1. I say no to cheese and that isn’t an easy thing for me. I get through the day dairy-free.
2. Jay wants us both to be creative, so she draws a clown and I do collage. Whenever I do things like this, which is not often, I have a strange and funny feeling in my head as if I was activating a different part of my brain.
3. Jay beats Em and me at O'Rummy. I love it when the three of us play games in Jay’s small room, sitting close to one another on the soft pink and blue carpet.

Over the last three days…

1. Girls have gone skating, skiing, met with friends for play dates, seen an amateur theater performance, read books and magazines and enjoyed themselves a lot. I love being a part of it all.
2. A get together with an old friend. It is nice to catch up and find out that we have even more things in common now.
3. The sun in my eyes and on my cheeks.

1. We have a couple of good laughs together and I get a lot of useful information, so I know I am profiting from this although my enthusiasm is far below the level I had at the first session two weeks ago.
2. Jay has agreed with her piano teacher to play the Snowman at the last production. I am happy about this and looking forward to listening to her practice over the next months.
3. I sneak into the bedroom and read a few pages from the book about a 12-month travel.

1. Walking really slowly to the mall. Having a decaf. Then walking back. Walking is challenging these days. Challenges are good.
2. Apple strudel. The girls love it, I love it. Thank you, Mom.
3. The conversation over the phone isn’t as stimulating as the one two weeks ago, and I don’t see any progress, but I think that making a step back after I had made a step forward doesn’t bring me to the same spot I had been before.

1. I get through the day with great lower-back pain. I am grateful for the pain because now I can appreciate having a full working spine just two days ago and again in a couple of days, hopefully.
2. I hear her crying just because she failed at one exercise in the school test about months and seasons. It takes a while before she lets me enter her room and at first looks at me with disbelief when I tell her how very proud I am of her and why it is absolutely unimportant to know in which particular month people go swimming in the sea and All Saints’ Day is. A timid smile lights up her face and then she is ready to play the piano.
3. I prepare a snack and leave it on the counter, thinking to myself that Em is definitely old and skilled enough to grab something to eat by herself when she gets home from her dancing class at 8 p.m. But then she walks in and gives me a hug, and it has nothing to do with the food waiting on the counter, and I know there is so much more I would like to do for her in that very moment and every day.

1. After a long walk down the road and back Jay picks snowdrops while I hold her doll Jerica.
2. Em returns from a visit at her friend’s and shares the big news: K can get up from her wheelchair and stand on her toes! What improvement! I am so happy about this I send a text message to K’s parents.
3. I sit at my new old desk and enjoy it enormously.

1. Tina Maze won a golden metal at Sochi. This is Slovenian first Winter Olympics’ gold. Amazing!
2. I dreaded writing it and consequently missed the deadline, but I pushed myself to restart and now I am feeling really good about letting things out.
3. Em and Jay went to see Alice in Wonderland at the Maribor theater with other kids from school and loved it. They are tired and quiet when we pick them up at 7 p.m. After they have changed clothes and had a warm meal, they are back to their usual self. Jay says: ‘It has been such a long and wonderful day… Couldn’t I extend it by sleeping in the big bed tonight?’

1. Meeting cancelled. No meetings today.
2. I spend my lunch break in the booth, talking to M over the phone. I miss seeing her friendly face at the office.
3. Jay and I embellish the fake-clay hearts with ribbons and put all 25 of them into a plastic box with another 25 chocolate ones. Now everything’s ready for Jay’s classmates and teachers.

1. As I reach into the drawer to get my ring I notice a little stone in the shape of a heart that I picked during my hike. I put it in the pocket. A gem for empowerment.
2. The calculations are just the first in the line of actions that need to be taken to introduce a new line, but knowing the reasons for my procrastination I am really glad I got started.
3. Jay comes up with another assignment just before bedtime. Her teacher suggested her to write a few lines about the sleep-over at school for the local newspaper and Jay is eager to work on it.

1. It feels good to listen to the raindrops hitting my umbrella and to think of all the negative ions I would have missed if I hadn’t gone out for a walk.
2. I have fun playing with balls and balloons and chasing Jay around the house. ‘Olympic games at home’ again.
3. After Jay falls asleep in her bed, I sneak into my bedroom. I close the door to prevent the light from the hall from coming in. It makes me feel really good, lying in the dark, alone. I like to think my level of melatonin will increase in just one hour, before the door is wide open again. Many compromises I make in life are ridiculous.

1. I volunteer to make a 2-minute presentation in front of a group of colleagues from the office on a random topic. There’s no time to think about applying any rhetoric rules I may have ever heard or read of, I just want to be me and get feedback about it. It’s good. I can be me.
2. Jay has a lot of homework for school and she finishes most of it, but then she wants also to create a poster about the poet France Preseren, and I can’t help but be amazed by her persistence and good work.
3. I am inspired by another two TED speeches that I listen to before bedtime. I don’t need TV anymore. This is way too good.

1. I love the painting with illuminated skyscrapers at night by some local amateur, exhibited in the hall at our local castle. Instead of just walking by again Jay and I both take photos of it with my phone.
2. Watching The Piano while doing my stationary bike exercise.
3. Ice is melting. We are lucky. No more cracking in the woods. (But for many others who live in regions much affected by these weather conditions it is still very bad. There are still around 40.000 households without power for almost a week now.)

1. I remember to fill in the form and mail it one day before deadline. What an accountable taxpayer I am.
2. We communicate through notes, slipping them under the door, and eventually she comes from the room and joins us for lunch.
3. We all gather in Jay’s room, creating owls, listening to music, laughing.

It was an instant decision, to stay home.

1. Jay is fighting a virus, but her fever is down and she feels better.
2. The power goes off before dawn and comes back just in time for breakfast.
3. Em is also home since the local school is closed due to weather conditions anyway. That’s a good thing because I cannot imagine how she would have handled it at school, in the presence of her peers, when she learnt about her strangely and unbelievably low score at a competition she had entered with such great expectations and for which she had worked for with much energy and love for many months… After a long talk we go for a walk down the road and back and observe the wild winter scenery. Em tries sliding down hill in her snow pants, laughing out loud.

1. The best things about having no power from 11 pm till mid-afternoon is no TV, no radio, no internet access, lots of board games, cutting paper, drawing and piano playing.
2. Millet porridge with dried apricots for breakfast. Not Em’s favorite, but definitely Jay’s and mine.
3. I hear squeaking and cracking from the woods while lying in my bed. These days I feel really humble and grateful.

1. Jay returns from her sleepover at school. She had such a great time! There was supper for 110 pupils, aged 6-9, and three bedtime stories, and candles and lots of giggling with friends late into the night.
2. Sisterly love.
3. Owls made of paper. There are never enough of them.