keep balancing

I'm still trying to keep the balance among all things I
want to do. (Almost) No compi on weekend (only
a quick look in the mailbox, if there's anything I should
reply immediately). Instead I spent more time with..


watching my boy playing soccer again,..


visiting the light installation by Markus Brenner
in the shopping mall,..


riding my bike to nearly every place I went to


and enjoyed every moment of it.

I'm also doing a bit gardening each day. It goes slower
than I'd love to. But I simply have no idea of gardening,
so I have to read books (I borrow piles of gardening
books from the library) and work carefully and slowly.
For example there's a big, old Cotoneaster horizontalis
in one corner of the front garden. It seems, nobody has
taken care of it for years (or it MUST grow like that
maybe??). The long wide branchy fan-shaped leafs
hung already over the pavement last year. I don't know,
how to cut it properly, so now it looks a bit uhm,.. sad :?
Hope, it will look a bit better, when the leaves come out.
(I should consider making bonsai out of it - they look
much more prettier as bonsai :P)

I hate that corner. Not only because of this sad tree. It's
because there are also 3 or 4 other plants (which I don't
know, what sort of plants they really are) growing into
each other under/among the Cotoneaster. Some of them
are growing too close to the roses in my opinion. I don't
like it. I want to remodel this part. Uhm, actually the
entire front garden need a bit more care. It needs e.g. a
fence, as some dogs as well as their owners don't have
manners (ok, it happened only once up to now, but that's
enough!!). The garden is so small though, a fence would
look ridiculous. As rose shrubs are growing there, I
thought, lavender as fence would look lovely. But first I
need to do that corner and weeding! Oh, I'm sure, I won't
get bored this year ;)


Mamoru Watanabe and Emil Schulthess,
"Japan - Gestern und Heute", 1960, Silva Verlag Zürich

Yesterday I visited the thrift store and bought a book
about Japan from 1960 for 1 Euro (some of you might
already know, that I'm crazy about Japan). Even if
Japan must be a lot different now, this book is very
inspiring in many ways. Esp. the end of the book is
really helpful to understand myself. This quote is only
one of it:
An American has written: "The Japanese seem to
expect, that foreigners would always point them
their mistakes and weakness out. If I made them
compliments, they were unsatisfied, as they heard
the contrary of that, what they would like to hear!"

Do you realize the green tablecloth? Ha! I finally got my
kitchen table free of stuff again ^_^

I also stumbled upon two new links through Jonathan's
tips in Zen Habits and Illuminated Mind, which I found,
would be helpful in my journey.
Although the inner me was starting to rebel, as I read
How To Be Awesome in Pace and Kyeli's blog category
(I don't want to be awesome!!), I was too curious, as
the first post I've read was really great. And I wasn't
disappointed. I found some similar thoughts to mine
and some others that lightening my way.
The second link was Productive Flourishing. Charlie
provides a great source for creative self-employed like
us. I'm digging (and craving to do something ;)).


Still playing with the magic ball ^_^