So it looks like 2012 could be a pretty interesting year. Apparently there is a good chance that the world may drastically transform or even go down all together in December. While that sounds all exciting and is probably a once in your life time event to watch, it still leaves more than 11 months to make it one of the best years of our lives. And in case we survive the apocalypse, we can live happily ever after afterwards.

Interestingly enough, the United Nations declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, highlighting the contribution of cooperatives to socio-economic development, in particular recognizing their impact on poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. It has also been designated as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. Just another reason for me to work extra hard this year and help reducing Maryland’s carbon footprint.

Other than that 2012 is probably gonna be as busy and exciting as any other year. We will visit Germany in May, renovate our entire basement this spring (granted that I can find back into home renovation mode, I feel like last year’s efforts depleted my motivation completely), and Milo will start preschool in fall. We will be able to hire a house cleaner and pay off our car.  And of course, we will keep you in the loop about everything on this very blog. I am not sure if I will be able to keep up the weekly post, but might just check in with a few smaller reports here and there.

What is your plan for 2012?

On January 1st, 2012 I have officially worked for my company greeNEWit for three years. What started out as a commission based position with some volunteering hours has grown into a full time salaried position as manager. And I am still having fun.  greeNEWit and me, we are a match made in heaven and I could never imagine working for any other company. Today I want to tell you how we met and became such a great team.

About 3.25 years ago I started my job hunt in the US. After 6 months in the US my green card hadn’t arrived yet, but I was getting antsy and wanted a job lined up by the time I would finally be allowed to work. While I probably would have become a photo journalist in Germany I did not see too many opportunities in that field in the US and therefore shifted my focus to my minor that I had in university: ecology. The rest of the job market already started to go down hill, but green jobs were booming, so I jumped right on the green wave. After a few spontaneous applications sent to random green companies I realized that volunteering was a better way to go. So I started hanging out at the Green Building Institute.

On the side I also went to the Green Fest in DC, a big exhibition with green vendors and service providers. This is where I handed out my generic “business” card to many prospective employers and also Matej from greeNEWit. He said that they were looking to hire an energy auditor, but then never got back to me. Fast forward a few weeks later when I was volunteering at a networking event at the Green Building Institute. That’s where I met the two other greeNEWit guys Jason and Josh. Looking back I got a pretty accurate impression of both those guys. Both very enthusiastic about their mission, Jason the sales guy selling the world to me, and Josh the financial person being more elusive (probably still calculating back and forth if they could really afford to hire their first employee and if so, whether it should be a small girl recently immigrated from Germany).

Company Bike Ride

The rest is history. What was supposed to be my first job interview ever turned into a really great conversation at Panera’s. You know the feeling you have at a first date and you go home knowing that’s it? How you can’t stop smiling and are so nervous to hear back from the guy if he wants to see you again. Yep, I kinda fell in love with greeNEWit that day and we are still inseparable.While things have been a little up and down success-wise over the past years, we never ever ran out of fun at work. When jobs were low, my “bosses” found me a side job at a partnering company. When things went well, they made sure that I still got the personal time and pay I needed to lead a balanced life.

Holiday Party 2011

Now we got a new big contract that is bringing in some good moneys, got me a nice raise, and a manager position that is still somewhat flexible to accommodate family life. At least every other week the whole company gets together for spontaneous or planned happy hours, Frisbee sessions, bike rides, birthday lunches, or other parties. I feel extremely lucky to have a job that I like and where every single coworker/boss is a really good friend that supports me and understands me on a personal level as well as on a professional level. Thank you guys for everything you have done for me and for making me look forward to work every morning!

Peace and love,

Nicola

When I was in high school I had this thing going with a few friends when we would each write down our goals for the next year and at the end of the year sit together and see how far we got to accomplish them. Then for some reason I abandoned that tradition for a few years. Then I picked it up again for a few years in university just doing it for myself. Then I sort of forgot about it again. Until my boss came up with the same idea in summer this year and made all employees fill out a goal sheet for themselves (that we then shared with each other, cause we’re friends like that).

Surprisingly some of my most productive years were those when no official goal review was taking place, but it is still nice to have it all written down and official – makes you feel so much more accomplished when you can actually check things off a list. You know, like checking chores off a chore list instead of just randomly vacuuming and not receive the slightest reward (other than clean floors). And it’s also interesting to see how much of the goals actually became true or which ones got kicked off the priority list throughout the year and got replaced by others. Sometimes you find yourself not looking at the list all year and in December you realized that you have actually worked towards them all year. Sometimes you might want to pull out the list when you need to orient yourself or need another kick in the butt. I guess this kind of goal review is the same thing that some people call New Year’s Resolutions, but those have the connotation of being unrealistic and abandoned somewhere mid March. So let’s stick with goals and get them done.

The categories on our company provided goal sheet were: Career, financial, family, health, spiritual, personal development, big rocks. But really, any categorization or just a random unorganized list will work. These categories just help you think of all the areas where you might want to set goals. So let’s take a quick look at this year’s result for Nicola Tran. I don’t want to bore you with all the details, so here is just a quick summary:

Physical / Health goals:

Epic fail! I did not do 100 sit-ups every day, go to exercise once per week, take a dance class in fall, nor sleep 8 hours every night. Of course I have great excuses for all of those items and some are not completely in my hand. Admittedly this category was not one of my biggest priorities this year, especially since I am generally pretty healthy anyway. But for it to stay this way, I should really gear up and get my butt moving. The biggest problem is that I have not found a class that really excites me or where there are cool people I can connect with. I have never been a sport fanatic that works out just to work out. For me it is about socializing and having fun. Finding a sport that really motivates me is gonna be one of the big goals for 2012.

All other areas

of life have been going really well this year. We found an awesome house that we are slowly but surely making a home for our family memories. It also brought back some creativity into my life and decorating it gave me a hobby that I spend all my free time on. Now if only it was a hobby that I could enjoy together with others that would be awesome. But at least it gave me a good reason to revive our blog and practice my writing skills.Another great side effect that came with the house was moving into a real nice community with great neighbors and lots of kids. This is what I have always wanted and am so grateful that Milo has the opportunity to grow up here.

At work it has been going really well this year too. First off, this was the first year I have worked completely full time with no maternity break, only nine vacation days taken, and I still enjoy working. We landed a new contract with a local utility company that allows to install energy saving items in homes at no charge to the customers. It’s a really nice program that benefits the residents, property owners, the environment, and of course our company. Somehow I became the manager of this program and it’s a really diverse and fun job. We are growing rapidly these days and are adding more and more cool people to the team. My coworkers/bosses are some of my best friends and always there for me. Which is probably why they gave me an incredible raise at the end of this year that exceeds all my financial goals and will make our next year way more comfortable financially. Buying a house had a big impact on our finances, but we managed to scrambled through this year and I am excited looking at next year’s monthly budget with so many more possibilities.

Said raise will also enable me to fulfill my big rock on the goal list. This category is for something big that you always wanted and does not necessarily fit in any of the other categories. Since we moved into this big house my big rock has become to hire a house cleaner. I just spend so much time keeping this house clean that takes away from the few free / family hours we have. Freeing that time up and still having a clean house has become my number one dream this year and will be fulfilled beginning next year. Yay!

Happy new year everyone!

Christmas is almost over. It is the evening of the 25th and the adults of this household are chilling on the couch with their computers shining in unison with the tree while the child can be heard sucking on his peacemaker over the monitor. Oh, what nice silence! Finally we are getting to the heart of Christmas spirit. The last couple of weeks were crazy busy – as always before the holidays. And as always we didn’t manage to send out all mail on time, print personalized cards, nor finish all DIY gift projects that were planned even though I started in November this year.

But at least we did manage to send cards at all, hand-wrote every single one, and got all presents purchased two weeks before Christmas. Let’s just look at the improvements here. Of course all the craziness was well worth it to make it Milo’s first memorable Christmas experience. As far as I can tell, he had a blast. The whole advent thing we had going on was a hit on its own. Every morning he demanded opening his advent calendar right after breakfast. He learned how to blow out the candles of the advent wreath (all set for his second birthday next year), and gazed at all the lights around the house as if they were new every day.

We made gingerbread houses and cookies with friends and went to see an amazing train display at Brookside Botanical Gardens.

Then Christmas weekend came and at first it didn’t look like it was gonna be all fun and smiles. Milo’s incisors decided to push through his gums and mama got a cold. But luckily both of those mean things turned out much minor as expected and so the fun began. As a family we are pretty new to this Christmas thing and will see how Tran traditions will evolve and play out over the next few years, but so far so fun. It all took off on the 24th at 2pm when we met my German family on skype during their Christmas Eve celebration. (If you are not familiar with German traditions, the evening of 24th is the main Christmas deal in Germany, not the 25th.) Everybody was just happy to spend an hour of quality family time together and even the usually crappy internet connection held up pretty nicely.

We got to open their presents that were shipped over here and they opened ours. Milo got some German books and a potty seat. He immediately got the connection, grabbed one of the books, and sat down on the potty for a good 15 minutes. Hm, who did you learn that from?

Afterwards it was time for us to prepare Christmas dinner. We had Linc’s parents and siblings over for a Bieringer style Christmas Eve. That means, nicely set table, four course dinner, and gift exchange between the immediate family members.

We made traditional pumpkin soup with homemade butter croutons and bacon crumbs, then a pecan cranberry spinach salad, then thyme apple pork chops with roasted rosemary vegetables. And baked filled apples with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce as dessert. Sounds like a lot of work, but actually most of the stuff could be pre-prepared and then just baked itself in the oven while we had time to tend to our guests. We even busted out my real silver ware that I got almost twenty years ago and had never used before. Just to throw in a little bit of craft blog, see here our table setting:

The next morning of the 25th began relatively unspectacular. Probably because the American in the house was still asleep and the German was running all the Christmas action. So no stockings filled with Santa goodies this year. I did manage to sew the stockings in a time crunch right the night before, but didn’t really have anything small to fill them with, so we will work on improving this part next year. I don’t know, maybe it would also just get too much. Because the biggest party of the weekend hadn’t even started yet. The extended Tran family Christmas party at Lincoln’s parents house. It is the usual craziness (a regular house filled with 30 people, tons of food, and 20 children of all ages) times 4. At least. Every family gives every single child of the family a gift , so we had an estimated 100 presents piled up around the Christmas tree. It seriously was a wall 5 feet high and 3 feet deep of boxes that almost completely covered up the tree.

Then the traditional photo of all kids in front of the presents is supposed to happen. Of course the kids couldn’t care less and have their eyes on the prizes, not the cameras. Surprisingly Milo stayed seated for the photo shoot when I told him to. Maybe we can apply this good listening to sitting on the naughty step next time he needs a time out? See here how it played out:

But wait, it gets even better. Someone starts passing the presents to the child’s parents, everybody sets up their station on the living room floor, and opens presents as fast as possible in order to not get buried. Kids get lost under wrapping paper, parents paper-cut their fingers, trash bags get filled with everything that is not in a child’s hand, … seriously, that’s how crazy it felt. Milo got completely overwhelmed, so I sent him to another room with the first best toy and then took more than twice as long as everybody else to open his gifts.

Yeah, it was fun and we are happy that we are done with festivities for a little bit. This week I will have three days off of work and we will do our best to just relax and play and relax and play. And hopefully see some of you Columbians for a play date and some of you Germans for a Skype date so that Milo can show his new toys and do a private happy dance just for you. Cheers!

An artificial Christmas tree would have never happened in my hypothetical German household. It’s just not in my nature. In my family we have always had a real pine tree with real candles – cats and toddlers running around and never a problem. This being said, sometimes you have to make compromises as a wife. Lincoln comes from the opposite side of the Christmas tree spectrum. He was raised with an artificial tree with electric light strings. Can’t blame him, people prefer what they know.

So after long discussions I gave in to purchasing an artificial tree. The argument of long-term payback got me. But that’s it. As a compromise it was completely up to me to pick our tree for the next few years and off I went on a quest for the most real looking artificial tree. I had been stalking Craigslist posts for weeks, passed on one sad looking plastic tree that I found and finally had to bite the bullet and get a new one at Target for more than I wanted to spend. But my heart just wouldn’t have survived anything less real looking than this Virginia Pine with cashmere tips that is conveniently pre-lit with lots of lights:

At least it was on sale for 50% of the regular price, but those $100 better pay back over the next ten years. Considering that we would pay about $30 for a real tree each year, it has to last at least 4 years. More if it really wants to be a good investment.

When I started setting it up I almost wanted to send it right back. Not that there was anything wrong with this particular tree, but dealing with artificial trees was just not what I expected it to be. It was supposed to be convenient. Not take 3 hours to pick all the branches apart to create a nice shape. Not needle all over the place like a real tree. Stand up straight unlike a real tree, …

You can tell I am still not a believer. But, it is up now. And looks actually pretty good. We put up my ornament collection that I gathered / made for less than $25 and positioned it in front of one of the front windows. A timer turns it on every evening at 5 and off at midnight, so that we don’t have to worry about it and can enjoy it automatically.

Here is a sample of each ornament up close:

1. About 15 fresh pine cones found behind our house. I glues a white bow on top of each to hang them
2. Ten snowy pine cones. Thrifted at 2nd Ave for $1.90.
3. Eight wooden snowflakes. Found at 2nd Ave for $1.90. And they came with the free paper snowflakes for the kitchen window.
4. Six felt snowflakes. Found at Joann Fabric for $0.50 each.
5. A bunch of epsom-salted silver balls. Made after this tutorial from ornament number 7.
6. Some epsom-salted white balls, made from ornament number 8.
7. Silver glass balls. Found at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet for $1.99 for 20 pieces.
8. White glass balls. Found at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet for $1.99 for 20 pieces.
9. Twine wrapped around and glued on some mismatched golden balls that I had found at Goodwill for $1.50.
10. Yarn wrapped around some of the golden balls. I didn’t get further than this prototype, then the tree was full and I ran out of glue power.

This weekend Lincoln and I had our first ever parents getaway with an overnight stay. So Milo had to stay with his grandparents for two days and one night and while I had no doubt that everything would go well and that we had to go on this trip, I was still nervous about it. This was the longest time I have been away from my little boy and of course I made sure to call and check in a few times. Needless to say that Milo didn’t miss us a bit, had a great time, and so did we.

My good old friend Johanna from Germany and her boyfriend Matthias had booked a spontaneous trip to New York and since we only see each other once a year or less it was pretty clear that we had to go up and see them. It was so weird being without Milo, not at work, and not in my own house, that at first I wasn’t really sure what to do myself. Noone to take care of, no work to get done, no house projects. What to do on a 4 hour bus ride? Do something that I haven’t had the time for since Milo was born. Crocheting a hat. Reading a book would have been another idea, but reading while in motion usually just gets me nauseous. Staring at a needle and yarn for hours doesn’t for some reason. And it’s sooo relaxing.

When we got to New York Johanna and Matthias picked us up at the bus stop and gave us an overview of what was planned for the next two days. Dude, when they travel it’s no joke. They do everything there is to do. But hey, that’s what you travel for, right? After lunch at Macy’s maze (you can get lost at that place) we headed over to Rockefeller Center where we spent most of our day. We were thinking about ice skating under the tree, but first the rink was rented out to a marriage proposal, then they had to refresh the ice and the lines were huge. So that didn’t work out. Instead we went up to the top of the rock for some nice Manhattan views. Afterwards we strolled up 5th Avenue to gaze at the famously decorated shop displays. It reminded me of the times of Mad Men, the TV show that I am watching right now.

Then off to visit Chinatown, and have an amazing dinner at L’ecole – the restaurant of the french culinary art institute. They serve a four course meal for $47, so not the cheapest we have ever eaten, but the very best. Every single dish was just perfect and worth every penny. At that point we had pretty much thrown our pennysaver attitude out the window. Usually when we travel we manage to save up just enough money for the trip itself and then don’t have any cash to do cool things at the location. But this time we just went with the flow and didn’t watch our dollars too closely. After all it’s a three paycheck month this month! What the heck, you gotta splurge on two days out of 365, right?

During a quick stop at Rockefeller we were invited to join a raffle at the newly opened Brookstone. While waiting for the drawing of the prize, I volunteered to test their full service massage chair and had my legs adjusted back to full functionality after this long day of walking. Then Matthias won the grand prize and us tired fellows were back in the game. So we did some more walking and picked up a toy for Milo at FAO Schwartz.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed back to Manhattan to go to the MOMA. We had planned to meet my friend Fati there, but unfortunately the poor girl got sick. Usually the hotel has a shuttle bus to the metro station, but not on Saturdays, so we had to call a cab. Instead we were picked up by a run down limo for the same price. Not a bad way to start the day.

And definitely a motivator to get some more walking done. On Broadway past Times Square and up to MOMA we went. At that point we had only 1.5 hours before we had to get to our bus, but it was just enough to see some of my favorite pieces of art in real. I loove Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

By the way, Boltbus is the way to go to New York. Not the crappy Chinatown busses. Boltbus just takes their customers a little more seriously, provides good service, Wi-Fi, power plugs, and supposedly you can even get fares for $1 if you book far enough in advance.

On the way back I made another hat, and got really antsy on my butt, ready to see my little Milo again. As much as we enjoyed ourselves and didn’t think about him all the time, all of a sudden there was no holding me back anymore. Milo just acted like on any other day when we pick him up from his grandparent’s house. Happy as always, but definitely not dropping whatever he is playing with at the moment. Jeez, it’s just my parents!

Later he performed this happy dance for us and all of us went to bed happy and content to be back together as a family.

Over the first few days of December Milo has totally gotten into the Christmas spirit. Or at least he appreciates all the extra fun things that were put up around the house. He is practicing his lungs by trying to blow out the advent wreath candles from a 4 foot distance. He runs towards the advent calendar first thing in the morning, hoping to find some sweet treats to replace his breakfast. So far he has gotten a few packs of raisins, one piece of chocolate (mega drool!), and some stickers. And one new car that he thought was very nicely parked behind the small door, so he put it right back.

On the morning of the 6th Milo got some bigger toys in his boots from St. Nicholas. He got lucky St. Nicholas was so generous because usually only good kids get something and recently Milo is going through this phase where he wakes us up a few times per night, hits his mom, and acts up for no good reason. Let’s take these toys as some motivation to be good from now on.