These are at the bloom field that’s by our house. And finally pics of my bike but luckily for you guys not me…rofl. Bear was running late so no pic of me.
Next time I take the camera on a bike ride I’ll go down to the river and take some of the kids fishing and the barges going by.
We went to get my bike and stopped at the blumen feld so I could take pictures. I was going to ride my bike down and take them but it rained today and the wind was blowing like a gale. not really great bicycle weather. I got the pictures before it got to bad and in between squalls.
Then we decided to take a drive thru some of the vinyards. We live right smack in the middle of the Riesling hohenweg. (upper riesling way) There must be 50, 000 acres of grapes up and down these hills along the Rhine.
You have no idea how steep some of the hills are until your standing at the top looking down. They have these really narrow tractors with seriously low gears and they go chugging up those hills like it’s nothing.
We drove around the vinyards for about 2 hours and never doubled back and never ran out of more grapes ahead.
In the picture of the river you can see the road that we drive to get to the post.
Much prettier than Lampertheim and Mannheim. I suppose you have to have industry but I don’t have to live by it since i’m not working at a factory. I prefer not to taste the air I breathe.
I’ll take a picture of the new bike on the next clear day, if Bear is home I’ll have him take a pic of me, so your forwarned.
Today was better, maybe I am starting to get a handle on things. Not that I don’t expect more teary days but I also expect to get them fewer in a row. I’ll keep everyone up to date on my aunts progress, I hope I’m still writing about my ornery Aunt Pearl kicking cancers butt clear into next year. To tell the truth though, things aren’t looking good. Beside the 4 masses that are in her stomach the oncologist found a spot on her lung and two on her kidney. But she’s a fighter and she’ll fight to live so she can see her family.
Bear and I went to the post and did our grocery shopping. I think our grocery bill is to high for two people but Bear says it’s probably pretty normal. Is about 75 to 100. a week high, low or normal? I wish they printed coupons for things that I buy. I won’t use a coupon unless it’s for something that I planned on buying anyway, I figure you aren’t saving any money at all if it’s not a normal purchase. I know that we used to get generic ice cream when we lived in the states but over here the commissary only carries Breyers, Ben and Jerry and Edie’s. They do that a lot, carry higher priced brand names. Maybe that’s where some of it’s going. Not enough generic items, like paper towels and cleaning supplies and low priced snacks.
We had another gorgeous weather day so it was a treat to be outside even if it was just running errands. After we went to Dexheim for groceries we drove both cars to Maintz and had the old beater car de-registered and junked. YAY! I’m so glad that car is gone. Now we can cancel the insurance on it ….there’s some ice cream money right there. On the way home from dumping the car we stopped at the blumen field and cut some gladiolis. I’m going to take my camera back down tomorrow and take pictures of the field, it was SO beautiful. It will be the first place I ride my new bike….yes, they finally got an old lady bike in just for me. I think I finally got the right person to understand that I, not only don’t need a 21 speed racing bike I don’t even need a 3 speed. The only speed this bike is going to go is whatever my two legs can handle. Which will be on flat ground kind of meandering and in no hurry. I’m rather excited to be getting it because now I can get down to the river much quicker and of course the blumen field as well as the local bakery for fresh rolls.
Tune in tomorrow for pics of the new bike and the gladioli. I know, I’m sure you can hardly wait.
The weather here has been gorgeous. Light breezes, big fluffy white clouds, temps in the middle 70s. Perfect! The Rhine is still very full, from the rain we had in the weeks leading up to our perfect weather week. It makes me wonder if it’s easier or harder to steer those huge barges with the river so high.
This hasn’t been a good month in the indigohaus…
My uncle was killed in a motorcycle accident in June, one month to the day of his death my aunt found out that she is terminal with cancer that we had all thought she had beaten long ago. I’m exhausted from the emotion and the tears.
I want to enjoy this beautiful day.
I can’t seem to make myself quit crying.
I want to be home.
I don’t want to leave.
I miss my family more than anyone can possibly understand.
How can a heart that is so full of grief still have room for all this loneliness?
| bored or boring? |
I was thinking the other day how noone ever blogs here anymore, how there are 5 or 6 days out of the week when most of my reading list is absent, then of course I had to admit that I don’t blog either. My rationalization for it, is that I lead a pretty boring life. I figure you guys are all just really super summertime busy. Sure I live in Germany. But the truth is most of the time I spend day after day after endless day sitting in my apartment reading or playing on the laptop About once a week we go to the closest post so I can trade out my library books and movies and do our shopping and then I’m back home for more of the same. I rarely see anyone and even more rare do I speak to someone other than my husband. Maybe that’s why you don’t post either. Only in a less isolated way. The truth is I could write about it, I could tell you how much I enjoyed reading Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich and how it made me laugh out loud. Or I could tell you that Bear had me check out a DVD called Coffee and Cigarettes, and it was the oddest, but somehow compelling all the same, movie that I’ve seen in quite sometime. I could even tell you that my mini-petunias out on the balcony have Aphids and it’s pissing me off that I can’t buy aphid killer on the post and I have to buy it on the economy. Why does that piss me off? Because it means the instructions will be in German and my German is spotty at best and that’s being kind. The reason I don’t normally write about this type of stuff is because it is stultifyingly boring to me, and I figure to you too. Some out there have this ability to make feeding the dog not only an event but an event worth reading about. I feel like unless I’m off to another country well then it’s gonna be boring as hell. I’m wrong and I know I am but it still feels that way. What am I reading now? The Children of Hurin by JRR Tolkien, this is the one his son Christopher was so criticized for. Some say he wrote it, if he did he sure is a chip off the old block. It feels like Tolkien is telling a tale from the old ages of Middle Earth. I’m merrily reading along in bed last night and I turn the page and it’s blank. I turn another page…it’s almost blank, the print is so faint I can make out the words along the margins but that’s about it. I start getting that panicky feeling because I know the post library has only got one copy of this book and even though I don’t want to skip pages I will skip a couple so I can finish this book. I turn more pages, there are 10 or 15 good pages and then 3 or 4 more pages of writing so faint it can hardly be read, then more good pages, then more bad. No doubt about it now I’m going to have to stop reading and hope that I can get a different copy from another post. Great! I’m thinking to myself, how long will this take? Where was inspecter 13 when this book was sold? They inspect your underwear before you get them shouldn’t they have quality control for books too? Grrr…… I’m notorious for reading a book non-stop usually in one day. This book I was savoring, because just like when I read Robert Jordans’ neverending….umm, I meant Wheel of Time series, if I take my time then I start dreaming about it all. And let me tell you folks those are some really excellant dreams. They might not make a lot of sense but they are filled with really neat places, peopls, clothes and even food. But the trick is I have to read some every single day for the dreams to start and this book is to short to really get that effect. Now having to completely stop halfway thru I know that it’s not gonna happen at all. I feel cheated! My dreams have been stolen by lack of a book inspector…hmph. I guess I need to finish up here and make some calls to some of the other post libraries….bleh. Hope there’s not a waiting list. |
I put up some pics from Paris. I went the second week of June and then a week later went to Ireland. I would have said something about all of this earlier except the day before I left my daughters apartment in Galway we got a call from America and my uncle had been killed in a motorcycle accident. So instead of being all excited to share news about my double luck in getting to go to Paris and Ireland I spent a week or so sitting in my apartment bawling my eyes out and wishing I had a transporter to get me home when I wanted. It was pathetic really and I’m much better now and I know my uncle went having fun surrounded by family. It’s just very hard when you get that kind of news to be so far from home.
So now I have finally put a couple of pictures up in my picture blog. My Allie has most of the Irish pictures so I’ll have to get those from her.
This is how I got to go to Paris. (beside the car I mean
) Mike was getting ready to leave Germany and his ex Katie came back over, they went roaming around Northern Italy , took the ferry into Croatia for a day or so came back to Salzburg, Austria into Southern Germany and then up to our place. Mike wanted to go to Paris really bad. I was sloshy with an inner ear infection and told Mike to just take Emily and go but apparantly no one but me thought that was a good idea. Mike didn’t want to go to Paris with just Katie because I guess you can take your ex everywhere else but not Paris and Emily thought she would be a third wheel and an almost stranger at that, so the link (me) had to go or the trip wasn’t happening. Though I think Mike probably would have broke down and gone anyway. So I went, I held very still and faced straight ahead for the entire drive over and since I’d been on antibiotics for a couple days already I just prayed for the dizziness and sometimes nausea to go away.
I could tell a couple time over the next few days that I was running a low grade temp and I got really cranky more than once but all in all we laughed up a storm and had a really great time. So go look at a couple pictures and if you guys really like them and want me too I’ll put up some more.
Here’s some silliness to break the ice. I guess this proves I was just MIA, not dead. Though the way I feel right now I could cheerfully crawl into bed and stay there until tomorrow afternoon.
If you get more than 30 you’re paranoid.
If you get 10 or less you’re fearless.
I Fear…
[x] the dark
[] staying single forever
[] being a parent
[] giving birth
[] open spaces
[] closed spaces
[x] heights
[] cats
[] dogs
[] birds
[] fish
[] spiders
[] driving or being in cars
[] flying
[] flowers or other plants
[] being touched
[] fire
[x] deep water
[] the ocean
[] failure
[] success
[] thunder/lightning
[] frogs/toads
[] my boyfriends/girlfriends dad
[] my boyfriends/girlfriends mom
[] mice/rats
[x] jumping from high places
[] snow
[] rain
[] wind
[x] crossing hanging bridges
[] death
[] Heaven
[] being robbed
[] bugs
[] cemeteries(at night)
[] clowns
[] large crowd
[] men
[] women
[] having great responsibility
[] doctors, including dentists
[] tornadoes
[] hurricanes
[] diseases
[] snakes
[] sharks
[] Friday the 13th
[] ghosts
[] poverty
[] Halloween
[] school
[] trains or railroads
[] odd numbers
[] even numbers
[] being alone at night
[] being blind
[] being deaf
[] growing up
[] monsters under my bed
[] creepy noises in the night
[] bee stings
[] not accomplishing my dreams/goals
[] needles
[] blood
[] dinosaurs
[] feet
[] Girls
[] Guys
If I counted right I have 5 and most of those are just silly. Like deep water. Isn’t it true that you can drown in less than an inch of water? So the only thing I can figure is…. being in the ocean is similar to being up high (also a fear of mine) there’s just nothing below you except the two big D’s…danger and death. I consider most of these to be unreasonable fears. The kind you have with absolutley no reason behind them. For example I have been in pitch black places to numerous to count ie: caves, tunnels, parking lots and garages, my house all kinds of places really and nothing has ever attacked me or frightened me except me. Then there are fears like sharks, well I’m not stupid, if you were in the ocean surrounded by sharks you’d be scared too, admit it. It’s not like I stand in front of the local aquarium shakin’ in my boots, I don’t. So I don’t count that as a fear. “creepy noises in the night” what the heck is that? I’m not afraid of noise I’m might be afraid of what’s making the noise though, lol. There are lots of these that I’m not afraid of but I do have a very healthy respect for, like snakes, and now that I’ve read them all I’m counting myself lucky to not have phobias. Then there are people who have a real right to be afraid, like my cousin who has a deadly allergy involving stings so when she runs screaming from bees we all know why. If she ran from dinosaurs we might laugh though!
So according to this silly little list the thing that I would fear the most would be crossing a high hanging bridge in the dark and jumping off into deep water and really wouldn’t most people be just a bit nervous about that. I guess I found my next challenge.
Update: Please take the time to sign this online petition to stop the prevalence of “drive thru” mastectomies. I can’t imagine how frightening it would be to have breast cancer and then after having surgery being sent home just a few hours later. This is a real petition and hopefully it will help bring about real change. I’ve put the link below and all you have to do is put your first and last name, your zip code and your email.
http://www.lifetimetv.com/breastcancer/petition/signpetition.php
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