Breathe.

Happy first day of spring to all of you! We´ve so been yearning for it.

Walls.

This is the wall of our small bathroom. Nice, isn´t it?

 I´ve always wanted to paint a Union Jack on something, and last Friday, I figured I had red, blue and white paint at hand - from my previous wall painting projects - and the time to do it. It only took about an hour, though, and now looks a lot nicer than before.

Also, it serves as a subtle reminder to my husband, in case he should forget where I´d like to spend this year´s summer... ;)

So I thought I´d walk around the rooms and show you some more of our wall decorations... like this one:

 I rececntly painted some canvases with my sons, and we used an old newspaper to cover the table. On that paper, there was this special camel, and Miro liked it so much he wanted to keep it. He also wrote the caption himself, and I found the end result so lovely I put it on my newly painted blue kitchen wall.

The two smaller paintings they did, those went to the guest bath room. In case you were wondering, they show pirate islands, of course.

This is our couchsurfer wall. If you ever come and visit us, or we come and visit you, a picture of you will go there, and we also like to add stuff from our travels - there´s the package of pain meds I bought in Moscow, when my teeth were hurting, or tickets to museums, or a Paris metro ticket, of course,  Ukrainian chocolate wrappers and an orthodox icon. And yes, it´s completely cluttered. The phrase "to make a mess" was one of the first english phrases I learned from my english hostmother. As in "Try not to make such a mess, okay?"
I like to define it as art :)
Like this spot:

...where I store my old glass jars, and wall painting utensils, for future use. And recently hung up my autographed Tyler Ward poster and concert ticket :) And yes, that´s felt wool in that one jar. Pinterest project.
Wanna see more clutter - eh - art?

That´s the top of our piano, where I hung Ronja´s Hundertwasser artwork.

And the last one:

Two quotes on my new red kitchen wall - the one from Harry Potter has been on my wall for ages, and in fact I plan on getting it tattoed as soon as I aquire the money for a new tattoo. The other one changes from time to time. Right now it´s a "A cup of tea solves everything" - I found that kitchen appropriate, and I do like tea.
So, those are my walls.
Music for today:
Don´t laugh. I´m trying my best to be as cool as Eva. 

I know it sounds mediocre at best... but compared to one year ago, we are awesome.
And you know... when we play, it´s so much fun, we actually feel as if we were these guys:

So this is a combination of Eva´s favourite song - Taylor Swift´s love story - and my favourite song - Coldplay´s Viva la Vida. The point where the two songs merge always completely fills me with joy. It´s best played at full volume, with the windows open, fresh air streaming inside and all neighbours turning their heads as they pass.

Fun with my son

(do you note the singular of "son"? That´s rare!)

Today I went out with Miro. And just with Miro. And nobody else. 

Mehmet was sick today, he spent all day on the sofa, and I read stories to him and played boardgames or let him watch the Smurfs on youtube. And a great deal, he slept. 

That left Miro without his favourite partner, and me with cabin fever - today was the first day of spring here, T-shirt weather, and I happily wore my short skirt (along with my woolen hat, okay. But still!)

So, when he finally fell asleep, and Eva was back, I took little Miro out into the wild. 
And we loved it. I really enjoyed spending time with him.  

When you leave the trail, you come to a river crossing, that can be passed via a fallen tree:

Yep, I had fun trying out the panorama function of Ronni´s camera. Somehow, it´s not that impressive...

We had even more fun dangling our feet from that tree...

...and Miro was enthusiastic about his dirty hand - he had found an old branch that, at somepoint in it´s history, must habe been in a fire, hence it had turned into coal. We talked about that. And later, he smeared the black dirt all over his face, and mine, giggling.

Also, he highly enjoyed stipping into the mud. Of course he did. And he liked it even more when his rubber boots got stuck, and Ihad to pull him out and get his boots out of the mud, so he repeated that several times.

We tried throwing rocks and sticks into the water, to see what floated, and what sank. We saw trails of birds, and we played catch and run, and found one single, freezing bee at the beehouse. And Miro asked all sorts of cute questions, like, "Mom, air is always touching us, all the time, isn´t it? Mom, is the ground dead? Because we walk on it all the time, and sometimes even the cars drive over it. Mom, why do they have papa Smurf, but not uncle Smurf? Mom, will Nisrin marry me, if I catch her? Can she move in with us? And do you think she will marry me if I buy her Hello Kitty stuff? Because girls like that, I know they do. And can you build a viking boat with me?"
Oh, he´s so awesome. I just never realize that, when he always comes as a couple with his twin. I can get so much closer to him, and have such interesting conversations with him, when he´s not always running around with his brother. We really need to do this more often, and as soon as Mehmet´s back into the saddle again, I need to take him out, as well.

Because it´s spring. This week, it really, completely, in all aspects, is spring.

Giving you one nice, happy song:
Love, love, love it. Listened to it on repeat today, and yesterday, and the day before. I love to stomp my feet to it, and pretend to do a wild country dance to it, while Eva rolls her eyes, and I love to harmonize with it. I like lyrics that tell stories, or paint pictures, and this one, it paints such bright, vivid pictures. 

Blissfull

I had 4 hours of sleep last night, and I´m pretty sure I´ll crash during this day, but so far, the endorphine rush is still going strong, and I still can´t stop smiling like a mad teenager. I was almost reluctant going to that Tyler Ward concert yesterday - I was kinda tired, and I thought I´d rather stay home and write a little.
That´s always a good option for spending an evening.
But I had the ticket, and so I kicked myself a little and went.

And it was GIGANTIC! It was the best concert I´ve been to so far, and I honestly mean this. I mean, I´ve seen Paul McCartney life, who left me nostalgic, and John Mayer, who left me sort of dissapointed, and Ingrid Michaelson, who was awesome and left me in a hugging puddle with my best friend, and Biffy Clyro, who left me deaf, and Lifehouse and Taylor Swift and, over the years, most of my favourite artists. Going to life shows is one of my passions. But yesterday night really was exceptional.

80% of the time, he didn´t even sing, I think, but just pointed the microphone at the crowd. A crowd that knows every word of every song. It´s so much fun to be part of one massive choir of 1500 voices.
He did play some terrific guitar solos, I didn´t know he was this good. And the connection he´s got with the audience is just amazing. As soon as he´s on stage, everybody seems to mirror his big grin, and then it´s just one blur of bouncing and laughing and cheering and singing. Like this:

(huh? What did I say about taking good pictures? Forget about it :) )

And we were especially lucky. It happened to be his birthday, so he stuck around for hours after the show, chatting with all his fans, and signing stuff. So, when the show was over, everyone just stayed, the crowd, the band, the opening act. I had a nice chat with the opening act, who I´d seen before, opening for Lifehouse, in the same venue, and of course I got my autoghraphed poster from Tyler and the band. (I´m 31. I should be embarressed for behaving like a teenager. But I´m not. I´m just cheerfull.) And it was so awesome being in a crowd, singing "Happy birthday" after every second song.
Well, and that´s why I missed all trains, and came home at half past two in the morning, after spending one lovely hour at the Cologne central train station. You meet the most amazing people around midnight at the central station of a metropol, did you know that? People who tell you about their fresh divorce, and funny black men who sing with you and hug you and tell you that music people shine from the inside. Oh yeah, they do.
And then my alarm clock rang at 6. But it´s not bad. I felt happy and fully awake all morning long, carrying most of my blissfull "I want to hug the world"-mood to the kids, and then my friend fixed me a huge coffee, so I should be fine :)
And I´m sorry for rambling. I just thought, well... this is sort of my diary, so I´d like to keep last night in there.
Song for today:

This was the first Tyler Ward song I found on youtube, two years ago, and I still remember the mood I was in and what I was thinking about. I still like it a lot.
And I just ordered my ticket for October 16th :) No writing that night!

Why...

...do my sons ask the nice Ukrainian busker if he can play like Darth Vader?
And why have they started to ask me, daily, when they can start Cello lessons?
That´s why:

A Cello video I can watch with all male memebers of the family! Yay!
I´m not too convinced about the Cello lessons, though. Not that I wouldn´t be in favor for all sorts of instrumental lessons - it´s just that I´m not sure if they are old enough to understand what they´d be getting into. They are just babies, for the moment.

On another note... why does the weather still look like November, even though it´s supposed to be spring? It´s annoying. Well, we just pretended it was spring, anyway, and planted our carrots, salad, and sweet peas for the summer this weekend.
And tonight I´ll be going to another Tyler Ward concert. I´ve seen him live last November, and he gave a bright, fun, energetic performance that left you smiling for the rest of the week, so... I´m happy he likes Germany enough to apparently come here on a regular basis :)
And maybe tonight, I´ll even manage to a) get a proper place in line and b) take some nice pics. We´ll see, we´ll see :)

Good Night...

This is just a quick post, to wish you a sweet night, and to share this artist I just found - she´s norwegian, and like everything norwegian, she´s mindblowing and amazing. I´m so happy to surf for music again, to be free to roam while all my family is asleep, and I thoroughly enjoy having a hard time deciding which song to listen to first.
We went to a cave today. It was very lovely, and my sons were really excited and clung to the caveleader´s (caveman´s?) legs, deeply interested in stalaktites and stalakmites, which we now can all tell apart. I wasn´t allowed to take photos, though.
Tomorrow I´m selling old books on a fleamarket to raise money for new, better books, for our school library. I like books. And I like music.

Back...

... from my involuntary blogging break.
My old notebook could not be rescued. I took it to the computer store in town, which is, by the way, run by a lady in her 60´s, with long, bleached hair, thick pink lipstick and a gigantic decoltée, who is constantly smoking. I found she was pretty cool. Like, my new idol :)
Yet, she wasn´t able to repair my computer, because the motherboard had crashed, due to overheating. So... I had to say good bye.
I know I´m being pathetic.
And she could retrieve my data, since the harddrive wasn´t hurt. I spent some lonely days without a computer - which was especially unnerving because I had been eagerly writing on my story when my computer broke, and I so wanted to continue.
My husband brought me this old little Dell computer I´m now typing from. He got it from the company he works for, for almost free, and the cool lady from the computerstore installed all the drivers and built in a soundcard, and she did all that for 20 Euros. Cool, huh?
And yep, over the weekend, I didn´t even have sound, and not being able to surround myself with constant music annoys me to no end.
Well, I had to play the piano myself. Some extra practice is not so bad, I guess.
And I´m happy we don´t have to spend any money on a new computer - I want to save it all for summer.
Just in case you´ve been wondering what I´ve been doing (apart from missing my old computer...)

Sure I´ve continued painting the walls, in this case, Mehmet´s room, who needed a makeover more than any other room. It now looks something like this:

Still not perfect. The picture yet needs to be hung up, and basically, he needs more practical furniture, and less clutter. The hard thing about kids´ rooms is that there´s so much clutter you´re not allowed to get rid of... because what´s clutter and what´s precious depends on the owner´s definition.
Like this:

All the assorted plastic smurfs/dwarfs/ monster, who all have a name and a role and a function in the neverending game my sons are playing.
The case they are in?
It´s a seedling tray I found in the garden store. For free. And we attached it to the wall with sticky tape. It might look a little like rubbish, but I still think it´s genious.
Speaking of seedlings:

 I started a "Where the wild things are" work group in kindergarten. Just in case you missed that book so far, it´s an amazing book by Maurice Sendak. In this first week, we planted cress, as to see if it´s actually possible for a forest to grow in a room overnight, and what said forest would need.

We also talked about which animals, or animal parts we can find in the wild things, and colored coloring pages - there´s a galore of them on the internet.
The big kids, from my school library group, I took to the big library in town...

...where we were allowed to witness how the returned books run through the magic sorting machine. Woo-hooo!
I´m off to them - my weekly group is about to start in an hour and I still need to assemble my material for today. And after that, I´m meeting with a friend, for chatting and letting all eight of our kids play together. And tonight, when all the kids are asleep, I´m going to play with the big girls. "Play" as in boardgames.
Looking forward to that.
Music:

These girls are very unique. I´d love to see them live one day.