What makes me smile

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

This month’s theme is What makes me smile.

Let’s kick things off with the inside of a random car I spotted. The owners had put “ghost masks” over the neck rests, and I couldn’t help but wonder: early Halloween fun or year-round vibes? A quick look at the license plate showed it belongs to a transport company. Maybe they just like to spice up their ride. Either way, it definitely made me grin.

The other night we went out for dinner, and I was served this beautifully arranged avocado/salmon toast. Simple, elegant, and just the kind of thing that can brighten an evening.

Around here, hockey pre-season has begun. While “regular” people still wander to the pool in flip-flops, this hockey mom (and team videographer) is already digging out her winter jacket. This year, it looks like Colin will be pulling double shifts again, playing for both the U18 and U21 teams. That means another season of intense weekends: early mornings, pasta salad and sandwiches packed, long drives across Switzerland, late-night returns… and, of course, another load of laundry. Exhausting? Absolutely. But it makes me smile every time.

Speaking of driving - when the day comes to choose my next ride, I already know which one it will be. May I present: the senior citizen’s Ferrari! Sleek, practical, and cheekily sporting the iconic logo. Who wouldn’t smile at that?

And finally, I saved the best for last (even though chronologically it should really come first). I didn’t even take this photo myself, had to contain myself so as not to embarrass my teenage son. Luckily, my husband had no such reservations and went full-on paparazzi.

This was Colin’s summer job at a nursing home. He started off peeling and chopping root celery, but by day two he’d been “promoted” to IT kitchen guy.

Why IT? Turns out the nursing home had introduced a business software system for managing orders and pantry stock. Recipes could also be entered and scaled up for planning menus. Though, of course, the chef’s passion is cooking, not wrestling with new software.

Enter Colin. He quickly proved more useful with the computer than with celery, so he took on the task of entering recipes. Not an easy job: some were handwritten, portioned for households of four, and had vague measures like “a handful of basil.” Scaling that to feed 200 people is no simple feat.

At one point, he even clicked the wrong unit: according to his system, the kitchen would have needed 10 kilograms of pepper instead of 10 grams. Thankfully, he caught the error before dinner turned into a fire hazard.

For Switzerland’s national holiday on August 1, the nursing home hosted a BBQ lunch. Everyone received the same salad plate, and then the servers, Colin among them, shuttled back and forth to the grill, fetching chicken thighs one trip, burger patties the next, followed by sausages or steak bites.

In the photo, the lady in the red blouse who’s also busy photographing Colin is my mom. Now you see why at least I tried to spare him?

So there you have it—five little snapshots of the things that made me smile this month.

As always, don’t forget to check out the posts from my fellow bloggers participating in this month’s challenge!