2007

Four hours to go to leave this year (yips, the news showed us all the pics, Sydney, Singapore... all done. At the moment our "Federal Chancellor" delivers a speech... haha, ole liar she is ...)

Anyhow... the sparklers I mentioned in the post before, here is the first. We had heaps of time to take a pic or two...

This is the first time, too, that we sit on our balcony!!!
Not for long, though... ack, its COLD!





What a year! Thanks flood. 13 years... and here we are, living together after all YAY!!!

Hopefully 2008 brings some routine so we can truly enjoy and get used to living together!
Hopefully as well we´ll never grow up!

OH!

Question:

Dinner for One - is this typical for Germany only to be presented on New Year´s Eve?

A Happy 2008 for you as well!!!

A difference

I just saw an interview with Jane Goodall. That woman does make a difference in this world, for sure, she is amazing, rousing, honest, reasonable and rational. Bright. Just read her Curriculum Vitae and be impressed.

Yet she is humble.

It´s not "just" about chimps. In this small time-frame I learned heaps more than in school about humans, I guess.
Ok. I wanted truly to understand and learn. And sometimes I thought,

"yep, dream on! If I was to live the way you suggest, what should I work for? Look at my world, do you know the Hartz concept? I work my ass off for nothing, whilst others refuse to work and have nearly the same "income", the same money to live from - and I can even understand them!

I ordered electricity and gas from a local provider. Costs more, is from sources I can track back and I support workplaces in my area. I didn´t choose the 'good one' though, all natural and really expensive. No pay raise in six years (and no, it´s not `cause I´m dumb!), how can I afford such?!
'Good food' - ... no pay rise..."

I could. Use a carpool again, work at times I don´t want to, hence. Loose my freedom. I could do that.

And see all those around me who could do that without forgo anything. Who just want to get more, more, more - for themselves.

Sad thing I can´t present that interview of her here. She didn´t accuse her listeners.

She brought on the facts.

Our brain versa our live-style. Maybe we act right when our backs are really plain against the wall.

That makes me feel bad. I really, really could do something. And see no sense in it. There are so, so many people who could help easily and don´t let go of any comfort - and they simply don´t care - why should I?

Fireworks - I don´t wanna know how much money is spent on this again. Whilst others suffer - humans as well as animals and environment. Ingo bought some sparklers. They are XXL, sparkle for 5 minutes.

We do live fairly. We use energy saving lamps in every place it makes sense. We heat the rooms only a bit, shower together to save water and energy, use TFT-monitors, go by bike where possible, you name it.
And you can always do more.

What I need is motivation. Show me why it´s me, explicit, to let go of comfort.

Jane Goodall made me thinking (again), you can visit her places here.

Is this OK for a Happy New Year´s-Wish?

Motivation to care?

And act?

Tinsel-Bike

Though Christmas is over I just saw this chrissy-style bike :-) - You can click to have a closer look.

Kinda cute, um? And no one touches it either, I really do like my town!

Five Bottles

"This Christmas` gift" is what I wanted to name this post.
Nah. Christmas was a lot more, certainly.

Amongst other things...
My mother bought five bottles of detergent - one liter in each! - to throw me back into my young years (nope, not me in the pic, just an ad)!



A german phenomenon. Pril-Blumen, Pril-Flowers. I loooooved them! For some time in the mid-70´s they were stickers, glued on every "Pril"- detergent. My Grandma bought this brand and my Mom said I got all flippy about them.

Yeps. My Mom doesn´t know I also own a cheap watch with that pattern, and a T-Shirt. Bought a year ago when the revivial came. I still do so love those flowers of the happy 70´s!

This is what I got for Christmas from my Mom:



And some money to make the move to the new apartment less harder, moneywise.

Pril (german) - happy 70´s!
(I gave the detergent to my brother´s girlfriend - and YIPS!!! just as a joke (I have five bottles... awww, another story! ;-)...)

Certainly. Not all of us are lucky and happy receivers of cool christmas-gifts.
Java gives us a hint here.

Am I happy for having had a very Merry Christmas with my Mom, Bro, a goose (pigs and... aw, well, you know [-Borecole was a yummy part of it as well!]) - a happy Family Time!

Addendum: We saw a reportage today, showing great achievements the organisation People for people (german) has made. I certainly know the responsible man, Karl-Heinz Boehm, for ages. I never knew how successful he is. I finally took their motto, spend more than just sympathy and gave them some of my Christmas-Money. If I save only one girl from circumcision, it is more than a life to save, literally (Ingo also joined in, so, hopefully we helped at least a wee-bit).

Addendum to Lack

This is a gift from Ingo. He wanted to put it on some piece of wood and hang in someplace in the - no, our - apartment.
Despite me saying, apart from the 70´s lamp nothing will sit on Lack... I "allowed" this there, too:



It says: "Love is the only thing that grows when you share it".

Lack complete

Thanks to Ingo my Lack-Project is finished (you can click to enlarge):



The red "couch" looks really cool, but is totally uncomfortable, hence it sits on the wall now.
Door closed (on cold winter-evenings):



YAY, I´m happy!

 

Addendum from February 3rd, 2022: With this I join Elizabeth´s Second on the 2nd.

After 13 years of weekend-relationship we finally moved in together here in Braunschweig - or first real apartment!

The lamp is from my parent´s house, a real 70´s item as the orange ton in the background, from Ingo, I still have both, also the chair on the wall.

Our strength...

is our community. We have a "cuddly atmosphere", they say - and I learned that we have an "umbrella service" - simply rent an umbrella if it starts raining whilst you´re shopping. Sun out again, give the umbrella to some other shop. This is a free service.
You have kids, leave them in the adventure park - for free! Free bikes are available, too. Yep, I just love living here!

Lack

No, I have no lack of anything in particular at the moment (maybe of sun, warmth, a beach, the sea...) - no, I finally got IKEA´s "Lack"!!!

For weeks they had it in white only. Now they have it in my favorite color again. So, I went to IKEA with my dear brother and his huge Volvo. He - certainly - brought Lack the Hercules` way in our apartment! He then had to leave and I put Lack together all by myself - despite being real poor with tools! I also managed to put the "feet" on (they don´t belong to Lack) and turn it around all alone (wondering again how he managed to bring it upstairs all alone!!! It weighs more than it looks like...

The result - YAY (you can click to enlarge):



After looking at the same ole shelf for over 13 years (and keeping it) I deserved something new, right?

I think it will be used like this - a place to hold the lamp I grew up with.
No more.
It´s art (to me).

The "tub" in the corner to the right is a present from Ingo, he grew up with it. All real stuff from the happy 70´s :-)
And yes, I wore/wear the black clogs - and no, not from the 70´s...)

Oh, and please note the red fly swatter to the left :-) And the wishing stone I got from Freo (it was supposed to be a souvenir for a friend - but then I discovered it has a little defect and hence kept it. Like the sheep with three legs and stuff

[Ingo fixed it with a PLASTIC "cork" of a bottle of sparkling wine:



Broken stuff somehow always makes me to buy - and Ingo to fix it. I guess my wish on the stone was: Living together with Ingo!])

An addition to the scene with Lack is on it´s way, pics are to follow.

Inge

That´s how some guys call Ingo - I don´t know why and I don´t wanna know. I don´t talk about him now. This is a post about Inge Henze. I don´t know her personally (yet), but I think what she achieved is worth some words (and a pic) here:



She took part in the Olympic Games of Cheese. There were 335 participants with 717 different sorts of cheese - and she got the seventh!!!

With Mumme-Cheese - am I proud!

Mumme is a local product - that even went all the way to the Carribean in the 1390´s - I have some posts on Mumme, just use the blogger-search with "mumme" or click here (and start with this article again...).

Now I have to find out where Inge has her sales counter. Why did they forget that information???
So I haven´t tasted that cheese yet. The label "yummy" hopefully is true...

Have found her omline (german) - she´s on the market in town every Wed and Sat from 6-1 - gotta go there :-)

New citizen

Since December the 7th Ingo is officially a citizen of Braunschweig :- )
And both of us now officially live in the new apartment.

It was a tough year. In the beginning my brother came to me with huge problems. Some of them are still to be solved but the hardest part is over, I guess. It was a huge sign of confidence – and with that a big responsibility.
Still there is much to do.
But I guess that made our relationship even stronger.
I know where to turn to if I get in trouble and that is a good feeling.

In August Ingo´s apartment flooded the first time this year. Just some 5 cm but anyhow a lot of work.

In September the second flood, the big one with over 65 cm, a huge amount of work over a long time and the new situation to share 34 m² together.

Whilst working on that apartment we searched for a new one.
When we had the new one, we had to renovate there and then move over all the stuff from my apartment.
Then start „renovating“ my old one.

Whilst I tried to reorganize the chaos, the job seemed to get extra stressy.
Last Monday my heart raced like crazy. I was tired like never before, dizzy and all.

My doc said, after I told her about the tough times, „I get you outta here for two weeks!“

Man! In 6 years I have been signed sick for two days only. And yep, I had a guilty conscience to drop out for two weeks. But then I thought, ok, I can really do that! I „deserve“ that.

I slept the rest of that day and started very slowly on Tuesday. I really feel I need a „time-out“.

My room is almost done, the bed- and bathroom also. I need Ingo to hang up some shelves and I guess soon I can come up with some pics.


All this stress was worth it!

After thirteen years we finally live together!!!! Thank you, flood! Welcome, new citizen!



Now Ingo „only“ needs to find a job here. I´m afraid everyday he drives such a long distance – and it´s expensive, too.

I´m not a cook

I am a web developer. I provide my customer with content for his B2E-portal. It´s a portal that you can access from everywhere. We don´t deliver company-stuff only, like their intranet portal does, but also fun stuff.

For some reason one project suddenly got a revival – receipes!!! Most of the cutomers who join in are men. They even started asking for receipes – and others even answered.

It must be some kind of „we-feeling“ that produces that interest?

Anyway, with christmas being on the way, my customer decided, let´s make a real book!

It was tough to convince her boss but then we had a „go“ and we had to be real quick, it was chaotic!
We got 100 receipes from 100 cutomers.

We want only 5 € per copy and 100% goes to an organisation that works for kids in trouble (german).


I got the result of this last-minute-job as a gift – and it all was worth the work!



It´s of very good quality. We got 3 000 books printed and after seeing it, Ingo thinks that´s way not enough. We´ll see.

I hope next time we have a better timing, though!

In the lions´ cave - no tale

In the style of "Germany. A summer's tale", the film about German national soccer team's World Cup 2006, I saw the documentary film about the German Bowl in American Football in cinema today!

Even in XXL - it was a screen of 240 square meter, you can see the trailer here! The Braunschweig Lions´ Threepeat-Triumph was celebrated. The journey to Stuttgart, the meetings, the hopes and fears. Interviews with the players.
The game.
The new and old German Bowl Defender, it was just touching!

A good idea to spend a day like this in a cozy cinema (view from my room onto the powdery white roof - frost bites!):



Or in front of the PC with internet access back on - after a ride on the push bike through this crisp but clean and refreshing air. It´s a bit under 0 °C and maybe I´ll go to the Christmas market again tonight - the weather is just right!

On the other hand... on a Sunday night it might be really extra-full!
And I´ve been to the market already three times...



You can see more pics of the market and stuff here. In Perth I found no market like this (ok, who wants to have mulled wine when it´s around 30 °C ?!!! But I expected some kind of market, maybe with ice-cream instead...)

Spin without me

I´m off the world 'til Monday.
I fetched the last bike from the old place, left the second set of keys in the mailbox and now my whole attention is drawn to the new apartment. Where we have no internet access yet.
Which was totally normal for me just a while ago but now this feels like a long time, no internet 'til Monday...

It´ll be some hard work to make the apartment a home but we´ll see. At least I can sleep in - and I need it!

This morning it happened again. The clock woke me. I got out of the warm and cozy bed, did the morning routine, even had my boots on when I saw... it was 03:30! Again I had only dreamed the clock rang!
And Ingo said, "why didn´t you look at the clock at the ceiling?! The time is there in big numbers!"
Yep, maybe for someone who is long-sighted! ;-)

But he is right. I have to add this to my routine: Make sure it really is 05:40 BEFORE I really get up!!!

Double!

I said to my brother after we had left the old apartment for good on Thursday, "now I only need to get the bikes to the new apartment and that´s it then". He went like "???, no they are already there!"
"No, they are still here!"
"But which bikes did I bring down in the cellar of the new apartment???"

The ones from Ingo´s old apartment - have a look at the title here or see the bikes here - we have things like that twice, well in this case it´s two sets ;-)

When we came into the new apartment, my dear bro looked in amazement at the little red radio in the kitchen after saying hello to Ingo and went - "How did you get it in here so fast and when did you clean it???"

Well ;-)

Still I don´t know what to do with all the stuff we have twice...
My vacuum cleaner broke down after I cleaned out the apartment a last time - true, no joke! But still we have two toasters, two really big cooking pots, two meat-pans, ... you name it.

The handover of the old apartment went totally smooth!
The darn rests of the ripped down wallpaper were glued to the floor and it took me ages to get it off. I wasn´t done in the room, kitchen and corridor were ok when the concierge came 15 minutes early.
I was afraid that darn mother of the boy would certainly be with him and look for any sign of defect...
But no! The concierge quickly went from room to room, said, "I wouldn´t have cleaned up so proper! Go over there just once and you´re done! They got the wallpaper ripped off for free, what else do they want?" :-)
I told him there is a problem: Ingo still has the keys. He said, "just throw them in the mailbox later ... or give it your 'nice' neighbour ;-)" - she still complains every time she sees him that we would wash Ingo´s stuff and dry it secretly on the heating... Later on the boy came - alone. No more troubles (just that today right away at 08:00 he called me to remind me to handle over the keys - I bet they´re for his mother!...)


Oh - next time we visit Perth I will get another pie for free!! Same reason:
The radio played even the same song from the Simple Minds and Ingo went again, "ohhh Billy Idol". Nope. Another Euro and a pie for me!