Fun times ahead - sportive planning of the future :o)

Hah! I made a wonderful discovery today! A sports-related discovery :o)

On Friday, I received the confirmation for cancelling my gym membership. Which gives me time, space, and freed-up money to go look for an alternative. And glancing over to my goals list, those alternatives could very well involve dancing Salsa and doing Kung Fu. Or in short, dancing and martial arts :o) Both are activities that I extremely enjoy, yet rarely do while I'm in the country. And these goals were brought on-board to end this insane absence of something that gives me so much energy this year.

Turns out, we have an absolute gem in Bochum: Die Körperwerkstatt, or body garage, a place were gym equipment meets martial arts passion and dancing expertise! They have an extremely comprehensive martial arts program (Kung Fu, Tae Kwan Do, Capoeira, Muay Thai / Thaiboxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and even rarities like Krav Maga and Vale Tudo (I have no idea what that is...)]. Additionally they have Tai Chi and personal defense, which might be a nice addition - but I am soooo excited about the sort of energy that I could draw from studying that kind of variety of fighting!!! I didn't even realize that Capoeira was a fighting style, I always thought of it as more of a dance.

Speaking of dancing, in their dance segments they offer everything from Jazz dance, Modern, Ballet, Street Dance, Hip Hop, "Latin Moves", something called Body & Soul, and Zoomba. Plus classes on Tap Dance and Flamenco. How crazy is that?! Crazy beautiful!!

And the BESTESTEST thing of all is that ALL the classes are evening courses! There is one single class that starts at 5 p.m. (which I won't be able to make due to the commute), but all the other classes (both dance & fights) take place between 6 and 9 pm, Monday through Friday, with afternoon classes on weekends.

Soooo excited :o)

I still have to check exact costs for all of this, but they offer a student discount and charge for what you'll actually use, so I will make this work!

One of the reasons why I sort of stopped going to my previous studio was that it was somewhat out of town. So when I got to Bochum after work, I would have to take an additional train to a different part of town, and then after training would have to commute all the way across town again to go home.

Körperwerkstatt sits RIGHT next to the train station. Taking the exit where I always take my tram, I can almost spit to them from there! (well ok, that's slightly optimistic, but it's in plain sight). So no more last minute decisions about which tram to take - training tram or home tram... :o)

Boy am I excited!!! :o)

Two letters, two more goals?

Sunday. Poetry in one word.

Outside, the weather was grey and freezing cold all day long, so I had absolutely no bad feelings for staying indoors the entire day. And it looks like the next couple of days are going to bring some ice-cold breezes with them...

So apart from sleeping through the day, eating, doing laundry, eating, and sleeping, I didn't do all that much goal-reviewing. Well, there are two more days left in the month, so what's the rush, right?

I did, however, finish two letters to accomplish two more goals: I now have officially cancelled my gym membership. Maybe tomorrow I can tell you a bit about the alternative that I've been checking out :o)

And letter number two is the response to the DRV's letter to get my retirement account cleared for good. This should remain interesting for a while.

That's it, what a great Sunday :o)

So what have you guys been up to today?

G to the O to the A to the L - G.O.A.L.!!

GOOOOOOAAAAAAL!!

No, I am NOT a soccer fan :o) Today I completed my first goal for 2012! And totally out of the blue, too.

As you might or might not have noticed, for some of the goals on my list it will be kind of hard to tell when I actually achieved them. They are not exactly S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Some of them are more a reminder to myself to do more of something in a given period of time (e.g. "people-watching", "more live music"). Others are bound to a specific task, but are not in themselves telling me when I can check them off the list ("grow onions", "grow peppers"). I guess, since it is the end of the first month of the year, it might be time to re-evaluate some goals. (hm, are my goals getting S.M.A.R.T.E.R. then? :o))

ANYWAY, Dennis dragged me out to the "city"-center of Bochum today, and while we were perusing the better of its five streets, we stopped at a cell phone shop.

You should know that I have been with the same cell phone company for the past eleven years (geeeeeeeez...), and what can I say, I was always very pleased with the service & products of o2. But for some reason, I really don't like going into cell phone shops, which is why I usually stay out of them (duh.). Well, not this time. As I mentioned earlier, Dennis dragged me into the store, was instantly recognized by the two lovely ladies in the shop as he had changed his cell phone plan in the past week and has been totally excited about it.

We left the shop about 5 minutes later - equipped with a new cell phone plan for myself, the confirmation for a better deal for Dennis, and all the info that I might need to get myself a new phone. The exciting part, though, is that by midnight tonight, I will have a plan that costs half of what I usually calculate for a month (50€, now at 24,99€), I have unlimited calls to o2 customers, unlimited calls to (German) landlines, 120 minutes of calling per month free to all other phone companies, 120 SMS free per month, PLUS UNLIMITED INTERNET ACCESS. It might be hard to grasp, but for someone who really enjoys the internet, I have been pretty backward and old-fashioned regarding the whole mobile trend. I always thought that calling and texting is quite enough for a phone to handle. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't even fully understood how bluetooth works...

For a while now, though, I have been getting confronted with all sorts of advertisements and recommendations for various apps - AND I'M DYING OF CURIOSITY HERE!

So now, I have the cell plan to actually access the internet. I'm not convinced that my current phone (a 5-year old HTC XDA Nova) is up to the task, but I can use a newer phone that was surprisingly gifted to me last week (a vodafone 858 smart).

So watch this space for all sorts of app reviews to come :o)

Goal #1 - DOWN! Thanks, Dennis :o)

Pidgeons, Pirates, Proclamations

Friday oh Friday, thou hast such beautiful hours in you!

The weather was perfect today! After a busy week at work, I managed to take off early today - getting the benefit of glorious sunshine, mild temperatures, a fresh breeze and hoppin' good mood :o)

I stopped in Essen on my way home, grabbed some Asia noodles, and planted my four letters right in the middle of the sunshine, overlooking the busy shoppers hustling by to catch some of those final winter sale discounts. I must say, I felt thoroughly content.

Then, of course, I noticed the growing crowd of pidgeons greedily eyeing me. I suppose they were rather eyeing my food, but briefly I felt like I had just entered a pirate movie - Stan, limping, with one foot only a stump, Pete, messy, with dishevelled feathers all over the place, John Jack Guybrush with an eye hanging out of a socket (ok, I made that one up).

Pidgeons really are the rats of the air. Although contrary to my belief that rats are damn smart, pidgeons always strike me as mind-numbingly idiotic.

I sat there, watching three of them inching their way forward, smelling the food (do birds even have a sense of smell?!). Occasionally, I would shift my positions rapidly to shoo them off a bit. Then a good couple of feet away, someone must have dropped something, and all of them took of, hustling over to the single crumb of whatever, with pidgeons flying in from all over the area! They must have been around 15 by then. By the time they realized that what had been dropped had mostly been a bottle cap (and thus not entirely edible), ALL OF THEM decided to come back over to my place! Only this time, they weren't satisfied with shuffling on the floor but found their spots right next to me on the wall. Great. Fortunately, they are easily shooed away.

Remember the pidgeon lady from Home Alone 2 in New York? You get the idea :o)

Well, sunshine, food, people-watching, and shopping, what more can you want on an average day :o) One of my professors once noted that women are odd creatures. They love shopping, hope to find a good deal, but if they fail to find something, there's always a "Claire's" or "Six" close by to at least buy herself a set of earrings.

Wise words, mister. Look at what I found :o)

Welcome to the globalized world :o)

You got........ MAIL!

I gotta tell ya, I LOVE getting mail :o) It's odd, even if I just receive pamphlets that don't really apply to me, I get mildly excited.

And today I had prime mail content (no, not the winning lottery ticket, but that would have been nice as well. I'd be available tomorrow...?).

I received:
- the confirmation for opening my state-backed retirement insurance (Riester)
- a reaction to the account clearing measures I took regarding my national retirement account two weeks ago
- an advertisement from ING DiBa (a bank) for a free checking account with a bunch of additional free features

This means that three of my goals have been tackled today, without me having to do anything for it! (well, today).

Point 1:
I am now waiting for one final document on the business retirement account that I signed up for, then I will consider myself thoroughly retirement-prep'ed. Ok, sure, I will have to check back in a while to see whether I'm on track, but I feel like now I can just let things run for themselves for a decent while.

Point 2:
That the agency that is taking care of my national retirement account is reacting tells me that my efforts to let them know about missing entries has worked (yay!). Two more files to fill out, and the reaching of goal "sorting out retirement account" is in very close proximity :o)

Point 3:
Receiving advertisements that are actually useful must be a clear indication that my goalsetting is being responded to by the universe (*^_^*) I LIKE!

So on top of receiving mail, I received USEFUL mail. GOAL Mail :o)
That just makes my day.
Good night!

where art thou, volunteer opportunity?

First day back to work this week, so I didn't think I was going to do much for my goals. Apart from earning a salary, that is ;o)

It turns out though that the señorita that I take the train with knows a thing or two about volunteering in Bochum - which is currently my home town.

So far, I haven't really put that much thought into giving to a charity, to be honest. There are enough bills to pay as it is. But I figured I could throw in some of my time. Back in 2005, I took part in a volunteer camp in England, situated beautifully in the Peak District National Park, with grit and lime stone formations, rolling hills, endless blue skies... I loved it there! For two weeks, I was part of a group of internationals that were shuttled around Peak District to different work locations, building bridges, fixing gateways, cleaning footpaths, clearing thickery. I don't think I ever felt more alive than during those two weeks. Of course, the weather was mostly miserable, some days were freezing cold, and sore muscles were just part of the day - but that's what I loved about it. At the end of the day, I was totally exhausted while knowing exactly what I had achieved that day. As my dad frequently says: if you want to be happy, be a gardener.

Anyhow, I was listening to the radio and surfing the web, when some news came on about a new German agency (Bundesfreiwilligendienst) which was called to life to fill in for the previously mandatory civil & military services. I think last year, German politics decided to cancel the mandatory youth services, so the system is now gradually switching to a volunteer-based approach.

I even found some interesting projects on there. The only draw back is that these positions are supposed to be full-time (or at least 20 hours a week), for a minimum of 6 months straight. Great in theory but not feasible for me at the moment.

My commuting partner then mentioned that she is newly involved with a group of kids to teach them about animals and the environment - once a month, for a couple of hours on a Saturday. Now that sounds like a time frame that I could work with.

That's were my next research will be taking me :o)

If I don't find anything right now, there are always other ways of giving back that can be integrated into daily life without major changes, and even at no expense to you. For example when ordering from amazon, you could use the link amazon.mpconsult.eu (to order from amazon.de) or from amazon.com to have Amazon pay a part of your shopping expenses to Sarnelli House, an orphanage for young kids in thailand that have been infected with HIV upon birth. If you would be interested in learning more about Sarnelli, let me know and I will connect you to the people who can give you the information you are looking for.

If you happen to know of any volunteer opportunities that involve outdoor activities, please drop me a line in the comments - I'd love to hear about them!

That's it for tonight, sleep tight!

Anger Management

I just spent the better part of the day obsessing with the search of a little table or container to put next to our bed, as a night stand or shelf to store books and magazines and such. Problem: The slot is only a little over 40 cm wide.

I'm going insane over this! Of course there is a great variety of things, but very little that's actually appealing to me.

Then I found this:
(sorry, the pic is not working, here's the link)

And absolutely LOVED it.

Want to know what the problem is? It costs freaking 399€!!!!!! Plus 59,90€ in shipping and handling!!!! ARRRGH! I am currently quite pissed that I don't (YET!) lead the life that would allow me to just briefly check my cash balance and say "ah, what the hell" and click the order button!

But hey, something to look forward to, right?

While sulking about the whole thing, the idea came to mind to make this my DIY-project for the year... I once built wooden CD shelves and also a book board. Plus I like working with wood.

So we'll see.

I'll go cool off now. Have a good one.

Sorting, Planting, Chocolate fingers

Hey y'all! (Have I mentioned that I spent a year in Northern Michigan? ;o))

Back here after a good day at work yesterday. Last night, I got stuck on reading Questionable Content, a highly recommendable web comic - that is if you don't object to sexual puns and lots of swear words!

So today I set out to do some goal work! As today is Saturday, I did what I usually do on a Saturday morning - clear the piles of papers, notes, books and mail off my desk that usually gets accumulated over the week. Part of that pile was the thick folder of files for Thursday's Civil Servant Adventure, so those are now safely stored in about 4 different ring binders. I did tell you that I was a structure freak, right?

Reward: a cleared desk. Brown (ok, slighty greyish, it could use some dusting). I am mentioning this because not too long ago, it was hard to ever find a spot of surface of this desk. For Christmas, I bought myself a file registry, in the shape of a slick black box. Now I can sort all the things that still need doing in the corresponding file and have it out of sight until I need it :o) Hence the empty desk. I do realize that this sounds incredibly geeky, but hey.

Anyhow, today's post was supposed to be about plants! I just spent the better half of an hour listening to Jethro Tull, planting all of the following:

- 2 sprouting onions
- 4 mandarine seeds
- roughly 70 red pepper seeds, using the mini green houses!

Sprouting onions.

The onions just got stuck into wet soil, bottoms down, sprouts out into the air. As I have no idea whether this will work, I'm excited to see what comes out of them.

The mandarine seeds I just lightly pushed into the wet soil. Can you spot the four white dots?

As I was told to put them in a dark and warm corner, they ended up in my garlic & onions drawer :o) I'll just have to make sure that I don't forget the mandarines there and keep watering them...

The red pepper seeds I just spread out over the punched sheets, mixed them with soil, and soaked the mix with a spray gun.

More wet soil on top, clear foil around it, voila. Please note that I have no idea what I am doing here, so don't do that at home unless you can live with the subprime consequences ;o)




I was thinking about calling the goal "grow onions" achieved, but I guess I'll wait and see whether they actually thrive. If not, I have about 360 days to try again!

That's the thing with making your goals less than crystal clear, you can't be sure when you have achieved them... I might have to toughen them up a bit :) But this will be a work in progress - this year is all about formulating, pursuing and achieving goals! I'd love if some of you joined me and shared their ideas, stories, successes and setbacks with me!

Have a great Saturday evening! We'll be watching HappyThankYouMorePlease - saw it on the plane to Thailand this/last summer and loved it! If you've heard about the TV series How I Met Your Mother, main actor Josh Radnor aka Ted Mosby directed the movie! Well worth seeing!

Enjoy!

Wonderful Sundays

Could the year begin with anything better than a Sunday?

It's incredibly mild outside today, so a distinct feeling of spring time is sneaking around the house :o)

Which brought me to starting some prep work for tackling my goals. From our fruit chocolate fondue last night, I saved mandarin seeds. A little while ago, I also dried the seeds of red peppers.

It seems that, when rearranging our kitchen, I apparently didn't do too good a job of storing the onions (supposedly in a dark place), therefore I have two prime examples for sprouting onions now :o) I just read that onions should grow into leek when you stick them in soil. I guess I'll give that a try! Should work the same with garlic, they said.

Regarding the peppers, I just learned that the red ones are the ripest of the bunch, so seeds from red peppers are the most likely to succeed! Lucky me :o) Now I just have to find a way to avoid the disastrous effects of my missing green thumbs ;o) At green-24.de they had all sorts of helpful information. Google is your friend after all. I am tempted to ignore the time frames they give though - I will give it a shot to let them sprout in the middle of the winter, indoors.

And the mandarin seeds seem to sprout best in a dark surrounding and damp soil, and once the greens appear, move them to a sunny place.

Hah, I just found a lady that created a photo series on how to build your own mini greenhouse out of a juice box :o) It's in German, but the pictures are self-explanatory! Things like this make me happy :o)

Will keep ya posted and have a great start into the new year!

Step by step into the life of my dreams

It's here! Happy new year, everyone!

I had a fabulous time last night. We opted for bypassing the happy party people in Cologne and Frankfurt and instead had an excellent chocolate fondue with a variety of fruit (including a Khaki (?) that my friend Dorothée left us with), a Billy Joel Live in Concert experience, and watched Michael Jackson's This is it. I am amazed at what that man could do with his body. Not that this is news, but shockingly, to me it was. Sure, I had seen the moon walk, but to have an entire crew of people do the robo dance in sync that just screams MICHAEL was pretty spectacular.

Billy Joel did a concert together with Paul McCartney. This made me think: a) for next year's new year's celebration, I could definitely do with a live concert, and b) I will have to add another goal to my list: MORE LIVE MUSIC!

Then we watched how our neighborhood blasted itself into pieces. It was pretty, for the most part. I also got to sit on my window pane. From the soreness of my bum, though, I am now more convinced than ever to tackle my goals of cozying up that prime spot.

Can't wait for this year to happen :o)

Goalsetting for the new year

Hello world.

I've been off the grid for a number of years, leading the "normal" life. Steady job. Paying the bills. Finding a partner in crime.

But it's time to make some changes. The job will have to stick around for a while, so no major life-altering decisions ahead just yet. However, what about a creeping revolution one step at a time?

Bear with me. Have you heard of the Big Five for Life? The five things that you want to achieve in your life before handing over the spoon? Well, jumping of a cliff? You know what I mean. I've read the book, loved it, but haven't really succeeded in figuring out my exact five things.

In case you've never met me, here's the overview: Ran off for a number of times to flee the country, supposedly to figure out what to do with my life. Loved the experience! Returned to Germany, bartended at a charmingly run-down Irish pub in central Cologne. Met the man of my dreams at the bar, where he was talking with my colleague about motorbikes while drinking soda. I was immediately attracted :o)

Fast forward three years and here I am, with my beautiful list of (more or less) concise goals, putting myself up for the challenge to actually achieving them. By now this list is hopefully visible to your right :o)

Be warned - I am somewhat of a structure freak, so expect lots of lists and mindmaps!

Hope you're enjoying the ride :o)
Elena