Helen Clyde

Oh Boys!

2012-01-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

We just had my twins´ 5th birthday party.

Yep, I know it feels like this is becoming the basic topic of this blog - our weekly parties. But having four kids, all born between November and January, well, that directly results in costant celebrations during those months.
I really love throwing parties, but believe me, I´m happy this year´s season is almost over.
However, this was my first "all boys" party - the first party my sons didn´t even invite the little neighbour girl to, and, as I mentioned yesterday, it was kind of a "Cars" party.
So I could try out making... ahem...

...highly proffessional Lightening McQueen cupcakes...

...and traffic lights. Because thosepinterest ideas, I´ve got to give them a try, right?
Not that you could exercise a consequent theme with a group of little boys... as I figured out today :)
They sit at the table for about three minutes... and their attention span for games of any kind is about the same length... they love hopping around, running in the garden, playing football, and any games of that kind are great. Eva made a treasure hunt for them, marking the way with fun tasks -

- this was the "One leg forest", which they had to cross hopping on one leg, and she also made them "cliffs" from chalk, and snakes to slalom around, and the cars on the street become dragons, and the trash cans turn into hidey-holes, because, you now, there are some mad tigers around in our neighbourhood.

Hunting the treasure was a huge success... apart from Miro throwing himself on the ground in a fit because, I think, we sang the lyrics to some song wrong. But, yeah, apart from the usual, they all liked it.
We also made little driver´s licsenses, (because I like my laminating machine), and played that racing car game:

I prepped the cars comme ca:

And yes, they did play this. Without crying, no fumbling with the strings, it did actually work. They did play it on the ground, though. And they loved running around, dragging the cars behind them, too.

And some of them even liked to sit down and color cars coloring pictures - there are countless on the internet - So, it was quite a nice party. They are cute, really, but I surely can´t remember my daughters being so little?
Musically... well, I posted the two matching songs to this blogpost yesterday. And yes, it was incredible cool rocking it out to route 66, and the boys almost (!thanks for that!) peed themselves with laughter when they saw me dancing like mad for them.
So, allow me, once more, to go with one of Ingrid´s new songs, today? Even if it´s so not party... but I adore this song.

She´s so freaking good at drama and kitsch, and the strings in this song... stunning, they are.

Wanna know what ´s fun?

2012-01-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

It´s fun sending my daughter off to her first official school dance night, in the gym, and helping her dress up and making her hair.

And wanna know what´s even more fun? Having her come home, late in the evening, with a purse full of...

tiny love letters :) About ten of them. Saying actually things like "I love your hair"; and yes, truth, "Great moves"! Yep, apparently there´s a boy in class six who´s got a big crush on her. He´s 12. I don´t remember boys of my generation being so straight forward. And charming. And he wants to meet her on the school playground on Monday. First break. I can totally see his point, though. I´m sure she was the stunner of the night :)))

Wanna know what´s also fun?

Preparing a Cars birthday party for my twins tomorrow, building a Highway on our kitchen table,

and, while checking out some cool music for musical chairs tomorrow, finding there´s not only Rascall Flats on the Cars soundtrack...

but also a song by John Mayer? Seriously? And why haven´t I realized this until now? Why didn´t I jump out of my seat in cinema?
Well, I´m jumping now :)

This past week...

2012-01-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

I went to Cologne with my Eva...

and got her her first full scale violin.

Ain´t she beautiful? I posted a similar picture some years ago, when she got her first violin, a 1/2. It´s a rental one, but it´s quite a fine rental one, and I love when she plays for me. The current piece she´s practising is "God save the Queen", and I love that even more :) And from time to time, I feel the need to post some pics of kids with instruments, because I love seing them enjoy what I enjoy.
Also, I´ve been teaching her some simple chords on the guitar, so she can now play some of her favourite Swiftie songs all byherself. Which results in another picture:

On another angle of the universe, I´ve still been sewing on the 50 little sportsbags I promised to make for my sons´ kindergarten.I´m at number 28, and I really don´t like any green anymore...

Then...
we had sweet guests over, Tim´s cousin came with her two beautiful daughters,

who loved to play music, too.

I got a little drunk on Elizabeth George´s new novel, which I sort of soaked up and neglected all social contacts for, and then I really, really enjoyed Stephen Kings new 22-11-1963. And if you believe Stephen King is cheap horror, then you´re really missing out. To me, he´s a master of vivid language and realistic characters and heart gripping plots.
I also put princess Leia in a jar...

...actually, that was Mehmet. Who put them in a jar. I printed and laminated the Starwars Preschool set from Homeschool Creations for them, and they freaked out with joy over it. And are constantly playing with those small cards, even taking them to bed.
And, yes,

...we´ve been practising French, and, in the case of my husband, Spanish,

...and we´ve been poking sticks into the river. The usual.
And musically...

...well, that´s not a surprise, is it? Though I actually am surprised how much I am in love with this new album of her. Usually, when I really love an artists, my expectations become so high that I almost have to be dissapointed with a new album. At least, I was pretty dissapointed with John Mayer´s Battle Studies. But this album - I adore every single song on it so far. I can´t decide which one to tab first, or to listen to, I wish I could listen to all of them simultaniously. I think my favourite song today is this one, because... we´re all the same, under a different name, aren´t we? I should get this line tattoed :)

Oh Ingrid...

2012-01-23T12:57:00.000-08:00

Nightswimming... we once did that. Around the time I was 19, 20 years old maybe. We had spent the night in my tiny flat, 2 boys, 3 girls, reading short stories to each other, talking, drinking red wine and smoking until the room was a blue blur, and it must have been around 3 o´clock, when we decided to go swimming. It was allready autumn, my friend had her mum´s car, and we drove over to a lake, not far from my flat. Where we went swimming in the moonlight, and yep, it was exactly as it´s told in this song :)
On the way back, I realized that I had forgotten the key to my flat inside, hence outlocked us, so we had to wait in our cold clothes (of course nobody had thought about taking towels, as well) on the stairs in front of my closed door, shivering, until the man from the door service came to open the door. But it was one fantastic night, and it just came to my mind when I found this song.
By the way, her new album´s coming out tomorrow. And I´m counting the minutes :)

Star Wars...

2012-01-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

...I never understood what it´s all about.
The movies - it seems like I can never muster the concentration to follow the plot. If there is any. No matter how often my enthusiastic husband tries to bring me on that particular nerdwagon, my mind always goes wandering elsewhere. But they apperar to be very popular amongst little boys. Of all ages.
And...

when Darth Vader and a clone Trooper (yup, I educated myself on that subject...) enter my kitchen table, I quite love it.
Especially when they are this cute.

And cook for me, afterwards.

They are turning 5 today, those fun, giggly, loud, chaotic, dirty little guys. Miro, who loves to wear his dinosaur sweater as much as he loves his sisters skirts, and who asked me just this week to paint one wall of his room pink. Miro, who is amazing at everything to do with numbers, who hates puzzles and loves to listen to long, long stories, and who is a pro at cuddling.

And Mehmet, his older brother by 8 minutes, who can be so reasonable and clever and charming, but still loves to throw fits, who is quite good at working with paint and reading and who rides his bike with a mindblowing enthusiasm, Mehmet, who enjoys everything male, like noise and fights and cars and dirt, who´d certainly not wear a dress.

I often envy them for their closeness.

When they were born, one of the biggest storms of the last decade was raging outside, and I had been waiting for them for quite a while. Them being born was the smoothest delivery I ever had, and I think I never felt a bigger relief than in that moment when I realized they were both there, and all three of us had made it just fine. It feels pretty unbeliavable to look at them now, and back then.

They were one day old on that pic. And just nicely fed with breastmilk in our own bed, at home, next room to the bathroom in which they were born. 5 years ago. And now they pretend to be Darth Vader... HOw can that not blow my mind?

And now I think I´ve got to make them dinner, and take them to bed, afterwards. We´re having guests tomorrow, and there´s still some cleaning to do... and I´d love to go back to my book, as well.

Music for today:

Judging by the number of views this video has, everyone of you has seen it yet. Doesn´t matter, it´s still awesome. Go enjoy yourselves :)

Rocking the house

2012-01-15T03:16:00.000-08:00

Ronja turned 8, a while ago actually, end of November. But who´s got time for birthday parties in December, when you need to go attend Christmas celebrations every weekend?
So we only had a small party in November, and sceduled her big birthday party for January Yesterday was the day, so we had 12 kids over, and yeah, it was quite some fun.

This year, we didn´t go for a motto party (I love! motto parties...), because Ronja wanted to have an all traditional kids party. Which we then had. And maybe you can steal some ideas?

For the entrance, I set up a costume station. I threw all our through-the-years-collected-costumes in a basket, added some monster teeth and sticky mustaches from the dollar store, and, of course, face paint, and let the kids rock it out.

Miro uses every occasion to wear a skirt and a wig, I swear.

That easily fills half an hour, or more. In fact, I had to stop them. Also, I took pictures of all of them, sitting in the throne, to add to the give away packages.

I also got some sticky tape. Sticky tape is good for everything. I marked a hopscotch field in the entrance hall, and was happy to see the kids actually used it.

Then I marked this field on the kitchen table:

I let the kids form two groups, and blow the pompons over the table. Pompoms over the first mark give 1 point, over the second give 5, and pompoms on the floor take 5 points away.

Having formed those two groups, we played "Parcour".

I gave the first group tape, ribbon, chairs, chalk, whatever, and told them they had five minutes to set up a difficult parcour for the other group. Then, all kids of the second group, had to run through this parcour, with me stopping the time. And then reverse.

For the waiting in between, I had brought up this guy:

I made him last year for the twins´ 4th birthday party, from an old cardboard box, and you throw balls into his mouth.

Then we had mice on a string.

For some reason, Ronja had always wanted to make this. And I had always been to lazy to thread 36 jello mice on strings, for a game that lasts 5 minutes. This year, I did it. And it did take long to thread them, but Ronja helped me, and it did only take 5 minutes, but the kids had lots and lots of fun, so I guess it was worth it. And it made a nice decoration, too.
Next was cutting flour.

This game is only for the daredevils among you - you pile a whole package of flour on a plate, and some sweet on the top. The kids get a knife, and the each kid cuts away a slice of the flour, carefully, so the sweet on top won´t fall down. When it falls down, this is what happens:

Doing this with mustaches and make up adds a nice extra cheer. And it soes lead to kids smearing their faces with flour and lots of cleaning up. But I remember how much I loved it as a kid, so I threw it in.
By the way, I was lucky to find these in a dollar store:

And after each game, I handed out one to each kid. They were thrilled by it, and could either collect them, or trade them in for sweets.
And of course we played toilet-paper-mummy.

We seem to play that one on every party, I think. And later, they all dance around in the smashed toilet paper.

Oh, and of course we had to play hit-the pot, because even for 8 year olds, it´s still the best game on the planet. And we played eating chocolate (wrapped in newspaper, with a knife and a fork and mittens on), and murder in the disco, in the dark, with glowsticks, and me firing the glitter-confetti canon, and while I was preparing the ice cream, Tim took them out to play a fish game in the garden: All the kids are little fish, except for one. That´s the shark. Tim tells a story, the little fish do as he says, and as soon he says the word "shark"; the shark comes out to eat them all. And they all run around screaming.
And before I forget it - you don´t think I could throw a party without labelling bottles, do you?

I love labelling bottles!

So, that was our party. And most of it is, indeed, allready cleaned up. Tim took the kids swimming, so I´m home alone, and it was almost silent, if I didn´t have to blast Lisa Hannigan through the house:

Oh man, how I love this song, and video. I think it´s so cheerfull and bright, and very sexy, too. Really, sit through it, and watch her getting splashed with paint. So very inspirational... I can hardly wait for summer to come and have a family paint event in the garden.

Have you seen this yet?

2012-01-09T02:07:00.001-08:00

The brand new Jason Mraz song. It´s lovely, isn´t it?
Oh, I´m so waiting for him to go on tour, I´ll be the first in line for the tickets :)

Sparkle!

2012-01-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

First of all: A happy NewYear to all of you!

Did you celebrate? Did you have fireworks, and fountains and sparklers, and did you embrace the people you love, and total strangers? Well, we did :)
We had an awesome night at friends, who are pros at throwing parties in their tiny house, and I loved every minute of it. Of course I was unable to take acceptable pictures, because I was busy hugging everybody, keeping Mehmet from throwing a fit and having my friends´ sweet daughter sitting on my hip, but hey, who needs pictures? (Okay, for my blog, I could actually use some good ones now...)
Here´s a good picture:

Well, sort of. I don´t even know who took this. Wasn´t me. I like it :) We had couchsurfers over, quite spontaniously, a sweet family of two very young moms, their little daughter and their dog. And my sons had a friend over. And my daughters had a friend over. Well, we had quite a full, busy house, with lots of crossover cooking (our guests were vegan - and that was my first in a lifetime encounter with vegan cuisine...), and singing to the guitar and sewing impro-babypants and making microwave cupcakes and, well, taking care of all the kids and the dog and our cat.

Though, this looks very calm, when I look at it... It felt quite alive. and that´s my excuse for not posting my songs and moments of last year.
So here are, in a quick summary, and without any long consideration and in no particular order- my top hits of 2011:
-Dangling my feet in the Seine with Eva and Ronja.
-Listening to Mehmet and Miro read their first words.
-Eating kosher stew in Masha´s kitchen in Moscow, and finding that little house of the fairytale painter.
-Watching Eva find new friends and a whole new, happy spirit on her new school.
-Growing sweet peas in our garden.
- Watching my best friend´s daughter ride a bike, one week after she really, really scared us.
-Finding out about Couchsurfing and falling in love with all those fascinating people that entered our lives through it
Going on a protest march against nuclear energy with Ronja, watching her become really eager and interested, and witnessing the banishing of nuclear energy for my country with her afterwards, like a direct result of us marching.
-Finishing that depressing second book of mine and beginning the third right away.
- Cheering on that Taylor Swift concert together with Eva.
-Cycling, cycling, cycling. And through it, discovering the beauty of the place we live in, and the theoretical option to reach further horizons.
-Talking to a 50 year old british man on a plane about the Mongolian ralley, and making mental plans.
-Riding down the escalator stairs in a bookstore in Cologne. Definetely belongs here, too.
-Eating grilled bananas and avocado and white bread, cuddled up with all my family, in a small tent in DenHaag, while reading russian fairytales and listening to the rain drumming on the tent, freezing.
-Witnessing that the kids in my class actually learn someting. Something I taught them.
-Putting my feet in the sea.
-Putting my feet in every river.
-Finding the music of Ed Sheeran, The Script, The Weepies, The Wailing Jennys and Christina Perri, who, among others, were new artists I´m really happy to have found in 2011
-Watching this video, which is one of the most beautiful, artistic animations I´ve ever seen. I honestly believe I must have watched it around thousand times by now.

So... closing my eyes... have I got everything? Nothing forgotten? Did I manage to jot down all the sparkling wonders of 2011? I´m sure I must have missed something.
So, instead of formulating resolutions, let me just finish this post with two songs, instead of one, to sum up what I wish for you, and for me, and for everybody else:
This:

and this:

2011 in Review - the books

2011-12-29T03:40:00.000-08:00

One of my resolutions last year was to keep a bookjournal, to remember all the books I read in that year. Of course, I didn´t stick to it. (By the way, I didn´t stick to that Flylady programm, either, though it definetely did help in keeping this house slightly cleaner. And to some resolutions, I really stuck, though with delay. But that´s a whole ´nother topic)
Ahem.
What I wanted to say is, not keeping a bookjournal doesn´t man I didn´t read. Lots and plenty. And this post, it´s a little to make up for not keeping a bookjournal - I´m writing down what I read this last year, to share and to remember. So here we go:

(source: amazon)

I started the year out with some Henning Mankell. Who doesn´t love a little Kurt Wallander, right? Henning Mankell is an author of which I´ve read every single scrap, though I can not capture the reason why - sometimes, his style of writing actually makes me angry. Well, maybe that´s why I still like to read him. And most definately, he´s able to create vivid, soultearing images.

(source:amazon)

My absolute discovery of the year was Nick Hornby. I had planned to read him for several years, but I´m quite conservative when it comes to reading - I rather read the same author over and over again, before I dare spending my money on someone I don´t know. I found High Fidelity on a local fleamarket. And it blew me away. So by now, I´ve read everything Nick Hornby I could lay my hands on. An author who includes so many great songs in his books? Who creates the strangest, weirdest characters, and makes me totally identify with them? Who has twists in his plots that knock me over in surprise, and who deals with topics like divorce, suicide, teen pregnancies and depression, and keeps you laughing through all of his books? Oh, I love Nick Hornby.

(source: amazon)

I liked to re-read Harry Mulisch´s "Discovery of Heaven´s". I read it this summer, mostly at the beach or in a tent, not far from DenHaag, where the storie plays, and that added a nice dimension, being where the characters in the book walked. And with everytime I read this book, I love it a little more. It´s a story about two friends, and a task from the gods, and a love triangle, and family ties and Europe after WW2 until today, it stretches over 50 years and about 1000 pages. It makes you feel so small. Like the sea. But it is quite awesome. I gave it as a Christmas present, this year, as well.

Then, completely different, though, I love Cassandra Clare, for an easy, fun read. Her new Steampunk series, the infernal devices, were a pleasant surprise when they came out this year - I had only known her from the Mortal instruments. And demon slaying with some sweet romance always works for me, whether it takes place in the present, of in the 1890´s. I´ll see her, in 2012, and I´m looking forward to getting my collector editions autographed :)

(source: amazon)

I read a lot of crime novels. I always do. Whenever Deborah Crombie, Elizabeth George (of course ;) ),Minette Walters or Peter Robinson publish a book, I get it on release day and finish it within hours, only to moan that I need another one a.s.a.p., please. Reading crime novels is a little like eating for me. One of my new favourite crime novelists, and one I think really stands out, is Tana French, and her new novel "Faithfull Place" really touched me. It´s a story about a man who goes back into the tiny village he´d left years ago, to unravel the murder of his former girlfriend, and the way Tana French describes the atmosphere in his family is outstanding, and very realistic.

(source:amazon)

Another book that stood out this year for me was Irene Dische´s "Empress of Weehawken". It´s a nice German/American family story, the narrator is extraordinairy, and, just like "The Discoveries of Heavens" above, covers a long duration of time. I felt like I knew the grandmother, and the mother, and the daughter personally. Well, I think I do.

(source:amazon)

Throwing in a freakbook, just for good measure? Oh, take Ralph Isau´s "Gallerie der Lügen". I searched for an english translation, but didn´t find one, I´m sorry. But I need to keep it in this post, because, come on - a book doubting the theory of evolution, written from the perspective of a hermaphrodite whose skin glows in the dark because s/he´s the result of a former clone experiment? All written in the pathetic style of a Dan Brown novel, wrapped in a crime story involving bombing the whole Louvre? Now, that´s fun! :) I really have to thank my friend for handing me this gem!

Okay, this post is becoming longer and longer. Sorry. You really don´t need to read it all, it´s more for myself, okay? But one authour, I´ve got to note:

(source:amazon)

Daniel Glattauer. He´s another discovery of this year, one I would never have made if my friend hadn´t handed me the book. And judging by the cover, I was quite sceptical. But the first one I read was one about a love story taking place merely virtually, written in a surprisingly beautiful language, so I had to read the second one, and everything else he has written so far. The characters he creates are very likeable. I´m not sure how his genius play-on-words translate into other languages, but I sure enjoyed them. He´s the one I´m going to have the writer´s workshop with, in march, and oh, am I looking forward to that :)

So, you stuck here through all my rambling? That´s tough. You must be a good friend :)
So, before I go, here´s a pic of Ronnie, putting her foot into the river yesterday:
Yay, we all yearn for spring. I so need to go out and ride my bike!

And here´s some fun music:

See you tomorrow :)

Christmas aftermath.

2011-12-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

I´m sitting outside on the porch, it´s pretty dark, but warm, though wet. I can hear the rain tinkling from the drain, and when I finished my cigarette, I think I´ll go back inside.
Tim´s quoting from the Frank Zappa biography he´s reading, and that´s kid of funny. The girls are supposed to set the dinner table, but I think they are finished, because I can hear them making up trivia questions for a game they are inventing. I can also hear the twins upstairs in the tub, playing loud and cheefully with their new toys. All the presents have been unwrapped, and I think I managed to put all the wrapping paper away, though I guess you could still find some scraps under the sofa. So, our Christmas was quite fine.

We had Tim´s parents over, and I set a Martha-Stewart-like table,

(picture taken by Ronnie)

and we ate so much I feel like I could sluggishly lie on the sofa with a nice book for the rest of the year, if it wasn´t for the unicycles we gave our girls, so they are dragging us outside all the time now, to practice. Riding a unicycle is an art, believe me.

We played a lot of piano, and read nice stories, and went to Legoland, and I got the world´s best Christmas present from Tim - a ticket to a writer´s workshop in march, with one of my new favourite authors. I´ll get the possibility to ask an actual author all my questions, and I´m making mental notes all the time about what to ask him first.

I gave Tim a Devil´s stick, and when he´s not reading Frank Zappa´s biography, he´s practising his jonglage performance. So, basically, I´m living in a house with flying sticks and dashing unicycles. Christmas rocks.

Musically, I´m enjoying a song by Nickel Creek I actually just found today:

Oh, how I love to be serenaded by Chris Thile´s mandolin! :)

I think I´ll be back tomorrow. I thought about jotting down my personal charts - my favourite books of the year, my favourite songs, and my favourite moments. Just to keep them.

Just sneaking in...

2011-12-21T01:44:00.000-08:00

...to wish you all a merry Christmas.

Christmas is a busy time with lots of kindergartenparties, violin recitals, sneezing and coughing, shopping and cooking and visiting relatives and cleaning the house. And I like to throw in some sessions cuddling up on the sofa, or sitting under the tree and sing Christmas carols with my kids, or waltzing through the house to the Pogues with my husband. And longing for spring, when the weather is good enough to take proper photos with my point and shoot, and we can spent a lot more time outside again.

Since I haven´t been here a lot lately, I thought I´d post all my favourite Christmas music all in once?
And if you still need a quick gift for someone, go ahead, make them a CD, draw a cute cover, and off you go.
Here´s my selection this year:

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues This one always cheers me up and makes me smile all over and dance. If nothing brings me in a Christmas mood, this does!
Father Christmas - U2 Now, ain´t this stunningly beautiful?
Deck the Halls - Dave Days Lovely punk version to get the kids jumping round the tree. And how he throws in my favourite Pachebel canon - now, that´s epic!
All I want for Christmas is us - Jason Mraz and Tristan Prettyman Oh, I´ve been loving this for years! And I can play it, too :)
Evergreen - Gavin Mikhail I love this song. And the video is cute, too. For some annoying reason, I can´t watch it in Germany, though. But I guess if you live outside Germany, you can, so I´m linking this up here.
Winter Song - Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson Playing in front of The President himself :)
Celtic Carol My kids love this elf - oh well, I do, too!
Under the Mistletoe - AJ Raphael cover If the Biebs comes in disguise of a well done cover, I take him :) I love about this song that it doesn´t sound like winter at all - it sounds like sitting in the sun with a guitar in summer. If you listen closely, you can even sing "I´m yours" by Jason Mraz over it, and imagine being on a beach :)
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays - Michael Henry and Justin Robinett I find this song a little annoying, I must admit. But that´s what Christmas songs are all about, right? Plus, I really like these guys playing the piano.
Last Christmas - Taylor Swift Of course I need to post this one. I mean, I´m living with a person who bakes a cake and lights a candle on December 13th, when it´s Taylor Swift´s birthday. Same person also played this song with her band this year, perfectly ignorant of the fact that this song has been terrorizing people since long before Miss Swift was born. But you know, a good starcrush still makes me smile :)

And I´m sending you off with a) a picture of my sons riding the Christmas train:

And my current very, very favourite Christmas song:

Go, celebrate. Hug the ones you love, eat good food and give good presents, and unwrap some yourselves.
Lots of Love from all of us,
Helen

Baking

2011-11-24T07:02:00.001-08:00

Today I met with a friend to make cookies.

As often as I´m baking, I think it´s actually been years since I last met with another friend, to bake together, and hey, it was fun! Though, of course, it wasn´t just me and my friend, but these sweethearts, too:

The reason we were baking is to collect money, to build a new bike- and walking trail for our town. My friend is a lot more involved than I am, but when it comes to decorating cookies, hey, here I am!

So, these babies are going to be nicely wrapped and sold against donations.

It´s not like these are the only things I´m baking today - in fact, it´s Ronnie´s birthday tomorrow, so I´ll have to make a rainbow cake for her to take to school. For her party here at home, she doesn´t want a cake - she wants a watermelon. Which I think is a lot nicer than cake, too. Why didn´t I ever think of that?

So now, I´ve got to go. Miro wants to go shopping (he LOVES shopping at the moment!), and he´s allready been angry with me for first wanting to hover the floor instead of taking him to the grocery store, even though he was READY!

Evil Mama!

Song for today:

I might be back with a Ronnie-birthday post tomorrow - but I´m not sure. Possibly, we are getting a huge batch of guests tomorrow, a family of almost 8, so I could be quite... occupied :)

Celebrate!

2011-11-20T08:38:00.001-08:00

- A pre-December-ornament-round up -

Told you I had my first Christmas post of this year waiting, didn´t I?
Well, after celebrating my first Thanksgiving of all time last night, I think it´s okay to post an ornament round up today :)

I decided to put up some Christmas decorations this week. Not all of them. I´m starting slowly. But I promised myself to add some Christmas cheer to our home every day until Christmas from now on... I´ll see if I can do it.
One of my goals is to add more and more handmade ornaments each year, so here are some new pieces of our collection:

1. Pinecone fairy ornament, made by Ronja, with some pinecones, some twigs, a pearl, a ribbon and lots of hot glue.

2. Stamped Salt dough ornament I made with kids in our school. Sorry for the blurry pic.

3. Bat ornament by Mehmet, made from toiletpaper roll covered with felt, and the feet are made from pipecleaners. Like a real bat, you can hang it by the feet.

4. Simple paperornaments, made by Ronja.

I bet there are more to come, but these are the ones we assembled last week. I suppose we won´t manage to deck a whole tree with handmade ornaments this year, but if we keep collecting and collecting, we might in the future.
And until then, I still tell myself it´s okay to buy factorymade ornaments, at least some, if they are as beautiful as this one:

I´m really beginning to get into the mood for Christmas. The weather over here is still quite sunny, actually, yesterday I went outside wearing a short sleeved shirt, and no, this is not common in Germany in November.
That Thanksgiving Party yesterday?
Tim has a colleague from the States, she only moved here in March, and since she can´t be with her family, she invited us to a huge Thanksgiving dinner.
And oh, it was marvelous! With all the people from her german class over there, it was quite an international gathering. I had a long talk with a nice guy from Iran about freedom, and with a guy from Belgium about alcohol, and with a girl from Kasachstan about the concept of Cold Turkey in economics. That was pretty refreshing. Oh, and of course I fell in love with pumpkin pie and pumpkin scones and pumpkin cheesecake. What have I missed all these years!

While I´m typing this, I can hear Eva practise her violin, Mehmet and Miro are singing up in their rooms, and Ronja is kicking the piano, cause she´s angry she can´t get her new song straight. And Tim is cutting the cake he made with Miro today:

Life is good.

Song for today:

I wanted to post a Christmas song today. I had even found a really nice on. But then Ingrid threw her new single on the market, and of course I need to listen to it over and over and over again, so, this is today´s song. And I´m so looking forward to her album release in January!

My Tyler Ward Concert...

2011-11-18T01:47:00.001-08:00

(This is one poor crappy photo...sorry.)

...was quite fun. Yes, I know it says Boyce Avenue on the photo above - they were the main act, and Tyler was only the opening act - well, for me, he was the main act :) It was one of those concerts where everyone in the crowd can sing along, and it made me feel happy and fuzzy and warm to feel surrounded by this huge group of people who all share a passion with me. It always does. I love love love life shows. I love going there all by myself, riding through the dark and cold in trains crowded with commuters on a weekday, and I love to listen to the thoughts ticking in my head, roused by the music. And this show was so sparkly and happy, I wish I could have captured it - yes, I took my camera with me, but, clever as I am, I left the memory stick at home. So all I have now are the memories inside of me - and the crappy little pic above that fit on the internal camara memory :)
Want one Tyler Ward song?

This was fun to bounce around to :)

I´ve got a Christmas post waiting in the wings, so... am I really saying this? - stay tuned :))

Busy...

2011-11-14T11:53:00.001-08:00

...I´ve been those last days. Our fall break has been over for two weeks now, and over are the days to spend cycling or painting little cartoon-houses...

(That´s a two-story building Eva is making for some little rabbit figures she got at the bakery...)

What I´ve been doing those last weeks, while I was thinking about blogging, but never took the time to actually do it?

I visited my in laws. Went to theatre with my husband and watched amazing contortion artists. Went to school and helped teaching. Read in the library. Organized a café in kindergarten, walked through the dark with lanterns, had one amazing night with friends. Had 8 kids over for a sleepover.

(those are, obviously, only two of them. And no, they didn´t have to sleep outside. At least not during the night ;) But can you believe it´s November? This is what November over here looks like this year! Oh sunny November, how I love thee!)

Furthermore, I went swimming, received a sweet package from our dear host in Moscow. Wrote about 60 pages in my book and deleted every single one of them. Began sewing the 50 little sportsbags I promised to make for kindergarten. Cleaned up our school library. Took the kids to scoutsmeetings and violin lessons and harp lessons. Found a picture perfect tiny book store in our town. Forgot to take my camera 90 % of the time. Got all the presents for Ronnies birthday, and lots of Christmas presents, too, and wrapped them. Read some books that punched me in the guts, read some books that tingled my brain, and put away some books that didn´t touch me at all. So... overall, the usual.
Oh, and I made a cardigan, with two easy cuts in the middle of a piece of fabric I got for 5 Euros off the local fabric fair:

...and drizzled apple slices with caramel...

...and figured out how to grow green onions on my window sill:

...and dissolved black liquorice in white rum, in an attempt to make black food coloring, but with little success:

My friend, who has a PhD in chemistry, suggested I´d do this, we both didn´t think it´d turn out so brownish. I admit the little teaspoons I sipped of this tasted quite nice, though.
So, now you know. Where I´ve been and what I´ve done and why the real world pulled me in, so I couldn´t blog. Phew, real world. What an ugly word. I´m going back into my nice book now, seeing if I can actually write some pages I´m satisfied with.
And of course I wouldn´t leave you without some music:

Ah, I found so many nice songs those last weeks, it´s hard to decide. Today, I like this one the most, but I´ve been listening a lot to Adele and, yes, Miley Cyrus, too. I confess.
Did I mention I´m going to see Tyler Ward live in concert tomorrow? I´ll tell you later about it, sweeties ;)

Glow-Jars.

2011-11-02T15:05:00.001-07:00

This is just a quick post to let you know that
a) something I found on pinterest actually works and is pretty cool, too:

(those are old jam and mustard glasses, sprinkled with glow-sticks we cut open. And yeah, when you spill droplets, it´s such a pleasure to mop the sparkly kitchen - in the dark!)

and
b) that this song is amazing.

And that´s it for today. Good night, girls.

Treehugger

2011-11-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

That´s what we are, for sure. In the best sense of the word.
It´s a good thing we ran out of money this fall. If we still had a full bank acount, we´d probably take the kids to the zoo or the museum or some other artificial institution. Not that I wouldn´t like zoos or museums.
But since we have hardly any money to spend (because we spent it all in Paris and Moscow and Amsterdam...), and still want to entertain our kids everyday, we ride our bikes. All day long. Into the green. Or... orange.

We play hide and seek and build sorta-forts and make bows and climb trees and look at ants.

We collect all sorts of things and crawl through leaves and moss.

And man, what a gorgeous fall we are having. Given it´s November, and still warm enough to ride out without a jacket... and the mellow, golden light of the sun, I just can´t get enough of. When we get home, all kids wolf down their dinner and fall asleep during their bedtime fairy tale.
So yeah, we´re all for hugging trees.

I´m allready looking forward to finding out where the paths will take us tomorrow.
And despite being really tempted to post one of my cheesy nature songs today at least (like "Out of the woods" by Nickel Creek, that one´s always great!), I´m leaving you with the song playing right now here:

I´m spending a lot of hours on playing my guitar these days. The piano, too, but more the guitar. And Mr. A-Z is always a pleasure, though pretty hard to deliver satisfyingly.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T06:04:00.000-07:00

Did I mention I love Halloween almost more than I love Christmas? Yeah, I do. Each year, I like it a little more. When I was a kid, we didn´t even have Halloween over here, but I´m one of those annoying people who do their best to bring this tradition over to Europe :)
So my girls had their annual Halloween party. The original plan for me was not to get involved at all. They decorated their rooms, bought sweets from their pocketmoney, pondered about their costumes...

(that means...robbed my closet...!)
and labelled bottles for weeks now.

I had made a plan that each girl is allowed to invite two kids, though. Somehow, we misteriously ended up having 12 girls in our house... even though we had two girls cancel... math has never been my strong side.

It was still quite fun. We went out in the dark, I lit candles along the way, and threw little firework crackers at unexpected times. Then I hid in the bushes, while Tim told them a story of a murderer who broke out of prison, and at a strategically perfect point, I jumped out of the bushes :)
They all had glowsticks, and pretended to be very brave, and it was a very sweet (but un-photographable) picture to see them jump over the fields, in the complete darkness, all their flaring dark coats and pointed hats, waving their rainbow colored glowsticks.
We also played "Murder in the disco" and rocked the house, and later, Tim made a huge pot slimy oatmeal for them, and surprisingly, they all loved it.

By the way, did you notice all the pumpkins on the pic above? Yeah. Pumpkin carving.
After my succesful attempt at carving He-who-must-not-be-named last year, I went a little overboard with trying to carve the whole trio this year...

...and totally failed. Sigh... one problem was that it took so long, and before I had even finished Hermoines hair, Harry´s glasses had allready begun to crumble... well, next year I´ll carve one simple Severus Snape, I promise.

I made heart cookies again. I didn´t even remember I made some until now, when I found that post from last year. Seems that something about Halloween makes me crave pink hearts? Whatever - they turned out lovely, at least:

They taste like raspberries and grapes, just in case you´d like to know :)

And before I´m off to cleaning my kitchen (you really don´t want to know how it looks, after our party and baking cookies...), I leave you with a nice, Halloweeny song, to get you in the mood:

20 miles

2011-10-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

...that´s what we rode on our bikes yesterday.

And we, that means all of us, even Mehmet and Miro on their tiny bikes. No trailer anymore.

We had figured out a nice tour, though, with lots of sights on the way to keep us all going.

We met some nice cattle,

...and a donkey...

and even deer.
We took lots of breaks...

and found a beautiful watercastle.

And all of us loved it, we loved being out all day long, loved getting red cheeks, loved being together, the twins loved racing like little madmen all day long, loved seing the trees in their firy glowing leaves, loved picking acorns and finding our way after a map and discovering the town we live in. And I loved making plans in my mind, I mean, if we manage 20 miles a day now - what can we achieve in another year training, or two? Maybe a whole vacation with bikes is actually a realistic option - and since riding a bike is cheap, maybe this will bring us to Cornwall next year? Because I´d really love to get there. And we never could afford it for the six of us. But if we all rode there... that would be kinda cool! And we could start small...
I love dreaming on my bike :)
Oh, and today...
...today we had 12 kids here for a Halloween Party. Which was supposed t o be really small... well, I´ll show you tomorrow. Now, I´m off to bed, because fall break is amazing, but also exhausting :) See you tomorrow!
WAIT!
Almost forgot my music for the day:

Just found this hidden old B-Side from Sara Bareilles which I really really like. When I go out into nature, my brain usually slips into these songs I sing while riding my bike... like Mull of Kintyre, Sweet Afton, Mother Nature´s Son, Wanderlust... yeah, go ahead and laugh. It just pops up everytime I´m surrounded by trees. But I´m not pestering you with that. I´m a kind person. I´m just posting a little heartbreak-Sara. Go and enjoy :)

Two kids more and almost one foot less.

2011-10-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this is a petty blurry pic. But six kids sleeping all together in one room, well, there´s lots of movement...
So we had the little English girls over. Tim´s brother lives in London, and because his wife is a full time working midwife, and he´s got to work, as well, and daycare is closed, he just sat his girls on a plane and let them visit their various German relatives.
And that´s quite fun.
It´s totally adorable to hear them chatter in their mixture of English and German, and to hear our kids react to that, in their own weired mixture of English and German.
It also is adorable to watch Eva play the big mommie for her youngest cousin, Zoe - she practically carried her around all day long.

And she is one strong headed little cutie pie. Her bigger sister is only seven months older than our twins, so they made a nice team, too:

Though she gets along with our Ronnie pretty well, too. Sometimes too well. Shortly after we picked them up on the airport,

Ronnie and Khaya decided they had to run away, rush down the escalator stairs while I was still pushing the pram with Zoe and Tim and his brother were taking care of the twins, and then - Ronja´s boot got stuck in the escalator stairs. Luckily, only her boot, and Tim and I could pull her out before her foot followed, but that one moment, we were, all 9 of us, screaming simoultaniously, because we thought she´d loose her foot in those escalotor stairs. Puh. That was pretty scary. And thankfully calmed all the six kids down for the rest of the way home...

...and this is more my kind of dangerous adventure, anyway.
Tim´s brother had just come back from Japan, so he brought us intersesting sweets:

They consist of some sort of jelly filled with a bean paste... and taste peculiar to European taste buds. But they came in a box that was so beautiful I´m going to hang it on our wall:

And if you happen to be a Japanese reader and now chuckle, well, that is fine :) As long as you post me in the comment section what the writing means...

So, all in all, we had quite a nice weekend, with lots of sunshine, lots of loud and happy kids, lots of good food and drink and talk and music and lots of fresh air. At one point, my friend with her daughter came over, and we spent a nice long time on the balcony, chatting. And the seven kids... well, you really couldn´t hear them. They must have enjoyed themselves :)

I´m trying to leave you ith a pic of all the kids around the kitchen table, but for some reason google is really annoying at the moment, so I just go for a nice song instead, and try to add the picture later.

Song:

This song reminds me of Tory Amons, and that´s a good thing.

Fall break!

2011-10-21T02:28:00.000-07:00

Oh, I´m so relieved it´s finally fall break!
Those last weeks have been heavy, with Eva on her new school, practising biology terms, practising the piano and the violin, solving math tasks until late at night, writing essays, even practising rope skipping in our living room, not for fun, of course, but to get good grades in sport. And, oh, all those french vocab´s are killing us. Eva is such a perfectionist, I wish she´d once loosen a little up and be a little more like her younger sister Ronja, who´s a happy chap, totally untidy, forgets her stuff everywhere, but still gets excellent grades without even trying - probably because she doesn´t try at all. She´s just happy-bouncy and everything falls into her lap.
I worked quite a lot in school these days, too. Yesterday, I was in charge of 60 kids, well, together with two other women. We built a paper town, I did some magic tricks and read a story, but of course, between all the checking who´s still there and who has to be sent home at a certain time and who gets picked up by his gran-stuff, and all the "He-hit-me-so-he-gets-a-time-out"-stuff, I didn´t find the time to take a pic.
Only when it was really late, and most of them had allready been taken home, I found this nice and quiet moment in the storm:

Those are great kids, on the pic. They all are. I love my kids in school, and I´ll miss them during fall break (though some of them, I might see anyways).
What I won´t miss is the early getting up, the cycling through the rain, the not-seeing my own kids before sun goes down, and the unnaturally forced structure of days.
I´m looking forward to sleeping out long, doing lots of crafts, going out into nature, finding more time for blogging and taking photos, and screwing all the vocabs. Well, not the last part. We´ll still be practising some french, I guess.
But for now, we´re taking a deep breath.

See the rainbow? Oh, it looked so much better in reality, it even was a double rainbow, if you look closely, you might see the second one - but it was really hard to capture it on picture. But when we saw it, we all ran outside, onto the muddy field, and I think Miro stood there in the rain for 20 minutes, with his mouth gaping open, because he had never seen a rainbow before, and thought they´d only exist in books.

Tomorrow, Tim´s brother from London comes over, with his two little English girls. I´m off to make the beds and bake some cupcakes :)
Leaving you with Rufus Wainwright:

I love love love the story in the song. I googled the lyrics when I found it, and read them aloud to Tim. They taste delicious, those words, how they tangle in my mouth, and I also love how you can actually see fire fall from the sky when he begins to rock it off in the midlly of the song. Great piece of art, it is.

Sorry...

2011-10-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

...for not posting anything those last couple of days.
One reason is, I just wanted to keep that picture up front - the one with the magic hut. I like it so much that I didn´t want to replace it with a new one. So, in case you haven´t seen it, just scroll down and let your jaw hit the keyboard ;)
The other reason is, I was plenty busy last week, and most of the time I forgot my camera. Plus, it was rainy, anyways.
I´ve read to very nice and calm kids in the library, Astrid Lindgren, because it´s one of my personal missions to promote her as much as possible. I went to school, everyday, taught counting and rudimentary reading skills and how to stroke a guitar and how to form elephants from baker´s clay and how to make learning clocks from old CD´s, and enjoyed myself.
Also, I went to theatre with my husband and two good old friends, they played a short story by Nick Hornby, and in addition, I´ve been reading his book Slam, my friend found it on a fleamarket and gave it to me, and just like every other book from him, it leaves me with a gentle, peaceful glow.
Then I´ve been around painting chairs again:

I still feel like it lacks something. I´ve got to look at it for a while and ponder, I guess.

We tried to make crazy cookies:

And I finally found those Mini-Marshmallows in the store, you can only get them around Halloween over here, and I wanted to have them ever since I found out you can use them for this:

Oh, and of course I cleaned the house, half heartedly, between making all sorts of messes. It´s a good thing I have help:

So, this was my week. Lot´s of little things, but really not much to blog about.

Ah, and of course I got lost in Ed Sheeran´s music:

The way this song explodes around minute 4 is a-mazing.

And now I go back into my strange novel, of which I still don´t know the end. Sigh. Out to smoke a nice Gaulloises while pondering in the cold.

*Update on the Burrow

2011-10-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

I´m glad you asked:

Yes, we went there again :)

Met the wizards and got a guided tour through the whole thing. Actually, it´s pretty solid.

And you have a beautiful view from the top.

It was completely built by a gang of teenage boys, the eldest being 17, but most of them between 12 and 14, no adults involved at all, and without a ladder.
And... it even has a chimney:

Which our own house hasn´t. I´m really, really blown away. So are my girls, who now run back and forth from our house to this, bringing the boys all sorts of old panels they can find in our basement. One last look:

I think we just fell in love today :)

The Burrow

2011-10-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

We took a walk across the fields behind our house yesterday.

Can you see Ronja flying over the field? It´s been freshly harvested, and we had Couchsurfers over - two friendly cooks from not far from where we live, actually. Anyways, when we have Couchsurfers, we like to show them the most beautiful places of our town, and we are convinced that the most beautiful place anywhere is... the fields behind our house :)

So we took a nice long walk, and suddenly, completely unexpected and about 200 metres away from our backyard, popped up this:

So, what is it? It´s not a treehouse, because it isn´t attached to a tree. It´s no hut, either, because it´s about three times higher than a normal hut - I´d estimate it´s around 6 or seven metres.
It´s so beautiful:

I don´t know who built this. But I want to get to know this person. Or, wizard. Because it surely has to be magic that holds all those pallets, trunks, boards, fences together.

And I´m convinced you´d need magic to live there, too - I mean, how are you supposed to climb on there? Walk over those fragile little twigs, building the upper balcony? Someone obviously made this, and it´s like a sweet secret I´d like to uncover.
It´s not exactly a place for kids whose parents overobsess with safety...

But maybe... this is all just a disguise. You know, because we´re muggles. And can´t see right. If we saw right through it... who knows, maybe it holds a lot of fancy, bohemian rooms, a whole library and a jacuzzi? Who knows? Maybe, this afternoon, I´ll try to climb up there. Might break my old bones, but we´ll see.
Oh, and Ronja was so amazed she spent the rest of the day carrying wood into our backyard, trying to cut it with a saw until her little hands hurt.
Yeah, I got to get to know that architect. Screw the Cathedral in Cologne, this impresses me a lot more :)

And I mentioned the Lama yesterday? This is the Lama:

Two of our eldest friends treated our girls with a four hour long guided Lama tour through the woods. That´s that. It doesn´t really fit into this post, but since this is sort of my diary, it just has to go in :)
Music:

I am so not sorry I´m posting yet another Ed Sheeran video. I adore this guy. Best musician I´ve discovered this year, hands down. In many ways he reminds me of Jason Mraz, because his music is so chill, crossing all genres, and his rapping is fun and his lyrics are both witty and touching and tear-inducing. I really couldn´t decide which song to pick today, so I just picked two:

I can´t believe he wrote this when he was 16. I bet he´s secretely a wizard, too.

Painting the world

2011-10-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

Or, at least a chair - I´ve been working on this chair for the whole last week, and though it´s not quite finished yet, I love how it begins to look:

I think it still needs more color, and more gold! And, of course, some laque to finish it.

Wnat to know about the chairs in the background? No? I´m still telling you :)
The red one had been spraypainted by my younger brother, around five years ago, while the one I´m using as a tray was painted by my kids some months ago.

And the chair I´m sitting on, in the pic above? I painted it a long, long time ago, when Eva was around two years old, and that´s why it has got an ugly teddybear on it. So today, I sanded it:

I´m all for sanding chairs while wearing nylons. Or... let Miro take the wheel:

But back to the painting - since this is the title of the post... since we had the acrylic paint out, anyways, Ronja made a couple of toilet paper owls plus a matching forest:

And Eva and I both added a little more touches to our gurd-matrioshkas:

I messed up the eyes, really. I should have waited until I had a thinner brush. Sigh.

By the way, I did the dots on her blue apron with Q-tips, which are a nice painting devide if you aim for little, round dots.
Another nice tip:

Use old danones to hold the paint. That way, you have small portions, and covered with foil, it stays fresh for weeks, a lot longer than left on a plate. Also, you can carry them all at once, which makes cleaning up for dinner a lot quicker.

Other than that? This weekend, we had Couchsurfers over again, and friends, and the girls met some Lamas and we found The Burrow in the back of our houses, just in disguise. We´re all coughing, it´s wet and windy, and I made punch and pumpkin soup, and apple pie. I´ll show you tomorrow :)
Music:

This intro alone is beautiful enough to tear me up. Very nice video, too.

Garbage finds

2011-10-06T01:59:00.000-07:00

Don´t you just love them?

Last Sunday, my neighbour/friend/pianoteacher called, just to tell me she saw some marvellous garbage by the road and thought I might like it. See, I have a reputation by now :)
And I love to talk to the former owners of my new treasures. See, the bench in the picture above my kids are so eagerly cleaning? It was made, around 60 years ago, from prison inmates of the prison in our town. The actual prison has just been torn down three years ago, and the ground on which it stood had actually been a spot we considered moving to with our family. The father of the lady who put this piece out on the street had worked in this prison, and brought her the bench for Christmas when she was 4 years old. Like my twins are now.

I think that´s really, really cool. And my kids liked the bench so much they invited the neighbours over and constructed a whole party around it:

And yeah, they found the little table, too. And I didn´t really want them to carry it home. But they did, anyways, secretely. And I must admit that I´m kind of proud of them :)

But this was not my best find. My best find was this:

Seriously? On the waste? Solid, engraved wood, from the 1950´s, bought on an early vacation to Italy? This piece is history, man, and if I hadn´t taken it in, it would now be crushed on the waste! Really?

Just look at how artfully the drawers swing open:

I now have a nice and neat place to put all those loose harp, guitar and mandolin strins into, they were really looking messy on the piano :)

I love how posh and sophisticateds this little piece of furniture looks. Definately adds a fancy glow to our Ikea-collection!

Music for today:

I´m still listening to Ed Sheeran. I´ve got a bad, annoying cough, so I stayed at home yesterday, and today, Eva and I are both at home, because she´s got that nasty cough now, too. Guess that´s the price for all the jumping around naked through the water last weekend... sigh :)

But listening to this versatile, creative, swinging artist with his brilliant to the spot lyrics really picked me up yesterday. I mean... When I´m missing you, I´ll stop eating food, and I´ll squeeze into a dress, so I can be like you, and feel all your bitterness... sung by a man... and then with this nice rhythm... it´s unusual and creative, and quite cute, too, I think.

Joyfull

2011-10-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

I´m still amazed and enthusiastic about the completely unexpected piece of summer that fell into our laps, right now, in October. I mean, just look at this:

Does this look like October to you? Nope, to me neither.
But we´re using every minute of it, man, we are.

Our twins went to visit their grandparents all by themselves this weekend, for the first time, and all went well. In addition, that meant that Eva, Ronja and me finally had time again for an extended girl´s night - so on friday night, I took the girls out to Sauna. They were amazed by every little detail, even by the hairdryers in the dresser, they loved the icecube tub and the smell of the Finish Sauna, the tea and the little ice-shots they were served afterwards, and the ability to stroll naked through a park. We giggled in the jaccuzi und swam naked in the outdoorpool, while the sun went down - and I remember floating in the pool, totally relaxed, with Ronja splashing around me and Eva happily chatting along, gazing at the shilouette of the trees in front of the sky, thinking this must be one of the most perfect moments in my life.

And then came Saturday, and Tim suggested we´d all head over to Bonn.
Bonn, just in case you don´t know, is our country´s former capital, a smooth and clean and polished little town, and this weekend, the annual reunion celebration took place there. Oh, Big Party! I´m so not a patriot. But the peaceful reunion of our country 20 years ago, that actually is something that makes me... not proud, because I didn´t accomplish it. But happy.
We did a little sightseeing,

witnessed a terrific pianist playing Beethoven,

walked past the glistening Rhine,

and enjoyed all the various streetartists. Several bands played on several stages, and at one point, I found myself throwing my purse to a lamppost, and dancing waltz with my husband around the whole big plaza until I got dizzy, while a fun band from Cologne played some happy folk music, and Ronja danced around like a wildchick.

And I thought to myself that this, for sure, must be one of the most perfect moments in my life.

And then we got our boys back, and today, we cycled along the river behind our hose. And everytime I go there, I wonder why I even bother to spend money going on vacation, when I live here. We visited the cows,

and the horses,

and at one point, we threw the bikes in a bush, kicked off our shoes, and went into the river, for one last time this year. The kids threw stones, and canoes passed along,

and Tim practised with his new Devil´s Stick he got, and I collected seeds of funny plants, and Eva sang cheesy songs.

And I found myself thinking, this must be one of the most perfect moments in my life.

Also, I sew some pants for myself, found some fine treasures on the waste I´ll tell you about later, got a lot of mosquito bites on my legs, spent a lot of time sitting in the sun playing my guitar, so my fingers now feel kind of fluffy, did not do the weekly grocery shopping, and did not clean the house.

So, for this (extended) weekend, I just feel showered in JOY.

Oh, and there´s a new Ed Sheeran song out, as well:

This life is just so delicious!

Late summer, short skirts, henna hands.

2011-09-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

Oh what gorgeous days we had this week! It was summery hot, we could wear our short dresses and hang out in our favourite spot, the green meadow behind our house:

Yeah, I know I´ve posted about this place before. But hey, I just love it. Grass, kneehigh at last, to roll through, always berries or nuts to pick, horses passing by, cows nearby to eat grass from your outstretched hand, and the perfect climbing trees. Usually, the girls sit with me,

and we chat a little, or I read or think up stories, try to blowwhistle on blades of grass, while the boys do what boys do - run, run, run.
Makes them nicely tired :)
I hid some chocolate in a tree, and Ronja made a scavenger hunt writing directions with chalk on the street, and hanging little threads in the trees.
I love the color the wine has right now:

And I love the colors of the skirt I made for Ronni:

I´m still thinking about adding more ruffles. I´ve got fabric scraps in a nice yellow and green shade, so I could add another layer, on top of the blue layer. But I´m scared I´ll spoil it, I like it the way it is right now.

And since it´s been a couple of days since I posted last - the weekend was quite fine, too.
It was partytime in our kindergarden, and one of the moms had brought some henna:

and, very artistically, painted all the little girls´ hands. And all the mothers´ hands. And little boys hands´. Well, almost all, because when she got tired of it, she asked me to step in, which I, very happily, did:

Poor kids who got me :) I really don´t see a career as a proffessional henna tattoo artist in my future - I´m just not good enough at drawing. But it was so much fun! And I love the fading Henna design on my right hand, and the fact that almost every person connected to this kindergarten has the same. Nice for bonding :)

Music for today:

Ah, I love the Smith twins! They are getting better and better, and I think this song suits Lindsey´s voice really well. More people should know them... so go ahead. Click the video and be nicely surprised :)

September Impressions

2011-09-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

September means:

There are pumpkins to make soup from. (and peanut butter cupcakes on the counter, can you spot them?)

There are tangerines to make oil lamps from!

Though, the photo I took of the one we made in March looked a lot better:

It also is (almost) cold enough to wear fleece sweaters again:

Yeah, I made them! Both the boys and the sweaters :)

Oh, and then there is school. The omnipresent, liveeating institution of SCHOOL.
School has started again. Eva is very busy with her new school, incredibly eager to get everything right, following me to the laundy room to ask her numbers in french and mathematical terms, sitting at our kitchen table all day long marking maps and writing essays, and when I force her to take a break, she goes to the computer to practise some English vocabulary.

Ronja is working on a project about France, they could pick any European country, so she, of course, picked France. Eva, this little clone of mine, she picked Britain, two years ago. But I took Ronja to Calais, and to Paris, so for her, France is the greatest country ever. Ronja´s always such a rebel ;)

So I´ll be making Croissants next week, and we´re googling and printing stuff and typing stuff, and collecting our treaures from Paris:

At this point, it´s quite a loose collection, though.

I have also started school again, I´m in a class with 28 cute little kids all very fuzzy and new to everything, eager to learn, but not used to it, and though it is a pleasure to watch them develop, it sure is exhausting at the moment. And there´s the party at kindergarten to organize, tomorrow. And four parents - teacher information nights in one week. And I´m reading in the library, this afternoon. Ronja has her first piano lesson this afternoon, and Eva has her first rehearsal in her "band" today - they are a group of 5 kids, aged 9-12, who are supposed to play folk influenced pop music - meaning Taylor Swift. Eva is enthusiastic, I just think I should pull the brakes at some point.

Furthermore, September means I´ve got a nasty cold, I got stuck around page 100 of my third sequel, we´ve got a hedgehog in our garden who comes every night and enjoys the food the cat left, making noises so loud you´d believe there´s some hedgehog - rock´n roll party out there, I enjoy cuddling up with my husband and watching the Big Bag Theory at night, and I´m allready planning Christmas. Oh, of course I am!!!
Music for today:

Can´t get enough of the Wailin´Jennys. Perfect harmonies, those girls have, and I really dig those lyrics! It´s pure poetry!

Tracing patterns

2011-09-19T12:52:00.000-07:00

Oh, ´t was fabric fair yesterday! Wooo-hooot!

I got lots of little, bright scraps, those tiny quilting quarters. Plan a) is to use stripes of them to make a ruffled skirt for Ronni. Plan b) is to use the scraps to make another, even longer bunting-banner.

But well, before I´m doing this, I have to do my traditional, every year sweater marathon.
I promised my kids their yearly sweaters, and they are still in an age where they actually desire them and, even more fascinating, proudly display them in school and kindergarten. So, this is awesome, hence I also got some fleece, my favourite fabric to work with, anyway:

Fleece is cheap and doesn´t fray and goes through the washing mashine easily. In fact, all of the around 10 sweaters I made so far are still in use, apart from the one in the size for 2 year olds - but Mehmet and MIro are still wearing their sweaters from last year, and the year before, on heavy rotation.

So today, I was tracing patterns...

...while Mehmet and Miro were eager collecting every single scrap, for the bed they built for their little cow.

I´m still not finished, though, and it will take some days to assemble them. Especially the embellishments on this one are a real p.i.t.a. :

Sewing on all those tiny flames are quite annoying. But if I finish those sweaters, yeah, my twins will be the coolest guys kindergarten has ever seen. Not that they aren´t, anyways :)

So now I´m contemplating whether to go back to my sewing machine, go back into book three of my egocentric therapeutic novel, or just watch the newest episodes of Britain´s got Talent on youtube... well, that was an outing, wasn´t it? I dispise the german format of this series, but I love the british one. Wrap it in a Union Jack, you can sell me pretty much everything ;)

Speaking of British, I´m still listening to the very fine british band Take That:

This is so cheerfull and bright and uplifting! Just can´t get over how much I adore this song. And pretty much every other song on all of the three albums they released after their break up. Oh, and on the three before. Maybe I just go and watch some more Take That videos, since hubs isn´t home :)))

Paperthin

2011-09-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, we´ve been a lot into playing with paper.

We made this little pond, and the frog family. See the evil origami owl peeping through the grass?
And we made storks, too, because my boys demanded some action.

Ronja whipped up snail mail,

so I made her reply snails.

And we printed a lot. Boy, there are gorgeous free printables on the net.
Thanks to pinterest, I can find them all, save them on my Papertoy board and print them whenever my kids start fighting and I reckon they need something to do.
We can´t print on cardstock, because we´ve got an old, crappy printer, but we do have gluesticks, so all is well.

My twins really enjoyed the gnomes I found over here.
They worked hard cutting them all out...

(and yeah, they still like cutting their own hair, too...)
and now gnome family lives happily in the paper house I bought in Moscow...

...riding the July calender camper van, that can be found over here.
Oh, and the little beds, and the sheet you can see in the background, that´s a pretty goldilocks sheet, that can be found here.
That is, they only live there if they don´t move in with the knights:

Though, for me, the very best printable papertoys are the ones from The Toymaker. Just look:

This chocolate truck can actually move.

And they have all those little boxes with windows showing some artsy designs on the inside... and fairy furniture and fingerpuppets... I think this is the first time I´ve posted pictures that I didn´t take (except for all the music videos, of course!), but I feel like I should share my findings.
Now, go, hop over there and get your printer ready :)

But well, if you like, enjoy some really fine music before. The obvious music choice for this post is this:

Did I mention I´ll see him live, November 15th in Dortmund? And the really great thing is, he´s coming as the opening act for Boyce Avenue. So, that´s two youtube legends for the price of one! Yay!

Random loves

2011-09-13T03:26:00.000-07:00

The paper castle I found in a thrift store for 50 cent and assembled with Mehmet and Miro...

Horse carriages regularily passing by my kitchen window...

Turquoise owl ice cubes I made with Ronja...

And my new mustard yellow leg warmers.

Frozen banana bites covered in white chocolate, with sprinkles on top...

...and late night candle light reading sessions with my girls - though I´ve got no idea why Ronni is shirtless. Maybe because she´s Ronni.

And the first sugar cookies of this year´s season.

This video clip. If you´re from outside Europe, you might not recognize this band, but man, they were really, really big over here when I was in my teenyears.
And it makes me blush because I remember all the videos parodied in it, and they do look ridicoulous now, but back then, in the 90´s, they looked a hell lotta hot. Makes me also realize where I got many of my fashion inspiration from, including my love for big, black boots. I did have such a huge silver cross pendant. And I still do have the dolphin tattoo the fattie in the white shirt is sporting whilst playing in the sandbox. And the chorus makes me jump through my kitchen, it seems to sparkle with joy, but at the same time, there´s an underlying sadness that runs deep. Man, I love riding my bike through town, shouting "I feel myself falling, I´m feeling happy now!"

Eva...

2011-09-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

is now officially...

...in fifth grade, at a new schoool.

She´s a big girl now, and she looks like it, as well.
She´s been excited for months now, but in the night before her first day, she woke up at three and couldn´t get to sleep until seven. She is very, very ambitious, and still in the phase where she´s begging her teachers to give her more homework, and where she´s overly anxious about doing everything correct, having all her things neat and tidy... well, maybe that isn´t just a phase. Eva has always been like that.
Fortunately, she´s not the only one in her new school who seems to work that way. She is in a german/french bilingual class, and of course they´ll continue teaching them English, too, so it´s a class with many little girls who all love to read and to talk and are quick and clever with words. She allready applied for choir and theatre and orchestra.
It is, I hope, the exact place my Eva can be happy at. I am utterly thankful she allready seems to have found a group of four other girls in her class she likes hanging out with, and as long as she feels happy, I don´t care so much if she ever learns french.
Well, maybe I was just as excited as she was this week. I might as well admit it. And I am something else:
I am so completely, totally over the top proud it´s reallly pathetic. But to see this young lady growing and chosing her own school and following the path she found all by herself makes me wish I was allowed to think of her as the biggest accomplishment I ever made in my whole life.

So, bring on the sweets!

Music for today:

I love Gavin Mikhail, plus I love Coldplay, plus I love this song especially. And in this song, I think his piano playing is mindblowing and outstanding, and very uplifting.I love how he always shouts his songs with this almost-over-the-top-passion. And I´d really love to seem him live in concert one day.

The Castle

2011-09-10T05:22:00.000-07:00

Last week, I ordered a huge map of the world on amazon, to hang it onto our kitchen wall and pin photos to it, as to showcase where we went, and where all our visitors came from.
I ordered it on Amazon, and they were so kind to deliver it in a box as huge that one of my twins fit´s in with ease.
So, well, we had to do something with this beautiful box, right? That´s why it became The Castle:

Originally, I had intended to paint bricks on it, and ivory, and maybe a little family crest as a color blotch. A classic fairy tale tower.
Didn´t think about my kids when I imagined this :)

We each painted one side (Eva wasn´t home that day, so it was one for me, as well!), and the side above is Ronja´s side - I love how she made clouds by spreading white paint with her bare hands.

Oh, and Mehmet painted this dragon. All by himself. I think it´s the coolest thing he´s ever drawn so far, and now he´s constantly proclaiming he´ll be a big artist someday.
We cut in a door, for the twins to fit through. Which they do:

So running to The Castle is now the first thing they do in the morning, and the first they do when they get home from Kindergarden. Which has, by the way, started last week. So, summer is supposed to be officially over now.
Just this year, I refuse. Summer will be all year long over here, I decided. So be it.
Music for the day:

Just found her, because she did some collabs with Chris Thile, my hero. After knowing every piece Thile did by heart, it´s quite nice to find similar music I yet have to discover thoroughly. Like a new door that opens unexpectedly, in music-land.

Paper Parasols.

2011-09-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

I love them. Bright, colorful, cheap and versatile. I made this wreath some months ago, you might remember it, or maybe you´ve just seen it somewhere on the net, there are quite a lot of versions of this:

I´ve been such a black and white person during the last years, but this year, I really begin to appreciate the beauty of all shades of the rainbow, and this project is just adding one more colorsplash to our home.

And I´m loving this wreath so much I made it something to go with:

This baby took quite a while, and it got finished shortly before we went to Moscow. Basically, you cut off the sticks of the paperparasols, and glue them, with a hot glue gun, to a white rice paper lantern. I stole mine from Miro´s room. Souns simple.
But it´s quite timeconsuming. It took me several afternoons, especially because I underestimated the amount of parasols needed (I needed around 150), and because apparently they aren´t equally colordevided in their packs - there are always more red parasols than any other color. And since I didn´t want same colors to touch, I had to buy quite a lot of parasol packs.
But hey, my kids liked sorting them for me, opening them and snipping off the little sticks.
And the result?

I really like it. And it looks a lot better in real life than on the pic. But maybe you go and try this yourselves?

Music for today?

I hadn´t known this song until I found it yesterday in some craft video about folding stars. It was in the charts, actually, at some point of history, and I think it really deserves it, because it´s awesome! I´m surrounded by Tyrranosaurs Rex and Transformers all day long, oh, I can so relate to this!

In Moscow you find...

2011-08-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

turquois in every shade, at every corner.

Stalin look-a-likes taking pictures with tourists in the underground, casually.

Farmers-markets that blow you away with their diversity.

Cathedrals that once had been blown to the ground in Soviet era, and then were re-built as soon as possible, in an enthusiastic, gloriuos way that´s hard to imagine for western europeans.

Kittens being sold at noisy high traffic roads.

Art Deco. In heaps.

And graffitti.

An orthodox service held on the stairs in front of a movie theatre.

Starbucks coffee, just as all the other western franchise companies, usually with their logos transferred phonetically into kyrillic.

Impressive soviet art in every, and by that I mean really every metro station, they feature marble and mosaics and huge murals and giant chandeliers even in the outskirts.

Georgian tschau-tschjella, that´s a sweet made of nuts, drawn on a string, hung to the ceiling and being treated with a mixture of wine and gelantine, available with white and red wine, the death of my teeth, and lots of other fascinating food.

And... of course... Masha and her little Eva in their tiny flat in the 13th floor in a typical Moscovian concrete skyscraper, stashed with books and toys, where we immidiatle felt at home. A lot more than in the fancy hotel. Yay for Couchsurfing, again. Masha and I were similar to a point that was unreal, so I´m not sure if it counts as an intercultural experience when the person you meet practically thinks identintical, but it sure was very beautiful. And oh, she can make a coffee, this Masha, and blini..., hmmmm! And I loved cuddling her Eva, while my Eva was not available.

Furthermore, in Moscow you can find air so tight you can cut it, prices far above western European level going along with wages far below it,

very educated young kids whose parents are struggling to make a living,

friendly, intellectual people eager to show you around, incredibly generous and very open,

soldiers who lost all four limbs, but crawl through the underground without even a wheelchair,

the Kremlin so clean and smooth it feels unreal,

old women, in their eighties, sitting on the street selling fruit from their gardens,

many uniformed policemen,

the orthodox church bursting in bright, shining colors, with sparkling golden kupples,

drunken men falling off benches at noon,

street musicians and construction sites and traffic jam.

Moscow really is a metropol, and probably it´s the most metropolian metropol I came across so far. It´s diverse and colorful, it´s vibrant and scary and beautiful at the same time.

Just so you know.

And just so I can remember.

Music:

I like the "I got an atlas in my hand" line. On the plane back, we met some british guys who just flew back home after participating in the mongol-rally, and they told us their stories about driving a tiny car from Britain to Mongolia, crossing Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and Kazastan, and it was such a pleasure to listen to them. This world is such a huge, gigantic place. And at the same time, it´s pretty small. There are so many things I still need to see and do. Right now, I´m off to answer Masha´s mail. Make cookie dough with my kids, ignoring my toothache. And update my couchsurfing profile on available :)

I am in Moscow :)

2011-08-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

And I wanted to see the Basilika in real life ever since I was a kid.
Moscow rocks!
It is quite hard to write with this cyrillic keyboard, but I just wanted to let you all know that it is pretty fine here! I kissed my kids goodbye yesterday morning, left them in the care of their grandparents for this one week, and joined my husband on his business trip to Moscow. Oh, and business trips are so glamourous! I feel like the first lady, though not dressed up enough, but we are staying in a hotel like I never stayed in before, one where uniformed men hold the door open for you and you get served chocolate fondue for breakfast.
So today, Tim is working, and I am checking out Moscow. I am typing this in a small internetcafe under the Red Square, so let s make this quick:
Today I walked all over Moscow. I visited at least ten beautiful, mindblowing orthodox churches. In a little one, I even had a nice chat with the priest there, who talked to me in russian for half an hour, and I didn t understand the slightest bit, but he was very enthusiastic, and he gave me a little icon as a goodbypresent. I watched streetmusicians, street painters, visited a fair for toys and several bookstores, metro stations, the science museum, took heaps of pictures and felt blown awaz by the colors here. Oh, the the Moscovian people pull off bright and colourfull like no other nation I came across yet. And it is loud here, loud and busy and very metropolitan. I wish the connection was faster, so I could upload more pics, but you ll get them, later. When we re home.
We will stay in this luxoury hotel for one more night, and then we are going to meet Masha and Max, with their little daughter Eva - fellow couchsurfers, who kindly agreed to host us. Oh, I am excited! We ll be home on Monday.
So, see you all soon!

Oh, and... I got a little souvenier today, to start a tradition I wish I would have started earlier:

No music for today, since I am running out of internet time. And Moscow waits!

Awesomeness is...

2011-08-21T13:13:00.000-07:00

...having the kids clean the floor Pippi-Longstocking-style,

...having Haley from California over for a weekend and making fizzy bathbombs together with her.

...Mehmet wearing Tim´s hat.

...finally getting my second book delivered!

...breakfast with Pjotr, Marek and Dagmara, with whom I could finally speak some words of Polish again and who had wonderful clover cigarettes, not to mention interesting vodka...

...making little fork Pom-Poms with my girls.

Swimming in a river, stream upwards.

Getting some nice tan while exchanging the details of our different political systems with Haley.

...decorating a wall in our house in less than 15 minutes with some self adhesive ribbons and a sharpie...

...putting paint into my children´s hands.

Having people as amazing as Duncan and Jia jia in our house, who lived and travelled all over the world, speak tons of languages and play tons of instruments and...

...let Ronja and me (and all others of us, as well!) ride on their motorbike.

Awesomeness also is to return to blogging world. I´ve missed this, I like thinking in blogposts, and those past 10 days have been far too much fun not to be shared here.
Music:

Haley, our Californian guest, gave me a mixtape as a gift. Just so you know, mixtapes are the very best present anybody could ever give me :)
And I completely fell for this song.

Sparkling.

2011-08-11T01:52:00.000-07:00

Last night, I went to an exceptional, mindblowing and intimate concert of Vienna Teng, in a venue that was so tiny that artists and audience were literally touching, and I could have easily reached out to pick that one loose hair off her back. I felt the music resonate in my whole body and realized, once again, that music is above everything.

I somewhere read the statement that "Music can create desires that music itsself can never satisfy." And though it sounded nice in my ears, I don´t agree with it. Music can satisfy every desire, at least for me.

Imagine this, earshattering loud, filling the whole tiny room completely with it´s vibrations, washing over you like a bath of sound. I know I´m sounding pretentious, but that´s how it felt. What other drug or satisfaction could I possibly desire?

Here´s one video of "Grandmother song" I took last night:

As usually with my videos, I don´t expect you to click them, because the quality is rather poor, and the video can never be able to transport the atmosphere. But since this is my party over here, I can post it, just as a memory for myself.

Dutch inspiration

2011-08-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

So we came back from the Netherlands last week, and I brought some ideas home with me. Pinterest in my mind.

I loved this little Ape. In it´s bright multicolored mosaic look, it reminded me of the Pakistani Truck Art I found over at Khadija. Only, this is obviously not painted, but completely made from colored shells:

I loved this! I loved the whole beach bar, with it´s bright chairs and tables, contrasting with the sun-and salt bleached surrounding...

I also loved the school bus, tucked in the dunes, also used as a bar...

That day, I almost felt as if we´d be on a trip to the Caribics :)

The other day, in Amsterdam, I found this stunning bench:

I´m not sure if I´d want him to be in my house all day long, because this character is so strong he might really disturb me, but I love the idea. So I think I´d rather settle for this garden bench I saw in Den Haag:

Nice, weathered wood!
Den Haag was full of beauty.

You´d think this was in a church, right? But it was in a shopping center, and it looked a lot more beautiful in real life. And the shadows it throws on the ground on a sunny day are breathtaking! I´m thinking about a design to paint our chairs with, and this mosaic style, again, really strikes me as a great option! I´m just not sure if I´m able to work neat enough to pull it off!

But this, I can do!
It´s strips of magazines and newspapers, folded and rolled up, formed to bowls or coasters, and dipped in glue. Ronja and I found it in a fun store in Amsterdam.

We also found a most beautiful soap store there, where the clerk bathed and pampered our hands, and I almost felt guilty for not buying anything - but when he told me his body scrub consisted solely of seasalt, almond and soja oil, and a little natural flavour and food coloring, I knew what our next projct is gonna be!
Unfortunately I didn´t take a picture, but my hands where busy :)

Anyone else loving pallet crafts at the moment?

When we passed this truck on our way home, I immediately had to think about all the stunning pallet sofas, beds, planters, shoeracks and whatever you can make from these. We still have one in our garage :)

And I loved reading this on the beach. Well, I can´t actually read it. But it so made me smile!

Song for the day:

I think I´m having a serious Amy Kuney addiction at the moment. I´ve known her for quite a while now, but I still find many songs whose beauty I hadn´t realized before. I really don´t know why I used to skip this.

Done.

2011-08-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last night, I finished my second book.
Now, approximately five minutes ago, I gave it to print. 3 copies. One for me, and one for each of my readers. Now, don´t you think I only have two readers. It´s at least 5! :) But this baby, it is 940 pages heavy, so it cost quite a lot to print it, and I guess my readers just have to share.

But what´s money, when it comes to my baby.

It is the second part of the saga I began in 2009, and while the first part was highly personal, I sort of managed to distance myself from my protagonists, well, a little. Each of them is me, and each of them is someone else, and that is one reason why writing this saga is so utterly fascinating. And if I know you, there´s a good chance I heard your voice in my head while writing.

I began this part in April, 2010. In some weeks, I wrote and wrote and wrote, frantically. I wrote until I was too tired to get up, and until I got a migraine. I wrote until I felt drunk. I can´t write during the day, because it´s always loud and crowded here, so I write late at night, preferably when my husband went to bed, or in the morning hours, while the kids are at school. That is, in those cases I´m not at school myself, too. In some months, I didn´t write the slightest bit, because my mind was occupied elsewhere.

And this book doesn´t end it. It´s just a bridge, between the beginning and the end. I have a pretty nice outline of number three, the last one, in my mind, but I´m giving myself a little rest for now. I guess. It´ll take two weeks until it´s printed and delivered, maybe I´ll mangae to wait until then. I can put a booksoundtrack together in these days :)

And no, I´m not selling it. Or offering it to anyone. This is just the best hobby I´ve had in my whole life.

Campinglove

2011-08-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

So we´re home!

And what did we do?
We got stranded at a small campsite close to Den Haag.

And called this our home for a week.
And I actually, really enjoyed it, though I´m usually not such a campinglover. But maybe, that always had to do with the fact that at least one of my kids used to wake up through the night, and on a campsite, this is especially annoying. But hey, now I´ve got big kids!

I can sleep through the night!
They can even cook dinner!

We took walks at the dunes...

and collected lots of seashells...

and had long night walks at the beachpromenade with glowsticks, lanterns and campfires on tables:

We tried the most delicous Gouda we ever had...

(The pesto Gouda was to die for!)

And we bought, of course, tulip bulbs in Amsterdam...

and I´m thrilled that I´ve found that one sort that I´ve got tattooed on my shoulder, and can now plant it in our garden.

We dried our clothes on the warm car (psh! Don´t tell my father in law!)

We visited the Esher museum in Den Haag, and while the female fraction of the family highly enjoyed it, especially Miro wasn´t able to treasure the dreamlike beauty of his drawings, and behaved as if he was feeling physical pain walking through the exhibition.

So we took them to a theme park...

and Ronja rode all the rollercoasters and torture machines she could find with glee.

We flew kites at the beach....

...and marvelled at the huge variety of Vla...

(for those who don´t know - that´s a dutch pudding, quite soft and liquid, and in Germany only available in chocolate and vanilla. Can you see his jaw drop?)

We got tanned (this is the before picture :) ), and played hopscotch at the beach...

and ate fish and chips....

and ate extremely delicious cooking bananas,

fresh from the stove, and topped them with cashew butter. Dutch food, I tell you!

So, it really was quite nice :)

Furthermore, we read russian fairytales in the tent while it was pouring, found a terrific toystore in a small street in Amsterdam, showed our kids what the hardrock cafe is all about, met many dutch children, laughed really hard when Miro fell into a pond, chased some doves, were amazed by the dutch love of bikes, and Tim tried, unsuccesfully, to convince me to bungee jump. I did that allready, when I was 18, so I don´t need to as an old woman :) And I wrecked one camera, and got a new one. And I read one of the most beautiful books I know a second time, and it was even better than the first time.

And now we´re home, and I´m listening to AMy Kuney, whose music I really missed:

Fingerpaint.

2011-08-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

Painting the windows...

...is a good idea

...to fill some time while it´s raining outside...

and learn, in a very haptical way, about mixing colors.

There are a ton of recipes for homemade fingerpaint on the web, and I suppose you could also get fingerpaint of a better quality than this one, but this was brought to us from Tim after his trip to the Ukraine, so it´s special :) And it really had a nice, soft feel on it.

So, this was my last pre-written post! See you soon?

Leather purse? Sack?

2011-07-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

Or how would you call it?
This is, however, one of my "I´m on vacation" posts, so when you read this, I´m somewhere out. Don´t know where. But automatic posting is fun :)

However, do you have a chamois leather at hand? One you don´t need? Cleaning the windows works a lot easier with an old newspaper, don´t you know?
So, just grab this old piece of leather, use a small plate as a template, cut the circle, pin holes with whatever you have at hand, and weave a string through those holes.
Like so:

And then, you easy peasy, have a five minute sack to carry your small change to the kiosk, or your marbles to the playground, or whatever unique gems and treasures you might possess.
It´s fun, and I suppose you don´t need to buy anything :)
Works with felt, or any fabric that won´t fringe, just the same.

Music:

These two are very sexy, I think. And just in case you have never seen their Poison and Wine video, well, you should really have a look.

Hitting the road again!

2011-07-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

So we packed!

It´s still pouring outside, but I guess we´re super brave - we´re off to a camping trip to the Netherlands. We´re not exactly sure where we´ll land, or if we find people who´ll let all 6 of us surf their couch, or if we´ll get so soaked that we´ll be back home in two days, or if I´m going to see Amsterdam again, or if I´ll meet my little brother over there, or we´ll see the sea or whatever, we don´t have any other plan than just hitting the road with our tents and see what happens.
Oh, how I love adventures!

I´m not sure if I´ll have access to the internet, or the opportunity to use it, but if I have, I´ll post you some picks from the road.

I have, however, a few posts in my sleeve to autopost on certain days, so come over to check from time to time. Or, well, don´t.

If you read this, chances are good my view is something like this:

Maybe, just maybe, I´ll put on matching socks that don´t belong to my father in law?

And we´ll have a lovely mixtape with Vicky and the wild men competing with Biffy Clyro competing with Ingrid Michaelson.
I´m looking forward to blast this through the car, in all versions I´ve collected so far:

Pure joy, in all versions!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-27T02:20:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I take part in this, and probably also the last, since "wordless" is something I am completely unable to do.
But I just couldn´t resist posting this pic.

On wordless Wednesday, is it okay to post a music video in sign language?

Back later. With words, too.

Pins to real life

2011-07-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, here are some things I tried so far:
Pinterest version:

Looks awesome, right?
Mine we´ren´t that bad, in fact I only managed to take a picture of...

Okay, so my experience with this is:
It´s a good idea to clogg the drainage holes in the bottom with marzipan or fondant, so the batter doesn´t spill, and as you can´t peel off the pots like a paper wrapper, it´s better to eat them with a spoon. But they look stunning, sorry I forgot to take a pic!

Next pin:

And here´s our version:

We didn´t have craft sticks, just popsicle sticks. My boys did them all by themselves and fly them through their rooms at this very moment.

Next pin:

See, I hardly ever wear nailpolish. But I do remember happy paper marbeling in my childhood, and just last week, I bought lot´s of different nailpolish colors for Eva´s birthday party. So...

not that bad... but wait...

Dontcha think I totally nailed it? :)
I think I a) worked too slow, so the nailpolish could harden on the water surface, and b) wasn´t cautious enough with taping my fingers. But hey, I felt so ridicoulous taping my fingers with scotch tape...

So, music?

Anyone else in love with Nataly Dawn?

Lava

2011-07-26T02:46:00.000-07:00

I just found Pinterest last week. It is stealing time. But it also is enhancing my meal scedule, and I´ve got projects to do and projects begun galore now.
So for the moment, let me just share our breakfast table lava lamp:

It´s surprisingly simple and effective - all you need is oil, water, food coloring and something sparkly. We took magnesium tablets, Laura over at Come together kids, where I found this idea, took Alka Seltzer tablets.

So you pour oil and water into the bottle, and while it seperates, let your kids figure out why it sepearates.

So beautiful!

Now the foodcoloring....

And when everything settled down and got tinted, it´s time for the magic:

Cool, huh?

It´s summer break, sweeties! Might not feel like it, weather-wise, but still - oh, how I love to sleep long in the morning, have breakfast at 11 with all my kids around the table, have time for... I´ll show you later :)

Some summer music:

Soap and tears and farewells and anniversaries and hugs and meditation.

2011-07-22T07:01:00.000-07:00

Soap leaf with glitter and lavender, made by Ronja.

This week:
Ronja played a concert in an old peoples home.

We arrived, drenched in sweat, 20 minutes late, which apparently wasn´t a problem, because the audience needed some time to take their seats, as well. Or maybe, they were just happy to have us, so they didn´t mind. I don´t know. I listened to Ronja playing her "I like the flowers" on her harp, listened to the teenage girls from her harp class playing "River flows in you", and watched the old ladies (95 % of the audience was female). I watched the ones awake, and the ones asleep, and I pondered about what stories they´d have to tell, how they might have looked and lived and loved, just a couple of years ago, and how they feel about being in this place.

I talked to a few of them, later, after the concert, but they wanted to hear to much from me instead of telling their stories. They wanted to hear about my twins and about how life with four children is, and why we chose the harp, so they couldn´t tell me their stories.

Guess I need to come back- time will come, and I´ll walk in their shoes, so I need to be prepared.

It was our tenth wedding anniversary this week.

And this is cherry juice. 100% no alcohol.

Though, we don´t really believe in anniveraries. See, when we got married, we had allready lived together for a year, and had been a couple for 5 years. We knew it was coming, anyway, so we took the party, and it was quite a cool party, but, well, we had so many moments in our relationship that were a lot more important.

Talking about our university options on the phone, I still remember sitting on my heating in my one-room flat, and deciding we wanted to do it together. The first kiss in the tent, after I really had worked on him for quite a while. Being scared he´d get crushed stagediving on a Metallica concert. Stage diving myself, to impress him. Him cycling 50 kilometres to come help me burry my guinnea pig. Hiking through Norway, running out of food, sleeping at the Stockholm trainstation, and when I got really, really tired, he carried me on his back. Painting the kitchen of our first flat in pink, wearing nothing but underwear, and in one of the breaks, he asked me if I wanted to go to the doctor, because he figured I could be pregnant. Which I was. Ah, it´s so great to have a mathematician as a friend!

So, getting married wasn´t really a big deal. I like carrying his name. But other than that, it´s no more than a piece of paper we don´t really need.
But still, ten years is something to be proud of, so we opened a bottle of fine cherry juice.

Did you know you could add temporary tattoos to soap?

Eva and Ronja found out yesterday.
Needless to say what they spent most of the week with...

Yesterday one of our neighbours made the transition from "Eva´s piano teacher" to "my friend" when she came here, and we talked music and books for a while, and she finally helped me figuring out the missing chord to Brahm´s Waltz. In the beginning, when she came into our house, I tended to feel embarressed, because our floor looked like this:

That was before she told me I should take a photo of this scenery, because it looks like art, and we began making up stories to it. Oh, and that was before I saw her house :) She´s such a cool lady!

And the tears, and hugs, and farewells?
Well, it was Eva´s last day of primary school today.
I don´t know if leaving primary school is a common occasion for tears. As you can probably imagine after what I just stated, I didn´t cry at my own wedding.
But I cried today. So did Eva, and nearly everyone in her class, and her teachers, and even mums whose children are just firstgraders, so they still have another three years on this school. And it´s not like I am leaving this school, only Eva is.
But who said crying is rational?
The only thing to make it plausible is how we identify with this school. It has been second home for our kid´s four four years now, and it has become second home for most of us moms, too. The big majority of my friends is, at least somehow, connected to this school. So it actually isn´t this school. It´s our school.
And it felt very human, and very warm and fuzzy, to hug the mom sitting next to me, and to hug a mom from another class, and to hug crying first graders, and to hug my daughter and her best friend, and tell them to treasure this feeling, because it is very unique in a lifetime, and very human.
And to take them home and cook a huge pot of spagetti bolognese and send them off to the swimming pool.

I love being alive.

I hardly listen to german music. As you can probably guess, this was Eva´s farewell song today. What I found most amazing about it, apart from the fact it´s a total tear-drawer, if you understand the german lyrics and are in the right mood, is, that it´s sung by this particular artist.
See, back then, when I finished primary school, I remember how I went home to hide in my room, crying. And under my blanket, I listened to my brand new tape from this artist. That´s pretty cool, I think.

And if this post was too long and incoherent to follow, well, that´s okay.

Rain.

2011-07-20T01:49:00.000-07:00

Man, it did pour today. The twins and I waited for more than 30 minutes under the ballustrade of the store, hoping it would stop, until I had the genius idea to just buy raincapes. Because otherwise, we´d have never arrived home.

But hey, it was quite fun spending 30 minutes in the company of my witty, clever little sons, with nothing else to do than talking to them.

"Hey, mom! That women, she drew her umbrella like a knight his sword."
"Yeah, and when she opened it, it looked like a shield."
"But more like a Viking shield. Because they had round ones, you know?"

"Mom? When I grow up, I don´t want to become a man."

"So you´d like to stay a child?"

"No, I´d rather be a women."

"Oh. Okay. What makes you think so?"

whispering into my ear: "I want to have beautiful breasts."

"Yeah, I can see you have a point there, sweetie..."

"Mom! Look, my popsicle stick is a scuba diving tube! I can go out into the rain now without drowning!"

Both running around through the rain with their popsicle sticks in mouth.

"Mom, slugs love driving on trucks."

"Oh, do they?"

"Yeah, one climbed on my Bob the Builder truck yesterday, and then I thought, maybe it likes to be driven around a little, so I gave it a ride. And then it chuckled. In its slug language."

"What did it sound like?"

Mehmet making little high pitched chuckling noises.

"Like this."

And after I bought those capes, for the three of us, they were enthusiastically stating we are now a gang of superheroes, all with our red flying capes. And later, in the trailer, they made me stop in the middle of the street because they played they were choking. Which they weren´t. And then laughed at me. And they found a friend, while it was still raining, and stood, all three of them, around a tree to pee. And ran to get soaked under the drain.

With the weather being like this, I see a certain risk for our family vacation next week, which is not more than the idea of hitting the road and putting up our tents just somewhere, but hey, I like adventures.

And during rain, you need umbrellas, right? So I´m now going back to these:

Music to work to:

New single from Needtobreathe. Quite fine!

Project Lampshade

2011-07-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

I pondered about doing this, or something similar, for quite a while - ever since I held a hot glue gun in hand, I think.
See, originally, I needed a white rice paper baloon lamshade, for another project I´ll be writing about later. But we´re living in a small town, remember? Rural, it is. And I can´t just hop to Cologne, which is next door, just because I need a paper lamshade. Or believe that I´m needing one :)

But Miro had one in his room! Only, I couldn´t take it from him without replacing it with something equally valuable, right?

So, the lamp you see above, began it´s life as a thrift-store lamp and cost me 2 Euros (and I don´t even want to think about the circumstances of it´s production...). It was of rather poor quality, it wouldn´t hold it´s shape, unless... I glued all those objects on to stabilize it.

Which was quite fun. We basically took what we found under the stairs, in the corners, in Ronja´s junk drawers, under the beds... oh, we could make tons of those lamps, believe me! Finally all those parts and pieces have a purpose! An afterlife!

And when you arrive at this thought, can you see the possibilities? Think about a project where you´d sort the junk by colors and glueing it on after Goethe´s circle of colors? Wouldn´t that look great? Think about collecting more junk, and filling out every inch of the lamp. Think about making chandeliers, with dangling Barbie-dolls! I mean, I know it´s kind of... weired, but I can see this hanging in my kitchen, not only in a kid´s room.

And don´t stop at lampshades. A friend of mine recently told me about a similar project of his, where he began to make a table, similar to my lamp, only with objects he collected on purpose, instead of random clutter. He took objects of adoration and worship, like a little madonna figure, the favourite pony of his granddaughter, a ring, a CD, things like this, and put them under glass. And he also told me he was pondering about doing a whole clutter mosaic in the hallway of his house.

So, clutter glueing - or, making objects of art, of course - it is now. By the way, the lampshade looks nice when lighted, as well:

So... this was part one of the project lampshade.
Miro apparently loves his new lamp, and he loved picking objects. And I have his white rice paper ball lampshade, and I´ll tell you what I´m doing with it as soon as I finished it!

Music:

This guy´s great! He has tons of awesome covers on his channel, and Eva and I feel very inspired :)

Too much love will kill you - weekend review

2011-07-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

Full week, stormy, rainy weather, blurry pics, lots of people and conversation and planning and organization and hugs, and very little silence, that was my week, and that´s what this post will look like - don´t expect any quality photograpy, you´re not going to get it :)

T´was the last week of school, well, technichally, there´s still one week left, but that doesn´t count, because that´s just chilling. But this last week, it was so crowded.
I had to organize the end of term celebration for Eva´s class...

...and attend the school musical in which Ronja performed....

and read stories about knights and castles in the library...

and wrap up my computer group in school....

and I got to meet the new first graders, the first first-grader´s I´ll help teaching right from the very beginning, and I don´t even have a kid in this class myself (so, well, that´s another first for me, too!), and that made me more excited than the kids, I believe.

Tim spent three days in the Ukraine, and I got a surprise couch request from a Belgium pole-vaulter...

...and yes, I do look tired on this pic. Which might be a result of having Eva sleep in my bed since she fought with Ronja, and I just can´t sleep when a sturdy nine year old comes cuddling all night long, where I´d expect my husband to be. Or also because I stayed up until two o´clock with my guest, since she has a trainer from Saudi Arabia and a degree in law, and it was quite interesting to talk with her about criminal law versus family law versus a career as a pole vaulter.

Which is a vocabulary I had to look up in first place. I know many words about sewing and crafting, but sport isn´t exactly my first interest. She was such a slim, fragile looking person, but she had upper arms that could wrestly down most men I know, I think. So that was fun, too.

I also found a pretty cool chair on the waste...

See, I got this thing for free! Looks like a splendid throne, and it goes so well with Ronja´s harp and the old case I found last year. All I had to do was carrying it up the hill with my bike. And it´s pretty comfy, too!

And then Tim returned home...

...and brought me chocolate and cigarettes from the duty free store, and fancy Ukrainian money - did you know the currancy of the Ukraine is called Hrywnja? Well, I didn´t.

And then we spontaniously celebrated Eva´s birthday party. Her birthday is in late December, and of course we had family over then, since it´s kind of pressed between Christmas and New Years Eve. But we never had a nice, classical kids-party for her ninth birthday. She´ll change school after the summer holidays, and none of her friends will go to the same school as she will. So we thought we´d end it all with a big bang.

Which meant we rented an LCD projector and rearranged our whole living room, and invited nine little girls over to sleep here for a night. Though, when I say sleep, that´s all relative. I went up to Eva´s room at one in the morning, and at two, and the last time, at three. They had just too much fun giggling and whispering dreams into each others ears.

And before, we played with paper dolls,

and made balloon animals and pizza and popcorn, and danced in the living room to Taylor Swift, and the girls did a lot of dressing up and curling hair and painting fingernails, and now the wooden floor in Evas room got a few extra spots in pink and purple. Oh, and we watched Hannah Montana, which was a cultural experince in itsself, as well, and danced the Hoe-Down Trow-Down (was that written correctly?).

We had a huge breakfast in the morning, and they all were so ultimately cute and tired, with their make up stains and teenage clothing and crumbling temp-tats everywhere.

The last ones stayed until late in the afternoon.

But now, they are all gone, and everyone´s asleep. I just come back from a walk through the fields behind our house, oh, I will never, ever get enough of the light here, or the sound of the wind in the grass, or the feeling of the wet grass on my legs.

I never thought I was a rural person, but I think I´m turning into one. Rural in the sense of well fitted into her small town, growing her own veggies and loving the smell of fertilizer.
But maybe it´s just a side effect from all the Nick Hornby books I read this week, each of them is bound to leave the reader with a feeling of hugging the whole world.
Music:
I listened quite a lot to Ed Sheeran this week. But then I found Nick Drake, because he frequently appears in those Hornby books (I found an author who seems to be as religious about music as I am!), and I really regret I have never heard of him before - so here he is:

I love this song, because it sums up beautifully how options narrow down in a lifetime, how you could have been everything in the beginning, first, but then you pick something from this whole universe of options, just something, and because we only have quite a small lifespan, we simply can´t fit in everything. And what I like best is, this song doesn´t sound depressed about it. It sounds cheerfull and... well... like accepting it and still hugging the world.

And now, sweethearts, I´m off to bed. And Irina, I´ll mail you first thing in the morning :)

Life through a lense.

2011-07-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

Send your kid out with a camera, and see what happens :) Or, well, go out yourself, only then you´ll lose the surprise factor.

Ronja got asked by her penfriend what her town looks like. So she took my camera and off she went, and since Alicia just posted a sweet template to download, I thought I´d make her a collage. Partly because I felt like I couldn´t attach all of her photos to an email, so we had to make a selection.
And partly because it underlines the tender art factor I (the mom...) see in those pics. I mean, c´mon, which grown up thinks about taking a pic of the drain, or his own shadow with the cat showing off her features? Must be art, right?

My very favourite pic of her selection today, though, is this one:

I want this on the cover of a book. I don´t know which book, maybe I should write it. But it´s a love story, with some drama, that´s for sure :)

So, my sweethearts, this week has been incredibly busy, and I´ve only blogged about a fraction of it. I got to go to sleep now, tomorrow we´ll have 9 little girls sleeping over here for a beauty night and watching Hannah Montanna. But after that, I believe, is peace and calm and you´ll get a nice, long blogpost.

And now, let´s all drift away in some nice music:

A Love Story.

2011-07-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

I just came home from...

Yeah.
I think I´m one of those people who can connect all important events in their life to Harry Potter.

I gave the first book to my husband, as a birthday present to his 18th birthday. I had read about it in school, in the Times we had subscribed to, as an English class, and it made me wonder how a children´s book could manage to appear on the cover of Times Magazine. We had just started reading children´s books to each other, so I gave it a try.

We used to read it to each other, and fight over the second book, and when we he went to study while I was still in school, and we lived in different towns, we had to buy two copies of book three.

I remember reading book four while I was pregnant with Eva, and I remember breastfeeding Eva for hours so she´d let us read book five.

I remember reading book six with a little Ronja, and, well, with the last book, we had just had the twins, of course.

I remember watching the first movie a week before my due date, actually, truly thinking if I had a son, I´d want him to look like Draco Malfoy, even though I didn´t really like the movie. Best thing is, I don´t even blush for admitting this.

I remember the morning we had just moved, still feeling achy from lifting all the boxes, and completely tired, when we sat in the movie theatre with our friends, watching the 6th movie.

And, then, not so long ago, living through all the joy of loosing oneself and being... touched by it, through watching my girls read it for the first time, reading it aloud to them, sharing their excitement, celebrating Hogwartsparties, sewing Gryffindor robes and knitting scarfs, finally having an excuse for behaving like a mad Potterlogist, since it´s all for the children, of course :)

I check two Potter fansites pretty... regular. We own copies of the first book in five languages (so far), and the seventh book, we have 3 copies of. Just because. Someone might need them, you know?

If you look closely at the pictures of our dining room, you might see a Hogwarts crest here and there.

And did you know you can make Harry Potter sculptures of pretty much everything?

I know. I´ve tried.

And of course I didn´t like the movie. And of course I thoroughly enjoyed debating with Tim in the car.
And of course I feel more than tempted to write a complete resumée about how they spoiled the message and why they picked the wrong actors and what it says about society, but I guess you could read that everywhere. And of course I´ll be drop-dead tired tomorrow morning. And maybe I´ll regret outing myself as the complete maniac. But I guess, it doesn´t really count as an outing, since you knew this allready, didn´t you?

The great thing about Harry Potter for me was, apart from that it is brilliantly written, and teaches you so much about life and history and mankind, that it embedded me in my generation. It connected me to all those people out there who share this passion, and man, are we many. And actually, it isn´t even only my generation. My parents in law love it just the same. So do the kids in school. So do my kids.
Plus, somehow it contains characters for everyone to identify with, I mean, there´s even a mommy of twins :)

So, this movie shall be it? Ts, ts. Don´t think so. To quote one of my favourite songs (and be sure I know those lyrics by heart and can play along...)

So J.K. Rowling says she´s through - but I will never be through with you.

Feel free to share your Potter-related love stories in the comments :)

Float your boat.

2011-07-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

Hurry, so it doesn´t get lost.

Though it might get lost.

But you know...

...you can save it, if you dare following it.

Video of the day:

It´s quite nice to have a Sam Tsui video after such a long time! This is so not my genre, but I really don´t care. He can sing me anything :)

Ice and Eyes.

2011-07-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

It was really hot last week, and when Eva went to get some ice from the fridge, the following dialogue occured:

Eva: "Ugh! Mom, why´s there parsley in our icecubes?"
Me: "Well, let me see... Sheet, the bag with the parsley must have spilled... just throw them into the sink, you can´t use them."

Ronja comes, running.
"No! No, don´t you throw them away! I made them!"
Eva: "Why in the world would you freeze parsley in icecubes?"
Ronja: "They said so! In your magazine."
Me: "Ah! I´m sure they meant something like melissa, or mint. That tastes nice in fruit juice. Parsley doesn´t. I´m not sure if I want parsley in my apple juice."
Ronja: "But I didn´t make them for eating. I made them for my eyes. They said it was against puffy eyes, I´ve read that. I can show you."
Eva, laughing: "Yeah, sure. But that´s for big girls, you know, after a party. When they drank lots of wine and had a party. You never get puffy eyes, you go to bed early."
Ronja, blushing: "I don´t. Well, not always. Sometimes I read until it´s midnight. That´s why I made these."
Grabbing her icecubes, putting them back into the fridge, and off she goes.

So, that´s my girl. Reading until it´s midnight, and then curing her eyes with some herbal magazine recipe. Really, don´t know where she got that from :)
I don´t know if it works, though, I should really try.

I found Nick Hornby, and went through High Fidelity, About a boy and Long way down in the last two weeks, and he´s amazing. Right now I´m reading Juliet Naked.
If you haven´t read anything by Mr. Hornby yet, and with you, I mean you, well, then you should really consider it. He´s not only an amazing writer, but also usually ends his books on a note that makes you want to hug the whole world, and it´s still sort of realistic. I love reading him aloud, too.

Music for today:

I admire the excellent use of the loop here, I often feel like the recorded background becomes annoying after a certain period of time, but this is not the case with this song. I also admire the passion he puts into his singing, knowing how much self esteem it takes to rock off like this.

Global village.

2011-07-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

So you haven´t heard from me in the last couple of days, and I´m sorry for that, because in my mind, I had written the most awesome, sparkling posts (especially before I got this tired), I just didn´t have one minute to write them down, because everything was so crowded and colorfull and fun.
So, we got unexpected Couchsurfers again, of course, it´s always Couchsurfing these days - we´re really getting it into it at the moment.

These two girls are from Austria. But they met at the university of Guadeloupe in the Caribic, where they used to study. Now, one of them studies in Sweden and the other one in the Netherlands. You see what I mean with Global Village?

They stayed for 4 days, and it was a blast to have time to get to know them, to develop a routine together and have time to have long, long conversations about racism in Germany and voodoo in the Caribics and all our various screwed up family members.
And, as you can see, our kids got attached to them, too:

They were here for the women soccer world cup. Which was nice, since they weren´t our only guests interested in women soccer:

These two ladies rock. I mean, literally. The one on the right, she used to be second guitar player in an Australian band called Big Heavy Stuff. And she actually went to tour as the opening act of Radiohead. I´m not sure whether we are just lucky to get the coolest people of this network into our home, or if there actually only are fascinating, exciting human beings on this planet. I´m tending to the second option - the older I become, the more I seem to realize how everyone´s got a story to tell, and I feel like reading in the massive book that is human mankind. And enjoying every single page of it.

See, if you had told me, beforehand, I´d have a professional guitar player in my house, I would have freaked with excitement, since I´m such a music geek. And it was nice, having her here. But guess what?
Instead of playing guitar with her, all night long, I got my dremel tool out, because her girlfriend was even cooler. She showed me how to hold my body while engraving, and we talked about different kinds of metal and glass, and the tips you can use, but then, somehow, it got a lot deeper. It was like I met a fellow soul, even though she´s from the other side of the world, and we only got to meet for one night, we shared a lot, and I felt like she really could be one of my close friends, if she was, well, closer.

Oh, and apart from that?

My friend has mirabelles in her garden. I mean, heaps of them, not only the few ones on the pic. She hates throwing away food, so she gave tons of them to us, and with ten people in our house last week, we sort of tried to manage to eat lots of them. We mixed them with the mango and passion fruit our Austrian guests picked on Guadeloupe, on the day they took the plane to Europe, and they got ripe on the flight.

I took Ronja to her animal rescue group. Which she liked. And even though I´d never feel comfortable spending my energy on helping animals, while the human rights in this world are still so miserable, I see that different people can have different priorities. And I´m proud Ronja does have priorities. Galore.

We got to see some fun independent art in the forest close to our home, and some of the installations, I´d really love to copy for our garden:

This is a boat from driftwood, with a very beautiful sail.

Oh, and I went eating icecream with my schoolkids, ´cause I felt like celebrating. It was the most beautiful picture seeing them sitting under the trees, all with their cone in hand, but, yeah, Eva had my camera.

So...

I let them use paint a little, to help me out. In exchange for the icecream, you know?

Tim´s leaving for Kiev tomorrow.

Yeah, and now I´m tired, and feel quite hungover from all the latenight chatting and fresh air and heavy communication in two languages. It´s a good thing it´s sunday today.

And my music for today:

This is Carolyn´s band, or, was, since she says she grew out of it. I really love this song, it´s got the right amount of drama, but I feel like I´d love this even more during winter time - I feel too sunny and happy for this kind of music at the moment. Even though I´m tired.

And now my family is waiting for me, so I´ve got to say good bye for now.

But Irina, you´ll get my mail :)

No photo week

2011-07-05T05:36:00.000-07:00

So. The weather over here is brilliant, and I´ve got tons of pictures to take. In my mind, that is.
Eva went to a class trip for a week, and since she crushed her own camera, I gave her mine. And now I have to watch my boys floating paperboats on the glistening river, without being able to take a picture. As if it wasn´t enough to miss my sweet Eva, I´m now missing my camera, too. Poor me :)

Other than moaning, I went to the animal shelter with Ronja´s class yesterday, which was quite educative, and thankfully we didn´t take anyone home with us. But Ronja is going to their group this Saturday, to walk dogs and pet cats, and save the world. This is something she really loves, and as long as it keeps her from bringing her new four legged friends into this house, I´m happy.

I found her an amount of penfriends via Couchsurfing. Eva started writing to a 9 year old girl from Rotterdam a few months ago, and she´s always bursting with joy when a letter arrives, and writes long, enthusiastic letters in English, with a dedication I hadn´t thought was possible. Or, well, I had. I know my Eva.
Wait! I even took a picture of that, before I gave her my camera:

Ah, I like good old penpaling! I wrote to my hostmother for 10 years, until she moved into an old people´s home and I never heard of her again, and I still think back lovingly to my friend who only lived in our neighbourtown, but we wrote almost daily, including teabags and socks and bandaids and scented paper and condoms in our letters. Oh, those teenage years! :)

So Ronja wanted to have the same, and I opened a thread on couchsurfing, and so far we have an email penpal in Belgium, a penfriend in France and a little Indonesian girl that recently moved to Scotland whod also like to write to Ronja. Quite nice, and we´ll see how long she keeps being interested. Right now, she´d want to to write letters all day long, if that was possible.

And besides that: I´m trying to clean the house, still checking out beekeeping, still trying to plan our vacation, still fascinated by reading Nick Hornby, still trying to record my music against the normal level of welcome background noise in our house, still laughing at Mehmet when he´s shouting through town he wants to marry his friend and she smiles back politely, still laughing when Miro comes to tell me he likes the taste of the mosquito larva he picked out of the bracking water he´s collecting, and when I tell him this is icky, he announces it tastes a lot better than ants.

As for the music for today: If you listen to this, put your speakers on full volume. This deserves to be blasted through the neighbourhood!

And the video sparkles with sexappeal, don´t you think?

Project bunting banner.

2011-07-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

I wanted to sew one of these for quite a while. I saw them all over the internet, on several blogs, but the coolest I probably ever saw was one in kindergarden, one that was about 50 metres long. That really, really impressed me.

Since it was my birthday this week, I thought I´d give it a try, and it´s really easy, has a great effect on my kitchen, and cost me hardly anything, since I could use up all the fabric scraps I collected over the years. The only thing I had to buy was bias tape, in a color I liked and in the length I desired.

Here we go:

-First, cut triangles. To get it even, make a paper template, but it doesn´t have to be too accurate. That´s really nice about this project. My daughters helped cutting, too. We made many, many, many triangles, since you need two for each.

-Sew them together, right sides facing. My girls had fun helping me match the fabrics. Again, it really doesn´t have to be accurate.

- To have a nicely popping tip after turning them to the right side, it helps when you cut the tip, like this.

-After you turned them, they look like this. My sons thought I was sewing little bags to fill with sweets for them, like I did in December. Well, to flatten it a bit, and make it look a little nicer, I sewed around the edges.

Like this. I did this one hundred times. Yes, I did. I know it sounds like a project for mad people, but it actually only took 2 rainy afternoons. This project is very gratifying.

So, after you gathered all your triangles, it´s time to get out the bias tape, and string the whole thing together, like this:

Just wrap the top of your triangle between the two sides of the bias tape, and stitch over it, adding the next, and the next, and the next... and watch your new deco item grow. Again, my girls loved to match the triangles, so it was all fair and even, no color touching a similar one, no two same fabrics next to each other... it really became a complicated affair.

Well, and that´s about it.

Here is our banner after the first two hours:

I tried to take a photo of it. The problem is, I don´t manage to get it on one photo in all it´s dimensions. See:

It just doesn´t fit. The only thing this picture shows me is that I need to paint the chairs.
So, I decided to take a video of it:

Tomorrow, we´re heading to the fabric store to get more bias tape - 20 metres this time, for our garden.
Though, of course you could just make a smaller one. Or embellish the triangles, with letters, or buttons, or other applications.
For the garden banner, I´m thinking about adding little bells to the tips of the triangles, so they´ll sing in the wind. Ahhhh!
Music for today:

Sir Paul has been my hero ever since I tried to give myself a Beatles haircut at the age of nine, and actually got into trouble for it, and therefore got to understand how rebellion, and haircuts, and music, are all connected. Listening to almost everything he ever published, including his weirdo Liverpool oratorio, really helped to broaden my musical understanding and building a passion. And this video is just too funny :)

I love birthdays!

2011-07-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

At least, when they are like this one.
I got the world´s best presents from the world´s best people:

These are:
- A sensory box, made by my girls, filled with stars from pipecleaners, palms from paper and crocodiles from popsicle sticks.
- A fabric bookcover from a sweet friend, who I really hadn´t thought would come over today, but she pleasantly surprised me.
- Tickets for a comedy show in November from another friend, which is good, because in November, comedy is existential.
- Vouchers for cleaning the house, from Ronja.
-A tiny music box to fill with my own songs, working with a paper strip ypu punch holes in. This is really, really awesome, and I´m allready trying to put Taylor Swift´s Love Story on one of the paper strips. Thanks again, Majka!
-A souvenir plate from California, from our new Couchsurfing friends.
-A painted rock, from Mehmet.
-Homemade mirabelle-ginger jam, from the nice friend who thought about the comedy ticket, too.
- And a microphone to plug into my notebook, from Tim, so I can try and record my own music. I had been talking about wanting to learn how to do this for a while, so this is great. We played a lot with it today, highpitching our kid´s voices, and Ronja did a radio show, and Eva read the first chapter of Harry Potter, to make her own audiobook.
-Oh, and not in the picture, but very, very nice too is the Cello lesson Tim organized for me. I can´t wait!!!

So, really, I think the last time I had a birthday table this excessive must have been when I was six years old? This was really, really awesome!

And apart from this, it was just gorgeous sitting outside, eating cake all day long and sipping spiced tea, letting the eight children run around, making soap bubbles with cookie cutters...

and... ahem... plastic beer bottles...

And I asure you, it was alcohol free beer. And they just worked best, because you could blow through the neck.
Though, later the children went on to throwing with waterfilled ballons, getting soaked, and climbing and hiding inside the paper bin. Which is sort of Ronja´s new hobby.

So, alltogether, this was a perfect day. Seriously. I felt loved, and treasured, and beutiful today. I can age like this, easily, no sweat. This birthday was, unexpectedly, a blast. So it was really worth putting on my new fancy dress:

And I must be completely off my rocker to post this totally ridiculous picture. I guess it´s just birthday bliss?

Music for today:

A little summer rain is okay, don´t you think?

Couchsurfer heaven, volume II

2011-07-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

We just said goodbye to two nice guys from San Diego who came to visit us for a night.
What was really cool about them, apart from the fact they were sweet and friendly guests and awesome to talk to, was that the guy on the left works as an illustrator for Pixar movies. So...

...he could whip of Lightning McQueen with sidewalk chalk on our porch, to delight especially Eva, who couldn´t get enough of him drawing with her, showing her how to draw hands and Simpsons faces and teaching her about proportions and geometrical shapes.

Yeah. Just don´t mind our messy porch. I tried to tidy it up, but that´s just pointless.
It was pretty cool to talk English all night long, about religion and world politics, and then, mostly, about music, showing each other our favourite artists on youtube. We introduced them to Biffy Clyro and Katzenjammer, and we talked about bands we had seen live, it is so brilliant how international music is.
He showed us this band, formed by former members of Blink 182, and I think I really like them:

Stay tuned, ´cause there´s another post to come tonight.

This is the photo....

2011-06-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

.. I wanted to take for quite a long time:

Splash!

When I first read about Alicia´s Summer Photo Challenge, it was this I had in mind. Unfortunately, it then rained four about four weeks, and all my photos looked grey and shabby, or at least didn´t match those beautiful summer themes. But there it is!

I happily risked my 50-Euro point-and-shoot (which is, by the way, the only camera I own), to wait in front of our improvised waterslide, and man, did I get soaked to get this shot! But my camera survived, so, that´s cool.

We skipped scouts today. Which was a first. But it was freaking hot over here, and besides I had a sewing project I wanted to finish a.s.a.p., I´ll be posting about that later. We didn´t skip music lessons, though. We never, ever do.

And then we went to eat some icecream.

So I didn´t get to finish my sewing project. Yet. But the night´s still young :)

My music for today:

Love Story is a perfect song. It is. Yes, it really is. And the longer I know it, the more I´m amazed by how easy and simple it is structured, and what a great affect is achieved by it. I mean, it begins with two or three simple notes. The whole melody is pretty simple, and it is surprisingly easy to play. On all instruments.

Yet, it creates tension, and I love how the original goes one note up during the last chorus, and I love how the lyrics twist the story of Romeo and Juliet and make the listener wait for what comes next. Taylor Swift is my hero, just for composing this. I first found the original in summer 2009, and sang it for weeks. Then learned it on my guitar, and on the piano, and found I had enough of it. Then Eva began to fall in love with it. She tried to re-act the video in her room, learned it on her recorder, and then, a few months ago, on her violin. We saw this song live in concert. Heck, even my husband knows the lyrics by heart.

And in this version, I´m amazed to see it work in a cute, semi ironical rock version. Love Story for ever!

Summer

2011-06-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I feel like I´m only onehundred percent alive when the weather is like this:

When the air smells like chlorine and sweat and sunlotion...

When it´s so hot the only option is splashing and chasing little people through some cold water:

And when the light is bright enough for me to live up in my favourite mamarazzi role again:

(meaning I take pictures of my feet with every shot ;) )

And then we come home to dine outside, with lots of fresh, green stuff, Mehmet makes the salad, Ronni picks some of her sweet peas, Miro makes some dip, and Eva cuts strawberries into the grape juice.

I love this life.

Within the next weeks, we´ll be expecting Couchsurfers from California, Poland, Australia and South Carolina. Brothers, a family, a girl-couple, a single woman. I haven´t met any of them before, but I bet they are pretty cool. And will, surely, fit around our table :)

As for our own vacation, we´re still sort of rolling the dices on where to go.
But Tim and I will be going to Moscow in August, and I´m beyond thrilled. I wanted to see Moscow ever since I was in Eva´s age, and I really, really hope for stunning weather, so I can have a photographic overkill :)

Matching music:

My weekend in pictures

2011-06-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Meeting Nikki´s beautiful Nanas in Hannover

And meeting baby Paula there, too.

Finding vintage buttons on a fleamarket

And walking through what looks like one of Renoir´s pictures...

And cuddling on grandma´s couch...

And riding waveboard under palms...

and meeting people from a long gone past my husband once got drunk with, which I found very, very cute...

(and wearing tissue roses Ronni made for all of us, to celebrate their engagement)

and singing in the rain...

and riding many, many hours in the car and in the train.

So it wasn´t that bad, after all. Just like I said :)
The best thing about riding long hours in the car are the mixtapes I make, holding songs for each family member, always in a fair amount. So we have CD´s with Bad Religion followed by Bob the builder followed by Taylor Swift followed by some cheesy german pop followed by Frederick Vahle followed by this:

Oh, and you should have seen Opa´s face when he was sitting in the car with us and Eva started singing along loudly to Katy Perry´s "I kissed a girl"... to precious!

Sceduled...

2011-06-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

...social contacts are what is keeping me from blogging - we´re away for the weekend to meet newborns and future wives and cousins and grandparents.
I´ve got a chocolate cake in the oven at my mother in law´s house while all kids finally went to bed, and tomorrow I´ll spend a whole day chatting and eating, though I´d much rather be doing something else. Oh, and the day after tomorrow is just the same.

I guess being a grown up also means that one can´t bow out of meeting all the extended family members several times a year.

We have quite a lot of extended family members, and even though it feels like it´s stealing time from writing and playing the piano and hiding behind the sewing machine, I suppose I´ll like it in the end. That´s usually how it works for me. A lot of moaning in the beginning, and later, it´s all fine.

I´d like to dress this post up a little, with a photo of my girls reading on the train, but since this computer is very old, I can´t get it up. SO just imagine my two ladies, Eva dressed up in her coolest "I am a rockstar" gear, with black and red striped armwarmers and a torn yellow scarf, reading High Fidelity, and Ronja, in her usual "I don´t care what I´m wearing" outfit, reading a horror splatter story she bought herself on the fleamarket. Without commenting on my daughter´s choice of literature, I loved watching them :)

So all you get is some music:

Awesomeness :)

Things we are doing right now.

2011-06-22T02:14:00.000-07:00

- Reading.

There was a huge fleamarket in our town on Saturday. My friend and I raided the tables for books for our school´s library, since we hardly have any modern children books, but mainly donations that look as if they were older than we are. We found tons of great books, as you can see, though this is only the part I bought, and, I must admit, half of it is for me. Reading Nick Hornby´s High Fidelity is a blast, and I wonder why I never bothered to read it before.
And in the front, you see my new winter wardrobe. Fleamarket, for an estimate of 5 Euros, one skirt, two dresses, a cardingan, a fancy belt and a shirt. Very, very cool!
-Cycling through town with a harp and four kids in tow, and a violin on my back.

I had to get it tuned yesterday. Technically, I can do this myself, but it takes me more than an hour to get those 34 strings straight, and then they still sound as if they needed some finetuning.
So I took Ronja´s harp to her teacher, who needed 30 minutes to tune it.
Man, I tune my guitar in 2 minutes. Harps are not exactly the evolution of music instruments...
But we were a little sight, cycling through our small town, four kids in a row and a huge harp in the front. I like being a sight.

- Picking things.
We still enjoy eating outside. Picking cherries in my friend´s garden, picking currants in the woods, picking camomlie on the fields, picking sweet peas in our garden.
Ronja likes picking non edible things, too:

So basically, we´re doing what we´re always doing, while waiting for the sun to come out agian and strip away all those useless clothes. Except that I´m super excited because I´m close to wrapping up my second book. Which, of course, no one in the world but a handfull of close (female) friends are allowed to read. But it feels good finish something that took me more than a year.

And yes, I´m listening to music. There are so many songs I´m embracing right now that it´s really hard to pick the one I love best at the moment, but maybe it´s this one:

Breathe

2011-06-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Breathe...

and cuddle...

and pick camomile...

and fly:

That´s all a really good weekend needs.

Baklava

2011-06-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

First of all, before I say anything else, I´d like to welcome those hoards of Turkish visitors that came to my blog today - you were quite a surprise!
Apparently, there is a Turkish craft site, called 10marifet.org, and they were so very kind to feature my project wallet. I feel very honored, as I´ve always had a soft spot for your country - I visited it several times, and the people I met were warm and friendly, and Istanbul was incredible, one of the most mindblowing cities I´ve ever seen. So, well, my son is called Mehmet. And, coincidentally, I even made some Baklava today:

And it´s delicious, oh, so good, almost as good as the one you can buy in the Turkish stores over here in Germany. I got the recipe from Marzipan´s, who is not turkish. But knows a lot about desserts :)

I had planned making Baklava for a while, because I almost have a romantic relationship with this dessert. I´m not sure why, but somehow, Baklava makes me melt.
It´s still hot, and as I´m typing, I´m destroying my keyboard with crumbs of filo dough. I wish I could just hand a piece over to you, across the ocean, or just into the neighbour country, or to whereever you are.

So you are more for healthy eating?

Well, we just harvested our sweet peas, and our gooseberries, and in the forest, we found loads of currants:

Music:
This is not turkish. I seriously have no idea what language this is, or what he is singing there, but he looks like quite a funny guy.
Why this song?
The first time I was in Istanbul was for an Aiesec congress. In case you don´t know, Aiesec is a student organisation. The turkish Aiesec people were awesome, they let us sleep in their homes and showed us their beautiful town and snuggeled little blond Eva. Aiesec people all over the world like to perform strange dances. The song above is, for some reason I can´t figure out, THE Aiesec song, and it´s been a long time since I last thought of it.

Anyone else excited...

2011-06-17T14:40:00.000-07:00

for this?
We sure are!

Who needs a lunar eclipse...

2011-06-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

...when you can have this?

Did anyone else try to watch the lunar eclipse last night?
We did, when all kids were asleep, but it´s quite cloudy over here, so there was no moon to detect. Yet, what we did get was fireflies, lots of them, and grass that was waisthigh and hard to tresspass in the dark, and therefore left us giggling and with lots of moskitostitches on our bare legs.

The pic above, that´s just a photo I took, about five minutes ago, in our backyard. Because I just can´t get enough of the wide open fields, so I had to try and conservate the sunset. Which can never be an adequate substitute for the real thing.

Apart from that, I´m spending these days in school. I´m testing the reading skills of our second graders, by letting each one read for me, and I absolutely love this task, because I adore to witness how each child´s personality shines through in his or her reading style, and how 15 kids can interpret the same text in 15 different, unique ways.
I love to be the one to tell them that reading isn´t about making a theoretic construct in your head about when to raise, or to soften the voice, but about feeling the story behind the words, and then, everything else will fall into place.

I read in the library today, as well.

Yeah! My best evil pirate glare, to scare away all the little ones.
No, I´m cheating. We made eyepatches, and tiny treasureboxes, made with a free template I found over here.
Naturally, and I had my crew with me:

Na, that´s just part of my crew, of course. But evil... ha!

Um... did I ever mention I love my job? Sometimes I feel like all my life has been heading into this direction, and like it´s the only thing that makes sense - entertaining children, preferably combined with teaching them to live in literature. I sincerely hope that I´ll be able to do this until the day I die, or at least close.

And apart from that?
Well, coconut popsicles are nice, too:

So thinks Mehmet, who figured how to cut his own hair.

He says he´d like to collect a drawer full of his own, fluffy hair. Sigh. But as he definitely isn´t the first child to check this obligatory childhood experience, I think it´s quite cute. And his hair is fluffy. I totally get his point :)

So... actually I only came here tonight to share some new music with you. Well, new for me.

I love them! Such fine bluegrass, and every song I discover is a joy. Their voices remind me of Alison Krauss, and I think that is seriously the highest compliment I can pay a female singer.
Oh, and I also love this one, for it´s witty lyrics:
Listening to this, I can clearly see and smell the sailor, and instantly like him ;)

Harvest... sort of.

2011-06-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

We waited a little long with harvesting our radish. Because we couldn´t bring it over us to pull them out of the dirt - hey, Ronja even sang to them! They were our babies!

So, now they grew tree-like stems of one meter height, and taste like wood.

Which doesn´t make them less worthy in my children´s eyes, who loved to pick them tonight:

And they sang to them, while picking them, too. Bella Ciao, with an estimate of 20 verses, while I was rolling with laughter in the clover. I took a video of it, but I´ll spare you - allthough it´s really sweet. Well, at least for me, since I´m their mom ;)

Can you see all that clover? Awesome, right? We hardly ever mow our lawn, well, in fact I don´t even think it counts as "lawn", maybe it´s more of an acre. So our garden is the ony one in the whole neighbourhood that is bursting with clover. And bees. Tim and I actually talked about whether we should consider beekeeping. We have a such a huge population of bees that even Ronja puts her shoes on when she goes out - and that means something! Miro even figured out to keep an onion at hand. Once a week he yells "Mom! I need an onion. I´ve got a bee in my foot!" And then I´ll give him his onion, and five minutes later, he´s out again.
Onions are awesome against beestitches. As is ribwort. Or lemon. Just in case you didn´t know.
And I love honey!

But if you´ve read this blog for a certain time, you know that Tim and I are always considering about a million of things, of which we then actually do... about one percentage. So don´t expect us to actually jump into beekeping ;) Probably the planning stage alone is fun enough.

By the way, I love the word "clover". I think it´s one of the most poetic sounding words of the English language. There´s a song called "Fields of Clover" by the band "Sometymes Why", but since it´s not on youtube, I can´t link you up. Still, that´s one very... poetic song, too.

So for today, I´ll just go with a Dave Days song:

Which I´ve been listening to all day long. Nice, smooth, millenium rock. Sounds like Blink or Sum 41. And the video is by Kurt Hugo Schneider, who is a genius, as always.

I wish...

2011-06-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

... I was able to play like this. Or even able to fully wrap my head around how this is constructed. Or how people, again and again, manage to transport such an impact of emotion by simply stringing music notes together. I don´t get it. But I can say that I fully, completely enjoy it.

Burgfest.

2011-06-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

I love to take your hand and take you to the places I go.

Take my camera, and make you meet the people I meet.

The stiltwalkers, and the weaver,

and the potion vendor,

and the blacksmith.

(it doesn´t show in this pic, but hey, the blacksmith was one delicious looking guy :) )

I love to make you see the things I see, like the bright and colorfull tents,

and the freshly forged iron work.

Sometimes I´m stunned by the creativity and variety of what mankind comes up with in the entertainement sector. Heck, I just come back from Paris, which offered a totally different form of entertainement. Today, we listened to an earshattering bagpipe quartett.

And I didn´t take a picture of the five completely naked men sitting in a barrel, drinking mead from horns and shanting. But they made me smile.

And I love Burgfests, I always have. I don´t even know, do you have them, where you live? On the other side of the world? Grown ups dressing up and play pretending to live in another century? How do you call it? Is it Renessaince Fair? Would you tell me in the comments? If I say please?

So, this Burgfest came really handy, since, as you might remember from this and this and this recent post, my boys are quite intrigued with the middle ages at the moment. Bearing in mind these events are in no way historical correct and mix all sorts of eras, it is still very educative, and... FUN!
Miro freaked out with joy when he was allowed to use a bow,

and Mehmet couldn´t believe the friendy Viking would let him hold his huge sword.

Because that´s another thing I love about Burgfests: Somehow, the people there are always friendly, open and tolerant. I guess it takes that sort of mind to come up with the idea to dress as a Viking in first place... or does it?

So, here I had planned to only write a short post, because it was cloudy and my photos didn´t turn out as beautiful as I had hoped, and because I just come back from a neighbours birthday party and it´s really late, and here I am, writing and writing. But as I said, I just love to share the view through my eyes.

And music!
I´ll spare you the bagpipe guys. Allthough they were great. But to enjoy them, you´d need the atmosphere. The men in the barrel, you know? So, let´s go with something else:

I don´t know about you, but in my eyes, this is so gigantic and breathtakingly fine exercised it exceeds my ability to put my praise in words... does this make sense? Let´s just say I like it very much.

Eva made...

2011-06-11T02:14:00.000-07:00

This is supposed to be just a quick post before we´re off the the Renaissance fair (guess I´ll write about it later), but in between I wanted to posh around a little with the developing fashion sense of my beautiful, beautiful Eva :)
Forgive me, I´m her mom, so I naturally have to think she´s the most breathtaking being on the planet. Except for her siblings. That´s in my job description, I s´pose.
So while I´m working on those pants we started yesterday, she´s busy cutting triangles from all those scraps in my drawer she had always wanted to work with, and hemming them, to use them as bandanas.

She also made this matrioshka earring herself, from polymere clay:

And she made raspberry icecubes, too:

And she urged me to take pictures of everything, with the words "Hey mom, you take pictures of pretty much everything, so come on and put me on your blog."
Wish granted, sweetie :)
Though now, both my daughters are somewhere on their scoutscamp, sleeping in tents again and meeting scouts from all over the country, and I won´t see them before Monday. Sigh.
So I´m left with the male fraction of the family, with no one to make music with me, but lots of pillow fighting and lawn mowing and tool working.
And just because it has been such a sunny, calm morning, and, at half past eleven, technically still is, I´m finishing this post with one of my all time favourites:

I am...

2011-06-10T01:54:00.000-07:00

...feeling like the summer break needs to start right NOW.

Coming back from Paris, planning our summer family vacation to, we guess, Austria/Slowenia/Italy, packing for my girl´s scout´s camp this weekend, I don´t feel like there should be school and work and cleaning the house in between. I want to hit the road, seriously.

But it´s only a few weeks now, so I guess I can do this.

In between, I´m turning Miro into the most evil knight my kitchen has ever seen,

I am also reading, again, one of my favourite books,

It isn´t as bad as it looks. In fact, it is pretty stunning, and one of a kind. I´ve never read anything like it before, or after.

I´m also giving Eva something to work on...

That´s supposed to turn into black summer shorts. With pockets.

She has allready sewn purses, and little things, like armwarmes, but she has never worked with a pattern before. I thought she could do it on her own, so I could sit behind my desk and write cheesy prose, but she needs a lot of help, so it´s more like a mother daughter-project. Maybe I´m making one for myself, too. I´ll let you know :)

And while we were busy, Ronja raided the paper recycling bin and started building...

...the cutest little castle in the world, all on her own, and she didn´t even allow me to offer her any material, because she wanted it to be something she made completely without any help. Ronja rocks.

Furthermore, I am also not cleaning anything, and the house looks like a mess. Really, I wouldn´t open the door at the moment. Oh well, maybe I would. Did I tell you we´re expecting Couchsurfers, again? No? Well, we are.

I am also writing, writing, writing, with no particular goal, but I find my story pretty exciting at the moment. That´s another reason for the messy house.

And late at night, I´m cuddling up with my husband while we listen to Harry Potter in French.

Since Harry Potter is the book we both know probably best, and since it´s also a children´s book, we find it very usefull to learn foreign languages. We own copies of the first book in German, English, French, Polish and Norwegian, both book and audiobook. Whenever there´s something we don´t understand, it is still relatively easy to figure out what´s happening, since we both practically know the story by heart. Oh, and it´s so funny. Albus Dumledore in French... that´s bound to make me giggle :) Did you know he´s called Albus Hummlesnur in Norwegian? Even better!

But I´m rambling, again :)

When it comes to music for today, I have a hard time deciding which song to post. See, I love to listen to music while writing, because music is the best thing in the world to influence moods. But I´ve got two different main characters, whose stories sometimes intervene, but sometimes don´t, and I´m writing both at the same time, and right now, they happen to be in different moods.

So my one song is this one:

Yeah, bring out the weapons!

And yes, you geeks out there, it´s the one used in the Breaking Dawn soundtrack. That´s where I found it. But talk about music influencing moods and creating pictures, man, this is gigantic!

And just for a contrast, the other song, the one I actually like a lot more is this one:

Paris II - Louvre, with kids.

2011-06-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

We saw many, many, many things in Paris.
What I loved the most was, again, probably the Louvre.

Aren´t the reflections of the glass pyramid awesome? I mean, talk about a well done mix of traditional and contemporary architecture!

Okay, everyone loves the Louvre, for the obviuos reasons, like it´s a beautiful, gigantic building, dripping with history and telling it´s stories loud, for everyone to hear, and to top it, it´s filled with the most beautiful artefacts mankind has created. So, yes, the Louvre is pretty cool. Of course, the queues are long. We´re still in Paris.
You could buy tickets via internet, but that just wouldn´t make sense, since it´s not the actual ticket sale you have to queu up for, but the security at the entrance.
Which isn´t that bad, either, since they have a nice pool to cool your feet in during the wait:

But apart from that, I was very impressed with the prices.
I mean, we´re talking about Paris. Where you can easily pay 50 Euros for a normal meal.
A day ticket to the Louvre costs 10 Euros for me... and for children under 18, it´s completely free!
And this little thing?

It´s a multimedia guide, for children, available in pretty much every language, and it costs... two Euros! Do we have a deal?
If you plan to go to Paris, here´s a link to learn more. You can even watch some sample videos.
You can choose between two guided tours, one about ancient egypt, and one about the life at the court in the times of Louis XIII. I would have liked to take the secon option, because, after all, we were in France, but my girls decided otherwise. They like ancient egypt, apparently.
I remember, three years ago, when we actually were in egypt, and I wanted to visit the pyramides, they thought the pool at the hotel was a lot more interesting. So they promised me, next time we go to egypt, they´ll try and find a museum about renaissance France for me :)
So. We got to see the temple, and, because of that little guide, got to understand why it was built that way, and got to read what was carved into the stone.

We learned about the burial rituals, and saw bread that was 4000 years old, and a harp, that was 3500 years old, and egyptian furniture,

and learned that they believed that sickness enters the body through the left ear. We learned about their gods and their arts and met this guy:

He´s my colleague. Okay, he was reading stories to the Pharao, and I´m reading stories to the wild children of Leverkusen, but still, I felt like I could relate to his job. Painting pictures with words, that was his job, and that´s mine. Oh, and he did also write them down, his stories. I think we could have been friends.

Maybe this is something that I love the most about history. Yes, people 4000 years ago were very, very strange. They prayed to multiple gods and weren´t educated (like we are...) and had weird rituals (like we haven´t).
And then again... can you see what the woman in this picture is holding?

We were told that she isn´t holding things, but letters. Hyroglyphes. She´s bringing food to the men working on the fields. And the little thing in ther right hand, that looks like a cupcake, that´s the hyroglyphe for... cake.
Which made me wonder if she had a cupcake tray, like I have.
I guess she hadn´t. But still.
4000 years aren´t a lot, when you think about it.
I wonder what their music sounded like, back then.

It´s raining, here in Germany.

Isn´t this beautiful?
I admit it took me a while to treasure the french language. I learned it in school at an age when I was fully and completely falling for the English language, so it didn´t stand a chance. When I went to France, it always was a lot easier to use English instead of French. I needed to learn another language, Polish, before I realized the attitude and communication changes when you are able to talk to people in their native tongue. And maybe this helped, too. So I am, slowly, learning.
This artist, I first heard on the radio, months ago, at around six in the morning, when I was barely awake. I remember I told my sleepy brain to bookmark her name, I mean, come on, Zaz, that´s three letters, that´s not too hard?
And then I forgot, until this week, so... Merci beaucoup :)

We got really lucky....

2011-06-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

...on Thursday. Before we took the train to Paris, we had to wait for it. And because we were really eager to go on our trip, we went four hours early. Not to sit at the trainstation, of course, but to have a nice look at Cologne before. So we could compare the two cities.
And when we just stepped out of the central train station, we found...

this.
This is the entrance of the Cologne Philharmonics. Just on the exact day we happened to have four free hours on hand, they happened to have their kids day.
The whole Philharmonics, open for free. Talk about bliss :)

In the basement, we were allowed to peek into the artist´s rooms, where friendly musicians answered every question and let the children try their instruments...

If you read this blog for any length of time, you know how much I love posting pictures of my children playing instruments :)
And you might also know about my love for this instrument:

I would have loved to try it myself, one time, even for five minutes, but the queues were long, and it was kids day, and since I´m not a kid anymore, I didn´t dare to ask.

Another cool instrument is this one:

Oh, the ideas!

They had a drum station made of buckets and pots and old car parts, and a guitar made from an old container and some nylon strings, and cowbells, and all sorts of fun percussion things, just like that.

And we also loved the giant xylophone:

Besides this, we were allowed to dress up with the costumes of the opera players, of which I didn´t take a picture because I was too busy reading the concert scedule, and we listened to a free concert.

I had planned to visit the Philharmonics with my girls for quite a while, but somehow we never made it. So this was quite a lucky opportunity, and now, since we know the date, we can come back there every year. Awesome, right?

I guess I will write at least one other Paris post, because I´m kind of bursting, but now there´s dinner to cook. It´s cheese-soup, tonight. Just in case you asked. And my kids are coming in, all wet from the sprinkler. So it´s time to say good-bye for now and leave you with another piece of my new favourite composer:

Had it all

2011-06-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

So we´re home from Paris.

Sunburned, tired, with aching feet, very educated, and broke, because Paris is quite expensive.
But worth it´s money.
We stayed in a little hotel on Montmatre, right behind the Sacre Coer:

Paris is a total overkill of things to look at, things to talk about, places one just isn´t allowed to miss, things one just has to do, and it´s even harder to discribe, since I talked French all weekend long, and now it feels like all the English words and sentences have fallen out of my brain, so my grammar and spelling today is even worse than it usually is.
It alway works that way. When it comes to languages, I´m very one-tracked. More than one makes my head spin. Like a carouselle:

I love this picture:

Isn´t this gorgeous? Paris made our heads spin, too.
The Louvre alone is huge enough to entertain a family for, let´s say, half a year? And it naturally has to leave everybody with a feeling of frustration when, after four hours, you have to go, knowing you´ve seen only a fraction.

I remember when I first went there, at the age of 16, I thought the building alone was about the size of the village I grew up in. And it sure doesn´t fit on a photo.

There is all this tourist stuff that is obligatory, that is the reason I went there in the first place, because it´s these things I wanted to show to my girls. You can´t go to Paris without sitting at the Seine...

and looking at the boats...

and having french breakfast...

and feeling blown away by the way the statues in the Tuilleries are just there, casually, as if they weren´t telling stories of centuries.

These are all things you have to do.
And then there are the things you also sort of have to do, because after all, you´re in another country, and this implies a chance of embracing another culture.
I always love to read what´s scribbled on the walls. I liked this one:

La Révolution! Ah, oui!

I wish I had had more time to chat about tattoes with the hotel clerk. My girls would have loved to talk a little longer with the little bilingual girl named Lilly, who they met on the playground:

I wish there had been more room to talk about architecture with the friendly old man who guided us when we got lost, and took the time to show us the place de la constitution.
Or talk to those men:

At least I took the courage to step to them to ask them what this was about: The revolution? Sports?
It was a footballmatch Algerique-Maroque, and the guys were actually pretty friendly.

By the way, we had awesome Libanese food on Friday. And spices are so cheap in France! And I bought black lace, in a cute little fabric store, for a lot more than I wanted to spend.
We found a store that sold interesting things, I still can´t excactly tackle what the idea behind it was, it had educational toys, handmade soap, craft utensils, and massage oils, and good books, and tea, and camping accesoires. Maybe it was just a store especially designed for us.

And there are stores for everybody in Paris. I mean, literally, you can buy all psycho stuff your heart desires:

Do you see this? I mean, really? Is your jaw on the keyboard, now?

So...

....all this is Paris.
And now I´m home with the feeling that we had it all... and had only a fraction. I´ve got millions of pictures, and none of them satisfies me, because none of them captures what I want to express. Every minute we spent in a queue, or waiting on a boat or the metro, every minute we spent searching for something now feels like a minute waisted.And at the same time, I wish we had spend more time with just letting our feet dangle.

My music for today is Brahms:

Eva is practising this piece on her violin at the moment, and I´m trying to give my best to play along on the piano. Which is super hard, for both of us. We practiced before leaving for Paris, so this song was stuck in our heads all three days, and we hummed it while walking through the scenes you see on the pics above. Which seemed like a perfect match to us.
Oh, and I have one pic, I couldn´t fit in above, but I just didn´t want to leave out of this post:

Project wallet

2011-06-04T04:54:00.000-07:00

My kids always loose their wallets. And often need one, for all the garage sales and fun fairs and trips to the sweet store. Our new wallets now look like this:

And just so you know we can actually use them:

They are longlasting, small enough to fit into the pockets of little pants, cheap enough you don´t have to worry when they get lost, and they involve recycling - all together that makes them quite a cool project, don´t you think?

All you need is:
A hot glue gun
Some velcro strips or dots (self adhesive ones work the best)
and drink containers of any size, preferably with a beautiful design on them.
(and love, of course. Sorry. I couldn´t keep that one in)

Now take your drink container, and cut off the top and the bottom:

Yeah, of course you could work a little more neat - but this was done by a seven year old, so I think it´s pretty cool :)
This is a good point to wash your container, if you haven´t done it allready. We worked with milk containers, actually, the wallets on the first pic were made in February, and I can guarantee you, it didn´t get stinky, because you can wash them pretty clean this way.

After this, flatten your container, with the boring looking sides with all the nutrition stats on tucked in, like this:

From the inside, it looks like this now:

Then, by eyemeasure, fold the whole thing into three parts - one for the back, one for the front, and one for the flap.

On this pic, you can see the version where we allready had cut the flap - simply cut of everything from the last third that isn´t supposed to become the flap - does this make sense? I´m not sure ;) Basically, you leave the back from the container intact, but cut off the rest. During this process, I like to round the edges, but that´s optional. Whatever floats your boat.

Now it´s time for your best friend, the hot glue gun. Put glue on the pat you can see in the pic above, the one with the apples on, and glue the front to the back. Hold it for a while, to let it cool down and connect.

And with this, ladies and gentlemen, we´re almost there - add your velcro to the front and to the flap, and go out with your shiny new wallet. Show it to everybody and tell them how cool recycling is :)

So, this was my craft project for the week. I´m typing this at home, on my Sofa, on a rainy tuesday, but I´m telling blogger to publish it on Saturday. So if you read this, I´m in Paris. I´ve never done this before, writing posts in advance and publishing them at some point later. Usually it´s write and hit over here, so, that´s an experiment for me :)

My music for the day is:

Yep, I admit it. I´ve got a crush on this girl. Her rapping is so confident and effortless, and the fun she´s having with her music is contagious. Besides, she´s a true style icon for me, as well :)

Au revoir, mes amis!

2011-06-02T02:12:00.000-07:00

In 4 hours, we´ll board our train to Paris.
Yeah, I know I´ve mentioned that. But what the heck, I´m so excited, there´s no need to keep it in :)
My camera is fully charged, the girls both had an extra long practice session at their instruments (since we won´t be taking the harp and the violin to Paris), and we´ve walked our planned route on google maps about a thousand times. And I think I even got a passport, this time ;)

Ronja just asked me if she was allowed to go to Paris barefoot, and leave her shoes at home.
To which a certain mom, that did a whole four week vacation in Finland completely barefoot,that walked all over London barefoot once and that spend one year in school without shoes replied, NO WAY!
Ah, the times are a changing ;)

You´ll get a nice craft post on Saturday, if all goes well. I´ve written it in advance, two days ago, let´s see if this automatic publishing works :)
And I´ll be back next week, to posh around with all my photos, and bore you forever.

Never watched this movie. But I´m on a Yann Tiersen trip at the moment, and this song sounds... PARIS!

Hugs to all of you,

Helen