Soft towels, Christmas, and Crokinole

Yesterday, thanks to the poor timing of flipping over a huge glass of water onto the bed as I shook out the duvet, Stefan spent the entire afternoon washing and drying our two sets of sheets and a set of towels at the laundromat. He plugged in his laptop and got to work while back at home I strategically hung the sopping down duvet at various angles over the living room radiator in attempt to dry it out.

You would've thought that a barrel of water had spilled with all the hassle it caused. I couldn't simply strip the bed and air dry the sheets - both drying racks and all other hang-able locales were already loaded with wet laundry slowly drying. The extra set of sheets were still dirty from before our trip b/c I hadn't had a block of days in which to reserve the drying racks for 3-4 days of sheet drying -- b/c invariably I would have to wash other laundry in the meantime.....grrr.... I REALLY WISH WE HAD A DRYER!!! Rainy freezing German winters are really not the time to be without a dryer! So 3 loads of laundry later and 20 euro in the hole (yes, I said 20 euro!!) Stefan came home with a set of fluffy towels (gasp!) and 2 sets of clean sheets - hooray! Just seeing my towels be fluffy again was worth the 20 euro...we will have to ration them out - as in, no fluffies get packed for gym trips!

Meanwhile I cleaned haus and got it spotless for last night's guests. Our friends Andrew and Hillary came over and we went for a walk about town before returning home for some hot apple strudel with warm vanilla sauce - yum!

Here's a shot of Christmas at my parents' house - one cat, Simone, is poised to jump with the tree in the background. We had a really nice Christmas with my family this year!Then a shot of Milo the other cat - all 20 pounds of himself sprawled on the floor like usual - no, he's not playing dead, this is his relaxed position!And a shot of my dad at the old Crokinole board many generations of Hobbs kids grew up playing on. I heard my great-uncle Albert made it back on the family farm. As usual my dad just schooled me in it! If you're not a crazy Canuck you probably don't know what Crokinole is all about, so click here to find out more.