of rainbows and sunshine

Yesterday there were non-stop downpours all day long, it was horrible running around trying not to get soaking wet. But when I came back and looked out the window I saw a beautiful rainbow stretching over the whole city. Looking out the other window I saw the church Saint Pierre in the distance, there was an after the storm light that when combined with the sunset and the last rements of the rainstorm producted a beautiful sight to see that even my camera couldn't catch quite right...











This morning the sun was out and while I drank my morning coffee I could hear the bells at Saint Pierre tolling and the Sunday market getting ready for action on the streets below. So I ran out and bought some summertime treats, local strawberries (les maras des bois), cherries and nectarines. I hope this time summer is here to stay! I've had enough rain!!!


Happy Father's Day to all those dads out there, especially mine!

... I'm back

I'm back in the blogging world... There have been lots of things going on recently, none of which I'd like to go into more detail on my blog, but needless to say I've been a bit stressed but am doing a bit better.

When I was talking to a friend of mine about this stress she suggested that I try her acupuncturist doctor. She has been going there for the last 6 months or so and says that the woman is very nice and the treatment seems to really work.

Being from the States I've never really gone to any alternative medecine, but I thought why not. The woman is also a regular GP and so not only does she do acupuncture but regular healthcare as well. I think the combination of Eastern-Western medecine can be really interesting. Not only that but because she's a regular doctor I just had to pay the regular 21euros fee, plus a couple extra for the needles. So even if I didn't like it, the whole thing is almost completely reimbursed by the state healthcare system :-) Cool eh?

So I went there this morning and my friend was right, she is so nice. She's very insightful and asked me questions that I would never have thought relavant or connected to my stress. The needles hardly hurt at all, just the lightest of pricks, not even like those little pricks at the end of your fingers to sample blood (god those hurt!) probably because these needles don't even draw blood. She put several on my feet and lower legs, a couple by my wrists, a few on my back and two or three on the top of my head! The strange thing is that these needles are bendy! She put them in my back and then asked me to lay down!

The whole thing was a very relaxing experience and she asked me to make an appt in 2 weeks for a follow up and to see how things are going. I asked for a perscription for allergy meds since I'm all out and can't wear my contacts my eyes hurt so bad, she also gave me a perscription for some minerals and stuff to get my immune system back up. I went to go fill these perscriptions and was surprised when the pharmasist brought a box filled with glass tubes that looked like this:

I had seen them before and they always creeped me out... They are little glass tubes with medication inside, called ampoules. Basically you break (yes break with your fingers!) the glass tip and then as the liquid is suspended inside by some force of physics, you break off the other tip and all the liquid drains out. Now I've seen people do this directly into their mouthes but me, no I couldn't handle it so I put it in a glass and then drank it. Its just too weird hearing the crunch of the glass...

gone fishing

When life throws a curve ball* at you sometimes you just need to pull back and take a break, I need that little break from blogging right now ... but never fear - I'll be baaack. :-)


*How American am I with my baseball metaphores?

when it rains...

...it pours!

I went to the bank today with a friend of mine to help with him with his account and wanted to add me to his account so I could help with transfers over the summer when he goes home to the States.

So we walk up to the desk and he explains to the guy that he wants to add me to his account and the guy asks for my ID. When I hand it over he fills out a form. I leaned over when I noticed that he filled out my birthday as 29/06/2007 (the day my ID expires).

I couldn't help but point out that, it is in fact not my birthday, I am not negative years.

So I said, actually my birthday is Oct 27, 1981.

And I see him write down Oct 25, 1981.

So I politely correct him but he ignores me. Then just before leaving he said, Ok just to verify the information and repeats all that he's written on the form. When he gets to my birthday I said, actually it is the 27th, not the 25th. And he replies, right, the 25th, ok.

Shaking my head I said, sure, fine. I swear.... :-)

I went to the pharmacy yesterday because I have these weird red spots in an isolated patch on my shoulder, almost like 10 million spiders bit me or a random cluster of zits or something. Anyway not to get into too much icky detail I just never have skin problems like that so I thought I'd stop by a pharmacy and see what they thought. In the middle of the conversation I was instantly reminded of these recent conversations of Sam and Frog with a Blog. It went something like this:

Me: Hi, I just had a question for you. See I have these weird red bumps on my shoulder. (I show them).

Pharmacy Lady: Oh, yes that does look weird.

Me: I just never have skin problems and I couldn't figure out what it might be so I thought I'd see if you had a cream or something.

Pharmacy Lady: Well it must be insect bites because it itches.

Me: Um, actually it doesn't itch.

Pharmacy Lady: No, it does itch I can tell. Plus you've scrached it.

Me: No, not that I remember, I've had insect bites before that itched and this doesn't itch.

Pharmacy Lady: No, its a bug bite and it itches. I'll give you a cream to take care of the itch.

Me: It doesn't itch.

Pharmacy Lady: Ok, take this cream and put it on 3 times a day, it will take care of the itch.

Me under my breath: But it doesn't itch.

Pharmacy Lady: Ok, that will be 5E.

I caved, she was so convinced that I have a gazillion bug bites in an area the size of a silver dollar that I paid the 5 euros and hoped the cream would work. I can tell you now that with the cream, I still don't itch, surprise surprise.

tee hee

thesis writin'

Last year I signed up for my first year of Masters (M1) in English Lit here at the university. But between all the classes, homework and then working 2 jobs at 3 schools I managed to pass the classes but never wrote my thesis to pass the year.

So this year I signed up for M1 again, but this time no classes (since I already passed them) just my thesis to write. It took me so long to actually find a topic and a direction to head in, but now I've found it, I have my outline written out and the main part of my introduction written out. I have tons of ideas and things to say but having a hard time organizing my thoughts in a coherent manner so I'm reading and re-reading all my research.

My topic is on a contemporary American poet and her works and as I was leafing through one of her books of poetry something struck me. This not-well-known-outside-of-certain-circles author had published this book in my small and remote hometown (pop. 8,000) in Washington State! I never even knew we had a publishing company at home!

I took this as fate, I am meant to write about this! Now, enough procrastinating, gotta get back to work!

mother's day

I picked a flower for you :-)

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!!

We'll go back to this beach next time you come visit, can't wait!

Love you,

Karina

artsy-fartsy

The last few weeks I've felt that I've got some creative needs that need to be met! I used to do a lot more artwork, and crafty projects back in the day (was almost an Art Major in college!)

I bought a glass engraver a few years ago, its a great little tool that has paid for itself several times over. Its a little hard to get used to using because on glass it tends to skip and once you engrave glass you can't erase!

Friends of Mystery Guest is having their baby baptized in a few weeks and I thought it might be a nice gift. I always take pictures of my handmade gifts and am always tempted to post them but knowing that a lot of those people would read my blog I can't! But this time, ha ha, I can! So what do you think?

2eme tour

Today is the second round of voting for the French Presidental election. I again got to go in the little booth with Mr. Mystery Guest and pretend I was voting too. It is a cultural experience and something that is interesting to be a part of. Which reminds me of when I was voting for the US President almost 8 years ago and my Japanese roommate asked me out of curiousity what I thought about the election, to which my response was shooting coffee out my nose. The Japanese have a slight problem differentiating between "l" and "r" in English so you can imagine my surprise.

We find out in a couple of hours, at 8pm who will win. I have a sad feeling that out of the two evils it will be the greater than rather than the lesser than...

I found on another blog an article by Bill Maher that I again almost shot coffee out of my nose reading, I highly recommend you take a look but to whet your tastebuds here's a quote:

"We're not first. America isn't ranked anywhere near first in anything except military might and snotty billionaires. The country that is ranked No. 1 in healthcare, for example, is France. The World Health Organization ranks America at 37 in the world -- not two, or five -- 37, in between Costa Rica and Slovenia, which are both years away from discovering dentistry."

speederman 3

Last night I went go to see Speederman 3 with Mr. Mystery Guest and CJ. I had heard mixed reviews but overall enjoyed the cinematic expericence

:-)

I would say the first 2/3 of the movie were really fun and well done, you would even say it was a real spiderman zipping along but then it got cheezy and kitch and thats when I started having a good laugh - but at all the wrong parts.

I still think its worth seeing on the big screen just for all the action scenes.

la colline aux oiseaux

One beautiful park that most people don't take a chance to visit while in Caen is the Colline aux oiseaux (the bird hill if you will hehe). It is right next to our famous Mémorial and used to be a landfill, although you'd never guess that now.

Plus the park is so huge that even on a beautiful holiday like yesterday when everyone and their mother's uncle's dog wanted to go for a walk or picnic we still managed to find quiet shady areas where we could sniff the lilacs or feed the llamas :-)

Anyone know what these beautiful purple flowers are called? They were stunning hanging along the pathway...

I even got into the spirit with my little daisy ever so carefully tucked behind my ear by Mr. Mystery Guest :-)

Happy May Day!

tickets... check!

Well I broke down and bought them... the plane tickets I'd been eyeing for the last month to go home in September for my annual visit.

I was waiting on job confirmation for next year, yup its all set I've got my job again next year!! Yippee! But in the meantime prices jumped in ticketland :-(

The upside is I got my first-ever direct flight from Paris to Seattle! Yipppeee! Try 10 hours of movie watchin' instead of 16 hours of flights and connections in random airports! So folks, for those of you back home, mark your calendars because I'll be in the Pacific NW from Sep 16th-28th and then a long weekend visiting my grandparents in SoCal before flying back here Oct 2nd. Whooooo-hooo!!!

boating pics

As promised :-)

votez!

It's been a busy and exciting weekend. Came out to la Manche yesterday afternoon and took a lovely drive around enjoying the unbelievable weather before treating ourselves to a sushi dinner (thanx Darty for the tickets restaurant!)

Today it is still beautiful weather, not a cloud in the sky. Before lunch I got to go with the fam to vote :-) As I've lived outside of my own state since I turned 18 I've never actually voted in person, always by absentee ballot so I was curious to see how it was done, esp in France! So we toodled down to the local mairie (pop. 859) to cast the votes. You take the piece of paper (or several if you want) and an envelope into the little booth and then choose one paper with the canidate's name on it and put it in the envelope. Then you hand your voter card to the guy and he reads out a number, someone else checks the number against the registration list and says "ok Mr. Mystery Guest can vote" and then you drop it in the box. Then they say "a voté" and you go and sign your name on the registrar and thats it!

Because its such a small community we hardly had to wait at all and apparently according to the TV people are turning out in record numbers to vote. Can't wait to hear what's going to happen!!!

This afternoon we went out on the boat for a little tour, it was beautiful and not too cold with a windbreaker, photos to come ;-)

new pad, take 2

Ok so here are some pictures of the new apt! When you first walk in the door this is what you see, the kitchen table on your right, windows in front and stairs on your left.
















Then if you were to turn around the kitchen table is now behind you and you can see the little cooking corner, 2 burners, fridge and oven (the microwave is hidden under those green stairs there).












If you walk up the stairs this is the view looking back down.













When you first walk up the stairs you have the desks on the left (as you can see here) and the click-clack couch along the wall.













Through the hallway is the bathroom on the right with a mini-tub and then the bedroom.





















And thats the grand tour! Can't you hear the silence? :-) Me like-y!

sunshine makes me happy

After a cold foggy day yesterday the sun made an apperance again today :-)

I'm at work now on my hot new computer that they put in my office, yippee!! And good timing too because the free internet we were mooching wasn't working at all this morning :-( Hopefully it will be working again soon, otherwise withdrawl symptoms will start soon! But in the meantime the connection is amazingly fast at work so I'm taking advantage of it to catch up on emails and blogs... hehehe

To go along with the summery weather I got my hair cut and highlighted today, it always throws me because I only get the highlights redone twice a year and when I leave it startles me and I get the impression that I've gone blond blond but then I end up getting used to it and all is good :-)

Now time to get back to real work and stop putzing around on the computer! :-)

mix-up?

I got a phone call on Thursday from a Prof that I had done a translation for last fall. He left a message on my machine saying that he has a collegue who needs some work done and if I would be interested. So I called the collegue who said that he has a CV that he has to give in by Monday morning and really needs some help, and he also said that he wasn't very good with computers so if I could help with the page adjustments etc, easy peasy. So I said I would be free Saturday morning and off I went this morning to help with the translation.

Or so I thought!!

I get there and he's very nice and all and shows me the CV and I asked if he had already started the translation, he looked at me blankly... uh oh...

So I asked what he needed my help for. Turns out he really can't use a computer so he basically needed a secretary! Someone to type up the CV and format it and save it on his computer as well as on the University's USB key cause he didn't know how.

Now I don't think that it is strange or unusual not to know how to use a computer, he's a very old school prof and that wasn't the thing that surprised me. It was however that he needed an American to help him out! I always just assume that when someone calls for help like this its for the "English"aspect of who I am, not typing skills!

So I had a good chuckle to myself and got on with it. All went fine and we got it finished and he paid what I usually charge for English classes (the only rate I had to go by as I've never sold myself as a secretary before... well there was that one time but you know I didn't do all that much typing persay... lol).

weekend getaway

This weekend Mr. Mystery Guest (yes decided I like that nickname better!) and I ran away to Brittany for a long weekend. We had gone last February where we practically froze to death so this time we shot for the long Easter weekend. We were so lucky with the weather!! It was beautiful the entire weekend, not a cloud in the sky and between 15-20C the three days, amazing!

First stop was lunch, we went to a creperie that we had been to last time, by accident but managed to find it again. If anyone heads to the region of Paimpont, stop by Plelan-le-Grand and look for Bodo's Creperie - yum! We had to pray to the crepe gods for those, yum!

Afterwards we went back to Merlin's forest, we had explored last year but loved it so much it deserved a stop this year too. Ended up taking long walks up in the hills and admiring the views all afternoon. Then we headed towards Lorient were we managed to find a hotel room (not booking on the Saturday of a long weekend isn't easy!) and ate some more of some of the best crepes I've ever had (Creperie Saint-Nicolas in Lorient...)

The next morning we got up extra early to beat the crowds at Carnac, the French equivilant (or better) of Stonehenge. It was so impressive, miles and miles of stones all over the countryside. Some smallish and some weighing several tons, including burial mounds that are over 6,000 years old!!

Then we headed off to Auray for lunch, a cute little port town that Ben Franklin once sailed into.

After lunch we headed down the penninsula to the presqu'ile de Quiberon which is very rugged and unspoiled on the west side and crazy-touristy on the east. After laying in the sun wishing we had brought some towels or beach blankets I decided to put my little footsies in the water for a test, cold but oh-so-refreshing!

Then the next stop was Vannes where after finally finding a parking spot we decided it was a very cute town, especially with the sun out and tons of tulips all over. We took a walk around and then decided to grab (yes, surprise surprise) a crepe for a quick snack.

Before leaving Caen I contacted another blogger to see if she'd be interested in meeting up, being the wonderful Minnasotan that she is, she even offered to let us crash at her place Sunday night. We had a blast making dinner (bbq pizza - yum!!) and sitting around gabbing. Fun to finally meet someone face to face that you feel as though you already 'know' through their blog! Thanks again and come to Caen sometime Sam!

Monday morning we took off and following Sam's excellent advice we stopped off in Fougeres, just after Rennes. It was an amazing town, perfectly preserved castle and old town not a soul in sight! It was a nice change after all the crowds in the other towns. We walked around the ramparts and then headed for home.

It was a great 3-day weekend! It was so fun exploring a new region and with the weather and excellent company I had a fantastic time! Now its back to work tomorrow... makes me sad to be stuck inside all day with the weather so wonderful outside, but this escape was just what the doctor ordered :-)

i'm baaaack!

Well after many frusterating hours of trying to mooch off of protected wifis until we can get our own internet up and running I randomly got a connection! Its very weak and doesn't let me do many things at once but I do feel connected with the world once again :-) A happy camper I am.

So news from here, I'm all settled in to the new appt and I dig it! It is soooo peaceful and quiet, I can study, sleep and watch movies in peace. I'm slowly but surely catching up on my sleep, after 6 weeks of deprivation it will take a while but I'm feeling much much better! Plus the weather has turned beautiful again and it is 8:15pm and the sun is just now setting, I love this time of year!

Dartyman left for the weekend but will be back tomorrow, can't wait to show him the new pad all organized :-) Although my have to fight him for bath rights... I've gotten used to my little soak before bed ;-) and little is exactly it! I swear this tub was built for a midget (dwarf, vertically challenged person if you will...) and it has some sort of funky seat built in so its hard to get your whole body underwater unless you want to jam your backbone into the faucet...! But boy is it great to crawl into bed after semi-falling asleep in the tub - yes folks, life is good.

But have some work to do so I'm off, but not far! Connected to the world wide web once again, praise the gods! :-)

pick 'em up again

Yup... moving again, a last post before the crazyness begins. We're living among boxes right now, well mostly boxes, I still have a few more to finish this afternoon before work.

I picked up the keys to the new place today, over in the CROUS. Went upstairs and check them, they work no problem. Also changed the name on the mailbox, Mr. Postman must be very confused trying to follow me around!

It will be busy tomorrow but shouldn't be too horrible because since the new place is furnished we've broken down all the bookselves and furniture here to be stored at Dartyman's parents. So basically its just boxes of clothes, dishes, books etc to go up to the 3rd floor (sans elevator of course). The new place has its perks: most importantly it is quiet and we'll be able to sleep, there is also a small bathtub (!!!) and water and electricity are free. It does have me a little worried that we're going to kill eachother in a small space like that (30 m2) but I think with communication things can work out, plus there are 2 weeks of vacation starting Friday! I'm working again this year, doing a stage for junior high kids but it will be a nice change and the lessons are already prepared from last year :-) yippee!

I'm hoping we'll be able to mooch off of someone's wifi up there, otherwise you won't hear from me for a while until we can get internet up and running... hopefully as soon as possible, the addict that I am... :-)

spring forward!

Just a little reminder, it is daylight savings in France today (or rather it was last night). So be sure to spring your clocks forward today!

Since the US changed a few weeks ago we are now caught up on normal time differences, 9 hours for the West Coast.

Happy Sunday :-)

concert

Last night a bunch of us got together for some taco salad (!!!) at my house and then walked down to the concert hall Friends style. (there were 5 of us, Joey was MIA we decided... and apparently I'm Phoebe! humm...)

We were off to see Tété! I just adore that guy, he's so funny and has such great music. By the time he finished (there were 3 different performers) I was just knackered having only slept 4 hours the night before so Dartyman and I took off. Plus I enjoyed Tété so much I just wanted to end on that note, I would have bought the ticket only to see him, it was so worth it!!

In other news we found out that we can get the keys to the new appt Wednesday so we'll be moving Thursday! Anyone wanna carry boxes?? :-)

the sky is falling!

Last night there was a huge storm in Caen. We were hanging out after dinner and kept seeing these flashing lights and though are the police around? Is someone having a strobe party? Then I started hearing the boom of thunder... but the weird thing was there was no rain! It was quiet with just the occasional flash and then boom. We started commenting on how unusual that was when I said it won't last long this way, boy was I right! About 2 minutes later - whoosh!!! It started pelting down huge chunks of hail! Looking out our dining room window we saw this scene, cars covered with bigger-than-pea-sized hail chunks. Then the thunder got closer until it was so loud that the windows we were looking out of started vibrating and the doors rattled! Then about two seconds later we heard a car alarm go off, I can only assume that a window shattered and started the alarm! Thats how nuts it was.

Then all of a sudden it was finished and the storm moved on, but talk about bizarre!

I went into work today to give my Med students a final exam and there were only 2 there when arrived (out of 30) and said that the periph was at a standstill because most of the traffic lights in town still weren't working so everything was bottlenecking. So we waited for about 15 minutes for all the students to arrive and the exam to begin.

oui oui OUI!!!!!

So Dartyman and I had been talking about getting a Wii ever since we came back from the States where we played with my sister and her boyfriend. It is so much fun no matter how stupid it looks when you're just an onlooker :-)

But they are few and far between, hard to come by even on the internet where people are selling them for a fortune so we figured wait a bit to have more money and for them to be in stock. However today when doing a little window-licking at the FNAC and there were 3 just sitting there! So we looked at eachother and said "Oui?" and grabbed one as well as a Wiimote.

It is such a blast to play, we played tennis, baseball and bowling tonight and man my arm is sore! Because the speed at which you swing the wiimote translates into how hard your little dude swings the racket or bat you get really into it quickly! Wii fun! Plus you do some really lame plays on words with the Wii...

It is too bad that we ended up buying it today instead of yesterday because yesterday we had some friends over for a Housewarming and Unhousewarming Raclette party. It was such a blast though, tons of raclette and then banana/chocolate/ice cream crepes made on the same machine, of course with a little Apples to Apples after... too bad I forgot to take pictures!

falafels

On my way home today I stopped by the Falafel shop I had seen for over a year now, always wanted to try but just never did. But my stomach was rumbling and the idea of all the falafel and veggies made me stop in.

Not at all like the mad rush of falafel stands in the Marais (Paris) this one just had one older man and his son (?) working. They were very nice and I think very excited to have a customer in their empty restaurant. I placed my order, 1 falafel to go and waited for the homemade bread to be warmed and the chickpea balls to be fried. Then unexpectedly he gave me a half-full pita and told me that I was to make myself at home and fill it with whatever toppings I wanted! So I piled on red cabbage, marinated mushrooms, sliced beets as well as other unrecognizable veggies to finally top it all off with the mystery sauce blanche.

The owner was very chatty and wanted to know if it was my first time coming into the restaurant, if I'd tried falafels before etc. It was nice to have that little chit chat this time, he seemed genuinely curious and also very proud of his food "my homemade bread is the best, that is why people are always coming back" :-) I also liked it that the first question out of his mouth wasn't "where are you from?" I do live here now and its always nice when people seem aware of that, even if I do have an accent.

i'm your dartyman, that's what i am, i'm here to do whatever i can...

The big news around here is that Mystery Guest has found a part-time job!! (He's still a student and as a French student its not easy finding a part-time job.)

So as there was some discussion as to whether or not Mystery Guest is still a "guest" as we've moved in together, to end the debate he will henceforth be known to readers of this blog as:

DartyMan!

Yup, he found a job at Darty that he is very busy with but likes a lot. No work details of his job or mine on this blog but he said I could post this picture as I had a blast trying on his Darty shirt, what do you think? Is red my color?

I think the best part of this is that the first time we went to Darty while looking for a washing machine I pronounced the store à l'américaine and he understood me as "Let's go to dirty" so now I make the effort to at least pronounce the 't' :-)

letters from Iwo Jima

Last night after a beautiful Sunday drive in the Manche (seriously! not a cloud in the sky, no wind and a springy 16C!) Mystery Man and I headed off to the movies to catch Letters from Iwo Jima. I had been dying to see this movie ever since I saw Flags of our Fathers last fall. If you haven't already heard about these movies they are brillant films done by Clint Eastwood basically telling different sides to the same story.


In Flags of our Fathers we have only the American perspective of the battle of Iwo Jima from the few soldiers who raised the flag and the propoganda flurishing Stateside. In Letters from Iwo Jima, however, we have only the Japanese side of the story told by a few soldiers stationed on the island. It is a poetic and beautiful film, even more so by the subtle expression and emotion that comes through in the men's voices, especially the impressive Ken Watanabe. I would hate to know that this movie is released dubbed... And I would like to know how Clint Eastwood directed a movie only through the work of translators... impressive!


It is a captivating story that we don't often have these days, WWII story told by the "enemy." I felt that the key moment in the story is when the Japanese officer reads out a translation of a letter sent by an American boy's mother. Not only was it a moving letter, but you could see the realization by the Japanese soldiers listening (who had never even met an American before) that dispite all the speeches to the contrary - they were all the same. That is what hits you the hardest, dispite the vast cultural differences between those American and Japanese soldiers they had all left behind family and friends and were there fighting for their cause (or is it just their country's cause??).


I could never go off and fight in a war, that is one thing I know for sure.

(I don't really think it would be important to have seen Flags of our Fathers before seeing Letters from Iwo Jima, as they are complete films in themselves and seeing one before the other shouldn't make any difference...)

i'm around

There hasn't been much blogging around here... Not that things aren't busy, there's tons of stuff to do but running on low sleep doesn't give me the energy to be the usual chipper multi-tasker that you all know and love so much ;-)

Spring is very much in the air around here and I love it. Not that Winter made much of an appearance this year! But the days are getting longer, coats are getting lighter and people generally seem to be in a better mood. The weather is however, really sporadic! I left my house this morning to stop by the Friday market for some yummy salmon and fruit, when I left it was grey but no sign of rain (the seasoned Norman that I am did bring along an umbrella just in case though hehehe). On the way home the sky opened up and within 2 minutes there was a torrential downpour! I kid you not rivers running down street! and even with the umbrella I was soaked walking the few blocks home! So I changed and made my way to work at 12:00. Since then there has been non-stop sunshine and not a cloud in the sky... crazyness.

That does lead me to one of the things I do like about this appartment, the light. My old place was groundfloor and had zero direct light, but when I have my mornings free and the sun floods the kitchen here I almost give into my desire to curl up for a catnap in that square of sunshine. That is how I'm trying to find the glass half-full this month, finding the good things to enjoy until the end of March, starting with light light light! :-)