The lazy days of March

April brings our first visitors of the year, as well as the start of our spring and summer vacations.  And while we are both looking forward to the family and friends making their way to see us, as well as our getaways, it does mean that it will be harder for Noah and me to find time to lounge around the apartment.  Therefore, Noah and I have consciously decided to maintain a certain amount of laziness during these last few weekends in March.  That means that there isn’t too much to write about from the month of March, which is why I find myself with two days left scrambling to write something so that we maintain our self-imposed rule of having at least one entry a month.

One thing that has had some activity is Noah’s work.  He is now officially a manager of a team of 3 – and all three employees are German.  This means he is speaking the language more than ever, and his knowledge of German never ceases to amaze me.  Hard to believe that we both started at the same point – knowing nothing more than a few words like Ja/Nein, Bier, and Gesundheit.  Now he is managing people in this crazy language!!!!  Count me incredibly impressed.  Also – he had his first official yearly review which came with his first raise.  The downside is he has been finding himself away from home a bit more – between his Leadership Program (also all in German), a conference, and entertaining visiting business partners, I barely saw him at all last week!  But he is loving his role and the travel should calm down now, so I am nothing but happy for him.

The other ‘big’ thing for us is we were featured on the Foap website – this is the stock photo selling app that Noah and I joined early last year.  We’ve done pretty well – sold over 100 photos at $5 each.  Here is the linkto the interview.  I was thrilled to be featured – I sure have spent a lot of time on their app, and Noah has fun joining me in figuring out what might be a ‘Foap-able’ photo. 

Speaking of photography, Noah had the idea a few weeks ago to practice our night photography skills down at Lake Starnberg.  After dinner, we bundled up in our jackets and grabbed our gear and found a spot along the water to try to capture the stars.  While we didn’t get exactly what we wanted – still way too much light pollution from the towns around – we were able to take a couple of photos we are happy with. 

I also had the experience of seeing my first solar eclipse.  I was sitting in the living room on Friday the 20^th, when I noticed it became visibly darker.  I went to the window to see if any storm clouds were making their way to me, but the sky was perfectly clear.  That is when I remembered the day before my colleague telling me that there would be a partial solar eclipse on Friday, and when I checked the clock I saw that it was roughly the peak of the eclipse.  So I googled how to make a pinhole projector, and rigged up a few pieces of paper.  While my photos are terrible, I was excited to finally experience this. 

We wrapped this month up with a celebratory dinner at Rue Des Halles – our fancy French restaurant we like to visit once a year or so.  We were there to celebrate Noah’s first raise with his first ‘true’ job (or so I thought).  Apparently Noah also wanted to thank me for being so supportive with all his extra work lately.  He even had called ahead and asked if they offered anything special for the table, like flowers, and was told they don’t do that.  But they did say that they had ‘very nice’ red candles they could offer instead – so Noah accepted, not knowing really what to expect when we got to our table.  (I usually don't share this side of our relationship, but this turned out funny to me so I will).

When we arrived to the restaurant, nothing was standing out to me, so I remained clueless to Noah’s actions.  He finally couldn’t wait anymore for me to notice the ‘very nice’ red candle, and explained what he had done.  We both laughed pretty hard at the fact that this is what this French restaurant (aren't the French supposed to be the masters of romance) deemed romantic.  Every other table had a candle on it already (but not red!!!), so why take the effort to promote their red candle as this huge romantic gesture? 

Can you handle the romance??

That about wraps up the main anecdotes from our month of March.  While I loved having so many lazy days this month, I am definitely looking forward to people visiting and beginning our travels this year.