Our three weeks holiday is finally over, or at least for my husband who went back to work this week. I still have like three weeks off work and I savor each minute of it.

Our vacation this is much simpler compared to our previous vacations. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it just as much as the others. The first week of our vacation was spent in our home. My in-laws came and they helped us with some work. They spent a few days here and in one of those days, we made a day trip down to Italy and back to Austria. We also made stops in some of the cities we passed by. That was fun.

The second week was spent visiting nearby towns in Styria, visiting Vienna and some towns in Lower Austria. And we spent the third week camping in Croatia.

vien in senj, croatia

Overall, I had a lot of fun. The camping was a whole new experience and I learned a lot. I got a nice tan and a few pounds. LOL! I have to shed those extra pounds before my friend’s wedding in October. I want to fit in my dress so I need to look for some best weight loss diets ASAP.

On the second thought, I still have three weeks’ vacation so I probably just postpone the dieting until the time for relaxation and self pampering is over. *wink

The first week of my husband’s leave from work was mainly spent with my in-laws. They came down to Graz and stayed with us for a few days. While they were here, we went to see a couple of places with them and there was a day when we all went down to Italy. It was just a day’s trip. First, we drove to Ljubljana, Slovenia and ate lunch there and since Trieste, Italy is just about an hour away from Ljubljana, we decided to go there and have an ice cream just like my husband and I did last spring. Then, on the way back north to Austria, we stopped by Maribor, Slovenia and ate dinner there. It was a really nice day with the whole family.

The second week was spent in Lower Austria and Vienna. We’ve been visiting some friends there and it was all cool except for one thing. My husband’s car just won’t start at some point. It’s really a total “kill joy” because we are planning to have another trip to Croatia next week. Now, we will always worry about whether the car can make it or will it just die on us again.

My husband’s car is a 13 year old Audi A4. It is a very good car but we have to admit, it is old. Sooner or later we will need a more reliable car and that is something we can’t afford at the moment. Before buying our place, we said that we won’t take loans except the one we need for the house and until now, we still follow that decision.

I suggested that we get a brand new car we can afford. It doesn’t matter if it is not one of those known brands but that, internet, it is not an option for my husband who works for the car industry and who believes that if he would buy a car he would buy it from the market which he works for (the European car industry ie; BMW, Audi, Mercedes, VW, and so on). But the thing is, even the secondhand cars from these brand are expensive. Of course, there are also cheap ones but I bet that the cheap ones are in the same state like that of my husband’s current car—crappy. And who wants a crappy car?

What about renting one of those log cabins on the Alps? That would be something we haven’t done yet.

When my husband told me to think of places we can go this summer, I thought of going somewhere near the sea but now, I am not so sure if that’s really where I want to go. You see, we always go to the beach on our holidays and this time, I want to do something different so I suggested to go to Tirol and stay in a cabin on the mountain for a couple of days. He said, we could do that during the winter but I am not the kind of person who likes to do a lot of outdoor stuff during the cold season so I want to see the mountains now because I can bear the temperatures now.

He doesn’t agree to that so our vacation is still blank. It’s all just plan but there’s nothing concrete yet because we can’t agree on where to go. We will have three weeks of vacation and we still don’t know where to spend those precious three weeks. And the worse thing is, we only have 4 days to decide.

I suggested driving to Germany and making stops in some nice cities on the way there and that seems to be a very good idea for him but he still wants to have other options. Sigh*

We’ll probably just go somewhere near the sea. Again.

It’s the start of my summer break and I am glad that finally, I can just relax and do things according to my own pace. We have some summer holiday plans but nothing concrete yet. My husband has to work another week before his 3-weeks leave.

So I have a week to myself and in this week I plan to do some revamping on my sites.

1. BizarreMarriage.com needs an author page. I would like to have a page dedicated to my contributing authors (Ruthi and Lamielle). It would make the site a bit more professional. I also plan to update that blog since it’s been months since my last update.

2. ViennaLopez.com, She-Teaches.com, and MyPinkNotes.com also need updates so I plan to write a series of blog posts for those blogs.

3. A new photo blog. Yep. I would like to create a photo blog. I actually have the domain already. I got it about a month ago but the site is still empty. I still have to decide which template to use, etc . So it will still take a lot of work.

In this week, I also plan to do some house chores on the side (like ironing and cleaning/reorganizing the basement).

I don’t’ know if I can accomplish all those things in a week but I have to if I want them done because when my husband gets his leave, I am sure that he’ll demand complete attention from me.

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Summer is fast approaching and that means that sometime soon, we are going to go somewhere for a holiday. This year, we are going to do it simple. We will not be going to a far away tropical paradise because we would like to save on plane tickets and hotel accommodations. This year has been really tough on us financially especially because we bought a house so we have to tighten our belts a little bit.

Holiday this year would be just in Europe. We are going to travel as many countries as we can by land. At first, we contemplated about using my husband’s car but later on we agreed that renting a one of those motorhomes will be the wisest and most practical choice. If we use the car, we will still need to pay for hotel accommodations. With a motorhome, all we need to find is a camping place where we can park it.

There are a lot of these camping places here in Europe because camping and traveling the continent by land is still an in thing to do here. Some people even use their bicycles. They ride their bike on the road along the Danube River from Germany to Austria. How cool is that!?!

There isn’t really a big development since we bought our sofa. Until now, we are still eating at the kitchen counter and we are still sleeping on a temporary bed. The thing is, my husband and I are really busy with our work that we barely find time to go out and window shop/shop for furniture. We work hard on weekdays so instead of going out on Saturdays to visit some furniture stores, we stay home and relax.

We still need plenty of stuff but I want to get us some curtains first because I am a bit disturbed by the fact that the neighbors can look clearly into our house when we have the jalousie rolled up. I am already thinking of what kind of curtain to buy. For the bedrooms, I should probably go for relaxed roman shades just like what we had in our flat in Changchun because they look nice. And for the living room, I’m thinking of getting natural wood blinds. Sigh*

Before, I thought things like getting a curtain is accomplished easily but now I am not so sure. First, I have to decide on the kind of curtain then of course, the color should also be chosen carefully. I am glad that there are online curtain stores out there. I can easily turn my computer on and check some custom blinds online. It’s like doing my window shopping at home. It saves me plenty of time.