I Feel Like Gollum...

...like I've been in this dark and desolate cave, without hope of emerging, and have been petting my baby and calling him "Precious."

Okay, so maybe I'm being slightly melodramatic.

But, really. I'm not sure where the past few weeks have gone. They've all sort of blurred together in a giant mass of chaos, where Sleep and Order have been completely overthrown by a cute little tyrant called Baby.

How DOES he get away with such madness?? Oh, wait. I know. Like this:

How does one build up proper defenses to such a creature? Well, one doesn't. Somehow, through the sleepless nights and MOUNTAINS of diapers and laundry (SERIOUSLY?!), that beautiful little tyrant steals your heart away. His gummy smiles turn you into a puddle of goo, and the way he stares at you - a beautiful combination of discovery and comfort - you forget what you were doing. You forget that you were in the middle of The Great War Against Dust Bunnies and that you were losing - dreadfully - because you can't help but stare back into those eager eyes while making funny faces at each other.

But initially, it just feels like chaos.

His days are your nights; he poops his body weight multiple times a day. You're peed on, pooped on, puked on, and then he pees on the PJs you JUST washed because he peed on them 3 hours ago... When "they" say a newborn can eat every two hours, that doesn't mean in between feedings. No, it means everything happens WITHIN a two hour period. IE you feed him for 30-40 minutes, change his diaper, play with him, put him down for a 1 hour nap, and then he's hungry again.

But it was more than that. Nothing in the world could have prepared me to be so entrusted with another human life. The first week of his life, that responsibility hit me...hard. I felt completely overwhelmed (and undeserving), which, of course, displayed itself every day via an outpouring of tears... (thank you, Hormones...poor Ben...)

And then...the chaos changes.

It's a strange thing to have your life work in one fashion for so long (30 years!) and then to have it all flipped upside down and turned inside out. I've realized a lot about myself, and the biggest realization has been just how selfish I am. I've always been very protective *UNDERSTATEMENT* with my time, and now time isn't mine to protect.

But, interestingly enough, I don't mind.

It took me a good three weeks, but the chaos finally transformed into some form of predictability. And now that the dust is settling (on all the black furniture - WAR!), I'm starting to feel myself again - a different me, but me, no less. I'm recovering fast and getting some sleep, albeit incrementally (BTW sleep training is HARD, but it does wonders! I'm so thankful for the advice and encouragement from friends that were successful with it. And I'm thankful for my noise-cancelling headphones :D).

Just last week, Baby Kloss and I had our first "outing" together: Target. Of course he slept the entire time, but I count it as success and a mark that some form of normalcy shall be restored. Also, I've commenced working on book #3; my inspiration has RETURNED! And oh, it's a glorious thing...it was gone almost the entirety of pregnancy. My only problem now is that I can't type fast enough during those 30-45 minute segments of time I'm granted.

I'll never understand how such a tiny person can run away with your heart. He is absolutely perfect and healthy and beautiful, and it's astounding how much he grows and changes EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. He's almost a month old and already a pound heavier (he's got a ways to go to catch up to Daddy), and each day he's more alert, making more noises *MELTS*, and smiling more. (I've already doubled the photo count on my phone.) One of my new favorite things is to watch him with Ben. They already have a bond that's unique to them, and Ben always seems to be able to get him to relax in a way that I can't. Samson is also adjusting. The first time he heard Baby Kloss cry, Samson barked at him, and now he's bringing Baby Kloss his toys, expecting him to throw them.

And now it's time for me to go... gotta wake Baby Kloss so that we can go to Target and get sprinkles to make Christmas cookies :D

TOSCANA...and other such hilltop towns...

Italy.

*sigh*

This shall be the very, very condensed version of my past week. Just the highlights. You don't want 200 photos in one blog post, trust me. I haven't blogged sooner because, well, I HAD NO INTERNET! *pulls out hair* What is this world coming to, when you travel to distant lands and stress because even your 3G gets all Italian on you and takes siestas throughout the day? Ugh. Moving on...

We've spent almost the entire week gallavanting about the Tuscan countryside. We went to Sansepulcro and watched their annual Palio della Balestra Festival – a medieval crossbow match.

The target after all competitors shot

My favorite

The next day we went to Montepulciano, where New Moon was filmed (*clears throat* Alice’s car? Volturi?) then on to Montalcino for some Brunello tasting.

Me with Montepulciano in background

The building Edward stepped out of...the fountain was built
for the square since there is none.

The streets of Monetpulciano

I also want to take a moment to inform you, if you didn’t know, that there really aren’t any “major” roads in Tuscany. Sure, you might have a freeway here and there, but the “main” roads in lovely Toscana feel like your neighbors long and windy driveway.  After a full day of feeling like I was going to throw up (yes, I'm very sensitive to motion which I find it highly inconvenient ), me and Dramamine were best friends.

Near Montalcino with abbey in background

The next day we went to San Gimignano (pronounced “Jimmin-yahno”, unless you’re the GPS, who insisted on calling it “Jimig-Nane-oh”. Come to think of it, hearing a GPS say Italian words was quite entertaining…). In San Gimi, we had our cooking class. We made homemade pasta (pici) and bruschetta and sauces and panzanella and chicken…and our teacher picked the herbs fresh from her garden. Our dear teacher said, “The secret—“ she wagged her finger “—wait, there is no secret. Everything must be fresh!” Oh, and never—and I mean NEVER—serve bread with pasta. When we told her that is how it’s done in the States, her jaw dropped and her eyes bulged and she said, “Oh, noooooo!”

View from the Fortress in San Gimigniano

Homemade pici and cheeses (um, NOT homemade :D  )...Mmmmmm!

By the way, a staple of Toscana is fagioli (cannellini beans). They're on every menu as a side, and we always ordered it to share. It's my new favorite food group. Also, a little warning about the shops and restaurants here. They open and close when they want. On three different occasions, my uncle had a restaurant picked out, but when we arrived, they were closed for whatever reason. O_o


Okay, and something else really random. They sell paprika seasoned Pringles here. Yeah, I know I'm in Italy. Why am I eating Pringles? Well, my uncle bought some for our long car ride (not a lot to choose from at gas stations...) and THEY'RE DELICIOUS! We ended up buying Pringles for every car ride. I'm going to buy a few packs for the return trip...


The next day, in my Dramamine-induced coma, we headed for San Marino. Like the Vatican, it’s its own small country. It took us all of a windy, narrow three-hour drive to get there, and it was beautiful!

From the top of San Marino, Umbria in background (and a "perspiring" raincloud...)

The next day was Assisi (my personal favorite…mostly because I like to climb around in ancient castles)

Assisi

Me on top of the castle wall...scary....no railing!

I LOVED this long corridor! It went between towers...

Alas, we’ve arrived in Roma, where we ended this jaunt. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen the Colosseo, it always amazes me. And I always have to take a photo of it ;) I find it incredible that people and cars and mopeds and busses drive down cobblestone streets, and…BAM! There’s the Colosseum.

Spanish Steps - finally, without scaffolding!

Colosseum. Wait, does this even need a label?

NEVER drive in Rome. Never, ever, EVER! There aren’t lanes, and even when there are, people ignore them. Cars go everywhere, triple park, quadruple park, taxi’s drive on sidewalks, mopeds try and take off rearview mirrors—I usually close my eyes in the taxis.


Flying back home tomorrow. It's been a WONDERFUL vacation, but I miss Ben and can't wait to see him.


Thanks for joining me on this adventure.


Ciao e buona sera!


***If you like YA Fantasy, check out my book, GAIA'S SECRET. The sequel is coming soon!

COPENHAGEN

Kobenhavn (click to enlarge)

First, let me just say....I LOVE THE SCANDIC COUNTRIES!

It's like "old world" meets upscale IKEA. All these beautiful old buildings have modern architecture and style infused within - it's gorgeous. Copenhagen is clean, and cold, and the people are TALL. I'm SO in my element here :)  Average height for a woman is about 5'6" (though they seem taller than that...), and men are around 6'2", but on top of that, they're all sticks!

Everyone here speaks English very well. I feel bad, but they insist it's the lingua franca for many, so they're used to it. For instance, when I was at Zara (I LOVE that store), the ladies behind the register were speaking to each other in English because one was from Sweden and the other from Denmark, and English was the common language. Swedes speak Swedish, and Danes speak Danish - neither of which I even remotely understand, though there are some words similar to German (which I DO understand. A little). Note to self: add Swedish and/or Danish to list of languages to learn.

Something else I find incredible about this city are the cyclists! Seriously, everyone rides bikes (Um, Tour de France anyone?). There are bike taxis, bike stoplights, bike ROADS - and I'm from California...we've got the bike lanes. It's crazy. People ride bikes in business clothes, heels, while texting...you name it. When crossing a street, you don't worry about the cars, you worry about  getting run over by a cyclist.

See...sidewalk, bike road, regular road...crazy.

I could totally live here. The only bad thing is everything's expensive (ie coffee and a pastry will cost you $20.) So we "live like paupers" during the day, as my uncle likes to say, and then splurge a little at night.

The Little Mermaid

The mornings are gorgeous, but, as my sis so eloquently put it, "the afternoons get cranky." Clouds roll in and spit on you when they feel like it. You don't like the weather? Wait a minute (and duck under an awning).


The Little Mermaid (sculpted by Edvard Erichsen) is a symbol of Copenhagen, from the story by HC Anderson. And yes, this was well before Disney...

Gefion Fountain (Norse goddess, Gefjun, driving large animals)

St. Alban's Church. BEAUTIFUL! Looked like something from a fairy tale.

Copenhagen is the home of Hans Christian Anderson, so of course, finding a book from here was top of my list. Which, by the way, I found a beautiful, gold leafed hardback containing 80 stories, IN ENGLISH, but made in Denmark.  YIPPEE! The bookstore even stamped it for me. *still giddy*

Me and Annie and HC Anderson (well, his statue...)

Me and my sis, Nyhavn in background

Another beautiful area of Copenhagen is Nyhavn, a 17th century canal, lined with colorful buildings. It was built in 1670-73 by Swedish war prisoners to provide a "gateway" from the sea to the King's Square. HC Anderson even lived at Nyhavn for a few years. Today, it's lined with food and cafe's, or it's full of drunken, patriotic Norwegians before a Denmark/Norway futball game, like the night we arrived. SO funny and entertaining!

Nyhavn

King's Square

Maybe you've noticed I put a little more photos up this time? It's been almost a week and I think I'm finally waking up :) If you'd like to see EVEN MORE of the beautiful Kobenhavn (gluttons, I tell you!), you can look at them HERE.

Getting ready for our last dinner here (so sad!), and tomorrow...andiamo Italia!

STOCKHOLM!...and pirate ships...

Hello from Scandinavia! (or, as they like to say, "Hej"!)

Blogging about Europe is probably one of the hardest things for me because, well, THERE IS JUST SO MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT!

I love Europe. I love everything about it - the cultures, the languages, the history, THE FOOD. So I've decided to organize my blog posts by country. That way you aren't overwhelmed and I'm not exhausted, or is it the other way around? I don't know. I'm tired. And I'm not in my normal timezone.

Stockholm, Sweden. Okay, so that's a little more specific than the whole country, but you get the idea :)

I LOVED Stockholm! Much of that was finally meeting our wonderful extended family (see earlier post...), but Stockholm was so beautiful! The air was like a beautiful autumn morning, the kind where the sun warms your skin but the shade makes you shiver so that you never quite know how to feel. Puffy grey clouds filled the big blue sky. The sky seemed larger there, somehow. And all the various architecture - from Dutch to Swedish to Italian to French to German to MODERN - kept me distracted most all the time (...I also ended up tripping on the cobblestone streets. In flats...)

Here, see for yourselves (abbreviated version...seriously, I'm not posting all 100 photos of Stockholm.):

We stayed right in Gamla Stan (old district) at a really nice boat hotel (really, it rocked at night) with a name longer than anything I'd ever seen (Malardrottningen). Every street in Stockholm reminded me of Middle Earth. Stromgatan. Riddarholmen. I'd use the right vowels if I had the right keys...

Despite all the Italian restaurants (seriously, they were EVER-Y-WHERE!), we ate things like Swedish meatballs and Toastkagen. Now I'm assuming most of you know about Swedish Meatballs or at least can deduce what they are. Toastkagen is toast with shrimp salad on top (sorta like chicken salad...but with shrimp) and lots of dill (YUM!).

Swedish meatballs, potatoes, pickled cucumber (yes, pickles...)
and lingonberries (kinda like cranberries)

Toastkagen

We walked and walked and walked (that's what we do), took boat rides and photos, but my FAVORITE part was the Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet), located on the island of Djurgarden. 

The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and houses the only existing 17th-century ship. On August 10, 1628, the Vasa set sail on her maiden voyage. Twenty - TWENTY! - minutes later, she sank in the Stockholm Harbor. With two decks of cannons positioned too high and insufficient ballast, the Vasa was top heavy! There it lay for 333 years, until 1961, when an archaeologist found it. Through a series of lifts, they brought the Vasa above water and pieced her back together.(<----a link to more details...)

The Vasa

From Stockholm, we took the train to Copenhagen. I'd hoped to get some blogging/writing/reading/emailing done whilst admiring the Swedish countryside - but lo! The train rattled my equilibrium, and I spent half the trip trying to sleep off nausea. O_o 

Up next, Copenhagen, and until then...Hejda :)  (bye)

Long Lost Family!

FREE WIFI! Oh, how I love you. Well, when you work... :)

So. Some of you know I'm in Europe on vacation right now (which I'll blog about the travel later...), but I HAD to share this (assuming the intermittent internet reception lets me).

We FINALLY met some of our extended Syrian family!

I'm not sure exactly how it all came about, but one thing's for sure, Facebook made it all possible :) I know, I know, Facebook has it's evils, but in this particular instance, I feel nothing but complete gratitude!

My grandfather, the one that passed a few months ago, was from Syria. (My mom's maiden name is Azar.) It wasn't until Facebook that we realized some of those Syrian relatives had moved to Sweden, right outside Stockholm. And my uncle, the brilliant uncle he is, contacted our cousin, Firas, the moment he'd made plans to come to Stockholm. Through Facebook emails and photos, we decided to meet at a restaurant. 

No one really knew what to expect. We've all grown up, well, continents apart. Not to mention, being, you know, multi-lingual Americans (cough-cough), we weren't sure if/how we'd be able to communicate, but alas! At least they were prepared, and spoke incredible English (Note: Nina speaks Syriac, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish, and English. *slaps head* Yeah. I felt a little culture-centric, and not in a good way.) 

The incredible part was they actually felt like family! We talked and talked and talked, and laughed, and reminisced (Firas and Ramih's father, Issa, came to stay with my grandfather in the USA when my uncle and mom were kids...) and they invited us to their home for a traditional Syrian dinner the following night.

From left to right: Annie (my sis), Me, Nina, Firas, Ramih, Uncle Alex

Christian and Nina

Little Issa and food!

So, this is what Nina "whipped together" : Fatosh (salad), Malfof (like Domas) and cosa (stuffed squash), humus (HOMEMADE!), kebe (a meat dish), basterma (dried meat), and harise for dessert. Everything tasted so fresh and was bursting with flavor. My mouth was in ecstasies! Nina even sent me home with little baggies of spices, though I'm not sure anything I make will come even remotely close to what she'd cooked. And just as we'd cleared our plates, she had been ready with another heaping spoonful! Still full this morning... :)

YUM! 

Firas, Christian, Issa, Nina, Gabriel, Ramih, Annie, Uncle A, Me

Here's everyone, and I'll explain the connection for those of you that might care (family trees have been known to cause massive headaches...): Ramih and Firas are my third cousins. Their father, Issa, is Uncle Alex's second cousin. And Issa's father, Fahed, and my uncle's father (my grandpa), were first cousins. See? So simple :) While we were there, we even Skyped with Issa, who lives in Syria! My uncle said he looked just as he remembered him. Nina is Firas' wife (they have two beautiful children, Issa and Christian), and Gabriel is Nina's brother.

They tried teaching us some Arabic (and laughed when we butchered the throat sounds). I think we came out saying a few words that might be recognizable. Maybe.

All of them are such wonderful people, and I'm so glad to finally know them! Now I just wish we didn't live thousands of miles apart. Thank goodness for the internet to help bridge the distance!

Thank you, Nina, Firas, Ramih, Issa, Christian, and Gabriel, for such an unforgettable experience...you truly are a wonderful family! Until we see you again... :D

Saying Goodbye isn't Easy...

The past month has been emotionally trying for me. Many of you know the Hubby and I recently moved and, for obvious reasons, was full of sad "goodbye's". But one of those "goodbye's" came unexpected. And that "goodbye" was to my grandpa, who passed from this world on July 4th.

My mom called me on Thursday, June 30th, to let me know Papaw was dying. So, the next day, I boarded a plane to Paducah, Kentucky and prayed he would hang on just a little bit longer. And he did. I got to hold his hand and kiss his head of black hair (yes, even at 85!...he's Syrian). Even in his hospital bed, hooked up to oxygen, he was just as he always was - so happy to see me, full of love and kind words even though it exhausted him to say them. Including the second thing he said to me, which was, "Where are my grandbabies?" :)

All growing up we spent July 4th weekend with family - many times at Papaw's lodge by Kentucky Lake, setting off legal (cough...cough) fireworks. This time, I spent the entire day with my mom and uncles and aunts and cousins, all of us grieving together what we knew was eminent. The only one that wasn't sad was Papaw. He kept saying, "Don't you worry about me. I'll be fine. You take care of yourself." He was ready to go. He was eager to go. He was strong and encouraging and loving even in death.

And so he passed in his sleep on July 4th, 2011.

It's hard realizing he's gone. I can still smell his house, hear him snore from the family room, see him with that video camera attached to his eye--how I loathed that video camera back then, wearing jeans and a cowboy hat on the beach in Florida, hear his laughter - oh, how he laughed, see that blue Cadillac which, as a child, drove me to Toys R Us. He was the kindest man I knew, he'd do anything for anyone, he always smiled and laughed and said how much he loved you. And if you knew him it all you'd know he thought his children and grandchildren were the most beautiful in all the world (and to us granddaughters he called us "Beautiful" more than he called us by name...)

I'll miss you, Papaw. This world wasn't the same for having you, nor will it be the same for having you gone. Every memory I have I keep close and cherish, and I thank you for them. You've been a blessing in my life, and I've been lucky enough to call you my grandfather. You've left a legacy to a family that adores you and loves you and misses you already. But I take peace in knowing you're where you want to be. Saying goodbye isn't easy...but at least it's only temporary. We will see you again, and I'll look forward to it!

I love you, Barbara Leigh