Day 169: And like a window, I aint got nothing to say (hey eh yeh!)

Day 168: Any clues on how to market myself? I want to be the online el Fayed, the computer Country Road. I want to sell something! But how to get anyone to know the shop even exists???????????????????????????????

Day 167: A realistic portrait of the day - shoes and steps! Got lots of exercise that's for sure. So far haven't made my first million through the shop, but at least did receive one vote of congratulations from a friend. Out of sight out of mind is one thing, but right in front of your eyes, out of mind is entirely another!

Day 166: Here I am faking it 'till I'm making it, i.e. pretending its not 35 degrees in the middle of the night. Perhaps I'm being Rasputin, skulking through the St Petersburg snow..... Otherwise, a very 'emotion dense' day. The puppy had an operation which went well but was traumatic at the time, AND I opened my first ever online design store. Hey, why not go and check it out, why not BUY lots and lots of gorgeous things there!!

http://www.cafepress.com/uniqueboy

Day 165: some sort of humidity imaging camera, showing me swimming through the atmosphere, not exactly floating on dreams!

Day 164: Hopefully off to the gym first thing in the morning for a weigh in. In reality its a pointless exercise as my muscle v. fat ratio has doubtlessly changed as I have done very little weight lifting in the past 6 weeks. But who knows, maybe if the scales show a reduction I might get a bit of a psychological boost. At the moment I feel my eating is out of control, not from bingeing or conspicuous over indulgence, just making silly choices against all good sense and knowledge. I fear that at best on my return to Australia in October I shall look exactly the same as I did last December, certainly I fear I will look (be) bigger. There is not much visible evidence of someone who has been working out and dieting since January. All the stresses seem difficult to address in the short term, so I need 'only' to reinforce non food responses to this stress. Bada bing bada boom, problem solved!

Day 163: I think most gyms have a fitness class called "Fat Attack" or "Body Attack"... the closest I got today was "MacAttack".
38 in the shade till mid afternoon when torrential rain turned our desert into a steam bath, with such extravagant facilities we must be adding value to the property.

Day 162: we're having a heatwave! bitte bose bengal!

Day 161: I must have had an Arabian night, because when I woke up this morning the sarong was wrapped around my head exactly like this. I don't think I could have made such an excellent turban if I'd tried for 8 hours.... or maybe I did!

Day 160: 46 in the sun, 38 in the shade. Naturally my response was a visit to the sauna at the gym. Work out done, homework done, art done, projects done. Chocolate eaten, none... but as they say in Germany: "oder was?"

Day 159: A very nice day, scooted through my workplan and felt very satisfied with my progress. My younger brother is 37 today, and although a wise old woman (S.W.) once told me that he would probably grow up one day, as yet not really. On a family note, I have now been away from Australia and my parents for longer than ever before and its a strange feeling. My father has started telling me regularly that he misses me and is needing reassurance that I will actually be home soon. I would have been there now except for the necessity to be there when the baby (currently known as 'Football") is born in November. Its surprising and beautifully affirming to hear his words but at the same time painful and heart wrenching. This week in their town a car crashed into "The Reject Shop", which was quite dramatic... hope they fix it up before November or no-one will be getting any Christmas presents from us! :-)

It is curious to me that in Germany when you buy a can of, for example, fruit salad or mixed beans etc, the different ingredients are in layers, not premixed. As I try to fill my mind with philosophy, culture and challenging ideas this is what comes out!

Day 158: First day of holidays, got a good start on my research for local options for community building and we will head into Frankfurt one afternoon this week to check out bookshops, cafes etc that might lead to... who knows what. Its time to get focussed on making the most of life! Noted in the Sydney Morning Herald that my supervisor for my MA thesis died recently, I hadn't kept in touch with her but still felt a certain sadness about it. I only wish I had had the confidence at the time to make much more of her involvement in my career, I hope I don't let opportunities like that pass me by in the future.

German Study? not yet.
Gym? no.
Chocolate eaten? yes.

Should change the description of this blog to a photographic record of how I stayed exactly the same!

Day 157: It was behind the sofa all the time.

Day 155: "and if we are to find our heaven here, we just have to look harder" (alison moyet).

Day 155:
Each game
of chess
means there's one less
combination
left to be played.

another semi-bogus offer of gallery representation today, the world on a platter of a few thousand dollars. Anyway, each disappointment is a step closer to success and a potential inspiration if we choose to evaluate it as such. Just another of life's mysteries, along with why orange juice tastes so putrid straight after you've brushed your teeth and yet when you put the mint directly into the juice its a flavour sensation!

Meanwhile, mother nature has come up trumps and our Scandinavian Summer has come though, a warm sunny day with a cool breeze and hopefully a night that forces me to make use of my bit of the blanket!

Day 154: Tomorrow the heat wave is supposed to break and we should expect a so called "Scandinavian Summer", with lots of sun, day temps around 25, night temps around 15. Sounds like heaven but as its still hovering between 29 and 30 at 11.39pm, I'll believe it when it happens.

Meanwhile I need to stay awake for an hour or so to ring my parents and make sure they haven't been wiped out by the rogue retired driver who crashed into their local shopping centre! I do believe people should give up their licenses much earlier than they do, I have known of people driving round one day and literally placed in dementia wards the next, all because people were too scared to impinge on their independence. If I'm lucky I'll never drive again, but if I do have to I will certainly be handing in the keys at the earliest opportunity. Off the soapbox now!

DAY 153: Thanks for all the compliments about the new short "haircut"... Its like when your best friend breaks up with a psychotic freak and you say thank god you broke up with that psychotic freak and the next week they get back together. Surprise!

Day 152: Today - school, hot, housework, hot, gym, hot.


A tale of happy families. We had to take a load of rubbish to the tip for my father in law, he gave us 20 euro. It cost only 5 euro, so we gave back 15 euro. My mother in law insisted we take 5 euro as a 'reward'. How much did it cost? asked the father in law.
Only 10 euro said the mother in law. EVERYBODY HAPPY!

Day 151: Between one Hausfrau and another, sometimes getting back to basics can be a fine thing to do!


Unwanted thought of the day - Surely a lycra tanktop is not the best option with breasts so large......oh dear, its a man.
Happily not looking in the mirror at the time.

Day 150: Home again at last after a very long day taking the father in law to the 60th anniversary of his Confirmation, in a small town about an hour north east of here. We opted out of joining the oldies for church and lunch, but as the designated drivers did get to participate in the tour of nearby village cemeteries (between church and lunch), to pay respect to those in the group who had already died. Since my father in law didn't know or recognize any of the living people it wasn't surprising that he also didn't know or remember any of the dead ones. I only wish I had the creative mind that could have invented this farcical excursion through country lanes and around farms and fields, however I can only admit that truth is stranger than fiction.

Day 149: Last night we went to Frankfurt for the MuseumsUferFest, this year brought forward to coincide with the final weekend of the world cup. This photo is me taking shelter in the stall from one of the local 'australiana' stores during a very amazing torrential rain storm. It would have been fortuitous if I'd been inclined to purchase a A$5 tin of Milo for about $13 or an imitation anything else, naturally with kangaroo motif, for about 4 times the usual price. I must admit last year I did splash out on a $3 Cherry RIpe, but these days I don't have that same homesickness so wouldn't think of doing that again.
Anyway, after the rain cleared up, we were part of one of those amazing once in a lifetime experiences. Germany defeated Portugal to gain 3rd place in the World Cup and the city erupted. We got caught up in this moving parade of cars blowing their horns, hooning through the city. Everyone was waving at each other, flying flags, dancing on the back seats of cabriolets and chanting through the sunroofs. As many streets were closed off we had no choice but to go with the crowd on a tour of the city and blow our horn along with the rest. I have never experienced such a noise and such an energy, it was really a buzz.

Day 148: Some sort of breakthrough with German sentence structures today, I probably still can't explain it all to someone else but at least I understood it at the time. If only every time I used the language things were highlighted in red, green or blue pencil (like the light up keyboards that flash the right notes when you are learning to play the organ), I would have less trouble. Of course that would also mean everyone speaking precisely like they do in my particular textbook which is also unlikely to eventuate unfortunately. Once I get the basics down it will be time to tackle the peculiarities of the local dialect. Yay.

Slightly cooler today thankfully, but up here on the top floor its still a few degrees above my comfort zone so probably won't tackle any painting today. Tonight we are going out for dinner, the father in law got a gift voucher for his birthday, and so its the ongoing dilemma of delicious vs healthy. Not that there isn't a middle ground, but you know... Of course the biggest dilemma is should we be eating Italian food at all, after the dastardly antics of Italy expelled first Australian and then Germany from the World Cup. Viva la France!!

Day 147: Yesterday.

Day 146: When the winter is so very cold, how dare it be so hot in the summer? Shouldn't the summer temperature also be about 15 degrees less? This photo is what it feels like after 4 nights hovering between 29 and 30 degrees, I am absolutely NOT a summer person and as I've mentioned before feel close to devastated that having moved to the other side of the world, the one thing I really hate about living in Australia becomes the one thing I really hate about living in Germany except that here there are no air conditioners, anywhere. Nor any sea breezes nor southerly busters. I lived for four years in a one room cockroach infested bedsit with paper thing walls, crazy prostitute drug addict neighbours, no window, and a stingy repair avoiding landlord... why you ask? Because it had an air conditioner and it meant I could spend the nights of January and February (substitute now July and August) sleeping, and the days of January and February NOT being in a state of panic about yet another night without sleep! Argh.

Day 145: Managed to go to the gym, despite the 36+ temperature. Now all geared up for Germany v. Italy in half an hour. I hope "we" go through, its a very exciting time in Germany with the first occasion of expressed, passionate national pride since WWII. Flags are everywhere, not to mention painted faces, people wearing the team jersey, and strangely enough garlands of plastic hibiscus, Hawaiian style, in red, yellow and black. What is most peculiar though is the trend for people, guys and girls, to wear the flag as a skirt. Perhaps its a way of wearing the flag and the jersey at the same time, but a polyester cocoon in these temperatures can't be good for anyone.

Day 144: Have been trying to determine what I'm passionate about in life. Apart from marriage, home and family, I have come to the conclusion that I'm in a very contented headspace at the moment where gentleness and 'going with the flow' seem to make more sense than forcing energies into one or two demanding enterprises. It really doesn't matter if it takes me the rest of the year to finish the painting series or if I write 100 words a month or (God forbid) don't reach my goal weight by May 10th, 2007!

Day 143: Thought of many witty insights to impart this morning, but can't remember any of them right now. Perhaps the world is a better place for it.

90 years since the battle of the Somme, thank God my generation has known peace and stability, despite how it feels when I read the headlines.

Day 142: Looking reasonably presentable, but facing the horrible fact that after almost 5 months of this project I am basically in the same shape as when I started. Although yes, I have lost some weight because you can see where the skin is all wrinkled and saggy. When I was growing up, the woman who ran the corner shop would go for a holiday every year, to an island resort somewhere. For the month before the holiday she would only wear a bikini so she would have a reasonable tan when she got to the resort. I therefore can say with some certainty that my stomach looks like I have borne three children...but NOT had a tropical island holiday.