Getting into the Xmas Spirit?!

Today A and I did drag half the content of our attic down the stairs. The 7 year old was all in smiles because he has got this such touching excitement going on when the Holidays pop around the corner. And yes, it is contagious. By the time we put all the decorations in the right places of our cold house my heart was glowing. Outside the first snow is fighting back against warmer temperature but I guess more will come soon of that white powder!

Also did the final countdown started. The Twelve days of Xmas is one of my favorite Holiday poems. And I also love to put on xmas cds and sign along. ot even caring that I am singing of key. And today I even created a xmas card with for the first time a family picture of the three of us on it. We have never done this before. Also the first ordered online xmas gifts arrived in boxes on our doorsteps. Best box that we did find this week was the gigantic one that my precious friend C did send me over. The beautiful content is now hanging in our xmas tree. I LOVE IT!!!

Not that my spirit is already totaly wrapped up in xmas spirit. Stallie is a total last minute person on that front. As long as I am running around at work and have things to deal with work related I just can not find the time to get all wrapped into xmas. Nope, I have not attented one single xmas market so far because and nope I have not bought my secret santa gift yet for a family member.

Peace I do hope to find once I leave work next Friday. After all that is what xmas should be about. For me the peace message this festive period tries to carry out is crucial. I love to share this with as many as possible and world wide. But then there are still people out there who seem to have been less inclined to be peaceful.

Yes, Belgium tends to be rather a boring place. That we needed over 500 days to find a new government and plan to govern was perhaps a desperate scream for attention. This week our Prime Minister Elio diRupo was asked by a Dutch regional camera the way to Manneke Pis and these guys did not even knew who he was. Not that he seemed to be upset about it. After all he is only human.

I wonder if this is the case with the person who decided to destroy the peaceful xmas spirit that lingered around in the streets of Liége. That person ended up destroying so much more. The destruction, the pain, the suffering and the loss that human being created out there was/is beyond any word. The images that I found out on the internet did show me more then I wished to see. It felt like I was tresspassing. I felt awkward and then the classic one liner did pop up:'Why in the world, did he do that? What was he thinking when he decided to pull the trigger'

Yes, I am tempted to go on now and trying to express to you what it has done to my mind. But then I want to keep believing in the fact that there are still more people out there who only want peace and not death as form of justification. Liége will end up in my annual newsletter and it will for sure linger around for many years in the common mind of the Belgian people. Some scars will never heal.

Most touching story I read the day after was about a teenager whose body will for over contain a left over of the person who 'destroyed'. Surgeons decided to let one of bullets in the kids his kidney. The idea that you have got something inside of you that is designed to hurt and kill must be undescrible.

So this week Stallie does intend to get into the spirit of Xmas. I also wish you a very nice week out there to get everything done you wish to get done to have the xmas you wish for. My list of wishes is this xmas rather short but I do hope that many will find peace of mind. And yes, every time when I light a candle many will be in my thaughts and prayers. It will be a prayer for peace and enlightment.

P.S.: I did not find a fitting song to go along whith this entry. But this weekend I got to see this gem. And a zen drummer is fur sure an enlightned soul.

Stallie Says Yes!!!!

Major remark: NO THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE WEDDING PREPOSAL I STILL LONG FOR!!! So if you hoped it was about that you better do not read on! :-)))))


Sinterklaas has brought me this year tons of candy. Something I should be thrilled about if you are called auntie Lolly by your nephews and nieces. Even the ballet studio I left with in my hands a little plastic bag filled up with candy. I was also the one who dragged from one meeting to an other bags filled up with all Sinterklaas candy. I just eat myself through the week before Sinterklaas. Basically because I seem to be preparing myself for the worst weeks of the year that are heading my way.

Last week I had some set backs because I sometimes was facing the consequences of saying one more time yes. In what kind of mess I got myself by just nodding my head and commiting myself to a certain task. Yes, I have got the tendency to say that word quite often.

The last few weeks I seem to have the idea that I perhaps have said once or twice to much yes. Because I think I need a clone to get all the things done that I have noted down in my stylish black Moleskine day to day diary. In there I try to keep track of all my appointments and also the things I need to get done asap. Not that I will write a deadline behind them because that is something that I honestly not always believe in.

In general is Stallie the person who likes a bit of pressure in order to see the urgency of getting a certain job or task done. Something I picked up while writing for the High School newspaper. The fact that it took my own politicians over 500 days to come down to an agreement that most of them can live by till the next election just makes me believe that a deadline sometimes just won't stand . So much time I am never granted to proof myself right for a certain job or make sure that keep my promise. But hey, I guessed that they only wanted to say yes to something they all can believe in or at least can live by for the coming two years.

Once I have said yes to something or someone then this lady wants her to keep the end of the bargain very badly. The word deadline can trigger my mind. Not that I think that I do not have enough time. Hey, I even still have found some minutes to type this entry. And yes, there are many things that I still find the time for even tough I consider myself so busy most of the time.

Because yes is a very powerful word that has brought me more then I ever bargained for. Okay, yes it has also sometimes makes me feel stressed out (more then once I was told today that I did look rather 'shitty') but it also makes me feel very much alive. Yes, I know you need to say no once in a while to make sure that they do not take advantage of you but still...that word can add some adventure to my dull existence

This summer when flying back home from my wonderful Berlin trip the person who was sitting next to me saw what book I was reading:'Yesman' by Danny Wallace! He was very pleased. 'You know what I think that we should say more yes!', he said. It is always very nice when a stranger gives unasked personal comments on a book you are reading. 'YES!', was my response but then I added the words that I had picked up while reading:' But there are many kinds of yes! And that is what many people tend to forget!'

So when have you today said 'yes'? I challenge you to write down the numerous times you did say this little at the first glance insignificant word. You will be amazed! There are many people out there who still use their veto when it comes down to taking risks. But personally I think in the world whe live in you will have to let go the prejudice and just dare to embark on an adventure that might bring you more then you ever imagined. The power of yes? YES, I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF YES!!!!

Read By Chance

Today I do not wish to elaborate a lot on what is going on in my life.
But I just wish to share this with you.
Something I got to read by chance.
Words I consider quite true when it comes down to friendship...

By Choice We Became Friends
It is by chance we met, by choice we became friends...

Friendship is a strange thing....we find ourselves telling each other the deepest details of our lives...things we don't even share with our families who raised us...But what is a friend? A confidant? A lover? A fellow email junkie? A shoulder to cry on? an ear to listen? a heart to feel?... A friend is all these things...and more. No matter where we met, .... I call you friend. A word so small...yet so large in feeling...a word filled with emotion.

It is true great things come in small packages. Once the package of friendship has been opened, it can never be closed... it is a constant book always written...waiting to be read... and enjoyed. We may have our disagreements...we may argue... we may concern one another...friendship is a unique bond that lasts through it all....

A part of me is put into my friends...some it is my humor... some it is my listening ear... some it is real life experiences... some it is my romanticism...but with all, it is friendship.

Friendships forged are a construct stronger than steel built as a foundation....necessary for life... and necessary for love. Friends...you and me... you brought another friend.. and then there were 3... we started our group... Our circle of friends... and like that circle... there is no beginning or end...

by Unknown

Perhaps the only thing I want to add to these lyric words is that friendship does not come along with a number. The last few years I have found more then ever that age does not matter when it comes down to friends. So stop hiding your wrinkles or trying to look older then you in reality are because it does not matter to me. It never did, it never will.

P.S.: the poem, the picture and even the clip I picked out I can all link to friendship. The ones who know me quite well will know how, where, when and what!!! ;-))

The mind is racing, the mind is full!

I have been not on for quite some time. Partly GERD is to blame for that but also time. Once half way November I seem to have the absurd idea that time is just slipping through my fingers. So I just basically did not find enough time and inspiration to spit out here an entry that I considered worth while to donate some time on.

I am dealing with some hot issues for the moment. Ones that I try to get my head around. The one day it goes smoother then others. One day it seems that the sun is shining in my mind and the next I think that I hear thunderstorms nearing that will mess up my very well constructed shedule.

But I have made some promises two years ago about me, myself and I. I do not wish to go back where it was rather dark most of time. It was a spot where I mostly met up with something that was not creating the life I was after. The day that I decided that enough was enough and that I walked out, I did slam the door very loudly. What I found 'back' made it so much more worth while to try and not to give up even when it is tough.

Mindfulness is something I very strongly believe in. It has helped me and keeps helping me to focus on what truly matters. The last few months many have asked me if it is normal to feel sometimes a bit lost at your thirties. If that what they are facing or have obtained in their lives that this will be it. If the sensation they get up with in the morning will be as good as it gets for the rest the will hang out on this planet.


More then once I was asked where the love went, the sensation they seem to have lost while building a house, finding the dream job they were after, putting children on this globe and travelling the seven seas. Most of them even used the word midlife crises and P has already the word 'motorbike. That last act made me LOL outloud because I tried to picture my other significant on one of these fierce bikes racing into Brussels wearing one of these leather outfits. I just could not get my head around that one but still the word midlife crises was then mentioned out loud. And yes, even he has his moments that he wonders:'Is this it??''

My answer is always the same:'Yes and no!!!!' Most of the time I will then get weird looks because then I wonder if they are planning to travel along with me. Because the voyage I long to take them along on is not that straight forward. For me the word that seems to get others on board is 'perception'! It is a word that in many cases holds up to change your POV.

What I see day in day out does give my life color but sometimes it is hidden and awaiting you in less straightforward places and moments. I do like the light and bright colors better when I get up in the mornings if I try to take a closer look at the sky. It is then that I refuse to get back on the dark outfits that I tend to wear when my mood is down. The moment that A walks into the bathroom and shows his blond hair and his cute smile I try to suck up the energy he is sending out into the cold bathroom. I then dive into his eyes, searching what I am desperately searching for and I do find it there. He has never let me down. And not only he. You might even have been part of some energy boost that kept me zen and 'saved' and keep on 'saving' me.

Like this week I felt it when:
- I drove into the darkness to work but saw the break of dawn (I still have not seen 'Breaking Dawn' but I hope to find my way to the cinema soon!) and the first rays of sunlight hit the earth.
- I read a meaningful passage in a book while I was standing in line at the cash register at the supermarket.
- I picked up P his positive vibes over the phone while having a good time in the eternal city. Yes, I was a bit envious that he was able to walk around without an umbrella in 20°C.
- I sensed it when I 'caught' two young lovers kissing each other in the metro and they seemed not to be aware that they were sharing the space with about 50 other people.
- I tasted while I took a big bite of a gigantic chocolate muffin.
- I smiled at the tiny baby that I did hold today in my arms and whose gorgeous eyes touched my soul.
- I listend to the music that Mozart composed and still can make my soul lift me of to a brighter place.
- I put on my perfume and I did smell that open field of daisies that Marc Jacobs was after when he bottled the odor components.
- I did hear the voice a friend who asked very sincere if I was okay and took the time to listen to what I felt like.
- I longed for it while I was having lunch with in front of me a very good friend and in the background the great skyline of the city that has conquered my heart.
- I smiled while reading the delicately hand writen letter from my Jane Austen pen pale M who I hope to share many happy tidings with.
- I felt sweat running down my backbone while dancing away on the music of Rene Aubry.
- I send of an other tweet into Twitter space and I sometimes ended up with the most unexpected reply of a stranger. Strangers that sometimes make me see things very cleary.

Yes, I have found this week the power in many things. I sucked up the energy that each of these acts tried to share with me. Because energy I will need a great deal over the next few weeks. I just hope that 'Sinterklaas' will be so kind to bring me some chocolate because that is something I might need in case of an emergency and I did ran out of Magic Mindfullness Potion.

In case he is in doubt: I was very good this year and I try to use the force wisely! Oeps, sorry wrong guy but then Yoda and Sinterklaas seem to have found out that Mindfulness can make the difference. It surely keeps them very young for their age. Because one can easily kick some ass with the Dark side and the other rides over roofs while balancing on a gigantic big white horse.

Dealing With GERD!

I do not talk often how I feel like being a parent out here. Why? Because there are moments that I just go in overdrive and that what is visible is just not suitable for publication. There are many things I like about raising A. Not that it is always peace and pie. Most hiccups you are prepared for and you even do not think are worth to write entry about. Those are the ones you even take for granted. But then there are the ones you are not prepared for and those can hit you right into the face.

If I recall correctly I have once blogged that I do not have the tendency to brag about my own kid. I can't. Not that I have tried but to me the fact that A got out of NICU almost unharmed is in my personal humble opinion worth an Olympic gold medal. The fact that I was able to take me son in one piece was for me the best present ever. Everything that followed after that I just consider/considered 'normal'.

Believe me, I have tried and I keep on trying but it is hard. Like for the moment I try to take a very close and objective look at my own son. I see a kid who loves to be alive and kicking, who likes to dance on Michael Jackson music, loves a filled up plate of pasta carbonnara, can run very fast on a track, likes to be 'gekriebeld' in the evenings like we use to do when he was lying in his incubator, builts amazing symetric constructions with lego bricks, plays with most kids he meets up with without making distinction in race,gender or culture, he is able to say please and thank you without I have to whisper it into his ears and many more things that I think A is very good at. That make him a unique human being.

So when A is having a rather hard time in trying to get the hang of certain school related things I panic. It is then I seem not to be able to grant him the extra time and space he needs to get the hang of it. I then become so frantic and start to come up with doom scenarios that are beyond words.

Why do I worry? Well, he is now in second grade and there are days that I am so scared that it will be a very painful way to get the grades in order to make it into high school. A and home work that is sometimes Mission Impossible and I am so much tempted to call in agent Ethan Hunt to get the message across why it is important to get this done. It is then I fail at being a good mum because I then lose my patience. Something I have plenty of when I am at work. I then wonder why I then just can't be a very well functioning parent/teacher and balancing both professions?

For the moment it got that bad that my stomach is trying to tell me something by the means of acid. I first was tempted to think it was the work related stress that was trying to find a way out. What meant that once Autumn break would be well on its way the dust would settle. But, oh boy, was I wrong! Because this time my stomach is making sure that I'm getting the message loud and clear.

And it hurts. Never ever have I ever had the tendency to leave work but this week I did. Every time my body was sending out a signal I was about to hit the cieling. When I drove home I felt so horrible that I wanted to park my car next to the road and cry. Why? I knew that the meds that I had been prescribed and the good advice that befriended docs had given me would need some time to kick in. But I was going ballestic and just started to become restless. You should have seen me running through the house or a supermarket? No focus what so ever! I even ran upstairs twice to find out that I just couldn't remember why I ran upstairs in the first place. Or I was standing in the aisle of a surpermarket wondering what I exactly needed.

I am in a panic and I know that I need to take five and just give it some extra time and space. Just like the space and time A got when he was born. I just am so scared that this won't be enough this time. Will he be granted that time by his teacher or society? Can he manage with the help he gets at school and this without having to get talking about meds. Will P&I use or common sense when it comes down to helping him without pushing him to far? Will he be able to catch up? Uhm, do I need to go on? I don't think so! You get the picture,don't you?

So in case that I'm refusing to drink a glass of alcohol: I am not pregnant!
So In case that I'm dragging around with liters of mineral water: I am not planning to live in a fish tank!
So in case that I seem to be skipping lunch: I am not on a crash diet!
So in case that I'm feeling not up to joining you for a drink: I don't want to be the party crasher.
So in case that I'm taking small pills for a month: I am not an adict.
So in case that I'm rather quiet: I'm not upset with you.
So in case that I'm swallowing whole the time: it is not that I did not like the meal you cooked I might just have a hard time digesting it. But please do not take it personal!

Nope! These are things I am just trying to cope with in order to deal with my stomach issue. One that perhaps is going to hang around in there for the rest of my existence and this in the form of GERD. You can google it but it is part of the package now. It comes along with me. So in case you are bringing me a visit in the near or far future you might bring rather along flowers instead of a bottle of wine because thanks to GERD I am about to become a teetotaler.

A today asked me during dinner how long this stomach issue was going to interfer with our daily lives. 'Mum, is this going to pass?' 'What?' 'That with your stomach?',and he looked quite sincerly concerned at me while he was having his dinner. 'Uhm, well...?' But then I still have P who then can make sure that any stomach issue becomes just a minor hiccup. 'Yes, because you know what? Your mum lost her favorite scarf and once she has got that one back she will be fine!' Case closed? As long as Lord Acid decides to keep low profile!

Remembrance Day

'I wonder if you are for the moment allowed on British TV when you are not wearing a poppy?', I asked P while he was watching one more episode of 'Friday Night Lights' (BTW this is P his newest addiction, but have to admit that it makes me hopeful to get him back on a plane in order to check out the 'real' Texas where H,J,S and P are living and who I miss very much for the moment) on his laptop. I also have one and I wear it on my blue winter coat. Got it while I was book-shopping at Waterstone's Brussels and with a big smile donated an amount of money for the British legion. Why? I am not even British. Why I should I even care? Well, I do because Stallie is for sure one of these souls who has got this thing going on for special days like this.

Okay, Remembrance day is nice because it means in this nation an extra day of from work. Yes, it is a day that P is not doing anything work-related and that A can hang out with his toys and stuffed animal zoo without being interupted. But in my mind I do travel to a place where my parents took me as a child and more then once. A place where Armestice day can still come to live. I am then standing there in the pouring rain and see all those white crosses. The first time I saw them they gave me goose bumps. Yes, I did try to count them. Yes, I gave up because it were to many.

My parents did not talk a lot while we were out there. I think they just let the image speak for itself. Hoping that what my brain and eyes would pick up the things they wanted me to see, experience, feel and then remember for a life time. Well, I did. Because every time when I drive by a soldier's grave yard, walk by one or see a war monument I am very grateful to these men and also women who died at the time.

In my family the second world war is still alive. I still have family members who can tell me what it felt like to be a kid at the time or even being a soldier. My grandad, who I never got to know, was even a POW in Germany (mentioned this already a year ago in a previous blogpost). The war turned my beloved grandmother into a very strong woman who raised basically on her own three daugthers. Also I recall when my mum showed me his thomb stone that was one of the many amongst the war veterans. It would mean that my grandmother would not be burried next to her husband. I never asked if she did mind that.

This week P&I did watch some documentaries about the Great War. The most interesting one was the one about medicine during the Great War. It were sometimes very disturbing images to watch. P was also so nice to give me some extra info about the awful situation these 'brave' docs had to operate in. My upset stomach felt for sure the agony some of war victims must have gone through. The conclussion at the end of the documentary was that thanks to the war the medical world progressed. P then replied very dryly:'One field did!' Meaning surgery. But at what price?

What is very hard is to point out to a younger generation what the Great War and the second War did cause in these heck of the woods. How huge the impact was on the lives of many. Why? Because the many wars that are fought out here are not that touchable or visible and seem to rather taking place in a far off place. If I try to point out to my special ed audience that war is something that just can happen at any moment at any place and that you never know when and how it will end they will honestly tell me that they can't imagine it.

So yes, I still dragg them to places where there are leftovers to witness of destruction, pain and loss. As a teacher I never know what the outcome of thes field excursions are because I can't look into their harts or mind. There are the very rare moments that I hope that I might 'touch' or 'hit' something that a pupil will cary along for a life time. I have seen very 'cool' boys and very 'cheecky' teenage girls become very silent when they were suddenly confrontated with a war story. Yes, I saw the tears rolling down their cheeks. They were whiped of in a record time but I then knew that something 'changed'. It might be just for a split second but it did happen.


Also the story of Anne Frank is for most young people out there still a very accessible source to let them travel into the lives of a young person living in the word of war. But then it is still a gamble if they can transfer it to their lives that they are aware there are still soldiers, docs, mothers, kids and many other people who are at war out there in the world. People like you and me.

So yes, this twisted mind still purchases every year a poppy. And yes, I already have googled the 'last post' that is still daily played under the Menin Gate in Ypres. And yes, I already quoted some lines of some world famous poems of soldiers/poets who tried to put down in very sensible and touching words what war did to them and to the world. And yes, I will remember! AND NO I WILL NEVER FORGET!!!!

All Saints Day

Today I will cuddle my godchild E & play with my cousins who will be thrilled they see each other after a long time. It will also be a day that my emotions will be tested because every year over and over I try to get through All Saints unharmed. Not that I do not think it is not useful to have such a day. A day to remember the loved ones who have exchanged their earthly stay for something different. But I just do not like it to be a day that makes me feel so down.

For years I have not gone out there on this day because I also do not like to hang out there while the half of the nation is close by. For me going to visit a grave is something I like to do in private. That the graveyard is more colorful thanks to the many flower arangements is a nice to experience but it does not take away the sadness, the grief and the painful memories. I can't manage to concentrate when I am there with others. I need to be on my own while I am out there. And believe me it is already quite a challenge to go there.

Why? Well, because it is at that exact spot that I do come to terms with what I have lost. And that it is something that can't be restored. Yes, I have already taken A along there because I want him to know who his grandfather was. He does call him 'bompa' and he likes to put flowers on the stones. At school he has been told what this day stands for and he has told me that he still misses our house cat Baziel who died a few years ago. I guess for a child of his age the death of an animal is still more serious then the death of person he just never knew. What does make sense.

Today I will be lightning a candle for all those people who I had to say goodbye to, who brightned up my life and managed to get a message across that makes my life more worth while to live. I have just not made up my mind yet if I want to walk by the grave of my dad. What I do know is that we are taking along sparkling wine, Trivial Pursuit, my computer to show my mum some nice pics (no she still has got no computer and no internet!) and my camera to take some shots of my family who I love a great deal.

'All Souls' (by Edith Wharton, two first verses)

A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.



Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope--
For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

...


P.S.: Perhaps a very 'strange' choice of music to go along with this one. But then it was today the first music my iPod Nano gave me when I turned it on Shuffle. And yes, I would give everything to get one more day with many souls that are now out there where we can't touch or see them. That does hurt!