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The Third Trimester & My Pregnancy Favorites
Happy summer, friends! We’ve been hanging out in South Bohemia as a new little family since our release from the hospital and it’s been such a nice slow time getting adjusted to the rhythms of life with a newborn. Our little one is already two months old now and I’ve been so lucky to have Alex off work until the start of the new school year and here at home. Thanks again for all the kind well wishes, messages and even gifts from some dear online friends. I never got to do a third trimester recap (clearly) – it was my shortest and unexpectedly toughest trimester, having been diagnosed with…
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Hello, baby! (and my time in a Czech hospital)
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Life Lately (Pregnancy) Update: Second Trimester
Happy May! This week I’ve entered the third trimester. With less than three months until our new baby joins us, things are starting to feel very real around here and I figured it was time for a bit of a life and pregnancy update. I was very lucky to spend the beginnings of my 2nd trimester at home this January and February as it was exam period during the height of the highest COVID spike we have seen yet in Czech Republic, and hide I duly did. Fortunately the situation has looked better and better, as we are no longer dark red on the map and cases are lower than…
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May, Lately + More Thoughts of Traveling “These Days”
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The Moments That Remind Me Why I’m Here
I’m on my way back from a lesson with a student (who is also my friend, gynecologist, etcetera, etcetera) where I’ve just successfully got her to use the present perfect unasked for the first time, and it’s a moody but refreshingly cool spring day. The clouds are sort of shifty characters and look like rain could spring forth from them at any minute. Without thinking much about it, other things on my mind, I cross the blue bridge across the river where one of my favorite spots in Budejovice is. I like it because it reminds me of the banks of the Seine in Paris. But you know, in southwestern…
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Babymoon in Moravia
Over Easter weekend we returned again to South Moravia… the Napa Valley of the Czech Republic, if I may say so myself. We wanted to go somewhere within the Czech Republic for ease of travel and my first thought was somewhere beautiful that knocks off one of my “to see places” on my Czech travel list. Easy to do with Southern Moravia, a region so unlike any other in the country – the terrain seems to have more in common with parts of Austria or Slovenia than the rest of the republic. You’ll see plant and animal species you don’t see elsewhere, castle ruins on hilltops, dramatic sweeping landscapes, wineries…
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How to Recover From the Complete Mess of the Past Eight Months Now That It’s June
Go outside. Leave your house. Just to practice leaving it, really. To build up your confidence with leaving the house again. It’s going to take some time. Consider the mornings, when there’s not many people. Consider a regular practice of nice evening post-dinner constitutionals in the light. It’s the end of spring and hiking season is here! Plan a hiking or walking trip, even if it’s raining a bit. Maybe even if it’s pouring! Walk through the park and marvel at all of the green. Meet a friend for a socially-distanced coffee as you are almost fully-vaccinated but not quite. This month you’re going to have the first swim of…
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Gardening With What You’ve Got
Having grown up with my backyard an actual forest and spent my childhood playing in streams and in dark woods, I can’t imagine my life without an outdoor component at home. I would move! Since adulthood, I’ve been gardening everywhere I’ve lived in some capacity, although it’s gone through plenty of different iterations. I’m fortunate to have had a balcony for the past 8+ years here in Budejovice, and although north-facingand almost constantly shady, it is perfect on the hot summer days of Central Europe when you can’t stand sizzling in the sun anyway, and I love the light summer evenings, sitting outside with a cup of tea and a…
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My Up and Down (Will it? Won’t it?) Vaccination Week
I have mentioned in what feels like every recent posts that the vaccination roll-out in Europe is sloooooow. In the Czech Republic up until now, it really felt like it could not be worse. Not even did it take until March before I actually heard of people I know getting vaccinated (then, just doctors or the elderly), there were reports left and right about how difficult it was for foreigners to get vaccinated. Whether it was that their foreign-sounding name didn’t fit into the system, or their private health insurance (not the public state insurance that Czechs use) was not an option when registering. I spent March and April in…
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How I Come Alive Again
Hello friends, happy May wishes. Although writing here hasn’t been a priority here lately, you know I’ll always be coming back ’round to this space. We last talked a month ago right after Easter. All month long I was calling April “Second March” or “The Marchiest April Ever” which is nooooot a compliment. March is typically my least favorite month and now I probably will always think about it as “Corona month” – the month when it all started. This end of winter and spring period was really, really tough, especially most of March and April. I had not been in a poorer condition than in the past ten years,…
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Quiet Days & My First Easter Lamb Cake {Recipe}
Happy spring, I hope everyone’s made it through the other side of winter okay! We just had Daylight Savings Time (worth every minute of evening light, in my opinion) so the warmer days and lighter nights have made everything so much better. Sometimes I think I could be a winter person, finding the season more pleasant with each passing year. Then the first warmer, light days of the year come and it’s like, nah. It was another weird March. The virus is still raging around us here in Czechland, and in fact, the first half of the month, we were bound to our own municipalities. Fortunately just in time for…
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Late Spring / Early Summer
Happy happy summer! I’ve been celebrating the arrival of this ever joyous season with cafe days, double scoops of ice cream, trip planning and rediscovering the joy of reading outdoors in the warm, sun-filled evenings (above) when we are lucky enough to have them! It comes in such a short window every year that I sort of forget about it until it happens. There’s been a literal stack of books I’ve been trying to get through as a part of two book club (“reading circles”) I’ve been participating in… reminding me how nice it would just be to pluck a book from the shelf and read what I felt like.…
