Mom-

Thank you for bringing me into this world. I know you ended up missing Letterman that night, but I think it was worth it, don’t you?

Thank you for teaching me to talk, walk, tie my shoes, use correct grammar, have proper table manners (in America anyway, I’m screwed over here), how to write neatly, how to drive, how to be persistant in getting the things I want, how to take some risks in life, how to appreciate the things I have and be less envious of the things I don’t, and for teaching me that it’s okay to follow my dreams.

Thank you for using Dove unscented when you washed my mouth out for swearing.

Thank you for expecting my best and being supportive when I was at my worst.

Thank you for the birthday parties, homemade Halloween/Purim costumes, vacations, trips, adventures and Kennywood picnic days.

Thank you for respecting me as a person as I grew and for trusting me to make my own decisions, regardless if they were right or wrong.

Thank you for holding my hand and walking beside me during the most difficult and overwhelmingly scary time of my life.

Thank you for letting me crawl into bed with you after childhood nightmares and for letting me rest my head in your lap, even as an adult, when I was tired or sad or lonely.

I love you for you courage, drive, fearlessness, spontanaity,your boisterous gregarious spirit, your ability to forgive and to love me in return, despite anything and everything I’ve done in my life.

Thank you for showing me how to love.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom. I miss you today, as much, if not more than ususal. I hope you have a lovely brunch with the family and a beautiful day. I’m thinking about you.

After I posted that brief history surrounding the stropke, I was given a much more accurate and detailed version by Goofball in the comments section. However, I know I rarely go back and read the other comments after I’ve commented on a blog, so I’m reposting her explanation, pretty much word for word, stuff in red is added by me, right here for those of you who may have missed it.

The citizens were not hung by Charles V. But in 1539 the city lost the privilege to have walls (pretty important in those times); hence no more traces of city walls in Ghent unlike most other cities! Check it out if you walk around. Sint Baaf’s Abbey was also supposed to be destroyed.

Secondly a group of important rich citizens had to go through the humiliation of walking barefooted through the city in a white shirt with the rope around their neck, held by the person behind them. They were not hung though. Afterwards the citizens of Ghent were nicknamed “stroppendragers” (=those who wear a hangman’s rope). They started to use this name with pride and the hangman’s rope became their symbol.

During the Gentse Feesten (the best city festival in the world….3rd week of July, Ghent is the place to be!!!!!!)yay, you bet I’ll be blogging alot about the Gentse Feesten…from what I gather it’s sort of like a week long Homecoming or St. Patty’s Day type atmosphere, they always have this parade. The ’stroppendragers’ parade is a fairly parade starting at the fortress ‘t Gravensteen with a dozen citizens marching barefooted in a white gown and a hangman’s rope around their neck…accompagnied with a solemn drumroll.

During the festival , a lot of citizens will be wearing a “stropke” themselves.

So there you have it folks, the story of the stropke, straight from Goofball’s keyboard.

*All numbers were chosen using this site.*

Holly Dolly gets the chocolate bar (oooh the unplanned but incredibly scrumptious irony of this - see this post if you don’t know why). Holly, let me know if you like white, milk or dark, nuts, no nuts, fruity or not fruity, etc. And for the love of Bob woman, put a search function on your blog! I couldn’t even locate the first choco-nots/frenemies post, I just had to Google the phrase and wing it.

Ella gets the stropke. For those of you who don’t know, back in the 1500’s when Gent was under the rule of Charles V, the citizens refused to pay war taxes. As a punishment for their refusal, they were hung. Those who refused to pay the taxes, therefore, wore a noose-like rope around their neck. This knot, ‘t stropke (little necktie, is the translation, I believe), is now the symbol of the town. If I’m wrong in any of this I’m sure my Flemish readers will correct me in the comment section.

Marie gets the Amazon gift card for 30 USD which is good cause after I said that the gift card would be in USD I realized that I had no clue how much that was at this point in Canadian dollars, pounds or even euros, so it worked out well that it went to someone in the US.

I’ll be contacting everyone for shipping info this evening.

To all of those who commented and didn’t get picked, thank you for taking the time to read back through my archives. Fizzy and Jenn, you know I’m always looking for reasons to send more chocolate and Carrie, register somewhere already! I’m all ready to wedding shop and I have nowhere to do it yet!

Hi everyone! Thanks for all the comments over the past few days.  For those of you who have been following my tooth saga, CB and I returned to the UZ yesterday afternoon after he made several phone calls to the proper “higher-ups” in UZ administration and I was able to see an actual dentist to fix my tooth.  In less than two hours he had undone all the crap from Monday, filled the remaining two canals, taken an x-ray (he only had to do it once! I almost kissed him, but CB was there and I was rather awash in drool and couldn’t feel the left side of my face) and put on a nice new filling.  I do have to go back in about a month for the final permanent crown and also to get the very first filling (the one done in the US) replaced as it’s apparently eroding already and is quite probably the cause of all this mess in the first place. So a big THANK YOU to my American dentist, who I will most likely not be seeing EVER AGAIN.

Okay, but I know that’s not what you guys are looking forward to.  I promised a give away to celebrate my first full year of blogging, and I spent most of last night and much of this morning deciding what I was going to give away.  Now, mind you, I do have to consider shipping, since most of you are in the US or Canada and shipping here is a bit pricey.  Anyway, here’s how it works; the month of May marks, not only my blogiversary but also my birthday (5/30) and the day CB and I first met face to face (5/25).  So because of those three things I’m giving three prizes:

a bar of Belgian chocolate (the winner can tell me what flavor they prefer),

a little stropke(the knot, a symbol of Gent…my mum suggested Manneke Pis but I really don’t know when I’ll find the time to get to Brussels to get one), and

a 30 USD Amazon gift card (Marie suggested lilac colored sunglasses but those are not so easy to find in a manner that is conducive to prize giving, so you can get whatever you want via Amazon)

How do you make yourself eligible for said giveaway? Easy! Pick your favorite entry from my archives predating my move to Belgium(before 12/25/07) and tell me the title down in the comment section of this post.  I’ll find one of those random number generators and everyone who leaves a comment with the name of their favorite post predating my expatriation will be entered into it for the drawing.  The deadline for your comment is 24 hours from the time this posts.  I’ll list the winners here on Friday and get ahold of them for shipping info.

Good Luck everyone and thanks again for the kind thoughts regarding my tooth!

Guess what? We’ve been so busy with doctor’s appointments and moving friends and kitten picking and dental work that I totally forgot to recognize the fact that Lilac Colored Glasses has been in existance for one whole year since May 3rd! So I missed my one year blogiversary by three days and am therefore taking tomorrow, May 7th to celibrate one year of Lilac blogging with a Very Merry Unblogiversary Giveaway. Yes, you read right, one year of blogging means one of you lovely readers will be eligible for free…stuff. I’m not sure what stuff yet, but I’ll think of something. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them here and also feel free to roam through my archives as it will very likely come into play in tomorrow’s giveaway. I’ll start you off here with my very first Lilac Colored Glasses post.