• Autumn,  Baby,  Czech Republic

    Life Lately: And That Was Autumn With a Baby

    Now with a five-month-old, I can barely sit at a computer for more than ten minutes each day – I’m embarrassed that this post took me about two months to finally publish. I am really taking to heart “sleep when the baby sleeps” so my very few minutes of free time is going to rest and self-care. Sometimes I manage to write a whole e-mail. With an infant that is demanding more and more attention daily, that is definitely what’s working for me right now. With Alex back to work in mid-September after about two and a half months as a new little family, things have reached a new level…

  • Autumn,  Budějovice,  czech culture,  Czech Republic,  Daily Life,  Life Abroad,  Recipe

    Autumn Celebrations + A Delicious Drink {Recipe}

    I am already beside myself with excitement that the holiday season starts in two weeks! After last year’s Christmas market cancellation, I think I got my sense of joy and whimsy back and I’m ready to enjoy the coming season to the fullest! I couldn’t believe that in the single-digits of November the market was already under construction in the square! I have already smelled the ceremonial first waft of spiced punch, a phenomenon which happens every year and is always ceaselessly thrilling, as the punch stands are already out and blazing with business. Alex was joking that every year we have the same conversation, “Are you excited? It doesn’t…

  • Autumn,  Budějovice,  Daily Life,  Lifestyle,  Pandemic,  Teaching

    Autumn, Lately

    This year hasn’t been a banner year for the old bloggity-blog by any means. It’s hard to write when a) you are doing a million things and this space has frankly taken a back burner, b) there’s too much to put online, or c) somethings that are going on, you wouldn’t want to put online anyway. It’s also dispiriting when your favorite blogs on the interweb have a) gone dark or b) gone behind a paywall. (If you’ve got a cool blog or know of one, holler at me in the comments because I’m out of ideas!) I miss blog reading. Remember the days that everyone would post their daily…

  • Autumn,  Budějovice,  czech culture,  Czech Republic,  Herbalism,  South Bohemia

    Autumn Lockdown Feels Like

    Do you think optimistic, positive people ever just… lose it after awhile? I consider myself one of those and was wondering when that breaking point would come. After holding it together so well since lockdown started in March, I’ve had more work than ever before (none of this Corona free time) and I guess last Sunday, in mid-late November it all sort of came to a head. It came to me today that of course our Christmas trip abroad would be cancelled this year – it would be folly to go through with it. I thought of all the sadness and destruction that 2020 has wrought. I wondered when I…

  • Autumn,  Daily Life,  Lifestyle,  Minimalism

    How Does Your Garden Grow

    A couple of weeks ago, we had the most beautiful late October day you could ever dream of. Even now, in the late afternoon the sun is already setting, I couldn’t help think as I walked home with a basket full of vegetables from the garden plot for the second to last time this season how lucky we were this year with this beautiful Indian summer I keep raving on about — this sort of weather would even be out of place for late September, let alone October. Readers may know that this summer was the first year I had my own garden plot in the earth to work with…

  • Autumn,  Daily Life,  Prague,  South Bohemia

    It’s November (Life Lately)

    Hi friends, happy November! For the first time in awhile, I did not manage to make the annual ‘Spooky Movies to Watch in October’ list. Shame, that. Just for anyone interested, we did continue with our October Movie series and watched in the following order over the course of the month: The Raven (1963) – A Vincent Price classic. Hokey but perfectly Halloweeny, and containing one of the funniest spooky scenes in cinematic history: a magic duel between Price and Boris Karloff (not in a monster role) from thrones. It has to be seen to be believed. ᇫᇫᇫᇫ The Babadook (2014) – Creepy, a bit dystopic, that feeling of losing…

  • Summer

    imagine peace on viðey island

    as one of the main reasons we went to iceland was to celebrate my mother’s birthday as a family (which luckily happened to be directly after iceland airwaves ended), i started thinking of something memorable we could do together. one of the first thoughts that came to mind was a day trip to viðey island. you may remember how much i like tiny islands? having been to flatey (which is only just a tad bigger) in the west fjords on my last trip, two years before. it is really not often talked about, but there there are a handful of tiny islands in the kollafjörður bay (of which viðey is…

  • Summer

    november, lately

    hello all,happy thanksgiving week! it started snowing sunday night and there was a blanket of snow on the ground by monday morning – and still snowing (despite what the photo above from a lovely day last month shows!). i really got in a more wintery mood in iceland as there were no leaves on the trees anymore and festive decorations all over the main streets, but there is absolutely nothing like a blanket of snow on a monday morning to get your week going! (if you like snow, that is) since coming back from my trip, i’ve just felt like there are endless things to do – catching up on…

  • Summer

    autumn leaves

    beautiful fall weekends are here! after last weekend in which we were mostly hanging around budejovice, i very much wished to get out of the city this weekend and enjoy the beautiful foliage this time of year. alex suggested popping over to třeboň for the day to walk around svět lake – it’s such a nice walk, and it occurred to me that i had never been there in the autumn before. in fact, the last time we even walked around the lake was over five years ago! those times that we were scrambling every weekend to see as much as the area as we could, thinking we could be…

  • Summer

    october, lately + bake off update

    hi guys. it’s been a strange start to the school year this time around. i’ve had a few work switcheroos and cancelled lessons throwing me for a loop – not exactly the kind of thing you want to have happen a month or so before you go on a big trip. ohhh, did i mention i was going on a trip next month? more perceptive readers will know i tend to post my travel plans on this page as soon as i’ve scheduled them, but i haven’t yet got a chance to mention that next month, one of my biggest travel dreams is going to come true. one that i…