Two sides of a medal

This evening I decided to ride home through the woods and over the fields - instead of cycling besides the streets - in order to come down from a long working day. I passed an old barn in the middle of nowhere. Last year in autumn I read an advertisement on this barn's door: reserve your St. Martin's goose now! Today there I saw a huge enclosement with some dozens of geese eating, walking over the green grass or just lying in the evening sun.
As I am a vegetarian and I really love animals, my first though was: Damn! Those poor geese won't live to see this winter or next spring. Not considering reality for a moment I really wanted to save them... perhaps by buying all the future St. Martin's roast geese until they are still alive. But where to keep a bunch of goose?
The second thought was then: these geese are somehow lucky - compared to other geese vegetating in narrow, dirty boxes perhaps even fattened in order to kill them soon to produce foie gras. Compared to them those geese I saw have a short but species-appropriate life.

And in my point of view this goose story is only an example of so many things in life that have two sides: a sad one and a lucky one. A serious and an easy one. - The art is to recognise both and to decide which one is the more powerful for oneself.

Do you have any thoughts on this topic you want to share?

On the move

Dass es bei "rund um den bodensee" gerade etwas still (ja, noch stiller als sonst ;-)) geworden ist, liegt an so einigem:
- gutes Wetter (d.h. ich bin lieber draussen als vor der Kiste von welcher aus ich den ein oder anderen Beitrag hier verzapfen könnte),
- viel Arbeit (d.h. ich bin dann doch lieber drin, allerdings vor einer Kiste, von welcher ich keine Beiträge hier verzapfen kann und möchte)
- und neuerdings.... der anstehende Umzug.

Letzterer wiederum hat in der Tat etwas mit dem Bodensee zu tun: ich ziehe um, von einem Ort nahe des Sees in einen weiteren - noch näher am See. Ein Stückle von demselben lässt sich sogar vom Balkon der neuen Bleibe aus erahnen.

Daher ist dieser Post voll und ganz dem Umzug gewidmet. Ich werde versuchen, alle Tipps, Tricks und Fallstricke aus meinem doch recht reichhaltigen Umzugserfahrungsschatz (selbst und als Helferin) zu sammeln. Weitere Anregungen von Euch sind jederzeit herzlich willkommen! :-)

Und los....

1. Wenn der Umzug länger geplant ist: ein Umzugsbüchlein möglichst immer bei sich führen und all die Dinge notieren, die einem so mal eben spontan einfallen - später jedoch wahrscheinlich gar nicht mehr, vor allem wenn man gezwungenermaßen drüber nachdenken muss. Beispiele sind:
   
   
   
   • Menschen/Firmen/Institutionen, welche die neue Adresse wissen müssen
   
   
   • Dinge, an die man dringend denken sollte (Schlüssel für die Einfahrt, div. Kündigungen)
   
   
   
   


2. Orga für Umzugshelfer (thanks to smo :-)): Kisten gut sichtbar mit Farbcodes (z.B. Isolierband) markieren, z.B. blau -> Bad, gelb -> WoZi, rot -> SchlafZi, ... und dann beim Einzug die entsprechenden Räume ebenfalls farblich kennzeichnen. Erspart lästiges Suchen beim Kistenausräumen.


3. Eine Starter-Kiste machen mit all den Dingen, die in der neuen Wohnung unabdingbar sind:
   
   
   
   • Westernbirnen (oder Baumarkt-deutsch: Renovierfassungen und Glühbirnen) und einen Phasenprüfer, damit man nicht im Dunkeln sitzt
   
   
   • Klopapier ;-)
   
   
   • Handtuch & Seife
   
   
   • evtl. Klingelschilder
   
   
   • ...
   
   
   
   


4. hier könnte DEIN Tipp stehen!

An anecdote about the German post system

Yesterday I went to the local post office in order to send a registered mail to a lockbox. Nothing thrilling so far....
... but: the lockbox of the receiver is in the same town where I posted the letter, more precisely: it is in the room right next to the post office.
So, while paying the postage I pointed out that the letter is addressed to a lockbox in the same town... and if it may be possible to transfer it right into the lockbox standing behind the next wall. Unfortunately it wasn't!
As it was not too urgent, I decided to track the letter via internet instead of starting to argue with the post office clerk. This morning, I did not trust my own eyes: our good, old, unbelievable flexible, efficient and eco-friendly German post system transferred the letter to the "next" logistics center (which is round about 30km away) and back just for dropping the letter into the lockbox... only 5 steps away. This nearly made me lost for words!

As there is so much about Iran, the protest and ...

... especially Neda on the news and in the web these days, I thought about writing... or not writing about it again here.
But the article I read yesterday on spiegel (a german news magazine) led me to the blog of my favorite writer, Paulo Coelho. There he shows the BBC's interview with Arash Hejazi, the man who tried to rescue Neda when she was shot. Coelho recognised Hejazi in the first video of neda that was on the web and contacted him by e-mail.
As this interview was so touching, I really had to tell someone about it - to spread that piece of information! I have so much respect for those two people, communicating to the world what Coelho saw the Hejazi went through. Hopefully this courage will somehow have a positive effect for the people in Iran.

Radeln in der Nähe des Gehrenberges

Vor lauter draussen sein und sporteln bei dem klasse Bodenseewetter komme ich gar nicht mehr recht zum schreiben hier. :-/ Neuerdings hat es mir das Radeln in der Nähe des Gehrenberges angetan. Hier ein paar Routen (weitere folgen hoffentlich ;-)):

• Kurzes Auspowern am Feierabend


• Training zur Bezwingung des Gehrenberges Teil 1 (inkl. steilem Anstieg am Anfang)


• Training zur Bezwingung des Gehrenberges Teil 2 (dank des guten Tipps eines Kollegen mit nicht so steilem Anstieg gleich zu Beginn)

Bei allen Routen kann ein kleiner, aber lohnenswerter Abstecher zur Hildegardshöhe gemacht werden - von dort hat man eine geniale Aussicht auf Weinberg, See und Alpen. Es gibt dort auch zwei Bänke und einen Tisch für eine längere Rast am Ende der Tour (sofern nicht jemand auf dem Tisch liegt und Stretching-Übungen vollführt... so wie heute erst gesehen... da traut frau ihren Augen nicht ;-)).

The greatest justice we face everyday....

... is that everybody's day has 24 hours. These were the introductory words to the short seminar about "timemanagement" I attended yesterday with some of my colleagues.

The seminar leader pointed out, as you only have 24 hours everyday you can't really manage your time - you only can manage your tasks you have to or want to do during your time. So it is all about task- or even better: selfmanagement!

For me the whole gist was that I have to organise my business and private todos, obligations, wanna-dos, etc. in a way that they conform with my personal values, with my aims and visions I have for my life. Sounds pretty easy, doesn't it? ;-)

Among other things, she recommended a book of Stephen Covey who is one of the founders of FranklinCovey; it is called "The 7 habits of highly effective people". It is not intended to change things quickly but to spark thinking about the whole subject.
She also pointed out the Eisenhower-method (you can easily google it) or the 72-hour-rule. The latter is really interesting; it says that for everything one really wants to do i.e. for an aim or a vision (e.g. running a marathon or even start running at all) one should make the very first step in the next 72 hours. With this rule you don't clutter your mind with things you may do "someday" and you quickly get feedback if you should stick to your aim or abolish it.

So I just ordered the book of the 7 habits online and now I am going to enjoy the sun and the blue sky outside - another essential aspect in selfmanagement: get your mind, body and soul in balance. :-)

I am excited to read what YOU think about the whole selfmanagement thing, how to cope with your tasks, stay in balance, ... so please feel free to comment.

So delicious

Call me old-fashioned! ;-) I just discovered managing my bookmarks on the web a few days ago. Now I have an account at delicious (formerly know as: del.icio.us) to manage my private bookmarks and of course to share some public ones; maybe you want to have a look at wombat on del.icio.us.
I just installed the firefox plugin for delicious and I am quite surprised how well it integrates - I think I do not need the firefox' internal bookmarking functionality any longer.