Metziness (pronounced: messiness)

Sorry to disappoint but there will be no pictures in today's post. Not only have we not have much to take pictures of in the past couple of weeks (aside from more food pics *yawn* and some fun with three little girls) but I also don't have access to Michael's computer at the moment. He is currently hunkered down in the other room with his powepoints and formula sheet preparing for tomorrow morning's robotics test. Let's see...what have we done lately?

Well, Michael has been hitting the books pretty hard during the past couple of weeks. Immediately following our spring break he faced 2 tests and one long homework (we're talking 8-10 hours staring at a computer screen) and this week he had one relatively easy assignment and the test he is busy prepping for. So needless to say, anytime he isn't spending on schoolwork is spend grocery shopping/cooking yummy meals including (but not limited to) Wiener Schnitzel, General Tso's Chicken and Agneau au poivre (peppered spring lamb chops). My fear now is that we are getting so good at working with just two pots and one burner, improvising with the oven when we hit a snag, that we will have no clue what to do with ourselves when we get back to our 15 or so pots and a normal 4 burner range (and perhaps an oven that can bake a decent loaf of bread). I am thinking, however, that this will be a good problem to have. 

I, on the other hand (along with all the cooking stuff), have been keeping myself abnormally busy with unusual occurrences. Last Friday I had the pleasure of taking Kimber (Janice and Jeremy's 1+ year old) along with me to my English lessons with my two little Italian/French girls Margeurita and Eleanora. The older girls were fascinated by Kimber and she was fascinated with them, which worked out just perfectly. She followed them around their apartment and we all sat together on the couch to read Kimber's color book which was, thankfully, just about the right reading level for Eleanora.

The past few weeks have also left me feeling like a knitting machine. Babies, babies everywhere...seriously! I made a pretty major score on some angora wool at the thrift store ($7 for all 15 balls...each ball would normally cost about $12 in the states) so although it's a pretty impractical material, I've been using it to make two tiny baby blankets for my two pregnant sisters-in-law (Laura, would that be grammatically correct?). I won't post pictures here for a bit because I want them to see the blankets and be surprised before I go posting them all over the interwebs. So not only do I have those babies to knit for, but three wives here are pregnant so I'll be busy over the next few weeks before their shower making some feeding time accessories.

What else, what else? Well, we made at attempt at getting our car title signed over today. Josyane was nice enough to take us downtown this morning only to realize that we needed proof of address and our passports. Ah well, we shall make another attempt tomorrow. Oh, and I almost forgot: I went to my first choir rehearsal earlier tonight. A British friend from GTL convinced me to attend with her to see if I would like to join and I found that I really loved being back in a choir and especially a care-free choir that reminds me so much of my knitting group back in Pittsburgh, with our without the language barrier. However, after a five year hiatus from singing and reading music...not to mention having everything directed in French, I think there may be a pretty steep learning curve ahead of me. My favorite part of the evening was singing an Andrew Lloyd Weber compilation. First I was jokingly accused of cheating because I was singing from the Phantom of the Opera without the sheet music (but really, who can't sing The Music of the Night by memory?). Then I realized that when surrounded by French women singing in English as a foreign language, my British friend Fran began singing with a French accent while I began singing in a British accent. It was all very comical and I am excited to go back.

I guess that's all for now. I will try to get some pictures posted soon. And for those of you in the northeast, just know that I am incredibly jealous of your beautiful weather and will gladly trade our 40º days with 25mph wind gusts if you are at all interested.