New Year, new things

I am excited about this new year! More than the years before. And it already started different. Not as splendid as my sister's (new-hubby-job), but I love those little ones as well. So I started January 1st in PJ's, all day long - haven't done that for years. Sunday (new as well) I decided what kind of cake I wanted in a café just by passing the cake bar (usually I can't decide and it takes MINUTES!). Yesterday, Sandy showed me that "perfect day" coffee bar that has probably best coffee in town AND she found me the perfect warm winter jacket at peek & cloppenburg.

Oh and this one is the best! Since over a year I try to have my quiet time right when I wake up but especially during winter time I too often fall kinda asleep again. It's dark and cold and bed is so snugly... well, you probably know what I am talking about. During the last weekend I really racked my brain (and asked the Father for an insight) how I could change it and TADA, suddenly it was there - so bright, clear and easy I am stunned (and annoyed that this didn't appear sooner):

I have to get up early to feed the cats anyway, they always put up such a fuss unless I give them their breakfast... So I get up at 5 a.m (or 5.30 this morning) and when I go into the kitchen to get the cat food, I turn the heating on. Then, while the cats are eating, I take a shower and dress up and prepare everything so that I easily can leave to get the bus to go to work. When preparations are done, I go back into the kitchen, wich is warm and cosy by that time, sit down at my big kitchen table, set up my kitchen timer (about 20 minutes) so that I wouldn't miss the bus and start reading. It works! I don't fall asleep anymore and I get the most benefit out of it! I finally found my "holy place" even if it's only a kitchen table...

differences

Sometimes I am slightly shocked when I see or hear some U.S. Americans mock on "Non-USAmerican behavior". Yes, the German system (government, health, history, whatever) has its issues. A lot. But show me a country that has no issues in those areas! and I gladly take some (of those good meant) advices.
Yes, the German language knows funny nicknames for things we like. But at least any German I know never ever had problems to just accept and not laugh about English speakers, who call their loved ones "Honey"... 

Sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
Honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl

And you've got me wanting you

need your help

This year all these biiig, well, huuuuuge sunglasses are all the rage. I mean EVERYONE wears them.

I always say it looks like "Pook, the housefly"... plus, I think I can not wear sunglasses like that.

But I needed one and so I gave it a try. If you promise, not to laugh too hard at me, scroll down to the bottom of this post and check my picture.
And tell me if I should better take them off, if it is "ok" or if it is celebrity-ish :-)
Thanks!

Me and my glasses...

definition of me

Everybody's got an opinion
Of what they want me to be
Everybody's got a condition
That I may never meet
So tired of looking in the mirror
‘Cause it always says the same thing
I want to be about something different
Something more than the mirror can see
Like joy, peace
Alive in me
When it comes to my identity
I want the love
I want the light
I want the beauty
On the inside
I want the one that you can't see
To be the definition of me
More than the face
More than the girl
More than the voice
More than the world
I want the truth that I believe
To be the definition of me
Pretty is cool for a minute
But it will always fade away
Trends are hot for a second
But they'll be gone the very next day
So before you get lost in the moment
Let’s get one thing clear
Only love will last forever
That's the reason that we're here
It's up to you ‘cause everybody's looking
Who do you want them to see?
I want Your love to be
The very heart of me
Jesus, I want You to be
Living inside of me
Lyrics of “Definition of Me” sung by Mandisa
Amanda, I didn’t know about Mandisa until I got a newsletter from tangle announcing her new CD “Freedom” a couple days ago. I’ve got 3 favorite songs from it and this is one of them. If you want, send me an email (see my profile), I’ve got something for you :-)

Daylight Saving Time in Germany this weekend

She: Don’t forget to put the clock forward…
He: I know - but whereto… ?

PIZZA????

I just got this call...
Strange voice (from a machine/robot): Hello, this is Francesco from Pizzeria Alberti. Your Pizza will be at your place about 14 minutes later!
me [thinking about who of my funny friends is possibly playing tricks on me]: what pizza???
Strange Voice: Yes. I am sorry. I can't talk to the driver, he is on the way to bring you the Pizza.
me [again]: what pizza??????
S.V.:OK, then the pizza boy will leave it a your place and tell you it is from the neighbor.
me [puzzled and wondering why I am still talking to a machine]: I haven't ordered pizza.
SV: You ordered 3 pizzas, one with >>blahblah, one with blahblah and one with blahblah<<. (I forgot what kind of different things the machine voice said) What is your address?
me: Loreleiring
SV: hmmmm, yes. ok.
me: who placed the order?
SV: ok, byebye.
call ended.

While I was writing the last sentences, my door bell rang. I thought, hopefully this is not the pizza boy hehe.
I first pressed the button to open the main house door and waited for a moment. Nothing happened. After a while I opened my appartment door. The main house door was wide open and there was an orange paper on the floor.



It says: Order for Neumann, 1. Nr. 10 Noodles, 2. a coke and No. 5
Bill: 15,50 €
neighbor recieved the order, please pay the rest.
the rest of the order will be late. Alberti. Loreleiring. 20 min.

My number is not registered in a public register so it must be someone who knows me.
And they just wrote what I said: "Loreleiring". FAULT! If they want to be authentic, they should have written the whole address... plus, they shouldn't change "my order" from about "3 pizzas" into "noodles, a coke and #5".

The handwriting looks like kid's handwriting (two different ones btw) and I am quite sure that a certain girl from my neighborhood and her friend played that trick on me. I know those kids because they used to come to our friday afternoon childrens outreach ministry from church. Those kids are really "poor", their social level is pretty down and even if they come it is very hard to talk to them about God etc. They have such a dirty talk and are mean to each other. We know most of them (especially this girl who I think played that trick) since they're 8 years old (now they're 11 or 12). They tell bad stories about each other, like this girl is lying, that girl use to steal things from others and we actually found (a couple of weeks ago) that some of them were hiding in the church building and waited until the rest were gone... afterwards we were missing some stuff.
If you feel like, please pray for those kids.

I found "Mr. Perfect"...

Well, it is just a kind of what you might think by reading the caption.

I even hesitated to write about it because it is so extremely different from what you hear and see every day, in other words "out of this world"...
It is like I discovered something that I want to keep only with me because I worry that it could be misunderstood and get lost. But at the same time I want to share it with the whole world.

It all started with a book, "Authentic Beauty" by Leslie Ludy. I would not consider me being part of her target audience (it seems more to be fit for teenage girls/young women) but there is a truth found in the book I am not too old for. I am glad I eventually found this living example the author draws in front of the readers eyes and I can't imagine how she must have felt sharing her life's story with the world by writing this book.
I actually found a post that summarizes the book better than I could do but I'll give you the link later because I do not agree when the author Carrie says "Ludy's approach to purity is more strict in nature to the one I prefer".

Since I decided to be an "authentic christian" I found it more and more difficult to really live it out. And here purity comes into play. Leslie writes:

Many of us know a lot about our Prince. But knowing about Him and knowing Him are two very different things. Do we know Jesus? Has He become the Lover of our souls, the essence of our every existence, the center of our entire beings, and the One for whom we would give up everything, including our very lives, to follow?
Knowing Him like that is not easy. In today's world (even the Christian world) we are usually living at an insanely frenzied pace of life, we are all too often bogged down with years of piled-up emotional baggage, we are distracted by confusing relationships or stressful circumstances, and we are bombarded by the relentless noise of the culture around us. The question is: how do we learn to know our Prince in the midst of all this? The answer is: we can't.

Jesus does not live at the frantic pace of this world. He is not found in the clanging clamor of the culture. His tender whisper is like a still, small voice that is quickly drowned out by our distracted minds and wandering hearts. To discover Him as our Prince, to know Him as our Lover - we must become like the princesses in our childhood fairy tales who were willing to leave everything else behind to follow the man each loved. We cannot stay where we are and go with our Prince.

To set a scenery that is able to hear "the still, small voice" Leslie provides some tools and one of it she calls "building-up an inner sanctuary". That implies to clean up my life and throw out all the bad stuff that could sneak into my heart and mind by concentrating on circumstances, people or just some TV-shows.
And if you start to clean up your inner sanctuary and start an intimate relationship with The Prince your inside will be changed and as a natural consequence your outside will change as well.

And there is something else:
Since I was a teenager I questioned myself if there was something wrong with me concerning guy/girl relationship. Sometimes I wondered if my standards were too high and if I was looking for something or someone that only exists in my fantasy: a perfect man. But the message of the book gave me to vivid insights:

• The perfect man is found in Christ. He desinged a woman to look for a soulmate and all her needs and desires are met if she realizes that the only existing soulmate for her life is Jesus. You will never find a human being on the whole earth that is so able to read your mind and answer your deepest longings like Him.
• There are still a few men outside who also decided to live a "set-apart life" and who are being transformed into christ-shaped manhood. They reflect the life and the character of the Great Prince and they are worth waiting for.
  

For the summary of "Authentic Beauty" read Carries blog.

the celebrity in me

I saw something today in an other post and thought I could try.
Have you ever thought I'd look like Gwyneth Paltrow???



After that I uploaded a bunch of pictures. Some were kind of embarrassing (one said I look like Jared Padalecki, HAHA!) and another one said I'd look like Angelina Jolie!! The funny thing with that special picture is that somebody put a clothes-pin on my nose:


This is my new haircut, by the way. But it does NOT look like Angelina Jolie, AT ALL.

I tried another old picture:



Do Gillian Anderson and Gwyneth Paltrow have something in common? Well, sure: my face, HAHA!

My insight: It depends on the picture - AND (if I had any doubt): I am an individual...

World Toilet Day

Today is world toilet day... I never knew that something like this exists! And it is a real organisation, unbelievable. They stand for clean and save public toilets, not bad at all!

Here a toilet history picture trail from a local radio station website, there you can also find a video about it (in german).

... and here MY decent toilet... beside my decadent cat's two... long story...

Friday 13th

Inspired by Anju and her post I want to debilitate the superstitiousness of "Friday the 13th is a bad luck day".

As I already mentioned I grew up with a mother who showed us how to believe in God and His power and she never told us about stupid things like "if you play with a bunch of keys it causes conflicts between family members" (that's a superstition a Portuguese friend of mine told me) or "never put shoes on a table, it causes bad luck". She would say "don't put shoes on the table, that's disgusting!"
The other day I bought new shoes and I went to a friends house after shopping. I wanted to show her my new shoes and put them on her table... Bad idea! She was nealy shocked and told me - I think you can imagine what she said. That's how I "learned" the utterly unplausible correlation between my shoes on the table and some bad luck... But I still laugh about it and refuse to believe in it.

But back to Friday 13th, today. When I first heard in school about Friday 13th and it's behavior (HAHA!) I decided to declare it my "lucky day". I didn't want to flip the meaning - that would be superstitious the other way around - believing a special day could bring luck. No! That's not my intention.
I only wanted to swim against the stream and possibly show some people they don't have to worry about or at that special day.

So read about my Friday 13th experience:
I badly need a dress or something alike for my friends wedding. One for the civil wedding August 14th (I am one of the witnesses and should not look too common) and one for the church wedding August 17th. And I am looking for it since days! And I hate shopping! This fact probably ruins the cliché about women and shopping, but it's true. My favorite duds shopping is: Coming into a store, seeing something, trying it (of course it fits perfectly at first go) and buying it.

And YAY - exactly that happened today! Although it is Friday 13th today! This is real bad luck, isn't it???
And the funny thing is, I actually never planed to look for a dress, I only was on my way coming from one doctor to see another. I just wanted to stop by the new mall at the train station to go grocery shopping because I had 1 hour time between the appointments. And instead of going into the grocery I walked into a clothes shop right beside. Like remote-controlled. And I left the store approx. 40 minutes later with a new outfit. I will take pictures when I ironed it - it's actually in the washing machine...!

Have you been to Germany?

this post is NOT translated into german

I actually didn't want to stay at the computer today because I am pretty tired... BUT then I saw THIS here at my sister's myspace bulletin board and I think this must be read at least by Allison, April and Amy... (love&miss you all!)

You know you are in Germany too long, when....

1. You refer to other Americans as "they" or "Amis".
2. You REALLY think AFN (Armed Forces Network Radio) is quality entertainment.
3. You realize that Ausfahrt isn't the biggest city in Germany.
4. You forgot how to use round doorknobs.
5. 100 MPH seems like you're really driving slow.
6. You start converting prices to marks in your head (Yeah, but that cup of coffee is FIVE MARKS!!)
7. Even at home you don't put ice in your drinks.
8. You never leave home without your keys, ID card, license, and passport.
9. You answer the phone "Hallo" instead of Hello.
10. You need a power drill and sledgehammer to hang a picture on the wall.
11. You're used to the fact that there's a crane outside your house.
12. Sunshine actually becomes a topic of conversation.
13. You play "guess what town" the driver in front of you is from (HD, MA, KL, PS), based on their license plate.
14. You are incredibly careful about being loud during the "quiet hours" of 7 p.m. – 10 a.m. and 12 – 3 p.m.
15. You don't drive anywhere that you can take a bus/tram/train to.
16. You get excited about the great deal of paying under $4.50 a gallon for gas.
17. When visiting the States, you think you will buy something that costs $0.99, it'll cost that much.
18. Pay toilets for you mean there's another woman standing outside the "public restroom" with a change dish, glaring and demanding her 50 cents.
19. You know David Hasselhoff was a singer, and think "I've been looking for freedom" is quality music.
20. You can wear black socks and nothing else that's black… and it's okay.
21. The only contact you have with other Americans is through Myspace.
22. Nature becomes its own entity for you (I went out into "the nature").
23. Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Presidents Day fade in favor of Tag der Deutschen Einheit, Nikolaus, Erster Mai Tag and Heiligen Drei Königen.
24. You start writing the number 1,000.25 as 1.000,25 and your ones look like sevens and your sevens are a molestation of a 7 and a T.
25. Finger food ceases to exist. There's a utensil for EVERYTHING.
26. You know the lyrics to American Oldies in German – i.e. the Beatles' "Komm gib mir deine Hand".
27. You start to refer to hip hop, rap and R&B as "black music".
28. You've gone back to calling clubs discos.
29. When you think of fast food, Döner comes to your mind quicker than a burger.
30. The sauna doesn't scare you anymore.
31. You start introducing yourself with a German accent to your name.
32. You refer to your friends with the word "the" in front of their name. As in "the Valerie" and "the Leah".
33. You catch yourself putting verbs at the end of sentences in English.
34. You watch German T.V. and GET the jokes.
35. When people come to visit you, and you start telling them historical facts about the things you drive by.
36. You know that every black man you see is in the US Armed Forces or afri…. uh, an exchange student.
37. You crave cake at 4:00.
38. You start saying things like "I'll meet you at sixteen o'clock".
39. Bread, cheese and cold cuts constitute dinner.
40. You can name more German politicians than German actors/actresses.
41. When purchasing presents you prioritize them as useful over being enjoyed.
42. You heat each room in your house separately.
43. When you talk about a two room apartment, the living room counts as one of those rooms.
44. Everything you eat needs to have nutritional value and you justify fatty things with "it's healthy".
45. Driving half an hour to go somewhere is a hassle.
46. $1,000 a year tuition seems like a lot of money.
47. You think soccer is the best sport ever invented.
48. Aldi satisfies all of your shopping needs.
49. All of your shoes are sensible.
50. You call your cell a "handy".

Maybe you can find yourself in some of those topics...

what do you think about beauty?

Somebody paid for me (and I don't have to give it back)

Today we went out for lunch. It was a Greek Restaurant and we had very delicious greek starters and different kinds of grilled meat afterwards. I was pretty sure that we could pay with (credit-)cards, but when it was time to ask for the bill the waitress told me that I could pay cash only. Suddenly we had a problem...

We decided one of us should stay at the restaurant and the other one should go and find an ATM nearby to get some money.
We still were discussing that point when suddenly a man - one of the guests (a STRANGER!) not far away from our table - approached and said: Excuse me, I heard what your problem is. How much money do you need? Would 20,- EUR be enough? I can give you 20 € and whenever you come back to this place you can give the money back to the waiter and he will give it to me.

For one moment I thought: STOP - what kind of show is that - am I dreaming? A stranger is coming to us, asking if he can pay for us? Not knowing if he will ever get it back? But YES, it was true!!!

So we could pay and OF COURSE we went straight to an ATM, got some money and went back to that friendly man to pay our debt.

I still can't believe what happened today and I realized that this is almost the same what Jesus did for me, no, he did much more - because I don't have to pay back, what he did for me.

It is such a big deal, when a stranger offers you 20 EUR, just for nothing and you can pay it back any time. Now imagine what Jesus did - he came to the world (we remember that at christmas time) and died to save us... how can this be payed back???