Archives for December 2006

No SPF on a Friday for me in a long time. I know. But I honestly couldn’t physically do it yesterday. I caught a bad cold. We went for a walk yesterday morning, but after that, I felt so exhausted – I slept for most of the day. I think I needed the rest. I feel much better today… ready to share my 2006 in pictures with you.

San Francisco January 2006

Skiing with my Dad in February

my sister’s and my birthday with my aunt in March

with Ingrid, a dear friend, in April

Our wedding in May

Out for Sushi with my sister and Ira in June

Kim came to visit in July

with my friend Ira in August

J came for another visit in September

holding my cousin’s son in October

with Ilka @ Starbucks in November

back together with J in December

I wish you all a great New Year’s Eve and all the best for the coming year!
Thanks for having shared the last year with me. XOXO

No Friday before Christmas without Stuff Portrait Friday hosted by lovely Kristine.. ahm, Shaun again.

1. One decoration.

This was given to me as a guardian angel by family friends before I flew over here from Germany. I think it makes for a nice Christmas decoration, doesn’t it?

2. One gift.

A Christmas gift from friends. I know it’s candy [it says on the bottom], but isn’t that the cutest ‘wrapping’?

3. Something stuffed in a stocking.

I fell in love with this stocking at the World Market/Cost Plus store and I had to buy it. It’s the tiniest stocking I have ever seen and I am still trying to figure out if there is anything that will fit into it ;)

Happy Holidays everyone. And let me know if you played ;)

The last few days were kind of busy. I can’t even recall what we did, but we were doing stuff pretty much every day. I remember that it involved last minute Christmas shopping ;)
On Sunday we had Aaron and Maria over for dinner. It was going to be the last time before Christmas that we would see them [beside the fact, that we’re going to take them to the airport tomorrow night.] They’re going to visit Maria’s family back East over the holidays.

I know I promised you pictures of the apartment and I’ll definitely take them tomorrow. It’s dark already and they’ll come out much better in daylight, I believe.

Yesterday was “moving day”. Well, we didn’t move, we just moved stuff around… and picked up our new bed. We picked up a U-Haul Truck at 9 a.m., loaded our old bed and a couch onto the truck and drove to Ventura. We exchanged our old full size bed with a single bed in J’s old room at his parents house and then picked up a queen size bed inclusive bed frame from the storage locker :)

We had Chinese food with J’s Mom for lunch and then headed back to LA, just in time to miss rush hour. The rest of the night was all about setting up the bed and moving boxes around.

This morning, I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up some sheets and pillows for the new bed. We had a gift card from our wedding and could finally put it to good use! Now our bedroom really looks cozy :)

I talked to my sister later and she confirmed what I already had worried about. I think I caught a cystitis. I wasn’t sure, because I never had one before, but my sister said that the symptoms were pretty clear. So, I’ve been drinking one pot of tea after the other, hoping that the bacteria won’t take up residence in my bladder ;)

Kristine hasn’t been doing too well lately, so Shaun is hosting SPF this week. Thanks Shaun!

1. Your Roof

Ok, this is my roof. There’s been a lot going on up there lately ;)

2.Your ‘hood (you can do sweatshirt, your neighborhood, your car…)

This is the the view out of our bay window. It’s a really nice neighborhood with huge trees along the street. Westwood village with its shops and cafés is within walking distance. Nice!

3. Something you would not want to run into that is in your house.

This is the stupid simple “bed frame” [I am not sure if you can even call it a “frame”] underneath our bed. I hate it. I hit my foot twice and it hurt! We’re going to get a REAL bedframe next week. Yay!

Happy SPF, and let me know if you played ;)

Most of you know what this up there means :)
We went to IKEA yesterday. Finally. It’s only about 25 Minutes away, but the traffic in LA!, don’t get me started.
I had a really bad driving experience on Monday. I needed to go to the DMV to get my name changed on my Driver’s License. I also wanted to run some errands afterwards, stop by at Michaels for some Christmas stuff, do some grocery shopping, you get the idea. Well, it took me freaking 4 hours to do all that! I mean, that was a Monday afternoon and none of the places was technically more than a 10 minute drive away, but driving in LA is just simply insane. Some of the drivers were really aggressive, too. Like when I was trying to make a right turn on a green light and I was half way around the corner, the traffic stopped and then my light turned red, but I was already half on the cross street, but the cars coming from the left wouldn’t let me in. I mean, seriously, is everybody in such a hurry? I guess, everybody is.
I catch myself already thinking about when I can actually go somewhere without being stuck in traffic, and to be honest, there is actually only a time window of about 3 hours [between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.] when you can go drive somewhere relatively safely without getting caught up in traffic. There are so many people in LA, and even more cars! It’s overwhelming.

I really, really hope that I will find a job that I can walk to every morning. If I could find something on the UCLA Campus, that would be perfect. I really don’t want to spend precious time in the car every day. It would only add to our miserable parking situation, if we needed a second car.

Well, but I got distracted. Let’s go back to the more exciting stuff… IKEA :)
I just love this place. I always find something that I could buy and I just like a lot of the stuff that they have. I also enjoy assembling the furniture. I understand that some people might find that annoying, but I really like the idea of buying furniture and taking it home right away, instead of waiting for furniture to be delivered.

We bought a really nice shelf for the hallway and two dressers for the bedroom. And then we got some boxes and magazine holders [so I can start organizing the stuff that is still sitting in the bedroom in the moving boxes] and some other odds and ends.
We’re also going to get a queen-size bed from J’s parents [which has been sitting in the storage locker], and it will come with a nice bed-frame, too :) This is going to make our place look more like home as well. I am so excited.
I know you’re all waiting for photos, but I hope you can wait a couple of days longer, because we’ll get the bed on Monday and then, I promise I’ll definitely take photos and post them :)

Ok, people, so here’s a little quiz for you. What is wrong with the following picture:

[If you really can’t find anything wrong with this picture, click on it for further reference.]

I admit it.

I am a bread addict.

I am very critical with my bread, because bread does not equal bread.
I’ve been looking around at different stores and I have been somewhat successful in finding bread that is pretty decent. It’s nothing compared to German bread, but it’s pretty good. Anything is better than ‘white bread’ [= toast], right?! Please bear with me, my dear American readers, I don’t want to sound rude, but you just don’t have real bread in the US. Coming from the land of bread, I am just not easily satisfied ;)

This up there is my latest discovery. When it caught my eye, I was a little bit confused by the label? “Schwartz Brot”? What is that? But I didn’t want to argue over the label, because it looked, smelled and felt pretty good. It’s a mixed rye and wheat bread with a crispy crust and a dense texture. It tastes pretty good, too :)

I haven’t found a store yet that sells the flour that I need to bake my Mom’s “Schwarzbrot” [black bread = whole grain bread] which looks like this, but I’ll keep looking. Oh, it’s so yummy.

Oh yeah, talking about baking, I’ve baked my first Christmas goodies this weekend. It’s the 2nd of advent and I thought if I can’t have my Dad’s homemade cookies, I have to bake some myself :)
We put up some Christmas decoration this weekend and it rained yesterday, so it felt a little bit more like winter! We spent most of the day with J’s parents yesterday and J’s Mom and I did some Christmas shopping. It was fun, but I am still not done and I do have to get my Christmas cards out this week… so be in the lookout, you might get one as well ;)