“The cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service, handwritten by Christopher and Ein Unglück kommt selten allein

I just looked at my blog and realized that this is only the third post in this year. Well, things have not went well for us as a family in this year. Not at all. There were many small things that added up to a general mess, topped off with little girl needing a surgery. Unfortunately it didn’t go as well as planned, and she needed a second surgery. In the same week our twin stroller broke. This might sound like a small thing compared with the surgery, and would seem just one of all those little things if I told you all that has been going on, but dealing with it cost me the last bit of sanity. You see, it is not just psychologically stressful to have a kid in hospital. It is time consuming and a lot of work. Hubby stayed with little girl there, and I was at home with her twin brother. Essentially, I did the laundry (two machines per day), and the rest of the household, including cooking for little man, doing the dishes, shopping for groceries, in only half a day so that I can then spend some time with little girl and hubby. Which meant timing little boy so that visiting times fit in between afternoon nappy and dinner. And so, while my plate was already more than full with organizing and cleaning stuff, tired because little boy decided to wake every hour during night screaming for mummy, I also had to deal with our stroller vendor and insist (successfully in the end) that this was a case covered by their warranty. Because there was no stroller during that time, I carried little boy around a lot. In a way that suited us both. He was very anxious, obviously confused by his sister and father not coming homw, and he needed a lot of cuddling time which was at least partly satisfied by carrying him. And I was also happy to move around less space consuming than with a twin stroller. However, he is quite heavy by now, and so carrying him around cost me a lot of strength of which I didn’t have much to spare at the time.

And because that wasn’t enough I caught some ugly bug in hospital and were seriously sick for two days and not well for almost a week. Same thing then infected also the rest of the family one after the other and in the end me once again.

Now that it is over, I think that maybe it wasn’t even a case of bad luck that the stroller broke while little girl was in hospital, because I can carry one kid. Had it broken while both kids are home I wouldn’t have known how to do even simple grocery shopping. But, well, at the time I couldn’t see that. But yeah, this year wasn’t too good. Hopefully things will get better from here on. And once they do, I am sure I will get around to do some more blogging, too.

Ich habe gerade mal einen Blick auf meinen Blog geworfen und festgestellt, dass ich erst zwei Artikel in diesem Jahr geschrieben hatte. Ich glaube, so wenig habe ich seit ich meinen ersten Blog erstellt habe nicht geschrieben. Nun ja, das neue Jahr lief für uns als Familie so ganz und gar nicht gut an, und mir fehlte die Zeit und die Lust, viel zu schreiben. Vor zwei Wochen hat sich dann alles kulminiert: Unsere Tochter brauchte nochmal eine OP, ist zunächst nicht wie erhofft verlaufen, also nochmal unters Messer. Während ich viel zu organisieren hatte, den Haushalt in der Hälfte der Zeit schaffen musste, um meine Tochter wenigstens einmal am Tag besuchen zu können, ist auch noch unser Kinderwagen entzweigebrochen (im wörtlichen Sinne, glatter Rahmenbruch), und am Ende sind wir alle auch noch richtig krank geworden, vermutlich durch einen Magen-Darm-Keim, den ich im Krankenhaus eingefangen habe. Davon sind wir gerade erst dabei uns zu erholen. Heute war die Nachuntersuchung unserer Tochter, und zum Glück sind die Ärzte nun erstmal zufrieden. 

Aber es gibt auch schönes zu berichten. So habe ich das erste Mal seit der Geburt der Kinder wieder an einem Swap teilgenommen. Meinen Beitrag werde ich erst vorstellen, wenn er seine Empfänger erreicht hat, aber ich kann schonmal zeigen, was ich bekommen habe!

But there were also good things. For example I participated in a swap again, for the first time since the kids were born. And this I hugely enjoyed! I receive my book from Christopher Kurke a couple of days ago. The book is approximately 12cm x 15cm in size, It is bound in a limp, smooth, mid brown leather cover, with a strip attached to the front cover to serve as a closure.
The spine is reinforced with a glued on strip of leather on the inside, and then one signature is sewn directly to the cover in a five hole stitch.

Dieses Buch von italicist Christopher Kurke ist etwa 12cm x 15cm groß, ein einfaches Heft mit Ledereinband. (Das Thema des Swaps war “einfache Struktur”.) Eine Band ist am Vorderdeckel befestigt und dient als Verschluss.

It has fly leaves made from heavy brown paper, presumably Canson Mi Teintes or similar. The signature itself is made up of a white paper, filled with “The cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service, handwritten by Christopher in a beautiful even style. See for yourself:

Innen befindet sich die Ballade “The cremation of Sam McGee”, offenbar sehr bekannt in Kanada, mir allerdings bis dahin unbekannt. Sehr vergnüglich zu lesen, vor allem wenn er so schön geschrieben ist, aber seht selbst:

Thank you, Christopher!

Danke, Christopher!