I am the anchor of my own news!!

I am the anchor of my own news, the star of my private reality show. Perhaps not so private, but what is private these days. Lets face it, we have all become addicted to it in many ways.


(Picture: courtesy of Fox News)

Facebook, twitter, blogging, you name it!! Everyone wants to tell the world about their lives...great or not. We all want to spill out the beans about what we like or dislike. We want others to see how wonderful or terrible our lives are.
We want to be superstars just like those on the big screen or in glamor magazines.

Years ago we were silent spectators, looking in on others. Now we have the chance to participate.
Social Networking? More like antisocial prying on others and exposure of our own lives?

Years ago, I wrote a paper on reality TV, back then it was still kind of new, facebook an Orwellian fiction, and blogging not even in the Oxford English Dictionary. (I am not sure if it is in there now, but it certainly was not in the 2003 edition.)

The reality show "Big Brother" is now as much of a cult as Orwell`s "1984" was back then. And what I thought was, at the beginning of the 21st century, a disgusting "fish bowl" like exposure of human life, is now readily excepted by society, and me, as normal or more even...it has become a necessity!!
No frustrated mother of six, or eight has to walk her tedious path of motherhood alone anymore. No fat person has to undergo the agony of loosing those dreaded pounds alone, and no thirteen year old has to go into labor by herself...no, there will be a camera team and she will be tweeting the moment the scalpel touches her abdomen.

And on a smaller scale we can be the stars on our facebook account, reaching at least a 100 or so people, who may or may not be interested in what we have to say, but at least we get a chance to tell someone.

We get a chance to share, a chance to be openly proud of something or someone, a chance for help, often only consisting of a just one word, or a chance to show people how great the world and life can be. For every negative posting there are a thousand positive ones. And judging by that, I believe, for as much as people like to feast on other´s woes, they generally want to feel good about life.

For this, I praise social networking and all the good we get out of it...! And anyway, where would all those poor hackers and identity thieves be without it? ...probably on benefits. :-)

Home sweet home, but its damn hard to entertain two kids by myself!!

How can two month fly by like that. Even the flight from London to Newark felt longer than those two month in Europe. Slowly the kiddies, and I, are recovering from a slight jet leg by catching up on as much sleep as we can get. Luckily they all sleep at the same time. We get up at six, and are back in the sack by 9.30 am. Works really well.
What does not work so well is the new swing set Daddy has purchased for his little ones. Don´t get me wrong, it is cool and everything. Unfortunately it requires my constant attention as Sadie is being a bit of a dare devil on the slide that seems to have been waxed!

Needless to say, it is 8.00 pm now and I am exhausted!!
I think I did more today than in the last two month.
We went to the library and I even got a book for myself. Whether this was just wishful thinking has yet to be determined.
For the first time in absolute ages, I did the weekly grocery shopping trip with two CRAZY children. I bet they could hear me shouting all the way to London. As a compensation I took them to the playground where the slides are less fast and I didn´t have to watch Sadie like a hawk. Instead I practiced riding a proper bike with no training wheels with Finley.

He did great and only forgot to push occasionally which resulted in him falling over and me running like a mad hatter to his rescue. In turn I had to leave Sadie behind at the highest point of the "not waxed", but very steep slide only to find her climbing down the ladder among my return.
Tomorrow I am going to the gym and put the kids into babysitting for as long as I can, otherwise this will end in my own premature death...probably a heart attack!!!
Home sweet home!!!!

Life is awesome: A personal valedictory tour of my second home...or is it my third? I think I am loosing track!

Life is awesome: A personal valedictory tour of my second home...or is it my third? I think I am loosing track!

A personal valedictory tour of my second home...or is it my third? I think I am loosing track!

England was my home for ten years.
Not as long as Austria, but quite a bit longer then America.

People move around a lot today and I sometimes wonder if they sometimes ask themselves the question:"Where is my home?"

The only thing that comes to mind is a line from a Temptation song, "Papa was a rolling stone, where ever he laid his head was his home".

That is a bit how I feel.

The beds my not always be comfortable, and the pillows not always goose down, but what counts is the fun we have on the journeys.

So here I am, in the lovely Thames Valley...! Last night it was raining cats and dogs. Not unusual for the Island of Great Britain. But that, I think, is also a reason why I love this place. It makes everything look so lush and green.
People might disagree with me on that point, but who cares, I don't have to live here anymore:-)

I used some rare moments of solitude to visit some of my favorite places and took a few pictures along the way.













And on top of all, I got to enjoy some good old Brit Pop acts from the 80s at the Rewind Festival with friends and family:-))

I can't believe its over:-((

The last 7 weeks were the quickest EVER!!

Not long ago, I arrived at heathrow airport with two sleepy, disoriented children, dragging myself, two heavy suitcases, and a stroller with those above mentioned sleepy kids through passport control, hoping that my kids would not curse me for taking them away from Daddy for two month.

I didn't need to worry.
The kids never started to hate me, but I think Daddy did:-)
(I guess he just missed us!!)



Now that it is over and we are back in the UK, I quickly need to let it all run past me one more time and take stock.


First of all, Sadie needs a complete new wardrobe. Why? Because she suddenly became a giant.
Not only that, she is a bilingual giant.
Her favorite word is car and when she says car, she means "take me somewhere!!"
Sadie also likes to sit on the tractor, which is her second favorite word.
More words are "Kuchen" (cake), "Flug" (aeroplane), and "Schuh" (shoe)!!!

Finley's German is even better. No more "Mommy look". No, he says: "Ingrid, schau amoi!" Which, of course means exactly the same as the English version.
He also tells the dogs to "beat it" in perfect Austrian dialect and loves to make fun of me when I tell him to get off the table..."owa vom Tisch"!.

The boy also managed to teach himself how to ride a bike. Not without gaining a few "Auis" during the process though.
Around eight in the morning he usually came into my bedroom, dressed, teeth brushed, and ready to go. He only did that, because he needed a note with my signature not breakfast.
Sometimes I managed to convince him to have something to eat, but very often he just took the note, swung himself onto his metal steed and off he went, about half a mile, to his friends house. In his tight fist, the note saying:"Finley is allowed to play with his friends".
I had an arrangement with the moms in the neighborhood. No note - they got sent home!!










Finley's friends also came to our house, mainly to jump on the trampoline or to play in the little stream next to the house. They had an excellent barn for rainy days and when it was sunny "snail racing" down the waterfall was the preferred activity.











...and while the kids played, I got to read some cool Austrian murder mystery novels;-)

Fresh air and bon fires

I like the country side and I like vaccation.
Yes, it has been a long vaccation, but better a long vaccation with kids sleeping like logs through the night then...well, I don't know! Perhaps kids waking up all night because they didn't have enough enery consuming activities.
Picture this: Children waking up at 8.00 am (one at 8.30 am), breakfast outdoors with NO mosquitos (just two hungry and quick dogs),followed by a two hour walk into the village, ice cream and visit to the gothic church.
After that the real exercise starts...me carrying one sleepy child up the hill. Now after that we need a BIG lunch. Zuccini spagetti made from the biggest zuccini the world has ever seen (grown in our own garden).
Immediately followed by one snoozle, lasting about an hour:-)
Afternoon activity: boatride on the lake for the kids, cold beer for the moms at the lakeside restaurant...kids are wearing life vests, but don't follow the rules, they are quickly out of sight!! Moms however trust the kids and don't jump into the 15 C cold water. Kids come back alive...phew!!!
At 5 pm BBQ with friends. Favorite game: Cowboys and Indians. Favorite activity: Tying Sadie to a tree. Second favorite activity: everyone gets a knive and cuts as many snails in half as they can find. In the meantime, it is getting dark and we need a bonfire. Third favorite activity: burning the snails in the fire.
Here I think I have lived in the Western hemisphere too long and are no longer familiar with Eastern European habits. Don't they have RSPCA here?
I am just about to have a third beer and my friend tells me she got stopped by police the other day. They asked for her license and registration, which she did not have on her. Well, they said: You better go home and get it then, which she did. They let her off.
I am thinking: Will I get away with not having an Austrian license at all and will they have a problem with me driving around at night with two kids and two beers in my system. I did not take the chance, even though the drive was less then 5 minutes. So I left at 9.30 pm, got home, gave the kids a bath, put Sadie to bed, put Finley to bed and by the time I had the computer turned on, they were both fast asleep:-)))
To get to the point, I like country air and crazy snail burning BBQ's and long nights sleep and happy kids:-)))

Face of the year

If only I were a teenager. The anual "face of the year" photo contest was neither for me, nor was it for my also not "teenage" children.
Too bad, but at least the other kids had better chances to win:-)

What was I to do?
I created my own photo contest!

The models I chose were all around me starting with Schloß Kammer, a place where I took a course in wind surfing, 24 years ago!!!
The castle is as beautiful as ever, only the surfers are gone. The place is no longer a surf school, but a private residence.

A clear favorite were dark thunder clouds behind sunflowers
and church towers. Very effective.

Pictures of busy spiders taken with a 300 mil. lens were also up there with the best, but the number one model was Finley who clearly has the model gene in his DNA, even though his sign language wasn't always politically correct.

VON Polo Cup 2010 in Strobl am Wolfgangsee

VON Polo Cup 2010 in Strobl am Wolfgangsee

Underground caves, witch hunts and buried treasures

A very low formation of stratocumulus and the consequent heavy downpoor called for indoor activity on this wonderful Saturday. After a guilt walk in the pouring rain this morning with Charlie and Russel on which we realized that Russel must be almost deaf and most likely blind after he nearly got hit by a car we decided to spend the rest of the day somewhere inside.
Now, Upper Austria is a very "outdoorsy" kind of county with no "little gyms", "romp and rolls", "kids cafes", and certainly no malls. This small fact made our plans very difficult if not impossible. We could have opted for sitting in the pub all day, getting drunk whilst the little ones ripped out each others hair, but no, we came up with a plan.
Finley's love for Halloween inspired us and we found the "Wiltshire" of Austria, filled with witches, gobblins, ghosts, dragons, and every other creepy creature on this planet. We found the "Geisterwerkstatt" in the beautiful and magic area called "Waldviertel". "Geisterwerkstatt" loosly translated means "a place where ghosts are made". This was good enough for us. The kids were quickly packed off into the car and an hour and a half later we knocked at their door.
The drive itself was mysterious already and the low hanging clowds I mentioned earlier were even lower where we went.
Legend has it, when it is foggy in that area, it is because the dwarfs are washing their invisibility hats. The fog makes sure they cannot be seen. My 10 year old niece did not belief me, but Finley was easily convinced.

The place was quite spooky, probably because the area was an actual place where witch hunts took place in long forgotten days. The walk through the exhibition was a little scary, but there was a treat at the end of it...we got vampire teeth:-))
They also had a magic school and they offered ghost hunts in a helicopter. We took a rain check on that and chose to go and have Schnitzel and ice cream instead!!


Before we indulged in our yummy food though, we walked around a beautiful garden where the owners had cultivated long forgotten herbs and vegetables.





We ate a few very sour berries and "aaahhhed" and "oooohhhed" at colorful heirloom tomatoes and vintage oregano types, took some pictures of gigantic stone sofas, and pink pots before we had a very well deserved rest in a little wine region called Langenlois.


Our Schnitzel, however, was washed down with a delicious home brewed dark beer at the Fiakerhaus.