Monday Memories: Swimming in Chapada Diamantina

loving Brazil: a refreshing swim at the end of hike!

Really, is anything more delightful than a quick swim in cold water on the stickiest and sweatiest of summer days? I think not. Right now we're enjoying lukewarm sunshine and those first trickles of warmth but pretty soon August will be roasting us alive in our own skin and I for one cannot wait! I loved running through sprinklers during hot summers as a kid and I love jumping into cool lakes now that I'm (kind of) grown up. 

Mom and Zelda

This picture was taken on a family vacation to Brazil a few years ago. One of the highlights of our trip was the Chapada Diamantina National Park. Here, we were at the end of a long, hot, but breathtakingly beautiful hike that lead us to a lovely waterfall and this natural pool. Of course all four of us had to hop in!  It was sooooo refreshing and--once the water-tag started--so much fun!


Look up at the Sky!

Zanna

PS. Monday Memories of hiking in Costa Rica, a romantic weekend in Lausanne, Switzerland, and skiing in the alps with friends or just with Karl!

 

Five Favorites: Post-Exam-Elation!

last lecture of the semester!

It over! Today is the last day of this semester and my last exam is behind me.  Without diminishing or disrespecting the civil rights movement in any way, I would like to sing out: free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I'm free at last! Thanks for bearing with me during my moments of frustration and complaining. Those last few weeks felt like a sprint at the end of a marathon, but all went well and now....

Well. Now....what? The end of the semester always feels a little anticlimactic. Yes, we go out to celebrate but sometimes crossing the finish line still feels like deflating a balloon. So in an effort to really savor the moment, here are five totally trivial things I will especially enjoy doing again now that these exams are over.

1. Doing Laundry. ie, wearing clothes that are truly clean and not some acceptable approximation of the concept.  I have to say, Karl has been a hero on the home front,  keeping the fridge full, the dishes washed, and the laundry basket below overflowing level while I've been buried behind textbooks. Still, the prospect of extending my wardrobe beyond those last-choice-everything-else-is-dirty options will be a joy.

2. Get moving. While I generally try to squeeze a healthy amount of exercise into an average week, I have to admit it's the first thing that goes when I get busy. I insist on walking/biking to school or the library so that I'm active and out in the fresh air at least twice a day, but I'm excited to really get my sweat on and see how my badly-neglected body does after these weeks at a desk (often slumped over. Sorry,  lower back!)

3. Binge watch shows. Don't even tell me what Olivia Pope is up to right now. Seriously. No spoilers.

4. Cooking and eating something that takes more than 10 minutes to make.  Unlike the early years of medical school, I still eat pretty healthy during exam time, but usually it's something veggy and bulgar/quinoa-y that can be thrown together super quickly. I made the mistake of bringing these delicious cookies with me to the library a few weeks ago and Sophie and I cajoled the guys into baking these amazing brownies for us -- on two different occasions. But other than that, I've been good about eating right lately, despite exam stress. I'm so happy with myself about this -- mens sana in corpore sano, and I feel much better during those marathon study sessions when my body is fueled by real food and not bloated from a salt-and-vinegar-chips binge.

5. Catch up on news. I didn't even know there was a solar eclipse today until it was too late -- that's how out of the loop I am. I can't wait to sit down with my laptop and find out what has been going on in the world since I went into library hibernation. Israeli elections? Some kind of magical, color-changing dress? I am waaaay behind right now!

Look up at the Sky!

Zanna

PS. Five Favorite ways to welcome spring, things about my birthday, and romantic movies!

Five Favorites: Welcoming Spring

Berlin, decked out in springtime!

There's a freshness in the air around me and I've already felt a couple rays of sunshine soaking the vitamin D back into my skin....my friends, I do believe spring is right around the corner!

In light of all the complaining I did about this long, long winter, I think it's time to be a little more positive and at least enjoy that it's finally ending. Truthfully, it wasn't all cold and rainy and depressing: I loved skiing in the alps, celebrating valentine's day and my birthday, baking up a storm, and spending those long winter evenings having fun with friends.  Actually, when I write it out like that, counting my blessings like ducks in a row, I kind of hate myself for all the moaning and groaning. What are a few frozen toes when life is as lovely as this?!

So now, I'm going to be carpe diem-ing it up a little more.  Here are my favorite "firsts" for spring.

1. The first time you're outside and realize your jacket is way to warm and have to take it off.  Such a little thing, so much joy. This happened two days ago and I swear I was walking down the street wearing a sweater and the hugest of smiles!

2. The first time you wake up on a weekday and it's light outside.  Okay, nature get's a little help from daylight saving time with that one, but still, how good does it feel to get up when it's not pitch black?

3. The first time you voluntarily spend more time outside than necessary. I took the long way to the supermarket the other day, just to enjoy the sunshine a little longer. I haven't taken the long way since October! It's a whole 'nother twenty minutes!  Whoohoo!

4. The first ice cream cone.  Woah, I might be getting ahead of myself here. I haven't crossed this milestone yet but it won't be long now and I can't wait.  It's going to be chocolate all the way!

5. The first time you leave the house in ballerinas instead of boots.  Summer clothes! Skirts and dresses and bare legs!  I tried to explain to Karl how amazing it's going to be to just throw on a summer dress and flip flops and go. He didn't get it at all. Is it just a girl thing to get excited to bust out some summer outfits again?

Zelda in Sicily last summer

Here's Zelda last summer in Sicily, rocking the summer look. At least my sister will always get me, even if the prospect of shorts doesn't exhilarate the boy in my life quite as much as it does me. Sisters always understand!

 

Look up at the Sky!

Zanna

PS. Five favorite ways to procrastinate and ways to save!

Wednesday Waffles

Waffles slathered in homemade apple sauce with dots of raspberry jam...yum!

Wednesday Morning

Wednesdays this semester are wonderful. It's the only day in the week that the alarm doesn't go off at some ungodly hour...we don't have class till the afternoon, and boy, do we love it!  This morning, Karl and I woke up and stumbled out of bed to the intoxicating smell of: waffles! My roommate Sophie had woken up earlier and there she was, all sleepy and pajama-clad, spooning batter into our trusty old waffle iron and producing these disks of bliss (okay, I may be exaggerating now, when when they're piling up and you're hungry, boy, do those puppies look good!) 
  

Homemade Apple Sauce

She and Pete (her BF, Hong Kong born, Florida raised) had even decked the table, including the homemade apple sauce and her mom's delicious homemade jams. Something about a lit candle at breakfast makes the occasion feel so festive! 

Needless to say, everything was delicious. We had just made some apple sauce the day before out of some no-longer-perfect apples we had lying around. There's no recipe for this: just peel and core and cover in some water. Boil until they're soft and mash mash mash. We don't add sugar (or cinnamon, or cloves, or anything) and it tastes perfect just the way it is!

This is our recipe for waffles:

Ingredients
100 g butter, softened (a little less than half a cup)
60g sugar (that's 1/3 cup or 4 Tablespoons)
300g flour (2 1/2 cups)
3 eggs
375ml milk (1 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
a dash of vanilla

Instructions
Beat the butter with sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt and alternate adding milk and flour mixture to the batter, mix until smoothly combined.  Easy peasy!

Spoon a ladle-ful of batter into a pre-greased waffle iron and wait impatiently until each waffle turns golden brown. Yum!

Leftover "ich liebe dich" (I love you) cupcake!

And for dessert, the last of the valentine's day cupcakes (they froze surprisingly well!) Thank you, Karl, for dreaming up such a cute and long-lasting surprise.

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

PS. The last time we had waffles 

PPS. Who's who? The Boyfriend/Roommate situation explained.

Five Favorites: Procrastination

birthday flowers, brightening up my room!

Well, it's exam time again here at our friendly neighborhood medical school, and as always, I am finding time to do everything besides study. That's because I am one of the world's best procrastinators. I eventually sit down and get to it, obviously, because long hours in the library with a textbook are the only path through medical school. But before I pull myself together, I'm fabulous at doing just about anything else.  

Here are some of my favorite ways to push off studying.  I highly recommend them for anyone looking to create an inefficient and frustrating exam-prep experience!

1. Clean room, organize shelves, rearrange desk ect. This is particularity great if you want the feeling of being productive while actually avoiding the task at hand.

2. Spend time researching some rare pediatric mutation in glorious detail instead of focusing on the relevant material. If it's a topic I find interesting, an hour flies by. If it's boring, I look up after an eternity and twelve minutes have passed.

3. Do laundry.  Fold each piece in lovingly instead of just shoving them in the closet like I usually do.  Pinking off lint is also time consuming.

4. Discuss the pros and cons of health care reform in excruciating detail. Always great if you have med school friends who are attempting to avoid studying with as much dedication as you are.

5. Bake cookies! I tried these ones, recommended by Naomi from Love Taza. We brought a bunch to the library with us and an empty tupperware back. Way too delicious!
 

chocolate chip cookies: keeping blood sugar and spirits up since 1938!

Other common pastimes for when I should really be studying include writing thank you notes for birthday gifts, bickering unnecessarily with Karl, spending a lot of time deciding what to make for dinner, leafing through recipe books, wondering why the fridge is empty, and using exam stress as an excuse not to go grocery shopping. I'm a procrastination champ!

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

PS. Five Favorite Birthday Things, Ways to Save, Romantic Movies, Parlour Games, and Vacation Destinations! 

PPS. Last semester's exam week here!

Bonfire!

I love fire. In a safe-distance-away, controlled-setting kind of way, of course. I love the way it looks and moves, all those flickering colors and fleeting shapes. I love it's warmth and coziness and maybe even the whisper of danger. Huddling around a fire feels primordial and right.

Karl and I were down south last week on a skiing getaway weekend, right on the border between Austria and Germany in tiny little village in the mountains. There we stumbled on a local celebration (outside, of course, in below freezing temperatures, because the people that live there year-round must be utterly resistant to cold) and man, what a bonfire! It was huge, the size of a small house, and magnificent. People stood around and drank beer while the flames licked high into the night sky and sent sparks and smoke flying across the snow. The whole scene was like Robert Frost's poem, Fire and Ice, come to life. There were kids playing everywhere (because this is Europe, after all, and safety is more an every man for himself, common sense kind of endeavor) and people laughing and talking but all I could do was stare into that inferno.

Then I noticed clusters of people huddled around some sort of "warmers". I had to take a closer look. From what I could make out, they were hollowed-out tree trunks with smoldering ashes inside that emit heat as a kind of makeshift mini-fire. I was fascinated. What keeps the whole long from burning? How does it self-contain? I have no idea, but I huddled up to one too as the night got colder and I must say; I'm a fan!

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

Monday Memories: Sun, Snow, Skis!

The view from the living room window.

As I mentioned here, Karl and I ditched this icky winter weather last week for some sunshine and sport on the slopes!

We spent five days in the tiniest tinyest alpine village you ever saw, where the views are breathtaking and the rules are rigid. Seriously, only four families live there year round, and

Karl on his board--he's actually a certified instructor!

you can bet everybody knows everybody else's business. Karl's family has a vacation home there, and you can ski right up to your own doorstep! They have been visiting the same valley since his grandfather's day. Though his mom officially owns it, all cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends are welcome. You just have to give her a call to see if it's free when you want to go. Needless to say, Karl knows the village and the slopes inside out--but this was only my third time so I'm still learning! 

Stopping at a ski hut for luch!

It was great to get away just the two of us, especially as I am entering exam season now and won't reemerge for a couple weeks.  We had wonderful weather and new snow and lots of time to talk and smooch around on the lifts. I'm so glad we made time for this little trip!

One of the highlights was enjoying that hearty Bavarian cuisine. Lots of "wurst" (sausage), knödel (bread dumplings), spätzle (egg noodles), and pretzels with extra sides of meat and carbohydrates and more meat and more carbs. Just what you want after along day skiing in the cold! Of course, Karl loves his apple strudel, but my favorite is "flädle suppe", a flavorful broth with thin strips of pancake floating around. Yum!
 

Knödel soup, pretzel, apple strudel and flädlesuppe!

 Look up at the Sky! (or down at your plate!)

-Zanna

PS. More monday memories of playing "Who am I?", lake fun, a romantic weekend in Lausanne, and hiking in Brazil!

Five Favorites: Birthday Edition!

 

Blindfolded at my 21st Birthday Party

I love my own birthday. I just do. I know that sometime after you turn twelve, this is supposed to subside. What can I say? I'm immature. 

Today, Karl and I are heading to Berlin to celebrate my birthday family-style. This evening we have tickets to see Igor Levit perform Beethoven's sonatas, and I am so excited! Levit is an incredibly talented, up-and-coming pianist and it's such a stroke of luck he's performing the day before I turn twenty-three! As for the rest of the weekend...I think Karl has a couple surprises up his sleeve (he's the worst secret keeper ever) and whatever we end up doing to celebrate, I'm happy to be spending this day with him and with my lovely family.

Now for my Five Favorite Birthday Things:

1. CAKE. My dad always makes me an amazingly decadent and buttery chocolate tart from the incomparable cookbook, From Simple to Spectacular. Yum!

2. PRESENTS. My style for the year is basically defined by what my fashion-guru of a younger sister gives me for Xmas and Bday. Thanks for that, Zelda! Sorry you had to explain what an ombre is to this trend-ignoramus sister of yours. And my Mom is a pretty amazing gift-giver as well.

3. REFLECTION.  I love looking back over the last year, like we do at New Years and on birthdays, and really taking stock of the grace and blessings in our lives. Too often our gratefulness gets swept away by life's many small frustrations like papercuts and annoying cell phone ringtones. I try to grab any opportunity to put those little things aside and embrace this time as it flies by!

4. FUN PARTIES. When we get back, you betcha we're having a big ol' blow out. Above is a pic from my twenty first, and yes, that's me blindfolded and on the way to god knows what. Whether it's a crazy party or a group of friends gathering for some food and conversation, we love having everyone over for a good time.

5. GETTING OLDER. Nope, it's not my favorite, but in an effort to stop hating it, I'm putting it on the list! I started having serious angst about my birthdays passing when I turned 10 (double digits!) and it hasn't ceased since. But as much as I mourn how fast the years are going by, I know it only feels like that because we are having so. much. fun. every step of the way. So I am going to love every blink of an eye that passes before this time of year rolls around again...each blink is an immeasurably precious gift.

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

Breakfast table decked for a birthday (dark because it's 6:00AM in northern Europe)

PS. Five Favorite Ways to Save, Romantic Movies, Parlour Games (some even work for parties!), and Five Favorite Destinations for 2015!

Super Quick and Easy (Microwaveable) Brownies

Ladies and Gentlemen, a confession. 

I am an absolute and unabashed chocoholic. The darker, the better, and I can never get enough. Today I'm sharing with you one of my favorite last-minute-must-get-out-the-door recipes. Its for those days you arrive home sweaty and frantic twenty minutes before a dinner you've been invited to...thirty minutes away. This is great for potlucks, hostess gifts, spontaneous gatherings and late night meltdowns.  I first got this recipe from my best friend Clara, a prodigious baker, who used it as a bakesale contribution in high school whenever she overslept.  Its incredibly easy to put together (in one bowl), uses ingredients we always have around the house, and best of all, it's practically fool-proof. Seriously. Even Karl made it (while I yelled instructions from the shower while simultaneously brushing my teeth and writing a card).

 
And did I mention you can bake it in an oven or a microwave? And that the later takes all of six minutes? Yeah. It's awesome. They also happen to taste pretty darn good.

Here's Clara's recipe for Super Quick and Easy
(Microwaveable) Brownies:

Ingredients

115 grams butter (1/2) cup
1 cup sugar 
2 eggs
200 gram dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 /2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda


Instructions

If you have a pan or pot that is oven/microwave proof, great.  You'll be able to mix and bake this all in one go. If not, grab any old pan/pot and transfer your batter before you bake.

Melt butter on the stove. Turn heat to low and add sugar. MIX WELL about three or four minutes with a fork until mixture is fully emulsified. This is the only really important step. The batter will become thicker and paler and the sugar grains should all disappear. If you proceed too quickly, the brownies won't turn solid and will taste fatty.
 

1. Melt butter, 2. Add sugar, 3. Mix extensively until thick and pale, 4. Add eggs

Emulsified butter and sugar? Good. Now take off the heat and add half the chocolate, mixing until melted and integrated. Remember, the better the quality of the chocolate used, the better the brownies taste! A dash of coffee powder will sometimes help compensate for lower quality chocolate. When mixture is brown, add  eggs and and mix till combined. Add all the rest of the ingredients in one go.

For microwave:

Microwave your batter on high for one minute. Then, add the rest of the chopped chocolate and mix with a fork. Return to microwave for five minutes. If the brownies are unfinished, keep microwaving in 1 minute intervals till they are done. My microwave usually needs six minutes total to finish the job.

For oven:

Add the rest of the chopped chocolate and bake brownies in oven at 190°C (375°F) for twenty minutes. Voila!


Let brownies cool and enjoy! They're even better the next day....

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

PS. Tragically, no pictures of the finished product...it got eaten too fast!

PPS. Try adding some chopped nuts sprinkled on top, its even more delicious.

Monday Memories: Skiing in the Alps

Patrick, Frederika, and Karl with our epic snowman!

Just a short post today, because we are beyond the reach of reliable internet...in the Alps! I love it here. The mountains are majestic and the snow makes everything so serene and still.

Karl's family has a vacation place here and we come almost every year for some snow, sunshine, and skiing. Last year, we went with a couple of friends from medical school, Patrick and Frederika, but this years it's a romantic getaway à deux, which is lovely after the hustle and bustle of these busy winter months. 2015 is just flying by and I'm so happy to have a couple days of calm with my sweetheart to leave it all behind and just enjoy eachother's company (and some hot chocolate and good books too)!

Look up at the Sky (it's a fantastic night sky here)!

-Zanna

PS. More Monday Memories here, here, and here.

Five Favorites: Ways to Save

Pete's Christmas gift currently graces our bathroom

This week's "five favorites" post stems from our very student-y budget constraints. Many of the things I love (great chocolate, fresh fruits and vegetables, organic meat, and most of all: trips) don't come cheap. Here are some tips Karl and I have gathered on how to make each Euro count!

1. DIY.  This is a "duh" suggestion that I never really took seriously until I started making my own bread (yum!) and realized how much dough we were saving (terrible pun intended). Now we're all about finding ways to add thoughtfulness and save pennies with DIY. We loved making  homemade holiday cards out of scraps and our low-key  Valentine's Day fit right in with this new philosophy.

2. Turn that thermostat down! Last winter, during the coldest week of the year, our heating broke down. We froze for seven days before it got fixed.  After some bitter complaining and several evenings spent exclusively in bed (the only warmish place in the apartment) we actually kind of...got used to it. To our surprise, we just sort of shifted from breakfast in PJs to breakfast in an Anorak. The couple seconds after a shower were hellish, but beyond that, we learned that when one is ensconced in fleece, cold is actually okay. Although we certainly cranked the heating up when it was finally fixed, we tend to keep the apartment about seven degrees colder than before...and now we save several hundred Euro a year, without minding at all!

3.Stay in! At the Sophie/Pete/Karl/Zanna house, we LOVE games. We've found an evening of poker or a snuggly movie night on the sofa is just as awesome as a fancy dinner out--for a fraction of the price!

4. Meatless Mondays...and Tuesdays...and Wednesdays.  My roommate Sophie is a vegetarian, and though the rest of us identify as carnivores, we only eat meat about once or twice a week. I tend to insist on organic, local, and free-range (for various ethical and health-related reasons) and that's about as expensive as it gets! So we have some morally righteous meat every now and then and enjoy eggs and other protein-laden, purse-friendly alternatives the rest of the week.

5. Car sharing.  It took me a while to warm up to this one, but Karl insisted, and now we use it for every car trip and have never looked back. When we travel as a couple, there are two empty seats in the back and it can cover the entire cost of gas to rent those out! We use the two most popular sites here in Germany, Mitfahrgelegenheit and Bla Bla Car, but we learned during our time in France and Switzerland that there are equivalent sites for most European countries. We're heading down south for some skiing this weekend, and the rides we have lined up will reimburse the whole car trip!

In addition to these tips, we also have a couple general rules, such as: no credit card debt, no bottled water, no magazine subscriptions, no take-out, no ATM-stops at non-affiliated banks, no brand-name products, ect.

One thing we NEVER agree on is handymen. Karl always thinks he can fix it, whatever "it" is, and I would rather just call an expert and not make it worse. We're still hashing that one out!

What about you? What are you favorite ways to save pennies and what's worth a splurge?

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna
 

PS. Very first "Five Favorites" here!

Lovey Dovey Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

My parents on a beach in Brazil. Married almost 25 years and celebrated Valentines Day in none of them.

I have to out myself: not the most important holiday in my calendar. Probably most of that is cultural, February 14th is a lot less hyped here in Europe, and though heart shaped chocolate boxes and long stemmed roses do start popping up in stores, that's about the extent of it for most people.

My first Valentines Day with Karl, we both forgot.  I went into an exam on Feb. 16th, wrote the date at the top and thought "Oops! Looks like we forgot something. Oh well."

The next year, Karl surprised me in the morning with this:

Valentine's Day 2014..an unexpected surprise :)

And I have to say it meant so much to me, coming out of the blue like that. In some ways, not making a big deal of it takes all the pressure off and makes each unexpected gesture so much more meaningful!

"Ich liebe dich!"

This year, Karl has to work all day from very early to very late. He got up this morning and I rolled over and fell back asleep. But when I finally did get up (at 11:00, after a deliciously long lie-in) I found this surprise on our kitchen table!  My opposite-of-a-sweet-tooth, won't-eat-dessert-if-you-beg-him baby made chocolate cupcakes and frosted them all by himself, just for me!

Now I'm of two minds. We don't do fancy dinner reservations and we don't exchange gifts, and I've always been very happy as a non-valentiner. But now this thoughtful man of mine is going rogue and off-script, and I have to say, I kind of like it! There's something about walking into your kitchen and finding this sweet heart-shaped deliciousness that just makes my non-romantic heart leap. Maybe I'm a Valentine's Day gal after all?
 

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

PS. Favorite Five Romantic Movies!

Five Favorites: Romantic Movies

Here's the deal: I love movies. Not so much the cars-exploding-someone-gets-gruesomely-killed-every-five-seconds kind, but the rest of them. My favorite movie last year was Boyhood, and if you haven't found time to see it yet--understandable for a movie with a running time of almost three hours--you MUST see it! Sorry, I hate gratuitous CAPS too, but I feel strongly about this one (see above, re: love movies).
 
When I was a kid we went to the movies almost every weekend (sometimes even back-to-back if Mom was out of town and Papa was presiding) but unfortunately that intensity of movie fandom isn't compatible with a student's budget.  Yes, I know, Netflix and iTunes and so on but its just not the same when its not the big screen!

Still, today, in honor of Valentines Day (which I'm not big into, to be honest, but more on that tomorrow) I have collected my five favorite love-centered movies of all time! 







1. Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968). This film is  beautifully shot, and actually won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Zeffirelli's trademark crowd scenes contrast with the simple, intimate moments in the play which allows the incomparable langauge and dialogues to take center stage. Employing actors close to the actual age of the characters was an unusual choice at the time, and I must say Olivia Hussey's naive but passionate Juliet is my all-time favorite on stage and screen. A perfect Valentine Date classic!
 

2.When Harry Met Sally (1989).  The deli scene is hilarious to the millionth power. As someone whose orders at restaurants can tend towards the picky (understatement of the year) and whose relationship processed in fits and starts while circling eachother warily,  I find a lot to relate to in this timeless comedy.
 

3. Barefoot in the Park (1967).  Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.  Need I say more?! This is a must for anyone who has ever lived in a high-floor walkup or moved in a partner only to discover some unanticipated clash points. Some movies just don't seem to age!

4.Notting Hill (1999). I know, I know, it's sappy (well, this whole list is über saccharine) but this is one of my absolute favorite romcoms. Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant make an adorable pair and the roommate Spike makes for great comic relief!

5. Some Like it Hot (1959). I can't believe it took me all the way to full-on-adulthood to watch this movie! And I can't believe I barely kept control of my bladder when I finally did! This crazy, convoluted masterpiece actually takes place right after the St. Valentine's Day massacre, not a romantic association to be sure, but doesn't that make it all the more appropriate for this special occasion?! I tend to think so...





 



Karl has to work from dawn till dusk tomorrow so we'll be celebrating Sunday night and I still can't decide what film will be on the program...what are your favorites? Would love to get tips and discover some new classics!

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

PS. More Five Favorites here, here, and here. 
PPS. Five Favorites inaugural post here.

Costume Party!

The whole gang gets dressed up!

Every now and then, when the winter is long and the days get gloomy, you just gotta throw a dang party! And voila: just a few home-mixed cocktails, a whole lot of laughs, and a completely wrecked apartment later, you feel So. Much. Better!

We decided to celebrate in costume because, though the prep can be extensive, the result are often fantastically amusing. Opening the door when the buzzer goes becomes half the fun...especially when your friends start getting creative!  This is a shot of the living-room contingent (isn't it funny how every party seamlessly splits into 'Team Living Room' and 'Team Kitchen'--or is that just us?!) I loved my roommate Sophie's ladybug approach, but I have to say the astronaut, nun, television and tiger were also incredibly cool. 

What are your go-to costumes? All time favorites? 

4:00 AM

And (a question for the ages) clean up in the wee hours directly after the guests depart or leave it all for the next day?  I'd love to hear your takes!



Look up at the Sky!



-Zanna