Posted on

First World Problems

Finally we decided to take a break from our munich corona quarantine routine and visit my parents. We waited so long because they are living in a small town and we wanted to avoid to bring the virus out of a big city into their area. Once we decided that we go we tried to avoid even more the contacts we had in munich than before.

Talking about our contacts, truly, that weren’t many because apart from our essential errands the only contacts we had here were neighbours which you obviously meet when you live in the same building.

These “problems” are seriously first world problems. We are both relatively young (depends from which perspective you see it) and in general healthy. Both of us were working, were because the situation changed for me already at the end of last year, but not in a bad way, and my husband “lost” his job due to corona which is also nothing bad as it gives us exclusive family-corona-time if you would like to call it that way. We are not struggling moneywise and our fridge is full.

Humans are strange – especially when they have too much time.

misssfaith

What I have seen in the beginning and also throughout the course of the first weeks from this pandemic lockdown is that many people are wise. Wiser than they probably know even themselves before the pandemic started. Or how would you explain that persons with an immense knowledge of virology never thought about a career in science? Why don’t we have more people willing to study politics? There seem to be many potential leaders out there who know much better how to rule countries?

This pandemic is showing the truth and this truth is for many not as charming as they would love to be seen.

Complaints I cannot hear anymore – and these are just the main ones, meaning the top of an iceberg:

I cannot breathe under that mask, it is ridiculous to ask all people to wear it.

Where are all these issues coming from, I would really love to understand it? As a normal healthy person it is maybe unusual in the beginning and it may get sweaty now during summer, BUT nobody has to wear these masks 24/7. They should be worn in closed buildings, during grocery shopping, etc. Apart from this we still should try to go only when needed and not for extensive shopping trips into some malls, right?

I cannot celebrate my birthday with friends and family because gathering of more than 5 persons is not allowed.

Seriously? Even my 4-year-old wasn’t making a huge issue. Be happy that you are turning a year older! There are people who worry that not all are allowed to attend the funeral of a loved one. This is something really to be sad about!

Our garden is so small, how should we manage to keep the kids entertained?

Our family is living in a two-room apartment, what is a garden? There is plenty of nature on this planet and in many cases you don’t have to drive hours to be in a forest, on a field, at a lake…if you have a garden you are already one of the really lucky ones and you don’t realize?

My favourite restaurant is closed because of corona.

It’s hard to comment here even. Do people know that there are others who have nothing to eat AT ALL? People who struggle to survive?

It’s all made up by the pharma industry to sell their vaccines.

Yes, I’m part of the pharma industry if you want as I work in that area…and surprisingly for many I don’t say everything out there is needed! There are tons of products which may not be life saving or important. But vaccines in general saved millions of lives and still nobody ever forces you to get vaccine, right? It is still your choice in the end!

Third world…

I know already what comments I may get. You cannot argue with third world problems (and this third world is already making me angry as we are one world!). I tell you YES, yes I can argue with it because a pandemic is not stopping anywhere. It is crawling into each little corner of this planet and this virus doesn’t care at all if it hits the poor or the rich. The truth is that we as the rich (and that’s what we are when we have access to health care and internet) have higher chances to survive. We may end up in hospitals, and yes, people died and will die, but they didn’t die in a dark and dirty mud hole without being seen even.

I’m so angry, angry at people who don’t realize how lucky they are, angry when everything which could help is neglected without a valid reason. It is NOT a reason if it doesn’t fit into their way of living or style. A mask isn’t matching the handbag? But you have access to masks, right?

Take a step back for your own sake.

From my perspective it is even essential to compare to be grounded again. Many were flying high as we had no limits and now we see what this can cause? Striving to go higher and higher in general is not a bad thing but it should be done in a mindful way. Question things and analyse them, are they worth doing it? Who would benefit? Would it serve others? What is it doing to the planet?

Seeing the earth recovering is wonderful and sad at the same time. It was us doing the harm!!! There’s no way to neglect this.

We all should use this time as a wake-up call to be a change.

Ok, I started with our decision to visit my parents and that’s what we did.

My lesson to take from there is the following:

Family is the most important!

A garden is wonderful and I would lie if I wouldn’t miss it but the essence of our stay is really just that. People we love are the most precious gift, to have this time together gave us all rest and strength to move forward.

Posted on

Where are we heading to?

This question popped up just this morning when I opened Instagram.

I must confess, I like Instagram and I often go in and check and find inspiration and ideas how to live more sustainable, I see great campaigns against many injustices on this planet, I follow people I adore like Deepak Chopra or Ram Dass and this is great.

But what I also see is that there are thousands of women who call themselves influencer, mom blogger, whatever name you want to give them, who expose their whole families, grandparents and neighbors of neighbors to the world wide web. They literally “sell” their life and feel like kind of a celebrity.

I mean, seriously, I show my home, my sacred place and start to tag everything from the lamp on the ceiling to the rug on the floor, I give away shopping codes and link web pages while hoping that people love me and follow my life and at the end of the day BUY.

This kind of commercializing products is not only weird, it’s also going into a direction where being unique seems to be outdated.

Every mom blogger account has the same brands (at least for what I can see in Germany), the wear the same jewelry, call themselves even designer because they put their name on products they designed? To be a designer for you normally need to attend classes in a design school, university, whatever, but hey, this is the easy way, right? They eat the same, the drink the same tea, they own the same coffee machines in their stylish mainly white colored new built homes and their kids have the same toys and clothes and prams. All for the price of inviting people into their life on a daily basis, day in and day out, from morning to bedtime routine, being healthy or not feeling fine.

I’m honest and especially the ones who build up their life like this will not agree on it, but filling the washing machine with the camera in my hand or making a time-lapse of how I clean the kitchen is NOT real life and is far away from what we should do with our time.

As wonderful as all these technologies are, as careful they need to be handled. What do we teach our children when we document every step we take, inside and outside? What do we teach them if mommy is putting on her make up each day in front of the phone while she’s talking to the phone instead of talking to her child?

Did you ever check your screen time per day? I know that it hits you once you start to focus on it, at least it hit me when I checked it, because this screen time means that you spent the time with a phone in your hand instead of being in the real NOW.

Eckhart Tolle wrote this wonderful book “the power of NOW” and I can recommend this to everyone – we are all right now here and we should spend our time wisely.

If it’s your job and your income to advertise and to sell, that’s great, but do it need the 24/7 exposure to the whole world? Isn’t it enough to create good selling content and pictures and tutorials?

I may never understand but wanted to share as I feel we are heading to a time where personal contact starts to be rare and real life exists only in form of a hashtag.

Go out, meet friends, take your children to the playground and just sit there, watching the leaves dancing in the wind with the sound of children laughing and playing, that’s real life, at least for me.

Take care

misssfaith <3

Posted on

A day in the life of a working mum…

 

A day in the life of a working mum…without childcare

toddler at home

Let me show you a typical working day with a toddler at home.

8.00 am – 9.30 am – I actually work

9.30 am – the toddler wakes up

Washing him and changing diapers, breastfeeding, carrying him, sitting and rocking , playing, emptying the dishwasher, starting the washing machine, feed him, playing, answering the phone, breastfeed again, dressing him, reading mails in between, answering IMs from colleagues…

…and all of a sudden it’s 11.45 am.

He yawns.

So off to the bed, breastfeeding until he drifts off into sleep.

12.01 pm conference call

12.25 pm – the toddler (who found out recently how to leave the family bed on his own) taps into the room (seriously, only half an hour where I hoped for at least triple that time to get work done).

Breastfeeding number 4 – he still doesn’t want to eat, I tried.

I shift clothes from the washing machine into the dryer, make soap bubbles to entertain my son and try to answer some emails in between.

12.45 pm – I feel like a cow as he’s sitting on my lap latched again – number 5 for today and no end in sight. I truly love it but when you work you wish that he just eats his bread, yogurt, fruit, instead of occupying me every minute of the day (although he has the right for sure).

1.00 pm – my husband is home so that I can finally work properly at least for a while.

1.30 pm – I cooked pasta for my son with the end result that he ate exactly two while I ate the salad from yesterday evening.

It’s now 2.00 pm – I have a conference call soon that needs preparation (at 3.30 pm) and my lovely toddler sits on the floor beside me, makes noises with a paper box and yawns.

At least I can answer emails again – the sound would have disturbed me a year ago but hey, you’re getting used to focus even when it’s completely noisy around you.

2:30 pm – he ate a few bites of bread and the last was spit well chewed on the floor, and not on the wooden part, no, on the carpet so that I need to clean it with more efforts than on the wooden floor. Still no sign of being ready to sleep, I know after 14 months when it makes sense to lay down with him and when not. In his current mood we would spend an hour in the bed and he wouldn’t sleep so I let him play with the hope that he is soon really tired.

3.00 pm – less than 30 min left until my conference call and my toddler isn’t tired at all – the only option will be that he stays with his dad.

3:29 pm and he’s ‘talking’ loudly with his dad in the bedroom – I have a toddler resistant to sleep on some days. He will sleep, exactly then when we would like to go outside and do some grocery shopping.

Just happy that it’s Friday and this work week is almost over.

4.00 pm – he seems to sleep as I don’t hear anything but I can’t check as I need to jump from one conference call into the next, fortunately the last for today.

For this call I only need to listen so I can start to think about what to cook for dinner today and what we need to buy before shops are closing.

5.30 pm – I’m stuck in that call longer than expected and meanwhile all are awake again so I’m sitting on my desk with a muted headset, my son is running around and wondering what mommy is doing, breastfeeding number 6 for today (I’m not sure if I missed some already as it’s so normal these days) and I’m annoyed because I would give everything to just throw the laptop and enjoy the time with my family. But this job is paying lots what we love in our life and quitting is not an option, besides it is a great job at many times but just now I wish I would be a millionaire not caring for such things as conference calls.

Am I the only one or are other working moms also feel guilty not to be there 100% for their children. I’m apologizing so often to him although he won’t understand a word I’m saying that I still need to do this or that before we can play.

It’ll be past 6.00 pm when I finally am off work and then the private stress will start – what do we really need today, is there something that can’t wait until tomorrow? Cooking dinner is hanging like the Damocles sword above me because I long to have a bit time for NOTHING. No thinking, no you need to, you have to, have you already or when will you – just a quiet hour to recharge but that won’t happen until my son sleeps which recently is rarely before midnight.

I send this post now, unfinished, as the rest of the day until I will fall into my bed (or better until I try to go to my side of the bed without waking him up) I won’t find the time anymore. If I don’t send it now it may sit in my drafts for the next weeks.

That’s motherhood, a day of a working mom without childcare, a crazy day with a toddler, that’s my life and even if it is often beyond exhausting I would NEVER EVER change it back.

Stay strong – we are strong!

And stay away of the thought to be perfect, nobody needs to be perfect! My messy hair will be in a bun in 5 minutes to leave the house and if you look around then you will see many imperfections, so no worries. Most important now is a happy toddler and that’s why I’m off into the weekend now. Bye

Posted on

Are you jealous?!?

Are you jealous?!?

Are you jealous_!_

Do you know the feeling of being jealous?
I do not mean being jealous because there is someone near to your loved one.
No, what I mean is being jealous about what others have.
Are you sometimes envious when you see that others have something you may have not?
I’m not a jealous person in general and in most cases I’m just happy for the others when they have something I don’t have.
Sometimes because I don’t want to have it, sometimes because I already have it or sometimes because I’m not interested in it at all.

But there are these days…
These evil days when I see for instance a couple walking hand in hand on a nice autumn day, their feet kicking leaves and both are laughing and seem to be totally happy.
These are the days when I start to be jealous as I don’t have it right now.
Take for instance supermarkets on Saturdays.
I truly hate to go there on a Saturday afternoon! I’m surrounded by couples and for sure I don’t know their story or something about them, I’m not interested in details as well, but I imagine how it would be when my husband would be there.
All of them may do the grocery shopping for their weekend, cook together in the evening, snuggle up on the couch for a cosy and romantic evening, starting the Sunday with a breakfast in bed but I can’t do all this (and I hate breakfast in bed unless it’s a hotel and I don’t have to care about changing the bed sheets, but if I see them I even want that).
All these stories are just in my mind because I start to hate to be alone.
I’m actually not alone, I have a loving husband and family and and and
BUT I am alone when witnessing these strange mind invented couple stories while just looking at a normal couple and they may even be just best friends, nevertheless they trigger the feeling of lacking something in my life.
Isn’t there a way to schedule opening hours for singles in supermarkets?
And can we adjust these hours during the times when my husband is with me?
Another question would be since when it is allowed to kiss in public?!?
They don’t know what they do to single human beings when celebrating their love in public.
I try hard to ignore it as best as I can and forget for sure completely that I was ever thinking about it as soon as my husband is back in town…
Talking and laughing happily with your spouse while others sit next to you or walk by – be careful, it’s a risk for all, who are alone, to become slightly depressive.

Wouldn’t it be an idea to invent couple restaurants and single restaurants, couple supermarkets and single supermarkets (in this case really worth a second thought as I don’t need family packs just for myself), couple parks and single parks, I would have many ideas to be honest.
What to do when I need to stop at a traffic light just after my husband went back to work and the car beside me inherits a couple – separate driveways or dark windows for couple cars may be a solution.

I think I’m desperate to be complete again and can’t wait for my second half to arrive.
Nobody told us that long distance relationships and in our case now a long distance marriage aren’t always easy to handle (indeed it were lots who told us, but we make our own experience!). We are now married for three and a half month and were physically together one month. That could be the explanation for my developed strange thinking, couldn’t it?

Fortunately the countdown started and I promise that I will do all the things which are “annoying” me now throughout his whole stay!!!

Are you jealous?

 

Posted on

Can you please grow old with grace?

Can you please grow old with grace?

I have the feeling as if the world around me is getting more and more insane.
As soon as I open the web, a magazine, the TV and sometimes even the front door I see false faces.
Who ever made a law that women past 30 aren’t allowed anymore to have small wrinkles around their eyes or normal lips?
What I’m wondering is, do they like what they find each morning in their mirror?
Questions which are answered with “No, I just drink lots of water and eat healthy, there was nothing done to my face, honestly!” – sure, and I’m living on the moon.

I don’t like to drink plain water but therefore lots of different teas and yes, also the scary brownish fluid called coffee, may this be the reason for the wrinkles around my eyes? Definitely no! I live and I love and I laugh!!!
I fortunately get older each year. Oh, and I mean each year, I’m not celebrating my 29th birthday for the sixth time in a row.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to look beautiful and I’m almost addicted when it comes to new creams, oils, etc. (mmhh, I’m lazy with eye cream) but if I see needles or even surgery knifes near to a face I run as fast as I can. I’m a coward, I know. These surgeries for sure don’t hurt. It’s just like buying new shoes, isn’t it?
The cruel part is that you can get the idea of “easy done” when you see all these perfect faces (which in reality remind me of the rocky horror picture show).
Aren’t they scared of mistakes, reactions to narcotics, a loose hand of a surgeon who worked 48 hrs in a row? I would be and in the same way I would be scared of the result.
Will I be able to recognize myself afterwards or do I look like a brand new person?

Thanks, that I don’t have to answer as I won’t do something to my face but I’m sure I would miss the stories it’s telling. My husband has many expressions of my face he loves (tired, laughing loudly, looking scared) and some he dislikes (no, I never look at him in an angry way even if he’s saying so…).
Just imagine what a loss it would be when I turn up with a stiff face – no movement visible.
And lips is also a topic which is scaring me. If the whole face seems to be just lips and more important, their sensitivity. Lips belong to the most sensitive parts of a human and it’s just taken to have one rubber hose above another? Isn’t that insane?
Not to mention want can be done besides the face…sitting has to be hard for some for a couple of weeks when the inlays are new.

Why are woman doing that?!?

There is always a ‘behind the scenes’ and I would say it’s first of all a big lack of self confidence. Whatever this comes from, a deep look into oneself would be better than trying to hide insecurities or scars behind a mask.

Other reasons could be to follow the crowd, like in childhood – eeeeeveryone has this, mummy, I neeeeed that too!!!! I’m happily swimming against the crowd then.

Or to get closer to ideal faces you find in commercials as the for sure NEVER went through photoshop!!! Just check some Facebook profiles from teenager, they already know with Instagram and several other apps how to look as if they just turned twenty five with no spots on their skin and sleek hair. The problem is just that you won’t recognize them in real life.

Could men be a reason? I’m not entirely sure about men – there are men who love these masks but hopefully the majority still loves real beauty.

But the main point is, for whom am I doing something and for me it’s in first place myself. Sure I like to be pretty for my husband but if I ask him he states, I love you how you are, if you just stood up in the morning or put make up for whatever, it’s you.
That’s one of the most important points.
You can do as much as you want but beauty means more than the face, it means attitude, authenticity, charisma, radiation, aura, inner feelings and so on – all these will shop up on your face and in your eyes.
The majority of these lifted, unreal, I-want-to-be-perfect women have one thing in common – dead eyes. What I mean is their eyes are blank, emotionless, the sparkle is missing and they do not glow.

For sure these are all extremes and to be natural, authentic and real doesn’t mean that we can’t use a bit of make up, of course we can, we are women. I like that as well to underline, but what we should not to is trying to paint something new onto something old or vice versa. It will never work.
Do they think about the coming years? How will it look like in ten years, will they look like a hobbit with hanging ears? Or will they have monthly appointments to stretch the skin again a bit more and fix it behind their hanging ears?
I cannot imagine that we won’t have cute grand moms anymore in a couple of years, that’s a big loss!
The perfect women society – teenager look as if they are twenty nine as well as their moms and grand moms?
I don’t want to join this society!

I was thinking about before/after pictures but I decided against as I’m sure everyone knows instantly what I mean (if not, then this post may not be for you ;-))
Instead of horror pictures I reveal my first wrinkles (please ignore the mascara spread below but fortunately I’m not the photoshop master).
It may be a horror picture for the addicted ones, for me it’s my life and it looks as if I had good laughs and I plan to have them in the future as well!

Stay real!!!

20131106-184706.jpg

Posted on

Insanity or just a bride to be?

Insanity or just a bride to be?

Did you ever plan a wedding?
My wedding ticker on the web is telling me “31 days to go”. And yes, you got it, I have a wedding ticker. Is that still me?!?
I tried to look at myself and what I’m up to during these days and realized that I am one of these brides I was joking about before. If you would have asked me how to marry the clear answer was in the same second “just a tiny formal celebration and then off to honeymoon”. Where is this woman now?
I catch myself being more on google and wedding web pages than sleeping.
And I start to make these noises. You know, these bride noises when she’s looking at something soooo cute, like “Aaaaaah” and “Ooooooh”, which means “I need that too!”
My husband to be is already asking me almost daily if we are still within the budget. Me, the one who tried to save where possible, seeing myself thinking about wedding bubbles where the price is three times higher than for normal ones.
Is that phenomenon normal or is it just me going insane?
But at least I’m still able to judge properly and I don’t know how exactly but yes, I kept the budget (so far).
31 days and while the day is getting closer I seem to relax mainly. Mainly because my subconsciousness seems to have another sight. A few days ago I woke up and knew that I dreamt of an awful wedding but luckily I wasn’t able to recall details.
As nice and perfect as a wedding should be, it’s a bit scary too, isn’t it? It’s not that I have doubts, not at all. It’s more than sure that I will say “Yes, I do!”, I mean the whole day. Will it be like we want it to be? Do we have higher expectations than what’s possible? And how will I survive my speech? Yes, the bride’s speech. Which is unusual, I know, but I said I will do it and now I have to. No way back. Just because I did it more than often in my job doesn’t mean I will get a word out on my wedding day – this was my personal misjudging. Here we go, the bride will look like a zombie while crying and trying to finish a sentence in front of all. I have to rehearse before but it will never reflect the situation…lets hope I’m doing it at least with not too many tears and interruptions.
For the time being I’m just happy that almost everything is prepared and planned so I have around 20 days to calm down. How to do that best? Any tips – they are more than welcome.
Still faithfully,
Miss Faith

20131028-110616.jpg