Nothing lasts forever

"(...) It seemed to me during those early years of child raising that my sons' childhoods would go on forever. I couldn't imagine any life other than the one that consumed me right then, a life shaped by the joys and demands of raising young children.

(...) I missed my old world and its funny little inhabitants, those great big personalities still housed in small, sweet bodies. I missed my sons' kissable cheeks and round bellies, their unanswerable questions, their innocent faith, their sudden tears and wild, infectious giggles, even the smell of their morning breath, when they would leap, upon waking, from their own warm beds directly into ours. I missed the person I had been for them, too - the younger, more capable mother who read aloud for hours, stuck raisin eyes into bear-shaped pancakes, created knight's armor from cardboard and duct tape. Certainly my talents didn't seem quite so impressive anymore, my company not as desirable as it once had been. 

(...) It is, of course, a universal drama - children grow up, they leave home, clock tick in empty bedrooms, and untouched gallons of milk turn sour in the fridge because no one's there to drink them. Parents mourn the loss and, at the same time, discover the will to reinvent themselves. I know I'm not the first mother who's found it hard to let go, who's yearned for change only to resist it when it comes, who's found it painful at times to accept the fact that my sons are pulling away, moving out into lives of their own. Nor will I be the last."

Katrina Kenison, The Gift of an ordinary Day



I heart these words! She speaks to me! I've heard about the "empty nest syndrome" and I will suffer of it too, most probably. 

Life is a sequence of stages and none of them lasts forever.

We've stopped using the crib for Ilaria (since the beginning of September). The crib is waiting for the other baby now. Ilaria has grown up. She's not a baby anymore...

Due to this change of beds Ilaria entered a new stage of sleep: she sleeps less; she became a morning person (she wakes up at 7-8, instead of the precedent 9-10 interval); instead of signalling her awakening with her voice, the first noise we hear now is of her room's door opening; and, last but not least: if she's not really very tired, she needs one of us for falling asleep .

I know that instead of gaining time, now that the baby-girl's arrival is so close, we spend more and more time taking care of Ilaria. But I treasure so much the half hour per day spent near Ilaria, helping her to fall asleep! I love this new addiction on parents of her! I'm well aware that, as any other stage of her life, this one won't last forever either. For sure, when she will be 20, she won't come to us begging for a little of co-sleeping...

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Oh, those parks...

(image copied from http://www.foundshit.com/merry-go-round-teddy-bear/)

I don't have good feelings when it comes to parks of our town.
* they are overloaded. Often big children are playing a kind of football there so you have to be careful not to be hit by a ball while trying to relax yourself
* Ilaria has to eat there because everybody has something to eat in the park (usually she is served by somebody else, as I don't use to take food with us outside the house).
* there we have to play babies because everybody plays babies.
* entering in a park without a ball is like killing myself slowly, as Ilaria also wants to play the ball. And she insists.
But, on the top of everything, the worst is that I have to educate other children there. I don't say here that I know everything and that I am the standard of parenting, but it doesn't take an expert eye to realize that there are too many spoiled and nasty children left alone in the parks to survive in society's jungle as toughly as they want.
Too many parents of nowadays seem to be too busy to include into their daily schedule any of their own children's education.

So, I try to avoid parks as much as possible. But, of course, this becomes harder and harder.

Two days ago we were in a park and Ilaria wanted to enjoy herself in a merry-go-round. This kind of merry-go-round:

Unfortunately for us, when we reached the park, merry-go-round was already "taken" by a boy and a girl 5-6 years old. Boy's mother was sitting on a bench speaking on the phone and not giving a damn about her son. Girl's grandmother was there, near the children, tongue tied, proud to hear her niece proclaiming herself "wind's princess, as I like the wind so much!".
Both children showed to be troubled by "baby" Ilaria who was just coming to spoil their "so much fun". From now on they had to spin slower and, as the girl said: "slow is so boring!".
As long as we stayed there I had to defend ourselves of remarks coming from 5-6 years old children!!! Remarks like these:
"I was the 1st one here, so we will spin fast, as I like fast" (girl) (I suggested her that maybe being the 1st there made her bored already so she should try some other activity. I wasn't cogent enough. She stayed.)
"I have an idea. I will spin as fast as I can so the baby will stun and she will leave" (boy)
"Oh, that baby girl! Here she comes again! Ufffff" (girl)
"This baby drive us bored. We are older and we want to spin faster." (boy) (I suggested him too that maybe having fun somewhere else would have made him happier. Again I wasn't very cogent. He also stayed longer.)
......

I am pretty sure those children were the future selfish people, each of them the one-and-only child of their parents, never having to share something with a "baby".

My heart went out watching my little girl sitting there, next to so much nastiness, being unable to defend herself. At least not yet. And my second thought went to children that are "different". Children that won't be able to defend themselves ever. Society and "normal" people would simply ignore, marginalize and destroy them from the very beginning of their life.

It's such a pity to hear people around us complaining so often when speaking about education: "Teaching is not as good as it was in the past!". I would say parenting is even worse!

P.S.: today we visited the same park and history seemed to repeat. Merry-go-round was "taken" again, this time by 2 girls and 1 boy. The boy was spinning the merry-go-round. His mother was there and when the speed was "too fast for girls" she intervened immediately and warned her son to slow down. At a second glance I noticed that boy's mother was pregnant with her 2nd :-)
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"Where children sleep"

I started thinking we are out of space here. Starting with October we should be 4 people in 2 rooms.
I started to wake up in the morning thinking who will sleep where, with whom as room-mate and in which bed. (and I still don't have a clear picture about it.)
I am complaining often, especially about neighbors who disturb our sleep and who don't allow us to aerate our house right when we want (because the ones beneath us smoke in the window and the ones above us clean their carpets out of the window) and who... but OK, I don't mention anything more...

I complain on weather too, especially in these hot days when temperature in Ilaria's room rises up to 28 Celsius degrees!

To be short, I often forget to be grateful for what we have and I find myself criticizing and wanting more.
Today a special link came into my way. It is that kind of reminder which make you realize that yes, there are many living better than you do, but there could be even more living worse. Much worse!
It made me realize one more time that our children are not growing up, as I would like, in the garden of Eden, full of trees, flowers and bees, but they have many opportunities that others don't even dare to dream about.


Here is the link that melted my heart today.


And here is the book.


Have a wonderful week-end and... don't forget to be grateful! You surely have many reasons!
Raluca
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On us lately

♥ Ilaria

♥♥ her vocabulary become richer and richer with every new day. She started with "nu" (no), "nani" (sleep), "apa" (water), "Ana" (her cousin), "pa!" (good bye), "bavo!" (short form of bravo!), "sizi" (instead of "suzi" = "pacifier"), "papa" (food), "ham" (dog's barking), "mami" & "tati" and now she also says: "nenea" (any man on the street), "papu" (short form of "papuci" = "shoes"), "caca" (poo), "pufu" (short form of "pufuleti" = some snacks), "ia" (take this), "hai" (come), "sus" (up), "pisi" (cat), "cra" (crow), "Mama" (instead of "Mara", her friend from the park), "măr" (apple), "miam" (that's how she asks for food), "catea" (short form of "cartea" = book), "aşa" (like this), "bebe" (baby).

♥♥ she is trying her best in pronouncing any word we ask her to pronounce. When we started this kind of game she was repeating the word as we were asking her to repeat, except for "cuţu" (dog), which she was replacing with "ham" (dog's barking) :-)

♥♥ any flying creature is a "cra" (crow) for her. Few days ago when she noticed a big fly, of course she called it "cra" :-)

♥♥ she is jealous. Adrian is her and only her. She cannot stand to see me kissing him or holding his hand. Immediately when she notices such daring behavior of mine, she comes toward us, screaming "nu, nu, nu, nu", and she pushes me away from HER Daddy

♥♥ currently she has only 3 favorite meals: supa de galuşte, ciorba de fasole verde cu perisoare de pui, mâncare de mazăre cu pifteluţe de pui la cuptor.

♥♥ and what bother me the most these days:

she throws food on the floor.......
I've explained her about poor children not having any food at all, I've told her it's not a nice behavior so she should stop doing it, I've told her I will slap her hands, I even slapped her hands.... She learned something: she knows it's something bad:

but she keeps on doing the same and to drive me crazy:


♥ baby girl

♥♥ on 11th this month we had another appointment with the gynecologist. We were told our baby girl is perfectly developed, according to the calendar, and she weights about 800gr.

♥♥ she is super-active and strong (I compare her movements with Ilaria's in the same stage of development).

♥♥ only 3 months to go and we still didn't fully decide on her name. We had a list of preferences: Ana, Maria, Dionisia, Valeria. Now our favorite is Rebeca. I'm very happy with "Rebeca", but Adrian still has some doubts. He would prefer a "happier" name, ending in "aria" or at least in "ria", the same like Ilaria does. 


♥ me and Adrian

♥♥ on Friday, 15th, we've celebrated Adrian's birthday and 5 years of marriage!

Happy Birthday, Adrian! And many happy years together for us!


We had fun at Zoo Tg. Mures (www.zootirgumures.ro/), on a too hot day

together with our parents:


♥♥ spending 15th of July by visiting a Zoo garden seems to had became a custom for us, as last year we were visiting Zoo Brasov. So, which Zoo for next year? ;-)

♥♥ apart from the surprise with Zoo garden (Adrian drove us there knowing only the address), Adrian got another symbolic surprise:

After 5 years from our wedding day, I finally made our wedding photo album. The album was our wedding gift from my sister and it turned out gorgeous! And it's a huge satisfaction to have another project finished!
It was a great feeling to remember those happy moments!...
The doing process:

Kisses from us and have a marvelous week-end!

Ralu & Co.

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The power of prayer

Yesterday was a tough day here. This was the 3rd time (in passed 3 months I think) when I felt I have no solution for Ilaria's crying. And I'm also not sure about the reason. It's so frustrating to try anything comes to my mind and still not be able to make her stop crying.

We were outside, far away from home. She was in the stroller when the tantrum begun. I've tried everything that crossed my mind those minutes: walking, running, back in the stroller, I offered her water, toys,... I've even ignored her.... Of course in the meantime I was getting angry too, not understanding at all what could have been so wrong with her.

Then she stopped in the middle of a not so crowded street, still crying. And I was looking her from a distance, talking to her, when a couple of old people approached. The woman took Ilaria up, on her arms and she brought Ilaria to me. Then she asked me: "What's wrong with her? She doesn't want to leave the park and go home, isn't it?". "No!" I've answered "We haven't been in the park at all. We are just walking around. I really don't know what she wants. She doesn't want to walk and she doesn't want to stay in the stroller either." Then, before leaving, the woman leaned to me as you do when you want to tell somebody a secret and she whispered in my ear: "Recite for her <<Our Father>>". And I did. Right there, in the middle of that street, with tears running down my cheeks. Of course part of them were tears of frustration, but there were also tears of gratitude for that beautiful woman who cared enough to give a good advice to an overwhelmed mother.

I'm not sure how much the prayer helped Ilaria directly, but for sure it helped me a lot to calm down and to see the situation from another perspective. I put her back in the stroller, started making her aware of all the doves, cats and dogs around us and gave her flowers and leaves to play with. And soon she calmed down too!

So yes, it's true: no song, no toy, no argument has the power of a prayer! All it takes is to believe.

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Happy Woman's Day! and a reminder for mothers

Today, on Woman's Day, I want to share here a wise reminder which I love. As mothers, we should never forget to enjoy every moment spent with our children, as... nothing lasts forever!


No more outmeal kisses
Erma Bombeck

A young mother writes: "I know you've written before about the empty-nest syndrome -- that lonely period after the children are grown and gone. Right now, I'm up to my eyeballs in laundry and muddy boots. The baby is teething; the boys are fighting. My husband just called and said to eat without him, and I fell off my diet. Lay it on me again, will you?"

OK.
One of these days, you'll shout, "Why don't you kids grow up and act your age!"
And they will.

Or, "You guys get outside and find yourselves something to do ... and don't slam the door!"
And they won't.

You'll straighten up the boys' bedroom neat and tidy -- bumper stickers discarded, bedspread tucked and smooth, toys displayed on the shelves. Hangers in the closet. Animals caged. And you'll say out loud, "Now I want it to stay this way."
And it will.

You'll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn't been picked to death and a cake with no finger traces in the icing, and you'll say, "Now, there's a meal for company."
And you'll eat it alone.

You'll say: "I want complete privacy on the phone. No dancing around. No demolition crews. Silence! Do you hear?" And you'll have it.

No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti.
No more bedspreads to protect the sofa from damp bottoms.
No more gates to stumble over at the top of the basement steps.
No more clothespins under the sofa.
No more playpens to arrange a room around.
No more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent.
No more sand on the sheets or Popeye movies in the bathrooms.
No more iron-on patches, wet, knotted shoestrings, tight boots, or rubber bands for ponytails.
Imagine. A lipstick with a point on it. No baby sitter for New Year's Eve. Washing only once a week. Seeing a steak that isn't ground. Having your teeth cleaned without a baby on your lap.

No PTA meetings.
No car pools.
No blaring radios.
No one washing her hair at 11 o'clock at night.
Having your own roll of Scotch tape.
Think about it. No more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste.
No more sloppy oatmeal kisses.
No more tooth fairy.
No giggles in the dark.
No knees to heal, no responsibility.

Only a voice crying, "Why don't you grow up?"

and the silence echoing, "I did."

(more beautiful wise words you can read here)


Happy Woman's Day!
♥
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One thousand gifts (part two)

I continue the wonderful experience of counting my life's blessings, linking to Ann Voskamp's gratitude community:


I am grateful also for:
27. darling people who find time to address me nice words on this blog
28. birds singing early in the morning
29. Internet
30. white winters
31. people who share
32. pizza
33. Adrian entertaining Ilaria from the moment he enters the house's door
34. automatic washing machine
35. snowdrops
36. Domenico Modugno's music
37. water in pipes
38. elevator, which we use daily

Have a blessed week!
Raluca

P.S.: My previous "One thousand gifts" post can be found here.
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One thousand gifts (part one)

I discovered recently a wonderful blog: A Holy Experience; and I read it for about a week already. It's... beautiful. A peaceful corner in our restless world. Full of wise words and gratefulness.

Blog's author, Ann Voskamp, wrote a book. A successful one in USA.

So far, I read only the 1st chapter, which she shares here. Reading it, I became even more grateful for my life, realizing one more time how blessed I am, but how, in different stages of my life, I forget to fully appreciate what I have, being too busy with wanting more...

On Mondays, Ann organizes links community, where bloggers count their blessings. 

Here I join her for the 1st time, starting to count a part of the things in my life that I am grateful for:

1. digital cameras

2. our warm home during winter

3. motherhood

4. my helpful sister and my sweet niece

5. living in a free country

6. unannounced visits (thanks, Moni!)

7. strangers who touch my soul within minutes

8. Ilaria waking up "singing"

9. watermelon

10. good doctors

11. sweet memories

12. friends calling just for asking "how are you?"

13. maternity leave (2 years, in Romania!)

14. blue jeans :-)

15. health

16. meals cooked by somebody else

17. parents and grandparents alive

18. Ilaria's dirty clothes after playing outside (they are reminders that we have a healthy child)

19. advices coming from caring people

20. anesthetic

21. pictures that make me dream

22. Skype

23. Adrian caring after Ilaria as good as a mother

24. honest people

25. Ilaria's current looooong afternoon naps ( 3-5 hours! lucky me ;-) )

26. reaching destination after long trip on crowded driveways

Have a blessed week!

Kisses!

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Movies clichés

I'm a big fan of biographic movies (and books). I love reality more than fantasy. I like to know how real people lived their lives and I'm not so interested on how far somebody's imagination can go. That's why I avoid SF movies and I'm not so crazy about fantasy. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to find a good biographic movie not being a drama, but that's another story...

I've seen enough movies to deeply set in my mind universal movies clichés, which I discover they can be so wrong sometimes. Few examples:

* the majority of coma victims come back to life 

Due to my want-to-know-everything husband, who visits HowStuffWorks.com often, I recently found out the bitter truth that only a little part of coma victims recover

* any birth is painful

I can bear witness that C-section is pretty much like "shopping" a baby.

On the other hand, I know mothers which delivered naturally, without anesthesia and they were not traumatized by the experience!

* when you get pregnant you MUST jump for joy, for few minutes

And here comes the story I want to share with you today:
We were waiting for the moment 1.5 years and I didn't jump! Long time I wondered if something was wrong with me or it was OK acting like that.

I am Sagittarius (fire sign) and Adrian is Cancer (water sign), so when I'm ready to jump (start the fire) he calms me down (pours some water). That's how it usually works in our family.

It was 5AM and I was holding my 1st so desirable positive pregnancy test. So I was ready to jump for joy. But I had Adrian beside me: "Wait! Maybe it's just a mistake. I think a 2nd test is needed." And I didn't jump...

The next 5AM I was holding my 2st so desirable positive pregnancy test. Imagine I jumped? Wrong! Now I had also my doubting mind whispering: "Wait! Doctor should confirm the pregnancy and that the egg is correctly placed (intrauterine)."

We went to the doctor. She confirmed everything was perfect! But again I didn't jump. My mind again: "Wait! The first 3 months are problematic! x% of the 1st pregnancies are lost within the first 3 months!!".

3 months of pregnancy passed. "Should I jump now? No, wait! Have you ever heard about toxoplasmosis? What about Down syndrome?"

And so on...

In fact I never literally jumped for being pregnant with Ilaria. And I'm sorry for this. But I'm sorry only because I've been taught by movies that jumping is the "normal" behavior and.. who doesn't dream for a life like in movies?

A cliché which I didn't tick off and I'm a little frustrated because of it. Stupid, I know! But still frustrated a little...

We were keeping in our storeroom a bottle of wine bought during our honeymoon (July 2006). In October 2009, when Ilaria was born, the bottle was still there, intact. I would have drank it 1000 times, but every time Adrian was calming me down not to open it. "It's not THAT gala now." I was starting to accept the idea that we would probably open it when Ilaria would get married or when she would have her 1st baby. But not. I finally convinced my husband that 1 month of Ilaria's life here, on Earth, was really THAT gala and we could finally allow ourselves to "jump" for our greatest lives' gift: Ilaria. And we opened the bottle in November 2009 :-)

My opinion is that movies, the same as commercials, try to teach us which is the "standard" life. But many times, we get disappointed after comparing our lives with movies or commercials.
...Or maybe it's just our impression here and we forgot the carefree joy, because of too much information!?
What's your opinion? 
And by the way... are you a "jumper"?

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Wish lists (and mine for 2011)

I recently had the opportunity to meet a young oncologist woman. In our discussion she quoted something from "The bucket list". I remembered I've heard about that movie being very good, rewarded with few Oscar prizes, but I wasn't interested in it till meeting that beautiful girl.

After our meeting, I tried to watch it and after watching few dramatic scenes I realized it wasn't made for me. You have to be strong to watch it entirely.

But a good thing came from the above story. I started to think about wish lists in life and I realized I heard so much about this subject especially when a very ill person was involved. There is a saying which tells "Live every day as if it were your last one". But how many of us are so motivated to apply the wise saying in our lives? Many times we are too tired, too poor, too young, too busy, too old, too shy,... to follow our dreams. When everything is fine we think it's still time enough in store for us and there's a chance to start tomorrow "fighting" for our dreams.

There is another cliche in our lives - somebody asks somebody else: "what would you do if you would have only 24 hours or 1 week or 2 months or 1 year left?". I was also asked and, guess what: I didn't know the answer because I never truly thought about it.

Why do we "wait" something bad to happen and only then we make lists and we start to rush for reaching our goals? Probably we were designed to act this way!?

I was curious to find out which was the "The bucket list" 's list. It sounds like this:

- skydiving
- climb the Pyramids

- drive a Shelby Mustang
- fly over the North Pole
- eat dinner at Chevre d'Or in France
- visit and praise the beauty and history of Taj Mahal, India
- ride motorcycles on the Great Wall of China and
- attend a lion safari in Africa

Beautiful! But, oh, man, their goals are pretty expensive for a healthy person!

Anyway, I was so moved by the whole story, that I said: "something must be done".

And I decided for a little list for 2011. Here it is:

* see the Romanian actor Victor Rebengiuc in a live theater show (preferable in "Death of a salesman")

* cook weekly 1 new recipe from my no.1 cooking book

( in the beginning this goal had this form :"cook more often", but Adrian reminded me that every goal has to be measurable and then I changed it for "cook weekly 1 new recipe"; where was my mind when I did this mistake? ;-) )

* start making hand-stamped metal jewelry ( Ramona S., please be patient a little bit more; you are on top of my clients list ;-) ). More on that subject in a future post.

Did you made any list? I'd love to hear about it!

Stay healthy and make yearly lists for the next 100 years!

Kisses!

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It's a wonderful life

I don't remember for sure, but it was 2002 or 2003 when I 1st heard about this wonderful movie.

A very nice person told me it's his all time favorite movie. As a coincidence ;-), in 2003 Adrian received this movie as Christmas gift from Santa Claus. We watched it back then, but we lost at least half of the movie's magic, as our DVD didn't have Romanian or English subtitle... 

Those days I felt it's time to watch it again, this time with Romanian subtitle. Yesterday evening, very late, after Ilaria felt asleep and we finished the chores, we started the movie. We were so tired that I hardly believed we would have watched half of the movie before we would have fallen asleep. But, once the movie was started, we became fresh and keen to see what's next. And the movie, with its 130 minutes long, seemed for us too short.

It's W O N D E R F U L!

And they are right: everyone should see it!

Have you watched this movie yet? Anyway, you should watch it again. There is still time enough for this until Christmas!

In Romania you can find this movie in "Adevarul Holding" bookstores.

The essence of the movie is caught in the quote: "Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends."

Thanks to you, all my friends! And thanks for recommendation, Sasa P.!

On a scale from 1 (worst) to 10 (best) I give it an 11.

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Old Times Revival and A Dream

I must be nostalgic this time of year.. Probably all of us are. "Us" meaning adult people, who's childhood is gone.

What I miss the most this time of year is my childhood's street. The street still exists. My parents are still living there so we are visiting it often. But it's not the same. And not only because I'm grown up now. But because the times are so different.

Back then, on this time of year, there were only few cars on the street and lots of children sliding and skating; now there are lots of cars and only few children or... no child at all.

The street is a ramp of an acceptable angle. A street perfect to slide on. And we were sliding daily, for hours. There were probably 50-60 children playing on that street, in snow, every evening. The street was sound of our happy voices. And we were sliding over and over again on the same path, without getting bored, interrupted only by cold or hunger.

Nowadays it would be impossible to slide on that street, because of cars and because of lack of snow (usually they are cleaning the streets now). But the sidewalk is still there, perfect for sliding. Even so, the street is empty, still and quiet. I think children forgot the pure joy of simple playing. They need gadgets, DVDs, computer games, TV shows not to get too bored. Their imagination in playing seem to be absent.

We would love for our children a childhood as we had. That's why we try hard to revive the old times. But it's always hard to swim against the stream...

The 1st step is fulfilled:

We bought a sledge (although we have been already addressed ironically the reply: "A sledge? But what for?")

We know that before every reached stage there must be a dream.

And our personal dream looks like this:

(we love to imagine that this family is heading toward their beautiful house and not toward a certain flat)

And our reality looks like this:

(note: for the moment we are just visiting country side, not living there)

We are pretty close to our dream, isn't it?

We have the most important pieces: the child, us, the sledge and... a similar jacket for Adrian.

There are still missing some little details for the dream's puzzle to be complete: the dog (it must be a Golden Retriever) and... country living.

But dreaming is something we are really good at! ;-) 

***************************************************************

P.S.: thanks to all of you who participated to my 1st poll! Adrian's theory was successfully deprecated. Don't worry. He's not depressed. He still believes in it :-)



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Life without TV

Since 2007 there is no TV set in our house anymore. And we are still alive!

Of course, there were times in our lives when we were almost addicted to TV.
My family didn't own a TV set before '89. On those times there wasn't much to be seen on TV. There was only 1 channel available and on it they were repeating again and again how grateful we should have been for being Romanians, how much we should have loved our country and its leaders, how Romania was the Europe's garner and other stuffs like this.
After revolution we bought a TV and addiction started. We were watching like crazy (especially me and my dad) and sometimes my mom was asking "what are you watching there so interesting that you need no food or water?". The truth was that TV was giving us the feeling of freedom and through it we were able to "think outside the box".


When me and Adrian moved together, of course a TV set had to join fast.
And of course we were fighting often on what to watch. He is crazy about ANY sport EXCEPT the ONLY one I like: figure skating. So he would have watched Eurosport non-stop and when was time for figure skating he would have changed the channel! Funny, isn't it? Don't ask me!
The most ridiculous quarrel we had was when Pope John Paul II was dying and there were transmissions from Vatican, everybody speaking about his beautiful life. OK, not everybody, because there still were some guys... playing football!!! And Adrian wanted to watch them... I prefer to stop here and not to detail further.


I remember when I was in elementary school, our form tutor (dirigintele), the geography teacher, a guy who traveled much for those times, was teaching us how to watch TV: "You should start TV only after checking the TV program and after finding some subjects you are interested in. Don't turn on the TV and wait for them to give you something good." Unfortunately that was good theory, but I wasn't strong enough to apply it. I wasted a lot of time waiting for "something good" on TV. Something which many times didn't come. 


I remember our friend Aniela telling us that she read somewhere about a family which chose to throw up the TV and it proved to be the best decision of their life.
Once again we were not strong enough to follow such a good example...


But in 2007 fate smiled to us and our TV crashed. Tired of so many hours spent in front of the TV and of our what-to-watch quarrels, we were sharp enough to say "no-more-TV-set-in-this-house". And we can confirm that family's testimony: life without TV is better. We cannot imagine now, with our busy life, when we would have had time to also watch TV!? Fur sure there wouldn't be so much time spent with Ilaria, not so many books read in this house, not so many meals cooked, not so many meetings with nature; which would be really sad.. And for sure there will be more money spent. Because on TV they are soooo well-meaning, that they teach you almost everything: what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, what to drive,... for having the happiest life ever. And sooner or later you will find out that even owning everything they've recommended, you are not so happy as the commercials promised you.


Even without TV, we still keep ourselves informed. We have Internet and Radio station and those are sources of information easier to be controlled. I am a little bit melancholic for my lovely Italians which I don't watch so often anymore (I love RaiUno) and that I get my most beloved events on TV - Miss Italia & Eurovision - on a low quality over the Internet, but I still survive. And Adrian takes his TV addiction dose when we visit our parents and he stay glued on TV for hours.


I've read a study about children watching TV for an average of 4 hours / day and following 20.000 advertisements / year! You can check more here.
As we are Ilaria's angels, we will try to keep her away of this. For how long... we will see! :-)


The funniest news I've heard on how TV can take your minds away, was before a Christmas, when a Romanian housewife refused to cook for her family the Romanian traditional recipe "sarmale", because in Dallas TV series Bobby has just died.. :-)
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Albena, Balchik and beautiful people

November... oh, perfect time to remember summer... :-)

This year we've spent our summer Holiday on Bulgarian seaside. It proved to be a good choice. Albena is a clean summer resort with warm weather, beautiful landscape and, most important, beautiful people. The minus of Albena is that it's always windy so, it's not so appropriate for babies, but perfect for children and grown ups.

Ilaria was sooo enchanted from the very beginning...

You can see here the reaction on her 1st contact with sea's water:

Because it was windy all the time, the sea was agitated and there were big waves, so she swam only twice in the sea. Anyway, she decided is safer and more fun to enjoy the swimming pool:

(unfortunately, we don't have a picture of her swimming in the sea. We were so anxious to be everything OK, that we didn't take the time to photograph her in sea's water..)

In the end it was fun for all of us:

 

But the safest places for Ilaria to stay were:

in daddy's arms

and near mommy

I adore this parents addiction of her.

We've done a short trip to Balchik and visited the botanical garden and Queen's Maria of Romania summer residence, the so called "Still nest" palace. We were running there, as we didn't allocate enough time for this visit. We've stayed 1,5 hours there and I think at least 3 hours would have been the perfect amount of time that should be planned for visiting Balchik.

 

And here it comes another memory of summer Holiday and, as happens many times in my life, some regrets too...

In Albena the major part of tourists is represented by Romanian families with children and by German retired couples.

Near us, on the beach, there was a German couple. They were speaking German and were reading German books and newspapers. On our 3rd day of vacation we were surprised to find out that the man was speaking almost perfectly Romanian! 

(The couple was spending their summer holiday in Albena, for the last 10 years! They confirmed us that Albena is always as windy as it was when we were there)

His story:

He's 73 years old now and was living in Romania until he was 20 years old. Originally he is from Feldioara (little town very close to Brasov) and he's one of the Saxons people I was mentioning in this post that were living in Transylvania for centuries (until 1989). His parents were deported in Siberia after WWII and he, together with his other 2 younger siblings were cared by a Gypsy woman which taught him the palm reading.

When his lucky parents turned back from Siberia, he was involved in the army and his parents and sibling left Romania for good and went in Germany, leaving him here, alone. When he finished army, he asked for the permission of leaving Romania. After 2 years of waiting, he was accepted in personal audience by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (Romania's president 1961-1965) and after a 15 minutes long discussion he also had green light to leave Romania. He was lucky, because shortly after that meeting, Dej died and Ceausescu couple become Romania's leaders, so it would have been almost impossible for him to leave Romania before 1989... 

He went in Germany, near family, and there he married a German girl. 

Now they have 2 girls and 2 grandchildren.

Interesting things I've learned for him about palm reading:

- life line ( in my case see above that never ending line ;-) ) gives you exact information about your health and how much you will live. Uuuups, I don't want to know that! The information is at hand in your hand. You can measure the line and find out what's in store for you. The man, as I've told you, is 73 now and he knew he still has 5 more years left. He was smoking like crazy, knowing that nothing can go wrong before he will be 78. In the past he had a big operation because of smoking and that was also written in his hand.

 

- marriage line (in my case uuuups again - 2 lines) gives you information about marriages and children's number. When we were children we were laughing a lot about those lines (in my case - 2), knowing that they give you information about how many children you will have. Imagine how shocked I was when I told to the man: "I know I will have 2 children" and he told me "no, that's wrong! you will have 2 marriages"!!!! 

On every marriage line there are another thin lines - the number of children you will have in that marriage.

After he gave me this information I was so shocked, that my brain refused to think to other subjects. I wasn't interested in anything anymore, but I was busy with finding out a way to escape from this strange situation (the man, with Adrian near me, communicated the fact that I will have 2 marriages! And Adrian has only 1 marriage line, so he won't be my 2nd..)

And the relief came:

I remembered about a woman not married and old enough not to be able to have children anymore. I thought: "wait! does it mean she doesn't have marriage line at all?" 

And the man told us a story from his palm reading experience. It was about a woman:

she was having 1 marriage line with 2 thin lines on it (2 children). She felt in love with a guy. She became pregnant, but she decided not to keep the baby. Then they separated and, after that, all lines (marriage + children) disappeared!!!

Imagine my relief, when I understood that everything is written in your palm, but it's not necessary to happen like that. There are moments in life when you can change what is written there, by fighting or by giving in the life's obstacles.

And now the already announced regrets:

we do not know those beautiful peoples names or address. We were silly enough not to ask them. And I knew I will regret it, as it's not the 1st time when I act like this..

All we know is that they are living in Germany, in a small village or town called in German "the cock is singing", near Leipzig, and that locality of their is like a railway junction, as they can reach many important cities from their station.

I would love to find out more about them, as I want to wish him "Happy Birthday!" when he will be 79 :-) Because, never forget: your fate is more in your hands, than on your hands! (being a convinced fatalist person, I should daily repeat this; maybe someday day I will also believe it)

P.S.: probably only a blogger would truly understand that, but, believe me, any comment of your is welcomed on this blog, in any language (I will hopefully manage to translate it somehow)! I would love this blog to be also a communication modality between us, not only me to become your favorite storyteller ( and I'm so modest when I say that :-)) ). 
So, thank you for your time spent here to visit, to read and... to comment! :-)

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