Archives for June 2010

I’ll show you mine – now show me yours!

June 30, 2010 filed under: about me, fun!, this and that

The lovely Tabitha tagged me in a little handwriting project, and since I think in this blogger community, where every word is typed and text only gains personality through the actual content of someone’s blog post, it would be kind of nice to actually see people’s handwriting. I am a big fan of – pretty! – handwriting and therefore, I’d love to see yours :)

And of course, I’ll start and share mine!

Here are the rules:

Write down the following, snap a picture (or scan the document), post it, and tag others.

1. Name/Blog Name
2. Right handed, left handed or both
3. Favorite letters to write
4. Least favorite letters to write
5. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
6. Write in caps:
CRAB
HUMOR
KALEIDOSCOPE
PAJAMAS
GAZILLION
7. Favorite song lyrics
8. Tag 7 people
9. Any special note or drawing

Here is mine:

That’s right – I print. I pretty much have since 5th grade when the teachers finally started not caring about cursive that much anymore. I don’t even know anymore how to do cursive. The way I learned cursive in elementary school is pretty much outdated now anyway and the way kids learn cursive in school nowadays (in Germany) is just so ugly, in my opinion. The “t” bothers me especially, I can’t even tell you why exactly. It just looks wrong.

And then compare it with the American cursive handwriting which I actually find very pretty.

I think it’s interesting to see how everybody later on develops a very unique handwriting which has nothing – or very little – to do with how it was actually taught in school. Often, it’s a mix between cursive and print.

Is that true for yours?

* * *

I am going to tag Kim, Nilsa, Maribeth, Steffi, Karen, Kat, Ulli and Tinka – but please feel free to play along if you feel like it :)

I’d love to see all of your handwritings!

Why I love her

June 27, 2010 filed under: family, good times

Greta at the Zoo’s playground, babbling away.

This is too cute not to share… unfortunately, it’ll be much more entertaining, if you understand German :)

Friday tidbits

June 25, 2010 filed under: Friday Facts, FYI, Germany, my so-called life

I know, you guys, I still owe you the third part of my Germany recap – and I promise it’s coming – but for today, I’ll just share some random things with you, that – each by themselves – wouldn’t make for their own blog posts, but all combined turn out to be a short, end-of-the-week summary, alright? GREAT.

The last three weeks have been busy with work, work and work. I haven’t even fully unpacked my suitcase from my Germany trip yet, and it has been over three weeks. Gasp. I know. I KNOW. Isn’t that ridiculous?

* * *

My sister told me today that Greta misses me. It made me feel all warm, fuzzy and loved inside. You might wonder how does my sister know that, because Greta obviously can’t communicate the feeling of missing somebody quite yet? Well, apparently, whenever they go over to my parents’ house, Greta expects me to be there and whenever she sees a girl with long, brown hair – like mine – somewhere in the distance, she gets all excited and starts pointing with her tiny finger, yelling “Sand(r)a, Sand(r)a” (she still has little difficulties pronouncing the “r”).
My sister says it’s the cutest thing and she hates telling her: no, honey, it’s not Sandra!
Aaah, breaks my heart. I miss her.

* * *

Remember the story about my external hard drive failure? Obviously, $1200 was way more than I expected or could actually afford to spend on the hard drive recovery, so I told the company to just ship my hard drive back (consequently, I’ll have to find another way to recover my data).
So guess what? A day later, I receive an email from the company suggesting that, if I had turned down the recovery solely for monetary reasons, I should make them a reasonable target prize offer and they would see if they could work something out. Yeah, right. Reasonable target prize. They would render themselves ridiculous, if they would recover my data for a MUCH lower prize than what they originally tried to get from me, don’t you think? Someone sounds pretty desperate – and it’s not me!

* * *

The start of the summer here in the Central Valley has been – surprisingly – mild so far. I’d be damned if I would complain about it, hell to the no, because if you ask me – the weather is just perfect. Warm enough for shorts and flipflops, but it’s been cooling off enough at night not to have to sleep with the AC on. (I hate sleeping with the AC on, but I honestly hate being hot at night even more.) Can I order this weather for the rest of the summer, pretty please? Kthx.

* * *

I wasn’t really excited about the World Cup prior to its start, mainly because I am not a huge soccer fan to begin with (and that is saying a lot for being from Germany – Soccer Central. Pretty much what baseball is for the US, soccer is for Germany.) However, I always get into watching the European and World Championships, when they happen. Looks like I do have something like patriotism for my home country.
Watching the first World cup matches of the German team have been getting me all excited and it made me reminisce about the World Cup 2006, which took place in Germany. It was the year when J and I got married in Germany and we saw a few World Cup games in a typical German setting: in someone’s backyard, on a big screen and with a BBQ going in the background. We had a marvelous time. Unfortunately, the US doesn’t seem to be that much into soccer, there are no Live Viewing Events, that I know off, that would be comparable to the ones that are taking place in Germany right now (I mean, something like this) and the time difference makes it hard to follow all matches live, because many of them are (very) early in the morning when I am at work. Bummer.
I will be getting up at 7 a.m. on Sunday though to see Germany kick England’s butt ;)

GOGERMANY!

* * *

Happy Friday everyone!

Currently Vol.1

June 22, 2010 filed under: about me, currently, FYI, lists!

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Current Book(s): None. Well, that is not entirely true… if you count the three books that I’ve started in the last few months, but of which I have yet to finish one, you could say that I am a multi-tasking reader. I am currently reading decorating my night table with “A breath of Snow and Ashes” by Diana Gabaldon, “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy and “Things I want my daughters to know” by Elizabeth Noble.

Current Playlist: I don’t have a playlist – unless you’re referring to my work-out playlist, which – in all honesty – I haven’t listened to lately for one apparent reason: my lack of time at the gym. (Big confession.)

Current Shame-Inducing Guilty Pleasure: Chocolate Chip Ice Cream – about three times per week. Sigh. I can’t help it. It’s delicious, summer is almost here and I just love ice cream.

Current Color: Teal. I am totally into teal right now.

Current Drink: When it’s hot outside, I am a total sucker for ice-cold sparkling lemonade. Man, the tingling on your tongue is just so refreshing.

Current Food: German whole grain bread with Havarti cheese, a touch of mayo, tomatoes and onions. If I had to chose one meal which I had to eat for the rest of my life, this would be it.

Current Favorite Show: I’ve been watching – with a strange fascination – the OCD project on Discovery Health. I hardly watch any current shows on TV, but man, this show made me set my DVR timer.

Current Wishlist: A definitively booked ticket to Germany for Christmas. More precious time with all the good people in my life. Answers to some of my unanswered questions. Peace of mind.

Current Needs: Just some time to relax, be crafty, take more photos. A little more balance in my life.

Current Bane(s) of my Existence: Sleep deprivation. I feel like I can never get enough sleep in any given night and it’s so important for me to function. Weekend catch up it is.

Current Celebrity Crush: I have a current celebrity crush on Gerard Butler. I think it’s the Scottish accent. I could imagine him – and only him – in a movie adaption of the Highland Saga by Diana Gabaldon. He just needs to get red hair somehow.

Current Outfit: I am wearing my jeans shorts and a tank top because it’s 95°F outside. Summer is definitely on it’s way… officially as of yesterday.

Current Excitement: A possible work-related trip to … . Ahhh, let’s not jinx it, ok? I’ll tell you when it happens :)

Current Link: You’ve been seeing a lot of pictures on this blog that I found on WeHeartIt. It’s a wonderful collection of inspiring and beautiful photos. If you haven’t already – check it out.

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What’s up with you CURRENTLY?

A day at the Kölner Zoo

June 16, 2010 filed under: family, fun!, Germany, good times, home, travel

We spent Friday (May, 21st) at the Cologne Zoo. My sister and I had planned to take the kids to the Zoo if the weather allowed and we were able to kill two birds with one stone by also making this day a very special day for my great-aunt.

Although she’s relatively healthy, being 88 years old and still able to care for herself in her own home, she is very limited when it comes to getting out and about. She can’t walk very far and therefore is pretty much home-bound.

Unless, you can convince her to swallow her pride and not let it get in the way of having a wonderful day with her family at the Zoo, by using one of the wheel chairs — provided by the Zoo at no cost!

And now, please!

Would you just take a look at that face? I just luuurve Greta’s intense facial expression in this picture.

We had just entered the Zoo and at the sight of the first animals, she excitedly pushed herself up in her stroller, as high as being buckled in allowed her, and intensely starred at the animals. She was completely fascinated. Greta had been to the Zoo before, but this time – at 17 month old – was the first time she really noticed and acknowledged the animals, I believe.

We had an absolutely wonderful day. We had a picnic,

we spent time at the playground,

and Greta was especially excited about the elephants, shouting “Benni, Benni” over and over (referring to “Benjamin Blümchen“, a speaking elephant from a German children’s audio-book and animated TV series).

Tom unfortunately is not old enough to enjoy the Zoo as much as Greta did, but he seemed pretty content in the stroller, soaking up the sun and enjoying to be pushed around.

This day really stood out for me from my vacation – not just because it was a beautiful, sunny and fun day, but because I realized and was strangely aware that day, exactly how precious and rare those moments are, when four generations of your family can spend an unforgettable and carefree day together.

This photo pretty much sums up just exactly how much fun we had together.

More photos, as always, here.

Germany recap: more time with family and friends and my trip to Cologne

June 14, 2010 filed under: family, friends, Germany, girl time, good times, my so-called life, travel

You know what the best feeling of Week 1 of my visit back home being over was? I had still two whole weeks ahead of me.
Seriously, this is the first time a visit at home truly felt like a vacation and not just a short swing-by, in which I would try to squeeze as many people into my schedule as possible.

Of course, I still didn’t get everything done that I wanted to get done (I never do!), but at least, I didn’t stress myself out about it and actually gave myself some real time off. Which, was the best decision ever.

So, Week 2.

I spent a lovely Monday morning with my great-aunt Ina. After my Granddad died so suddenly in February, I really wanted to make it a point to spend some quality time with my great-aunt. She’s 88 years old and I have no idea how much longer she’ll be around (although I am hoping that it’ll be for a very long time!)

On Tuesday, my friend Ira came over in the morning. We had tea and some time to catch up.
The afternoon was spent with my sister and the kids and we prepared “Reibekuchen” for dinner. Mmmh. It was one of the many dishes that I had requested from my Mom.

Wednesday, I spent the whole day in Köln (Cologne.) I took the train in the morning, bought some hot chocolate at Starbucks and then went on a little stroll along the Rhein (Rhine). It was a beautiful morning and I just loved walking around, soaking up every little bit of Köln that I could get.

Just looking at those pictures makes me somewhat nostalgic again.

I did a little shopping on the main shopping street and then took the tram out to where my uncle lives. I spent a lovely afternoon with him and my aunt, we had coffee and cake (do you recognize a theme here? Seriously, I haven’t had that much coffee and cake in a looong time, heh.)
At 7:30 p.m., my uncle took me to the train station where I met up with my friend Ilka. We went to “4 cani” for dinner and talked and talked and talked. As always, time went by way too fast, but I am happy about every meeting with friends that I could squeeze in.

On Thursday, I spent the morning with my sister and the kids and after lunch, she took me to the train station because I was going to Essen to see my friend Sanni.
She picked me up at the train station and we went back to her place where we had – have a guess! – coffee and (more) cake! :) It was a very lovely afternoon, even though time also went by too quickly.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about our trip to the Zoo and the rest of the weekend!

Floored

June 7, 2010 filed under: f*ck that, I can't make this shit up, my so-called life

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Ok, seriously you guys, I never thought something like that would ever happen to me. I am usually sooo good about this kind of stuff. I am talking about backing up my computer.

A few weeks ago, I decided to reformat my laptop hard drive, because it was starting to run real slow and there was a lot of stuff that just needed to be taken off the laptop. I backed everything up to my external hard drive (which pretty much holds all my files dating back to 2005) and I was already contemplating buying a second external hard drive for further backup. Then I started the reformatting.

Everything went smoothly until I tried to reconnect the external hard drive to transfer the settings and some stuff back to the laptop: the external hard drive wasn’t recognized.
I tried to stay calm, because I mean literally like 2 hours before it was working fine.

Isn’t this always how it happens?

I was pretty sure that it couldn’t really be that big of a problem, since I didn’t do anything to the hard drive between the backup and the reformatting, so I didn’t worry too much about it.
I was too busy with my travel plans to take care of it then, so when I got back last week, I decided I would send in the hard drive to a data recovery service for evaluation. I figured it would be a piece of cake to make it accessible again.

The good news is: I was told it can be fixed and all files will be recoverable.
The bad news is: They want $1200 from me.

$1200!

I mean, seriously? Is that what it costs to have your memories restored?

I am completely speechless.

I thought it would be a couple of hundred dollars. Maybe! It took me a day to get over it, but I had already made peace with the fact that I had to invest a little bit of money to get my files back. Looks like I have to invest a little bit more than that.

But $1200… that’s like another flight to Europe … or… a new laptop that I was planning to buy some time soon. Argh!

I am devastated. And I am not sure what to do.

Do you think it’s worth it?

So, you really want to know?

June 4, 2010 filed under: family, friends, fun!, Germany, good times, my so-called life, travel

You’re in for a long post about my trip, peeps. Just FYI.

To be honest, I don’t even know where to start.
The last three weeks have been absolutely amazing. Cozily comfortable. Relaxed.

Perfect.

Being at my parents’ house felt so normal. I almost forgot that I am not 16 anymore, hadn’t it been for my sister’s two sweet little kids being around all the time.
My niece and nephew are two of the absolutely most amazing kids I’ve ever seen (yeah, yeah, I might be biased, whatever. It’s true.) I miss them already.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. Consider yourself blessed if your family is anywhere remotely close to where you live and you can easily go and see them for a weekend. You’re beyond lucky.

The good thing is – no matter how far I live away or for how long I haven’t seen my family, when I am back in my hometown, it always feels like I have never left.

Since I already told you a little bit about the baptism and Mother’s Day, I’ll start my recap with Week 1.

On Monday, I was on duty as an aunt when I accompanied my sister to the pediatrician. It felt like the most normal thing to do this kind of every-day-thing with her. Tom needed to get (one of the many) immunization shots that newborns get, and I babysat Greta in the meantime. My heart really felt for her when she started crying at the sight of the pediatrician. I guess, doctor visits are always a little traumatic for toddlers.

In the afternoon, I had an appointment with my gyn for my annual check up (why yes, I am still seeing my gyn in Germany. It’s one of the doctors no woman likes to switch unless absolutely necessary ;) and I am so grateful he’s still willing to see me). Afterwards my Mom, my sister and the kids went to have ice-cream. I guess, that was a little reward for all of us that had to see the doctor that day. Although, I don’t really need an excuse to have ice-cream and IMHO the real Italian gelato in my town beats any supermarket ice-cream and even Ben & Jerry’s any day.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent time with my family. My sister came over with the kids and since we had absolutely beautiful weather, we hung out in the backyard.
I also saw my best friend from home for a first catch-up on Wednesday before heading to the train station to catch my train to Bremen.

Kim picked me up at the train station around 8 p.m. and when we got back to her place, we cooked a yummy pasta dinner. It was sooo good to see her and we talked pretty much nonstop.

I think we went to bed around 1 a.m. and slept in the next morning. Then we hung out in our pajamas all day (no kidding!), talking, watching TV and drinking coffee. It was just great and comfortable and simply perfect :) It’s so much better to talk in person than on the phone, even though we both started getting a sore throat from all the talking. (Ok, Kim got a sore throat and she – unsuccessfully – tried to shut me up for a while, which, in all honestly, only worked for about 2 minutes before the chatting resumed. What can I say? We had much to talk about.)

German breakfast served by Kim (who probably didn’t know I snapped this picture!)

Friday morning came much too fast (as dreadingly expected). We got up, took showers and had breakfast; all before 11 a.m. She took me to the train station at 12:30 p.m. and just like that, the nice visit was over. It’s like “one minute you’re there, and the next you’re gone”. Weird.

I can’t say that I disliked the train ride, in fact, I enjoyed it very much, even though I was too snobby to pay 2,50€ for a seat reservation (each way) and had to switch seats twice because I was apparently sitting on someone’s reserved seat. (Why didn’t it say so on the display above, mh?)

Saturday morning, I accompanied my Mom to the local farmer’s market and we ran some other errands downtown. I love joining her on her weekly shopping trip on Saturday mornings. We always finish with grabbing some coffee at a small café.
Later in the afternoon, we drove to my cousin’s place because we were invited for her birthday. We had coffee and cake, I got to see my other godchild (Luca) and we had a very nice afternoon/evening (of which I haven’t taken any photos in order to prove it. I apologize.)

On Sunday, I went to a local May festival with my parents. It was beautiful weather and we walked around for quite some time, before we had coffee and cake with my Mom’s friend and colleague, Marita.

On the way home, we decided that we didn’t feel like cooking and I had dinner with my parents at a Spanish restaurant in town.

It was a full week of good company and yummy food.
It was just lovely all around.

Don’t expect this feeling of pure bliss to go away in “Recap of Week 2 “.

More photos are here.

Oh hai, remember me?

June 1, 2010 filed under: family, Germany, good times, home, travel

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I am that girl who promised to update while on vacation and who failed miserably.
I know I do owe you an apology for dropping off the face of the earth so rather unexpectedly. I really wanted to update here while I was on my trip and let you be a part of my wonderful experience back home, but I just did not get around to posting anything (besides the two rather short updates in the beginning).
I guess, I was too busy having fun. Please do forgive me.

I safely made it home across the Atlantic this last weekend. Since Eyjafjallajökull was keeping quiet this time, our return route was much shorter than expected, as we flew directly over Iceland and the southern tip of Greenland. This was a good thing.
The plane from Frankfurt was delayed and I would have with no doubt missed my connecting flight from LAX to SMF, if we had made a huge detour around Iceland again.

To be honest, it’s quite strange to be back. Three weeks are definitely enough time to get used to being back home again and I also kind of got used to not doing anything and just hanging out with my family. Life should be that way, don’t you think?

I am hoping to make up for all the lack of posts recently by giving you a nice, detailed recap (probably stretched out into a few posts) of my (almost complete) May 2010 in Germany.

Deal?