Move On

Thankfully it's the weekend again. I do have to work today, Saturday, but after that a longer weekend is hopefully letting me relax and pamper myself. I just want to sit back, do nothing special and breathe in and out while the day passes by. Ok, I don't want to be stuck at home either. I just want to take it very slow and easy the next couple of days. Life's too short and we should celebrate each hour, even minute and all that so we can later on say "YES, I did something or at least I lived the moment..." whatever the moment might have been.

Two days ago I learned that one of my Swiss friends I met nine years ago in Oakland can now call himself a father. Wonderful. The pictures of his cute little baby are just brilliantly done and I'm so happy for him. Then, yesterday I got a message saying that someone I just met is expecting, too and in about what? 5 weeks or so, another friend of mine is about to deliver a cute little girl. It seems as if everyone around me just either gets married, or gets babies or is expecting or whatever...and where am I? In the middle of what? Quarter-life crisis? Maybe. Definitely. Who knows. I'm not entirely jealous although I would be lying if I said I wasn't. I'm happy for each and everyone that has majored that part in life and is now entering or has entered that stage in life - parenthood. I'm not jealous in terms of I-want-that-too-and-I-want-it-now. However, at my age, you certainly start thinking about stuff like that and you take it a lot more serious than at age 20. It's a want-don't want relationship...of some. You want what others have, or you want what you wanted when you were 20 or a bit older or younger, and now you look at yourself and wonder where the time went and why you are not there where you wanted to be in the first place. You feel stuck, stupid, weak maybe, alone, angry, frustrated, jealous, happy for others, still jealous though great because you can go home without kids crying around you. Then though reality bites you in the neck and tells you that you either have to change something fast or you have to live with whatever's bothering you and continue being slightly jealous.
How does my case look like? Let me think... I am a slightly bit jealous as mentioned before, though am happy that when I'm at home I don't have to change diapers (yet), and that I can spend my money on new shoes (which I did yesterday). I am angry at myself though for so many things and I deeply know that I have to change something in my life and I have to change it fast. I call it my quarter-life crises...which I believe everyone at some point experiences. It's part of the grown-up process and part of life...otherwise every day would be boring, and dull. I want my days to be all colorful, exciting, and full of new experiences...good ones of course. I want to enjoy moments and hear music if possible whenever I do something that enriches my life with new perspectives. If I don't hear the music or see the colors I feel trapped in a grey world. Sounds odd I'm sure, and some may say I should see someone and talk to that someone. We won't call names now. However, I don't need that. It's my quarter-life crisis and I'm taking care of it. I've always have, and always will. It's that part of life you never want to admit exists but in all of us it sure does....
Felt like this is an appropriate picture...and yes, I somewhat do miss this city!

Blah

It's Friday and to most of you it's the last day of this week and tomorrow the weekend starts again. To me, it's just an ordinary day. A day I am not looking forward to. Ok, so far it's been a good day. I slept in, watched some dull TV show while working out, had my cup of coffee and had no work-related outburst. The latter one might happen today, or might not. I'm hoping for the NOT but you never know. My wonderfully friendly co-worker pissed me off yesterday and it seems as if this has become a routine...Thursdays and Fridays she pisses me off. Nice. At least I know what comes along and what I have to prepare myself with. One thing I want to share is that as much as I want to see the good in her all I get to see and feel and well, hear, is the bad. So true. So sad. Her little paranoia outburst yesterday had to do with a computer background picture. Can you believe this? Most computers already come with background pictures, so if users want to add some flair to a very dull blue given background they can enhance their computer with yellow tulips, deserts, other flowers, sunsets, etc etc etc... One of our other co-workers was fed up with a very ugly pink picture and changed it. I don't mind, we don't get to see that picture anyhow...we have programs open and their windows cover the background so it really isn't bothersome to me and shouldn't bother anyone else either. It did bother her. I wonder why. She doesn't even use that particular computer so why does she get upset? I wonder. She never uses that other computer and so she should let go of her suppressed emotions and crabby attitude. If she says anything today about that subject or any other banal thing that doesn't even need a talk I am going to lose my mind. I might even get to the point of telling her how awful she's been and what a drag it is to work with her...if that is what you want to call it. We don't work together, we just work with her for like 5 minutes which is the worst ever.

Wish me luck. I'm so going to need it.

If Everyone Cared

I'm pissed. Disappointed is a more subtle word for what I'm feeling right now though. Why is it that every time a law gets passed or something is decided to be a specific way, some people just think to ban that law after a while or handle it differently? You made up your freakin' mind. Stick with it. Don't change your mind - again. It's humiliating. It's frustrating. It's plainly just stupid. A law is a law. It doesn't matter if some people disagree. It was set to be that way so leave it that way, too. It happens every time, in every country, state or region. It's just beyond humiliation. Some may be happy, others very disappointed. The whole picture is messed up. Hate when that happens...and it always does happen...

The World Spins Madly On...

Do you like watching people, and then maybe imagine who they are or what they are doing etc? I do. Sometimes. Not every day and not everywhere. Today though, I had fun watching people strolling around town, taking ridiculous amounts of pictures of the same background and people, chatting, arguing, laughing and yelling, holding hands, hugging, eating ice cream and letting it drop onto their shirt, reading a giant book, and eating lunch.
In the middle of it all, me. I was sitting next to a little church facing the water front and yes, watching people. My iPod was on, my still-not-finished book in my hand, sunscreen put all over, lunch already eaten and a water bottle close by...I was ready to experience the inexperienced moments of ordinary life. Loved every single moment. There was this Asian couple trying desperately to take at least five shots of the same background and all but with different gestures, different smiles, and in the end it seemed she wasn't satisfied so they started arguing (at least to me it seemed that way) about the whole picture taking. I thought it was funny. There was also this guy that approached one part of the bridge and then a girl came from the opposite side...it looked like they didn't know each other but soon enough I knew they did though because their hug said it all. Like a tornado there was this red haired woman walking over the bridge. If you wanted to ignore you simply couldn't because her hair color was loud, and just burning...the minute she came down that covered bridge, I saw her enormously big purse had the same color as her hair and her marine-blue striped dress just made the whole outfit look perfect. She glowed. Just perfect. German speaking groups passed by, too. The tour guide tried to explain why this famous bridge is where it's at, and how it was used before, and what's up with the mountain literally sort of hugging the city. Watching groups is even more fun. They are all so very different, and though, still the same. I imagined that one German group going back to their hotel, kicking shoes off and then realizing they had worn socks with sandals. Yes, sock with sandals. To some of you this may be the most natural thing ever, but to me it is just disgusting. I can't stand it. I want to stop those people, grab their sandals, Birkenstock, slip ons, you-name-it, and just rip the socks off and tell them that sandals and socks aren't made for one another. It's practically against nature. At least to me. I might have to mention that we had temperatures in the lower 90s today and sandals, flip flops, just anything casual was mainly a must. At least for me having a day off and for anyone else traveling or being in the city. Watching people was fun, just not when it came to the sock-and-sandal part. Lunch slowly tried to make its way back to where it came from. No further comment there. Needless to say, the day was fun...entertaining, stimulating, full of new stories, and yes, did I mention I booked the trip to Barcelona?!

Kindly Unspoken

Another day, another blog entry. Today I really felt proud of myself, and superior to my co-worker. This may sound conceited and way over the top but I always knew I was better than her. Today, I felt it and it gave me instant gratification. You may not know this, but there is one co-worker I can't seem to please in any way. No matter what you do and where you are there is always at least one person you can't and won't get along with. Where I work, it's this one person and for years we've had our share of niceness. She is this kind of person you don't want to be friends with, and wonder how she ended up having a husband. I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for her, too. Nonetheless, I've come to terms with my obsessive hatred towards her. She never was part of my life, thank you, but she slightly ruined work and therefore my life whenever she seemed to have found something I apparently had done wrong. It always turned out that it wasn't me that had done the mistake but her and she just needed to blame someone else. I learned to work with her and her little outbreaks over banal things. I learned to change things, so the outcome eventually was perfect and I learned to ignore her, too. For years, I'd tried to prove to be better and today it finally happened and I witnessed it. It felt good. I felt strong, incredibly intelligent and extremely superior to her and all that in front of her. Sweet!!!!
Her face said it all...as some would say silence speaks louder than words.

My daily inspiration came automatically to me and I didn't have to look for it this time!

Inspiration of the day

I felt like getting some inspiration. It's needed from time to time. Whether or not it's a picture, a fantastic blog with new insight on life, beauty, decoration, or love issues...something powerful to start the day with is always needed. Today, it's the sun shining into my room, and this blog:

Blog of Inspiration by the English Muse

Pictures like these make my day, at least to start the day with...
Wish me luck...I'm going back to work today after one day away from it. Why do days off always go by so fast? I wish they'd last forever or at least long enough so I can fully relax and enjoy time away from all the craziness.

Dreaming

There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
And she's buying a stairway to heaven....

Know this song? I'm sure you do and if you don't I'm sure you are just not familiar with its lyrics.
The reason I picked this song is that our local radio station played it a minute ago and while I feel like living an absurd dream or being part of one, the song made me dream and escape reality...even just for a few minutes.
It was a good dream; one I needed.

Have you ever felt tired in your life? I'm sure you have, but have you ever felt tired like really tired so your eyes literally closed and you half way didn't really care if someone saw it or not? Not in school or so but mainly at work? Unfortunately this has happened to me. I feel ashamed. This has never ever happened before. I won't allow it to happen again. Though it sort of did. For once though the computer I'm working with and the programs did not really work well and the screen always froze on me for about five minutes which made working even worse. You want to work and finish up your stuff and go on to the next but what if you can't work as fast as you want because your device is slowing you down? Yes, this happened to me. So, trying to finish something that takes some time anyways and needs to be precise and all... I ended up working on it for over 4 hours. Normally it takes 30 minutes, max. one hour. My eyes still hurt, and my head was, heck, still is exploding. Not to mention that this unspeakable and unthinkable happened...my eyes giving up on me and closing without my permission. I'm still ashamed. No one saw anything and the triple shots of espresso I got before, while and after all that writing sadly didn't help as much. I feel worse now. Maybe it's guilt that's now haunting me just because I had no power over my misbehaving eyes. Maybe. Either way I could escape for a few minutes listening to Led Zeppelin's song.
Dreaming always helps...writing does too.

Happy Weekend everyone.
Hope you're having great days ahead of you!!!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!!

As I am working today I wasn't fully able to do anything in particular for my mom. We had a quick dessert of strawberry shortcake. Nothing big, and nothing exciting. It's the thought that counts and she'll be rewarded as a mother tomorrow, Monday. Every day should be Mother's Day!!! I just wish that my kids will think this way, too - one day.....Time for me to start my own family...ha!

Besides Mother's Day I came across this article about the happiest places in the world.
It struck me partly when I read that Europe basically made it to the best continent...from 1 to 10...only two countries aren't European. Wow!!! Switzerland, where I'm currently at, hit rank 7. Not bad at all. Considering most people (me included at times) either obsessivley say they are unhappy here (wages, prices, immigrants coming in like ants...etc etc etc)...yeah...there we go. This small but beautiful country hit number seven which is absolutely impressive.
Good to know I live in a place that allows itself to call itself a happy place. Not to mention the rest of the countries listed....Wow!
Go ahead and read the article for yourself...just click here.

Time

If I had the time I'd be constantly traveling the world. Today I'd be exploring another city in my country (aka the island of Europe), tomorrow I'd jump on a train towards Italy, the next day I'd take a plane to Spain or even Portugal...then maybe Greece and Turkey and over to Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan and then down to Australia...and after a while I'd take another plane going over to the US again...explore some of the states I haven't been to or should go back to and from there take a boat (how about that?) to the south of this giant continent...visit people in Brazil and Argentina...and then fly back to Europe where I have more to explore and more to learn and from there...well, from there I'd continue my endless search of gratification and adventure.
If I had time...

For right now though I'm satisfied with the knowledge I have and the possibility of a future trip to Barcelona, Spain. I have never been there and always heard fabulous stories about this wonderful city. Its art, culture, and history are just three of so many other things that appeal to me and that I want to learn more from. Not to mention food and wine...

Another trip I've had in mind for quite some time and never came around to make it happen is a trip to Istanbul, Turkey. Oh, I've been to this beautifully located city since I was two. It's home to me. However, home is not necessarily a place you currently live in. It can be, but doesn't have to be. My family's from there, so part of me will always call Istanbul home! I miss its colors, music, food, people, culture, art, history, traffic (yes, even that), smells, skyline...I could go on forever. A trip this year is a must! I have to go. I need to go. It's been too long and an upcoming wedding forces me to go this year. Maybe this is exactly what I need though: going home.

Apparently I have time...at least for these two trips!

Hungry

It is time again to go out and enjoy delicious meals...even during times like these we shouldn't stop pampering ourselves. Spas are fun places and one way to let daily stress slowly dissolve into nothing...dinners are another way to just let go of whatever went wrong at work, at home, in a relationship or friendship...
I love going out for dinner and spoil myself. Spring time is good to start doing this again. In Europe, compared to the US and other regions, prices are just horrendously expensive. However, service is also a bit better (not that I'm saying other countries have bad service...just different, ok?), tax and tips are always included (at least here in Switzerland), and when you pay 40 dollars on a normal dinner (no exclusive caviar involved etc) you, most of the time, get what you pay for. I just came back from one of my favorite restaurants and had a fabulous night.



A romantic getaway...or just a place to chill, and still experience Swiss culture...





I eventually forgot to take pictures of my meal.
It's still time for asparagus over here. All I can say is that it was worth going and spending money. Pampering is just one fantastic way to end a day.



Our little "neighbor"...sitting outside was just a tiny bit too cold, so we got the spring feeling inside, too.