Who are you?

I found an interesting question on Chookooloonks' blog:

What are some of the things you own that you think are pretty iconic representations of who you are?

I was thinking about this yesterday in the afternoon and found a few things in my home that are telling who I am:

• books
• flowers & plants
  
• maps
• recipes
• craft material
• lots of different wrapping paper
• feathers
  
• rocks
• bow and arrows

And yes, I wish that on my list would be a very full passport too (poor one, lying neglected in one of the boxes).

What are the the things on your list that show who you are?

The remnants of the war

It was in September 2006 when I first visited this hill and I keep coming back each year. I thought of hiking to some higher mountain yesterday but the weather was too bad in the morning and I simply stayed at home. Until 2 pm when I was fed up with cooking and home errands. In 10 minutes I was ready to go and just some minutes before 4 I was below the most wonderful grassland I have ever seen. Možic. Again. Either it is the view, or maybe that grassland, or just the memory of that beautiful day two years ago, I don't know, it might be the mixture of all three that is drawing me to those places. The landscape is covered by bunkers/shelters from the 1. WW. How many young guys have to die up there for some stupid reason? I don't go into those long tunnels alone, it is too scary even with the torch. I was in there once, with Ž, he is braver than me. It was a beautiful afternoon, I waited up there on the hill until the sunset and was the last one to come down to the parking place.
Saturday was a busy one this time. I cooked some apple juice and put sweet peppers into jars. I tried that potimaron pumpkin and it is very delicious. I cooked štruklji which is actually cooked strudel (wrapped in tin foil and cooked in salted water). They didn't look good but they were sooo delicous! Yum!

Advertising

While browsing through some magazines yesterday in the afternoon I came across the fashion ads. I actually wanted to take photos of three of them and ask you which one you liked the most but the light was very bad, and eventually I didn't do that.

Anyway, I really liked the ads by Mura, Slovenian clothes manufacturer. Their clothes are quite expensive (at least for me) and fancy too. I don't wear clothes like those but I wouldn't mind wearing them once just for fun. To be like women from the advertisements. I like Mura's ads because they look like from another century. And yes, I like that guy too! :)

Another great swap

Cookies for figs. Once again. This time I have received the sweetest ones, those that most people wouldn't buy on the market. Their core is like marmalade, real sweet. Lucky me, starlings left those for me...

Counting sheep?

No, the sheep just went to sleep. I enjoyed immensely!

Mathematics

During the weekend I read a book by Yoko Ogawa, The Gift of Numbers. It is amazing that this book is translated into Slovenian language and at the same time it is so rarely available in English. I was enjoying reading the book a lot because I have always loved mathematics. I was never very good at it but I looked forward to each and every lesson we had at school.I found a wonderful paragraph in the book, describing what the maths is good for. And at the end of the paragraph it is written something like this: "The purpose of mathematics is the search for the truth." Perhaps that's why I love it so much. Because most of all I like the truth.

It is hard to decide which is my favorite number but I like 17 and 71. I like 19 and 23. Number 2 brings me luck. And number 5 doesn't. I like odd numbers and most of all prime ones. Mathematics is mystery and at the same time it can be great fun! I just love it!

Oh, and yesterday the autumn has officially started! It is much colder, yes...

Always on Sunday & the same old story

There were elections yesterday. We voted the representatives for the parliament. The same faces every year, promises made. I am not a person who likes to discuss politics or is interested in it but I know what I want most of all. Peace.

What I was doing this weekend:

- walking (I love these words)

- baking - it was a bad weekend for baking, cookies were not good

- cooking

- reading.

This means that there is still lots of dust around my house and the same spiders occupy the corners. Right, the washing machine did the laundry. :)

Cookies for people...

...made by the recipe I received from my colleague at work. I felt extremely tired all day long but I managed to bake the cookies for guys and gals who love birds and nature. We met in the evening and during the lecture I relaxed a bit. I think that laughing helped a lot (and a cookie or two, too)! I went home with a brand new Abba CD (yep, I am still a bit old fashioned, not having iPod and such modern things. Believe it or not, I refused to have a radio in my car. I admit, I don't listen to music very often...).

Have a lovely Friday and weekend, too!

There's nothing to see if you don't look closer

Landscape is becoming dull and colorful fruit and flowers are hiding among the high grass or below bushes and trees. I took a long walk yesterday in the afternoon, it felt so great to stretch my legs again. I took the loneliest paths but I met my neighbor anyway. I guess he was avoiding people too. :)

A bookworm

Library is one of my favorite places where, like in the mountains, I forget about everyday life. I always take time for browsing through the books. It is still dark outside when I wake up at 5:45 in the morning and it gets dark already at 8 p.m., so time of a year has come when I read a lot of books. Hopefully I will read less this fall and winter because my to-do list is quite long. I have already made one tick on it and I wonder how far will I get with my Italian lessons this time. Perhaps I will at least open the box? :)

Goodbye summer, welcome fall

The temperatures dropped from above 25 degrees C to around 10. After all, in one week the fall will officially start on the calendar too. This is time of fairs, of harvest, of colors. Time to go around and see what the year has provided for us. It was time to go to the coast again, to pick figs and other fruits to make some jam. My face brightened when I saw the trees full of fig fruits but most of them were already rotten. The fig season is definitely over. Cornelian cherry didn't have any fruits on and also plum trees were empty. I saw quite many passion fruits and some pomegranate bushes with beautiful fruits on them but I couldn't pick those because they were on people's gardens. If I had some place to store such plants during the winter, I would have pomegranate plant and lemon one too. I love the color and shape of pomegranate blossoms, I love the smell of lemon ones. The house smelled of freshly baked bread on Sunday morning and I have been making myself a fruit breakfast since Tuesday (instead of eating chocolate children's food). One peach, an apple, some oat flakes, sunflower seeds, dates and curd, that's what I had in my Sunday's breakfast bowl. It has been raining since Friday evening but yesterday it stopped for a while, so I went to the castle of Ljubljana where medevial days were going on. Ljubljana has this huge castle which dates back to 16th century. Some of the buildings stood there already in 12th century. It was very cold, so I just looked around a bit, bought some delicious sweets and walked through wonderful narrow streets back to my car. It was lunch time and I could hear the sound of tableware and plates from behind the windows, I could smell the food people were eating, I walked down the street where mom lived when she met dad, I heard music coming from one of the houses, I passed by the garden which I would love to have, big and full of trees in the city center. While driving back home this thought crossed my mind: I am so grateful to be living here in this little peaceful land.

An ordinary day

I like being at home, wherever that is. I had never had problems with excepting new home. Although it is the first time when I feel that things are out of control and I can't put them in order. Mostly this is lack of closets in the house and perhaps a bit also because Ž is someone who likes chaos around him. Hopefully all will be soon placed where it belongs to.

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen which is weird because when I was a child I had this idea that I was not a person who would ever cook anything good. Then you grow up and everything changes...

Time spent in a car while driving back home is usually time when I think about what to cook that day. When I came home yesterday I went to the garden and picked three giant leaves of mangold, some parsley and carrots.

• I quickly cooked millet, added some salt, butter and basil leaves when cooked.
• I chopped mangold and cooked it in a bit of salty water. I added some olive oil, garlic, nutmeg, pine nuts and curd (I bought it from the shephard on Wednesday).
• I grated one carrot, added some salt, chopped parsley, raisins and pumpkin oil.

... and that was it, my lunch for that day. Quickly made for one hungry mouth. Later I made these yellow squares of polenta, apple juice (from my grandparents' apples which contain no pesticides) and coconut flour. Usually I put in some raisins soaked in rum but this time I made them for my pregnant colleague who has diabetes (she has it now when she is pregnant). She is eating too many sweets and no vegetables, so her baby is too big due to eating such food. I hope she will like the sweets which are actually a bit sour at the same time.

All I know is that I will be eating a lot today. We have our annual meeting at one of the farmers ranch in the afternoon and the food there is too good to resist. Especially that apple strudel that comes on table when we are absolutelly full!

Have a nice weekend!

Mamma mia!

If you like watching movies, if you like songs by Abba, if you like to dance and sing, if you like some romance, then you have to see it - movie Mamma mia! Either you like it, either you don't. I laughed all the time and as I actually grew up listening to the songs by Abba, I sang all the time, too. Right, I still think that Pierce Brosnan looks much better when he is saying: "I am Bond. James Bond.", than when he is kissing Meryl Streep. It was a fun afternoon, meeting with a friend and enjoying the movie. Such moments are so precious because they are so rare and far between. I mean those, when you feel content each and every moment of a day.

Yesterday I was happy, I felt joy, I had smile on my face. All day long. It seemed like Tuesday afternoon continuing and merging into Wednesday. I was (yes!) in my beloved mountains again. Perhaps the last time this season. Shepherds were taking cattle back to the valley yesterday because bad weather is approaching and there might be some snow. Cows almost walked over me on that narrow path! Also blooming flowers are rare already, now there are mostly blue ones showing their colors. Beauties! Sheep are still on the pastures, they ran away when I approached them. They stay up there all summer long, eating delicious fresh grass and flowers. I spotted them up there on Tosc, 2275 m above sea level, grazing grass or searching for shadow because it was surprisingly hot. The view was fantastic! While looking around in pure amazement I found out that there are so many wonderful spots I still have to go to. I hope there won't be snow too early; it must be beautiful in the fall among those larch trees colored yellow. Ah, wishes and dreams! I feel renewed today and full of energy. And happy. That's what mountains do to me. Well, I must admit that I avoided that shepherd who wanted me to stay with him when I was there last time. I ate my sour milk and piece of bread at someone else's table. Mmm, it was delicious! And I waited for fresh milk, that warm one directly from the cow that smells of flowers and herbs.

Last days of summer seem to be nice ones. I think I do deserve some pampering after all. It feels like harvest time.

Photos: 1: Tosc, 2. Triglav from the peak of Tosc (that curved thing is a stamp), 3. Gentianella ciliata in Latin, resasti sviščevec in Slovenian, Franzen-Enzian in German, I haven't found its English name, 4. sour milk and piece of bread, my favorite food in the mountains.

Sweets for a chocoholic

Usually when I go to Koper, which is a coastal town, I always get something delicious from my colleague who lives there. He has an orchard full of figs and persimmons (kaki), so I usually come home loaded with such goods. I know he loves chocolate and sweets made of it, so yesterday I baked brownies for him. Ž is probably going there today and I know that I will enjoy lots of figs again, if he really does. Exchange of goods for goods is called barter in economics as I was taught, but I am sure that I am much happier when I have full mouth of figs than my colleague when he gets my sweets.

P.s.: Is this getting a bit like a baking and cooking blog? Do I really do only that? Time to go to the mountains again? :)

Fruits of the summer

It is amazing that the days are still very hot. Usually it cools at this time of a year but it seems that there will be another week of nice and warm weather. It felt like a very long weekend but I can't explain why. Maybe because I was busy all the time and maybe because I was away at my grandparents again.Grandmom gave me some blackberries that grow in the ranch. These are not wild ones but grown ones. I froze some of them and made myself delicious 'ice cream' for dessert after lunch on Sunday (well, that was yesterday and it seems so far away already!). I had some plums and made dumplings with them. I mixed some flour, curd, salt, one egg, rolled the dough and made only four dumplings out of it. Some put a bit of sugar into the plums but I don't do this, I prefer adding it after, if needed. I melted some butter, added a spoonful of bread crumbs and sprinkled this on top of dumplings. Yum!I also baked some kind of a dessert from apples but I won't write much about it. Everything went wrong and it is good only if I pour lots of milk on it and then eat it. I will try some other recipe the next time. I still wonder what went wrong.

On the upper photo: from my garden into the basket - potimaron squash, parsley, celery, carrots, red beet, rhubarb and flowers of calendula/pot marigold.

Look up!

Usually when I walk through the city center, I don't look down in front of me like I do in the mountains, but I look up, where the beauties of skilled workers of the past are hidden. Ljubljana has so many secrets but if you look only at the windows of the shops, you can't see them.Yesterday we ate our lunch in Le Petit Cafe, where the food (and coffee) is good but too expensive for everyday lunch, and while walking back to work (and looking up!) a colleague of mine coincidentally mentioned her art teacher who had ordered her students in the secondary school to go to the city center and check for these little hidden treasures I mentioned at the beginning. I could hardly believe but it was the same teacher I had 10 years before. She was teaching my dad too, so she must be quite old now. Narcisa is her name (yes, she has a name of a flower) and she was strict but one of the best teachers I had. I have learned so much from her about art. I joined one of the excursions to Italy (where Slovenian is still spoken) she prepared every year for those who were interested in culture and art. It was an amazing experience! Weird, but I was the only one from my school at that, or any excursions she prepared. Yesterday we agreed on two things:

1. that we can learn so much from some people and waste lots of time with others
2. that Ljubljana's city center is really beautiful if you look up! :)
   

When I say too much

I was thinking if I should share what happened to me yesterday, and today while driving to work I decided to do so. I know that I say too much quite often and I apologize to all of you who think that my comments on your blog were harsh. But I meant only good by writing whatever I had written.
I was very surprised to find out that Holly from decor8 deleted my comment on her Haus Maus blog. I am not that kind of person who would pretend that I like something that I don't and I also tell so. You won't see it written WOW! if I don't really mean it. My comment on her post was that she should simply look at some other smaller shops to find what she wanted to have. If I didn't have below average wage, I certainly wouldn't buy all my furniture in Ikea when there are so many wonderful shops in this world with more quality stuff. And Hannover in my opinion is not a small city, so I suppose the choice is huge. Never mind, nothing is wrong if someone decides to delete my comment but I only wonder - do people do this so that their blog would look prettier, nicer, friendlier? To make them look superior - you know - to look that they always choose the best of the best?

It is 10 September approaching that is also why I will share this story with you to show you who I really am. A Slovenian, obviously sometimes a bit too harsh to people of other nationalities, because we are a kind of a mixture of Italians (temperament and loud) and Austrians (cold, serious, tidy) but above all we are still Slavs (friendly, homey, hospitable).

So, on that September day in 2001 I was standing with B on Denver airport to check in for the flight back to Venice in Italy (via London) from where we traveled by train to Ljubljana. We were there very early, the only passengers to check in at that time. When we handed over the flight tickets and passports to a lady clerk, she looked strange at us and after checking something on the computer she wanted to have Italian visas from us. We couldn't believe our ears! In whole our lives we never needed a visa to travel to Italy. Never! And now some lady required it from us. At first we were friendly, explaining to her that we don't need one and that we had flown from Italy to get to the USA and nobody had required anything else than passports from us. She was firm in her decision to see our visas. It lasted an hour of arguing, I wanted her to call our embassy but she refused, to check if she didn't mix us with Slovaks but she refused. She was almost crying. Lucky for us, a man clerk came around then and the woman, on the edge of tears, telling him how rude and harsh we were talking to her, told him the story. I didn't think that I was rude, I was just talking and persuading her that we do not need any visas to travel either to Italy or the USA. I wasn't shouting at her or telling her bad words, I was just in a bad mood and very serious at that time. We both were, although B is the friendliest, calmest, nicest person I know. That man simply told her to let us go. I had Indian spears with me and nobody bothered about them at the Denver airport. I had to check them in at the Heathrow airport because they looked dangerous to the clerk. You know what happened then - exactly at the same time that we were flying from London to Venice, the events of 11 September happened in the USA.

So, this is a story about me, how I can look (or be?) rude and harsh to some people. I guess Holly thinks the same too, me being some impolite woman from some (whatisitcalled?!) Balkan state. Anyway, I am very proud to be a Slovenian and a European at the same time.

********

On the photo: we call this bread žemlja (pl. žemlje) (my dictionary says that they are called rolls in English and die Semmel in German). I baked them yesterday and they came out quite delicious. They were made and baked in one hour which was really quickly.

Colorful world

My world is world of colors. In Ikea magazine I received yesterday is an article about a woman who's apartment is white. Everything is white. The walls in my house are white too but this won't last for long. I hope that someday the walls will be painted with nice colors and drawings. I just have to practice drawing on paper first or find someone to do the drawing on walls for me. Ideas, plans - I have so many of them but usually most fade with time.
I spoiled myself a bit again by ordering some felt from Waldorf Toys. Colors are very vibrant and I plan to make some birds of it. A mobile for my working place to brighten the white walls. Or something else to make someone happy again.

At the beach

When I say that a real vacation is only when you go far away, I mean it. It is the only way to relax and switch off the thoughts of everyday life. It was short but sweet. I haven't been at the seaside for more than a day for 5 years. It felt good. It was about two hours drive to the camping site called Colone near Rovinj in Croatia. When I was a child we were spending lots of time on the beach, usually on island Cres where the water is clear and, if not in a crowded camp, you feel like being on another planet. I wouldn't like to live there but to get off the beaten track of your life, it is nice to go there.It was a quiet camp, the electricity was available only at the toilets and in a near bar/restaurant. We discovered the mini (mini!) market the day we left. All was basic. There were mostly Germans and Slovenians in the camp which was nice. Italians can be rather loud during the night. It was amazing that I slept to almost 8 o'clock in the morning! I usually wake up before 6 a.m. The silence was stuning in the morning, there was only sound of waves from the beach across the road to be heard. Ž wasn't very often at the seaside, he learned to swim in a swimming pool. He had bought himself a mask before leaving for this short vacation and most of the time he was watching the underwater world. There were plenty of fish! The sunsets were gorgeous, ice-cream too. We didn't go to Rovinj or to any of the near towns, perhaps next time when I will drive. There was no need for any special food, so I was mostly eating figs, we prepared some tomato salad, fried eggplants and one day we had pasta.I guess this was not the last time at the beach, we might be going there for few days again. It is quite close to Ljubljana, very cheap, clean and quiet. We don't need more. Maybe just a bit more comfortable bed? :)

First day of September

First day of meteorological autumn. Mornings are cool and afternoons are hot. Summer days have passed so quickly. I know I will miss them. I love summer, I love time, when leaves are on trees. A bit more than two months and they will fall off. Half year of bare twigs and short days follow.

First day of school. Pupils will fill up the school desks again. I don’t envy them. Perhaps just a little bit; they have many more opportunities today for additional education. I was interested in so many things when I was a pupil but there was no possibility for a child to learn more!

Birthday of my friend from youth. We spent time together during the weekend. Sometimes not even that because she had to learn (her parents were teachers and so their expectations were high). She got married 14 days before me because she was pregnant. She has two daughters. I haven’t seen her for so many years now. Since we were teens. Happy birthday, Barbara.

2003. Five years ago. It was a sad day when a part of my life ended for good. Part that I have thought would last forever. I have learned that nothing lasts forever. I have just read a book His ‘n’ Hers by Mike Gayle and found a bit of my life story in it. With one slight difference – I never give a second chance to a man who had once left me. Never.

It is also Monday on 1 September this year. It feels like a new beginning.