daunting thing here in the czech republic where beer is cheaper than water in most restaurants.  i also wasn't looking forward to restricting my diet that heavily, so we decided to try to eat gluten-free for a couple of weeks to see how we feel.  i see that as a baby step to paleo, so it seems like a good idea.  yes, i know that doesn't include beer too (at least not regular beer, and gluten-free beer is challenging to find here), but we know the time is limited so we're going to see how it plays out for us.

we started today and both breakfast and lunch have been challenging.  he likes toast for breakfast and i like muesli, so i just sort of skipped it and had some yogurt at 10:00, and he skipped it and went to eat lunch at 11.  i don't know what he ate yet.  

a storm of swords

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

still enjoying the hell out of this series, and the 3rd book was my favorite so far. i'm a bit embarrassed how upset i was when certain characters died and also how relieved i was when other characters died. and now the 4th is waiting for me...

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