Home Life

With the colder season, shorter days and longer nights, most of us are drawn to less activities outdoors and more home life. I am the same, and although I have liked this flat from the moment we moved here 13 years ago, I like it even more since the "Big Switch" (see there series of posts about swapping my living room and bedroom in April of this year, starting here and ending with this post).

A different colour scheme for the living room has meant trying to find bits and bobs that fit the new scheme, and I am happy to report that I came across two perfect cushions during my two-week-stay in Ripon in July/August.

To me, they look as if they were made on order to suit my living room! The first one, with the stitching and pearls, was originally of different colours - but the shop owner told me it had faded to those colours (perfect for me!) by her having it displayed in her shop window for some months. She let me have it at a reduced price.

Other bits of home life include food, of course. During the week, I usually eat lunch at the canteen at work. It's not a bad canteen; they offer fresh and seasonal cooking and sometimes rather daring "exotic" dishes (exotic for a canteen in southern Germany, I mean).
But at nights, I mostly eat at home. Depending on what I had for lunch, in the evenings it is usually either bread and cheese or a salad. I love salads, because they allow you to combine what ever you feel like, or want to use up. For a base, I always go with the lazy option of pre-packed leafy mixes. Then I add whatever I have, such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, spring onions and so on. That alone would make for a nice salad, but sometimes I want to have something extra in the bowl: bits of cheese, and/or nuts, raisins, apple or pear, pumpkin or sunflower seeds.

Since I posted the recipe for my basic salad dressing in 2011, I have changed that a bit. Nowadays, I am using more vinegar (balsamico) and a little less oil. Also, I have been heeding my sister's tip of adding some mustard.

I like this way of having fresh, relatively healthy food, allowing enough room in my stomach for something sweet afterwards :-)

The last two pictures are - surprise, surprise! - the view from my picture window the other morning, taken within half an hour:

Today is the first Sunday in five weeks that I am home. Time to catch up with a few things around the house - more home life, if you want. The main task I have set myself for today is changing the contents of my wardrobe to better suit the colder weather. My summer dresses won't be of much use for at least the next half year, so they'll be packed away and replaced by knit dresses, jumpers and my winter trouser suit.

Have a good Sunday, everyone, whatever you'll be doing!