holiday market

makayla's school has this thing called holiday market - where they get donation from the parents and kids gets to go shopping to buy something for their family. it's fun for them but basically it's a fund raising for the school - parents donate little stocking stuffers and give money for the kids to buy them. anyhow, i was determined to make something with my sewing machine. and these are stuff i came up with.

little tissue holders - perfect for this cold season with all the runny nose!

colored pencil or marker holder - this took way too much work so i only ended up making one :P

when opened. . . . .

Oh my goodness, makayla came back from school today with her purchase from the holiday market. i can not believe what she came back with! we gave her 50 zlotys which is about $20 and this is what she brought:

1. ONE dum dum lollipop

2. pack of pez refills (not even the dispenser!!!)

3. little plastic tiger thing for ethan

4. little Bratz notepad

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? I know it's a fundraiser for the school, so i didn't mind giving the money but c'mon, REALLY? definitely, next year, i'm going to get involved!!! they can't be that desperate for money - they charge an arm and a leg for tuition!!!!

unto happier(?) topic.

i had a funny exchange with ethan. ethan wanted to fight so he grabbed himself a plastic bat and handed over an infant aspirator to mommy and said "here, sword, fight."

mommy: it's not fair, your sword is so much bigger.

ethan: (ignoring mommy's comment) fight, fight, fight!!!

we start to fight and ofcourse ethan ends up hitting my hand since my sword is the size of my hand!!

mommy: ethan, give me a bigger sword!

ethan: o....kkkkk..... (hands me over the little bigger fishing pole)

mommy: this is not that much bigger - give me the bigger one. (pointing to the bat)

ethan: here it is! (still handing over the fishing pole)

here's the recap of what happened - you can hear ethan say his most favorite phrase these days - "no way jose" - we have no clue where he picked that up but he now adds jose to everything including "go away jose" - and the typical exchange with daddy goes something like this :

ethan: "go away jose"

daddy: "i'm not jose - are you jose?"

ethan: "no, you are"

daddy: "no, you are jose."

ethan: "no way jose."

Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

For us, couple of American families got together for a turkey and all that comes with it. It was nice to be able to celebrate it together with a real Butterball turkey! (one of the family is in the military so they have access to the commissary in the base in Germany) Everything was so good - though it was everyone's first time to make Thanksgiving dinner - they were used to being invited to a full meal at their parents/relatives' place- we were all like "how do you carve a turkey???" Well, there's first to everything! and it was done well!

andy scraping every bit of turkey meat he can find.

Thanks to his effort, kids were well fed!

Mak satisfied with her turkey - especially the spongebob mac and cheese!

craft time with daddies - they made bobble head turkey - it was followed by comments by dads "it's the hardest thing i've ever done" - these cheap craft kits are very complicated and the glue takes about a day to dry.

and some soccer to burn off some calories.

they really got into the foam letters

we finished the evening with ethan punishing daddy the letter head monster.

list with the mostest

Disclaimer: obviously it's not really the "most" anything - there are many interesting things here and many pathetic things i do but it's just a list i came up with on a whim. . . . .

Most pathetic thing i do weekly - check online target weekly ads.

Most overpriced item i bought - $8 for yellow radish - takuan.

Most overpriced item joe bought - $160 oil change at the honda dealership - he and his co-worker didn't even ask for the price when they went - people there were probably like "rich americans - suckers!! will give them the most expensive racing car oil we have!!!"

Most underpriced item i bought - nothing!! everything is much more expensive than in the states!

Most surprising thing about Poland - young people here are very stylish - i've seen even young moms decked out in high heeled boots with tailored coats and full make up.

Most pleasant surprise of this house - the house is so dry, it dries our wet laundry in half a day.

Most unpleasant surprise of this house - the house is so dry, it makes ethan's nose bleed.

Most surprising thing about myself living in Poland - i'm a natural born cook. i would just whip up something out of nothing - now joe is afraid to cook anything b/c he might mess it up

Most unexpected thing about me living here - i have not bought a single thing for myself since i arrived here in july - only necessities. not even one nail polish!!!! i went to the mall today determined to buy a winter hat, couldn't find one that looked nice - either too trendy or utilitarian. when i tried on this trendy one at zara, ethan goes "not so cute, mommy" thanks alot, my angel.

Most confusing thing about grocery shopping here - creams are identified by percentage - so there's 33% smietlana, 18% smietlana, 15% smietlana and 12% smietlana - can you guess which one is sour cream?

Most difficult thing to adopt to here - lack of personal space, i think this has to do with something about being a developing country, i remember feeling that way in korean as well. they are all over you when you withdraw cash from ATM or standing in line for anyting.

Most easy thing to adopt here - beautiful summers! the temperature is perfect, outdoor cafes are awesome, eating out is cheap and architecture has character!

Most interesting thing i noticed - cashiers here don't hand back your change in your hand. even when i have my hand out, they put it down in this plastic dish they have by the cashier. then it takes me 3 minutes to slide each coin back into my hand. why is that?

Most backward thing here - music on the radio. everything here seem to have moved on with the western culture - but what's up with the tina turner and michael jackson on the radio???? i'm tired of listening to "private dancer" in taxi rides. if you don't know who sang "private dancer", you didn't grow up in the 80's i suppose.

London!

My trip to London was a whirlwind! Arrived Wednesday at noon and left Thursday morning at 10! I couldn't leave the kids longer than one night with a babysitter - yeah, i'm such a good mom :)

Ofcourse, joe wouldn't just let me sip my latte in peace, we had to explore, maximize, maximize!! it was a full day - and i'm definitely coming back! London felt just like NY except the buildings are lower and more historical. i thoroughly enjoyed being in the city but at the same time came out grateful about Krakow as well! Man, London is soooo expensive, it's no joke. (especially with the falling dollar. . . .) Joe told me that his co-worker in the London office is married to this Ph.D. engineer and THEY can't even afford anything in the city. so they rent this one room in the apartment where they have to share a kitchen and a bathroom with 3 other people. oh, and the room barely fits queen size bed. can you imagine? that just won't fly with me, i'll be sure to take a picture of the lap of luxury we live in and remind myself that at least i'm not living in a matchbox though i don't understand what anyone is saying! As soon as i landed, i smiled to Joe and said "it's nice that i can read all the signs :)"

This was our itineray -
1. Arrived in London
2. Head straight to Chinatown for a meal and shopping. We brought our suitcase to the supermarket and filled it up with Asian goodies - no shame for this ajumma. We first went to this Japanese place and had sushi but it was totally not satisfying that i demanded to get some wonton noodle soup in a Chinese restaurant - which we did. that was good - but i miss Sang Kee ~ I miss your wonton roasted pork noodle soup. . .
3. Checked in to our hotel, washed up a bit.
4. Then off to the National Gallery. and this museum was FREE (donation highly recommended!) - and it really had a GREAT collection! We couldn't see most of it because some rooms were closed due to staff strike and we didn't have enough time but definitely worth a visit - it's right next to the National Portrait Gallery which had an exhibition on pop artist portraits - was tempted to veer that way but didn't have enough time and didn't want to pay $20 to just run through an exhbition!
5. We walked a bit to see some parts of the Parliament and Big Ben.
6. Then the plan was off to Harrod's for some shopping and Krispy Kremes. we followed our google map to our destination only to find that it was WRONG - damn you - google map!
7. This nice couple we asked for directions gave us a recommendation for an Italian place nearby the theatre. And it was really good! One of the best seafood pasta i've had.
8. We saw "Wicked" at 7:30pm - i'll review that show later. . . .
9. Went back to the hotel exhausted.
10. Got up at 6:45am to grab a full English breakfast - yum.
11. Me off to the airport and Joe off to his meetings.

BTW, my kids were totally fine. My babysitter laughed and said that Ethan didn't ask for us once. He didn't even answer the phone when I called. Makayla talked to me on the phone but as soon as I told her that there was ice cream in the freezer for them, she left the phone without saying good-bye. My babysitter picked up the phone chuckling and said bye. Oh, and thank you for those who's been praying for Mak and I - we're feeling much better and Makayla's been back to her old self for the past several days which is helping me feel better.

We didn't take many pictures since it's kind of boring to take them without the kids but here's a few to commemorate my first visit to London.
London underground - just like Seoul! and not stinky like NY.
Big Ben - quite beautiful at night.
My seafood pasta - yummmy. i can go for that right now!
My two cents on "Wicked" - thoroughly enjoyed it and i understand why people say this is their favorite musical on broadway. Amazing voice, clever storyline, interesting stage sets and fun songs. If you go see it, you definitely won't be disappointed.

All that said, I couldn't help feel a bit uncomfortable about the message. I think most of you know that it's about the wicked witch in wizard of Oz and how she really wasn't 'wicked' - just misunderstood or 'framed'. ofcourse, it's just a clever story and i have NOTHING against it but i feel like that's the kind of propaganda i've been exposed to heavily in the last decade. Identification of evil and good is blurred - nothing is ever good and nothing is ever evil - depending on your perspective. Everything is grey. I think that's how society interprets good and bad now. There's an explanation to everything - when someone does something evil, it's because of their upbringing (believe me, as a social worker and a person with lots of issues - i KNOW what that's about!) - however, then where's personal accountability and responsibility? Because everything is up to our interpretation, we can never have any absolutes - and THAT bothers me. Will we recognize 'good' and 'evil' when we see it? or does it all depend?

Golden Compass is coming out in the theaters soon. I didn't read the book but my literary expert, Hyelee has filled me in on what that book is about. And it sounds like the exact same propaganda - is what we consider 'good', actually 'good'? or have we been fooled and only enlightened minds will see that what we actually consider 'bad' is indeed 'good'. It wouldn't be as scary if this book wasn't targeted toward young minds - i think it's required reading in the public schools for 7th graders or so? anyhow, i don't really intend to discuss anything serious on this blog but just a thought or two triggered by the musical.

forecast and random thoughts

first of many snow of the season.

our backyard

this is what i'm dealing with here - and everyone is quick to remind me, "it's only the beginning and this is not bad at all!"

Before it got too cold, the kids got to visit the zoo couple of times. Krakow zoo is five minutes from our house and it's actually a pretty nice zoo - and b/c the space is limited the animals are really close by. good for us but not too great for the animals. in this video you can hear ethan's latest favorite phrase repeated - "GO AWAY" as Mak is chuckling in the background.

Instead of saying "no", Ethan has resorted to saying "go away" in exchange. through out the day i hear "go away mommy" or "go away everybody" - and ofcourse, we don't go away.

also today while we were hanging out at the house, i noticed that ethan was bringing makayla a blanket, water and snacks. puzzled, i asked mak, "what's going on?" mak's reply - "we're playing 'servants' mommy. i'm the king and ethan is a servant - and he's going to put you and daddy in prison - just pretend, okay?" do i play along to foster imagination or reprimand her for manipulating her brother to do what she wants? apparently, i value imagination over kindness.

culture shock

so i alluded previously that i've been kind of depressed lately. well, i've now decided that it's culture shock - which came as a total surprise to me. i thought that since i had a very realistic picture of what my life would be like and i'm quite adaptable, i wouldn't go through it - oh well, i'm going through it. i've been feeling quite blue and down - unmotivated and not wanting to go out and stuff. . . .

this past week has been particularly bad, i've been extremely fatigued and started to have constant headache. it didn't help that mak didn't have school and stayed home the whole week as well. the crazy and sad thing is that i think mak is going through culture shock as well. she's been extremely weepy and whiny this past week. and she would constantly talk about her friends back home. she would say things like :

"do you remember when we went on an egghunt with ellie and mr. billy? and mr. billy was so silly?"

"remember when you came to my school for a mother's day and i sang you 'happy mother's day to you?"

"i want to see halmi - when can we go to america?"

and she would refuse to talk about her friends at school. it's quite interesting. i guess mak and i are both extroverts and she misses all the interactions. (though i think she's getting enough here, i guess it's different...) she likes her friends at school but half of them speak french and don't speak english well. and some are russian and swedish. it's truly international :) i was totally annoyed at her whining and weepiness but after understanding that she might be feeling things which she can't express, i felt so bad for her. and the fact i'm kind of going through the same thing, poor girl :( please pray for us.

ethan and joe on the other hand are doing just fine. maybe ethan is introverted just like joe - NOT!!! anyhow, to get away from the mundaneness of things here, joe is taking me to london for a day! whoo-hoo! i'll get me some decent chinese food and krispy kreme!! it's almost sad that my depression seems to be intricately tied with food. . . .

another thing, i saw a doctor b/c of my headache, hoping they'll give me something better than motrin. well, i walked away with a prescription of ketonel (ketoprofen) - i went to joe's work to check on the internet what it was (since dr.'s english was limited) - then joe's polish co-worker was like "i can't believe the dr. prescribed that - that thing is sooooo strong!" apparently, she takes it (prob. for menstral cramps) but only when she's about to die. she said that it just knocks her out and she was told not to take it regularly since it can cause somekind of internal bleeding. yikes. i didn't fill the script. well, sarah sung, i hope you're reading this and can give me an insight into whether i should take it or not. i just have a chronice headache and muscle fatigue.

ahhhhh, adventure in no english land.