Guest post via Casey Wieland

I am guest posting on Casey's blog today.

http://www.thewiegands.com/2012/02/tuesday-giveaway.html

Check it out and maybe just maybe you will be the lucky one to get a customized family/couple portrait similar to this one : )

Good luck and big hug from Berlin XOX

Janie

Daily Holidays

Ever since I have had my two kids I have become much more aware of time. I think I can pretty much divide my time into 2 categories: the time I spend with my kids and the time I spend without my kids. Either of them I find precious in their own ways. It took me months to work out how to enjoy both of them to the maximum.

When I am with my kids I love playing with them, taking them to exciting places, teaching them about little things in life and simply spending quality time with them. We read books, sing songs, look at a little beetle who came flying through our window, go to the zoo, ride our bikes and enjoy homemade cookies. Sometimes I get side tracked and I do things I should be doing when I have time to myself only. It doesn't take long for me to realize when I am not in the right 'time zone' because the chaos in our home doubles within seconds. Sometimes it's not always possible to wait until Minna and Finn are in bed and I do have to squeeze in chores in order to get dinner on the table or a washing machine done before midnight. I can tell pretty quickly though that the kids know when mommy is not quite there for them and sometimes they get frustrated and so do I. I do try and make up for it straight away and they don't seem to hold it against me for very long : )

Our first sled ride this winter

When I get time to myself my mind automatically runs through pages of to-do-lists. Some have been around for so long I can hardly read them anymore. Others are constant and it's often tough trying to keep up to date with them all. My family and friends know that they are most likely not going to get an reply on their SMS until 11pm, which is often one of the last things I do before I go to bed. Within our little family I am often the one who organizes the majority of things like holidays/family outings, new winter tires, doctors appointments, paying the bills, sending birthday letters, arranging babysitters, making sure we don't run out of important things like toilet paper or milk, buying new shoes for the kids, making dinner dates with friends, car check ups and emptying the letter box, checking the fridge for out of date and moldy things, mountains of washing ... . I know it's never ending and I need to remind myself that there will always be more to do and organize and check and if I don't take time off and S.T.O.P.  I won't ever be able to have quality time with myself or my husband and friends.

My favorite view in the whole wide world

So I make sure I have a DAILY HOLIDAY. A few moments just for myself. I stop and have a Latte in a quite little cafe, I enjoy a candle-light dinner in the bath tubby myself, I snuggle up in bed and read a few pages in my book, I sit on our balcony in the sunshine with my eyes closed. I simply stop and breath and live in that very moment. It's so relaxing and I cannot do without anymore. When the day comes to an end and I have not been on a little holiday yet, I can tell!

What's your Daily Holiday? I would love to hear about your journeys : )

Enjoy it!

XO Janie

I say I love you ...

I say I love you every day. I say it at the end of a telephone conversation with my husband or once I sang a song to the kids and kissed them good night. They are also often the very last words I say before I turn of the light. I don't always say it out loud, but I still think it. When nobody is there to say it to in person I close my eyes and send little hearts to special people and thank them for the time they spent with us or the effort they made to be there for us in one way or another.


I also try and say I love you to myself more often. It doesn't come naturally even though it should. Did you ever look in the mirror and said  I love you to yourself? It feels weird at first and I don't purely mean the image that you see, but I mean the whole person.

Our body, our mind and our heart.   

Our legs carry us everywhere we want to go and our hands create, write and make sandwiches every day, our mind comes up with inspiring thoughts or simply reminds us of important dates or little things that are life changing for others and our heart tries to guide us through life and makes us go through different feelings to help us appreciate the beauty in the sad and not so comfortable moments and the happy and loveable moments. Every day we make a difference in our lives or the lives of others and we should thank ourselves for that.

Why not smile at yourself and say those 3 little words to welcome another day !?  

 

Guest Post by Lauren Fleishman: LOVE EVER AFTER

The other day I stumbled across the most beautiful video by Lauren Fleishman who is a photographer from New York. She takes touching portraits of couples who have been married for at least 50 years.
 I love looking at them and I wonder what me and Graeme would look like in 2057 : ) Haah - funny thought! I sure hope it will be something close to this couple, which is one of my favorite images by Lauren Fleishman.

Lauren would love to publish a book about her LOVE EVER AFTER project, which is why I want to help her and spread the word and passion for people who are willing to do what it takes every day to have a happy and long lasting relationship. She is asking people to put money towards her project and wants to raise 15 000$. Well, when I supported her project 5 days ago she had only raised something like 1200$. NOW she is only 872$ away from her goal and will most likely get to kick start her book a lot quicker than she had planned on : )  I am so thrilled for her!! 

This is her favorite image of the LOVE EVER AFTER series!

ENJOY the video, spread the word and if you feel the love - make a little contribution.

I emailed her a few questions and here is what she said: 

What is your favorite thing that you remember growing up with your grand parents? Is there anything you still treasure in your heart that they taught you?

I do remember my Grandfather David being very involved with the family. He was very European and had this strong accent that I didn't understand as a young girl. He used to give me coffee in a bowl with milk and sugar.

How did you feel reading the love letters of your Grandpa once he had passed away? Did you know they existed beforehand?

I found my Grandfather Joe's love letters after he passed away. He had a book that he left next to his bed and that's where they were. He had beautiful handwriting and I was happy that he had saved them all these years. 

When did you start taking pictures of couples that had been married for at least 50 years?
 
I started the Love Ever After  project about three years ago. It began as a way to honor my grandparents commitment. This work helps to preserve the couples stories and illuminate our universal experience of love. I am now working towards publishing these photographs as my first book.

How do they react when you ask them about their love story and how do they respond to getting their portraits taken? 
 
Each couple is so unique and special so I think you would have to ask them about their experience. I hope that they enjoy meeting me as much as I've enjoyed meeting them.

Can you see yourself being married for 50 years? What do you think is the secret behind a happy and long lasting marriage?

I am a romantic so I do hope that I will be married for 50 years. I'm not sure if there is a secret because love in itself is so complex. I do plan on being very patient and supportive.

You can see a video of this project and pledge towards the book here
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laurenfleishman/love-ever-after
www.LaurenFleishman.com

Thank you for stopping by XOX

With love from Janie

All smiles : )

Here is something that made me smile big times! I have read about it and I have been wondering about it and then I got a message with the logo of the award and at first I thought ... ahh, lovely Holly from http://www.hvhinteriors.com/ is sharing with me that she got the award! How nice!

But then I soon realized that she actually pasted it on to me : ))) Taadaaaaa!

Here it is:

What amazed me the most is that I had only met Holly the night before. Another sweet friend of mine invited me out to her birthday party at Clärchen's Ballhaus in Berlin Mitte, which is always so much fun and it's hard to keep me off the dance floor. Right at the end of the night I was introduced to Holly and we soon found out that we are both blogging and she told me why she was in Berlin and what her plans are for the near future. We had such a lovely conversation and it was wonderful to meet a person and to know even though we might not be able to catch up very soon again, we can always keep in contact online. So we checked out each others blogs and straight away I got this sweet sweet award from her.

THANK YOU LIEBSTE HOLLY!!

Translated to English from German, "liebster" means "favourite" or "beloved". The point of the award is to support and appreciate smaller blogs. Once you receive such an award, you must thank the blogger who gave you the award and provide a link to their site on your blog. Then choose 5 of your liebster blogs (must have less than 200 followers) and contact them to tell them so. They, in turn, will follow the same procedure. And the love just keeps on spreading. Nice, right?

So I am passing the Liebster Blog Award to ... (drum roll please) ...
 
texanberliners.blogspot.com/
olivegreenanna.blogspot.com
http://selfediting.tumblr.com/
alittleartsy.blogspot.com/
http://laurenfleishman.tumblr.com/


I choose these 5 blogs for mainly one reason: I want all of them to keep writing their beautiful blogs!

They are all different in their own way:

1st blog:   is a sweet friend of mine who has a little girl about the same age as my 2 kids
2nd blog:  is someone I met not so long ago and we both share one passion: Vintage treasures
3rd blog:   is someone I met back in London and I am so excited for her to start writing her own blog
4th blog:   is an inspiring Mama who runs an art studio in Dallas that I would love to visit one day!!!
5th blog:   is a photographer with a great idea - sharing another passion of mine: LOVE stories

ENJOY those wonderful blogs and keep spreading the Liebster Blog Award to someone special!

Big hug from Berlin,

XOXO Janie

Blue Saturday

This Saturday was not easy for me. I felt sad and disappointed and I simply have not felt like that for a long time. These are the moments when I love being able to curl up in my husbands arms and just let go of my tears.

This Saturday taught me about how friendships can change and how you will only ever travel with someone for a certain amount of time. Some people enter your life for a short and cheerful moment while others will stay with you for a long time. Either way there is a beginning and an end and it can leave a great impression and make a wonderful difference in life.

I am thankful for both kinds of friendships.

I do think it is that much harder to let go of a friend or at least the expectation of the friendship that I have had for such a long time and that I will always love looking back onto. The memories are endless and it's hard for me to accept that there might not be more happy moments together.
 
I know that everyone changes and that I have changed as well since I was 15 years old. I just didn't think that I had changed so much that I would loose strong connection to a close friend within a year or two.

Maybe I did ...  but I am who I am now and I can't change that.

I hope that one day our friendship will grow stronger again.

I hope that she knows that my doors are always open to her. 

Deine Janie                                                         

18693 days

I know I keep going on about my grandparents, but I love them! As you might have seen in an earlier post I made a couple portrait of the two of them for my Granddad's birthday. Once I had printed it out I thought it needed a little more romance to it therefore I created this collage.

They have been married over 50 years now and I admire them for that. Everyone who has been to their house would feel the same harmony and welcoming feeling that we receive every time we go. When either of them is not there you can tell, as the atmosphere in the house is simply different. They are such a wonderful couple and I love watching them interact.

Even after 18693 days of being married they still treat each other with respect and enjoy their little rituals. My grandma for example sets their breakfast table each morning while my granddad is in charge of the afternoon tea and coffee. My grandma always turns on a little candle when they eat together and makes sure that there is a little bunch of flowers sitting on their table or window seal which she would have picked earlier in their tiny garden. They still have and for most of their lives have had separate bed rooms. They have a favorite restaurant which they visit on special occasions and they love going on bus tours to explore parts of Europe they have not been to.

At the moment my grandma is in hospital. She will be fine and back home again soon, but the thought that my granddad is all by himself makes my heart shrink a little. I find it so difficult to imagine that one day the house will have a different feel to it and it might even be empty in years to come. I know I have to except that, but for now I am thankful for every day and moment we get to spend with them. I love how my granddad plays his little games with Minna and Finn that he used to play with me and I love how my grandma goes off to get her dolls and teddies and puts on music to sit in her room and play with kids or when it comes to lunch time naps she always manages to put them to sleep and cuddle up with them for a little while on her cozy bed. Sweet sweet moments!

Schmetterlinge

I am so happy about to be able to write this post as it happened totally unexpected.

My sister came to stay with us for a day yesterday and asked me the night before if I could take some pictures of her and her new boyfriend. I love taking portraits so I said OF COURSE!

I am not sure when I last saw her this happy! I bet everything looks pink for those two at the moment.

It was such a bliss watching them.

They giggled when I asked them to sit down and cuddle, they were shy when I first started klicking away, but soon I was somewhat forgotten about as you can see.

I love thinking back to those very special first days and weeks with Graeme and I. 

I simply hope that they will cherish these very first butterfly moments and keep loving and smiling and giggling and kissing each other! I could say so much to my little sister and I don't want her to get hurt - EVER! But somehow I have a feeling that she will have to figure out some of those love-relationship-heart things on her own.

I will definitely always be there to capture more special moments and to give a little advice (when needed)!!  

Love you my little sis 

Sharing love

This month is going to be about SHARING LOVE in February : )

I decided to share some blog love by being a sponsor for Casey Wiegand this month : )

 www.thewiegands.com
 
I simply love her way of thinking and how she puts these crazy internal ups and downs of being a mom, wife, artist and friend into words. She sees the beauty in sweet adorable things, but also in those that make your eyes water and your belly go flip flop. So many times after reading her posts my heart was touched in so many places and I want to thank her for that! 


Therefore I am dedicating this post to her! Sweet sweet Casey thank you so very much!

With love from Berlin,

Janie