sLOVEnka: Sweet Spot

Right now I am experiencing a rare period of pre-Christmas peace. Sweetness. Loveliness. Enjoyment. Yes, I guess that captures it best. Enjoyment. I tend to be the world's worst Christmas procrastinator. I don't know why or how it happens but every year it's like wow, it's December 22nd and I have one present. But somehow this year I started wading in a lot earlier and let me tell you, I like it so much. I mentioned starting the crafts in early December, but I think it's almost more a mental thing for me. Just to be thinking about Christmas all month. Jesus' birth, the season, family, enjoyment. It could be, too, that right now I'm just in a really sweet spot. I get to be home on maternity leave with Rosy. Lily goes to pre-school and LOVES it. I write and edit for two magazines, which is an absolute dream job for me. And my boss is the sweetest. (Sweet as in sweet, not sweet as in sweeeeeeet). I teach five lessons a week and I adore my students. But before you think I'm donning too pink a pair of glasses, I must repeat that I'm in a sweet spot. A rare little pool of pink where I am somehow able to see and enjoy all my blessings. There are PLENty of days when I would be quick to point out the cooking and the cleaning and the shopping and the lack of appreciation. But today I took Rosy to our town's Christmas market, which is where people have tents or booths and sell Christmas-y things like wooden toys, honey products, handmade Christmas decorations etc. There are roasted chestnuts for sale, and hot mulled wine and punch are sold in small plastic cups. I was able to get my (American) family a couple presents and I also got a bag of bee pollen, which I'd been wanting to try, from a beekeeper from our area for just 3 euros. Those are the things I love about Slovakia. In the US, local bee pollen is pretty pricey, but here, bee keeping is a fairly normal activity (I know of three in my immediate circle of friends and family), so honey and pollen and beeswax candles etc. are sold for a good price, just the same as organic produce is sold at a farmers market. Same goes for the aforementioned presents, which shall remain nameless until after Christmas. And on my way out of the market I stopped at the booth for the school I used to work for. It was run by a former co-worker of mine and three sweet, timid students. They had a handful of cute things for sale for much too low a price, so I snatched up a handful. This might be the mulled wine talking, but even the half-kilometer long line at the post office didn't bother me because, well, it's just part of it, isn't it? You want to send a package at Christmastime, you're gonna wait, you just are. In a strange way, it made me feel cheery. (I didn't really have any wine, but had I had a companion older than two I totally would have). And speaking of two-year-old companions, that has been one of the sweetest things about this sweet spot; just really enjoying our girls. Rosy is in a stage right now that she really is just so cute you could eat her with a fork. Her language is developing in leaps and bounds, but she's not quite there yet, so she says hilarious things. Half the time I wonder if she meant to say what she just said, it's so funny. Case in point, the other night she yelled for me (again) to come feed her before bed and I was annoyed, so I went in there and said, ''Rosy I'm fed up,'' to which she replied ''I'm fed up,'' and then proceeded to make her Peppa Pig snort sounds while breastfeeding. Lily just now came out of her room to inform me that ''Rosy is nonsense.''
So what am I trying to say in all of this? I don't know, I guess I just live in complaint so much, that when I finally do come up for air, and even stay there a while, it feels so good. I won't use the T word again, but we really do have so much to be...grateful for : ) I have about ten things from this week alone that I'd love to tell you, but that's for another post. So I'm gonna swim in this little pink pool (ew) as long as I can.

Here's a smattering of pics: