Friday 15 August 2008: Sarah is flying all over the world into various pasts she's had thanks to the ever crazy Facebook!!!!

Sarah says:

I really tried my best to avoid Facebook! I caved in! I admit it! And within two days I have been back in touch with all sorts of people from my past with some quick exchqnges and some longer, deepe ones. There are a few people I have wondered about for years and years. And in one second I found them on Facebook and caught up. Most of it remains superficial of course and in the back of your mind you think - okay - now we caught up - see you in another 20 years (as one person I got in touch with pointed out and warned...) What's nice is just getting brought up to date and satisfying some curiosity. What's been really nice and still may get even nicer is getting back in touch with people who actualy meant worlds to me. There are a few friendships that just went their separate ways because of time and space and things like that. I never stopped caring and thinking about some of the people. It's interesting to say the least. A bumpy but exciting plane ride all over the world - or maybe more like time travel - but as if I were still in the past and travelling into the future... I'm enjoying it but it is making my head spin. I think this sort of thing must last a few days and then slow down and deflate. What would be nice is if some of the people I have missed become closer contacts of mine again. We'll see wht this Facebook really has to offer. It's funny, but everyone who speaks of Facebook always offers a little warning or advice or puts it down in some way or another. I guess it's just part of the new world we live in where everything is about a half a second click away!

Thursday 14 August 2008: Sarah has a big secret to share with you... and she's not ashamed!!!!! Well, a little, maybe....

Sarah says:
Last night - even at age 37 - I got to have a sleep-over at a girlfriend's house!!! That's something I truly miss about being a kid / teen-ager / unmarried person! When I was young and free I could sleep at friends' homes and they at mine! At those moments you could have the greatest talks and moments in the world. You could watch TV together. Eat snacks. Smoke dope and laugh all night and get the munchies. Get drunk and be dumb and feel sick the next day but sleep in and not have a worry!

So last night, I didn't get high or drunk or dumb. But I sure did have fun! My kid was away at her own little sleep-over (the lucky girl!) and my husband let me fly the coop for the night. I went out to eat with my friend CC who is in from Russia for a few weeks and then we went back to her house. Her teenage daughter set me up on Facebook (as if I need that in my already too busy computer-driven life!!!!). CC was right by my side doing Sudoku. We stayed up until around 2am! I never stay up that late anymore! We talked and laughed and also just went into our own worlds. This morning we had breakfast together at the crack of dawn and I headed to work. I had so much fun! I wish life allowed more such simple pleasures. I love being married and being a mom but I also love just hanging out with my girlfriends with nobody needing me and with no responsibility! I can't wait till I'm an old bat and I can go on long vacations with my girlfriends! That sound like a dream to me! When duty no longer calls and binds as much and some more freedom comes back into life's equation!

So - my dirty little secret, I bet you want to know. CC laughed and laughed at me! But I'm not ashamed! I sleep with a "blanky" of sorts - have for as long as I can remember. It's not the same one all the time or anything like when you are a kid. It's actually just a big double bed sheet. Any colour will do but should be a light cotton if possible! I use it to put over my eyes when it is too bright. I use it to prop up my head when my pillow has a day off. I use it to cover my ears when my husband is snoring. I use it to support my leg if my back hurts. I use it to guard me from mosquitoes when they are buzzing around. I use it to cover my under neck area because I always need something to cover there or I can't sleep. Sometimes I use it for all those things all at the same time! It's quite amazing what I can do with my blanky. I even take it with me when I go on vacation, on a trip for work and to random sleepovers like the one last night! So laugh all you want but I am not ashamed of my lovely blanky. Incidentally, my daughter has exactly the same habit but she depends on one blanky because the colour and exact feel is important to her. I grew out of being that picky or specific. Hell - if I forget my blanky, I have been known to find whatever I can to act as a blanky because I really can't sleep without it! I have used hotel towels, clothes, magazines once. I didn't mention this above but a blanky is also a really good drool catcher! Yeah - yeah - I know that sounds nasty but it's not as if you, my dear reader, don't drool! We all do! At least my pillows and bed stays clean and my blanky does all the dirty work!

I'd have to say that the strangest thing about my blankies is that I have about three I like the most and I actually stole all three from my father and step-mother when I moved to Belgium. For some reason I was attached to those sheets that I had always seen in the linen closet outside my room in the house I grew up in. I just took them. I took so few things with me when I moved to Belgium - and those sheets made the cut and have meant the world of sleep to me since! (sorry dad and Barbara for stealing the sheets! You can see one of them in above photo. I also have one with red flowers and one with blue and red motives!)

So now you know! I have no more secrets. That was the last one. I could stop this blog today and be satisfied with nothing left to hide!!! But I won't...

Wednesday 13 August 2008: Another day, another picture in the life of Heidi and Sarah...

Sarah says:
It's too early to feel like it's the last days of summer and you want to hibernate because days are getting darker and colder... Way too early. Where has the summer gone? I have a droopy eye again. I must be tired. I don't really feel tired. Just uninspired. The weather is messing with me. It feels like just another day in the life of Heidi and me...

Heidi says:

Yeah... the weather. It's a bit sad, but cosy in another way. Too bad it's so early in the year.

So I believe in a long indian summer with nice clear sunny warm evenings to sit in the garden or on the stoop, or to go running at 8pm, to bike with Yma, or to go out...

Will we get that?

I thought I got a little tanned in Ireland! Haha!! I am as pale as an Irish girl!

!!!BARBARA, IK HOU VAN JE!!!

Tuesday 12 August 2008: Welcome baby Robbe to Face The Day with his mom Ine! Heidi and Sarah strike a different pose for once....

Sarah says:

It's hard getting a new photo everyday and finding a new look or pose. Here above we have done our best. We never too the above sort of photo before. Isn't that very exciting!!!! HaHa! I really wonder how long we can go on with this. Will we ever get bored of all this daily photo taking? And then what? Will we stop? Will we have a once-a-month photo? Then a year? Then every five? We're not leaving anytime soon. Just wondering aloud...

Look below! What a GREAT birth announcement card! It's like a scratch-away lottery ticket. This is Robbe's card! Robbe is the baby boy of Ine and Vincent, friends of mine here in Belgium. It was so nice to meet Robbe last night and to see Ine and Vincent as parents now! I think they will be very happy! By the way, the great card idea with the scratch away part was made by Vincent's brother. Click here for his site if you are interested in special print work...



CONGRATULATIONS INE AND VINCENT!!!! ALL THE BEST!!! WELCOME ROBBE!

HEIDI IN IRELAND - THE LANDSCAPES AND THE ANIMALS AND THE CROSSES AND AND THE WALLS AND THE TOWERS...

HEIDI'S IN IRELAND (GUESS THE GUESTS)

Monday 11 August 2008: HEIDI IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sarah says:
Heidi is back!!!!! Heidi is back!!!! Yippy! Yahoo!!!! Heidi is back!!!!! One day earlier than I thought - Heidi is back!!!!!

Heidi says:
Yes I am yes I am!!!! :)
Hooray!
Well, not a big hooray, because holiday is very nice of course, but being back makes me feel not too bad! :)
I had very nice holidays, and will post some pictures today of a nice meeting with someone famous, some nice animals (not juts Nico and me), some nice landscapes. Keep posted!

Sarah adds:
I dedicate the below Post Secret of the week to Heidi...



By the way, on the Post Secret site this week there is a link to the Post Secret blog where you can submit a 6 word memoir. I love that idea. I think I'll let it be my first small writing assignment.

Sunday 10 August 2008: Sarah's in a do do do mood getting it all done!!!!

Sarah says:

I cleaned out every closet in the kitchen!!!! I am still busy!!!! I LOVE it!!!!!!! Love it! Love it! Getting everything so clean and nice and organized!!! It was a work station in every room of he house today. Me in the kitchen. Tom's mom in the living room making curtains! Tom and his dad downstairs putting varnish on the floors! I LOVE all this change in the house. It's GREAT!!! Makes me feel alive and full of energy. Saturday I put every last little thing of my kid's into organized boxes. Now she knows where everything is. It's all clean. All takes up less space. LOVE IT!!!

Saturday 09 August 2008: Sarah's downstairs is really taking shape with a sanded floor and new varnish! It's like a new world!

Sarah says:

Okay - so I don't look as happy as I did last night/early this morning... Well, that's because I have major cramps and a headache thanks to the friend that pays a visit every 28 days. I feel like hell. It gets worse and worse as I get older. It knocks me out.

But ... look at our beautiful floor below in our downstairs room!!!! I LOVE IT!!! Tom and his parents worked very hard today (yet again) using a heavy sanding machine to get the old, worn out layer off. Then Tom put a layer of varnish on. We have two more layers of varnish to go. It's going to look amazing!!!! I love how it's all taking shape! We still have to do the whole guest room downstairs - painting and the floor. Hopefully before the end of the year. That's the plan anyway. It's so cool to see the house change. It's turning into something beautiful - at least on the inside!!!!

Friday 08 August 2008: Sarah had a nice nice out around people for once in a long while... And - welcome to the world baby Robbe!

Sarah says:

We went to a baby party for a colleague of my husband's tonight. Lots of familiar faces. I really enjoyed myself. I haven't been out and around a lot of people in a while. It was good to be part of the world and surrounded by noise and the smell of BBQ! We got home after midnight so the above photo is more like Saturday than Friday but it will have to do!

And in other baby news: WELCOME TO THE WORLD BABY ROBBE - SON OF INE AND VINCENT FROM VICHTE! HE WAS BORN A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO! I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET HIM! Ine and I used to play together in a band long long ago. I wish her and Vincent and Robbe all the best!!!! They had the coolest baby card. On the front were 5 big silver spots to scratch away like you do with a lottery ticket. Once scratched out, you could see the name Robbe. Great idea!

Thursday 07 August 2008: Sarah is under the weather on this stormy day in Belgium and on this stormy day in her mind... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT!!!!!!!!!!!

Sarah says:
If weather could express a mood - the weather today in Belgium would certainly capture the one I'm in. I am full of rain, thunder and lightening!
Last night I actually uttered the words "I want to move back to America" to my husband at around midnight in our bed. I don't really want to move back to America and I won't anytime soon as life here in Belgium is good and I love my family here, my home and my job. I wouldn't rock those boats anytime soon. I have nothing at all to complain about on any of those levels. In fact, I always feel lucky in those areas and blessed. I have a great husband and daughter and in-laws. I have a home I love to be at and feel like home at. My job is wonderful. No complaints at all. And my job and life offers up Heidi and she's a fantastic friend and colleague and a great support in every level of my life - a real ear and mouth. No problems there at all!
It's just this head of mine and these demons and this need for real connection. I feel lonely here. I truly do. And maybe it's not even that I feel lonely. Maybe it's just the simple fact that I truly miss people from The US sometimes. I miss my friends and family. America is big so it's not like if I lived there I'd see everyone all the time. It would be real life. People would be busy with their own lives. Time would be an issue. Long-distance friendships and contacts that exist now and work rather well could be challenged by more consistent contact! Who knows! I just wish that I could pop over to a good friend's house sometimes and just hang around eating snacks and reading magazines and watching bad TV. Or call a good friend to go see a movie. Or go hang out with one of my many brothers and just be at ease in the familiar. I wish I could meet my dad for lunch. I wish I could have my mom make me a good vegetarian meal or give me a foot massage or babysit my daughter... I wish I could go play air-hockey with MS. I wish I could sleep-over at RA's house and stay up all night talking. I wish I could spend days with ED just eating triscuts and looking at photos and making bad jokes. There are so many things I wish life still allowed. I just feel sometimes in Belgium that there is nobody I can call if I am having a hard time and need to talk or if I just need a little escape or if I simply want to share a good evening with somebody. And it's not always. Not at all. I have written about this all before here, probably several times. This loneliness and dip-feeling just creeps up on me from time to time and I feel like a stranger in a strange land. A constant misfit. It passes fast luckily. But it sends me on this philosophical roller coaster for a few days or hours. It pushes me into difficult reflection. It churns up just about every working organ inside of me. I can't sleep because of it. My brain is ON and messy.

I kind of know what is triggering it now next to the fact that my period is due today so there's the whole hormonal thing- but I know the root. I have recently lost someone who was once a good friend here in Belgium. She's not dead or anything thankfully - but our friendship is and she pulled the plug on it. I am sort of mourning the loss of her and really struggling with it still. Things like that tend to trigger these sorts of dips. I know friendships change, people change, life changes and all that. Fully aware. I can let go and move on. I know life offers up new people all the time and some become real connections and all that. I find that exciting. Just knowing there are people out there I have yet to meet who will be important to me and me to them. I love making new friends. Losing old ones is a painful struggle but a part of life I have come to accept.

Another trigger - and maybe a positive one in the end I'm guessing, is that I am feeling the need to write more again - to be more creative. I look forward to where that longing might lead me. I think I am experiencing some of the nostalgia that Heidi does sometimes. I'm looking back at my old self and missing some of it. I gave up a HUGE chunk of myself when I moved here, including writing basically. It's still in me and I have to find it again. That's a small goal I am setting for myself now. I'll start by writing in a journal again and I'm really going to try to write some hand-written letters to a few friends. I need to get some structure back into my writing. I want to anyway. Who knows where it will lead. I need a hobby again. Family, home, job isn't enough I'm afraid to say - I don't want to sound greedy - I can't say enough how lucky and blessed I mostly feel. But right now I have some gaps to fill in myself - and one is the hobby gap for sure. If I can't be in a band, which I miss terribly and long for as well, then writing is the obvious choice now. I can do it wherever I am. I don't have to depend on anyone for it. It's where I am headed and that idea alone really cheers me up!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY YOUNGEST BROTHER MATT!!!!!

Wednesday 06 August 2008: It's 30 degrees centigrade again in Sarah's world!!!! So warm she's actually working in shorts for once!

Sarah says:

I rarely if ever wear shorts but I just couldn't take another 30 degree day. You can pass out in that kind of heat! I had to find a solution. Above you can see it! Inappropriate shirt not fro work, inappropriate shorts not for work, inappropriate sandals not for work! I just had to take these sort of measures. I will basically see nobody today other than my family so it's a no risk outfit, but I'd never wear such an outfit to work under normal circumstances. It's just not done! Maybe a dress, even a slinky one - or a short skirt and tank top, but never shorts (and those are even 20 year old swim-like shorts (for men I think!!!) that I bought at the shop Udelco in Nyack!! Those are the thinnest, most airy ones I have got after all these years! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

By the way, my head is spinning today and I feel AWAKE!!!! I feel INSPIRED!!! I feel a little nuts to tell you the truth. I think I slept well. I feel full of energy, even in this deadly heat!

Tuesday 05 August 2008: Guess who's back in town! CC is yet again a guest at Face The Day as you track her trips from Russia to Belgium and back....

Sarah says:

Well, well, well! Look who we have here! It's Face The Days frequent guest star, CC! She's becoming the guest host here at Face The day with all the times she shows up! It seems every time she pops back to Belgium from her present home of Moscow, Russia, she and I have a nice little visit that we always share with you. She's never happy withe the pictures we take. But amazingly, she was okay with the one above. I, on the other hand, think the above photo is a bad one. I look older than ever all of a sudden and greasy from cooking! I made us a great meal though and we had a nice time. CC will stick around a little longer this visit because her daughter starts college soon in Gent! Can you believe she has an 18 year old daughter? When I met CC, her daughter was 9 like mine is now. Carmen turns 47 next week. I hope I look and act as young as she does when I reach her age!

Monday 04 August 2008: It's a new week! Sarah starts with a facial with her kid to end their girls' weekend last night and a couple of Post Secrets...

Sarah says:
So that's my face above after a mask my daughter had me make out of crushed cherries and cream. She saw it in a fashion/style book of hers and I promised that we could try it out on the Girls' weekend - so that's how we ended our weekend last night - in the below cherry-red masks. We looked all shiny and fresh right after as you can see in the second photo below. But today my skin is worse than ever. Masks can do that - force all the nasty stuff out and to the surface. My chin area is a freaking painful volcano today!

Above with cherry-cream (room) masks... waiting, waiting, waiting...
Above right after the masks were removed and we did a little facial cleansing with Clinique samples of a face cleaner, a toner and a cream...

And now time for this week's Post Secret picks of the week for me. There are two that caught my eye for different reasons. The one below about a hotel cleaner who cleans the whole room (maybe all the rooms on one floor or in a whole hotel!!!) with one rag - and he/she uses the same rag to clean everything from toilets to spoons!!!! THAT IS LIKE ONE OF MY BIGGEST FEARS - GROSS-OUTS!!!! I have no problem with bacteria and I am certainly no clean-freak - but there's something about hotels that can give me the willies! I can't even touch a bed cover for example. My husband will just jump right under one and use it as a blanket. I watch is awe and disgust when that happens! Not me boy - I dump that cover where it can't be touched by me and I avoid those wool blankets as much as possible too. I'm pretty sure a lot of hotels I have stayed at have been cleaned with one rag the whole week! YUCKY!!!!!

And the Post Secret card below about how a teacher can make such a difference caught my eye for two reasons. One - because there are various teachers who I can honestly say saved me in some way or another and brought me out of some bad and hard times without even really knowing it. I'll name them as they meant so very much to me. They got me to believe in my worth and talents when I thought I was nothing more than crap. Somewhere in me I guess I knew I had potential because I always felt interested and smart in some way - but I was lost and so ruined in a lot of ways that without these teachers inspiring me, giving me special attention and telling me I was smart and had some good things to say, well, I'd still be lost because the chances that I would have fallen through the cracks would have been much higher! So THANK YOU SO MUCH Nyack Intermediate school teachers Mrs. Wilkes and Mr Allen and Hackley teachers Mr.Matlack and Ann Siviglia. Thank you so much New Paltz teachers Rob Miraldi and Howard Good. You changed my track big time and got me on the right one! And of course - you taught me so much good stuff that to this day I draw on! If by some google search or something you end up here one day, I can't thank you all enough! (and I apologize for any sloppy writing or spelling and grammar mistakes here on this blog!!! You taught me very well but then I managed to unlearn a few things along the way!)

The second reason the above Post Secret appeals to me is because I just finished Season Four of the greatest show ever - The Wire. Season 4 followed 4 kids basically - in school and on the streets and at home - if you can call any home they had a home. A teacher did his best for them in a school and a system that failed them terribly. Sometimes it's that one teacher who sees the good in you that nobody else sees and helps you to see it too for a second. In The Wire, that wasn't necessarily enough to save any of these kids - but it did make their Mondays through Fridays less horrid. Season 4 of The Wire just got me thinking about so many things and about school in particular and about teachers. Teachers can mean everything. It's too bad that mostly they are powerless to really intervene. But just planting that seed of confidence and hope and by showing the way a little - well, that can change a path... I miss The Wire! Can't wait to see season 5, though season 4 was terribly painful (as well as beautiful at many moments...) Viva good teachers!!!!! Hat's off!

Sunday 03 August 2008: Sarah and her kid and the guinea pigs have a girls' day together with scrubs, masks and make-overs of the whole family!

Sarah's Makeover!
The Guinea Pigs' makeover!

Ayla's makeover!
Tom's makeover!

Saturday 02 August 2008: It's a girls' day and night in Sarah's world with a visit from CM, the daughter of Sarah's friend CK who moved to Cali...

Sarah says:
GIRLS' DAY! Fun stuff. My daughter's friend CM came over and we all went to see a movie (the Kung Foo Panda one, which was funny). We only get to see CM about twice a year as she moved back to California with my her mom, my friend CK. It's always great to have her visit. She's gotten so very tall. You really notice these things when you only see someone once or twice a year. She's really grwoing up and is such a nice person. And she brought me a HUGE pile of People magazines as usual from her mom!!!! So you know what I'll be doing tonight as the two girls watch old episodes of Little House. We used a CD-Rom called Hair Master to make hairstyles and makeovers. We saved the photos but in a format I don't know how to upload yet. Once I figure it out, I'll share the results with you. It's truly fun to mess around with our faces like that and try all new hairstyles and eye colours. Now it's time for People!

Friday 01 August 2008:It's flashback 1st of the month here at Face The Day! Let's look back together!

Sarah says:

It's First of the Month Flashback here at Face The Day! Too bad we don't have a photo of Heidi from today! Maybe she'll have one to post later!


Anyway - there you can see me above today - sweating in my 29 degree world! My new camera show everything -- too much! Every pour! My fading, blotchy tan! It's all there along with my aging self. I see I am getting older each year - which is very normal! It's weird to have these flashbacks each month and to be able to compare all the years. Mostly the hair changes strike me and the look in the eyes! Otherwise, each year we basically don't change that much. This is also what I love about Face The Day and the purpose of it - if there is a purpose -- we get to look back years and years! By the end of this month Face The Day will have existed since end August 2005 - so that's three totally full years of daily photos! That's a lot! Nobody can say we aren't consistent!

That's Heidi and me exactly one year ago today on the 1st of August 2007. Click on this link to see what we were up to a year ago today!
And there I am above with two of my brothers in California and there's Heidi below with one eye exactly two years ago on the 1st of August 2006. Click on this link to flash back to that day with us.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!!!!!

Thursday 31 July 2008: Sarah is a fan of the fan today on this hottest day of the summer so far... She might just melt!

Even later that day...
THE BUNNY IS BACK!!! THE BUNNY IS BACK!!!! I AM SO FREAKING HAPPY THE BUNNY IS BACK!!! MAN DID I MISS THE KID! LOOK AT HER! SHE LOOKS OLDER! IN JUST 10 DAYS SHE GOT OLDER LOOKING! I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR ALL ABOUT HER 10 DAYS TONIGHT! I'M GOING TO SMUSH HER!!!!

Later that day ...
Okay! We hit 30 degrees inside! I am totally melting away. My brain power is minimal. I can't drink enough water! I probably stink of sweat! But life is good and I shant complain because THE BUNNY, THE BUNNY, THE BUNNY will be home in a few hours! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE BUNNY!!! Now I will go melt/work/melt/work/melt. Actually, to be honest, this intense heat feels kind of good. I love these sorts of extremes. I mean I know it's just a few days or a week a year in Belgium. I actually welcome and embrace the heat. It's just freaking hot! That's all!

Sarah says:

It's already 28 (82F) degrees inside where I am right now! Yesterday it got to 29.5 (85F). The fans are blasting on the highest level, yet still, I think I might be melting... I bet it gets to be 33 (91.5F) in here today. I'll keep you posted if I live through it! I almost can't wait to be in my car today with the airco blasting! Last night was crazy hot and hard to sleep. We had the fan on, which is never good while sleeping because you inevitably wake up with a crusty eye, ear ache or Charley horse! I want to close shop and find a cold pool to jump into. Rather - step into gently as I cannot jump or dive ever again! Oh boy - what a day it will be! My water glass is filled and I'm ready to get to it! THE BEST NEWS IS -IS THAT THE BUNNY/THE KID/THE LOOL WILL BE HOME IN ABOUT 7 HOURS!!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HER AND SMUSH HER!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVEN TANGHE! HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!