A look into my life

Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's monthly photo blogging challenge. 

Our prompt for the month of May was "A look into my life". Do you guys really want to come along to the office, the recycling center, the grocery store, the laundry room and Colin's practice?

May was a loooong month with a lot of rain around here, so I had to cherish the rare sunny days, and luckily some coincided with my days off.

One brought me to a park at Lake Zurich's shore, where there's a bucket list item I've been wanting to visit. It's Jean Tinguely's kinetic sculpture "Heureka" created from iron rods, steel wheels, metal pans and pipes. The title "Heureka", ancient Greek for "I have found it!", is to be understood ironically, as the sculpture is a machine without a purpose. Tinguely's "idle machines" are to be understood worldwide as allegories of consumer and industrial society, which exhaust themselves in hectic activity and yet end in absurdity. 

The machine that was originally created 1964 for the national exhibition in Lausanne, runs three times a day from April to mid-October. 

You can see a short video here.

Most of you know that I work for my hubby's IT business. We try to hold our quarterly board meetings that take place on weekends, at scenic locations, such as this one. This time our corporate retreat took us to a former monastery in central Switzerland. 

The operators of the resort are proud to offer exclusively seasonal dishes made with ingredients from local organic suppliers.

As a result, the menu will look like this:

Roast duck from Lake Lucerne with spinach, cabbage stalk and herb foam, deep-fried celery nuggets with tartar sauce or terrine of Stans dairy pork with mushrooms, blackberry sauce and celery salad.

I was horrified. It's hard enough to go out for dinner if you're on a 1,200 - 1,400 calories budget, but if the place even has to bake perfectly fine oven vegetables with goat's cheese..? The only thing that appealed to me was the celery salad. They were nice enough to grill me some fish to go with it.

Call me picky. 

Fun fact: I was tasked to source the location for our next retreat. Hubby is smart enough to know that "happy wife, happy life" ;-)

Good thing Mother's Day was coming up, and my lovely son asked where I wanted to go for dinner!

My bright smile says it all. Since I didn't take the picture myself, consider this your bonus photo. I particularly love the Easter bunny ears above hubby's head!

As I was saying the weather wasn't nice this month. Two out of three weekly summer practice units for Colin's team take place outdoors, poor guys. While they jump rope, do push-ups and run laps, I have the luxury of enjoying wifi, comfy seats, food stalls and a roof over my head at youknowwhere. 

For over a year, I have been writing for our town's quarterly magazine, and the editor sort of pushed me to get my own section. They suggested to call it "über den Tellerrand" which literally means "beyond the edge of the plate" but figuratively translates as "outside the box", or, as you can see below, to "think differently". 

I was amazed when I saw this neon sign at my frequent hangout.

I took this as an opportunity to organize my usual grocery shopping differently the next day. 

Instead of going to the supermarket, which would have been more convenient, I remembered there was this charming little farmer's hut a few towns away. I couldn't recall the name or address, so I just had to drive on sight. I promptly missed it and had to turn around. Why? The cottage had been completely overgrown with green plants for all the years since I was last there. 

So once you manage to make your way in, this is what you'll find: A wide range of appetizing produce. In true unmanned Swiss honesty system fashion, you weigh your veggies and pay for them cash or via Twint (a comprehensive mobile payment app that allows users to link their bank accounts and make payments directly from their phones. It supports person-to-person (P2P) transfers, online payments, in-store payments, and even payments at vending machines.)

Hubby and I love our asparagus, but Colin does not. Either way, did you know why your pee smells funky after eating them? At the end of this post - called spring scents, you're welcome - you'll learn all about it. 

PS: A true look into my life entails hockey. Especially in the month of May, where the IIHF World Championship took place in Prague, Czech Republic. I'll spare you. If you insist, though, here's a post about the Swiss team's journey. They ended up winning silver!

That was it from me. Hope you had fun with my five six. As always, don't forget to visit my fellow blogger's posts.