theinbetweenismine

just a girl living the expat life

Archives for November 2011

Goodbye, November.

filed under: good times, NaBloPoMo

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{source: my flickr}

Wow, did this month fly by in the blink of an eye, or what?

The end of NaBloPoMo literally snuck up on me this year. I have more post ideas sitting in my draft folder than I needed for this month, which, in a way, is a good thing, I guess. For once, I didn’t scramble for content, which maybe partly due to the fact that I had some catch up posts from my summer vacation left to publish and was also able to get some inspiration from some fellow bloggers.

I love NaBloPoMo. I would never ever try to blog every day for the rest of the year, because that would be overkill, if we are all honest. I don’t have that much interesting stuff to say and you would quickly get tired keeping up with me, but challenging myself to write more regularly for one full month is always something I look forward to and which I plan for ahead of time. November is a month to reflect, to dream and share stories.

Tomorrow is the first day of the last month of 2011. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around this. Where did this year go? I just started getting used to writing 2011 and, BAM, another year gone.

For obvious reasons, I am not quite finished with this year yet and I have some more exciting things ahead of me this holiday season, but for now I want to say thank you.

Thank you for reading and commenting, thank you for your friendship and support, thank you for the awesome community I’ve found online and have a great holiday season!

 

 

Things I do NOT do

filed under: about me, NaBloPoMo

Ashley wrote an interesting blog post a couple of weeks ago about how your blog and what you put out there can make you and your life look a hell lot more perfect than it probably is, and that is definitely true for me. While I don’t think that my blog makes my life seem all fairy-tale like and perfect,  I can still pick and chose what I want you to see and I can leave my shortcomings, failures as a homemaker or wife and other ugly tales hidden in my draft folder closet.

But in an effort, to be more transparent and to show you “hey, nobody’s perfect, not even me!”, I was going to share my own list of things I do not do.

 

• I am not always on time. I know I am German and all, but I am really only ever on time when it really matters. Otherwise, I usually work more with the “academic quarter“.

• I don’t shower every day.

• I like to pretend I am a book nerd (because I’ve been all my life), but I haven’t really been reading any substantial amount of books in the last couple of years.

• I don’t have a weekly cleaning schedule. I clean when I feel something needs cleaning.

• I don’t clean (apartment) windows. Period.

• I don’t always cook as healthy as I would like to believe.

• I have not been to the gym in 6 months.

• I don’t follow the (German) news as much as I wish I did.

• I ignore people on the street if I don’t want to talk to them.

• I never go to bed early enough.

• I don’t always say “no” when I probably should.

• I don’t file my papers as regularly as I should.

• I sometimes don’t work as hard as I could, because I can fake a huge amount of work with minimum effort.

 

 

Have you written your own list of things you do not do? Share your link!

 

 

On a holiday weekend

filed under: food, fun!, holidays, home, my so-called life, NaBloPoMo, photography

J and I had a lovely, long Thanksgiving weekend. It was nice, cozy, quiet – just the two of us – and almost a bit too long. (Did I really just say that?) Well, you know the kind, where it gets really hard to go back to work on Monday. Yeah, that one. I had a teeny-tiny bit of a problem getting out of bed this morning.

But what can I say? We were granted a 2-hour early dismissal from work on Wednesday, so my long weekend started even earlier than anticipated. And, you guys? 4- day weekends are even better than 3-day weekends. Just sayin’.

We made a lovely Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. A roasted turkey chicken, walnut-stuffing, baby potatoes and green beans.

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For dessert, I got those tiny “berry blossom” individual cakes and they were absolutely delicious. Not too sweet themselves, but perfectly sweet with some vanilla bean ice-cream. Yum!

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But the best part was: we stayed home all day in our sweat pants, watched movies, drank tea and just had the loveliest, mellowest Thanksgiving anyone could wish for.

Friday and Saturday were mostly mellow, too. I had contemplated to brave the crowds and do some actual Black Friday shopping in-store, but ended up changing my mind about that. Instead, I worked on my Christmas cards and craft projects, did some chores around the house and enjoyed the time at home.

On Sunday, we met up with Susi and her family and drove out to San Francisco to visit the Charles Dickens Christmas Fair. Now that the Thanksgiving holiday was behind us and Sunday marked the first of Advent, it was totally legit to start getting into the Christmas spirit.

The fair was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Magical, really! I was absolutely thrilled! There were so many people dressed up in beautiful Victorian costumes and I quite frankly just didn’t have enough eyes to take in everybody and everything at the same time. We must have rounded the halls at least 4 or 5 times and I still couldn’t get enough of it. Just take a look for yourself. I was told that 750 volunteers participate in the Charles Dickens Fair each year to make it as authentic and wonderful as it is.

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This tree was amazing – I wanted to take it home.

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They had beautiful little shops and stands.

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This woman was amazing – she didn’t move for like 30 minutes.

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There were many different stages with performances,

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authentic little tea houses and bars,

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and cool bicycles!

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My favorite part were the Christmas carolers. They were so much fun to watch (and listen to!)

 

Other good things this weekend:

Peet’s Holiday Blend coffee ♥ Christmas shopping (mostly online) ♥ staying up late ♥ staying in my pj’s ♥ candied almonds ♥ phone call with my great-aunt ♥ shopping at Target with my sister (Well, I wish! She was only on the phone with me – meh!) ♥ getting some Christmas planning figured out ♥ putting up our teeny-tiny Christmas tree ♥ candles ♥ our first #twookclub book discussion

 

How were your holiday weekends, peeps?

Recipe: Winter Vegetable Soup

filed under: food, NaBloPoMo, recipe

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{source: my flickr}

As I mentioned last week, winter time is all about yummy soups and stews. Since I am practically making a vegetable soup once a week, I thought I would share this delicious recipe with you as well. According to my Mom, this can be turned into a summer or winter soup – it just depends on the ingredients that are in season. Since in California practically everything is in season available all year round, I try to go by what I remember to be the summer and winter vegetables. You can use whatever vegetables you like, really, but for the soup this weekend, I used the following  (fresh) ingredients (you can also substitute with frozen vegetables).

As you can see, I like to cook big pots of soup. They freeze well, but also keep well in the fridge for several days (I usually cook it for dinner and then we have it for lunch for the next couple of days).

 

Ingredients:

1/2 head of cabbage (cut)

1 cauliflower

2 sticks of celery (sliced)

3 carrots (sliced)

6 mushrooms (quartered)

1 tomato (in wedges)

salt, pepper

vegetable stock

 

(Last week, I didn’t have cabbage and celery, but zucchini and cut green beans instead.)

Cut up the vegetables and bring vegetable stock, tomato, and longer-cooking vegetables (carrots, celery,  cabbage) to boil. Turn down heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes, then add cauliflower, simmer for another 10 minutes and add mushrooms last.

Salt and pepper to taste.

DONE.

Easy, fast and healthy.

Summer Tales – San Francisco and the Bay

filed under: family, fun!, good times, NaBloPoMo, photography, travel, USA

Today (7/8) we spent another beautiful day in San Francisco. We took BART into San Francisco again after breakfast and got off at Embarcardero station. We walked over to the water and walked out onto Pier 5, which offered a beautiful view of Treasure Island, the Bay Bridge and the “San Francisco Belle”, a big steam boat on the next pier over.

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We walked along the Piers until we reached Pier 39, where we paid a visit to the  seals.

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Then we got in line to purchase tickets for a Bay Cruise. I actually had gotten two tickets off Groupon (for a great price!) months ago and wanted to  surprise my parents with them. I had thought about things to do in San Francisco that we hadn’t done during previous visits and seeing the city and Golden Gate Bridge from the water was one of those things. It turned out to be a GREAT idea.

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As you can tell from the photos, the weather was kind of overcast and I was a little bummed at first, but that was supposed to change pretty soon!

It was about 2 p.m. when we got on the boat and we expected it to be cold and windy on the upper deck (which it was!), but of course, we wanted to be up there for the view.

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We actually managed to grab a few seats up there and the view of the city was absolutely beautiful. The amazing thing was: the closer we got to the Golden Gate Bridge, the more the sun came out and we had clear view of the bridge when we passed below it.

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On our way back, we were able to take a closer look at Alcatraz as we circumnavigated the island.

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We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the various shops on Pier 39, had some coffee to warm our cold fingers and then had dinner at the Hard Rock Café.

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Another beautiful day came to its close when we hopped back on the BART to the East Bay.

… stay tuned.