a scene from the vampire diaries

Since I got busy with looking for freelance work and actually doing some freelance work, I unintentionally put a lot of things on hold. Things I enjoyed doing like reading—I’m stuck with Harry Potter und der Orden des Phönix. I started reading the German version of Harry Potter months ago but I can’t seem to get past the 5^th book, and that’s not because the level of German used in the later books is getting more and more complicated for me to understand, but because I can’t find the time. I have more than 10 new books I got as gifts and some I bought myself months ago that are still unopened, unread. What a pity!

Other things that seem to pile up on me are the episodes of Vampire Diaries. I missed three episodes already!

Was I that busy that I even can’t read a single page of a book or spare an hour for a TV program I like to watch?

So today, these are the things I am going to do. Read and watch. I’ll read a few minutes before I take my nap later. Right now, I’m blogging but that is just while I wait for the TVD episodes to load. After I posted this, it’s couch and TVD time for me.

I had enough of winter and snow already, and I think I will get really crazy if the weather decides to give us full blown winter again. After having cold temperatures since November, I think it’s now time for spring. But logically, spring will just start in mid-March here in Austria.. that’s still four weeks from now.

The reason why I am eager to have warmer temps is because I want to take leisurely walks. I need it. As a stay-at-home wife, I also get bored just sitting inside the house the whole day. I need some fresh air. Of course it is possible to go out and take a walk during winter, but since I am a bear in my previous life, which means I hibernate in winter, I hate going out when the temps are below what I think is bearable.

Also, I want to be free from layers and layers of clothes I need to wear before I get out of the house. I want to be able to go out wearing just jeans, t-shirt, and maybe a light sweater.

Here are some photos take last year to show of how beautiful spring looks like here.

This is taken at a nearby creek. Everything's green and so fresh to look at. The water is also so clean and clear, you can drink it! And you can bath in it too if you can take its below 10deg temp.

My husband and I take leisurely walks together. Sometimes, he brings his camera but more often, I bring mine because it's way more compact. But if then, I play the photographer and I don't get to be in a lot of photos.

I allot a few minutes each day to check my emails, my twitter, and my Facebook. Facebook is as important to me as YM because I get to be in contact with close friends and relatives through it. But there is something I don’t like about Facebook and that is the obvious fact that it became a network where people mindlessly boast about what have they have or what they’ve done and I hate it for that.

Imagine: FB buddy #1 posted photos of her recent trip somewhere. Fine. But 200++++ photos!?! Not fine. I mean, what’s the point? If she wants to share about her recent trip then that’s okay but I think, she should just choose the highlights. If I see such albums, I immediately lose interest. We also take thousands of photos of our trips but I really don’t see the point of posting more than a hundred photos in one album.

Imagine: FB buddy #2 updates her status just about every hour to tell people where she’s at, what she’s eating, what she has on (including the brand of her clothes), what she’s buying, what’s she’s doing, etc. I mean… duh!?! How shallow is that?

Imagine: FB buddy #3 is an acquaintance in high school or some point in the past who simply added you and you kind of felt weird about her adding you because you’ve been not really friends but you accepted her anyway because you are not a snob. But then this FB buddy messages you like you to have been the best of friends. Weird! And it gets weirder the moment she says, “wow, big time ka na ngayon, hindi ka na ma-reach, etc.”

I am not a snob but I can’t stand such people. It’s nice to share about your thoughts and about what’s new in your life to people who are living very far from you but a lot of the people on FB just don’t get the point of this at all. A lot of them obviously just flash what they have. I also don’t like the opposite of such people, i.e., people who are so nosy and envious. People who are just checking what you have and asking you blatantly how you’re able to acquire/do such things. What the ef!?!

So I learned to categorize my FB buddies. They may be listed as my friends but not all of them can see my wall and my photos. Some very private albums (like my preggy album) are just available to very few chosen close friends and relatives. Albums containing our trips are also just available to real friends.

Here are some photos of our small trip to Italy last year. These are not bad photos (I think) but these didn’t make it to my FB album, because quite frankly,  they’re showing the same thing–my face and I have some of them already in my FB album so why post the same thing over and over again? Understand my point?

vien in some hidden ally in the old city of trieste, italy

vien in some hidden ally in the old city of trieste, italy

vien in the plaza of trieste, italy

I will also have more time on our home. Decorating and beautifying it is something I didn’t give importance to in these last months. It was sort of enough for me to vacuum clean it twice each week and so some petty chores to keep it clean and orderly.

After that, I will look for other ways to replenish my energy. I have been really pushing myself in the last months. Studying and working at the same time took its toll on me so this time I will treat myself really nice. Perhaps a day or two at a nearby thermal bath would do it. Or perhaps a small trip somewhere-hmmm, i like this idea so I should probably look for some sort of holidays europe offers. It’s just important that it’s affordable though. I mean, being jobless now and so, I should also keep in mind that I can’t just spend money like I used to.

Anyway, I am really happy I can do other things now that I am done with work and my German courses.

I’ve completed the intensive course I did last September but I enrolled to a new one which is supposed to deepen my knowledge of the German grammar. The course is only two hours per week but the amount of homework I get from it is just incredible. I have the feeling that we, the students, are expected to work on our own.

There’s also my job which is still taking so much of my time. I gave up some of my classes but I think I could still give up a couple of them.

Social life is also growing. I still have my own ladies group consisting of some of my pupil’s parents. I meet up with them almost every after lesson for a cup of coffee. We also often go out for dinners with my husband’s colleagues. And then, there are my fellow students at the university who I often meet for lunch.

I make it a point to visit my FB account every day though. It’s the only site where I can get some quick news about my family and friends who are living on the other side of the world.

Long distance calls are quite expensive and that is one reason why I am so thankful that there is internet. Before I left home, I taught my mom how to write emails and use messengers to make sure that we chat, talk, and exchange emails while I am away. The only set back of this is that we don’t always catch each other online. There are times when I badly need to tell them something but they are not online. When that happens, I simply send my mom or my sisters an SMS that says they should go online because I have something important to tell them. Thanks to Free SMS services from net2mobiles.com, I can send text messages to my family back home without spending a dime. Long distance communication nowadays is actually almost for free. The only thing we have to pay is the monthly internet fee.

I hate driving fast and I specially hate it when there’s a car behind me because that means, I must drive to the prescribe speed. This is the very reason why I avoid country roads and express ways. 50km/hr and 30km/hr zones are my best friends but ever since we moved to the suburbs, I have to drive on a stretch of a busy country road to get to my workplace in the city. Every day, before I start my car’s engine, I have to utter a small prayer that goes like…God, please guide me with my driving and please protect other drivers and pedestrians from me.

It would annoy me if I damage my car and I would be sorry if I hurt myself but it would be a terrible terrible feeling if I hurt another person because of my driving. I am not a pessimist and I really do hope that I will never encounter an accident but IF I would get into an accident, I would like that I or the people all around me know who to call and what number to call. I have memorized the police, fire station, and the emergency hotline. Then I also have some of my IDs and also some of my husband’s business cards both in my car and in my wallet.

When the doctor told me to stay at home for three days, I missed nine classes. That might not sound a lot but for a small private learning center that means, we lost a lot of money that week. There were no available teachers to take over my classes so they were all canceled. The parents, understandably, don’t have to pay for the canceled classes. I realized my worth in the learning center and the bad side of me immediately thought of asking a pay raise but the good side of me (and also because I am not an opportunist) told me not to do that. I have a fair salary and I although a better salary will do me good now, I think I can wait until I am offered or until I feel that I really deserve a pay raise.

I can see that my head teacher has so many things in mind. She badly needs a new teacher and an office assistant. She told me, there are so many things she has to do herself like getting her business cards and our learning center’s print ads printed. I told her to get them done online instead because there is definitely an online printing company available already. She doesn’t have to leave her office table to do that.

I want to help her with some of the office work but I think I can only manage to handle my 15 classes per week now because I really don’t want to get sick again.

Our target is to finish the painting, the bathroom, the toilets, and the floors before we move in. We also want to finish the kitchen but unfortunately, it will only be delivered and mounted on the 8th of March so for the first eight days, we will have to eat out or be contented with home deliveries.

My father-in-law will come sometime soon to help us with the work because there’s no way that my husband and I can do it before our target date. We need some help. My brother-in-law is already 15 years old and physically, I think he is able to help us but he can’t miss school. And on the other hand, he’d rather spend his weekends driving his new motorbike. He got it on his 15th birthday and he’s really crazy about anything motorbike. He actually already listed things like fox motocross jeans, motorcycle jackets, motorcycle helmet, and other motorcycle accessories on his wish list for the coming Easter.

The house still needs a lot of work–hard work. But to tell you honestly, I don’t mind doing the hard work. I am actually very motivated to work on it because I am already excited to move in!

It was my first time  to drive on a snowy/icy road and it was really weird and difficult for me. I didn’t feel that my car has a grip on the road so I remember being really careful but although I exerted extra caution, my car still slipped and that’s when it happened.

My car made a semi circle then it hit a post.

Luckily, only the number plate was damaged (and a few negligible dents): nothing we can’t take care by ourselves.

So instead of getting my car fixed by mechanics in super expensive car repair shops, my husband consulted some auto repair shops online and repaired the damage by himself. That saved me some bucks.

Luckily, I have a husband who is knowledgeable with automobiles and luckily too that  he doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty to do some manual works especially if a work has something to do with cars.