June 16th, 2016
You know how a song brings you back to a specific memory or becomes a theme song for a season of life? I’ve had an old song running through my head for days now. It was released back in 1995 by the group, Jars of Clay. The song is taking on new meaning for me. Its called “Flood.” Here are the opening lyrics…
Rain, rain on my face
Hasn’t stopped raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become one with the mud
And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, captures the current weather pattern in our neck of the German woods. Flood is an exaggeration since we do get breaks where the sun fights its way through for a bit here and there. Then I sing…
Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)
here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right
After a rainy afternoon on Sunday, I checked the weather report on my phone. The forecast for the next nine days: clouds, thunderclouds, and rain clouds. I never knew it rained so much in Germany! I guess that explains all the green. Sigh…
I’m trying to look for the bright side of all this rain. Here are a few of my attempts and observations…
On Monday, S and I watched a rainstorm from our front porch. At one point, he moved our watering pail to catch the rainfall. Its a new game of ours…harnessing this abundant, natural resource.
E brought home an itty bitty seedling a few weeks ago that he planted in school. We left it out on our picnic table and its taken off in this weather!
The farm fields are growing, wild flowers line the trails and ivy is taking over sides of buildings and walls.
Though there are times that we choose to stay inside, that gets old pretty fast. The boys begin to bounce off the walls after a while. I’m convinced that having good clothing is essential. We continue to get excellent wear out of our rain jackets we bought before coming here. They have been the BEST articles of clothing we own. We have also learned rain boots and/or water proof shoes are a must. The Germans dress their kids in water proof pants. I haven’t bought any for the boys yet but I can see their practicality. It reminds me of the saying, “There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Here are the boys waiting for E’s bus in the morning and then S and I waiting for E’s bus in the afternoon…still raining.
Following the old adage of making lemonade out of lemons, we do try to make the best of our damp days. When one of our soccer practices got rained out a couple of weeks ago, we decided to go out for ice cream with some dear friends (and fellow soccer players). The clouds eventually parted and we had a bonfire, ate pizza together outside and roasted marshmallows for S’mores. It turned out to be a sweet evening in more ways than one!
So, I checked the weather forecast again and saw a picture of a little sun next Monday. Yay!!!!!!!!!! Tuesday shows a picture of a rain cloud. No!!!!!!!!!! You know what comes to mind? “Here Comes the Rain Again” by Eurythmics (British pop duo, released 1984). =)
