nachdem ich in der Nacht furchtbar zu husten begonnen habe, musste ich Doug versprechen, dass ich heute keine Perlen verdiene, sondern wirklich frei nehme. Also muss auch mein Jahresrückblick warten. Immerhin kann ich meinen englischen Jahresrückblickbrief (leider ohne die entsprechenden Bilder) hochladen - zur Überbrückung quasi. Ich wünsche euch auf alle Fälle ein tolles Jahr 2015 :)
Ich hab euch lieb!
Juliane
Kitchener,
December 31st 2014
Dear Friends!
The year is over and I take a few moments to
look back on my and Doug's year. I wanted to write Christmas mail way
earlier, but after life slowed finally down the week before Christmas
I came down with the flu and I'm still battling it. Writing mail is
not as easy as you'd think when the brain is out of order due to
headaches, stuffed sinuses and/or fever. But I am doing better and I
really want to get at least part of my belated Christmas, now New
Year's mail done.
Christmas is for me not the easiest time. I
know my family in Germany gets together and I can't be there. This
year, I found joy in it because of several things. First of all, some
very dear friends spent Christmas Eve with us and shared food with us
and played games with us. Thank you, Will, Taz and Joey! Secondly, we
had Doug's father and sister and their partners over for dinner the
week before Christmas. This means a lot to me because it has not been
easy with Doug's family and I feel like this is a step in the right
direction and I really love how often we got to see Amanda this year.
The third thing that made this Christmas
special was that Doug agreed to make our own sausages. Thanks to my
mom I have the original Zittau Christmas sausage recipe and Doug was
willing to spend time and money and muscle power on this. Thank you,
love! And also thanks to our Christmas Eve guests who helped make
those sausages and didn't even complain about a late dinner!
But this is just the last couple of days and I
said I wanted to look back on the whole year.
Doug and I started the year quite hopeful in
the then new apartment on Weber. We didn't have internet at home till
March thanks to the building not having telephone hookups, but it was
our place and there were not many other people in the building.
In February we finally handed in the
application for my permanent residency and since then we have been
waiting to hear back. 6 months turned into 9 and now the web page
says 14 months as estimated processing time for the first part and I
hope it doesn't change again to a later time. For me, the waiting is
extremely challenging and I hate being dependent like that. Doug has
been amazingly patient with me and helps me deal with this and also
tries to prevent me from overcompensating when volunteering. I now
volunteer not only at the German Language School where I have my own
class since September, but also for the City of Kitchener in a Youth
Drop In with amazing colleagues and for Inclusion Services when they
need someone. I also started in the Museum and love it there a lot.
In between my volunteering got so much that I worked 40 to 60 hours a
week and now Doug helps me to keep a healthy balance and not overwork
too much.
In May, Taz and Joey moved back to Kitchener
and since then hangouts with friends have been more frequent again. I
am thankful for that and love every moment I get to spend with all of
you - be it dancing at Ab, playing DnD or card and board games or
just for food hangouts or jam making. I hope we keep doing this! Now
we have three places with big enough rooms for all of us, so we can
alternate!
In summer, our building on Weber got
unbearable. Meth dealers and constant fighting in the neighbouring
apartment and broken promises of the landlords let to us being fed up
and we started looking for a new place. After Doug started his new
and permanent job in September we handed in our notice and in late
November we moved to our cheaper, bigger and friendlier place on
Queens Blvd - with garden! Thanks for all the help!
Another constant in my life are my regular
visits to Tish and Joe Ashton who have become something like a second
set of parents and who welcomed us into their home and organized an
awesome birthday party for me in summer! Thank you, you two!
In spring, we also had a visit from Germany.
One week of having Caro and Christian here may have been a bit
crowded, but it was nice to speak German at home and get German teas
and bath salts. Of those two things I got plenty over the year thanks
to German family and friends who send care packages for me on a
regular basis.
Next year, we will have my older sister and my
parents as well as two of my by now many nephews visiting. I look
forward to that and hope that we will soon be able to visit my nieces
Ronja and Ophelia (both are over a year old already!) and the newest
addition, nephew Samuel.
Now all that is left to say is: I hope you had
a good Christmas and I wish you an awesome year 2015!
Lots of love,
(and probably greetings from Doug!)
Juliane
No comments:
Post a Comment