Lavender Wands

YEY - this morning there was actually time for me to sit down bright and early after cutting some lavender off my huge bush and putting the silk .... to good use that I found about a year ago on markdown for about 20 cents.. smile..
Kathy from pink chalk studio inspired me to do this by posting her own picutes and the how to and I can´t believe they turned out! :-D
I had never heard of them or seen them before so I HAD to make them.. ha ha

Those little black things around the end of the stems are my youngest daughter Isa´s rubber bands for those rare occasions where she´ll let me braid her hair - they came in quite handy in keeping the stems together until they´ve dried. The little baby one on the left is Isa´s by the way, she insisted on me helping her to put the side branches of the lavender to good use and this is the result. Not bad for a 4 year old (alright, going on 5 and she did have help..lol).

I´m still not so sure my lavender is the best suited for this project but for my first try they turned out alright. I wish I had more time - I would make tons of them! My 17 year old thought they were the coolest wands ever! DH thought I should bring some lavender to our monthly FRG Meeting next friday - I´m afraid all they want to do is eat and play bunco.. ha ha.. although it might be fun and I would definitely have enough lavender.
As I came back from my saturday morning gym routine (quick pat on my back) in these scorching temperatures I cut 9 more stems from my lavender and made another wand but realized that not only do they smell more intense in the early morning but also the stems seem more flexible than after being exposed to the sun for a couple of hours. One of the stems broke a bit but I still like the wand. Well, we all love our children even though they might not be perfect, huh? Alright, yes - of course they are perfect.. lol.. what was I thinking!
WOHOO! As I am typing it just started raining outside - what a sight! My flowers and the abundant insect wildlife in my backyard will appreciate this - this has been the hottest summer I remember - and I can remember waaaaay back as some of you know.. he he he..

While surfing I found this today - someone put alot of work into collecting these strange statues from around the world - definitely worth grabbing a fresh cup of coffee and taking 10 minutes to look at! Or 15 min?

Oh and for those who don´t frequent whiplash - heres a cool link with mac fishtanks including a tutorial. Where did I put that old monitor??????

Watergun Wars in London

OK, I am officially mad about not being in London this week.. lol.. I have to go there in October and was looking forward to it but it just got spoiled by them holding the Watergun Wars there right now! Too bad the official rules state that you MUST live or work there. . sniff sniff sniff..
Me silly? Naaah.. but take a closer look at your thermometer - if it doesn´t read 90s right now (and it´s almost 10 p.m. here) you´re not in Germany! Still scorching hot and those Watergun Wars sound like a great way to see London on foot.. he he he..

What a nice cooloff! Alaska

Oh yeah, it´s so nice to watch the bears in the cool stream ... cools me off some!
If you like grizzlies and have the RealPlayer installed, you might enjoy this webcam from the National Geographic!
Now all I need is some salmon on my plate and my feet in a cool bucket of water and I´ll feel beary.. haha

Friday Fun and Follies

In case you run into the person who told me going to Ikea on a friday with a tired almost 2 year old and a cranky almost 5 year old that just found out she´ll be getting a shot this afternoon - make sure to shoot him or her in my name.. lol..
On the upside, I actually made it out of there just under 10 Euros including a Latte Macchiato and playtime in the restaurant´s playcorner. Oh yeah, and the broken part I needed to have replaced was free!

On the downside, I just came across this yesterday... I was looking up something for a patient when Google spit this case of necrotic fasciitis out.. shivver.. no thanks! I really feel for this guy..I actually hit the german news bit about it first and it led me to the original story.

After all the fun at my pediatricians office (oh yeah, they know Isa and I have the feeling that about everyone else within a radius of 2 miles does, too!!) I came across this wonderful link to a different kind of screensaver for us quilters and fabric lovers from Laurel Burch - niiice! Guess I´ll have to change that Soccer World Cup 2006 screensaver now, huh?

summer fun at 100 F

let your kids grab some fabrics, some quilts and you, go out to the back yard and you get:
The Fortress
who says kids that get computer time can´t be creative? I will admit that a 22 month old turning on the computer, logging on to his user and turning on a dora the explorer dvd after inserting it into the drive is a bit scary but oh well..
Later we got visitors from the neighbors again - the 2 baby kats.. when our front door opens, the male of the 2, Leo, comes inside regardless of the loving and caring treatment he receives from Juju.. lol..

uuuh - the 80s!

yeah yeah yeah, I´m old as dirt, I know.. ha ha..
when I actually have an hour or so to do nothing but surf I usually get stuck reading other people´s garden or quilt blogs while listening to SWR3 or last.fm
Today it was the latter and I chose to listen to some 80s music - wohoo! The salsa didn´t do it for long than half an hour, maybe I was all salsaed out from listening and dancing to it all morning (see the offspring below) while cleaning (shhh.. don´t tell anyone I was cleaning!). So the first song coming on was from Tesla and wow - I probably haven´t heard from them since the 80s!
Why am I telling you about this? Because if you don´t have last.fm it´s probably a good idea to download it and revisit some music you have not heard for a while!
Actually, I should stop surfing the web and start marking my mom´s gift for quilting but I can´t find the new chalk I just bought for this.. aaah!!!!! I should have gone to craft day because I know Kristin definitely would have had something to mark it with! Oh well, Playmo Land was good, too :-D

Playmobil Park - go do it!

Yesterday we spent yet another great day at Playmobil Park close to Nürnberg. We had already been there once last October and all of us had a great time - including Alex. This time, however, it was HOT HOT - scorching HOT so we spent most of our time in or near the water :-D

What better place to spend a day at than here? The entrance fee is really cheap - 5 - 7 Euros all depending - the food is very german, good and cheap and the kids get to run, jump, climb and fall around the Playmobil Knights Castle with a secret walkway, a huge jungle gym rope climbing area (totally wears me out every time.. haha), milk Playmo cows and take care of the Playmo horses, dig for gold and and and.. well, just PLAY! I wish it was closer to where we live because we could get a year pass and go there quite often.

Kartoffelbug...

Well, this morning it was not as hot as usual and since we had a rainstorm last night the soil was not hard baked as it had been the last weeks so we ceased the opportunity and got some dirt and stuff for the latest addition to the family - Kartoffelbug. We dug out some weeds and planted them as well as some sticks that Isa insisted he needs for climbing.
We also gave him a new tomato leaf that we put into one of those orchid water containers so it´ll stay fresh for longer and he seems to enjoy it! Hope his captivity will turn into one big vacation for him!!!
This is how he actually looks since you can´t really tell by the picture above. They´re actually really pretty, about the size of a nickel (a little more than a centimeter in diameter) and for a bug that cause this much devastation throughout history he seems very content eating tomato instead of potato leaves. Maybe I´ll find something else for him to munch on this afternoon when we stroll through the vineyards!

ZELDA...

YEAH! Sorry, I just happen to be a gamer.. lol.. Isa is sooo getting into Zelda - Ocarina of Time on the N64, I can´t believe it!
Of course it is not a good thing that my 4 year old can fight Dokuplants and Sculltulas, I know.. mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.. but what can I say? SHE´s MY DAUGHTER! ha ha ha..
Well, while I´m happy that she´s getting into an older Zelda game I personally can´t wait for the newest one for the GameCube Zelda - Twilight Princess to be released. Too much information for ya? smile.. well, we can´t all be grown-ups now, can we? :-D
The only reason we were sitting in the basement today and played Zelda together was the heat anyways.. we´ve been having 90s for way too long and the basement where our gameroom is happens to be the coolest place in the house, so there you have it - it was a necessity!
Oh, and is Camp Hyrule only for kids??? I sure hope not.. ha ha.. not that I´ll have time but I am loving this.

We have a new pet...

Well, despite our efforts to keep kittens and puppies out of the house we had to cave in today...
When we went to the DFAC, Isa found a potato beetle (leptinotarsa juncta) in the fake plants and decided to rescue it. It seemed to enjoy being rescued and stuck around for a very long time. Since it hung out for an hour I finally told her she could keep it.. so he ended up in a bottle for the transport and then was transferred into a see-through critter box with a lid that lets air through but not him.
After getting educated on the internet I asked in YahooAnswers if someone had any pointers for us so that "Kartoffelbug" would have a happy life. I got some great answers but also some strange ones ("you should check with local authorities"... ha ha ha.. that was great!).
So he´s here to stay and we´ll see if he likes it better than certain death at the DFAC. At the moment he seems happy and enjoying his tomato leaves that I sacrificed :-D
Wonder what´s next in the pet sector though.. lol

Harry Potter Movie "Order of the Phoenix"

Uuuh - I just came across this little thing... yeah go ahead, get a good chuckle out of it - yes, I have read all the books and have been to some of the midnight sales :-D I think last time we passed time with making a wand (which I generously gave to Isa the next morning), competing in word scrambles (I can´t believe I got beaten by an 8th grader.. lol) and drinking weird ghostly drinks along with tons of other people who all got sorted into houses later. Have no clue what I´m talking about? Read the first Harry Potter book, you´ll feel better.. smile..

So while I was looking around for information on the new book and contemplating whether I should download one of the MP3 versions to listen to while I run I found this website: The leaky cauldron
Well, I didn´t download an audiobook but this is good enough for me tonight, makes me want to put the kids to bed so I can read some!

Soccer Sushi and other World Cup Memorabilia...

Oh yeah.. now you´ve seen it all - from the very very dark closets of the World Cup to the lighter side.. lol.. I´d like to refrain from posting a picture of the "World Cup 2006 soccer Dildo" that I was recently offered in the everyday Spam pile but don´t want to let you off the hook completely unscathed - as snack food for the game last night (GO GERMANY!!!! WOHOO!!! haha) I had bought some Soccer Sushi which looked good but wasn´t all that great - mainly tasted like rice, not really like sushi as I had hoped.
Fortunately the German team didn´t care and made this a great game - along the the Portugese team of course. BF Claudia was getting a bit annoyed because when the score was 2:0 for us I dared to say that I wish the Portugese would at least score one honor goal as long as we still win.. smile.. and 5 minutes later she called me back to curse me out - nothing but love for me! haha..
Anyways, as everywhere else in the country the party lasted all night with people driving around waving flags and honking their horns, shooting off fireworks and having just one big fest. Hey, after all us Germans will make an excuse for a fest for the sole purpose of having it :-D so might as well take this opportunity! There wasn´t a better place to be on the face of this planet last night than here to watch a whole country celebrate!!!

Go Tedescas!!!

Since the World Cup has had us in his grip from day one we´re prepared for the game tonight.. Go Tedescas!!!!

I am sure hoping we beat Portugal although under other circumstances I would root for them... just not when they´re playing agains us. As you see we are prepared so all the german team has to do now is win - we did our part!!! Our italian friends predicted 3:1 for Italy tomorrow so today I am hoping for 2:1 for Germany - das Runde muß in das Eckige!!!

Child labor is good

as some of you might remember... germans are ANAL about keeping their walkways, driveways and other things neat... So I decided to do the right thing (after all we live in a closely knit german community) and get the moss out of the driveway cracks and Juju thought it would be fun - fine with me! :-D
Child labor is good...









looks like fun to me so I´ll just keep watching and pay more attention to my coffee lol
and the chickens came out to watch as well...

to blog or not to blog...:-D

It seems to be harder and harder for us to keep in touch with all of our friends and family since the majority of them have the audacity to live in different time zones... :-D
So here is our attempt to make it easier to share what is going on at the house of the Germaricans.
We might not be blogging on a daily basis but as blogs live from the participation of many I hope it will grow!



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