Our Daily Happings

The month of February was a bumpy one for us. Our car decided to abandon us the end of January and we were forced to abruptly buy a new one. Today is the anticipated day which after dealing with banks, insurances, car dealers, we actually get to call it our own! After a month of not having a car I am so looking forward to getting in and driving around- anywhere!

The past month has also brought the rainy season. Lots of time spent indoors which meant I've done lots of reading. Here a wonderful quote from Solzhenitsyn- very prophetic of our times. Quick background, he his talking about the lack of trials and overall justice towards those who ran the whole system of the camps- even in Germany, he points out, there were trials for the horrors of Hitler.

"It is unthinkable in the twentieth century to fail to distinguish between what constitutes an abominable atrocity that must be prosecuted and what constitutes that ' past' which 'ought not to be stirred up.'
  We have to condem publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others. In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. It is for this reason, and not because of the 'weakness of indoctrinational work,' that they are growing up 'indifferent.' Young people are acquiring the conviction that foul deeds are never punished on earth, that they always bring prosperity.
  It is going to be uncomfortable, horrible, to live in such a country!"

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"The Gulag Archipelago"

How right he was.

Miss M. has been getting in on the action, too. She loves when I read to her and tends to pick a favorite that we have to read over, and over, and over...

For some odd reason I have gone on baking overdrive. From crackers to brownies, cakes and more cakes. I have been out of control. I blamed it on the stress of not having a car and being trapped indoors for too long. Unfortunately, (or fortunately) Lent begins tomorrow and the oven will be used sparingly. It's going to be a long, sugarless 40 days...

 

The rocking horse has been a huge hit. She is on that thing from dawn to dusk. I think we might just need to buy a real pony someday in the distant future.
I do, however, curse the cute rocking distraction for her. She loves to rock so violently that she is going to tip the thing backwards one of these days. Once I was able to sit her on the thing and clean, trim some shrubs or whatever, now she needs constant supervision.

We did have some good weather allowing us to go to the zoo. Out of all the exotic animals that we saw what was the favorite- chickens. The least favorite, judging by her face below, were the monkeys (I thoroughly approve).

While there, we were surprised by a passing shower and had to seek refuge under an awning not much wider than her baby carriage. She took it as an opportunity to explore the smog coated raindrops falling nearby.

Tomorrow we leave for a long overdue visit to Corrado's family. I have to pack, guess I'll go do that now.