February 10

 

Here we go again. We thought that perhaps the snow had left us for the rest of the year, but this morning  it snowed again. Big fluffy balls of snowflakes fell in flurries, once again coating everything pristine white.

We have construction work in our stairwell at the moment, so to avoid the constant noise of drilling and hammering Mikey an I took the snow as an excuse to go out and play. The construction workers laughed at us when we headed out the door, wrapped from head to toe. They laughed when we came back in an hour later, stomping snow from our boots on the door mat and brushing it from our hats.

I was intending to head into downtown today to buy some more knitting needles, perhaps I will catch the bus later. The snow makes me want to go outside and play in it, but then come back inside and snuggle under a blanket with some hot tea and watch BBC Planet Earth with Mikey. It's certainly not the sort of weather I enjoy running errands in, but I do need some new larger sized needles so that I can work on my latest knitting project.

Mikey found some paper decoupage beads that I had been using to make a necklace, he said "Snow! Snow!", threw them all around and then said "Uh Oh, snow...". He's always taller than I expect these days, I think I've put things out of reach and there he is with them in his curious little hands.

As much as I enjoy playing outside with Mikey in the summer, there's something about these snowy days that I love just as much.

Wordfull Wednesday

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February 9

 

  

  
 

  

  

  

 

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30 January

 

  

  

 

Mikey and I have spent a lot of time playing indoors, cuddling up in soft blankets with stuffed animals, reading books, napping, knitting and playing with toys. We're hiding out you see, from the cold snow outside. We're really enjoying this cozy time, although I have to say that I will be excited when we see the first greenery of Spring.

This morning, however, we were forced to leave our nest in order to catch a little mud-coated bus into town. I needed to buy some food and yarn. Hibernating is not much good when you have very little food in the house, plus you start feeling the need to get outside for some fresh air, no matter how cold it may be.

We chased some pigeons, ate some bread, got caught in a little snow and returned home with our prizes. Mikey loves the little bakery nearby, when he knows that we're on that street he will start saying "bread! bread!" until we get to the door when he will say "Oooooh, bread! Mmm Mmm Mmm!" He likes to eat the little sunflower seed covered wholewheat Brötchen. That is his treat for being a good boy while shopping.

 

  

 

My dear husband is away this weekend, he is just over the border into France for four days, sadly for work and not leisure. He should look forward to coming back to a lovely cozy and clean home.

"The most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid."

RIP J.D. Salinger

(Quote from Nine Stories)

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Wordless Wednesday - Evening Couch Snuggles

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Wordless Wednesday - Christmas

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Random Tuesday Thoughts 7

The MacBook is back from the dead! Thanks to the lovely young man at the PowerZone on post who let me fiddle around with parts of the display computers and my computer to discover what was wrong and then finding me a new power cord, which was the problem. The wires had broken off inside. I never ever thought I'd actually be praising the PowerZone.

The past two days I've been cuddling with Mikey on the couch, poor little boy has been very sick. On Sunday he woke up lethargic with a burning fever, he couldn't keep any food or liquid down for most of the day and projectile vomited on me several times.  On Monday he was a little better, his fever was still there but lower and we watched cartoons and drank copious amounts of tea. The husband said to me as he made a huge mug of tea, "More Tea equals More Better." He's so right.

So I haven't managed to get anything much done, but that's alright I guess. I had intended to have a baking day on Sunday, but I'll be doing that this afternoon instead. Lots of cookies for the husband to take to the office with him, aren't I a good little wifey? Secretly I will eat half of them myself.

What? This winter is a cold one, I need the extra fat layers.

I did manage to get some knitting done though, have you any idea how difficult it is to knit when you have a little boy who likes to be involved in everything? It's slow going and tangled. I should have my little project done by the new year. I'll show you when it's finished, it's one of my secret projects.


Loving this Van Gogh sketch and letter.

Parsonage garden with trees in blossom

To Theo from Nuenen

April 1884

"I send you herewith a croquis of a painting I’m working on with some others — this is an effect of trees in blossom in the late afternoon. [..]

You mustn’t, whatever you do, think that I have great expectations regarding the appreciation of my work — I believe one must be satisfied if one gets to the point where one can persuade a few people of the soundness of what one is striving for and is understood by them, without exaggerated praise.

And the rest is a matter of, if something comes of it so much the better, but something that one should even think about as little as possible. But still I believe the work has to be seen, precisely because the few friends can settle out from the stream of passers-by. One doesn’t have to be guided by what the majority say or do, though."

Did you know? I'm a nerd for technical drawing/illustration, either medical, botanical or machinery. I used to have to do them both for Graphic Design class and Theatre Studies in school and when I worked backstage with the school theatre group.

Isn't this amazing?

Space airship with light charger (faceted), 1953, Karl Hans Janke (who to my astonishment does not have a wikipedia article but does have a website. You should read his biography, he's an interesting man and we don't know a whole lot about him.)

I am also in love with this painting that someone I know put on her facebook recently.

''The Black Brunswicker'' Sir John Everett Millais (1829 – 1898)
 I think I need a copy for my library. But I need a room for a library first. Maybe I'll just get a copy for my livingroom, it can go next to Elvis.

The 3 year anniversary of me leaving behind everyone and everything I knew and traveling with only a single suitcase of possessions from England to the U.S. is coming up at the end of this month, and then our third wedding anniversary is a week or so later. Eeep!

Head over to The UnMom for more random!

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Christmas Shopping Days

This morning I woke up early, it was still dark. I opened up the windows in the livingroom to let in some cool air and spent an hour stretching and doing yoga. It was divine.

The rest of the day the weather has been good, crisp and cold but the sun has been shining. This afternoon Mikey and I did a little of our Christmas shopping. I got some gifts and also some yarn to make some more Christmas decorations. I'm going to attempt to crochet, it's going to be interesting. That is of course after I finish making my wreath and the decorations for Mikey's room. After the crochet I'm going to have a go at sewing some little stuffed Christmas shapes. We have still yet to get a tree, I keep hinting at my darling but hints don't seem to work so well. So much to get done, but I'm taking it slow.

On the way to town I got whistled at and yelled at in Italian by two men. Seriously, I'm pushing a toddler in a stroller and you're going to whistle at me?

We wandered around a little of the Weinachtmarkt, but decided to save the rest for next Saturday so that husband creature can come with us. The decorations in Heidelberg are always so pretty, there were a lot of street performers too, Mikey loved them and it reminded me a lot of Covent Garden in London.

We stopped for something to eat and something warm to drink, then went to look at clothes (Mummy has to look at clothes. Half of mine are ready to fall apart while I'm wearing them). In the underwear department Mikey was accosted by a 4 year old German girl. They stood talking to one another for about 10 minutes, the girl in German and Mikey in toddler-ese. They both thought the other was pretty hilarious. While looking at clothes we met another British lady (from Liverpool judging by the accent) with another toddler. The toddlers chatted with one another while the mummys chatted. Before we knew it it was already dark out so we walked home. A drunk Irishman nearly tripped over Mikey's stroller and said good morning to us.

After Spaghetti Marinara for dinner and some playing with the Mikey monster, we put him down for bed and I'm now sat here with the husband. We are both enjoying a lovely mug of hot chocolate and relaxing. This is what it's about.

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Thanksgiving

I'm eating these Pumpkin Muffins for breakfast this morning. I baked them last night while doing a couple of my make ahead recipes. My husband wants me to tell you that I forgot to put the pumpkin in the first batch, y'know only the most essential ingredient in pumpkin muffins. I only realised after they'd been in the oven for 10 minutes and I saw the pumpkin puree sitting there on the countertop. Kitchen disasters abound and I haven't even started the turkey yet.

I have to walk to the bakery after I've finished this, to get some fresh bread for the soup, and make a quick stop at the grocery store to get some more wine (and glasses, as we only have 4!). Our guests arrive at around 2pm so it's full steam ahead cooking until then.

Happy Thanksgiving, I hope you all have a wonderful day.

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Waking Early

I'm still sick, but it's getting better. A weekend of playing the new Mario game for Wii and generally resting has been lovely, the husband even announced that Saturday was my day off and didn't let me do anything. How sweet!

We got all of our groceries for Thanksgiving, I need to write out my cooking schedule and I'm going to start cooking on Wednesday. I'm excited but nervous, I haven't ever cooked for this many people before. I don't need to make dessert as one of our guests told us that he makes a mean pumpkin cheesecake and is going to bring some. That is a godsend for me because honestly I am so bad at making sweet things, which is a shame for someone with such a sweet tooth.

Talking of sweet things, I have been either over-indulging or not getting enough exercise because my plan of fattening up like a bear for winter has gotten ahead of itself. I'm getting more wobbly around the edges. I blame all of the lovely autumn/winter food and the fact that I can't walk as much because of the weather. It's ok though, the extra layers are keeping me warm.

Today is the beginning of a whole new era for Mikey. I'm starting to wean him, it's going to be interesting as it's the only way he knows how to get to sleep and that's the only time he nurses. But lately he has been refusing to nurse because he doesn't want to go to sleep, so it seems as good a time as any to wean him. We're going to be taking the side off of his crib and doing a new bedtime routine. I'm guessing it will take a couple of weeks before he gets the hang of it.  For what seems like the millionth time, I'm getting out all of the sleep guides and manuals to try and work out a good routine for him. Poor baby really isn't much into sleeping, there's so much other stuff that he wants to do. I think I will be so exhausted from the effort that I'll end up falling asleep in his room with him anyway. It's totally worth it to get my boobs back to myself after nearly 2 years but it seems like only yesterday I was exclusively pumping and battling to actually get him to do it.

I woke up before everyone else this morning, it was only 7am but I really enjoy how quiet the house is in the mornings. It was clean because no one had yet woken up to trash it, I made myself some coffee and read some blogs before starting to write this. I think if I went to bed earlier I'd quite like to get up before everyone every day, I really feel like it gives me a headstart. I think my husband has pretty much the opposite body clock to me though because he likes to stay up late and sleep in. Perhaps when Mikey starts sleeping through the night I'll be rested enough to get up early every day. I have my fingers crossed that weaning him will really help, after all why wake up if there's nothing to wake up for?

Mikey just woke up and is pretending to talk on the phone. He's talking to Elly from his favourite cartoon. He says "Hi Elly, *incomprehensible chatter*, uh huh, uh huh, *chatter* no, bye!" He's really an explosion of words these days. I have to go because it's breakfast time!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

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One of those days...

Ever have one of those days? Stupid question, I'm sure everyone has.

Today I woke up with a sore throat and blocked sinuses. I dragged myself heavily through a day where nothing seemed to go right, I suppose that happens when you're feeling under the weather. I burned my lunch, accidentally put something in the dryer that wasn't meant to be there, Mikey whined all day even at the park. All I wanted to do this evening was curl up in my pajamas with a nice cup of tea, ginger and lemon, perfect for colds. Perhaps re-watch the last episode of Criminal Minds, because my teen crush was in it. Although he's looking a bit worn out these days, I didn't recognise him at first.

Anyway, Mikey had other plans. It's now 11pm and I just got him down to sleep, it's taken since 9pm with plenty of screaming and crying (mostly his).

I'm now finally making my tea and I'm going to lounge around reading some blogs for an hour or so and then go to sleep.

At the moment I'm reading:

Serene Journey
Raptitude and
Zen Family Habits.

Searching for some kind of inspiration.

You know, one thing that went wrong today turned out pretty good anyway. I bought the wrong kind of sugar from the German store on accident, instead of normal granulated I bought sugar lumps. Adding sugar lumps to tea is much more fun that regular sugar, plus if you're so inclined you can try and balance them on the tea bag, watch them soak up the tea and make bets on how long they'll stay there (a surprisingly long time).

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Random Tuesday Thoughts 6

It's that time again folks!



This morning a man with a tractor vacuum type thing came and stole all of our leaves!

I am beyond upset... even though they were wet and starting to rot. He messed up the grass too, now it resembles a mud pit. Time for mud pies maybe?

I am obsessing over Origami at the moment. Just one of those things I guess.

I mentioned before that Mikey is sick? He's not. He's getting his final molars in, all 4 at once. I haven't slept this little since he was a newborn. Ok that's a lie, I'm not sure I slept at all when he was a newborn. On Saturday night he woke at midnight. He didn't go back to sleep, despite our very best efforts, until 5am. We did watch Monsters Inc though... I think Mikey is in love with B
oo (that's his nickname as well... well he's Boo Monster.)

Isn't Squash awesome? We're going to have had butternut squash two nights in a row. Yesterday was a recipe of my own invention, it involved Butternut Squash and Bacon. I know you're dying to find out what it was. Check back on Friday, I'll be posting the recipe along with my Thanksgiving menu and trial run results. Yes I'm doing trial runs of almost everything! Spaghetti Squash is totally weird. I'm waiting for an excuse to use some in cooking, but haven't found a recipe I like yet.




When the weather starts getting gloomy, I like to crack out the literary classics. I've no idea why I do things this way, but summer tends to be for modern novels and winter for classics. I'm going to be re-reading some Dickens, Austen (even though I don't like her, maybe I've changed my mind since studying her in school. I didn't like soap operas back then). Then on the list we've got some Bronte sisters, Shelley and HG Wells.

You know, camera companies like to trick you. Yes they do. They tell you that you have to spend lots of money on a camera if you want to take good photos. Now if you're a professional then sure. The hubby uses a crazy expensive Nikon army issue camera. And sure, if you have the money to spend on expensive cameras then go for it. I used to have a Canon 350D before it was stolen from the hospital while Mikey was in the NICU. Now I use my vintage film cameras (none of which cost over $10) and my trusty Canon PowerShot SD1000.It wasn't as expensive as the one I just linked to. It was more like $150.  Don't know why that one is so pricey. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a new SLR, but immigration is an expensive business. Trust me when I say I could have bought two of the camera I want and still not reached the amount we're spending on immigration paperwork. True Story.

Anywaaaaay. It's a point and click compact cam... except I use it on manual. Although it would be nice to not have to cheat around the cameras autofocus to get what I want out of it. I have to set it to one point focus... usually in the middle. Focus on exactly what I want with the center point autofocus and then caaaaaaarefully move the camera to the angle I want without changing to distance between the camera and the object. *yawn*

Here are some shots of a couple of my lovely vintage cameras... and a brooch I bought to use in making my scarflet.

Hello Lover.

<3 <3 <3

 

 

P.S. I wish to not speak of NaNoWriMo today. Things are not going well with my poor characters.

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Jazz at Midnight

While writing some more of my NaNoWriMo novel last night, (I'm over 10,000 words now!) I was suddenly reminded of something that happened a long time ago. One of my characters reminds me a little of someone that I used to know, I had to stop writing because I couldn't concentrate anymore. Instead I felt compelled to write out this little story.

When I was 18 years old, nearing 19, I was at an acquaintance's birthday party. He was someone that worked with my boyfriend at the time, in the bike repair shop, and he was just turning 18. It was summer, so the party was outside in a marquee type thing. Fancy dress, I can't remember what I dressed as but my boyfriend refused to do fancy dress because I suppose that he felt that it imposed on his manliness somehow. There were a group of us - my best friend, who shares my first name and was dressed as a fairy, another guy that my boyfriend worked with who was dressed as a Nazi soldier and there was Ed, who was about 3 years older than us.

The guy dressed as a Nazi got disgustingly drunk, the party was a washout mostly although the younger kids seemed to be enjoying themselves. We ended up sat at "the grown-up's table". Ed was the guy who introduced me to The Beat Poets, this is when we sat and discussed them. He was flirting outrageously with my best friend too. My boyfriend was sulking, as he so often did. The guy dressed as a Nazi had to be taken home, he was supposed to go home with Ed and we were all desperate to leave anyway so we started to walk him home.

After we dropped him off at his house, Ed asked us if we'd like to come over to his and have some drinks. It was about midnight and we didn't feel much like going home at that point so we went with him. We walked to his house, he said it was just up the street. It was, but the street turned into a dirt track that led through a field. In the field was an old falling down house with its windows boarded up, the front door had an enormous padlock on it, Ed said that was because people liked to come out here and vandalize his house.

Ed unlocked the padlock and opened the door, we all stepped in one after the other and Ed flipped the light on. Inside the house looked in similar condition to the outside, the wallpaper was peeling off and the floor was concrete. The kitchen had only a stove, microwave, sink and a couple of tables. We went upstairs to Ed's room, we passed his older brother who was getting ready to leave to go see his girlfriend.

Ed's room was small, one wall was lined almost entirely from floor to ceiling with old records and CD's, another wall with books. His bed was pushed up against the wall and there were more books underneath. He put on some music, I think it was Joanna Newsom, and lit up a joint, we passed it around and talked for a while.

Later we went downstairs, through the kitchen into the back room. The room was big, easily three times the size of Ed's bedroom. It was filled with recording equipment and musical instruments, there were tatty Persian rugs lining the floor. Ed made us all some tea in the kitchen and we started to pick up instruments and mess around with them. I played something on the piano and as I did, my best friend started to join me by tapping on one of the drums. Ed laughed and rooted around in the back for something. He eventually pulled out a silver saxophone and handed it to my best friend, she plays a lot of instruments including the saxophone, clarinet and piano. She is actually a music teacher now.

Ed handed an electric guitar to my boyfriend and plugged it into a nearby amp before sitting down himself behind the drum kit. We didn't speak to one another, Ed started tapping out a beat on the snare drum. I started playing on the piano, my boyfriend joined in on guitar and then finally my best friend joined in on the saxophone.

We ended up jamming all night, playing Jazz. We played until 5am, before we started to get tired and decided we had to go home.

I never saw Ed again, my best friend went back to his house a couple of times to see him before she left for college.

It's funny, that night was amazing and I'm not really sure why. I still remember it vividly 6 years later. I only met the guy once and he had such an impact on the way I live now, the way I see things, what music I like and what books I like to read.

Can you think of anyone who has had an impact on your life like that? It could be a close friend, or even someone you only met once. I want to know!

P.S. I have added a couple of new websites to my reading list in the sidebar on the left. They're pretty amazing, I'll talk about them at length at a later date, for now I've got housework to do.

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NaNoWriMo Update

I'm at 7273 words as of 10pm tonight. I'm still a little behind, but managed to write a lot more than I thought I would. Especially considering that Mikey is sick and has been waking up a lot last night and tonight. I really want to be caught up by next week, I might talk the husband into letting me toddle off somewhere, sans l'enfant, to do some writing this weekend.

The story is really starting to write itself though. I have trouble with dialogue, it always sounds so ridiculously fake when I write it. But that's something that can be cleaned up post-November. For a story starting with no real plot, I've surprised myself with the way my main character has led me and what she's gotten herself into so far.

For those who are remotely interested, I wrote a kind of synopsis for it tonight. Drumroll Please.

Shadow Box

     My name is Danielle, but you don't need to remember that, it's not really all that important in the scheme of things. When I was nine years old, I was given a shadow box. It used to belong to my grandfather and his father before him. The frame was a dark wood and parts of it were beginning to crack with wear. Under the glass were 6 dead moths, neatly spaced and pinned to the black backing, with their Latin names written in scrawled handwriting on small, faded pieces of paper attached underneath each moth.

     I had to sell the shadow box eventually, it was the only thing I had left that was worth anything and I was in trouble. Alex bought it back from the guy I'd sold it to and left it outside my apartment a few nights later, wrapped in gaudy paper, for me to find. I didn't want it as a gift from him, I couldn't accept anything from him or I'd end up like one of those moths. Lovingly placed under the glass and neatly pinned to the backing.

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Gunpowder Treason and Plot

 Image Source

I wont bore you with history this time, that's what the wikipedia article and British Government Website is for.

I will say that if I were "home" in England tonight, I would be out in the freezing cold in some field somewhere with a large group of people. Burning my tongue on a baked potato wrapped in foil and freezing my fingers because you can't eat baked potato while wearing gloves. I would be watching as an effigy of Guy Fawkes, made from old clothes belonging to someone's dad and stuffed with straw, is burned on the top of a huge bonfire, making sure not to stand too close to it as I wouldn't want to singe my eyebrows. Finally I would be watching a fireworks display out in the back of the field. On the way home I would be able to see fireworks going off in neighbours backyards. Everyone's dogs would be locked up indoors with the radio playing, so that they don't go crazy at the whooshes and bangs from the fireworks.

The next day (as a child) I would be wrapped up in a warm coat, scarf and gloves, hunting around in the fields for the fireworks burned the night before and collecting them in a pile on the wet grass.

Funny how when you're away from your home country and have been for so long (nearly 3 years now), that you miss traditions that you never particularly cared for when you lived there.

On an unrelated note, Mikey is sick. He has a temperature of 101 and woke three times before finally refusing to go back to sleep on his own at midnight. We spent the rest of the night on the couch watching Pocoyo and drinking lots of tea. I am exhausted.

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Random Tuesday Thoughts 5

Now that the colder weather is approaching, I've started to make like a bear and fatten myself up. I'm totally drawn to fatty foods during autumn and winter, I know I'd be cold if I didn't put on that extra layer of fat every year to help insulate. I'm also hiding foods around the house like a squirrel, then I come across them later and eat them.

I'm totally procrastinating NaNoWriMo. I'm already behind on the word count and it's only the 3rd day, I played with some ideas yesterday but didn't get any actual writing done. I did come up with a title and base concept though. The title is now "Shadow Box". I'll give you a synopsis when I have something more cohesive, but I can say that it's pretty much a character study rather than a plot driven novel.

Now I said that I was procrastinating, but my husband is far worse. He has been talking to me about his novel constantly for the past 3 days, but he has yet to put a word down or to even sign up on the NaNoWriMo website. So I think he wins this procrastination game.

I'm kinda getting back into Graphic Design. It's some form of NaNoWriMo procrastination. I'm working on a couple of things that I'll put up here for download at some point. I'm still not too hot at using Adobe InDesign so it's slow going. Graphic Design was so much easier in school when we could just draw it or make a model. For my Graphic Design class, years ago, I made a full scale model of a Cyber Cafe I designed. The model even had working lights. Yep.





Mikey has recently started putting together two word sentences. This is a really awesome part of his speech development and he seems so much easier to communicate with. He's having trouble with the order of his syllables though, which is quite cute. Sometimes instead of "Mama, Bye!" he'll say "Bama, Mye!" Instead of saying "Bye Ellie!" (when we turn off his favourite DVD) he just says "Bebellie!"

I just remembered a story my granddad told me when I visited last. It's the story of why his side of the family is not religious. Well it's kind of two stories. One story involves an ancestor being conned out of a lot of money by the "church" to build some kind of ridiculous statue. The other story is more weird, if they didn't learn their lesson by being conned, one of my ancestors was also struck by lightning while fixing his local churches roof. Now my granddad is quite good at embellishing stories, but (in the mood of the movie "Big Fish") It's sometimes more interesting to believe the stories as he tells them, I'm sure the correct version isn't nearly as good.

He also has told me so many times over the years that his side of the family is descended from King Æthelred the Unready (Æþelræd Unræd), an Anglo Saxon King of England who reigned from 978 to 1016. One of Æthelred's sons was Edward the Confessor (as referred to in Shakespeare's Macbeth as the Saintly King of England) who was one of the last Anglo Saxon kings of England, and up until 1348 was also considered the patron saint of England (he was replaced by Saint George and is now the patron saint of kings instead). Edward is also featured in one of the first panels of the Bayeux Tapestry. Edward the Confessor sounds like a decent enough guy but Æthelred was apparently a bit rubbish. The family name on my mum's side is supposedly linked to him though. What weird ancestors to have if it's true. Don't know much about the name from my dad's side apart from it's Scottish/Celtic and supposed to have something to do with rival clans.

For more Random, head on over to the unmom!

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Random Tuesday Thoughts 4

I'm sitting down with a lovely cup of cappuccino, made with my new stovetop espresso pot, to write this. Yum.

This is Mikey's favourite cartoon in the whole world. He got a DVD of it from Grandma and Granddad for his birthday and he requests it constantly. In fact we've had more than one temper tantrum when he asks to watch it by pointing at the TV and yelling "ELLIE! ELLIE!" and mummy says no. I know, I'm such a mean mummy. He also does the Pocoyo dance like in this episode.






We've been reading a lot of Beatrix Potter. I get to hone up on my storytelling voice, I should record a tape of my Britspeak or something. I absolutely adore reading these. The language is just beautiful to read aloud and the pictures are lovely.

I have this t shirt, are you jealous?

The past two afternoons Mikey and I have been jumping in piles of leaves and hunting for snails. Don't worry he doesn't get to touch the snails, he just points and says "ewwwww". Mikey's older friend and I buried him in a gigantic pile of leaves, showed him to jump in them and to throw huge piles of them. We also collected helicopter seeds in a bag, Mikey's friend climbed to the top of the playground equipment while we stayed at the bottom, then she dumped them all out and they flew down to us.

While Mikey was playing on the playground I drew a huge bird with sidewalk chalk on the playground. I can see it from my house.

Hubby starts school tonight. He's taking Criminal Justice classes (or something along those lines). He has to be there at like 5.30, so I have to cook dinner ready for him to get home. I don't know why but I really hate doing that, it feels so lonely cooking when there's no one around.

My house is in a disgusting state right now. I'm kinda mortified about it.

Head on over to The Unmom for more random!

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Weekend Ramblings

I changed my blog layout slightly. I gave it a bit of a colour makeover, to go with the weather. Purple and Brown to me are quite autumn-y winter-y colours. Tweaked the pictures in my header etc to put in autumn plants instead of spring/summer plants too. I'm pretty pleased with it.

Yesterday Mikey and I took the long walk to the Farmers market in Neuenheim. It was a bit cold, especially when we got out onto the bridge, but we had fun.

That's the farmer's market in the background there. It was cute. I bought a few veggies and suchlike, nothing major, although I really wanted to buy some of the homemade cheese they had.

On the way back we walked past this awesome bookshop.

We went out onto the river bank here. Mikey laughed at the ducks going upside down in the water to look for food, then we were chased by a huge goose.

 

This is the view from the bridge on the way back. The mist on the hills looked beautiful.

We went into town from there and bought some bread from a bakery. I got some winter boots too (finally, been searching for some for what seems like forever!)

Sunday has been spent relaxing and playing in the house. Looking up pianos and keyboards online as it's about time we bought one. My husband plays beautifully, I play averagely and I'm betting that Mikey will love it. We want a real piano, but with the time and money spent moving the thing around and having it tuned we may as well buy a keyboard for now.

Time to do a big clean-up this afternoon, the work is never done.

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