D Day

I haven't decided if my title should mean Diet Day, Drinking Day or Don't Fit Into Any Clothes Day. All seem to be fitting (or maybe not). Kyle and I are headed back to the States tomorrow for a week. The forecast is 80 and sunny in Atlanta for the next five days. As excited as I am for good weather, the change from 50 to 80 degrees also means that I will have to stop wearing my jeans, sweaters and coats. Which means that I have to pull out all my summer clothes.

Last summer I just left some summer clothes in our storage because I knew they wouldn't even fit. They barely fit the summer before and the chance that they would fit last summer was not helped by the Belgian beer, cheese and chocolates. However, this summer I vowed would be different. Kyle and I joined a gym in January. I really was pretty good about going. I had even taken a few classes and could feel my endurance building. Pants were slightly looser and I was feeling healthier. I gave up alcohol and Cokes for Lent. And then my parents came. I didn't work out for a week and we ate out most meals. So today, as I am trying to find summer clothes to wear in 80 degree weather, I am striking out, or rather bulging out. The thing I don't understand is that for as much as the Belgian food is great, I think my parents can attest to how much we walk around here. You would think one might at least help off set the other.

I have a theory that whatever size you are as an adolescent is what you always see yourself as when you are an adult. Growing up I was tiny. My mom even gave me Ensure to try to put weight on me. I didn't hit 100 lbs. until the end of my sophomore year of high school. I still remember the day when I went from a size 0 to a size 2. Even in college I could eat as much as I wanted and not gain anything. So as a 26 year old, I keep feeling like I should be the "tiny one" and trust me, I am not. Time has caught up with me and I am not happy.

Maybe I can just convince people that muu-muus are the local European attire...

Ma and Pa

Sorry to not have blogged in awhile, but I enjoying touring my parents around Belgium and Holland. We had a great time seeing the tulips in Holland, a castle in Belgium, and my friends Kelly and Amy. The weather was great for them except on the one day we went to see the tulips. But at least they got to experience the true Belgian 'dramatic change in weather hour to hour' that we normally live with.

Mom and Dad did an especially wonderful job of adding the special touch of home to our apartment. Dad worked on my bike and fixed some things while mom rearranged furniture and helped pull the newlywed/hand-me-down look of our furniture together. Now if we can only keep it looking as good. Dad took lots and lots of photos, so I'll work on editing them down with him soon. In the meantime, here is a photo of mom and dad in front of the tulips.

Tight Squeeze

We have a nice size apartment for newlywed couple living in a big city and on most days I really love it. However, today is not one of those days. I keep trying to get ready for my parents arrival, but my small apartment is not cooperating. The problem with only having four rooms total is that there is no where to hide the stuff that you actually use in your everyday life. Just as I think the living room/kitchen area is clean, I realize that I need to let some laundry airdry, Kyle has papers that he is waiting to take to work, I have two presents that are waiting to be dropped off and a book that needs to be returned. It is not looking so clean and tidy anymore. My mom used to have a saying on the fridge -- "A place for everything and everything in its place." That is a nice idea, but none of this stuff really has a place, just a holding zone. I guess I will just have to accept the fact that you can't have a tidy house if you expect to also live in it.

Happy Easter!!!

We had a really nice Easter weekend. Kyle was off from work on Thursday and Friday. After travelling much of the past two weeks, he was happy to lie low and enjoy being at home. We prepared for my parents' upcoming visit by doing some cleaning and rearranging. I am having weird feelings about their seeing where we live. I didn't realize it until recently, but this will be the first time in a year and a half of married life that my mom has seen how I keep a home. Before now I always had a room in a house shared with a few roomates, and once we were married, Kyle and I were always visiting my parents' house rather than the other way around. It kind of feels backward to be changing sheets and laying out towels for my parents. For my 26 years of life the house has been my mom's domain, and all of a sudden she is on my turf now.

We had intended to take a day trip to somewhere in Belgium this weekend, but could never really get ourselves excited about the idea. Finally we just decided that we were only taking a trip to be able to say we had gone somewhere over the weekend, when in reality we were happy to just have take-out Chinese and watch a movie on the couch. So that is what we did -- and thoroughly enjoyed it I might add!

Today we went to the Lodges' house to hang out. Our friends Paola and Mat Heim were also there with their three boys -- Lucas (5), Theo (3), and Hugo (9 months). It was quite a crazy house with 7 boys under 7 running around. The Easter bunny had to make a later appearance due to some bad behavior at church earlier this morning, so we were there when the boys hunted for Easter eggs. What a heartwarming sight! Click below for a few photos from the day.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=121a73ha.2v2nr3ai&x=0&y=-wg89pe

Ireland Photos

It has taken us awhile to get these together because there are lots of them, but we finally have our Ireland photos up and going. Enjoy!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=121a73ha.6e7kc3ea&x=0&y=-3sffjh

On a roll

I had another great day on Wednesday. This many great days in a row are starting to make me worried that something bad is going to happen soon... A friend of a friend was moving out and didn't have the time (or desire) to sell any of her stuff so she was giving it away. My friends Kate, Lida and I knew we could put the stuff to good use in our own homes, so within a few hours we had lightened her load considerably! So now I have a new couch and table in my house, Kate has a bookshelf, desk, and chair in her house, and Lida has a chest of drawers and chair in her house. Kate and I were quite the sight of giggly girls in a rented van hauling stuff around.

After moving things all morning Kate and I had a knitting "date" with our friend Christina. The three of us have recently started to meet up once a week to knit together and it is a lot of fun! After knitting we wandered around Christina's neighborhood and she pointed out a few restaurants and shops to try. Then we headed to our local market that takes place on Wednesdays. I think one of my favorite things about living in Brussels/Europe are the markets. It is so wonderful to have fresh bread, eggs, chesse, fruit, veggies and flowers available only a block away every week.

The best of both worlds

I had a great day today. From 10-2 p.m. I went to a new bookstore with my friend Rachel and her 3 year old Sabine and 6 month old Leah. We had a mouthwatering croissant with some of the best butter I have ever tasted. It was definitely one of those times when I thought, "Man, I enjoy living in Europe." Sabine is precious and precocious all in one and she always makes me smile.

After our visit I got a haircut. Even though the hairdresser only spoke French, I managed to do enough hand gestures to be pleased with the outcome. I will admit that I was a bit stressed during the first few snips though.

Next I went to have coffee with my friend Emily and her four boys. Oscar beat me in a game of checkers and then proceeded to handcuff me and shoot at me. However, the boys are so sweet and polite that they are always a joy to be around. As much as I enjoy being around other peoples kids, I still don't have that motherly desire kicking in. I am sure it will one day, but in the meantime I just enjoy playing with the kids and then returning them when they need to "make poopies."

So after spending the day with a total of six kids, I am now about to head out to my monthly "Girls Without Kids Dinner." About 25 girls are on the invite list and usually about 12 end up being able to come. My only requirement for invitation is that you don't have kids. Tonight we are trying a really neat looking place called Comocomo. It should be fun...

Everything in Moderation

Kyle was at a conference in Vienna, Austria from last Tuesday until last Friday evening. We spent Saturday together and then I went with him to the train station to say goodbye on Sunday afternoon as he headed to London until this Wednesday. In the last year he has rarely had to travel, but as he is getting more familiar with a wider variety of European topics, he is traveling more.

Now I will admit that last week I kind of enjoyed having some time to myself. Obviously I love being with Kyle, but because I don't work there is kind of an odd balance in our marriage -- one that I put totally on myself. Yes, Kyle is fine to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, but if I have been home all day, why shouldn't I cook a nice meal? And if I have had time to take a nap, couldn't I also have time to do a few loads of laundry and pick up the house? Again, Kyle never thinks this, I just have a guilt ridden Catholic conscience that is always whispering to me.

So all last week while Kyle was gone I watched girlie movies in my pajamas, left clothes all over the house, ate cheese and crackers for dinner (while standing up at the kitchen counter), talked on the phone for hours, stayed out late drinking wine with my bookclub friends (and didn't call to let Kyle know I'd be home late), and took up the whole bed and didn't worry about stealing the sheets.

I thought that this week would be the exact same. But I must admit, that I think four days is the longest I really want to be without Kyle. Today I had lunch and coffee with friends and tomorrow I have two coffee get togethers and a dinner with 12 other girls, so I am still filling my time quite well. But I miss having Kyle to talk to about my day. And I miss not having someone to cook for who enjoys my food (and always tells me how good it is). And I miss not having Kyle explain some sporting event that is on TV to me. And I miss having someone to fall asleep next to.

So these two weeks have been a good reminder to me that everything needs to be in moderation. It is good for Kyle and I to be together, but it is also nice to have some time apart (just as long as it is not too much time.)

Emily, Kelly, and baby Maya

 

Cambio

I have mentioned before that we are in a car share program called Cambio. It is perfect for us because we only need a car one or two times a week, and Cambio makes it very easy to use. It is basically like renting a car, but I can use it for only two hours if I want. Some of the best parts of it are that gas and insurance are included in the cost, you open the car with a card, so you don't have to deal with people, and you don't have to return the car with a full tank of gas (just 1/4 tank!)

The cost of Cambio sounds bad at first, but compared to owning a car, we are still saving a lot of money. However, I often wonder how the amount people drive would be affected if you had to pay for driving like you do with Cambio. When you rent from Cambio, you pay 2 euros each hour you have the car and .33 per kilometer you go. There is a display screen in the car that shows how many kilometers you have been, so it is very easy to calculate as you are driving how much your bill will be.

For instance, I rented the car the other day for five hours and drove 55 km which makes my bill for that trip 28.15. To me, that sounds like a lot of money, but when you fill out this chart, you realize that driving when you own the car might be just as expensive, only you don't see the computer screen telling you exactly how expensive it is. Some food for thought...

Talk about commitment

I just came across this article in the AJC of a couple married for 76 years. Wow! It is just amazing to think of how well they knew each other and everything they had been through. Another article about a different couple that was married for 82 years is here. (Look at how sweetly he is looking at his wife!) The record for the longest marriage is 86 years. Kyle and I only have 84 1/2 more years to go to beat them!!!

By Holly Crenshaw The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 04/07/06
The secret to the long, happy marriage of Charlie B. Smith and Mae M. Smith: She led the way and he quietly followed. Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Jonesboro were married 76 years and died one day apart at Henry Medical Center near Atlanta, GA. Fittingly, she went first.

Mrs. Smith, 95, died Saturday of congestive heart failure and Mr. Smith, 96, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia. The bodies were cremated. Memorial service plans will be announced. Cremation Society of Georgia is in charge of arrangements.

"He was in one room and Mom was right across the hall, and Dad was expected to die by Saturday morning," said their son, Charlie W. Smith Sr. of Griffin. "But my mom was going to take the lead in everything, and she died Saturday morning. We figure she was up in heaven trying to arrange the place the way she wanted it before he got there. You'd have to have known her."

The Smiths met when they were working at the former Sears, Roebuck & Co. on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta and married in 1930. Mr. Smith, an Atlanta native, spent 20 years as an Atlanta firefighter based out of the No. 19 station in Virginia-Highland and retired in 1965.
Mrs. Smith, who was born near Athens, channeled her outgoing personality into telephone survey work, door-to-door census taking and volunteering at her polling center, where she'd chat up voters who knew her so well they'd bring her sausage biscuits. The dynamo earned her GED in her 60s, then took up her husband's passion for golf when she was 75.

The couple moved to Villa Rica around 1974 and threw themselves into their mutual obsession with gardening. Mrs. Smith turned their yard into a showcase for her flowers while Mr. Smith tended his vegetables. "It seemed to me that she was always telling him what to do and that he ignored her," said their former neighbor Betty Ganka of Villa Rica. "But to stay together more than 75 years, they must have had something going."

Their daughter, Marjorie S. Orr of Stockbridge, said, "Somebody asked Daddy one time how their marriage lasted so long, and he said, 'Because I stayed outside and kept my mouth shut.' But they really did a lot of things together."

The Smiths nurtured their own interests — she liked to crochet, sew and organize neighborhood potluck suppers, and he was a talented handyman — but they shared a love of deep-sea fishing and travel. Occasionally, their daughter said, Mr. Smith admitted he was happy to stay home with his tabby cat, Jerry. Mostly, though, he joined his wife on marathon cross-country treks.
"My mother could tell you every place they stopped, every penny they spent, exactly how many miles they went — she had it down," their son said. "She had a fantastic memory for details, where he was a typical man. He didn't give a damn about where he was going."

The couple, who moved to Jonesboro five years ago to be near their daughter, drove into their 90s and still lived independently. They were hospitalized a few days before their deaths.
When Mrs. Smith died Saturday, their daughter gently broke the news to Mr. Smith.
"I told him to go on, that Mother was gone, and kind of released him," she said. "He was semiconscious so I can't say for sure that he heard me, but I hope he did." After he died, a nurse at the hospital told her, "He acted like a true Southern gentleman. He let the lady go first."

It's a Girl!!!

On April 6, 2006 at 7:45p.m. Kelly gave birth to a

7 lb 14 oz little girl named Maya Theresa Willis.

Congratulations Kelly and Rich!!!

*Breaking News*

We interrupt this blog to let you know that as of 9:30a.m. Kelly Willis was being induced at the Edith Cavell hospital here in Brussels, Belgium. She will be giving birth to her third child at any moment. The parents do not know the sex, but already have to two adorable girls -- Sonny (4) and Poppy (2), so they are betting on another girl. Emily Wingfield visited Kelly at the hospital this afternoon and reports that Kelly looks great, however Emily was feeling a bit faint seeing all of the needles. We will keep you updated as soon as more news comes in. And now back to your regularly scheduled (aka killing time at work) blog.

I might as well be deaf

It has only taken me four months, but I finally worked up the courage to take a class at our gym. This might not seem like that big of a deal, but you have to remember that all of the classes are in French. When we joined the gym they said I could tell the instructor that I only spoke English and they would then teach a little of the class in English to help me out. But I didn't want to be the person that gets singled out from the entire rest of the class as the dumb American. So I just did my best to act confident and pretend that I knew what was going on. Luckily my mother has taught me well that when in doubt, just watch what everyone else is doing and and follow their lead.

I decided to go to a yoga class for my first attempt. I figured that I had taken yoga before and that the movements would be somewhat familiar. However, it is hard to relax like you are supposed to in yoga when you are straining to understand just one word from the instructor. Basically all I got from her was "breathe", but I never knew whether it was supposed to be in or out. Luckily, I happened to place myself near the worst person in the class, so I at least looked better than him.

Since I had finally faced my fear and taken a class, I decided to run with it and I took Body Pump the next day. Body Pump is where you life weights while also doing lunges, sit ups etc. There were a few people who raised their hands when the instructor asked if anyone was new, so I just followed the amount of weights she told them to use.

The funniest part of the Body Pump class was when the teacher would throw in an English word or two. Its seems that when someone says an English word in the middle of all French words, it somehow comes out sounding like it was said with a German accent. So as we are lifting weights I would suddenly hear, "Pump it!" or "Don't Stop!" but it sounded a lot more like Arnold Schwarzenegger saying it than a French woman.

My next class was Body Attack. This class seemed a lot more like my high school cheerleading practices than anything else. We were doing the craziest jumps and skips all throughout the class. The worst was when we kept having to put our arms up into a V above our heads. I got views of more hairy female armpits than I have ever seen, or care to see again. Since I kind of just zone out the instructor, I was caught off guard when I was looking down and apparently he told the class to run in a big circle. All of the sudden I look up to see 20 sweaty Europeans running towards me. Talk about a deer in headlights!

Again, I was luckily not the dumbest person in the class. This award went a blonde woman who, when she didn't want to keep doing the pushups, just sat back on her legs and wiggled her upper body to the music with a ditzy looking smile on her face. The worst was when we were jumping up and down in a circle (so all facing each other). Her chest must have been hurting her so she just put both hands smack dab over her boobs and kept on jumping.

An all around great day

I had a wonderful day today. Kyle normally takes the WSJ paper to work, but since he is out of town, I picked it up today. I was just browsing through it and all of the sudden I saw an article with his by-line on it! (Since he writes for the Editorial Page, all of his articles are usually unsigned.) I thought "Wow, what a great life to be a 26 year old living in Brussels and seeing your husband's name in a world wide paper!"

After reading Kyle's article I went to a friend's 40th birthday party. People over here do birthdays a little different than we do in the States. Over here, if you are the birthday person, you host the party for everyone else -- meaning that you bring your own cake to work to share, or you invite people out to lunch and you treat the whole group. In this case, my friend paid for a catered lunch for 25. It was a great group of women from all around the world. I will probably never again be in a room hearing about the four places in Africa an Italian woman lived while overhearing another group of women speaking German to each other and then switching to Dutch when a new woman joined the group.

After the party I did a little grocery shopping and then got ready for my bookclub. We barely talked about the book, but it was nice to catch up with everyone. Also, we found out my friend Jessica is going to have a baby boy!

Capitalist Ball Photos

They have finally posted the photos from the Capitalist Ball we went to in February. Unfortunately this group was much classier than last years, so there are not as many funny pictures. But I was able to find a few...
(I can't figure out how to get these to open in a new page, so you will just have to hit the Back button to return to the blog.)

Due to my camera radar that has been honed over the years of living with a paparazzi dad, you can tell that I knew they were taking this photo.
http://www.cne.org/2006_capball/pages/0127.htm

Kyle obviously doesn't have my photo radar talent.
http://www.cne.org/2006_capball/pages/0118.htm

I am a horrible person for making fun of this girl, but I get such a kick out of the fact that the material on her patch was the exact same material on her dress. This is only because I know that if I ever needed an eye patch to wear to a formal my mom would figure out some way to make me a matching one too.
http://www.cne.org/2006_capball/pages/2006_CNE_capball%20093.htm

I would never think that kneehigh boots are associated with formal attire, but Europeans seem to think so.
http://www.cne.org/2006_capball/pages/0266.htm

These people look like they were having a great time! http://www.cne.org/2006_capball/pages/2006_CNE_capball%20003.htm

This photo doesn't do justice to how slutty this dress was. Personally, I think you can see her left nipple, but Kyle disagrees. I guess I think this because in person you always felt like you were one dance move away from seeing it. Also notice how high the slit is. Yes, it goes up to her hip bone, and you felt like you were about to get a different view when she crossed her legs. That is all see through mesh on her abdomen area.
http://www.cne.org/2006_capball/pages/0281.htm
She loves some low cut dresses almost 'peek-a-boo' dresses because this was her outfit last year. http://www.cne.org/2005_capball/pages/800_20DE7F~1.htm

Subversive Cross Stitch

If you don't like curse words, don't click below. If curse words just sum up your feelings sometimes, and you are a bit crafty, you might enjoy this link.

http://subversivecrossstitch.com/index.html

Sympathy Pre-Labor

I have heard of husbands having symptoms similar to their pregnant wives. However, I don't have any of that. I am just on pins and needles waiting for my friend Kelly to go into labor. I think I can now understand how hard it must be for pregnant women in that last month. Kelly is due April 15, but her doctor said her body seems to be ready to give birth any time now. My friend Kate had her baby a month early, so for the last month I have been thinking that same thing could happen to Kelly. Every time the phone rings, I wonder if it is her announcing she is headed to the hospital. It is driving me crazy!!!