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| Good Morning, in two weeks from now I will be enjoying a French breakfast with coffee and croissant on the bank of river Seine. Even though I have bought two travel guides and borrowed an additional one from my friend Kerstin - I have no clue as to what we will do which day. Highly unusual for me as I usually plan our vacations weeks in advance and got to confess that I normally know exactly what we will do which day. Control-freak, just say it out loud  My brother, his wife, and eldest daughter Miriam will be leaving for Paris on July 18 and Niels and I on July 19. It's been probably about 15 years that my brother and I have gone on vacation together. So it will be interesting. I put lots of kids movies and music on my ipod for Miriam in case she gets bored while we are spending hour after hour at the Louvre. Coming back to me header, over the last few weeks I have learned quite a few important lessons which I felt impelled to share with you guys. First and most important lessons - never, I repeat, never forget your husbands birthday !! Yes, I confess, I forgot Niels birthday on yesterday. And just the day before while we were at his parents we had spoken about possible presents and what Niels and I were going to do on his birthday. This must be early signs that I'm getting older  The only way I can get out of this mess is that Niels too had forgotten my birthday once just last year while we were in Rome. So we are even now. But this really doesn't make me feel much better. We met after work for dinner and then later went to the movies (Hancook with Will Smith). The movie I'm really looking forward to this year is Wall-E Second lesson - what to not forget when you go swimming. Hah, got you most of you probably thought about bathing suit. No, this I had, I was missing a towel and had instead packed sneakers - what was I thinking. So I was standing there at the changing room with my bathing suit, my sandals, and the very handy sneakers and calling out loud to my friend who thankfully was there with me if in any case she had a spare towel or would be willing to share her towel after our aqua fitness course was done Third lesson - when you are helping a blind person to find the way, do not tell him that you can already see the place he wants to go, this might be considered mean. I was in town for lunch break sneaking in some much needed shopping and was on my way back to work, coming up from the subway with the escalator. There was this man in front of me with one of the white canes. So instead of sneaking past him like I would usually do with any other person, I stayed behind him so I wouldn't accidentally push him. At the top of the escalator, he stopped and turned left and right without real purpose so I asked him if any assistance was needed. He told me that we wanted to go to the main railway station but must have gotten a wrong exit. I asked if he needed any help getting there and he said yes. So we turned around (the railway station being just on the other side of the road) and what did I see "look over there, I can already see it". Thankfully he thought it was funny and lucky for me, he couldn't see my red face. Fourth lesson - do not put your hand over a kettle which is currently boiling hot. This happened just yesterday. We were standing at our kitchen here at work and I was going to foam some milk for our afternoon coffee. Unfortunately I put my hand over the previously indicated boiling kettle. Ouch! Now it comes in handy that I work for a PR agency that represents a pharmacy company, which luckily has an ointment for burns. I couldn't even get much sympathy from Niels - firstly because I had forgotten his birthday and secondly because you could hardly see the burn anymore. | | |
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The long
overdue update
I can
hardly believe that it’s been two months since I started to work at Edelman. What can I say, I really like it there. It has a lot of things that missed lately at
my old job. Besides learning something
new of course it is just taking a few minutes in the kitchen to chat with a
colleague or hanging out at lunch time. Or just laughing so hard that everybody in the
other offices things we at Accounting must be mad or had something weird for
lunch. This job really is what I had
needed and working at a PR agency does also have a lot of advantages. One being that Starbucks (one of our
customers) invited us for a coffee and sweets tasting a few weeks ago. But I have to confess that I didn’t smell or
taste any of the exotic flavors (“I think I smell lemon” or “is there a slight
chocolate taste”) everybody else seemed to discover. I differ between good and has been on the heating
plate only.
This
American Idol season I really haven’t missed a single episode, even though I
promised myself I wouldn’t watch any more after my favorite Kyle didn’t make it
to the final 24. And I really cried when
Broke had to leave. I’m built way to
close to the waterfront. When it comes
to those emotional shows on TV and everybody is crying and they play this
emotional music you can be sure that I will be crying too. I think I got this from my father. He and I we never watched Bambi – this would
be heartbreaking. My cousin’s
wife had a little baby boy two weeks ago.
His name is Johannes. Making my
aunt a first time grandmother. I’ll post
a picture one I have one. Everybody is
doing great.
Vacation is
also planned for this year, but I’m afraid it won’t be the US this time. Making this the first year for quite some
time that I haven’t come back. Niels and
I will be traving to Paris
with my brother, his wife, and their daughter Miriam who will be turning 9 this
fall. They will be staying at a friends
place while Niels and I will stay at a nearby hotel. We will be traveling for a week in late July.
With the
train it is only a 3,5 hour ride from Frankfurt to Paris so for you guys this must feel like
just around the corner. I don’t speak a
single word of French and I have been told that the French people pretend not
to speak English … this will be an experience.
Since Niels
had a soft skill workshop over the weekend, I got to spend Saturday just they
way I like it. Getting up early (Felix
really didn’t leave me any other choice) and after breakfast heading into town
for some shopping and then crushing at the book store for hours on one of the
comfy couches. I once read a whole book
there. With work being so close from
home now – from door to door it is only about 15-20 min – I don’t get to read
at the subway anymore because it is really only a couple stations. So I switched to audio books now so I can use
the whole 20 min of commute.
Felix has
started to turn very clingy lately. Right
now we are actually sharing the office chair or lets say he is taking up about
70 % of it even though I was here first.
He follows me around like a dog and is watching over me (literally) when
I take a bath. He will sit on the toilet
(the closed toilet this is) and when I take a plunge to get my hair wet, he
gets so agitated that he jumps on the edge of the tub (so far he has always
managed to stay out of the water, thank you) to make sure that I’m doing okay I
guess.
Bekah, I
can hardly believe that Eva turned 3. I still
picture here in her cute PJs cuddled up with JV and watching some kids program
on the portable DVD player while we were at Jason’s wedding.
I hope
everybody is doing great
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| If you count today, I only have 8 more days left at my current job since I still have some vacation time and luckily there are two bank holidays in March. I have been here for 8 years - never thought I would stay that long at my first real job after college, but I did. Currently I'm all exhited about the new challange. So much new stuff to learn, new accounting system, new customers, etc It won't be that easy as it is for me right now since I know the current accounting processes inside out. Niels and I will be heading to my grandparrents for the weekend. It was my grandfathers 87th birthday this week. As usual his response when it comes to the dreaded questions "What do you want for your birthday?" was nothing. Now that really gives you something to work with, since he still does expect a little something each year. I sent Niels to the doctors this morning. He had been coughing all night and his forehead was a little to hot when I touched it. Well, he has the common cold and will stay in bed for the next two days. Niels is very sniveling when he is sick (I'm sure I'm too)  | | |
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Changes, a
weekend in Dublin, Ireland and secret addictions
I guess the
biggest news are that I have quite me job after 8 years. I’ll be leaving on March 31 and start the new
job right the next day. Ever since about
July last year I knew that I would eventually have to leave because there had
been some changes in regards to my job responsibilities which I didn’t approve
of. Due to budget reasons, they had
asked me to work only half time as accountant and spend the other half in the
commission department. I had helped them
out on previous occasions which was fine with me but didn’t want to spend half
my day there so I knew I would have to leave.
It took me quite some time to finally sit down and sent out applications
though  I'm a little lazy
So starting
in April I will work as an accountant for Edelman an American PR agency. The new job cuts my commute in half. So instead of 45 min I will only need 15 min
to get from the apartment to the office.
Of course
new job also means no vacation for the first 6 months, so this will probably
mean no trip to the US
this year. I’m still planning on going
to Paris for a
long weekend in July with my brother and his wife and Niels but this pretty
much depends on my new employee.
This past
weekend I flew to Dublin
to see my friends Julia who moved there earlier this year. I uploaded some pics for you Dublin Castle and Trinity College
  St Patricks Cathedral
 
Dublin is kind a famous for its colourful doors
 
A trip to the country side
 
Castles and of course beautiful beaches
 
Secret
addictions – what can I say, I’m hooked on American Idol. Of course my two favorite guys didn’t even
make the top 24 and I thought about boycotting the show – but no such luck, I’m
hooked as almost every year
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| Welcome to the Itchy & Scratchy Show. I'm beyond self pity, this is downright hilarious you guys won't believe this. I got a rash from the antibiotics. It started this morning in my hands, little red dots that itch like crazy and during the course of the day and it is on my arms, legs, feets and now even my tummy.
If this would happen to someone else, I would probably laugh my head off. But since it happened to my, I'm trying my best not to itch
Thankfully it is not in my face yet and I'm hoping it will stay this way.
This whole sickness thing better be over by March, because I have lots of stuff planned that month. First I will visit my friends Julia in Dublin. She moved there a couple weeks ago to start a new job and I will fly over to see her for a long weekend. The weekend after we are heading to my grandparents because it's my grandfathers birthday and then Chris Daughtry (American Idol, I think the season before last) comes to Frankfurt !!! And you guessed right, I got tickets
You will see me in the first row screaming his songs. I'm glad Niels likes his music okay so he will come with me.
Okay, back on the couch with my stock of People magazines - thanks to my friend Jeff
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