germany 101

                                  ignoring the blood of his brother's on the butcher's smock, pig has a beer.

i realized earlier this morning i've lived here in germany for almost five months. it's weird, most of the time i forget i'm in germany. it kinda just feels like up north with thick accents. but i thought i'd make a post with all the fun differences in germany.

• there are no such things as a walmart. yes, there are stores similar to walmart, but there is no walmart. this might seem stupid, but believe me- when you are trying to shop on the cheap, you grow to miss walmart and the dysfunctional people who frequent it.
• everything closes on sunday. sunday is a day of rest. germans take this seriously, so i hope you bought TP the day before because you're SOL on sunday. everything usually closes earlier during the week too, so that's different
• bakeries everywhhhhhhhhhhere. pasteries everyyyyyyyywhere. GELATO EVERYWHERE. it's not a bad trade off for the no walmart deal.
• music is stuck in a weird twilight zone of the eighties/seventies, plus it's in german so it's really strange. it does provide a good laugh every now and then.
• you gotta pay to pee! public restrooms are not free. it can be anywhere from .50 to 1 euro to pee. sometimes you get the euro back, sometimes not. you also have to pay for shopping carts a lot of the time.
• festivals are all the time. these involve brats, crepes, and more yum yums
• autobahn isn't as scary as people make it out to be- as long as you realize grandma will pass you. grandma is not afraid to push it to the limit.
• i'm not sure when kids actually go to school at the german schools here. i've been out in the economy during the afternoon and kids are out of school, off busses by noon...i have no idea. maybe it's a german thing
• you end up chalking up a lot of things to it being "a german thing"

all in all, it's not too bad. the best part of all of this is that i get to experience it with my best friend, my husband. the best partner in crime i could ask for, it's an adventure always with my other half.

ohana means family!

At the end of this week, my tiny daughter human bean face will be 20 weeks old. and if you know basic math and the basic gestation period of a human, you'd realize that i will be halfway through my pregnancy. excuse me while i scream in excitement. don't get me wrong- i love growing my daughter because the eventual outcome will be her in my arms and my life. BUT i cannot deal with the joys of pregnancy. bloat, constipation, mood swings (this is Dane's favorite.), aversion towards foods (another of his favorites...i make dinner time a real event), all that "joy" can kindly make it's way to my ass and kiss it. However, I have a half cooked daughter, and now I am starting to becoming anxious about her arrival.

i feel like a kid on christmas a lot of the time. there is SO much i want to show her, share with her, do with her.  everytime i go on pintrest, i find tons of projects i want to craft with her, to make for her. i want her to be comfortable being covered in paint, to enjoy sticky fingers and to always create.

i want her to know the rainbow goblins like my husband, and to meet the weird parents like i did (she's going to end up with them, anyway- at least her mother will be ;)). i will show her david the gnome like my grandparents let me watch, and definitely let her watch shelley duvall's bedtime stories. yes, i am planning on let my daughter watch TV, and i'm sorry if you think it's bad for her. she won't be parked in front of it all day, but she can learn to enjoy different programs (that apparently are all from the nineties...only decade worth a damn to me.)

i know her dad will teach her how to be comfortable with the outdoors, to learn to respect and love nature. we will both teach her that Tolkien is a apart of her family, and he needs to be treated with love and respect, too. As for Tolkien, i hope he just deals with her being here and doesn't give more care than that. i'm not asking for them to be bff, but just to live with each other.

anyway, before this gets too long- i want her to know she is being born into a wonderful, amazing, crazy full of love family that isn't just me, Dane and Tolkien- it's great grandparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, godparents. even if everything else I want for her is lame in her eyes, i hope she knows how magical her life will be, just because of all the love that fills it.

and that's all for now...t-minus 20 months weeks till the birth of my little girl- and the end of pregnancy!