Overwhelmed

I felt a little overwhelmed these days with all that still needs to be done before our little one arrives. The biggest problem we are facing is lack of storage space. So I started throwing out a lot of useless stuff last week. But there still is a lot to do. I felt quite depressed yesterday and spent most of my day on the couch - something I haven´t done in a while. Just when I was preparing myself to go to bed, it clicked... I was putting too much pressure on myself to have everything perfectly organized before baby arrives. No wonder I was feeling so low. So, I started asking myself what really mattered and realized that many things that need to be done can wait for the time being. I can still do this and that when baby is here. I feel better already. All I´m going to do is making lists of what needs to be done and then prioritizing. I really don´t need too much stress right now.
So today, I tried to relax a little more. I sat down to study some baby catalogues and later went out shopping for the little guy. So much fun! I feel better already. Just need to find a place to store everything now...

A Bird´s Visit

I don´t know when and how this young birdie managed to sneak into our living room. But when I sat down in front of the computer a while ago, a chirping and fluttering behind my back startled me. And then I found this scared little critter in the bookshelf to the right. I think I was no less shocked at first than he was. And I was even more shocked when he suddenly took off and darted to the top of the shelf on the other side of the room - and fell right behind it! I was so afraid he might have hurt himself. Luckily, nothing much had happened to him. I opened all the windows and hoped he would find his way out eventually. But instead he decided to fly back to the bookshelf where I had first found him. Fortunately, it took only a little time for him to fly over to the window sill, where he took a little rest on my yellow begonia. He finally realized that the way out was through the window, although at first he tried it with the only window that was still shut. So I gently moved my hand over to him and in his attempt to get out of my way he moved over to the open window and flew off. Phew! Poor little birdie!
I´m sure he´ll like the world in front of our windows a lot more than our living room!

Flower Power!

I spent most of my afternoon yesterday needlefelting the top for a little flower-shaped cardboard box, which still needs some painting. I am a big fan of Marieke´s needlefelted creations and have always admired her flower pincushions, so I decided to give it a try myself. It was actually a lot of fun, but I don´t know if I have the patience for more projects like this one. We´ll see. I need to think about how to decorate the rest of the box now...

This Weekend

We spent the weekend in the beautiful little town of Weimar for the burial of my grandmother´s ashes. Weimar had been her home until she fled to West Germany with her husband and children and she never really got over that loss. Now, she is back home and has found her final resting place next to my grandfather´s and her family´s. Although the funeral was very sad, it was also very important for me as I couldn´t really grieve for her yet. There was so much going on these weeks. One thing that is still worrying me a lot is the severe illness of a person that I´m really close to. But despite of all of this, the weekend has been a happy one all at the same time. It was so nice to see so many of my mother´s family again. So many warm-hearted people! I am always amazed at how close we feel, how connected, although most of us have only met a few years ago for the first time! As my closest family wasn´t allowed to visit East Germany before the reunification of Germany, I only knew about my relatives from what my grandmother was telling us. Now, even my family is reunited, which makes me very happy and grateful. I feel a little at home in Weimar, too. As I have always moved a lot in my life (due to my father´s career), I now found a place I feel I belong to. There are so many places connected to my family in Weimar. The old farmhouses of both my great- grandfather´s and his father´s estates, the places where my grandparents went to school, got to know each other, got married... There are memories of them to be found everywhere.

Married!!!

Click on pictures, if you want to see a larger version!
Finally, I can show you some pictures of our wedding! We were sooo lucky! It was the first weekend with warm weather, all the tulips and magnolias in the little park in front of the hotel (were the civil ceremony was held) were fully abloom, and best of all, everybody was in such a cheerful mood! We are still so happy about it all! The ceremony was very nice and very emotional for Jan and me. Afterwards, we walked through the park over to another hotel were the reception was held. We felt like VIPs with so many friends and family around us taking photos! These photos were made by my wonderful friend Kerstin! We got them on CD when we came home from our honeymoon! Thank you so much, Kerstin!
On our walk from one hotel to another...

At the reception
The hotel were we had our wedding reception has a little sunny courtyard garden. As the weather was really warm, we could celebrate outside in the sun! And I had been so worried before that I would freeze in my dress! Ha, ha! Late in the afternoon, we had a date with a professional photographer, who also made great photos of us in a nearby park, which was a lot of fun! When that was over, we went back to the hotel for a festive dinner with our closest family. My dad held a funny speech for us about our soon to be started "family venture", telling everybody about my management qualities as a little girl and how I had always known exactly what I wanted and how to get it, too! Hee, hee!

The next day, all of us had breakfast at the hotel and afterwards met in our apartment to relax a little bit. It was a wonderful weekend! And when everybody had left we were dead tired and could hardly believe that everything was already over! Luckily, we still had lots of presents to open, so it wasn´t all over yet! Beautiful things we got to remind us of the wonderful time we had!

We feel so blessed!