lately, october – Adventurings

i am in an adjustment period. last week was the first week of my new fuller, busier reality: a huge load of lessons that i happily took upon myself in a measure to save money for both our alpine christmas holiday, the big wedding, and associated costs with visiting the united states year for almost two months on the czech crown, which right now is even weaker than usual against the dollar after most european economies took a bit hit last week on the global market. sigh. on the plus side: now is a great time to travel in europe if you make north american money. the weather is good and your dollar is relatively strong– enjoy!

but i digress. previously i have praised this czech expat life-style because of the abundance of free time, but it’s too hard for me to say no to a new opportunity or challenge. i look at the coming day with a bit of trepidation, but i know with the proper preparation, i can conquer it. why the trepidation? i have had several new group classes, many with teens and rowdy children. group classes with non-adult students are a fairly unfamiliar thing to me, so it’s been interesting trying to get the hang of it! typically, i like to talk to kids like i would speak to adults, but am realizing that this sometimes just doesn’t fly and one needs to establish proper authority and order. man, i was spoiled with so many individual adult lessons. this is a new beast, entirely.

because weekdays are so full now for both of us, we have established a new autumn tradition: sunday evening classic movie nights! last sunday afternoon i started fearing my busy monday with all my new classes and got to thinking…. “what is the least stressful activity i can possibly come up with?” and for some reason, i realized that personally, classic movies make me feel good like i don’t have a care in the world. it takes us back to a time when things were simpler and the films were better.

watching: as it is october, we’re moving ahead with scary or creepy classic movies and got it going with a famous hitchcock, rear window (1954). i’ve never been the biggest hitchcock fan–only neutral at best–until i saw this film. the witty repartee, the intertwining lives of all the neighbors, the fabulous set, the gorgeous grace kelly… this one was a winner. i can’t believe someone had the need to remake it two or three times over again because i am positive nothing can beat the original. tonight on the agenda: young frankenstein (1974)!

cooking: everything pumpkin. i made pumpkin soup for the first time this week and i was amazed at just how easy it is to make: a total weeknight meal! i will be undoubtedly making this again and am hoping to share my recipe with you. i can’t even believe how easy it was.

drinking: coffee! we bought our first post-austerity measures bag of deliciously freshly-ground columbia from a local roaster at the plum market yesterday. also excited to try out pumpkin spice latte via from starbucks as it has just arrived in my mailbox in time for the weekend from a certain lovely former college roommate of mine. also, jasmine bubble tea. because saturday.

planning: i am beyond excited that last week, we booked plane tickets to the united states for the wedding and visit our home states! not only that, they are return tickets, so we’ll be headed back to europe in the summer. but where will we fly into? athens, greece! we’ve decided that a greek island honeymoon will be the perfect way to celebrate our new marriage, specifically the island of santorini! so you can bet that i am perusing allll the blogs with posts pertaining to these locations. we are so so excited about all these things… much more than we should be eight months out, but you have to plan ahead for the good deals. you know how i do.