Tag: reflective

One step in front of the other

Watch your step

I have a hard time putting my feelings about what is going on in the world into words. I am still as heartbroken, disillusioned and deflated as I was 2025. I had to be offline for a while. Reading the news each day to find out what hellish thing the government is cooking up next was and still is a lot. The only other thing I kept holding on to was Instagram to have something easy and quick.

I tried to make and keep up with in person connection. On a personal level the year has been good to me. I still have my job what is a miracle in itself considering the turmoil the US academic research is in, my online book club is keeping me reading (stumbled on via Instagram and met in partly person for the first time last summer), the kids (both in high school now) are doing well, made some new friends, caught up with some old ones and managed to finish a couple of house projects including a complete rewire. We got to visit our families in Germany last summer, vacationed on Corfu, Greece and visited our friends in Las Vegas. So on we go, one step in front of the other. I know I am lucky and am thankful for it.

The local county has a winter walk challenge I joined. They send out an e-mail each week with prompts what to look for during your walk and you can submit a picture in order to win a price. The above is my submission for week 1’s “Watch Your Step”. I am going to start posting about this weekly from now on – maybe it helps me getting back to my online community that I neglected for way to long. I hope you can forgive me.

Something to look forward to: my friend’s birthday tea party

What are you looking forward to?

Counting down the days

KornblumenOnly five more days and me and my little guy will be sitting on a plane to Germany. I usually try to visit our families every summer for a decent amount of time. This year it is going to be a whole month! So looking forward to this. Since we live so far away this is the only time that the kids meet most of their relatives. The grandparents usually try to visit us ones a year but for everyone else it gets harder to make the trip work.
Compared to US standards Germany is not that big and luckily my dad and my parents in law live fairly close near Hanover, but there is also Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg and Zurich in the mix from aunts and uncles. Our friends are also scattered all over the place now but seem to mostly collect in Berlin. My best friend from Berkeley actually moved to Berlin for a year and I hope I get to see her. Back in the days when we did not have the Green Card yet we had to visit Berlin almost every time to renew our visa. As annoying as that was sometimes I also enjoyed it. I love that city! I would not mind living there – sigh.

This year it is going to be extra special since my sister in law is getting married. It is going to be so fun!

Did you notice that I only mentioned my son flying with me? My daughter went ahead for the first time this year! So exciting! I think I was more nervous than she was. But more about that tomorrow.

One more note: Whenever we are in Germany I fall back in the typical German pattern of not wanting to drive to far for a trip. Around the Bay Area an hour in the car is nothing but back in Germany it seems like a huge commitment and we will not do that on a daily basis if avoidable. What about you? Do you hesitate to get in the car for an outing what is the maximum time commitment you are willing to take for a day trip?