Get movin'

I started my weight loss journey about a year ago, in the end of February. It worked like a charm within the first half year. Then, I decided to do some workout and through a friend found this awesome ballett school. Since then I am doing ballett class once a week. It was awesome to go to a ballett class, overweight and all. But I had so much fun and it's such a good workout, so I stuck to it.

These last months, I have been a bit of lazy concerning food and movement, so I did a re-start of my diet after my birthday. I am back into the program and so far it works well. Having lost the first 50lbs without real sports, I now am trying a new routine. Going to a Pilates class on Mondays, ballett on Thursdays. The other days, I try to use the stairs instead of the lift (I work on the 6th floor), use the sunny weather for walks to the playground with Little L or stroll around town. Just be more active in my daily life. The fact, that spring is around the corner is helpful, too. I am looking forward to garden work, sunny walks and just being more outside.

I will keep you updated if all this boost my weight loss or is just fun. Have a great week!

Love, Sanna

So, I actually turned the big FOUR ZERO on Sunday and...nothing happened. ;o)

I still feel like mid-twenty (bahahaha) and my kids still think I am super old. The party was awesome. Not.

I woke up, because Big L had caught a stomach bug and was throwing up. So we cancelled the whole party thing and spent the day on the couch watching movies. Mom and dad showed up nevertheless and we had pink cake and coffee. I had planned a night out with my favorite girls, which was great as it was an opportunity to finally celebrate my special day. We had bubbly and ate great food and had a good chat. It was lovely.

And then life went on. Laundry has to be done, meals have to be cooked and the Bachelor still is on the telly on Wednesday nights.

Speaking of which, I really have to get going, because I have to catch up with the night of roses. Oh, and the best thing about watching the Bachelor is reading the Twitter live tweets. It's hilarious.

Love, Sanna

Four Zero

I am freaking out a bit. I am turning 40 this week. Incredible Four Zero. Fuck. Or...make that a double fuck. Fuck, fuck.

Never before did I worry about my age. But the Four really bugs me. I don't want that, ya know. I wanna be thirty (not twenty!) for the rest of my life. I wanna look and feel young and I really hate all that grey hair I regularly pull from my skull. Forty sounds so grown up. Like you should have control over the stuff your adult life consists of. Like taxes or insurances. Building a house and planting a tree. I have done neither of that. Well, we obviously do taxes and insurances, but I pretty much suck at organizing the papers. That's the ugly truth.

I am (nearly) forty and I love the colour pink and all things glitter. I enjoy YA romance and wear pink Converse. I still listen to YA audio books when driving to work and I think that Lego Friends play sets are so freaking cool.

Is this how forty is supposed to be? I feel like I am not grown up at all. Although I sometimes sound like my mom when arguing with my kids. ;o)

Please tell me that my best time is yet to come. I need some heads up here to not completely loose my shit these next days. BUT to make it a bit fun, I am planning my own very pink birthday party. Pink cupcakes, glitter balloons and all. Yeah, I am so grown up.

The idiot in me

Oh man, the weather is just awful. It's grey and very cold and snowing/raining all day. Every step outside is one too many.

Did you know this last Monday was Blue Monday? It is said to be the most depressing day of the year. I totally understand that.

These last days I am feeling a bit off. Not depressed, no. I just have to fight a steady feeling of discontent, although everything is just fine. I feel unhappy about the most stupid things and I really have to work on pushing these feelings away. I feel too fat, too boring, too old. I feel like being not enough. For my children, my husband, my pupils. I feel way too average.

Why? I have no idea. It might be the darkness outside, it might be the fact that I am turning 40 in less than two weeks. It might be PMS. It might be nothing of that at all.

Sometimes, it's just what happens. I don't like it, but this will pass. I try to give it not too much thought (Who am I kidding??), and this works just fine on some days and some other days it won't work at all.

What bothers me the most is the fact, that I should be so grateful for what I've got. Just five years ago I would've given everything for just being healthy. I would have loved to be just normal and average and cuddling up on the couch on a snowy January night. I should be so, so grateful.

But then it occured to me, that these feelings come from a very good place. They come from my comfort zone, whispering little lies into my ears and make me feel less than what I really am. I am a fucking PPD survivor. I am a mother, who had to fight for the love towards her baby and I am a freaking one man show running a job, household and juggling a thousand appointments a week. Yes, I am a normal mom. I am an average woman. And yes, I am a boring German eating Kraut and Bratwurst. But I am me. I am good the way I am and I am blessed with two wonderful kids, a caring husband and health.

I am one lucky woman.

Love, Sanna

Stay gold, Ponyboy or About feeling deep

For as long as I can remember, I have always been in love. With guys, books, music, movies, whatever. Also, for as long as I can remember, I have a dark side of feelings. Feeling the blues is something that I have in me (I am not talking depression here) from the very beginning.

I know that I feel much deeper than most people. When I watch a romantic movie, I actually feel the butterflies in my stomach when hero and heroine are finally together. When I read a book, I can dive into different worlds and characters and sometimes need hours to come back to reality. Sometimes, a finished book leaves me aching and heartbroken, because I am not ready to let go.

I easily fall in love. I develop deep feelings for characters in books and movies. Fictional characters, that is. That's why I cry through every freaking episode of Grey's Anatomy or Outlander. Sometimes, the crying does not stop for half an hour or so. The TV is switched off, teeth are brushed, makeup off and I am in bed sobbing. It's hard to get rid of these feelings at that moment. Eventually, it happens and it's not that I am in dream world all the time. Sometimes it doesn't happen for months. But then it hits me and I am gone in faraway worlds.

All this is a blessing and a curse. I love it, because it has opened doors to me that others will never experience. I am sorry when people do not find joy in reading, because I know what they are missing. At the same time, I sometimes wish that my way to feel wasn't that intensive. Because the bad feelings are there as well and I fell them deeper, too. That's not really fun.

The first time I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, I was devastated for days. I was in my late teens and it left me heartbroken and sobbing like mad. Still, I love that book. It's a special one.

Why am I writing about this? Actually, I hope to find someone out there who feels the same, because I feel like a freak sometimes. Is there anybody who can relate to all this? How do you handle it? Do you just let it be or do you try to keep it under control? I'd really like to know.

Love, Sanna

Happy New Year!

Hey, happy new year, everybody! We haven't seen each other for quite some time, huh? Or to be more precise...I haven't blogged for a while. Sometimes, I just don't know what to write about and other times, I am too busy with life to post. Both of this has been true lately.

Christmas was wonderful and the kids were happy and excited and life was just incredibly good. We spent New Year's Eve with friends and that was sparkling and great as well.

Then came the first week of January and all through the year, it is the hardest week for me. Christmas decorations are stored in boxes until next season, the sparkle and fireworks of New Year's are gone. The weather was grey and cold and rainy and we had too much time on our hands. Little L was back to daycare, DH was back to work. This left me home with Big L, who was meeting friends and playing too much PS. I was bored. The winter blues kicked in. No, not depression. I was just sick of hanging around on the couch and shuffle around home in my slippers. The days were long and I really lacked energy to do the simple things, such as laundry and running errands. I slept way too much and out of boredom went for a stroll through the supermarkets. Awesome.

So, I was more than happy to return to work today. Actually, I LOVED returning to work today. I was so excited, I had problems to sleep throught the night (and that never happens). So this morning I jumped out of the bed and into the shower at 6.15 am and was happy and glowing. I was singing along the Kinky Boots soundtrack on my way to work (The sex is in the heel!) and was greeted with enthusiasm by colleagues and pupils, who felt the same.

So, we are beack to our daily routine. Something, I really really need to cope. Whenever I am out of routine it is a bit like drifting in open water. I am a very structured person and I need structure in my life. That's just the way I am and I know, that I am not alone.

So, I really hope this boost of energy will stay for a bit and make me blog more often. Because I love blogging and catching up with you and spring is just around the corner, right? Right.

Love, Sanna

Stuck in London

Fourteen years ago, I decided to go to London during Christmas time after watching Love...Actually with my bff. So we booked flights and accomodation for the next year and there we went. Since then, it became kind of a tradition. We went every year, apart from those years, in which we had babies. Then I got sick and going to a crowded city before Christmas seemed like a real nightmare. So we didn't go since 2010.

I remember one afternoon about five years ago, when I was very, very sick and crying my eyes out. I talked to my mom about the good old times and how I would never ever see London at Christmas again. "You will!" she ensured me and she was so right.

It felt good to go this year, so we book flights and a room back in April. We somehow didn't manage another date, so we flew out to the UK two weeks before Christmas. We are idiots, really. London is always busy, 365 days a year, but two weeks before Christmas? It's hell. It's so busy that tube stations on Oxford Street are closed. Too many people down there. Plus, what did we think about flying in Mid-December?? Nothing, really. We didn't think about loads of snow and how the planes wouldn't be able to fly. We still thought we were fine, when we woke up to fluffy snowflakes on Sunday morning. Hell broke lose, when our flight was cancelled. Big shit. Long story short: it took us 29hrs of delay to come back to Germany, involving a fire alarm and an evacuated London City Airport. Fun all around.

Honestly, when I open my front door on late Monday night, it felt so incredibly good to be home. I never felt that way before. I am pretty fed up with travelling for the moment (I am not a big traveller anyway), but ask me again in some weeks or months.

Apart from all that, we had a great time, did some serious shopping and I even brought home a traditional British Christmas Cake. (In fact, I am the only one around who is excited about that.) We also saw Kinky Boots, which was great and Thriller Live (the Michael Jackson show), which was good, too.

Now, we are heading into the last full weekend before Christmas and there are tons to do. So, have a great weekend, everybody and remember to also find time for a nice hot chocolate and a Christmas book or movie.

Love, Sanna