A Quick Note

Today I had the pleasure of going over to the house of neighbor and new friend, Julia. She owns an awesome "greeting card" (she hates that term) design company, which she runs out of said house, called Red Bird Ink. We had met when the most recent oak tree fell in our neighborhood (not at my house, you silly, giant trees!) and then I discovered that the fella whose backyard is behind our backyard is her father-in-law, so I got her contact info and hunted her down.

She was extremely nice and allowed me to come over and see her workspace and ask a lot of what were probably dumb questions about how she goes about making her cards. She was so cool and welcoming, we even had tea and little cookies in the dining room! In the meantime, I coaxed her into saying that she would point clients who want their cards addressed in (with?) calligraphy to me (in addition to another woman who has been doing calligraphy for over 10 years, so my strategy will be to offer my services for CHEAP. haha!).

Anyway, it was really nice to get to know her and she's just around my age (okay, closer to Jon's age but whatev), so we might just have new friends!!

Here's my most recent (and rather good, if I do say so myself) calligraphy examples:



(Note: Suzanna Price does not, nor does that address exist)

Okay, so I suck (but not really)

...because I never finished my post about our Germany trip. I really hope and intend to finish it, but I honestly have been fairly busy, and a bit down. It's the year anniversary since last June when I lived at Grady's burn unit from June 3rd to July 6th. At this very time in my life, I was completely knocked out in a medically induced coma and on full life support. The meds that cause the coma also cause amnesia, which means that I also have absolutely no first-hand recollection of what was happening - TO ME. It's very strange. I have to rely on the accounts of other people that were there at the time, such as my husband, who is always somewhat hesitant (understandably) to tell me the whole, nitty-gritty truth.

But I want to hear it. Somehow it at least takes away the strangeness of not remembering on my own, even if it does upset me to hear the truly gory details. It also helps me to be in a place of gratitude for the fact I miraculously survived and how far I've come since then. Here's where it gets really messed up though: I REALLY just want a really good cry to get this out. I have this positive relationship with "good cries" and I usually feel a lot better after ward. Problem is, because my eyes don't produce enough tears, I can't cry. Yes, my nose gets runny and my mouth does that blubbering thing, but no tears come out. At best I produce as many tears as your eyes usually should, in their normal, every day way.

Somehow the lack of tears stops my "crying" pretty quickly. I don't know if it's because my brains gets the wrong message of "Oh, wait, there's no tears running down her cheek. I guess we're not really crying here..." OR if it's because my lack of tears always me have an added "Oh, what the F@*# people!" kick in the face and so I stop crying just because then I'm just pissed off. It's probably a combination of both. As much as it's a pain to deal with my eyes' daily dryness, somehow not getting to feel the release that comes from tears running down my face just seems especially crappy, which probably explains my slight twinge of cynicism with the following Psalm.

I have been self-teaching myself calligraphy and this week my practice text has been Psalm 116, which my Mom introduced to me several months ago when she called me up just to say, "Psalm 116!! That's YOUR Psalm!!" I chose to study it this week as a way of focusing of the grace I've been given and as a small token of thanks and praise to God (this is an incomplete version):

I love the Lord, for her heard my voice:
he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
"O Lord, save me!"

The Lord is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
The Lord protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.

Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.

For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,*
my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
I believed; therefore I said,
"I am greatly afflicted,"
And in my dismay I said,
"All men are liars."

How can I repay the Lord
for all his goodness to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

*yeah, so maybe that part was taken a bit too literally. I know, beggars can't be choosers, but still...

Anyway, for more show-and-tell of my practice calligraphy, CLICK HERE

Friends, Family and Beer

Jon and I just got back from a 9-day trip to Germany. It was my first time back in 8 years and Jon's first trip out of the U.S., so it was very exciting for both of us. There was a lot to do and many people we wanted to see, so it was a very full week (as you are about to see - this is a VERY LONG post).

The breakdown of the trip over all: We flew into Hamburg at 7:30 am Saturday, May 10th, took the train to Luebeck on Monday, May 12th, took the train back to Hamburg Tuesday night so we could catch the ICE speed train to Stuttgart early Wednesday morning. On Thursday, May 15th, we rented an Audi TT and "flew" to the little Black Forest town of Triberg where we stayed overnight. We returned to Stuttgart just in time to change our clothes and go out for a nice dinner and great conversation with some old friends of mine from school. Saturday was spent with some family friends for lunch, a tour through the new Mercedes Benz museum (born and bred in Stuttgart!) and then at a few minutes before 8:00 pm, got back on the ICE train to Hamburg. My friend Isolde's boyfriend picked us up from the train station at 1:30 am Sunday the 18th, took us out for a last beer and schnitzel and then dropped us off at the Hamburger airport at 4:00 am where we waited for until our flight left at 9:00 am. We arrived later that same day at Newark airport at 11:45 am US time, switched planes and finally arrived at ATL at 5:00 pm.

When Chelsea picked us up from the airport, we were still wearing the same clothes we had put on Saturday morning in Stuttgart and worn the whole time we traveled via car, train and plane through Hamburg, Newark and Atlanta.

Here's the more detailed account:

Day 1 (Friday, May 9th):
Left Atlanta for Newark. We were put on an earlier plane because they were afraid delays would make us miss our connection. Switched planes and exchanged money in Newark - we were on our way to our European Vacation. We're both too excited to really sleep in the plane, watch "P.S. I love you" and part of "Mad Money." Jon prefers when they show the screen that shows where we currently are on a map and give times and distances. It's dark outside, so we can't see anything. Celebrate by having a little drink on the plane.

Day 2 (Saturday, May 10th):
Land in Hamburg at 7:30 am German time. We find out that our luggage has gone MIA, but at first it seems like no big deal because we had packed one day's clothes for just such an event. Jon is a bit rattled at the idea of having to stay up until at least 9:00 pm in order to forced yourself to adjust to the time change. Luckily, we are busy with friends and sight-seeing all day and we manage to happily stay awake until 11:00 pm.

My friend, Isolde, and her boyfriend, Achim, pick us up from the airport and get to talking and catching up right away. Even though Isolde knows English very well (she is an English teacher there) and most every one else's is quite good, I am personally driven to speak German and I begin my constant switch between English and German. It's a bit of a challenge, but I am so excited that it doesn't really bother me.

Jon is distracted anyhow with all of the old buildings, new and different cars (Fiat, Citroen, Opel, Lancia and even classes of Mercedes that we don't have here) and impressed that even the police drive Mercedes' and BMWs (Achim points out that they need those cars or else the bad guys would get away). They drop us off at our hotel, Steigenberger, and luckily our room is already available. We check in about our missing luggage with no success but every one is very nice and promises to get our luggage to us asap. We clean up while Iso and Achim go back to Achim's place where Iso's sister and my friend, Dodo (short for Dorothee) and her family are staying for the weekend.

This just so happens to be a very special weekend in Hamburg as it is their "Hafengeburtstag" (Harbor Birthday) that they celebrate every year with a festival, similar to Munich's "Oktoberfest." This year was the 819th birthday of Hamburg's harbor - over 3 times as old as the United States of America (the country, not the land)- can you freaking believe it?!? Jon and I wander out of our hotel for a minute and roam the neighborhood. As in all German cities, everything is in close proximity and squished in because there's simply only so much room for everyone. Right away we see a Starbucks and Jon wants to try one out. Of course, it tastes pretty much the same except that, as with all the coffee and tea drinks, it seems to have a richer and finer flavor than over here. We think it must be their water and better roasting & brewing techniques.

Down the road a bit we find a typical city grocery store and bakery. We buy a couple typical German sandwiches with salami and ham on wonderfully fresh & crusty rolls and a pretzel. I show him around the aisles and point out what's the same and what's completely different to what we have. And we really lucked out because German "White Asparagus" - something that you can't really find in America and even Germans go crazy for it when it's in season. You'll find restaurants will have completely separate special menus for their White Asparagus dishes and everyone we went to dinner with always asked, "Oh! Have you tried the White Asparagus yet??"

At Noon, we met back up with Iso, Achim, Dodo, her husband, Paule, and their daughters, Mia (10) and Anna (almost 4. when you ask her when she will turn 4, she replies "On my birthday."). We begin what becomes a week full of walking almost everywhere. Europe truly is a pedestrian-oriented land and those who aren't on foot are on bicycles. Almost all sidewalks in Hamburg are divided between the pedestrian side and the bi-pedaled side. And while you will most certainly hear it from the bikers if you get in their way on their side, they pretty much own the sidewalk and will wheel right around you, even on your side.

There's a certain flow to traffic in Germany that we simply don't have here. Everyone, the motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians all fall into a fairly neat pattern of organization. Everyone seems to have a keen sense of who/what is around them and because everyone knows what they should be doing, the others around them can anticipate their actions and act accordingly. This is especially notable at intersection where you have cars turning, pedestrians crossing and bikes wheeling all around and it all works like a little orchestra. We only saw a few incidents where someone was swiped by a handlebar or a overzealous bike had to quickly swerve around a stopped car. And although it can be a bit much sometimes - there is almost always someone you have to get around or they are trying to get around you - still, there's that flow and pattern that we sorely lack in America.

So we trodded along Hamburg's huge harbor through throngs of (German) people, street vendors selling "Hamburg" t-shirts, wursts on big swinging grills, fried fish sandwiches and of course, BEER. Every city has at least a few different breweries and "Jever" is Hamburg's biggest brand and is the sponsor of the event. We had a glass of Jever, walked down to the car tunnels that cross under Hamburg's port and wound up on a big ferris wheel overlooking the city.

Jon was constantly amazed by different some things were from America and yet how many other things were really quite similar. But the main thing we never got over was how old everything was. Churches that had been built in the 1500's and somehow survived (barely, sometimes) two world wars and streets that once carried royal families in carriages - for people with a country that's barely over 200 years old - it's just pretty astounding. Especially when these historic buildings are side by side with very modern sleek buildings - it's quite a contrast!

After a while we headed back to the hotel to rest and freshen up before we went out to dinner with Iso and Dodo at a great restaurant called "Eisenstein." Jon enjoyed the German white asparagus and I finally had Pizza Tonno (Tuna), which I had been drooling for since I had last been in Germany 8 years before. I don't know why American pizzerias don't make it - ti's just tuna, onions and capers or celery and it's wonderful.

We also found ourselves talking American politics pretty quickly. Europeans can't wait for our elections and are excited to see if we actually get a black man or a woman as president. Either way, they'll be happy Bush is gone. For a while after the 2004 elections many Germans were angry and amazed that we "re-elected" Bush but then I think that in the meantime they realized and remembered what it's like to have a government that is not really in line with the will or desires of it's citizens and so have become mostly sympathetic towards Americans. The interest in who wins is very strong - every time we sat down and chatted with people, even strangers, it only took 5 minutes before they were asking about Obama and Hillary. Jon and I were glad to talk with them and share our thoughts and equal excitement for this great opportunity for change.


Day 3 (Sunday, May 11th):
The first day you arrive they always say that you have to stay up until at least 9:00 pm to force your body to adjust to the time change and we managed to eat, drink and talk our way to 11:00 before we finally crashed in bed. The next morning I woke up pretty early and was immediately hungry for a great breakfast spread. I think my favorite German meal is breakfast and the hotel where we stayed offered a top notch example. There were baskets of fresh and hearty rolls and breads, a variety of sliced meats and cheeses as well as jellies, jams and fresh-squeezed juices such as mango, blood orange, banana, carrot and coconut. I am pretty sure I had three servings of everything.

Then the gang came bay to pick us up and the boys (Jon, Achim & Paule) set off to go see a St. Pauli soccer game. This is Hamburg's B-team, but it's still a huge deal and the stadium was packed. The girls (me, Iso, Dodo, Mia & Anna) headed towards the park where the Anna played, Mia read the american "High School Musical" magazine I brought her and Iso, Dodo and myself really got to chatting. Okay, so it was me talking most of the time, but they reassured me that it was okay because I had "a lot to tell."

We could hear the cries of the soccer fans in the distance and enjoyed coffee and cake, like good Germans would. It was very nice to reconnect with my old friends to hear everything that has been going on in their lives since I moved away 16 years before. For some topics, it really felt as though hardly any time had passed. And there was also a lot of reminiscing to our younger days when we would tell our parents that we were staying at each other's houses but stayed out the whole night in the city instead (we were only like 15 years old - what were we thinking?!?). Now we looked to Dodo's 10 year old daughter and shudder to think if she ever got such stupid ideas in her head.

That night we went to Hamburg's "Sternschanze" quarter and met up with some of my Aunts and Uncles for dinner. It was Uncle Klaus, his new wife (as of last weekend!), Beate, my Aunt Sandra and her husband, Bjoern (also newlyweds as of a month ago!). It was a great Italian place where we got pasta carbonara and pizza with parma ham. Yummy! The conversation was also great - turns out Beate has been practicing calligraphy for over 10 years



~~ More to come!~~

This is why you should know what you download...

...because you are really no better than the people who did this: http://www.luclatulippe.com/2008/04/18/book-publisher-in-china-plagiarizes-and-steals-illustrations/

Craftyness Station!

About a year ago I asked Jon if we could make a place in the guest bedroom where I would make crafty things. I really wanted a light table (a work table that is lighted from the inside). But up until now, Jon has been so busy with other things, he wasn't able to work on it. But this year around my birthday got started with it and after working on it on the weekends and some week nights, we finished it this past week!

The glass top and casters came from IKEA and the rest from a home improvement store. The legs are fence posts and Jon added the decorative trim. It's exactly what I wanted and I love it!

We also cleaned up and painted an old wardrobe that I had found at a children's clothing store that was closing. It had been sloppily painted white several times, but with shelves already built in it, it was a steal at $125. I had tried last year to sand it to refinish it, but the white paint was too stubborn, so I opted to paint it bright pink instead. Jon calls it the "Pink Elephant in the Room."

You can see all the photos at MY FLICKR PAGE

Toy Cameras

When Jon and I were driving thru Kentucky a few weeks ago, we stopped off at a little antiques store and I found a cool little kodak brownie starmeter camera. Later that week Jon found two more, and much older, kodak brownies, a Duaflex and a six-20 at an estate sale down the street from our house.



The six-20 had been sent to his father when he served in Italy during the 2nd World War, so this little guy made it all the way to Europe and back.

I just wish we had some of the photos that he took while he was there. Jon and I were eager to try the cameras out and went the the Camera Doctor (formerly Jack's Camera) on N. Decatur Road to find out about what kind of film they take and get them loaded up. My starmeter camera requires a special film that I had to order and I haven't filled up the roll yet, but here are the results from the six-20 and Duaflex.





We went to the historic Decatur Cemetery based on a suggestion from the camera store guy to shoot images that are timeless. But we also took a few "modern" shots for the sake of juxtaposition.

Life of the Un-Dead

SO, well, here I am, sick again. Luckily it's not anything lethal - or at least not yet at this point. After a few weeks of disgusting off-and-on-again lung-cookie-making (aka hacking up gunk from the depths of my lungs) I finally went to the pulmonologist and was diagnosed yesterday with bronchitis with a touch of pneumonia and ordered to a week of bed-rest. It's not as fun as it sounds.

I think it came from a perfect storm of my pre-existing upper-respiratory left-over crap from SJS, pre-existing fatigue, exhaustion from starting a new job (just like anyone would have) and the onslaught of the allergy season (yep. here in GA we've already had pollen counts of 278 (This is the amount of pollen particles measured within the last 24 hours in a cubic meter of air) = really freaking high = congestion out the ears.

I was just beginning to get into the swing of things at my swingin' new job. I am super-duper happy that my bosses, Mary & Adam are being so unbelievably understanding of this. Especially considering I've only been working for 3 weeks and I've already taken 4 sick days (not including the rest of this week). I am so totally getting the employee of the year award.

But what really bums me out is that this is my birthday week. I turned 31 on Tuesday and was gonna go blow my first paycheck on new jeans that night. But by the time I got home, I felt like a ton of bricks hit me and all I managed to do was enjoy the awesome bouquet of 40 gladiolas that Jon put together for me (although I did "remind" him that I am not 40 YET thankyouverymuch.) And I had awesome plans with my friends to have dinner and go catch a show at Dad's Garage on friday and then on Saturday go down to Savannah to party it up with R's people because it's her bday on the 7th. I don't like this "No fun for you on your birthday" game.