Someone just accidentally deleted the title of our website and somebody else will have to fix it when he gets a chance. This html thing is a mystery sometimes. But the orange sidebar just had to go.

Orange and me – I don’t think we are ever gonna be friends. I have tried so many different shades of it, but it just keeps reminding me of the trash trucks in Germany. So, it was time for a color change on our website. Right now I’m just playing around a little with different shades of green and blue. They are kind of reflecting what’s going on on our walls right now and what the dining room will be soon. Have I ever mentioned that I am a color geek? That person standing in front of the paint chip collection at Home Depot, comparing 20 different shades of blues for hours – yep, that’s me. If I had unlimited amounts of time, I would probably make a trip to the paint color dream land every week and soon run out of walls to paint. In the meantime I am just collecting a significant amount of paint chips in my desk and dreaming of time for endless painting to magically appear.

Check out this cool tool if you need inspiration for color combinations for graphic stuff, home decor, or just to get a kick out of looking at colors: http://kuler.adobe.com

Update:

Obviously, everythings been fixed and improved. Do you like it the changes?

Honestly, I never really understood all the rage about blogging. Yes, I can write down whatever I want, and almost nobody will ever read it. That’s great. So what’s the big freaking deal? Why is blogging so 2.0, and what does that even mean?

(Check Wikipedia if you are looking for a serious answer (there you go Brad coworker, I learned my English punctuation lesson today. No comma before the if. Just let it flow.)) Anyway, without getting into more technicalities – I found this blog, and I love it: http://www.younghouselove.com/. I can keep reading and reading, and commenting, and getting inspired by it all day long. It’s my new favorite thing. Especially now that I have a little casita on my own and can finally come out of my renter’s closet and make a real home! The blog is about a young couple – now turned family – who bought their first house and started blogging about their kitchen renovation. (All those parallels. Read about our kitchen renovation in the next post). Then they kept renovating and reporting and painting and taking photos and documenting it all for the world to see. Their decorating style is THE bomb, their writing skills genius, and on top of that they seem like really cool people. Now they make their living by doing exactly that. Isn’t that just too cool?

Check out their projects, their house, and their stories. Reading this blog is pretty addicting right now for me. There are so many great ideas about how to home-ify your house that I am willing to go full force forward and sacrificing all my rare free evenings to keep going with my own young house love.

Now don’t get any ideas. I am not becoming a full time blogger any time soon or even later. But I definitely found great inspiration to post more frequently, because there might always be someone out there who is just remotely interested in what I have to share. Or maybe there are even a few people who can find themselves in what my life is about: love, family, house, nature, interculturality, the world, and other stories.

So, there has obviously been a lack of blogging here lately. Time is not an issue, we have always had too little time and still have. Or as Lincoln likes to put it: You can never have too much thyme. The reason for the absolute newslessness is simple and ridiculous at the same time. After all the extremely busy and eventful craziness in the past three years, the past four months just seemed too boring to report about. We have basically just been living, getting settled, working, keeping a big household, being a family, and waiting for summer. Sounds like a lot and still is something, right? But after migrating, getting married multiple times, moving a few times, having our first baby, and so on, I feel like I need to have news like we are expecting triplets or win the lottery in order to top that.

Anyway, I think I have to readjust my vision to see the smaller things as something big enough to write about again. Really, there is only nothing to write about, if you sleep all day and night with no vivid dreams and ear plugs in. Therefore I set this new year’s resolution now and today: I will try to blog once a week. From this day forward. Through better or worse. ‘Til me forgetting my wordpress password do us part. Even if it’s just a photo or video upload.

Cheers and happy new summer!

Auch das zweite Trimester der Schwangerschaft ist nun erfolgreich überstanden. Langsam werde ich echt gut darin, schwanger zu sein. Das fleissige Studieren zahlt sich aus. All die Veränderungen im Körper und in der Babyentwicklung sind so spannend, dass ich kaum aufhören kann darüber zu lesen. Ich will immer ganz genau wissen, was gerade da drinnen abgeht und hab sogar eine Application auf meinem Iphone dafür. Die vergleicht die aktuelle Größe meines Babies jede Woche mit einem Gemüse und erzählt mir davon, wie er mich jetzt hören kann, immer neue Gehirnwindungen formt und warum ich trotz Noch-Minibaby 10 Kilo zugenommen habe. (more…)

My friend Magdalena regularly sends me a good magazine from Germany. It is called Neon and reports about topics that are of interest for people between 20 and 30. While there is one shallower section about fashion and lifestyle, it is more geared toward the educated crowd with a university degree and has sections on society, world, practical tips for every day life, love, work, friends, culture, etc. – overall a nice mix of interesting topics and I always enjoy reading it.

In the last issue there was an article about “Do you have the right job?”. It asked whether you are satisfied with what you are doing, if you should change your employer, and which are the factors that determine happiness with a job. (more…)

So, das erste Trimester ist gut ueberstanden und im vierten Monat geht es deutlich gesitteter zu. Die naechtlichen Klobesuche bleiben, aber sonst hat sich alles ausreguliert. Mein Verdauuungstrakt verhaelt sich so unauffaellig, dass man kaum merkt, dass er noch vorhanden ist. Gelegentliche Kopfschmerzen sind fuer mich ja auch nichts besonderes und die Muedigkeit ist auch endlich wieder auf Normalniveau angelangt.

Mir ging es in den letzten drei Wochen so gut, dass ich kaum merkte, dass ueberhaupt irgendwas in mir passiert. Alle Symptome waren weg, der Bauch wuchs aber auch noch nicht und zu spueren war gleich gar nix. (more…)

Hier in den USA (= United States of America) ist es sehr beliebt, Abkuerzungen fuer von vorne herein unnoetig umstaendliche Begriffe in der Alltagssprache zu benutzen. Zum Beispiel PDA = Public Display of Affection = Austausch von Zaertlichkeiten oder Kuessen in der Oeffentlichkeit. Oder FYI = for your information = nur damit du bescheid weisst. TMI = too much information = Sachen, die man lieber nicht wissen wollte.
Langsam lerne ich immer mehr dieser kryptischen Buchstabenkombos. TMI habe ich im ersten Trimester meiner Schwangerschaft gelernt. Waehrend ich schonungslos ueber alle Vorgaenge in der Bauchgegend redete, war das fuer manche hier ein bisschen mehr Information, als sie wissen wollten. Aber fuer mich gehoert das eben alles dazu, das sind ganz natuerliche Ablaeufe wie Verstopfung, Duennpfiff, Blaehungen, Uebelkeit, und Harndrang, die die ersten drei Monate einer jeden Schwangerschaft bestimmen. Manche mehr, manche weniger. Und ich blieb immerhin komplett von der Kotzerei verschont, sondern hatte nur ein klein bisschen Uebelkeitsgefuehle, wenn ich zu wenig gegessen hatte. Aber ansonsten das volle Programm im Unterleib. (more…)