Mariecel's silence, explained.

Of the blogs that I follow, many have had recent posts either of an apologetic nature, or simply to ascertain that the blog is not completely abandoned. This is one of those posts.

I was going to name this post “I’m back” but decided against it because, in truth, I never really left. I have not gone on vacation, or have had a prolonged absence from home that would have made it impossible for me to sit in front of the computer and type. So what has come between my blog and me?

As I already mentioned here, I have been reading books again. A lot. Which is, in itself, not helpful because a) the only time I have to read is after I put the kids to bed, b) I usually have a very hard time putting a book down until I have finished the chapter/book, and c) I have become a very slow reader. For the past couple of months I have been living off an average of 3-4 hours sleep each night.

To fight off the yawns, I spend as much of my time with the kids as I can outdoors. Nothing wakes you up more than a nice breath of cold, fresh air, which leads me to one of the reasons I love the city of Berlin so much: There is always something to do here, with or without kids. The city enjoys not only an abundance of beautiful parks and forests but also of museums, theatres, and other culturally stimulating venues for when it becomes too unpleasant to stay outdoors. But I digress. My love of Berlin warrants a post of its own.

What keeps me from posting is not a lack of something to say but a frustration with, and sadness because of, the likes of Jonathan Krohn, the Vatican, and the current recession, to name a select few. By the time I finish reading the news I am so worked up that any post I start to compose in my head just ends up an almost incoherent rant of all the things going wrong in the world today, which results in a frustration at my frustration at whatever set me off that day and, ultimately, the discarding of my post. Wow – it is frustrating even just reading that sentence!

Luckily the plethora of updates on the horrid shooting in Winnenden was interrupted by a short report on CNN about the “feud” between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer/NBC. I am grateful to have seen this report, as it granted me access to a good dose of humour to counter the sadness I feel for those affected by the shooting. People such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have a wonderful way of bringing controversial points of view to light, and encouraging the discussion thereof. In case you have not seen it, here is the segment that ignited the quarrel (Stewart's latest clip is embedded in the article linked to above):

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

All in all I wish to let you, my reader, know that I have learnt my lesson – namely, to search out humour when my mind is abuzz with frustration – and that I am still here. I hope to see you here again soon =)

The Magical Meme

I have not written on this blog for a while, and it was not for a lack of things to write about. Perhaps it is the normal winter slump, the nasty cold that I have, or my Fernweh that is keeping me away from the keyboard.

There is something special about this facebook meme that is getting people to reveal random facts about themselves; even people who normally do not take part in this tagging game. It is that special something that finally got me out of my slump. I won't bother tagging anyone, as most of you have done this already! (Don't let that stop you if you have not done this yet, though!) Here goes:

1. I love cooking with offals. Unfortunately, what offal I cook and when I cook it depends on hubby. He enjoys liver and oxtail, so I can cook those whenever I wish to. I save recipes with tripe (“Eck! Even my mother’s dog refused to eat that!”), and my favourite, chicken heart and gizzard adobo, for when he is away or when I am especially annoyed with him.
2. Since high school, I have justified impulse purchases of sale items by means of the number of chocolate bars I could have purchased with the money I saved. (“Look! I bought this shirt for 20 bucks less than the original price – that’s 40 chocolate bars at the dollar store!”) The only time I do not feel the need to do this is when I purchase books. Books are always worth the expenditure.
3. When I start humming loudly for no obvious reason, it is often a sign that I just relived an embarrassing memory. Hubby knows this and exploits it to no end, and I love him for it =)
4. I do not own a driver’s license, and plan to get one only when it is absolutely necessary.
5. Scotland Yard is my favourite board game, followed closely by chess (even though I am horrible at it).
6. The only movie I have seen where the dubbed German is better than the original English is “Ice Age”. Otto Waalkes outshone John Leguizamo as the voice of Sid.
7. I can roll my Rs using the front end of my tongue, but not the back end. Hubby tried to teach me numerous times but I usually just end up coughing.
8. I am a city-gal through and through. The only way I will voluntarily move back to suburbia is if it is extremely well connected to the city. My own car would not hurt either.
9. I do not have a middle name. I kind of wish I did. In Germany, middle names do not exist – they are counted as another first name that you are free to use when you like.
10. I love the cut-and-paste nature of the German vocabulary.
11. I think Tyler Connolly has a sinfully sexy singing voice.
12. I think Colin Firth is sinfully sexy. Period.
13. I am the black sheep on my side of the family. On hubby’s side I am the foreigner, which always makes for interesting get-togethers =)
14. My favourite beer is Erdinger’s non-alcoholic Weißbier. Very yummy and safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women to drink. It gives you a nice boost of vitamin B and folic acid.
15. During my last pregnancy, all I wanted to watch were violent and gory movies. Dramas and rom-coms bored me.
16. I do not understand how someone can be politically apathetic, even though I used to be exactly that.
17. I received a pot of orchids (my favourite flower and VERY difficult to maintain) for my birthday two years ago. It seems to have awakened the plant-whisperer in me as it is still alive and blooming. I am proud.
18. When I can, I purchase from the bakery and butcher downstairs. I love that community-feeling you get, the kind you can’t get from the large, generic grocery stores.
19. I never knew that homosexuality was taboo until I was about nine years old and my mother shushed me for mentioning that my aunt is lesbian.
20. I don’t care if my children end up being homosexual, as long as they give me grandchildren!
21. Sometimes I wake up with a very deep voice, especially when I am sick. I like to scare hubby with it, and make him think that he just spent the night with another man.
22. My favourite household chores are the ones I was never forced to do when I was a child – scrubbing the washroom clean and the laundry. I tend to drag my feet when cleaning bedrooms.
23. My singing ability makes William Hung’s voice sound like that of Luciano Pavarotti.
24. I like to sing. A LOT. I feel sorry for my family.
25. I have a Filipino accent that creeps in when I talk with my mother, or when I am flustered. Hubby finds it charming. It embarrasses me.

My Rediscovered "Vice" - Books

With the exception of the daily news, I have not watched television since Christmas. My DVD collection has remained undisturbed. I have neglected my blogs, the number of undeleted junkmail in my inbox grew, and my memory card is full of photos that have yet to be transferred to the computer, let alone edited. I have reverted from baking time-consuming, complex cakes and pies to quick and easy muffins and cookies. At fault is my passion for reading, which rekindled once my youngest learnt to sleep the whole night through.

I have always been a bookworm. Whilst other children snuck money from their parents to buy candy and toys at the local convenience store, I snuck money away from my lola (grandmother) to buy books from the book fair. Receiving my first library card at six years of age felt much more liberating than getting my driver’s permit at 18. Even after my mother profusely blamed my sudden need for eyeglasses when I was eleven with my nightly routine of reading for hours with the assistance of a measly 25 watt bedside lamp, I never stopped flipping those pages and devouring the words. Never mind shoes and handbags – the bookstore is the most dangerous threat to my wallet.
NB - This also happens to be a trait shared by hubby and his mother, who alone has over 3000 books and, whilst house-hunting, had to have specialists assess if the structure of the prospective new home was strong enough to support the weight. Throwing away/selling our books is unheard of in our family. In my opinion, owning a book possesses a certain seductive quality that owning, say, a Kate Spade handbag does not.

Oftentimes I found myself with a growing pile of unread books that I picked up on the sale tables of Dussmann and Hugendubel (or Chapters and Indigo if I happened to be in Canada), which resulted in a recurring New Year’s resolution to read them all before buying more. 2008 was the first year that I followed this through, which probably explains the number of books I received from hubby and his mom last Christmas.

Within the next month I had already devoured all four of them, plus one of the books that hubby received from his mom. (It may not seem like that many, but I read much more slowly in German.) On the next available opportunity hubby I packed up the kids and went on my first visit to Dussmann in months, where we made a lovely discovery – a riveting, growing book series that covers very nearly everything from Anarchism to The Meaning of Life to Wittgenstein: Very Short Introductions from Oxford University Press. I fear that I will find it impossible to restrain my purchases until I own the complete series!

Another recent discovery of mine is shelfari.com, a website that combines the social networking of facebook with the concept of the book/reading club. My initial attraction to the website occurred during my search for a library-like widget for this blog. A nice spillover effect from joining this site is that it enables me to be genuinely surprised on my birthday again. By compiling and maintaining an online wishlist, I need never be pestered about my birthday/Easter/Christmas wishes again (I hate dictating to people what I want to receive, which is especially tiresome in a family that refuses to give gift certificates on principle).

My Family

Whilst browsing my cousin's baby blog, I ran into this cute family sticker widget. Allow me to introduce the stick people version of my family to you =)

Missing Hubby

Hubby is often away on business, and even though we’ve been married a while, we still have a hard time falling asleep alone. Yes, we are a cheesy couple.

Today, for the first time since our youngest was born in May, our home is Papa-free for more than his usual working hours. I have been feeling a little down all day, which is silly because he is flying back in two days.

Even when he is not out of the country, he still spends a lot of time at work. He, however, usually manages to be here for either breakfast or dinner, and he helps out around at home as much as he can. Now that our little army of rugrats has increased by one, there is so much more housework to do. I have not properly appreciated that fact until today, when hubby is not here to give his helping hand.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and makes our home seem bigger.

I suppose another reason that I feel crummy, other than the gloomy weather we had today, is that I wish I was in Paris with him. It appears I have adopted the need to travel several times each year – a trait integral to the collective German mentality.

I probably will not have the time to do much more than read a few blog posts and the news headlines as this single-mom-marathon continues. What is keeping me sane is our family road trip to the Harz Mountains on the 22nd. That and the cute little number I picked up for hubby’s visual pleasure; my way of saying thank you for all the help and support he has given me this past turbulent year.

I feel the Brillante-love!

I started blogging just under a month ago, mainly because I was fed up with the new facebook layout. I wanted another way of keeping in touch with friends and family around the globe. I approached this nervously, as it was the first time I have written anything longer than a short blurb in a long while. I suppose it is similar to that feeling you get when you slip into a sexy negligee for the first time after losing your pregnancy chub.


It is nice to know that people out there enjoy, and even look forward to, reading what I have to say. And with that I thank Christina G. for awarding me the Brillante Weblog. It may be another one of those tagging, chain letter-like posts, but I think it is a nice way of showing others that you enjoy their blogs. Here are the rules:

1. The award may be displayed on a winners’ blog.
2. Add a link to the person from who you received the award.
3. Nominate up to 7 other blogs.
4. Add their links to your blog.
5. Send a message to each of those you awarded to tell them about the award.

Here are my choices:

1. Melissa's Miscellany: I've known her since high school, and she is the one who introduced me to the world of blogging. I think her blog is mainly a way of keeping friends and family up-to-date, but she also posts funny videos, like this commercial featuring her cousin, once in a while.
2. Tatiana von Tauber: Another expat blogger in Germany, whose writing and photography is nothing short of beautiful.
3. Mama Duck: I love reading about her experiences in parenting.

Is there a jinx that comes with this award? Just as what happened to Christina, my baby is starting to fuss as I write this, so I'll leave it at those three.

Tagged!

I was tagged by modern mommy and now I have to share seven random things about me. Here we go:

1. Hubby's dad and step-mom call me the 'meat-girl'. (When I first moved to Germany, I was not accustomed to having the fourth meal - kaffeetrinken - and found it to be nauseatingly sweet. I used to top it off with some salami, a ham sandwich, or anything meaty to settle my stomach.)
2. I still have my high-school kilt.
3. My alias - deunadiana - is a contraction of deutsch, canadian and filipina.
4. I am in the process of trying to convince hubby to get a eurasian (dog - not mistress!) when our children are grown up and have moved out.
5. I am agnostic.
6. Bargain-hunting is my sport of choice.
7. I live in the same building that hubby's great-grandfather lived in 1905. We discovered this whilst perusing through hubby's grandfather's postcard collection.

That's it for me. Time to tag seven others:
Melissa's Miscellany
Tatiana von Tauber
an american expat in deutschland
Stepford Wife Chronicles
The Humble Pen
My Musings
muudie

And this blog is rated....

...R?!?!?!?!? All because the word sex is mentioned ten times, the word kill five times and the word gun one time. Does that make sense to any of you? This must have been created by someone in the US because based on their criteria, this blog would not be rated R anywhere here in Europe. Except maybe at the Holy See.

You can have your blog rated at this website. What do you think? Does my blog deserve an R rating? What is your blog rated, and do you think it is accurate?