Freitag, 29. März 2013

Good Friday´s letters

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Dear Berlin, though we had to fight with adverse conditions like snow, rain and unfriendly hotel employees we had a good time. After so many years "Dance of the Vampires" is still my favourite musical and it was great to see it once again. But we definitely will choose a better time for our next vacation :)

Dear evil triangle, I know who you are pointing at *LOL*

Dear April, please take away the snow. Can´t stand it anymore. I can´t believe it´s still snowing at the end of March.

Dear Easter weekend, any plans? How about finally reading a novel? Doing a bit of baking?

Dear luck, thanks for your help this week! What a nice surprise to win a scarf at some sweepstake and win a few bucks at lottery next day.

Happy Easter weekend to everyone, enjoy family time, easter egg hunting
and lots of delicious food & pastry!


xoxo, 
Bridy

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Dienstag, 26. März 2013

Happy Birthday...


Happy Birthday to one of my best friends!

 

Thank you for each laugh, each exam, each coffee, each peach cake, each travel, each of the thousands of messages, each tear, each statute book, each happy moment, each girly talk, each minute just feeling comfortable around you, each thought about how to lacquer our nails, each advice concerning my criminological seminar paper & that you still talk to me after that (LOL), each paleo recipe, each legal debate and each day we shared together.

Thank you for making my life so much better, just because I know there´s
a message waiting on facebook for me each morning :)

Thank you for a friendship so easy-going, funny and unconditional and yet I know
I can entrust every thought and every concern to you. 

We are just before leaving our life as students and junior lawyers and as so many people are telling you that studying will be one of the best times of life, at this stage of my life I can agree. Not because studying law was so much fun, but because the three of us met.

Sonntag, 24. März 2013

SayingGoodbye.Friends.Family.Plants.Work.

Saying Goodbye.


Saturday morning I did what I should´ve done so much earlier. And I only did because I was forced in a certain way. I said goodbye to my ex´s parents. Because it was his mom´s birthday and there was no way to avoid at least calling her. But as I recognized myself postponing this day on and on, I worked up the courage to go there. Finally. And it was a good decision. It was the last final thing to do to let go this part of my life. And of course saying goodbye hurts. It shows what you´ve lost. But I´m ready to go on with my life. I´m ok.


Friends.


Saturday noon I met a friend to go to a flea market of the local rotary club. It takes place once a year and it seems like everyone in town is just mad for bargain hunting that day. But to be honest: Lots of trash. We bought some cookbooks and I found that little frame from the pic above. Guess I will try to make some DIY-project. Probably this lace earring frame I´ve seen over at Emily from The Freckled Fox.
I really enjoyed the time with my friend, we went out for Sushi afterwards, did a walk with the dogs and just talked for hours. He was working 500km away for the last year and just came back, so we had to regain lost time.

Family.

Saturday evening I visited my aunt. Some monthly get together with other friends of her. We´re really close, so I could tell when she opened the door that something was wrong. Strange thing, ´cause I can´t remember seeing her like that ever. She got a result from a preventive breast cancer check-up that morning and they need to make further medical examinations to find out if something´s wrong. And though I know that it might be nothing serious or nothing at all, I´m worried to death. I just can´t stop it. 


Plants.

Sunday I finally managed repotting Aaron´s plants, finding the right places for them at my place. Hope they don´t mind irregular watering times, because unfortunately it happens that I´ll forget about it for three weeks. You can guess that I´m the biggest fan of Seramis granulate :)

Work.

Sunday evening. No chill-out movie watching for me, three files are still waiting to be read and dealt with. But therefore I´ll finish this working week on Wednesday evening and spend some days with friends in Berlin. I´m sooo looking forward to that days!



xoxo,
Bridy

Freitag, 22. März 2013

Friday´s letters




Dear much needed sleep, I can´t wait. After working half the night yesterday and getting no break today I´m really looking forward to curl up on the sofa, covered by several blankets, with a big cup of tea and my dog warming my feet. I´m note sure if I´ll see more than five minutes of the movie I picked out, but anyways that´s my perfect Friday evening this week.

Dear friends, I´m still overwhelmed by your support. And I´m feeling bad, because I must be the worst friend ever for the last years. No matter how long it´s been since we talked for the last time or even if we´re not close at all, all of you send so many beautiful and caring messages, take me out for dinner, spend time with me and show me that I´m important to you. Thanks again!

Dear apricot, you´re definitely my favourite spring color!

Dear weekend, you promise two days of meeting friends & family, fun activities and sun! Glad you´re finally here!

Dear fostered plants, I hope you like your new home. Don´t you ever dare to wither or get yellow leafs! I want to give you back in good shape someday.

xoxo,
Bridy


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Donnerstag, 21. März 2013

Findings during office break...

I´m sure you all know that time in office when you get too easily distracted and find yourself strolling through the internet? This is what I did an hour ago and I found such a cute ring I´m totally addicted to it:

via
The first five lines of an Elizabeth Barret Browning sonnet are engraved. As it´s a Germany shopping website it´s the German translation of the sonnet by the famous poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


I better get back to work now :) 

xoxo,
Bridy

Mittwoch, 20. März 2013

Travel Tuesday - Dublin

It´s Travel Tuesday over at Helene In Between and I spontaneously decided to share some pictures of Dublin with you. It´s still one of my favourite travel destinations (though it´s always in competiton with Edinburgh).

back in 2007... I looked soo young that time...






































Helene in Between

Dienstag, 19. März 2013

That week - Part 3 - Love?


Love hits you when you least expect it.
When you´re barefooted and unprepared.
Love grabs you and sucks you in.
Love challenges you more than you think you can take.
It twists you around until you can hardly breathe.
Love forces you to choose heart over mind.
Love hits you and you´ve got just to fall.
You have to trust that you will be gently catched up by that one whose heart is beating for you.
If love treats you good it will come up all right in the end.

That week - Part 2 - a unique weekend getaway


 Either way I had to leave town for 3 days to go for my studies. On the one hand this was just the worst timing ever. I´m going there once a month and this has to be exactly in that week?? That´s just not fair. On the other hand this was the only week in over a year where classes finished at Saturday noon instead of Saturday evening. It´s that one exception in my master´s programme that gave me the chance of being home on Saturday evening. With Aaron´s flat all empty and still lots of things to cope with, we set out for our own weekend romance and booked a nice hotel in our town.


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We had a nice stay in that beautiful hotel, I wish I´d had more time and my camera with me.Aaron created that tiny adorable mini bar outside the window. Blame me for the bad pic :)


Will tell you more about my outfit for Sat night in a what-I-wore-post soon :)

xoxo,
Bridy


That week - Part 1 - Lunch can´t hurt...

 



Usually when I sit here - at the other side of the weekend - I just don´t know what to tell, because everything seems just so ordinary in my life. I´m just like every other girl, you know? But the whole last week was one unexpected rollercoaster drive. I never thought that something like that would happen to me. Nor have I ever thought that this could happen to anyone.

If you´re following my blog you know that I had a date Tuesday last week with some guy I met at an online dating site - which took place exactly the time I´m writing this seven days ago. And when I think about that fact I can hardly believe this was just a week ago, because sometimes it feels like it´s been a month since then, sometimes it feels like it´s just a dream that never happened. But no way this was just one week ago...

You know I asked Aaron out for a date, because the time we were texting I had that special feeling about him. It´s something you can´t describe, let´s call it intuition. He was totally caught off guard by me asking him out. And I was surprised by myself that I did. I haven´t been out for a date for years and well, you know... usually the woman get´s asked out. It´s a bit strange to ask a guy for a date.

We met for lunch (and a coffee...and a walk...and another coffee) and I felt so comfortable around him. Then he told me he´d be leaving Germany in a week and go back to the States. He though dated me because he thought lunch can´t hurt. I mean that was... unexpected. Upsetting unexpected. How likely is it that you meet a guy you´ve been texting with for just two days and who turns out matching to you in so many ways? I don´t wanted it to end so shortly after it started. That was just not fair.

I thought with Aaron leaving so soon we wouldn´t see each other again. But life had other plans. The set of our second date was me picking up pizza, going to his flat, watching a movie with him while the movers where packing in all of his things around us. We spent the whole day together, getting closer to each other though we knew there would be a deadline to this soon. That night I left with such a mingled feeling. Should I listen to what my mind was telling me what is smart?  - Run as fast as you can and stay away, you just get hurt! Or should I listen to what my heart was telling me and what I was about to do anyway? And would I be able to let go all fears and all worries in that short time? I mean that first days of dating and get to know each other should be unburdened, light-hearted and easy-going. And part of our days were perfectly like that. But we had to face so many serious things as well. We had one week to find out what we wanted. What all of this unexpected coincidences were leading us to. We were forced to be open-hearted so soon and maybe this just made that thin bond between us stronger. 

Freitag, 15. März 2013

Friday´s letters

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 Dear life, you are one big surprise. I´m eager to know what´s up next.

Dear Aaron, thanks for that perfect unexpected date(s), which turned my life upside down in less than a week. Can´t wait to see you on Saturday night!

Dear train, please please be on time tomorrow therefore.

Dear friends, thanks for all your support, for taking time, worrying about me and giving me the best advices. I cherish your close companionship, surely I couldn´t do without you!

Dear sun, you make me so happy! Even when I´m stuck in lectures I enjoy you warming my back through the window.

Dear flat, I´m just rushing in and out these days, throwing spreading things all around. I promise to clean up next week.

Dear blogging friends and readers, have a great sunny weekend & enjoy St. Pat´s Day!

xoxo, 
Bridy

Linking up with Emily from The Freckled Fox today, I highly recommend checking out that beautiful blog with all that amazing pics, texts, recipes, hair tutorials,... Could spend weekends strolling through all of her posts. Well, I actually did :)



Montag, 11. März 2013

A lazy weekend & a totally unexpected date

Hello to all of you out there, hope you had a great weekend!



Mine was just perfect. I had the urgent need just to relax and recover, so I was quite lazy. I watched a bunch of episodes from season 4 of the Vampire Diaries, which just started over here. I know, maybe I´m too old to watch the Vampire stuff, but I just like it.

And because everything is so very spring-ish and growing outside, I had the sudden tempt to be spring-ish  as well. I felt like I want to shake off all those bad experiences of winter time and to start new in spring. To re-invent myself. So I took my phone, downloaded a dating app and started chatting. It´s really awkward to judge people just because of a miniature profile pic and even more stupid if you know someone else is just watching your pic. Anyway, I chatted with some guys. And put it off. What serious guy was I expecting to meet in a dating app?

But then one guy wrote. And I had to laugh all the time. I liked the way he was writing, his views. It just sounded perfect. I asked him for a date just 12 hours after his first "Hello". And I can´t wait to see him tomorrow. And all the time I´m thinking that this is just a silly behaviour, I mean I´m expecting quite much from this date and I don´t want to be hurt. So I try to keep my expectations low, but I´m just soo excited...



Sonntag, 10. März 2013

a box full of little surprises - "dm Lieblinge" in March



Similar to birchbox or glossybox there is a box-subscription over here in Germany, too. It is called "dm Lieblinge" (dm´s favourites). "dm" is the name of a quite popular drugstore. I subscribed two weeks ago, so this green neatly packed box was the first one I ever got.

It contained:
- a Nivea cleansing mousse: this one is quite nice to use, because you don´t have to foam it yourself, the foam comes straight out of the bottle
- a build-up shampoo for damaged hair
- a shower gel from the Playboy collection - well, all that Playboy stuff that seems to be everywhere right now is not really my style. I confess I thought about transferring to another bottle :) What should guests think if they see this in my shower?
- a nail gloss, which is quite lovely because it has a rounded and wide paint brush. You can easily paint your nail with one line and due to the rounded brush you have a perfect result in the nail corners.
- a tea box, with natural herbal tea of lavender and verbena. Look at the beautiful tea sachets, it´s almost far too good to use! But they are so yummy, I have to use them :)
- and a trial pack of washing agent

All together, I´m quite satisfied with my first box. I spent 5,- € and got a equivalent of about 15,- € plus the trials. Not to mention of the fun and excitement of opening the box, checking out the things, pouring a cup of tea, lacquer nails... Can´t wait for the next box to come in April!

I´m sure some of you have a subscription too - what are your experiences?

Freitag, 8. März 2013

Friday´s Letters

Take A Look At You
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Dear women, HAPPY WOMEN`S DAY! Get a nice cup of coffee, take a seat in the sun, snuggle in and cherish your life as a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a gal pal, a non-stopping multi-tasking terrific-looking trouble-shooter, starred chef, family manager and heart of a home. Wouldn´t we be bored by being a man? :)

Dear Joan, I´m so blessed that I´ve found you again. It means the world to me...

Dear sun, I enjoy you every day! No more boots, dig out the ballerinas & high heels!

Dear cosmetics industry, there a shampoos that let my hair stay fresh for four days. Shampoos that make more volume. Shampoos that make my hair smooth. Why isn´t it possible to just pack all this into one bottle?

Dear workouts, sorry I dumped you the last two weeks. I promise I will go on with you soon. I just have to overcome my weaker self before.


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Dienstag, 5. März 2013

My Irish sister...

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Do you know that saying about life takes something away and gives you something else back in return?


Two weeks ago my ex-boyfriend split up and I haven´t lost only him, but his entire family, which became part of my family over the years as well. I´ve lost his parents, his siblings (actually I even was in vacation with his sister three weeks ago), the friends we were used to be around with. I´ve lost all that plans in my head I´ve made for our future.

And in this time of knowing and accepting, getting used to the situation and railing against my fate I´ve read a facebook post from a friend I´m seeing maybe once a year. She asked if anyone wants to join her for seeing "Django Unchained" in the cinema. I spontaneously answered she should count me in, no need to sit at home for a new lonely evening on the sofa. A word and a blow, we enjoyed the bloody-but-funny movie a lot and decided to go for a pint afterwards.

At this point I have to go back about 4 years: I was working in an Irish Pub as a waitress during studying for about a year. In this year I met a few people that got very close friends. Especially one amazing Irish woman, who is the most caring and loving person I´ve ever met. In just a few weeks we got so incredibly close we had the feeling we would know each other for our entire lives and that was the point she started to call me her little sister. I stayed overnight at their place, they just welcomed me open-armed to join their life. I even flew over to Dublin and met their family. And then we lost each other out of no reason. I thought she was angry by me, she thought the same about me. So one day we just stopped talking to each other and I never went into that Irish Pub that used to be quite like home again.

Back to yesterday evening. So, we decided to go for a pint and the Irish Pub is right in the vaults of the cinema building. My friend is a regular there (I even met her in the Pub when I was working there -  she´s one of that few special people), so she just took me in. I had the feeling of coming home, all covered with that thoughts and kind of guilt that I messed it up five years ago. Messed it up out of nothing. Messed it up and never ever stopped thinking about if I could ever forgive myself for being such a silly and stupid person. And then this Irish woman came in, welcoming my friend, not noticing me. She went behind the bar, our eyes met, but she wouldn´t say a word to me. It was such a deep hurting, I can´t tell you. How could I ever loose all this Pub was standing for? All this lovely people? How could I live on, not trying everything to fix it?

And amidst of all these thoughts she stood there, watched me. She wasn´t ignoring me, she just didn´t recognize me when she came in.

But when she did, we stood there hugging for minutes, crying, telling that we never forgot about each other.
It was such a relief. And as we sneaked out to the back-room for smoking, relapsing into our old habits like the five years in between never happened, she said that words that once and again mean the world to me:
"Welcome back, little sister"

I have to admit, I really believe in fate. I thought fate treated me unkindly when my boyfriend left me. I´m 25 years now and I was ready to build up a life with someone, to settle down, to enjoy this stage of life. We both would have finished university in two months, we would have time (no more learning at the weekends) and - when getting a job - the money to do a bit of travelling and all that fun things, before going on with the adult life. Building a house, getting children, that things. And last week I found myself - alone.
But if the split-up had not happened, I wouldn´t have been at the cinema. I wouldn´t have been in the Pub. I wouldn´t have found my Irish sister again. And for this I´m very grateful, fate. You did a good job. I couldn´t forget about my "sister" for five years, how likely is it that this will happen with the one who left me?

Oh fate, by the way, could "finding-my-future-husband" be your next task please?
No need to hurry, but keep it in mind :)

Montag, 4. März 2013

Weekend´s to be delayed...

... at least when you´re travelling through Germany by train. Once a month I´m going all the (about 600km) way up from Southeast to Northwest Germany for studying. It´s just a three-day attendance per month, so I usually go up to Westfalia on Wednesday or Thursday and go back on Saturday afternoon.
So, the green point is where I study, the blue where I´m living:




So, usually I´m going by train, changing trains for five times a trip. And as it has to be - there is always a delay. Always. Either outward bound or homeward bound. This weekend it was the rebound trip. The third connection was late. Not a bit. It was a 60-min-delay, which led to missing all further trains and finally got me stranded in Nuremberg. But fortunately there is something called "passenger´s rights", so I got a free drink (chose a beer, I mean it was Saturday night, right?) and a 25%-recharge for the one hour delay. 

After all of that train-adventures I chose to have a nice lazy Sunday on the sofa, reading Cecelia Ahern´s newest novel (well, it´s out for a while but I had no time to read it before), lacquered my nails in a way-to-fashionable pastel pink (what do you think about it?) and screwed up at baking Martha Stewart´s almond macaroons. To enjoy some sun Leo and me went for a little walk as well. I really missed wearing sunglasses because of sun and not because of evil white snow burning in my eyes :)


Make a good start into the new week, it will be a sunny one :)
xo, Bridy


Today I´m linking up with Samí´s Shenanigans!

Freitag, 1. März 2013

Friday´s letters

unfortunately, I have no source for that,
found it on the net years ago


Dear blog, this is our first Friday together. I´m very excited where this journey will lead us to and if we get long-term friends. At the moment it´s quite a fun to get into writing again, something I really missed during the last months. Writing academic essays just doesn´t fill one up with that simple joy you are giving me right now :)

Dear readers, thanks for stopping by! Please don´t be annoyed if my English may be worse at some times, I´m not a native speaker. But I only follow English-written blogs (it´s not that popular to blog over here in Germany), so I thought it might be best to give it a try. Feel free to comment on my mistakes at any time, so I can improve my English by the way!

Dear winter, we seriously have to talk. I really enjoyed the snow right around Christmas time and it was okay during January and February as well. No complaints about clearing the ankle-deep snow again and again. And again. But seriously - there´s no reason for you to stay during March. Not at all.

Dear Martha Stewart, we didn´t have a good start yesterday. The first recipe of you I ever tried out turned out to be a total mess. And that after I was longing for that mouth-watering almond macaroons for the whole week. At least I´m not the only one to fail miserably, I should´ve read the comments first :)

Dear life, we had a hard time over the last weeks. But we two will manage to find happiness again. We always did. We will do this time as well. Just be patient and joy the search as much as the found.

Dear ex-boyfriend, I´m so ready to let go. I´m so ready to fight though. Why can´t you just pull yourself
together and fight?

Happy Friday to all of you! Enjoy the weekend!
xoxo, Bridy

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