Every Sunday evening at 6pm I tune into zoom to connect with my family. We started this as Corona began and we have continued talking almost every Sunday for the past couple of years. Yesterday, my parents called in from their beach house, my aunt and uncle called in from their beach house and then it was two of my brothers with their families and me from our homes all over….Lebanon, West Linn and Berlin. Five locations, five screens and lots to talk about. Usually the kids take over the conversation for a bit (in the best ways possible) and then we ask around to who is up to what and then the families with kiddos usually log off after a bit which leaves a few of us to catch up even more without the kids.

My baby brother and his wife are expecting their child to arrive next Saturday, this was much of our conversation this week. On the 12th, they will induce and we are all aflutter about it. We can’t wait to welcome my newest niece into this world.

My Aunt Martha, however, turned to me and asked what we were up to since I hadn’t been blogging. I have to admit that I haven’t written any blogs since the 23rd of January….two weeks ago! I had to report that I knew that I hadn’t been blogging but it didn’t feel as though I knew what to blog about. I have a few ideas tucked away in my notes app on my phone but I also have to clear out space.

There are a few things happening in our life that I am not ready to blog about that take up space but to report on other things around, here are some quick updates from Berlin via the blog, mainly for my Aunt (hey, Martha!).

• My nanny schedule has gotten a little bit crazy again. Pre Covid I was nannying with a handful of families and on their on call list. I spent quite a bit of time crossing the city in public transit since the highest quotient of families is in a neighborhood called Prenzlauerberg which is about a 40 minute trek for me. It is in the uppereast quadrant of the city and we are in the southern middle part of the city almost directly on the east/west border (the wall marker is a 5ish minute walk away…east). Anyway, when covid hit, I said I really couldn’t travel as much and gave up jobs with every family but one family. I still work with this family every Tuesday and some other days as well. Little guy and I are very bonded. BUT now in this stage of the pandemic, preschools (kitas) are constantly closing and parents are at their wits end. AND we have some friends who just had twins three months ago. So I have decided to pick up two new families…one is a co worker of Ana’s and then the twins in the hood. BUT I have had to turn away a few families a week as of lately. I still am not so eager to travel as much across the city but this all seems mangeable and keeps my schedule fairly full but still doable and flexible.
• And as far as flexibility, Ana and I, after a disappointment, looked at our month and realized it might be doable to be away Feb. 15-22nd and a city on our list of want to visit cities seemed to be reasonalbe in airline cost, our dog sitters were available, and so we booked a trip to Valencia. We leave in a week from tomorrow for a full week. While we still need to be cautious, our mental health need to get out of grey Berlin is winning over isolation in our flat. So we will test and test and mask and mask and be as cautious as can be but we are traveling. We are both boosted so we feel as though we are taking a risk but it is a measured one. Here we go…
• As far as our day to days at the moment, there isn’t much to report. We walk the pups. we work from home, etc. Ok, Ana works from home and I work occasionally. I am still tutoring for Freie Universitat for a few more weeks and this month I am preaching all month online for a little church here in Berlin (in English). There is stuff on the horizon but we are also just taking February one day at a time so far.
• I am trying to think up ways to continue to write without expectation of pay off at the end of it as well. Pretty soon the Lenten emails will be upon us so I will be back to daily writing and perhaps the blog muse will return as I write you this week, dear reader.

More to come, I promise, but in the meantime, how are you?

PS. We are also trying to play more games and be out in the world here and there instead of caught up in screens all of the time. We have kept up the lights during grey and dark days…I don’t think there is anything wrong with keeping things a bit more magical . 🙂