Learning to forgive.

I haven’t been blogging as much becuase I’m deep in thought. (Plus I’m lazy and by the time I sit down to blog my brilliant witty things to say turn into a laundry list of stuff so boring that even I don’t want to read about as I edit my post). I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately.  I know it’s my weak point.  I’m not very good or even sort of good at forgiveness.  I’m still pissed about something that happened in 1985.  In high school.  So I get that I’m not the most reasonable person when it comes to forgiving people situations in which I get hurt.  But I don’t understand the whole “it’s forgiving for yourself” thing.  If I’m angry about something forgiveness feels like absolution.  Every part of me believes that if I forgive the offending party will just re offend.  I’ve seen television programs or in-depth 60 minutes type shows where someone will go to the jail where there loved ones killer is and have this session in forgiveness with them.  In THEORY I think that it must be a very healing thing for the family member.  I get that the anger that you carry for someone’s actions can manifest itself in such a negative way in your life.  But take away the ‘in theory’ and that’s where it all goes to hell in a hand basket for me.  The more I try to forgive the angrier I get which I don’t think is suppose to be the point.  I read the book “The Shack” and so completely didn’t get it that I thought perhaps I had a bit of a brain injury.  The only part that made sense to me in the whole book was the idea that you don’t have to forget to forgive.  Cause I remember shit that most people don’t…especially things that hurt.

How do people forgive the unforgivable?  Why do people forgive the unforgivable?  What if the person that has hurt you is a person you never thought would?  What if even if every part of your being wants to forgive you have neither the tools or the traits to do so.

Meh. Clearly all the thinking on forgiveness has not got me any closer to actually forgiving.

It’s October?!?!

Interestingly enough, time passes just as quickly all over the world.  I keep meaning to sit down and update but then, meh, life happens.  The past weekend I went on my first excursion!  The school has a little social committee and there was a day trip to France.  The hubby was pretty sure it was just women so asked if I could go along.  Turns out there were only 5 women and we were going just over the border about an hour away.  So I made my way to the school Saturday morning and off we went.   Coming from Canada I’m always up for a good road trip.  Three hours to see the Green and White, no problem.  Run to the border to buy booze, 4 hours there and back, hell we did that all the time back in the day.  Driving 7.0 hours Saskatoon to Edmonton in the dead of winter the only bitchin’ you’d hear from me is that I could do the trip in 5 hours if they’d finish doubling the damn highway.  Snow and ice be damned!  So it’s surprising to me that living in Germany there are people who could frickin’ BIKE to France from their house and have never gone.  What the fuck is that?  You can practically SEE it from your window and you haven’t gone?  Geez…I’ve driven 3 hours to see a giant pyrogy and you don’t want to see the birth place of  the Aqualung and Braille?  (yes i know there are other things bu that’s all that would come out off the top of my head)  Any way we went to a couple delightful little towns own of which, Soufflenheim,  is known for it’s pottery.   We had lunch in Haguenau and just had a really nice day hanging out.  I enjoyed it immensely.  As it was the first day I’d spent on my own in well over a month it was a nice break too.   I wish dh would take some time too himself but I doubt he would.

I bought wine.

The weirdest part of the day was the placemat.  I’m not sure what to think of this sexy horse creature, are you suppose to be attracted to the body but not the face?  What the hell is this?

There were beautiful buildings and I’m thrilled that I went on my first trip to France.

This week our stuff arrived from Canada.  Here’s the thing. We paid for door to door service.  In Canada they came in and took the boxes and put them on the truck.  Here, not so much.  I don’t know if they were suppose to but the guy dropped 3 pallets of wrapped boxes at the end of my walkway and left.

I suppose because you can SEE the door it’s considered ‘door to door’ Thank god I was home, I don’t know how I would have got them if we weren’t here.  Apparently I’m married to some guy named Peter. I hope he’s hot.

Our entire lives are on 3 pallets.  Funny thing is aside from the peanut butter I can’t remember what the hell is in them.

Emmett and I brought all the boxes into the livingroom which resulted in this…

This has been a crazy couple of months and I’m glad that we took on this adventure.  I know the next move will be much easier on all of us….so you know I’m nuts if I’m already willing to move onto the next place on day after getting my sock yarn back!

27 minutes

Do you know how long your washing machine takes to do one load? I will bet you one million lira that unless you are living over seas right now and have a washer from here it’s NOT 2 hours and 37 minutes.  That is the length of time one wash cycle takes in my very efficient European washing machine. I don’t know about you, but I have a family of five and much better things to do with my time than 5 loads of laundry on a Saturday taking up the entire day. The clothes that are hung should NOT be dry by the time the next wash cycle is ready to start.  That is just wrong. Someone suggested that I do a load a day but if you know me or have read the blog for more than a day you know that the likelihood of that happening is pretty damn slim.  However, when you buy a low end washing machine and spend a mere 199 Euros its kind of hard to bitch when the instructions only come in one language.  And it’s not yours.  So the fact that it took me the better part of a month to figure out which of the cycles was the ‘quick’ cycle of 27 minutes doesn’t mean I’m daft.  It means that I have to get some German lessons under my belt and German washing machines have a sense of humor.

I used to LIKE camping.

But after a month sleeping on a mattress on the floor, I’m seriously reconsidering why the hell I ever did.  Last night was our first night in our new bed.  It was AMAZING. I don’t think it’s the fairly inexpensive mattress that we got. I think it’s the fact that for the last 30 plus days we’ve been sleeping on a hard floor made last night even more wonderful.  When we first started looking at moving overseas I had looked at the cost of furniture and had my eye on the Hemnes bedroom set from Ikea.  (and the couch that we ended up getting in the as is section for dirt cheap!) I never thought we’d actually ever get it.  well we did!  We got the bed, a dresser and two night stands.   I love it.  Where ever we go from here, this set is coming with us!

I’m going for a white theme with pops of colour.  The dresser is from the same line in the black.  The duvet cover I’m getting is white but when I was back at Ikea I didn’t get one because I forgot to measure our duvet and the different European sizes confuse me!

oops…I knew I’d forgotten something.

I never posted the pics of Elijah’s hair cut because I didn’t want to tip off the inlaws before we went to see them.  Then we moved to Germany and I forgot all about it.  Today I was looking through our pics and I realized a lot of you didn’t get to see the pics!

After six years with not one hair cut, we finally took the plunge.  Elijah’s beautiful locks were cut off right before we moved to Germany. A nice final parting gift for Granny who although she never said it out loud (much) was DYING for us to cut it.

He LOVES his short afro and loves even more that he doesn’t have to sit still for braids after his bath…..

But I miss his crazy do.

I’ll tell you a secret.

OUR STUFF IS IN GERMANY!!!!!

I have no idea what that means and if I still have weeks until it gets to our door but our stuff is here.  I received an email from the company (in German, natch)  stating that they want money to clear it through customs (natch) and that we have to send some paperwork translated into German (once again, natch).  I’ve sent it to the school and hopefully one of the delightful ladies in the front office will decipher (dear god if you knew how long it took me to remember to spell decipher you’d laugh your ass off) it for us.  The only part I understood completely was the passport requirement.  Since I’d already sent it to the moving company I’m a little pissed that I have to do it again and apparently it has to be a registered copy and the list of items in the boxes has to be in German (oh god, my side HURTS from the laughter).  But I’m happy to know that I have 25 boxes of crap I couldn’t let go of showing up at my Strasse sometime in the next millennium.  I think I’m most looking forward to Nadia’s skinny jeans getting here because the ’sullen-wispy-oh-god-where-are-my-skinny-jeans-that-I begged-for-3-years-to-get-until-my-parents-broke-in-a-moment-of-weakness” look is getting old.

Not as old as Elijah asking where his train set it or Emmett wondering allowed (dear god I cannot believe I wrote allowed instead of aloud, jesus)  where his 360 is or me wearing the same 4 pair of pants old…but old just the same.

Oh and about the decipher thing….I’ve decided that spell check is making me stupid so I am refusing to use it.  So I just sit there trying to remember how to spell things until the red line goes away.  Unless it’s colour or labour or neighbourhood.  Cause I AM spelling them correctly and spell check is just another American propaganda tool trying to spread their incorrect spellings on the world. Oh and learnt….cause they don’t ‘believe’ it’s a word….silly Americans….

Life well lived Mr. Swayze, Life well lived.

Oh, sweet pea. Now, you listen to your Auntie Vida. I want you to believe in yourself, imagine good things and moisturize, I cannot stress this enough.- Vida Boheme

My posts on Patrick, my first true movie star crush.

The Hauptbahnof

Every morning I take the kids to school.  We leave the house and travel on the Regional Bahn and go into Heidelberg to the Hauptbahnof (main station).  We then take a tram up to the school.  My round trip takes about an hour.  I enjoy it.  The walk is about .6 km to the Regional and on the way home about .9km to the house (because I take the S-bahn home).

I’ve always wondered about people who live in Banff or Jasper.  I’ve always wondered if after a few years they stop seeing the beauty of the mountains.  Today was the day that I realized that it is very easy to miss the sights around you and have them just become part of the fabric of your life.  I’m a believer in staying in the present.  There are no promises to the future and life goes speeding by whether you pay attention or not.

Today a site shook me out of my early morning stupor and it made me pay attention to the vibrant life all around me in the Hauptbahnof.  That site was a 40-ish man with salt & pepper hair carrying a skateboard.   It occurs to me now that my first thought should have been something along the lines of “probably for his kid” and if I was back in Canada that invariably would have been my first thought.  But I’m in Germany.  That 40-ish guy was carrying a skateboard because it’s how he gets down the street after getting off the train. Love it.  What else did I see this morning?  Some very cute Polezei with green uniforms and guns waiting for the S-Bahn.  A 30 something guy that looked a lot like Colin Firth waiting for the same train as me on the way home with a fold-up bike.

You can take your bike on the trains here.  You can even take your dogs.  People take their dogs everywhere, restaurants, the zoo, on retail stores.  It’s common to be sitting in a little cafe next to a dog in a carrier or a large dog lounging under the table.  I also so no less that 6 middle age men wearing Manpris.  You know capris for men.  Very popular over here.  I keep telling Emmett I’m going to buy him a pair but he doesn’t seem so keen on the idea. Unfortunately none of the men wearing them today looked like the model in this picture but you get the idea.

So today instead of burying my face in my book (The Shack by Wm Paul Young) I spent my hour looking around.  Enjoying the sights and sounds of the Hauptbahnof and really seeing my surroundings.  I’m so glad we’re here.  I can’t wait to explore more of the beautiful part of the world.

Quiet Sundays.

Oh I know we won’t be in Germany for ever and ever but there is one thing I’m taking with us when we go.  In Germany NOTHING happens on a Sunday.  There is no Sunday shopping (not even grocery stores).  The only place you can grab something is the gas station but luckily they sell beer and wine!  But the Germans take it farther than that.  We are in a very traditional small town and on Sundays you are not to do anything.  It’s really a day of rest.  If I were to go out and start mowing my lawn, someone would comment.  It’s just not done.  I thought this would drive me crazy but in fact I love it.  I never realized how much we ran around on the weekends before.  When you have two days to do it all, you then do it all.  Groceries on Saturday then the mall on Sunday or whatever, it makes for a very busy weekend and then the week starts and the craziness starts all over again without any kind of down time.  Now that we are here we have adopted this family time concept for Sundays.  Even Elijah will say ‘be quiet it’s SUNDAY’.   Right now it’s almost noon and we are all very lazily hanging out.  No rush to go anywhere.  I love it.   The fact that there is no tv helps too I guess.  Scott is jonesing for a tv but I would much rather we never got one.  Oh well, compromise I guess, I just hope it isn’t constantly on.  We’ve lived without on for a month I see no reason to go back to watching it every minute of every day.

Just a new picture of me & becs that I really like…my forehead is all shiny and she’s tipped a few back but I love it, cause we’re both really really happy….

Our home and native land.

The weird thing is, I never notice something before.  You who know me I notice that I have a comment on everything but something has escaped my eagle eye (shut up).  I was born and raised in Canada. I grew up in Saskatoon Saskatchewan where you could count the black people on one hand.  We all knew each other.  Secretly our parents hoped we would grow up and date each other, none of us did because a. we were raised like family and b. our parents wanted us to. Racism is NOT the subject of today’s post but writing this has me thinking of another post I’m going to do about Racism in Canada.  Remind me. I’m old.

When you live in Canada and you are black there is an unwritten code.   If you see another black person, you nod or say hello.  You acknowledge the person solely because you are the same in one way.  I think this comes from the fact that there were (relatively) so few of us and we’d all arrived in a similar fashion.  In the 50’s up until the 80’s 99% of the blacks in the west arrived there from the West Indies.  So we were all in the same boat (or off the same boat ha ha ha).  Anyway, for whatever reason this still plays out in Alberta (and other parts of Canada) on a daily basis.  Watch sometime (you know if you’re not black and already know this) there is a nod in the middle of West Edmonton Mall, there is a slight tilt of the head if your in line at Safeway, it’s just how it’s done.

Then I married a white guy.

Then comes a whole ‘nother level of recognition.  Black men give me a “oh my sister” kind of look and black women either pretend I don’t exist (a la Amish shunning) or cluck their tongues and make sure I know they do not approve.  It doesn’t remotely matter if their nasty ass husband is sleeping with their babysitter as they are working two jobs and supporting his ass.  It doesn’t matter that my husband works hard, plays with his kids, massages my feet everyday and treats me like an equal.  I’m not sure which is worse.  I love the idea that the men think that one good role in the hay will turn me back to black or the women who even if they are settling for much much less than they deserve still think it’s ok to look down on me for making a different choice.  I’m sure there are many upstanding righteous black men who I would be honored to spend my life with but I met my husband first.   I didn’t really look to hard to find one past the idiots that presented themselves but I was looking for a life partner and my hubby fit the bill….so I kept him.  If he came in black packaging I would have married him, he didn’t.

Then I moved to Germany.

Something tells me I’m not in Kansas anymore…..Interracial marriage is the norm here.   There are more black/white couples than I’ve ever seen in my life.  We aren’t a minority anymore!!!!  Our children “fit”.  Do you know how shocking that is?    We totally stand out because we don’t speak German, not because I’m black and Scott is white.  We’ve stopped counting the “couple like us” because we would hurt our necks and we can’t count that high.  Black people here don’t acknowledge like they do back home because they are EVERYWHERE.  It’s very comforting.

Anyway, I suppose living in Germany has been eye-opening in many ways.  I expected a lot of them, this one has hit me completely off guard.