Dusty Days

Whew, we have had a busy Christmas, but I feel great about everything we have gotten done. With the baby coming in about a month and Kyle having a few days off in a row, we took this time to do lots of projects around the apartment.

Thursday we had a nice Christmas morning just the two of us. I feel odd saying this, but we actually didn't get each other any gifts. We have been trying so hard to clean out the apartment to make room for the baby that the thought of bringing anything else in and having to find a place for it was just not appealing. That afternoon we headed to our friends Richard and Michelle's for lunch. We know them from church and our other friends Katie and Stephen were there too. What started out as lunch lasted for over six hours as we played Wii, hung out, played some Christmas trivia and enjoyed each others company.

L-R, Nicole, Katie, Stephen, Michelle, me, Kyle and Gabrielle, with Richard taking the photo.

That night we headed over to another church friends house to watch Wall-E. The beauty of being an expat is that no one has their family around so you end up feeling much closer to each other than just a normal 'friend' relationship. Over the course of the holiday we ended up spending time with several different friends and each of them I feel close enough to that I could call them in a pinch and they would drop everything to help me out. Throughout our four years in Brussels we have really developed a wonderful support group and I feel so lucky to have so many great friends here.

Friday we went to Paola and Mat Heim's for Christmas tea complete with mince meat pies and cakes from Marks and Spencer topped with clotted creme.

Saturday we re-arranged our rooms to make room for the baby. Kyle and I are now going to stay in what used to be the guest room. In our old bedroom, we have pushed the bed into the corner and managed to sqeeze in the crib, changing table and glider on the other side of the room. I'll post photos once it all looks finished. Right now, we have everything in place but are at the awful stage of having to find homes for lots of little, random things, so it all still looks pretty messy.

I absolutely love our apartment, but the one thing I will not miss about it is the dust. I have never seen dust accumulate like it does here. Someone pointed out that since we only have wall radiators, the air never get circulated so the dust never gets moved around. To compound the problem, we only have hardwood floors and no carpets to absorb the dust. And then to top it off, we live in the city where there is just a lot of dirt and grime all around. All this creates the Perfect Storm for Dust. As Kyle and were moving everything around, we vacuumed every possible thing and area that we could. And yet, one day after doing all that, this is what the top of our desk looks like...

A combination of stirring up all that dust and being around a friend who later found out she has bronchitis has left me sick. Since I am pregnant, I can't really take anything so I have just been laying around feeling pretty miserable. I have a few homeopathic things I can take which have actually helped more than I thought they would. Belgians really don't like to give out anti-biotics unless you are on your death bed so I doubt I would be taking anything much stronger even if I wasn't pregnant. As much as it would be nice to kick this thing quickly, I also appreciate the fact that in the four years I have been here I have never taken an anti-biotic. I think sometimes they can be a bit overprescribed so I am glad to have given my body some time to fight things on its own.

Kyle has been taking great care of me while I've been so sick. I was watching a silly romantic comedy movie earlier today that was only showing love as wine and roses with long walks in the park and not a problem in the world. As I looked at myself wear a hat, scarf, huge pajamas, fuzzy slippers, and glasses, with a tissue sticking out of my pocket I thought about 'for better or worse, in sickness and in health' and how Kyle is definitely sticking to those vows right now.

And since I have just given you such an awful mental image of me, I'll try to leave you with a better one where I at least have makeup and lipstick on...