Archives for 2005

(this picture was taken last year in Ventura :))

I can’t believe Christmas is almost there. I read this cool article in a newspaper the other day which was called “Things I hate about Christmas” and one thing was that Christmas always comes so all of a sudden… ;) You were just sitting outside having a barbeque and …bang… it’s Christmas*lol* sometimes it really feels like that. I am always amazed how fast the year goes by and that it is Christmas again… I vividly remember last year, when we spent Christmas with Jon’s parents and then spent a whole weekend in Malibu at Aaron’s Grandma’s place :) That was awesome!

No, I really can’t complain, because even though I wasn’t in the biggest Christmas mood this year, I enjoyed the season. I went to a Weihnachtsmarkt, baked cookies, had some Christmas get-togethers and also took out Christmas decorations and all that stuff. It is fun! I really like the Christmas season -cheesy or not. I really love getting little gifts for my friends, too (although I agree that this shouldn’t be the most important thing), just showing them how much I care about them :)

The last few days have been kind of busy. There are so many things I’ve been trying to take care of before I leave on Monday. I also helped my Mom prepare the Christmas weekend with shopping, decorations, and organization. My sister is leaving for her skiing trip tomorrow, so we visited my granddad and great-aunt again today and I had to pick up my Mom’s Christmas gift at Nina’s place.

I booked a return flight from San Francisco to Düsseldorf for the 23rd of January (hopefully I won’t have any problems when going through customs) – which means I’ll be gone for exactly 4 weeks.

You all have a wonderful Christmas! Don’t eat too much ;)
I’ll try to update once more before I get on the plane. I don’t know when I will be able to write an update when I get there, because we will be gone for a couple of days (over New Year’s), so if you don’t hear from me, a happy New Year to all of you and all the best wishes.

Ok… here’s the long overdue update of last week… I am sorry I won’t have anything to say regarding my last post, but I will fill you in on more details soon.

So… I am not really in the biggest Christmas mood this year, but I have to say that I do love Christmas get-togethers and we had two of them last week with yummy food :) On Tuesday, my sister had invited my granddad, my great-aunt, my parents and me for waffles with hot cherries and whipped cream *yummy* Nina won’t be there on Christmas Eve because she’s going on a skiing trip with Dirk and his parents, so she wanted to get together beforehand.
I also used the opportunity to inform my great-aunt and granddad about our wedding plans. It was good to have my parents and sister around, because I wasn’t really sure how they would take this surprise, especially as everything is moving along fairly quickly now, but they took it pretty well :) I think my great-aunt was a little “shocked”, but I hope in a good way!

In the morning, my sister had been to the doctor, because she had this terrible cold last week and was still coughing so hard that her whole upper body was aching. So she went to see her doctor again and -guess what?- she had broken a rib from coughing. Can you believe that? I have never heard anything like that, but her doctor said that this is not so uncommon.

Wednesday morning, my sister and I went Christmas shopping (we both still needed some small gifts) and in the evening, Nina, Dirk and I were invited for “cheese fondue” at Ira’s place. It has become kind of a tradition to get together once before Christmas over the last few years and I was really looking forward to being able to be there this year again. First we had a delicious salad and when the cheese was melted, we started with the fondue. It was so good!! We finished a whole big pot of cheese and when we all felt like we couldn’t eat anymore, Ira came out with her special dessert… “Creme brulee”. OMG… that dessert was divine :)

Later Ira got out a “whine flavor set” with little flavor samples that whines can taste like… it was amazing how many flavors/scents you know, but can’t necessarily identify. The only samples I could identify were “cinnemon” and “lemon”, a lot of the other flavors smelled familiar, but I couldn’t really say what it was… and at some point my nose couldn’t handle all these extrem smells anymore. It was really interesting though ;)

Well, and Thursday I just ran some errands and got some Christmas mail on its way… I hope it’ll all get there on time. I must admit, I’ve been a little slack with my organization this year. My apologies.

Friday my sister and I went shopping with my great-aunt and had more coffee and cake in the afternoon. Let me tell you, these “holiday pounds” are definitely finding there way ;) it was fun though.
I also stayed over at my sister’s place that night, because Dirk was gone for the weekend and Nina always likes me to come over then for a “sister’s night” :) Oh, of course, Emma, the cat, is always part of it… she likes to be in the middle of everything! We already looked at wedding gowns… way too early, if you ask me, but my sister seems to be even more excited than I am *LOL*.

We got up real late Saturday morning, went to my Mom’s for lunch and then later drove over to my Mom’s friend Marita to help her set up her wireless Internet. It almost took us the whole afternoon and evening (I have realized that the instructions usually only come with the “easy setup instructions”, but never with some troubleshooting for complex phone and Internet connection systems.)
It was a fun day though, because my Dad came over in the evening and we went out to an Italian Restaurant in between to gain new strength ;)

I am still not done with my Christmas mail (although I’ve been working on it today) and I have tonz of things to do this week, since I realized that I will be leaving for California in a week! OMG. I don’t know if I have to time to do all the things I need to do.

Hugs to you all… and a nice last pre-Christmas week :)

JON AND I ARE GETTING MARRIED!

at the risk of repeating myself, wireless internet is the most amazing invention of this century :) My Dad received our new router in the mail today and I set up our wireless network right then… and it’s awesome. Now I can check and write emails from my room again (which is really convenient as I was blocking my Mom’s desk most of the time) and I can go online whenever I want :)

My weekend was great. I spent Friday afternoon with my sister and Saturday we went Christmas shopping and baked cookies in the afternoon. I also spent the whole night being creative with my Mom… I have quite a few things I have to prepare for Christmas :) Sunday I basically hung out at home for most of the day… had lots of tea, Christmas cookies and in the evening, I watched “Miracle on 34th Street”. I love that movie!

Today I had the job interview at the student tutoring center and it went pretty well. I mean, there basically wasn’t any interview at all… the office lady just asked me a couple of questions and then she wanted me to participate in one of the classes and I ended up tutoring the whole class already [and I want to add that I am don’t want to be smug of myself, but I was definitely more competent than the lady that is usually giving the class]. I could start in January – the downside is, they only pay 13 euros for 1,5 hour-classes. I can make more money if I find myself some students to tutor privately. I already found one :) I am tutoring an 11-year old in maths. We had our first tutoring lesson today and it went pretty well. So we’ll see what else will come up :)

well, since I won’t really have the pleasure of spending the pre-Christmas time with my hun, I am trying to keep busy… on Tuesday, I went to get a Christmas Star for my Mom and then we had my aunt and cousin over for a Nikolaus-coffee klatsch [this is indeed used in American English LOL]. My Mom had baked “Weckmänner” which is something like brioche… fluffy white bread and kind of sweet. I loved it.
Apparently, Nikolaus had the impression that I had been a good girl, because I got a curler set as a gift :) Of course, I had to try them yesterday and I have to say… it’s harder than I thought to put them in your hair by yourself :) Ilka, I definitely need some advice here.

Yesterday we had my sister and two of my Mom’s colleagues over and spent the evening creating jewelry :) I made some earrings and a necklace for myself. That was fun! I think I want to do more crafting for Christmas… as I can’t really spend a whole lot of money this year, I depend on hand-making some gifts [which?I think are not the worst gifts to be honest ;)].

Oh, and I have some good news… I found a potential job at the Schülerhilfe [a student tutoring organization] and I will have a job interview on Monday. I am not sure yet how often I will be able to work and what they pay, but it’s a start and I will definitely find out more on next week :) Yay!

today is Nikolaus and if you don’t know what that is click here. Unfortunately this website doesn’t explain the tradition of children putting their shoes outside of the door and in the night from the 5th to the 6th of December Nikolaus will put goodies in your shoes. It’s always a nice surprise in the morning… (and my Mom still keeps up the tradition almost every year :)).

The last weekend at Ilka’s was awesome. We did a lot of girls’ stuff like hanging around on the couch in our pj’s, watching dvd’s, drinking coffee and chatting. Ilka did our hair on Saturday afternoon [thanks again, hun!] and we went to see “In her shoes” on Saturday night. We just had a great time together :)
I got back home in the evening on Sunday, made myself something to eat (my parents were out ;)) and then watched “Menschen 2005” with Johannes B. Kerner. It was an interesting show.

Yesterday I had an appointment at a beauty parlor [damn… that sounds so weird of a translation for “Kosmetikerin” LOL]. I thought I would treat myself since I really needed someone to take care of my so-called stress pimples ;) The treatment was really nice. It lasted for an hour and my skin felt so wonderfully fresh and clean afterwards :) I should go there more often!
Afterwards I went to pick up my great-aunt to take her to the dentist. She’s having a hard time breathing lately [I think it’s some kind of asthma] and every step is a real challenge for her. I was happy to be able to help her out. When I took her back home, we saw my sister’s car in front of my granddad’s house (he lives right down the street from my great-aunt), so we stopped there and spent some time together.

Have a good Nikolaus-day everybody :)

first of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CATHY!!!

I hope you’ll have a wonderful day with Greg and your family and friends! You know I wish I could be there to celebrate with you, but I am with you in my thoughts always.

ok, girls, and now it’s my turn… please take the quiz and let’s see how well you really know me :)

I had a bad headache yesterday and I took two aspirines and finally went to bed, because it wouldn’t go away. I am absolutely positive that it was because of the weather change. It was really warm and sunny yesterday compared to the days before. I am feeling much better today and I am looking forward to the weekend. I am going to take the train to Siegen tonight, Ilka‘s going to pick me up at the train station and Kim will arrive by car some time tonight. This is going to be a fun weekend [you see, I am already in a better mood today than yesterday ;)]!

Did anyone watch “Eine glückliche Familie” when you were younger? They are repeating the show on ARD in the mornings right now :) and I watched the episode where the Behringers are moving to Texas. Ha, I didn’t know that everyone in Texas speaks German [or is this just the stupid German TV again that makes it easy for people to understand – I mean in this case, subtitles would have been the way to go!]

Have a good weekend everyone!

I don’t know if I am doing it the wrong way, but I am looking for a job and it doesn’t seem very easy [especially since I am only looking for a job for until Christmas right now]. I applied for two office jobs yesterday, but one was already taken and for the other one they asked me to fill out the complete application form on the website (of a temp agency). I don’t know if they’ll get back to me.
I don’t feel good just being at home all the time. It’s not that I don’t like having free time [I always find something to do – believe me], but I just don’t feel good not earning any money right now :( so I really want to do something. I just hate looking for employment. Both the discouraging aspects of it and the self-promotion combine to make me feel very strange about the whole thing. I never really had to look for jobs – they basically always popped up for me, which makes it even harder for me. Any suggestions where I could look for a job?

Today it’s really nice and sunny outside and I feel like I can’t even enjoy that… I know I am very edgy right now, so please -Ilka and Kim- tell me if I ever start taking that out on you this weekend. I am trying to be more positive about my situation, but it’s tough.

Gerald hasn’t gotten back to me about my last email. It’s been 2,5 weeks again. This is just unbelievable. He’d better be working on my recommendation letter! I think I have to call him again.