A very quiet week.

It's Thursday and no one here has been in the hospital- had a birthday-made a major purchase or anything else truly worthy of notice.
I have been to work ,washed the floors and painted my nails this week (toes pink and fingers clear). I am also working on a black sock for Michael, as so many men have told him that they hate to wear anything but handmade socks. He is now willing to try them. For some reason though I misscounted the heel and had to redo it four times. The knitting part doesnt take that long,but the pulling out of the mistake and not completly losing my place is tough and takes ages.
Today is my Dad's birthday- Happy Birthday Dad, if you are reading this. Michael is going to Dresden this weekend for his free weekend- I had mine last week ,remember? It seems so long ago already. Tomorrow morning I have my last stitching class and afterward am going to do the last bit of shopping for my Gemini birthday exchange.
I found a nice picture of my dad and the boys from last summer but once again I can't get it to download - i will try again this afternoon.

The promised pictures

Here are the promised pictures. A pair of socks , finished in a race with the Formula One drivers in Imola. I watched too much and knit too little and lost. LOL . The yarnis for four pairs of socks- a black pair for Michael,which I started last night, the blue strip is for Moni. The other dark yarn is actually a dark blus silk mix with sparkle. I hope to find some dark blue beads to add to the cuff of this pair. I don't yet have a plan for the off white and blue yarn. I just liked it. I also bought three pairs of circs. One pair is Inox and the other two are Addi premiuns. I have read so much about these needles that I have to try them. I have been ironing this morning , but Larry King live is on so it is my knitting/stitching time.

Vacation bits

I made it home safely from my mini vacation- a day late and but in good time to see the Formula One qualifying ;-) . Had a very relaxing trip ,not hurrying to go anywhere or do anything in a short time frame. I did have a couple of small set backs ,but nothing tragic.
On Wednesday I drove to Moni's and on the way tried to go to a LNS that I had been meaning to visit for about three years. I have ordered things from there and spoken to them a number of times and thought I would take the opportunity and drive out of my way to actually see the shop. When I got there it was gone! I spent about an hour trying to find out if I was in the right place and if so what had happened to the shop. I finally found out that it had suddenly closed about a month before. Sad- and a pain for me. After I had lunch and a cup of tea ,it was off to Moni's. The weather was so nice that we were able to sit outside and chat and dringk pots of tea until about 7pm. Lovely.
Then next afternoon I continued my trip with a visit to Annemarie in Maastricht. I had a little adventure in driving in that I was almost to her house when I decided that I must have gone wrong somewhere and turned around. I quickly found a place to park and called her . With a little encouragment I made it all the way to Annemarie's house and even managed to park my car in a small space behind her house. It was fantastic to meet Annamarie and Pelle ,of course- I had a wonderful afternoon and hope she did too. We had lunch in a little cafe in front of her house and then we walked into the center of Maastricht- which is a town I aways enjoy. We hit all he LNS/LYS in the hopes of finding some nice sock wool- which we didn't, but it was fun anyway. We then ate an ice cream at an Australian ice cream shop- mmm yummy. We then walked back to the house . Jula was home from work so we got some Chinese for dinnner, another of my favorites, We then talked until far to late. Poor Pelle should have been in bed ,but was remakably good tempered, and I should long have been at Anja's. I did have a chance to show off a few bits of my stitching and knitting and to check out what Annemarie is working on. She stitches beautifuly and has chosen a super chart for Carol's RR. Thank you for the lovely afternoon and Evening Annemarie. I hope we can do it again soon.
Friday I spent with my friend Anja and her kiddies- Ciara and Mika. In the afternoon we mananged a trip to Aachen to the big Junghans craft store-where-hooray- I finaly found a great selection of knitting needles. They also had a good (not great) selection of sock yarn and stitching bits, pluss tons of other fun stuff. All of which made it definiatly worth the trip.
Friday evening was another beautiful one and we were able to eat outside and even sit out until after 10 pm- wonderful.
Saturday I drove home and managed not to get a speeding ticket so it was an all around successful trip.

This afternoon I finished the second of a pair of socks while watching the Formula One race. I thought I could get it finished before the race was over and was knitting like mad ,but they were to quick for me. I had it finished before the interviews were over though- so I was close.
I thought I had downloaded a picture of the new socks and my stash to this blog ,but they seem to have disappeared into cyber space. I will have to go searching for them.
Well, I have downloaded my pix twice and blogger keeps eating them ,so I will try again tomorrow.

Going to have a couple days of vacation!

Here are my three Easter Bunnys. We had a lovely lunch in a hotel and they provided some child care and amusement. They even hid eggs in the hotel entrance hall and had an egg hunt. After lunch all thelittle kids lft and my kids ,and Leonie, took over the craft corner and amused themselves making rude bunnys and hanging them on the wall of the otherwise elegant conference room.

alexander was at the doctor this morning and was given a clean bill of health ,and Patrick is in Koln visiting a friend so I have decided to go away for a couple of days.

I am going to drive to the German/ Netherlands border where I have friends. First to Moni ,who has sprained her foot,and then tomorrow I am going to meet Annemarie- in person (woohoo) , and then I will spend a night with Anja and then back home again. Between visiting friends I hope to hit at least one LNS and one LYS both of which I have never been to before. So I might have a stash report when I get home. Now I better pack a few things and get going before someone comes up with the idea that I should do something else before I go:-)

Are you ready for Easter?

We are- or as ready as were going to get. The boys dyed the eggs , to help out the Easter Bunny , I baked another easter bread-the first two have been eaten already. And Michael made arrangments for us to meet friends for brunch tomorrow .
Watching the boys dye eggs made me remember one year when Michael was deployed in Jugoslavia over Easter.
Friends of ours lived in Amsterdam and I took the kids there to spend the holiday. Their idea of Easter was brunch in a nice hotel . I like this idea too ,but the kids required an egg hunt first. After the kids were put to bed Saturday evening , I unpacked the egg cooker, the eggs and dye that I had brought with me. Both Judy and Jun rolled their eyes and made that "this is why we don't have kids face" . I begged them to help me and they both agreed, although I don't think Jun ,who is Japanese, had ever dyed eggs before. Sometime around midnight I gave up and went to bed and left the two of them happily creating tiny works of art . I had shown them how ,if you color on an egg with crayon and then dip it in the dye , the dye will not stick to the egg. I use this techniqe to do things like write "Happy Easter" in block letters. They took this and ran with it. They made really wonderful eggs with names, animals and fantasy designs. The kids were thrilled with these eggs- me too.
They are divorced now and we haven't seen them in ages, although I spoke with both of them less than a year ago. They helped make a holiday that could have been difficult, with Papa away, into something special.
I wish everyone of you a Happy Easter, Passover, or just a lovely day .

Promised updates

Here are a couple of pix , to show what I have been up to on my "holiday". My goal was to be somewhat further along than I actually am, but things will happen.
Alexander needed new clothes -again. We have been invited to go out to brunch on Sunday and realised that A has only lined ,winter pants. Until now that has been good ,but it is spring! Also he has outgrown all of the nice, button down ,oxford shirts that my dad bought him last year. So off we went to Munster , in the pouring rain , to fight the crowds, with our still limping son , to buy him clothing. We managed two pairs of jeans, a pair of "nice" pants , his first adult shirt and tie and a nice-ish sports jacket. . I will try and remember to take a picture on Sunday when he is all dressed up.
I am off now, to watch "Law and Order " and work on Barbara's RR some more.

An important finish

I am letting out a sigh of relief. I have been messing around with a mail art for weeks and it is finally finished. I am not sure why I had such a hard time getting it done, exept that I wanted it to be "just so" and a large part of getting it right was in the finishing-which is not my strong point. I can't post a picture yet because it is supposed to be a surprise ,but as soon as it arrives at it's home I will put up one ..or two. I am very pleased with the way it came out and all of the thought that went into it shows.

Alexander is doing well and now just has to avoid being overactive for a week or so, and as my house guests have gone home (sniff,sniff) I have some time to work on Barbara's RR and my socks. Hope to have an update picture on those tomorrow.

It wasn't Patrick this time.

To start with- here is my latest sock finsh. I am very happy with this pair. I tried a bunch of new stuff while knitting these socks. I used bamboo needles for the first time, I went down a needle size, used a yarn with a coton content, knit a pattern for the first time and a different heel and I tried grafting the toe. I was pretty happy with the way everything but the toe came out. I think it just needs practice though and will definitly try again.

On the personal news front. Yesterday I was in Munster for a stitching class afterwards I was going to do some sock yarn shopping when my handy let me know. I had received a message. I actually read it which is quite unusual for for me. It was a message from my DH asking me to call right away. I did and when he answerd the first thing he said was "everything is all right" by which I knew it wasn't. He them proceeded to tell me that our oldest son was ,at that moment ,being operated on. DH was packing a few things for DS1 while I drove home to pick him up and we managed to get to the hospital before he came out of recovery.
The story I have been able to piece together is this: Alexander woke up with some pain in his abdomen, but not too bad ,so he didn't mention it. I have to say here that he looked fine to me. At some point in the morning it got so bad that he went to the school office and they tried to call my DH and myself. We were both carrying our cell phones ,but for some reason they could not reach us. The school then called our neighbors ,who also have my cell number,but they had just left on vacation. Then the school called our GP's office , he was not in ,but only his partner. I don't know who decided to call out GP at home ,but "thank you" to whoever it was. Our GP , the lovely Stefan, actually got into his car and drove to my DS's school , examined him and then drove him to the hospital. I think nothing will get you into an operating room quicker than showing up with your own doctor! They discovered that Alexander had a twisted testical, which needs to be fixed ASAP , if it is to be saved. So they did. It turned out that I actually know the doctor who did the surgery , which is a nice feeling. I sat with Alexander untill about 8pm and as I am writing this at 9 :55 am, he called and said he could be picked up from the hospital. DH just went to get him .
We took our GP a bottle of wine last night , but the poor man was still doing home visits at 9:30 pm, so we drank a glass with his wife. I think I owe him some huge thanks and a home baked bread or something. Thank God we live in Germany where doctors still still make home (and school) visits and hospitals only wonder about who will pay ,after the fact. . A huge "thank you" as well ,to all who took the initiative to get my child the help that he needed ,even though they couldn't find us or "get our permission'.

Husband living at home

I know- most husbands live at home -but mine doesn't usually. His job and the age of our kids has made it a neccesity for us to live in different places for the last couple of years. That he travels a lot in his job means that he also doesn't come home every weekend. It can be tough,but I sometimes think that is is even harder when he comes back for a while! We are glad he is here though.

He will be spending 3 months in the Congo,working, this summer . Until he leaves ,he is taking a French course. French is the main language in the Congo and while his French works for a short vacation in France (mine does too-and I have never had a French lesson , so this isn't saying much) he can't converse. Anyway...... It just so happens that there is a military language school near where we live. Which means that he will be living at home from now until he leaves for the Congo. Pretty cool. I just have to get used to finding his shoes and coffee cups strewn about the house on a daily basis again. A small price. I guess ;-)

We had a lovely weekend. Visited Anja and Roman, went to Charity Night and Danced for hours. My idea of fun!!Charity Night was much better than last year ,but not as good as years ago when Anja and I were on the organizing commity ( of course) they have found a better band though and that is great as the music can really make or break a function like this.

One huge complaint I have, has nothing to do with the orginization and everything to do with people just lacking sense. Charity night starts at 7pm and consists of food eaten from booths, dancing with loud music and lots of alcohol. Why do people bring their children? I would never have subjected one of my children ,as an infant, to such loud music. It can't be good for their little ear drums. And in my opinion ( I am pretty opinionated) no child under 16 belongs at a public function, after about 9pm, where huge amounts of alcohol are being consummed. A four year old doesn't belong there at all. It's just too dangerous. I always ask myself why, why do people bring their children places like this. I have yet to come up with an answer.

A little stitching news- I have made some progress on my sampler mailart ,but can't post a pic as it is a surpise for the recipient. I have also worked on Barbara's RR- maybe I will have enough progress by tomorrow to post another pic and, I have finished a sock and cast on the second.
Everything about this pair of socks is a new experience. I have gone down a needle size, am using bamboo instead of metal, a yarn with cotton in it, a reenforced heel , and this sock has a pattern and is not "just" stockinett stitch. All of this for the first time. Plus I am actually working from the book that Cheryl , so kindly, brought me. The first sock came out great and I am exited to get the second one finished and start another- something new!!

Funny

You Are Karamel Sutra

Plain on the outside, but once someone gets in, they're stuck

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

I rarely eat ice cream but ,I love Ben and Jerry's. Good thing it is hard to get here in Germany.

A peek at Barbara's RR

I am still stitching and not just knitting!!!
This is the house that I am working on for Barbara's neighborhood. I hope she likes it.

Big boys have bithdays too.

Michaels 45 th birthday was on the 25th of March . I think the best present was that it was on a Saturday this year,so we were all at home. Even Cheryl and Rick were here from Virginia. Birthday presents at our house happen at the breakfast table, or in Mom And Dad's bed if the kids can't wait that long.
We had cake with candles at coffee time and in the evening a small party with neighbors and friends. I love cooking for guests and always feel good when people complement my party meals. One of our neighbors is a professional cook and so I was thrilled when he ate three helpings of chile . Also got lots of complements on my homemade breads.
All in all ,a very nice day for my DH!!

Socks number four- these have the official name- Cheryl's Sedona Socks. The next pair are going to be something different. I want to try a pattern that has some other stitch combination in it.

Here but not here.

Hi Everyone,
I am here but not here. I have house guests and my DH who is here so seldom, is home and it is his 45th birthday this weekend. I am sontinuing to stitch on Barbara's RR and work on socks- and I MUST start my Sampler mailart. I t will be a couple of days though before I can get back to my Blog with any regularity. Have a lovely weekend.

Das Wochenende im Uberblick

In English- An overview of the weekend. I finished my third pair of socks yesterday. One is slightly larger than the other -gotta get one of those little counter doohickys. Aside from that this is the best pair so far. The heels look good and the knitting is even with no bobbles and best of all I did them all by myself. I am starting to understand the directions in the sock knitting pamphlet. Amazing. I think Cherly is bringing me a knitting book and a sock knitting book so maybe I will soon be able to knit socks with a pattern and not just your basic k2 p2 cuff and a stockinett stich rest. I would love to do some of the lace socks and beaded cuff socks I have seen out there.
Barbara's RR showed up this morning so even though I started another sock last night , her RR gos to the top of my list of projects. After that is to get my Sampler mailart going. Then come the socks, the heart wall hanging, several Chatelains etc.... I think I need to give up my job to keep up with all my stitching :-) But then how will I pay for it. A teufels kreis (devil's circle) if I ever had one.

Everyone else here is still asleep. I think they are waiting for the repeat of the qualifying for the formula one race to begin before they show thier faces. This will give me a chance to start pulling flosses for Barbara' s RR.
Other than that - Michael is home. Maarcus is here for the weekend and it's not raining and I think my bread came out okay. So life is good!

The earth is flat

Here is a picture of my (more or less) finished square for my RR. I is going into the mail this morning.
I seem to have been having a series of slightly "off" days lately. Or maybe I am just noticing because I am writing about them in this blog?

Yesterday morning, Patrick said to me at the breakfast table: A picture fell off the wall on me last night. I asked if it had broken etc.. Oh yes- he answered- didn't you see it? I went into his room and stared with horrer at the shards of glass lying on his pillow, the top of his bed and the headboard. It was quite a large framed poster and the frame gave way and the whole thing fell on his head in the night. Patrick being Patrick just got up and came and got into bed with me. There was not a scratch on him, he was so lucky!

After the kids went off to school, I had a couple of appointments. First to bring Michael's car to the dealer for a saftey inspection. This is known as the "TUV" in Germany. I drove over. realized I had forgotten the car papers, drove home and retrieved them. Discused when the car would be finished. Me, insisting that I didn't need it before two thirty and the mechanic, insisting it would be done much sooner. No matter- off I went to the dentist. There, thank goodness, all went well. Check up, x-ray,cleaning, finished. I did have the usual facinating conversation with the dental hyginist. Her son is in Patrick's class at school , she talked and I went hrmmader dvrbsa.

I mailed two packages, bought a pair of jeans, and went to the bank and then started to walk home, on the way , I decided to swing by and see if the car was actually finished. It was not .But
they promised that if I waited 15 minutes it would be. HAH. An hour later, the car was finished. It passed it's saftey inspection exept that the airbag light wasn't behaving. They were able to fix this by removing two coke bottles from under the drivers seat ( I did say it was my DH's car) which were banging againt the plug and causing it not to have a good connection. I paid my money ,got the stickers and the car is good for another three years- by which time we won't own it anymore.
Once I got home I decided to take a short nap. The phone took this as a signal to ring every two minutes. My office telling me one of my classes was canceled, Patrick, telling me that he was at a friends and would be home by seven. The physical tharapist asking where Patrick was. Oops- now Patrick was in trouble.
Decided the nap wasn't going to work and got up to get ready for work , when the doorbell decided to take a turn. I opened the door to four (yes four!) police in a van who were returning Nala, who had apparently decided to go to the gas station and see if anyone there would give her a treat. Someone had called them because she was too far from home , but they were pretty sure where she belonged. Thank goodness. There were some questions about , insurance , chipping and tatoos ,but as they had not found her in the street and Nala has all of the above , there was nothing they could do. We once called the police here to report pistol shots fired and had to fight to get them to even come out, but let your dog leave the yard and they show up with four police and a van.
Work was uneventful, well nothing involving several three year olds is uneventful ,but nothing out of the ordinary. On my way home,I dropped by the grocery store and when I came out someone had "parked in" half of the parking lot. The half where I was. I asked to have the car owner paged and by the time I was finished packing my grocerys in my car she had moved it -to an equaly bad place. I made her move it again. There were empty parking spaces but she was insistent in parking in the drive way. It's only a very small lot. I won't even go into my rant about the driving skills in NRW.
Afterwards I had a cup of tea with my neighbor/house owner, brought Andreas home with me to get him to look at my shower door which keeps falling out, found the piano teacher at the door- two days early ,but who's counting- opened the door, called for Alexander, ran for the phone, which was ringing, trying to direct Andreas to the bathroom the piano teacher and Alexander to the piano, while getting out an extra chair , open the window and make sure there was nothing disgusting lying around the great room. I usually try to check this before the piano teaches comes- but not two days before. Andreas did decide against fixing the shower door. He is going to install a new one- very good.
The rest of the day went smoothly, chatted with Michael, fixed dinner, chatted with Cheryl, finished my RR, went to bed too late. At the end everything came out fine today ,but it seemed like quite the trip to get to the end of the day. Wouldn't want to be bored!

More and new stash

I have a new hobby- sock knitting. One of the best, or worst things about this is that it gives me an excuse to buy more and different stash. Sock yarn is incredibly cool. It comes in all sorts of different color combinations. Solids, self striping, melange. All kinds of stuff out there. Plus while it seems there are not quite as many notions used for kniting as for cross stitching, I am starting from scratch, so still lots of stashing to be done. You can even buy ivory colored, plastic knitting needles that are flecked with gold. Very pretty -although I think I like the 50s style, colored aluminium ones better.
Don't worry , I am not about to stop cross stitching, but I have never been good at taking my stitching with me. I seem to need my space to stitch in ,but socks are easy "on the go". Giving me something for Dr.'s offices and vacations. I am always amazed at people who can sit patiently and wait to be called in a waiting room. I am not good at waiting and without a book or a project, I go nuts. The only place I am able to sit and stare at nothing is on an airplane-and that is because I take "medication" to get me through the flight.

A small change on my blog- I have a counter-YEA. I signed up and filled everything out by myself but then couldn't get the HTML code thingy in the right place etc.. on the Blog. While my husband was here on the weekend ,I asked him to have a look at it. I showed him where I had inserted the code and he looked at me with a strange expresion on his face and asked why I had put it THERE. I had no good answer other than I figured I could always change it. He shook his head ,either sadly or in wonderment at my logic and fixed it for me. I wouldn't want him to think I could get away without him :-)

A plea to all parents

I just mopped my floors- and my son walked across the hall with dirty boots before it was even dry. Truly- I am not sure it is worth it. LOL- ya gotta laugh or cry and I prefer to laugh- most of the time!
I am back to working on my RR so that I can mail it out on Wednesday at the latest. It will go in a padded envelope , registered mail ,air etc... I had taken a break from stitching on it because I couldn't find a peacock that I liked. I love the fact that we have peacocks on our farm and it was terribly important to me that I have one on my RR. I found just the right one this morning,with some help from Dani. Thank you Dani!!!
I have it almost stitched , although it is slow going today. I have a headache that keeps going and coming. Headache and over one stitching are not mutually condusive.

Thanks for the encouraging words for Patrick on his nerve removal. He had no problems at all. He went to both appointment on his bike and came home happy as a clam (can clams be happy?) ,the second time with the nerve sealed in a little plastic bag thing. It is sitting in front of me. Do you know what a tooth nerve looks like? Do you want to know? Shall I post a picture? I thought not. I think I was wrong in calling what he had a root canal. He HAS had a root canal on the other front tooth though. I am 41 years old and never had a root canal or a nerve removed from a tooth. How can a thirteen year old have had both?

On to my" plea to all parents". As you may know I give English lessons. I have discovered that there are children out there ,over the age of 10 ,who do not know how to look up a word in the dictionary. So , if you have a child who can read , please get out a dictionary and make sure your child knows how to do this. Even if you are pretty sure they can , give them a refresher course. I t will make their school lives soooo much easier. I am declaring theis weekend - International use the dictionary weekend.
Have a good one!!!

Is it a full moon or what?

Here is a picture of my friend Wilma, whose birthday it is today and her daughter Leonie whose god mother I am.


I am in a very wierd mood- not good. Is it a full moon? I guess I could google it or find a calender that tells me. Most of the calenders in my house are not for this year- I just keep the ones that have pictures that I like. I keep them on the right month , but the wrong year is the wrong year- there is just no getting around it. I do have a date book to keep my appointments , but as I work with school kids , I use a school date book. One that runs from September to September and this one has no moon schedual. Anyway -wierd mood stuff- does anyone besides me have trouble with the word verification thing on Blogger- or Yahoo for that matter? Sometimes I just can't decide what the letters are . Is that an l or an i , a v or a u? I often have to try twice and at least once, three times to post my comments. The other thing that happens is I think the letters look like they should be Dutch words, I sit here an d look at them and wonder what they might mean! I don't really belive this and I have a dutch dictionary if I really wanted to look a word up , but I am afraid the thought alone makes me a bit wierd.

Patrick (who else) is having another tooth episode. The tooth that he broke off at xmas 2004 ,decided to go wonky. The nerve got infected and had to be removed. Otherwise known as a root canal. This involved two days of missed school due to pain (before the root canal, since he had it done he is fine). Two visits to the dentist , so far, we're not finished yet, and numerous phone calls , notes, and rearanging of scheduals. Just the usual crazy goings on.

Weekend update

Here is a picture of our sweet Nala . Her Birthday was on Friday and she turned 11 years old. She is a wonderful pet and companion and we love her very much.
The rest of the weekend was pretty average.
Patrick had a friend to stay and I took all of the kiddies to Munster on Saturday. We all had a wander and then I spent an hour in Starbucks with my Chai Tea Latte and a book. This does wonders for my equilibrium and getting me through the rest of the week.

My needlework goal for the weekend was to finish this pair of socks and the picture is the proof that I did :-) It is only my second pair and before socks I had only knit a scarf ,so I think they came out pretty good. They are meant for my Mom and although the foot looks really long , they are a 39 and should fit her perfectly. The two socks are not the same color rapaport , but the story of why not is long and boring so I will skip it. Rest asured I will not make this mistake again. My Mom loves the color red so I think she will enjoy these and they will keep her feet nice and warm next winter.

The Hyacinth is my attempt at bringing a little spring into the house. I love the way they look and smell , but after two days, I discovered that the burning eys and sneezing fits that I was suffering ,were only happening in the family room. I had an" aha "moment and moved the flowers to the dining room where I don't spend much time and the symptoms went away. Bummer that I can't have them upstairs , but nice that I made the connection fairly quickly!

Snow , Snow, go away and come again another day.
Rachael wants to put on her sandels and go out and play.