theinbetweenismine

just a girl living the expat life

Archives for October 2008

Happy Halloween!

filed under: fun!, holidays, my so-called life

I wish this was the pumpkin I carved. Unfortunately, ours is still sitting here in the corner waiting to be “halloween-ized”. I know. We should have done it last weekend, but we just didn’t get around to doing it. Now it’s almost too late. But who cares – I can still enjoy a jack-o-lantern in November :)

I am still determined to carve it this weekend. Not only do I want to have a pretty carved pumpkin, but also pumpkin pie and roasted pumpkin seeds!

Oh yeah, and right on time for Halloween, we had the first rain of the season yesterday. The leaves are changing their color and falling off the trees faster than you can say “fall is here”. And my personal indicator for that fact is that my feet are cold for the first time in a long time.

Have a great Halloween everyone.

Stuff Portrait Friday…on Tuesday!

filed under: yes!

Kristine over at randomandodd.com is bringing her Stuff Portrait Friday back, only that it’ll be on TUESDAY, November 4th!

The theme will be:

VOTE! 
On Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 — GO VOTE!  When you do, take a picture of something that represents this freedom.  The pen you used. The road you took to get there. SOMETHING.
If you voted early or by mail in…on November 4th , 2008…go take a picture of something you will no longer take for granted, something that shows us you have a voice and it matters!

Go to Kristine‘s website on November 4th 2008 and leave a comment and a link to your website.

Even if you can’t vote like me (for whatever reason, but not wanting doesn’t count! My reason is not being a US citizen!), participate!
Take a picture to show your support! Kristine wants this to be BIG, so spread the word!*

Oh, and if you can vote, but weren’t going to…. re-consider. You could go and vote in my name, because I am just as much effected by the outcome of this election as everybody else who lives in this country. Just make sure you check the “Obama” box. Thank you!

*(It might also encourage her to bring back Stuff Portrait Fridays for good! ;))

I’m in love…

filed under: family

… and this is why:

Nina und Greta

Finally a picture of my sister and my new little niece and godchild-to-be.

Isn’t she just the cutest, and I mean THE CUTEST little thing? :)

Kind request

filed under: friends, love

I usually don’t like to talk about too personal things on my blog – especially if those personal things concern other people in my life –  and if I do so occasionally, I password-protect these posts. It is not so much about protecting myself as it is about protecting people that I write about or protecting work- or family-related matters.
Sometimes I just don’t want certain people (or strangers) to read about certain things.

But today, I need to ask a big, big favor from each of you, my dear friends and lurking readers. Even though I won’t go into details here and therefore I don’t need to protect this post (and would plead with you to not inquire further), I assure you that the reasons for my request are substantial.

May I kindly ask you to send some VERY positive vibes for a very dear friend of mine who undergoes surgery tomorrow (Thursday)? It would be so, so much appreciated.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I am an aunt!

filed under: family, yes!

The waiting is over – today my sister became a Mom!

A Mom to a beautiful baby girl. This is so overwhelming and at the same time so freakin’ unfair that I can’t be with her and share in the arrival of our new family member.

Greta was born healthy and happy on October 21, 2008 at 4.44 p.m. (MET).
She was 50cm (19.7 inches) long and weighed 3380g (7.45 pounds).

I am so incredibly happy for my sister, for her husband and so happy for my parents who will be the greatest grandparents ever! And I am also happy for me, because I am an aunt and a godmother-to-be! :)

This is such a huge event in the life of every woman and I thought that I was aware of the fact, but only today did I realize how HUGE the birth of a child really is. Looking at the first, fuzzy cell phone picture of my niece (kindly provided by my Mom), I could see my sister in her tiny little face and realized that from now on nothing will be the same.
My sister is not just “my sister” anymore, but she’s a mom! (Excuse the fact that I probably have to write this out a couple more times in this entry! :)) She’ll be responsible for another little human being and her life will change completely.

Fact is: she’ll be the best Mom any child could wish for.
I know that because I’ve known my sister for 32 years, 7 months and 11 days and nobody knows her better than I do. She’s been an incredible sister and friend (and a wonderful elementary school teacher !).
Let me tell you a little more about her and us.

My sister and I have always been very close since birth – obviously, because we were only born 2 minutes apart. (And yes, I am the old(er) and wise(r) one, in case you were going to ask ;))
Sisterhood is a true blessing. Especially having a sister the same age.

I was a very quiet and shy baby and toddler. Having a sister, who was a lot more adventurous and brave than I was, had its advantages.
In the nursery, our beds were right next to each other and we could easily see and touch each other through the bars, but that was not close enough. My sister still managed to pull herself up and throw herself over into my crip. That’s how close we liked to be.
When we grew older and the crips turned into “normal beds for big girls”, we switched roles. From now on, I would slip under my sister’s blanket at night and she would comfort me, because for the longest time I was convinced that something lived under my bed and I would take a run-up at the door and jump on my bed, so that the ‘thing under my bed’ wouldn’t be able to grab my feet. Pretty stupid, I know.

We moved on to Kindergarten and Elementary School and to be honest, I have no idea where I would be today if it wasn’t for my sister. My parents had a really hard time leaving me with other people for more than a coupler of hours. I would cry and always wanted to be picked up (if they could get to leave in the first place). My sister was always there to comfort me and tell me that it was ok and that Mom and Dad would be back soon and that there really was no need to cry and that I wasn’t alone (so true – because she and I always went everywhere together). I still didn’t believe her sometimes.
My sister always looked out for me and made sure that I was ok, even if that meant that she had to pretend that she wasn’t scared to be in an unfamiliar place (even though she was) or that she wasn’t uncomfortable (even though she was) or that she didn’t mind asking the teacher something for me (when I was to shy to do it myself). In hindsight, it’s very hard to tell how much my sister really stood up for me even though she might have been just as scared, or insecure or uncomfortable as I was. She clearly was my savior.

When we finally moved on to middle/high school (= Gymnasium, 5th – 13th grade), I think I slowly started to learn to not live in my sister’s shadow anymore, although I still relied heavily on her company and just the feeling of security when she was around. It was very comforting to know that she always was where I was.
I cannot imagine going through all the stages in life without my sister right there by my side… attending the same classes, going on the same trips, doing homework together. It was like having your best friend living with you :)

We eventually started growing apart a bit when we hit puberty. She had a boyfriend way before I had my first boyfriend and she started to hang out with different people. It was kind of weird to not have the same group of friends anymore. I guess that was just part of growing up. It was a time of figuring out who we were as separate persons and not as twins. I know it needed to happen at some point.

When we both went off to College, Nina in Cologne and I in Düsseldorf, we started to get closer again and approach our relationship on a different level. Since then,  she has not only been my sister, but  has also become my closest friend.

Today we’ll move on to another stage in our lives… together! She as a Mom and I as an aunt!

Wohoo!

J’s birthday wish

filed under: fun!, my so-called life

Yesterday was J’s birthday. His wish was to go to a pumpkin patch and pick out a HUGE pumpkin for Halloween. His wish should be granted.

We started the day off with some birthday muffins for breakfast and then I gave J his presents. We also got a couple of birthday phone calls, before we headed out to the pumpkin patch :)

It was a beautiful, sunny fall day and we had a lot of fun walking around, petting the animals in the “petting zoo” (goats and bunnies) and look at the ponies, calves, laamas and alpacas.
Finally, we had to pick out a  pumpkin.
The pumpkin patch was pretty big, so finding the perfect pumpkin was quite an endeavor.. one was too skinny, one was too round, one didn’t have a stem.  But in the end, we did find “OUR” pumpkin…  :)

Our pumpkin

… and then some more:

Little pumpkins :)

(No, we didn’t buy all of them. Just a couple :))

For dinner, we went to a BBQ place – J really felt like having “BBQ ribs” *yum!* and to top a great day off, we went to the late nite show at the movie theater and watched “W.”. Priceless. Go see it and laugh your butts off (or shake your heads off – whichever you prefer).

The great weekend was a little bit overshadowed by the loss of the Boston Red Sox (J’s favorite team!) against the Tampa Bay Rays tonight. After trailing by two games, Boston came back strong in game 5 and 6 on Thursday and yesterday, but unfortunately couldn’t carry the momentum over to the last game and lost in a hard-fought battle with 1-3.
They won’t go on to the World Series this time against the Phillies.

Bummer!

Back online

filed under: nuisance, yes!

Or so I hope.

If you can read this, this means I am finally back online after a very annoying, frustrating and lenghty server change following the shut down of my blog by my former host company. I have still not figured out why exactly they decided to suspend my account without prior notice or making any contact with me in regards to it. A friend had to point out to me that my URL wasn’t working any more, and even then it took me days to get a response from the support team.
Let’s just say: They were NOT helpful at all. Period. Also, they owe me 9 months of pre-paid account hosting, since I had just renewed my account in June. Suckers.

I tried the “live chat” on their website. NOT helpful. They kept saying I had to EMAIL the support team. I didn’t get a response from the support team for three days, decided to try “live chat” again, just to be told that I ‘had to wait until support team gets back to’ me. Well, for how long do I have to wait? They claim to provide 24/7 support, but I didn’t see any of it.
At least, I am keeping my blog “just for fun” (well, if you disregard the fact that I felt pretty disconnected from the world in the last three weeks), but I wonder how they treat customers who run business websites on their servers! I am pretty sure that they can’t afford three weeks of total shut down.

Anyway, as you might have noticed, I still have some minor issues with the formatting of the restored database (and if anybody has any idea on how to fix this – please!, let me know!), but at least I am connected again. Wohoo!