Ravelling is the loss of aggregates...

I am reading about asphalt, computational fluid dynamics, and bio-fuel. Among other topics. I am back at work. Editing. Not exactly what I have spent all these years in gradschool for but it is work at the moment. The language institute wants me, the museums here seem not to. So this is what I do, as it pays and I can do it at home in whichever room I want to and whenever I want to, as long as I make the deadline. So far, I always have. I could argue that I am learning new things... but to be honest I don't really care one computational parametric bit about this stuff. Although I of course hope that the asphalt on which I drive is strong and doesn't tear or ravel beneath my tires and I hope to God that the bio-fuel produced from waste will take the place of Bush's oil, but still I don't really care. The point is that all these professors and engineers and scientists cannot (some not for the life of them) write decently in English. So I get to fix it and rewrite it and make sure an English-speaking/reading audience will not raise too many eyebrows at the Dutch-isms in the texts. I get to do the eyebrow-raising, the difference is that I do know where the Denglish is coming from, and mostly I actually know what they really want to say in English (and when I am not sure, they inadvertently end up saying what I think they wanted to say...)

Since I am not too interested in the actual topics I try to get interested in the Denglish and I feel that I now would be prepared to teach a course on it. And by the sound of it, they (the University's Language Institute) is actually planning to do so and are thinking about asking me to teach it. The point of the course would be of course, to teach these academics how NOT to use the Denglish, and how to take the D(utch) out of it. Should be an interesting experience?

Other than the varying forms of Denglish I AM however learning quite some new (to me) vocabulary and terminology. I am just not so sure, given that the topics don't really strike me as of vital importance in my life, when I will ever be able to use the new stuff like turbulent flow, laser ablation, and biosurfactants. Oh well. We can never know, right. Once in a while a line strikes me, like "ravelling is the loss of aggregates." Now what could be more true than that! In the past few months I myself seem to have lost some aggregates and am feeling a bit "ravelled" or is it "unravelled?" Can I feel both? (And interestingly enough, going back to the Denglish, this is actually an English word derived from the Dutch). Enough of the babble. I might be boring you, my reader.

Or am I? And should I care? This is MY blog, isn't it? And why are you reading it anyway? Who is my audience and what does it want? To check in and see that we are all fine? To see whether the house is moving along or still in chaos? Now that this blog is "open" and available without log-in, I no longer have a readers-list. By making it easier to all of you (who are you?) I have made it a black hole for myself. But as one of my friends and readers (!) said, "I completely understand your conundrum regarding public/private blogs. However, from MY standpoint as an interested observer, I don't need another username and password in my life, so I'm game for keeping it public." And well, she is right of course!

I used to think that whoever REALLY wanted to read this blog, wouldn't mind logging in, and it would keep all the others out. Now that mine is open, I have done a little bit of browsing myself into other people's blogs and the hesitation I used to have about being out in the open has slightly vanished. Mainly because, honestly, I find that I myself am not that interested in other blogs anyway (exceptions are those in my list) and certainly not those written by people I have never even heard of. I can barely find the time to write my own, or read the musings of the blogs listed, let alone get engrossed in the blog-lives of others. So why would anyone be interested in mine? That allows me to sleep for the moment. Yet maybe not for long...as I can think of quite some people of whom I feel that they have absolutely no business at all peering into the snippet of my life I reveal inhere. (Okay, now that I think of that, I might lock it up again! Ha.)

Blog-life. Blog-self. That is all it is, isn't it? I asked my sister-in-law (the fencing bear) whether she doesn't make herself feel too vulnerable or naked after writing her often insightful but (seemingly) very personal and diary-like posts (see previous post). She answered that it isn't her but fencing-bear writing. The alter ego thus, or who and what she would like to be? And yet,don't we all do that, whether we call it something or not? Isn't this what this is about? A modern and convenient "good-letter-home" without a stamp and with the world as our mailing address. Whoever picks up the envelope can read the letter within. A wishful self-image? Or a carefully selected amalgamate of specific parts (Ha! aggregates) of who we are in truth. Yes, I think so. And that is fine. Look at www.willworkforplay.blogspot.com and who do YOU see? A sprightly, canine-loving woman who is into acrobatics and living life to the fullest, wearing perfume while inverted atop a horse? Yes. But she is much more than that. This is who she chooses to be, right now, for the world. I am fine with that. Brassai is still on my mind. Maybe he would have liked blogs -- the appearance of the truth, but in fact, all merely staged. But I still manage to let you all know my story, and that of the house with us in it. Even with the loss of aggregates.

From Antwerp with love.

Some changes

I have made some changes to my blog. I have for now opened it to all. This ought to make reading it easier for several people. I realized that some of the people who had asked about my blog (especially here in Belgium) were not able to get to it simply because they are not that internet-savvy. Clicking on a link works much better than having to create a google-account and log in. I am however, not entirely sure yet how I feel about this. My sister-in-law has an amazing blog running and hers is open for the world to see and READ, of course. (check out http://fencingbearatprayer.blogspot.com/ but make sure you have TIME to get through it all.) She is a prolific and extremely eloquent writer, professor, fencer (!) and wife and mother, and her blog brings all of these roles and personalities together under the topic of prayer. She is very frank and open in her writings and musings and the whole does indeed have the feel of a meditative diary. Although the fact that it is indeed not a diary which has, as she states an audience of one, surely influences her writing. Still, I feel that she, much more than I, is a little bit more "naked" in her blog. (I have not done much blog-browsing, but I am sure there are some very naked people out there, ha!) Anyway, I asked her about being so open (and vulnerable) to all to see, including students (EEK!) and colleagues (more eek?!). She is about to come to Antwerp for a visit so no doubt we will be talking about all this as she has become a bit of a blog-geek (ha!). So, more on this later. I might at any time change my blog back to the must-log-in type!

Then, I have also changed its http address from "vanessaintexas" to "4NERinanativeland." My original title just did not work anymore. I find myself far away from Texas. However, there is still a connection. Some of you might know that in Texas I drove around with what they call "vanity-license plates" which read "4-NER." I would call myself that vain, but I was proud of the plates! In fact, they are now decoration in my kitchen here in Antwerp. For I was indeed a foreigner there, but I, just as the plate, was for some people hard to figure out. I often saw people staring at them trying to get to the meaning. And I would often say, "no, it is not in reference to the band!" I even had people popping their heads out of their car window and yelling "Cool plates!" but I was never sure whether they meant it or just were pleased they had it figured out after quite some pensive frowning (yes, it took some quite some time... and this is not a comment on Texans in general.) So, here I am in my native land, and still, in many ways a 4NER.

And thirdly, I realized (also examining "fencingbearatprayer" that I often simply do not write because I don't have time to post my photographs. It is more than simply wanting to show you all things, it is a reflection of the person I am. As much as I like words and writing, I am a visual person. In fact, I have been very disappointed that I have indeed had so little time to post what I call "real photos" rather than the quick snap shots which you have been seeing. Last night, when I went upstairs to our bedroom to go to sleep, I got ready for bed in the dark. We don't have curtains yet and I didn't really want my neighbors to see the color of my underwear (not-matching by the way!) But I noticed that they do not seem to mind that too much (the being looked at, I mean.) The houses here are so close together and I can look into several of them on both sides of ours. It made me want to take pictures again -- the "real" kind, something I have not even had the time or energy for in a long time. It is a good feeling for me. But I wondered whether I could. Here was the prime example of the voyeuristic photographer hiding in the dark while staring into the private lives of others. Brassai would have been proud of me. I have lots to muse on this one... but not now, as I, once again, do not have time. For there is much to do while my little one takes her nap, and will surely, wake up very soon. In any case, even with this renewed desire to start taking photographs, I realized it is OK to post without the pictures. So for those who are interested, maybe there will be some more posts. The pics will come, you know, I can't do it otherwise.

The Pics to go with the story

Well, I wrote that pictures would follow. So here goes. The first set was taken before we moved in after the lighting had been installed. You can see in these that the funky floor-protection is still in place (this is the stuff they make juice cartons out of, we had the apple-juice variety down for months!). We were very excited with the lighting, as it made the house seem come to live (oops, is an English instructor allowed to use such a construction?) Now that we are in, we still have several lights to take care of, but these were the (expensive) built-in kind. Some of the others will come from Ikea and such. (More on Ikea later by the way!)



Then there are some pics from the actual move itself. Three guys and a huge lift! It took them a day to unload our container of which we got to keep the seal as a memorabilia. Ha. To me that little blue band might come to serve as a deterrent... never do this again! I will leave the full narrative of that day up to Robert for his blog. All I will say is that loading furniture out of a container, up on a lift, and then into the windows does work a lot better without a sigaret in hand! I am just happy for the prevalence of the lifts in moves these days because these guys had to haul only 1 piece of furniture up some stairs and we have three dented walls! Oh dear. When they came near the antique glass door, I locked myself up in one of the bathrooms simply because I could not even bear to watch!



The next set of pics includes some of a few rooms that are sort of in place. So far really the only floor that is done is Evelina's. Her bedroom and play room are the first we worked on and they are finished. We are still sleeping on that floor too, in the guest bed (i.e. pull-out sofa) since our bed will not arrive until Friday. We have gotten the kitchen somewhat in place but it is still chaos down there, and the living room awaits shelving for all the books. This may take a while still. But, I hope that these will give you an idea should you have been craving for one. Important message to all readers thus, the grey sofa will be your bed when visiting. We have been testing it since we moved in and it sleeps pretty darn good.
































And then there are the cute ones... of little Evelina entering her new and long-awaited and much talked-about room for the first time. Well, actually two rooms. She has a new bedroom with a much bigger bed than ever before (her crib converted to a big bed) and then a play area in the family (and guest) room that is just for her. There was so much to see for her and so many things to reconnect with from Austin that she did not know where to go first. She was truly overwhelmed, and THAT was more than definately worth all the work we put into getting her room ready!






















And now, it is late, I am exhausted, and I am going to lay down on that aforementioned sofa. Just a few more nights and it is free... but any guest has to be able to handle chaos (as well as a host who can't.) Greetings with love. PS: no, I don't usually dress my daughter in combinations of hot pink and red, but there had been an accident at daycare that day and that was all that was in her cubby.... (in case anyone is wondering.)

WE'RE IN!

Well, what I had thought would have happened in by April has finally happened. We are IN the "New House" (as Evelina continues to call it). Let me tell you one thing about this whole ordeal of renovating and moving: I SERIOUSLY underestimated it. Seriously. And that is probably a good thing, or I would have NEVER done it. The results are surely worth it and we are so happy that we are finally here, with all these months of delay, but oh my, this has been such a rollercoaster ride (and I hate rollercoasters!) Major events like moving, living in a foreign country, and others make one learn things about oneself. I learned and am still learning some things throughout all of this. One major thing: I really am not good at all with chaos! I can't stand mess (although I am not even under normal circumstances the neatest person) and I barely function when things don't have a fixed place. I am sure you can imagine that with living in a smallish apartment and all of our stuff first for months stored at the harbor, and then having it all delivered (over 150 boxes of stuff) to a 4-storey house, added to that the new stuff gathered in the apartment I wasn't coping too well! Ha.

The movers came on the 27th of June and with working some weekends while Evelina was blissfully unaware of all the chaos at my parents' house, we managed to get 3 of the 4 floors in decent and livable shape, and 1 bathroom functioning. I have been wanting to write and post pictures but I have been so darn busy with all of this, and work, that some of you are probably wondering but have been afraid to ask what is going on. The pics will come. They show (we think) that it all was indeed worth it... including my sprained wrist, re-injured sciatica, and the bunch of new gray hairs and wrinkles. I swear moving like this makes one 5 years older in a few months time. It is not just the move, it is orchestrating the renovation and the move while life continues on, with now 2 sick cats, work issues, and all the stuff not to be included in the blog. But again, we are in.

In but not done. While some of our workers were way too casual in my opinion (and got yelled at by me for it!) our painter was waaaaayyyyy too much of a perfectionist. What he estimated would take him 5 weeks, ended up taking 8 and he was still not finished when he left on vacation. Sigh... He is too nice to yell at. But it is going to be chaos again when he returns to finish up since now we have furniture and our stuff in the house. He still needs to paint 2 bathrooms, the entire groundfloor, the hallways, the stairs, and the plinths on all floors! 2 weeks, he says, but I have learned my lesson now. I am estimating 5.

The kitchen people will have to come back still for this and that, can't use my dishwasher yet, nor the ovens... And then there are details to be taken care of on every floor, some less inconvenient than others. But we have internet and a high speed server, so I am eager to try out whether uploading pics and video will go faster now. I hope so, so that I can start making this blog a bit more interesting again.

I will start writing about life in general as the renovation chapter is (thankfully) almost over. About my new American friends, and the 2 Korean boys I am tutoring, about our "hood" which we already love, and Antwerp. I hope that I still have readers left, and that all of you are doing well. We only intend to get better and to finally at some point, find some rest again.

With love, vanessa

The turning point...

A quick update for those (few?) of you who are really following our remodeling-narrative... (I know you are Mom!) we have finally reached a turning point! Things are looking great and it seems that finally (it took only a year!) everything is falling into place. I apologize that I have no pictures at the moment. I do have them, but I have no time to load them as I am working on a big editing project with a deadline. But here's the status report: we finally managed to get some workers back into the house to finish up the plastering (it seems that our contractor for that job got himself into a scheduling-mess while also having just become the father of twins...), so now the painter does not have to tip-toe around the unfinished walls anymore. He has been extremely patient and extremely helpful with everything and as of now he is about the only one whom I will recommend without hesitation (but let's wait... he's not finished yet.) He has already finished the 2 upper floors and most of the hallway. Our bedroom looks fantastic and we absolutely love the accent color we chose for there. Evelina's room is a nice and soft pink and we just hope that she will still like pink when we move in (maybe that's a given?) All the fixtures are delivered and will be placed next week. All the tiling is done. All the lights will be put in the week of the 23rd. And tomorrow the kitchen will be placed, finally! (Lots of "finally's" in this note!) THe kitchen was already planned to be placed once, but things went awry, so let's keep ALL fingers crossed for tomorrow. I will be there at 8 a.m. and will be very excited if all goes through. So, pics to follow. I promise. Lots of greetings. And yes, we have a moving date! On the 27th all our stuff will be delivered. WOW.

De laatste loodjes zijn heel zwaar.

In flemish there is
an expression "de laatste loodjes wegen zwaar."It means that the final haul of something always is the most arduous. Well... for me the loodjes are very heavy right now. I thought of the following analogy. Say you are going on a trip with a plane and the flight is about 10 hours long. At first you settle in on the plane, you get comfortable, and you think, well it won't be that bad, I finally get to rest a little, read that book I have been wanting to read, etc. (All this of course, assuming you are not travelling with a baby or toddler...) Then you get fed, and watch the movie or maybe sleep some, and then you start looking at the time. Half-way. Over half-way. And then, the antsyness sets in. By the time you have about two hours to go, it doesn't feel relaxing anymore, you just want out of the darn plane. If you've ever flown like that (and most of you have) you know what I am getting at. Now then, imagine that the captain then announces "we will now be flying around in circles for another five hours." Can you imagine how you'd feel? Well, that is HOW I AM FEELING NOW ABOUT THESE RENOVATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so ready to be out of this apartment, out of this street where there is always traffic and noise and it takes for ever to find parking. I want our things back, I want my clothes, I want for Evelina to be able to have a room of her own with all her toys! The poor thing cried this morning because she was reminded of one of her books that is packed and she misses it!!!!!!!! That breaks my heart. She doesn't even know all of it is coming back to her... I keep telling her but there is no sign of it so why should she believe me? Anyway, we are still planning of being out of here and into the house by the end of the month. But sometimes I just don't know if we will be able to. I was at the house yesterday and so much still needs to be done, that I just couldn't take it anymore. Maybe I will feel better about it all next week, then all the fixtures ought to be in, and all the door ought to have been placed. Deep sighs....

Some happy news? Last weekend Robert and I went to Brussels. See the picture of Fulton street on top? If it hadn't been on a building with several security cameras I might have tried to take it, but as it is I am already on film just taking a picture of it! We really like Brussels now as we are starting to get to know it. Yes, we did happen to walk by our famous little "Manneke Pis" and I am happy to report he is still standing strong and peeing non-stop. I did even take a picture of him but later in the day I saw another take on him and I thought I would post this one instead for you.











We walked around all of Saturday and had a really nice time. We mainly went to check out the antique shops and we had fun doing that. 90% of what you see is either junk, not our taste, or too expensive. But we did find some things we were looking for. So we felt quite accomplished. For one thing we still need to go back because it did not fit in the car. But Brussels is only about 35 minutes away now. This will taking used to, everything is so close, yet so different. We had a great meal, which of course is not a surprise here in Belgium. The land of plenty. Robert will have to write more on this in his blog...











And we sat on the 1st floor of "Le Roy d'Espagne" an old cafe on the Grand Place. And when I say old, I mean built in 1697. Just for fun check out their website http://www.roydespagne.be/. This will make you want to come and have a Belgian beer. We sat until after the sun went down at 10:30 pm. This late sunset is one of my favorite aspects of the spring and summer here. I will post some pictures so you can see why we sat inside on the 1st floor and not outside this wonderful spring evening. We had sat there before, and we just love the view. All other pics are from Brussels too. For those of you who have never been, this is a little bit of what you will get when you come visit us.










Here are a few other pictures showing the typical contrasts between the old and the new(er) architecture, a view of Rue de Boucher, the old butchers' street which is now filled with fish restaurants, and the new Magritte museum which is still being renovated - but I absolutely love it's temporary look! And a shot of a waiter taking a break to check out what is going on in the street below. And of course, there is always new fashion too... while Obama is being celebrated in the most strange places and settings (take a good look!)































Oh and we met 2 new friends while shopping. They are actually looking for another place to live. We talked to them about Antwerp and our house... so we are considering taking them in. They seem like a nice couple, don't you think?




For now, keep all fingers crossed for us that we truly may be able to move soon! Much love from Antwerp.(And you know you can click on the pictures to see them bigger, yes?)

Phew time flies. May is almost over, we have been busy, but still no move this month! First we thought the end of May, then the 2nd week of June. Well, let's say it will be the end of June and there will still be many things to be done in the house. But we are fed up of this apartment (and of paying rent!) so we will move in even if it means camping out on the top floor with a hot plate. Even Evelina protests at the front door of the apartment with " No, not in the apartment, in the new house!" She has been along a few times and strangely enough, even though the house doesn't look a home at all (yet) she seems to like it better than where we are now. The painter is working hard but oh so very precisely that it will now take him twice as long as he had promised me when I hired him. He said 4 to 5 weeks, now, when after him working alone for 2 weeks I was getting a bit nervous about the fact that he was still in the same room, I asked him again and he said about 7 to 8 weeks (on top of the 2 he had already worked!) So I showed him my dismay and told him we would move in regardless. I think that scared him a bit, because it is no fun having to paint around people and furniture.

We had a little set-back again when the kitchen was supposed to be installed so that did not go through. But it might be better in the end, as now we will (hopefully) have the floor down and all the other work finished in the kitchen before the cabinets and the counter go in. As I am writing this, the contractor is tiling and the plumber is placing the radiators. It is weird after 15 years of living in a house where the heat comes from a little vent in the ceiling, to now have to put up with large white metal cases against the walls everywhere. They seem so obstructive... But then, not much to do about that. We will need the heat in the winter, and will porbably not mind the way they look at all. Our outlets have electricity and the next time the electrician returns it will be to put in the lights. We will still have lots of wires with a simple bulb sticking out of the ceilings and walls. This is the kind of stuff I don't mind waiting with. In fact, some things just cannot be decided upon until we actually live there and know what it all will look like. It was hard enough to decide on all the colors before living there. So we kept it pretty neutral, we figured we can always add an accent here or there if we want to later. The painter is doing all the hard work now prepping the walls. We are expecting the carpenter any day too to put in the door frames. After that the painter can place the plinths and then all will truly have a finished look. So at the moment there is not much I can show in pictures. Hopefully soon, there will be some more real stuff to show. The vine on our facade is growing again and that tells me it was exactly a year ago that all three of us where here
on a visit to get the renovation work started...











Evelina was sick this past week. She had an ear-and throat infection, so she was home all last week. Today is the first day she went back to daycare with much protest. She does love it there, but after this long of being with us and my parents. The weekend of the 9th of May was a long weekend (Pentecost) so we spent it at some lakes not too far from my parents' town in a vacation-village. We rented a little bungalow for 6 and spent 4 days there. It was our first time to try something like this and although many things did not live up to expectations, it was actually quite great. Evelina loved it. She got to play in the pool everyday, was outside on the "street" playing soccer every evening (both of her knees bore the results of that!), and got all attention from us and my parents who joined us. She probably got sick from exhaustion... I will post a few pics of this weekend.






















This last weekend she spent with my parents. Robert and I took advantage of this luxury baby-sitting option and decided to spend some evening time in our future hood. We need to remind ourselves that we WILL INDEED really be living there soon. Sometimes the house still feels like just a big project instead of a future home. So we had a nice dinner at one of the many restaurants on the Dageraadsplaats, sat outside and enjoyed the buzz. Every little table outside was filled with people eating and drinking. Children were running around and playing on the big court in front of the church. We ate slowly and enjoyed every minute of it, soaking up the wonderful atmosphere. I have to admit that the summers are great here in the northern hemisphere, at 10 pm it is still light out and people love being outside on summer evenings, eat and drink with friends and family until the wee hours, and there seems to be no set bedtime for the children. Everyone who knows me, knows I am sceptical about Belgium in many ways (ha) and that I romanticize Italy... well I had to agree with Robert... this town is pretty wonderful to live in. (Well, it really will be when we have a house... arghhhh) Many of the things I so love about Italy are here too. I will always idealize that country I think and I will always be pulled to it ( I swallowed the magnet and it will remain inside of me forever) but now after about 4 months back, I am starting to see the beauty of this country again too (or maybe for the very first time.)













I am still teaching and very much like my group of students. I continue to be faced with the realization that English is a very difficult language. Through teaching I am learning lots about Russia, Japan, Korea, and Poland. I think I will keep some friends from this experience, and that will have made it very worth it.

Well wish us luck with the remainder of the renovations. I cannot tell you all how much we are ready to have a home again, to have our stuff again... simply to have clothes again. I have now been wearing the things I packed in January for 4 months... I have no summer clothes so I make do with some things of my mom's and new jeans and new flip flops. Many of Evelina's clothes will be too small when I finally get to unpack them. It is so weird to think that when we left Austin, we were still using the diaper table and now she is potty-trained! (she decided herself by the way, and did it in about a week. She is a super-child!) Anyway, the whole unpacking will be weird, period. I barely remember all the things we had! But miss them all still very much. It will be like Christmas in June (or July!?)

Much love from Antwerp.