... and two cups of coffee.

Dear S.,

I wanted to share this story I found on the internet with you. It made me happy. Please take the time to read it, it is worth it!

When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the two cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things – your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions – and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else – the small stuff. ”If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

source is "The Radical Uprise", an amazing blog run by Jetta Vegas. it's all about Positive Mental Attitude. Whenever you feel that you need something to cheer you up or motivate you, go to her page and you will find what you are looking for:
http://theradicaluprise.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/a-mayonnaise-jar-and-two-cups-of-coffee/

(... time and space for a cup of coffee or some other onzin/Unsinn like wearing matching turbans in order to concentrate better :p )


Love,
M.

Hickups

hey my dear,
well now it's my tur to write just befor i'll go to the doc. .
Cramps... in my stomach, something typical for this time of the year. but still it got so fare that i don't wanna eat anymore and this is a very alarming thing, as I love to eat.

and still this post is mainly about food. ;)

I'm of coffee to protect my stomach a bit, but when i was still drinking a lot of coffee i had this on... A glas coverd inside with white chocolate, and than coffe in it so it will melt slowly- mhmmm..good memories. good that i love tea also, because that's all i'm drinking and for a part eating right now.


and now i tell you why i call this post hickup. it's as if i have hickups of joy and happienes in all this stress. there is alot of schoolwork for me and my dear one but in between i manages to make my ultimately happy. and this includes alot of food.
it feels somehow decadent ;). last thursday after a long stressy day we went eating out. we just didn't feel like cooking something. so we went to a small cozy marrocan place and had honestly good tajine. which was also a stupid idea regarding my stomache but hey at his moment i just didn't care. afterwards we went for a fast drink. the whole day this giant zepelin wnet around in the air of antwerp. it was pretty unexpected to see this giant air boat.



well friday the two of us went to gent. he was already there at his sisters and i went later by train, because i first had to work. some really nice food, and now i now his family and am quite reliefed, everything went good. the weekend we spent at his childhood home. it's nice to see where someone is coming from. and super nice to have a quiet home with a garden for a day to write those to papers. while m. was of for work the two cats and two chickens were my company. i stole their eggs the next morning to make pancakes.
back in antwerp we cleand his whole appartement and changed a few things. than i headed back to work and he took good care of me... cooking a delicious meal. tunafish caspaciou ( how ever this is written), tomate crevette and fish soup. mhhmm.



I don't have a garde just al ittle terasse so these are my plants, doin quiet wel, and i like the hart shaped potato, which became decortion...


well that's it. i enjoyed to come over to your palce yesterday evening since i'm a part of two it's not happening all the time anymore ;).
let see what the doc is saying...
kisses
s

gpoy

Dear S.,

gpoy: Gratuitous Picture Of Yourself, used a lot on tumblr; A picture of yourself, or something that you do like a gif of someone dancing like an idiot or a socially awkward penguin picture.

(--> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gpoy)

this is something I have learned from Tumblr this week. (Who ever invented tumblr, anyways? It is hor-ri-ble! can't stay off it, but I'm refusing to get my own account.)

so, what I was wanting to say: I am writing my final Bachelor paper at the moment (well, actually, it's been going on for quite a while now).

Charlie will help me express the way I feel about it- multiple personality gpoy, here we go:


hey, everything is just fine, got 30pages written already, professor kind of gave me a carte blanche,my topic is SUPER interesting and I could go on about it forever. stretch and smile.

everything that needs to be said is already stored in your head, it's purely a matter of typing it. let's swerve on the internet and play and bake and stuff.


i-i-i-i-i (sound of strings in Hitchcocks shower murder scene in Psycho)- What an EARTH I am even writing about? what is my thesis statement again- "Let me explain to you my blury ideas of how the main concerns of youth a hundred years ago are still the same as now and how these are represented in like all of literature? I'll be like totally able to do that in 30 something pages, and I'll show you that I completely get it all, ok?" heeeeelp! way too complex way too broad topic, can never be clear about what I actually want to say- I am not saying this very same thing for the fifth time already?


just shut down the f*cking computer already and get a life. academia is really one big house where all the bullshit of the world is being expatiated, do I really want to be part of this?



ohne Worte.

Well, excuse my rude language use- this is just how I sound in real life.

S., I am so happy to know that you are around, right now in Ghent, I suppose. What would I do without you?

love,

M.

motivation!

Dear S.,

thank you for your last two posts! I reeeeally feel like rhubarb cake,mmmmh :)
yesterday N. and I made a sauce holandaise to go with fresh asparagus and little potatoes, and it worked out! At the second try, that is. So, seen that there were some eggwhites left, we made meringues. Come by and fetch some if you feel like it!
I'm so exited about our elderflower sirup, can't wait to bottle it later today..

For now, I have some motivational stuff to keep you going:





I know it is busy right now, but eventually we are gonna be fine!

love, M.

dearest m.,
well i couldn't decide which foto to upload so i'll post collages of my last 24 hours.

yesterday night i came to your place where we had a long talk, which was really necessary because it has ben a while since the last tete-a-tete .
while talking about everythingwhat piled up you made orage marmelade and meringues en i made easter cookies after a recipe of my godmother maria. they are really easy and delicous.
i'll post the recipe another time, i'm kind of in a hurry. first a bbq ( first of the season, yeah!) than going to my m., and tomorrow i go to genk for a week to finish my masterclass... .


so this morning i had a wonderfull breakfast on the balkony, another yeah! finally spring came around and it's warm enough. i had the cookies we made, with coffee, bread with chestnutspread, and yoghurt with cherry jam, yumyum!



than a good spring cleaning with django reinhard in the background. and i wore my new hart top, which made me feel doubble summery.

i headed of to the city to buy flower pots and earth to start planting... i acctually don't have a green thumb ( is there in english expression for it) so usually all flowers just die around me. but this spring i'll give it another try and hope for the helping hand of mother nature...
on my way back home i stoped by the botanical garden of antwerp. it is tiny, but especially the greenhouse is really nice . if you need a second of tropical heat it's the place to go! and i was amazed by all the funny plants.







i especially like the hart shaped plant ;)

how was bxl?
kisses
s.

Heute kann es regnen, stürmen oder schneien, denn du strahlst ja selber wie der Sonnenschein...

Dear m,

today is your big day. your birthday...
i wish you so many things for the next year.. advantures, relaxing, love, cupcakes, kittens ( i'm in the get charlie pregnant camp) ... and so on.
i thought it was a really good party. a jolly good english tea party as you wished. so many important and good people around. just really nice.
i put together a random collage of the pics i took.
a sneak peak of your present to come.
sadly alot of them are blurry, but well there are also some good ones.
still have a nice rest of your birthday

and here we go a blur of impressions







a truckload of kisses
your s.

p.s.
on special demand of dear L.
there it is his blue eye, and some other more random pics: pinata, iphone and what remains after a bunch of hungry people cae to your home ;)

grey,grey,grey.blue.grey

Dear m.,
so looking forward to have you back.
i am pretty anti-social though those days.
jury stress... thinks slowly sort out...sort of ;)
well till the 4 of february and than i hope we'll soon have our first spring picknick at the river... letting our souls flo with the river... and just enjoying the moment with out panik about the week to come. oh my, i'll be sooo relived.
I am also looking forward to upload pics of my tiny instalation... than you'll see what i was up to while i was so anti-social




well, at least every now and than i apreciate the beaty of a moment and forget about the stress. these are pictures out of my sleeping room. just like a farytale world. and after all those grey days, finally a sunny sunday poped up.
kisses till tomorror than?
s.

Freitag

Dear S.,

friday afternoon. I'm sitting at my table, staring outside. Charlie captured my lap half an hour ago, so I'm bound to sit here. Actually I should be working for Uni, but there are too many things taking my thoughts off.
Hm. I'm discovering Roland Barthes at the moment. I really love "A lover's dicourse: fragments". Here are three small excerpts:

"To try to write love is to confront the muck of language; that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive (by the limitless expansion of the ego, by emotive submersion) and impoverished (by the codes on which love diminishes and levels it)"


"Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. The emotion derives from a double contact: on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which is "I desire you," and releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm upon touching itself); on the other hand, I enwrap the other in my words, I caress, brush against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit the relation endure. "


"Am I in love? --yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits."

so, here's some thinking material for us :)

Ok, and here are some ongoing projects:




my future winter scarf. I should speed up knitting it, it's utterly necessary already!


tea mixture: camomile, apple and cinneamon


drying apples above our heating.. mmmh!



make-up bag for N. Her colleague singers started to laugh at her because she used to keep her make-up and toothbrush in a deepfreeze- plastic bag. Not any more ;)

My dear Frederike, I'll go on with other blury business now. And see you later tonight, for spaghetti. Maybe even at your new place?

M.

Job

zie je het staand zitten?
als je me zitten ziet zag ik het niet meer staan.

I'm sitting on a wooden cube, my left foot on a podest, my right leg crosses my left leg. my right arm leans on a chair. 15 people are staring at me. They measure my proportions with knitting pins. Her shoulders are much wider than that. I ever so slightly turn my head downwards a little and check out my shoulders. Inner sigh. I can see the canvas of an older guy right in front of me, the knees are placed right. He scratches his backhead, where his few remaining hairs are bundled into a ponytail. What on earth did he do to my breasts? The right one is quite alright, but the left one is a sad saggy flap of skin. After a few minutes, I feel the fingers of my right hand falling asleep. This is going to hurt. The next guy is a drawing disaster, but he seems to be improving, finally! oh, wait.. my feet are two misshapen chubby lumps on his canvas. No improvement. Apparently, feet are the most difficult parts to draw. In the break, after 45 minutes of immobility, I wander about and check out how the others see and draw me. One of the drawings is really good- until I realize that my face looks like that of a 50 years old woman. A little old, isn't it?, the teacher murmurs next to my ear. Yes, indeed. I quickly pass that woman's canvas who drew me from behind. No comment on her depiction of my backside. (or do I really look like this? I continue eating my chocolate bar. sugar is necessary.)
The teacher gives his students a sign, that the lesson resumes. Once again I have to drop my bathrobe, take place on the podium and sit still. 30 eyes staring at me. At times coming closer, real close, to check out my knuckels. There is good music, Tchaikovsky, oldies, balkan, Portishead, swing. Suddenly I get happy, inexplicably happy. I just sit and breathe, I am. Naked happiness. This is one of the things I really enjoy about my work, you just have to be. nothing more. But you are forced to be. You can't run away and distract yourself with anything, only with glimpses of yourself which the canvases encircling you show.
Three hours later, the lesson is over. While most of the people are already packing, sprayfixing my lumpy legs and alien ears, rolling up my saggy breasts, I still sit. Waiting for the last people to finish. Those who are not very talented leave my face blank and my limbs unfooted and unhanded. But everyone of them drew my single curl.

Love, M

Trying to be frederik

dearest m.,
i just come home from our festive activities at your place. together with l. and n.

It was a rather funny thing to do , we did things together on our own. which remindes me on a book titel " zusammen ist man weniger allein" of anna gavalda.
but sometimes i have to admit i even feel alone among the people i really care about. so some confession, today i felt inside as grey as it was outside. which makes me feel a very unlovabel person. and i get all tensed and closed, and don't enjoy my own company... which makes me feel incredible guilty to acompany other people. because usually i like to show my more embracing side.

there is stress in every little bone and fibre in my body, i have neck pain and abolutely no appetite. i don't know why...
to be honest i don't even wonder about it, because it always happens at this time in the year.

it's my master year and i start to be realy unsure if i choose the right way for me. if i should be an artist. in away it's in me and i just create things constantly in my minde. which includes the problem, my minde is this hughe space and there is just to little time in one day to do everything, besides i am not a genius in organising and i'm constantly tiered. and to be creative as a profession is extremly demanding, never a break, constantly aware that the inspiration can just disapear, never shure if ideas are strong enough, doubts; oh-so-manny doubts ...
maybe i just should have a little easy job to earn money, and do the creative stuff in my free time.

i also have the feeling again that i just want to disolve and disapear in my private little world in my head, and knowing that this is quite impossible... i want to travel to fare away countries. most people say you get closer to yourself when you travel, for me it's quite the opposite i loose myself and i enjoy that alot. losing fears, feeling strong, trying out how it would be to be a different person...

enough of ths wineness.
the message is greynes gets me, but than i have this storage of former adventures, travels adn stories ( you know i'm a story teller) which remind me of some other sides of me... like in the book " frederick of leo lionni, in which a litle mouse colectes, colours, sun rays and stories for the cold grey winter days...




conclusion, thank you that we can be alone together. and that we manage so often to remind each other of stories, sun rays, colours, smells and all.

let's hope the headaches and stomacpains will disapear soon, which will make that alot easier

kisses
s.

blear blab-blare.

Dear S.,

1. I really like your skirt, it turned out so well! and the high shoes too! your legs look really good in both of them ;)
2. I am extremely sad about what happened at the Loveparade in Duisburg this weekend. how could this tragedy have happened? I can't get it out of my head.
3. The words in the title really mean something
4. My day in a short (or maybe not so short) sketch:
   

8.03: alarm-clock... aaah I'll get up in just a min.
8.21: "Get uuuup"(Mama's slightly stressed voice). A cuppa Twinings' "Prince of Wales" to brace myself for church.

9.11: preaching of "bitten und beten". checking out the interesting construction an elderly man sitting in front of me made with his few resting hairs on his head; you know the way they like to comb them all on one side to make them cover their baldness... I tried to find a picture on google, unseccesfully. (wth I am all doing at 2.30 in the morning.) discovering a new species of spider that perfectly adapts to the color of the singing book covers.

afterwards, we went to my Grandma. She is one of the funniest old people I know, her spirit and her face are so youthfull! She thaught me how to make Marillenknödel mit Topfenteig- apricot and fresh cheese dumplings. And the best trick to replace the stone of the fruit with a piece of sugar: just use the stick of a wooden spoon /Kochlöffel to push it out. SO easy. (dough: 200-300g of fresh cheese (kwark), 50g flour, 50g breadcrums, a pinch of salt; blend those well, take a little bit of the dough and push it flat between your hands (make your hands wet before, it helps). then take the apricot, put it on the dough, cover it carefully. cook. sugar. noms. at least I hope they were yummy, I didn't eventually try them myself. My bossy cousin (who is a forrest ranger) got them. all. but when I saw that my grandma started to cook something non-meaty my enthusiasm took over and I had to stick my nose and hands into her business)

then: home. convince my family to have some kohlrabi in cream with their Schnitzel. eat. I had baked cheese, so nice! Then I repaired mum's sewing machine together with my dad. Took 2 hrs. Ironed to help mum, 'cause she is in pre-vacation-leaving stress. family-similarity? CHECK. (my last post). Ate some nice stuff I baked yesterday. Took my other grandma (who is ridiculously proud (WHY omg?) of only weighing 38kg.. she's really weak and can't eat well... strange woman, but lovely too) for a grand tour in our/her garden. Helped her with weeding (= Unkraut jäten... schraal), collected some flowerseeds to take to Antwerp. Sewed some pants up for mum. ate. more tea. and then: staring. at multiple media. and disliking that. but being stuck. I'm pretty sure most people who will read this know what I am talking about, don't you? why are you still here? ;)

(oh well. I feel rather cynical. I need some relaxation, but at the same time I don't want to stop being busy and all)

where was I.. yes:

4. yesterday my dear friend M. came by. We decided to have some traditional English Tea and baked Scones. It was such a perfect evening, too bad you couldn't join us!

And then there also were these:



my usual lemon-cakes. In an awkward model position. M. and I had tried to photograph them beautifully but it was night, so we couldn't take them outside.. and the potplant as a co-star didn't really work it, neither did the prison-shot. So: this is a cut-out piece of a pic.

Ok, originally a wanted to show you the bag I made for E. last week, but as my "short" day-survey got a little out of control and I really need to go to bed now because I want to go to a market tomorrow morning, I will do that tomorrow.

So, 'til soon!

x

PS: since the day I have arrived in Austria, I have found (and pulled out) 9 white hairs... 9! in 3 days! should I be worried?