ONE HUNDRED DAYS

(source)

Four and a half years ago I was given a piece of wisdom that I have held onto to get me through all the difficult times in my life. I was in the hospital at the time and the psychiatrist that was treating me pulled me aside and told me it take a hundred days for things to be okay. He went on to explain how in a hundred days, a new habit (or habits) are formed and that in his experience after a hundred days things seem to hurt less. Maybe its because of new habits but what I took from it was that a hundred days is just the right amount of time to look back on things in a new light. Since then I count the milestones in my life by the hundredth day mark and today marks my hundredth day in Germany. 

In the past hundred days I've gone from excitement at my arrival, to frustration at my alienation, which led to some homesickness and resentment at my situation but now after the landslide of strong emotions I now feel comfort. I have a home here, I have a family here, I'm even getting a hang of the language (understanding how it works at least, I will not be conversing any time soon). I still have my doubts for sure but the hundred days isn't supposed to mean that everything is suddenly peachy-keen it just means that it hurts less. Being away from everyone I know and love hurts less, being a new environment hurts less, and even though I don't know what I am going to do here my feelings are no longer as dour. While this milestone was more of calculated risk then the free-fall I oft find myself in it does not make this experience so far any less impactful on the path my life is headed in, and now a hundred days in there nowhere to go but up or forward, rather to continue my metaphor.

MÜNSTER

Just a few photo's from a recent day trip to my favourite Nordrhein-Westfalen city, Münster. St. Paul's cathedral was what initially drew me to this beautiful city, but it's architecture, busy streets and atmosphere keeps bringing me back for me. This is our closest "big" city to where I am living in Germany so we pop over here on the weekends when I am needing a dose of civilization (okay, a bit of an exaggeration) or when we just want a low-stress day trip.

Things to see here:

St.-Paulus-Dom (home to a beautiful sixteenth century astrological clock)

Münster Botanical Garden 

Biking or walking along the Promenade

the Aasee

ESSEN + I DON'T EVEN LIKE COKE

Last weekend H and I dropped Bean off with his grandparents and went to Essen for the day. I had great plans to document it all with photos and everything but I think I took a total of ten photos, most of which were overexposed and of nothing in particular. I guess I have always maintained the mindset that I would rather focus on enjoying the experience rather than documenting it... that and I greatly dislike looking like a tourist taking photos of landmarks and buildings or whatever. We had a pretty low key day just walking around the city center going into a few shops and taking in the sights (p.s wearing trendy sandals for day long walking on cobblestone streets is a horrible idea for your ankles just fyi). 

We went for lunch at this bar/cafe/resto place that are all over Germany because the vegan restaurant we wanted to try was closed, and the forever indecisive pair that we are just completely copped out of this opportunity to try something new. When our waitress came by to take our drink order I panicked and ordered what H was having, which was coke... the thing about coke is that I don't like it, and I have been liking it less and less over the last year or so but H ALWAYS drinks it, so me being me ALWAYS has a sip too. Whenever we go out to eat and I can't decide what I want to drink I almost always end up ordering a coke  as well and I never enjoy it... add it to the list of weird things I do when I am under pressure. So the point being that I drank a coke and it was the least satisfying beverage. 

Other than that we went into a bio store where I was able to pick up some of my Japanese ingredients (for a much steeper price) that I was missing, miso, udon noodles and some soba noodles. Our last stop was a sports store so that I could get some weights and a yoga mat to encourage me to continue my daily workouts.

Hopefully our next day trip will yield some more photos, seeing as this blog is supposed to be me chronicling my adventures here, but I am still learning so I'll give myself a pass for now.

not pictured:

Pride parade and festival, complete with singers in drag

Cute little merry-go-round 

Little fruit and veggie tent near the train station

Gorgeous weather but with ominous clouds coming in quickly just as we were leaving 

  

LITTLE GERMAN BABY

I am the proud mama of newly registered German citizen. Yesterday H and I spent the morning down at city hall with an interpreter (for me) signing papers acknowledging his (half) German parentage. Initially I was under the impression that Germany did not allow dual citizenship, and that Bean would have to give up his Canadian passport if he ever wanted his German one but clearly this is not the case.


D.

GETTING SETTLED: FOOD

A picture, finally! I got a snazzy new (compact) camera, however I have no clue how to use it yet so until then I will settle with the auto mode. We are in the process of getting unpacked and settling in to our apartment here but between garbage runs and trips to Ikea sometimes I forget that as a human I need nourishment to compensate for my activity. The first time I visited Germany I had a complete meltdown in a grocery store of H's hometown because I couldn't figure out what anything was and there were no fresh fruits or vegetables. The second visit a few months ago yielded slightly better results since we found a different (and better stocked) grocery store but there are still some very large obstacles for me.

one. Language

This one is quite obvious but also one of the easier ones to work through. As of now I do not have a working cell phone here (or handy as my German boyfriend says) but hopefully it will not be too long until we can jailbreak my current iPhone so that we can program it for Deutschland use. With a working phone and data plan, so long as I have reception I can use my handy translator to find my food.

two. Pre-packaged food/ Instant food

While I may not be the worlds healthiest eater, the bulk of my groceries come from the produce section. I don't know if it like this in bigger German cities but there are aisles filled with boxes of powdered sauces, gravies, and hamburger helper-esque types of meals where all you add is the pasta, water and meat. I am a big fan of making all my food from scratch so it is hard when the grocery stores are fully stocked in this department but are lacking in the produce, grain, spice areas.

three. Exotic ingredients

To me I feel like I have a pretty standard diet, but standard to growing up in a multi-cultural, metropolitan city. To say that I was spoiled in regard to the availability of ethnic food would be an understatement. Products such as  red curry paste, soy sauce, coconut water, chilies are harder to come by here

four. Health food

This one isn't so much a problem of availability (well I'm not sure yet) but rather of location. I am used to giant grocery stores that mostly contain a health food/ organic section but here I have to go to a completely different store. Part of it is a laziness factor, the other part is that I find it super intimidating going into small specialty stores and even more so when I don't speak the language.


D.

LANDED

The last twenty-four hours in numbers

Fourteen hours door to door
Ten hours carrying Bean
Eight hours flying
Seven old ladies telling me how sweet my baby is
Five countries
Four hours driving
Three other babies flying too
Two hours in Iceland
One mid-flight poopy diaper

Happy to be here, sad to leave all my friends and family behind but more than anything excited for the beginning of this adventure


D.

EN ROUTE

A trans-Atlantic move is a long journey. With a six day pit stop in eastern Canada to say goodbye to relatives we are now repacking our bags and getting ready to jet-off on the last leg of our voyage tomorrow. Bean has really been taking one for the team, despite being exposed suddenly to all these new places and new faces he has really been good, we only had one bad night due to the sudden shock of being on a plane and a new bed but he still wakes up smiling ear to ear.


D.

JULY GOALS + JUNE RECAP

First things first, I will go over last months goals and see how I did. June has just flown by, and this month has been hectic to say the least, between packing and saying goodbye along with the full-time job of being a parent I have barely had a moment to breath. That being said I did have some really great baby-free moments with some friends and I was able to feel a little bit normal again which was refreshing. Now onto last months goals

1. Complain less. Ehhh...

I think this goal was a little ambitious, while I definitely am working harder at being more grateful I think I just enjoy the sound of my own voice too much.

2. Be organized and packed BEFORE I leave, and avoid my usual last minute packing frenzy. Mostly

All the big stuff is done, just a few more little things to pack but I still have to clean up my place, and I leave tomorrow...ehhh

3.Say goodbye to Vancouver. Check

I got to say goodbye to almost all my favourite people, places and things here.

4. Blog post 2-3 times each week. No

I have changed my view on this, mostly I wanted to do it in order to get into the habit of blogging but I think if I am going to blog it's going to only be when I feel like I have something to say, maybe that will be several times a week or maybe not.

So overall not that great but I think I needed to reevaluate what kind of goals I want to set for myself, so without further ado here are my July goals.

1. Write a little bit every day.

2. Survive flying with Bean

3. Unpack and organize one small space for me

4. Appreciate my little family

D.

SLEEP

I am pretty sure the topic of sleep will be something I will discuss on here frequently, especially the topic of lack of sleep. Sleeping is something that I have struggled with my entire life, as a child I had major FOMO when I was put to bed even though I was constantly assured that nothing really happens at night time. Now it seems my son has picked up this habit from me, though his sleeping difficulties are hopefully stemming from teething but either way we are on week two of sleepless and tear-filled (mostly mine) nights. Even if he does settle down in the next couple days, we begin our traverse towards the European continent in a wees, with a week spent on the eastern side of Canada before crossing the Atlantic so sleep will irregular, disrupted and greatly missed in the coming weeks. All I can say is soon it won't just be me any more so I'll let Bean and H get some father son time and hopefully at last I'll be able to catch some z's.



D.

7 THINGS I DID YESTERDAY INSTEAD OF PACKING

I figured this would be a nice follow up to yesterday's post, Bean has a two and half hour nap in the afternoon and usually that is my productive time but instead I just had a meltdown and avoided all my responsibilities.

One. I told everyone else how much stuff I had to do, not really complaining more in a panicky way. I called my mother, texted my friend, spoke to my sister and essentially just listed off all the things that I was supposed to be doing.
Two. I caught up on all my unread bloglovin posts, which took all of maybe ten minutes as I had just read a bunch of them before Bean went to sleep.
Three. I went in and stared at Bean while he slept, he makes the funniest face with his tongue sticking out.
Four. Wrote a blog post about all the stuff I was supposed to be doing.
Five. Laid in bed and debated whether or not I wanted to put make up on just so that I could feel pretty in order to offset my self-pity but then eventually decided it was too much work.
Six. Cooked up a nice  big lunch of sauteed kale and bok choy on brown rice
Seven. Decided that it was okay that I didn't get anything done, and that I would try again tomorrow.

D.

SOME THOUGHTS

I am feeling very uninspired right now. I decided to start this blog before my big move in order to try to get myself into the habit of blogging but the point of this blog is supposed to be my adventures and as of late my only "adventure" has been my almost daily walks to the nearby drugstore so that I can say I have left my house today. So in order to get myself back into this I am just going to blog about the mundane and everyday aspects of my life. It will be boring, it will likely be repetitive and there won't likely be any nice pictures but whatever. So today I am just going to talk about the fact that I haven't done anything to get ready for my move. Yes I have packed two of the three suitcases that I am bringing (even though I have to unpack them now and re-pack it), I have gotten rid of the majority of my clothing and books and mostly figured out exactly what it is that I will be bringing. But even with all that done my room still feels pack to the brim with tons of other things that are in the miscellaneous category of crap that I don't really know what to do with. Nearly every surface is pilled with random pieces of paper, and objects that I know aren't coming with me but I can't figure out if they are worth storing or if they should just be thrown out. I don't know I am just rambling because I also haven't figured out how I am going to say goodbye to everyone and to most of the comforts that I have grown used to so I am projecting my anxiety onto something superficial like packing.   D.

JUNE GOALS

These are my final weeks before packing up and saying goodbye, so I figure this is as good a time as any to start working towards my goals. Some little things and some big things, I want to pick 4 things this month to work on (or towards) and then I will check in with myself at the end of the month to see how I did. Hopefully it works, here goes.

1. Complain less

2. Be organized and packed BEFORE I leave, and avoid my usual last minute packing frenzy.

3. Say goodbye to Vancouver

4. Blog post 2-3 times each week (Monday being the beginning of the week).


D.

WEEKLY APPRECIATION: 0.3

I bought fresh flowers for the first time, white peonies. I have never really cared much for flower, nor have I been willing to put in the effort to keep them alive but I must say, their really do add a little something to a space.

Curating my pinterest boards. I don't have much on there yet but that's mostly because I want to choose things that I really want to use for inspiration, not just things that I think are pretty.

I donated half of my wardrobe, I let go of pointless pieces I had been carting around for years in the hopes of maybe someday I'll have a reason to wear it. I feel like I am slowly liberating myself from the materialism which has been directing my life.

This book Bébé Gourmet by Jenny Carenco has been instrument in my introduction of solids to Bean. Not having a picky eater is super high on my how-I-want-my-child-to-behave priority list plus it is serving as the inspiration for the my apparent lack of creativity in figuring out what I should be feeding bébé.

Lastly, we got a kitchen for our place in Germany, which is something I am hugely thankful for (and especially to H for driving two and half to go pick it up). Picking out a kitchen felt like such a huge hurdle both financially as well as making this whole move more tangible to me. I leave in five and half weeks and it still doesn't seem real to me but I feel like making the investment into a kitchen is one more step in the "no turning back now" direction.