I'm so excited!!!!

I'm afraid that in my excitement, I will look pathetic.

I do anyway - look pathetic - after having Strep for 10 days before getting antibiotics. By the way, I woke up without a sore throat, jumped into the shower and have accomplished things this morning! I might even skip my - getting to be a bad habit - nap this afternoon. Thank God above for Zithromax! And the people at Pfizer who make it. And my Dr. ('Arzt' auf Deutsch) who prescribed it. I started thinking maybe I was a bit depressed after the Holidays and coming back to the grey fogginess that is Zurich this winter. May have been a bit but mostly - needed antibiotics. On a good note, it's probably been 2.5 years since I've taken any!!! I should probably post about our health (good!) here in die Schweiz and what I think contributes to it - my guesses only of course.

OK - back to why I am excited:

Aren't YOU excited to see a pic of our toilet? It's actually that little, blue package I'm excited about.

I was sure I mentioned the fact that I had finally run out of our Costco stash of Lysol Disinfectant Wipes on the Blog somewhere (after 3 years!), but can't find where. Anyhow, I've had to revert to the old fashioned method of pulling on rubber gloves and wiping things down with diluted bleach or general purpose cleaner (not sure how germ killing it is - disinfekt is the German word and I don't find it on the labels ? ). This method has worked for Swiss Hausfrau's for Decades but I had become accustomed to the modern convenience of the disinfecting wipe.

With this little bout of illness lately, I was once again frustrated with the lack of a disinfecting spray or wipe. I have looked for an equivalent to Lysol Spray here to no avail. If someone knows what it is here in Switzerland, please let me know. I don't use sprays often but they are helpful - like when you have Strep throat and have a family computer that EVERYONE uses. When someone in the house is sick, I tend to like to wipe/spray things like computer/mouse, telephone, light switches and doorhandles off frequently.

So I've been searching. Migros (large Swiss grocery chain) had 2 little packs of something but pictures indicated it was geared toward cleaning grease quickly off a stove, your bike, tools - not household cleaning. Coop (Euro. chain) in Waedenswil didn't have anything BUT the big one did! Score. There was one for toilets and one for general household use (and only about 3 packs of each) - and I had to look hard for them. Obviously the Hausfrau's have not caught on to the phenomenon of the convenient disinfecting wipe.

Here's the other in my shower:
I don't actually clean with wipes in my shower. Just thought you'd like to see a picture of Mr. Proper. He has big muscles, blue eyes, is clean shaven and has a hoop earring - all the features necessary to help me keep my house clean.

What I really wanted to point out is - my shower head/pole. I will NOT live without an adjustable shower head again. I won't. When we move back to the States, if the shower head is fixed - which it probably will be - it's coming down. The shower head moves up when Bart takes his and down when I take mine. If I don't need to wash my hair (not an every day washer - GASP!!!!), then the head can be lowered yet again. For kids/the girls - Wonderful!!! Our bathtub even has the separate shower head besides the bath faucet - this would have made giving the girls baths when they were young sooooo much easier.

What a riveting post this is.

What else. On the day I slept 'til 3pm, the girls went sledding behind the house. They love playing out there. It was about -5 C (25 F I think) but when you're bundled and playing, you really don't care.
They sled in the pasture above the backyard/pool:

The assault on my ears continues as they LOVE the Chipmunks. They saw the Chipmunk's Squeakquel in the States with Bart while I took care of some shopping in the 'hood (aka Tyler Galleria but forever known to me as the Tyler Mall). And Kendra bought the new Chipmunk's CD with some Christmas money. I'm thinking "completely harmless, Chipmunks" and said yes to her purchase request (as I was enamored of other Target offerings at the moment) without looking at the playlist. HA HA - jokes on mom as she starts the CD which begins with V-n H-len's "G-rl, you really got me " = sung by chipmunks. Not to mention other songs (B--G-e's, Bey-nce, K-ty Perry, etc..). I just wasn't prepared. Nor were my sister & bro-in-law as my girls corrupted little Jayden (18 mo's) who decided she likes to dance to Chipmunk music over all else.

So, I present the Olson girl's as a Chipette (that would be a girl Chipmunk) and Alvin:

Because I didn't realize I was really sick, I admit I did take the girls up skiing last Sat.:

The rest of Switzerland, except for working dads, was also up in the mountains - not that you can tell from the pic. They closed the parking lot about 10 cars behind us - Whew!!! A day to get the girls rental equipment tested out, make sure everything was definitely the right size, etc... and take a few easy runs to warm up for the season and try out the new knee brace. My knee told me I need more warming up. So I'm diligently doing my exercises as vacation and various sick days have taken their toll.

Sad. My mom tore her ACL skiing on NY's Eve. She'll have surgery early March. Bummer. I looked forward to our skiing together in Wengen this year. It makes me think about how I ski and how much longer will the knee hold out as I have an ACL partial tear w/ 70% ligament remaining. I've always known it could go. Just hoping it doesn't happen for a while. All of our stairs would make it a very inconvenient injury.

OK - enough about toilets, Chipmunks and bad knees. I'm off to walk up the hill, take my glucosamine/chondroitin and Zithro - aren't I a load of fun?!