Big bugs or About the house of our dreams

Today I could write about really big bugs. They are called palmetto bugs and one was found in the same bed we are sleeping in now. Luckily that was before we slept in there and when someone else had to deal with the creature. But today I could meet and greet one of this kind and show it to you:

Today I could either write about big bugs and colorful spiders (possibly a black widow, I'm not sure) or show you pictures of a house we visited. My family-in-law is looking for a house. It shall be bigger and closer in town than the one we're living in currently. So we went to that house (we saw before) and which Sisto an me enjoyed from the first moment on. We over all liked the garden and entry setting.

Little hedges and broken concrete mixed with red and yellow stone patterns. A nice backyard with lots of potential. Wild growth right now. Some stone paths and a back door into the kitchen.

 But here's the entry. Into kind of a Florida room. Then you enter the living room. It was big and one side had just windows which I like a lot. The house we're living in right know doesn't have lots of windows. It's made to keep the heat out and therefore is very dark inside. But I enjoy lots of windows and big windows, so the light can reach every little spot in a room. I don't feel well if it's dark inside all the time.

Florida room /entry

living room

Then you've got the kitchen. It wasn't big but had enough space for everything and a big window in the middle. The color is neat, too, isn't it?

 In the backyard they had a tiny little house. "The office". Well, it was more like a little workshop (including a toilet and a basin). Or an outside bathroom. But still. A nice little house.
I didn't make pictures of the bedrooms. They had bent walls. The family didn't like that. But we think it's charming. This house definitely had lots of character and we felt that it had been home to a happy family. It would be the perfect home for us. But since we don't wanna stay in Inverness at all this   was just another dream of how we'd love to live. With a swing hanging in an old, big tree.

Homosassa Springs and klean kanteen

Today we went to the wildlife park in Homosassa Springs. We got to see Manatees. They are so huge, I really can't believe it! They were fed with salad. 

I'm not quite sure what to think about those kind of parks. I love to see animals so close. And this park really just had animals native to Florida. The money earned there probably helps to safe wildlife and they also have the goal to protect endangered species like manatees. And they try to wake peoples interest in wildlife, in animal protection and environmentalism. 

But at the same time there are lots of animals that are kept in captivity. And I don't think a lot of the people visiting the park think about mentioned above aspects. They wouldn't put together that helping those animals is also done by reducing the amount of plastics in your everyday life (like the bunch of bags they wrap around every item you buy in every shop around here). That you can't safe the manatees with a 1 mpg car (to exaggerate a bit). And probably most of them don't give a shit about that at all. That makes me sad.

Well. Back to something else. Cause when we came back from the trip there was a big box waiting in front of the door. And inside I found my long awaited klean kanteen bottles. I read about them on birdies blog a while ago and since then wanted to purchase them. But then we knew we would move and I didn't wanted to buy anything. So I had to wait until we were here. But now I actually did it, I ordered two of those awesome bottles! No more drinking from plastic bottles. Why that? Ok, it's written in german, but here's the amazing summary of health dangers caused by plastic.

And now we go and have some ice cream in the sun. That's Florida best...

Im Mai.

 Echtes Leben. Eine Schiffahrt. Bye bye bis Juni.

Fish on Friday

A fish I found more than one year ago on a dutch beach. There were some more dead ones of these needle fishes and looked incredibly beautiful. I like dead animals. In the nature. I don't like them as salami or like the scampi in that stupid cafe lying next to the soup.. And especially today everybody should ask himself if it's really necessary to go on eating fish when the oceans, this biggest of all and yet nearly unknown ecosystem, is close to collapsing by human interferences. Well, you know about methods like trawling, and you know that mangrove forests are destructed to built shrimp farms, and apart from that eating fish means eating all those chemicals and dangerous poisons people all over the world discharge into the oceans. So here's what I think about it: Next time in the supermarket you just think about these facts for 10 seconds when you stand in front of the board with all those pressed-into-bars-animals.

You still want to see the not yet rotten image from my collection of dead animals?

Here it is for you:

Expectations

Not even two months until we leave. I can't believe it. Working in the cafe is getting worse. And being at home sucks because of this mess. See:

The only thing that keeps us going right now is looking forward to our great journey! Across the ocean on a big container ship we'll drive. No airplanes. No fear. Just lots of salty water, some seagulls, the sky and 10 lazy days.

The ship leaves from Bremerhaven and will arrive at the coast of South Carolina. There my mother in law who is currently moving from Hawaii back to Florida will pick us up. Then together we drive to Inverness, where she's living. And I will get to know the place where my husband grew up.

The land of Alligators and Manatees.

I'm soooo sooo curious about all this.

I'm curious about America! I can't await to eat Peanut Butter Puffins again. (Maybe you remember that incredible care package we got one year ago..) And I cannot wait to see spanish moss, the swamp and crystal river.

First going to Florida apart from all that promises us to finally have a real summer again. A summer we can enjoy cause we're not stuck in the middle of a big city. A summer with the sea not too far from where we live. A hot summer. And I get to know his family!

This is what I'm looking forward to. This really is it!

More about our plans in the next episode of "new world".. Oh and help me to get rid of the chaos here*.

Beobachtungen

1)

Wuppertal ist eine komische Stadt. Im Rathaus in einer leeren Vitrine hing einsam und vertrocknet eine tote Biene. Als ich aus demselben heraus trat fragten mich zwei Typen, die ich mir nicht genauer anschauen wollte so von der Seite, halb gerufen, halb geflüstert, ob ich drücke. Zusammen erzeugten diese kurzen Momente an einem grauen Tag wie heute das Bild von grenzenloser Tristesse in mir.

2)

Hundescheisse kleidet sich momentan des öfteren in einen Pilzpelz. Schaut mal hin, diese weißen Fusseldinger am Straßenrand sind bizarre Symbiosen zwischen Groß und Klein.

3)

Gesamtschüler der im Bus aus einer yumyum-Tüte futtert, als wären chinesische Fertignudelgerichte Chips. Sicher, der Unterschied ist nicht groß, aber ich frage mich ernsthaft: Kippt er sich am Ende die Gewürze und das Öl pur in den Mund?

Cranberrries?

I didn't like Cranberries. I'm not a friend of bitter and sweet in combination.

When I was a child I hated chickory and brussel sprouts and grapefruit. Now I like the first two vegs but with that sweet and bitter grapefruit thing I still have my personal problems.

Cranberries have a bit of bitterness as well. Nothing for me!

About one month ago there was a party where I ate a muffin. It had cranberries inside. And I liked it. Totally. It was super yummy and the last days I had to think of cranberries. And of cookies. So today I mixed that wholemeal chocolate chip batter but instead of chocolate I stirred in a cup of cranberries. (And added some chocolate chips later, too.) What came out of the oven were delicious fruity and soft cookies that have just a little crunch the moment you bite into one of them.

I'm afraid they won't last very long.

In der Mitte von Essen

entsteht grade dort, wo einmal eine große Brache war, eine Anzahl von Mehrfamilienhäusern. Noch gehört das Terrain den Krähen und Lachmöwen. Nicht mehr lang.

Meine Camera hätte ich gern zur Hand gehabt.

50-Cent-Obst

Bei uns gibt es einen Supermarkt, der es schafft sein nicht mehr so schönes Obst und Gemüse in gemischte Tüten zu verpacken und ein [49 Cent]-Schild drauf zu kleben. Das find ich gut. Ich finde, es sollte mehr Supermärkte geben, die dieses Obst nicht radikal in die Tonne kloppen [Videolink], sondern es zu reduziertem Preis anbieten. Es soll nämlich Leute geben, die olle Bananen für Smoothies, Shakes, Eis oder Kuchen gut gebrauchen können.

Weniger Müll, weniger Geld, alle zufrieden!

Was ich heute also für knapp 2,50€ bekommen habe sieht so aus:

P.S. Ich sehe grade das erste Mal, dass auf der Obsttüte eine Wurst drauf ist.. Warum?

P.P.S. Die Menge an Platiktüten dabei ist natürlich enorm, wir nutzen sie grade immer als Mülltüten, aber insgesamt ist das natürlich keine Lösung - zu dem Thema gibt es diesen Film (z.B. Minute 08:57). Mit der dort angesprochenen gesundheitlichen Gefahr hat sich birdie auf foodnfotos ausführlich beschäftigt.

P.P.P.S. Genug geschweift, denn eigentlich ging es mir ja nur darum meine Freude über das ganze Obst zu teilen.

Euch allen eine schöne Woche!

Stuff

See, there is a conflict in between me all the time. I'm a hoarder. But I also have the wish to get rid of stuff. Most of the time the stacking side wins. So there are lots of things I love and can't give away. There are things that have an emotional weight for me. There are lots of things of which I think "maybe I can do something out of it, maybe it's useful for something" - a puppeteers disease.. And there are stacks of stuff I'm planning on selling at a flea market. Yet it didn't happen.

Moving is a chance.

At the moment I'm sorting out CDs. Radically.

I try to list some of my clothing at "kleiderkreisel".

But there's still a lot of other things that are looking for a new home. Nice things. Things I like. Things other people might like as well. And I fear I can't give them away to people I don't like. Or even dislike.

So maybe I'll post some of them here.

Do you agree?

And question of the day: Will I lose my past when I give away stuff that reminds me of what I was like? Will I be a different person without my stuff? And why can't I live like a buddhist?

Lesson of the day: Yes, we need money for our big adventure. But most of our stuff has no value but an emotional one. Thus leads me to the conclusion that there's nothing to win while everything to lose.

This really is hard and joyful the same. Please I need your help.

- I'm done.

Teil 1: ✓

Teil 2 folgt in einer Stunde. Verteidigung ist das Stichwort. Ich bin gespannt, was ich mir werde anhören müssen. Persönliches. Nicht zu Herzen nehmen.

Ich habe das beste Stück der Welt.

Ich habe das beste Stück der Welt.

Ich habe das beste Stück der Welt.

Fortsetzung folgt.

The new year

Nearly one week of the new year has passed. That so so awaited new year.

The last one wasn't really satisfying so I really hope this year will be a delight. We have plans. Great plans. Grand plans.

So these are my new years resolutions (though I'm really no person who makes new years resolutions, i mean: what for? to dump them after two weeks?). What I now call new years resolutions are just our plans and what I'm personally into right now. Ok.

As you can guess from the last posts I'm kind of curious about the raw ("rrroarrr") thing right now. my husband has been eating raw for a while now. not completly strict but in his own strictness. i mean raw nuts are not really affordable for us right now. but he for example doesn't eat sweets. even if they're raw. so it's a mixture. for christmas he got a mixer and now we're both obsessed with it. the green smoothie to start the day really makes me excited. maybe it's just a mind thingie but giving myself a high dose of fruits and green leaves as a breakfast makes me feel good. even if after an hour or so I'm hungry again and eat some bread or whatever. So apart from that I also want to try out other raw recipes right now. I already made raw hazelnut milk two days ago. and want to try raw cashew cheese and stuff like this. or raw lentil soup. or ..well theres much to discover.

to sum this up:

1) eat my greens!

But THE plan for this year is of another dimension. This year we will move to the states. Within the last year we slowly developed this idea. First it was more like a joke or phantasie but after a while we thought: why not? what's speaking against this?

And so in the end of the year we started to apply for a visa. Since my husband is american it is possible for him to sign a petition for me to become a permanent. There is still a chance that they might deny it, there is still a chance that the process will fail, but we have to think optimistic and if nothing goes wrong we will spend most of the year on another continent.

2) move to the USA!

Before that I will finally finish my studies. On 16th and 17th of january I have my final exams that include performing my childrens piece for the jury and having an interview with them. I already gave them a thesis I wrote that is also part of the diploma. So in a bit more than a week I'm done. I can't believe it. I delayed for so long. And now I'm doing it. I'll get that stupid paper and I never have to think about it again. (I probably will. But that's another question.)

3) go for my diploma!

The rest will be somewhat results of the first three. Moving for example will change everything. We'll have to built up a new live. We'll have to find jobs, a home, deal with that stupid insurance stuff etc. And after nearly three years I will get to know the family of my husband apart from phone and emails. Before that we'll have to get rid of our stuff. And find a ship (yes, we are planning on doing it the old fashioned way) and

- I don't know. But now you know.

So that's it for today. I hope that your plans for this year as well as my plans will become reality. After nearly one year of blogging I wanted to let you know that I appreciate that there seem to be some people that regularly read my blog. Thank you!

Good vs. Evil

Childrens Movies.

Really I don't know why there is nobody protecting children from bad movies. It even seems as if they were producing extra specially bad movies for kids. Why? It's like in theatre, some adults seem to think children are just stupid things that you can satisfy with crap. Well, probably lots of children are satisfied with crap but that's ridiculous. Really, lets protect them from stuff like this.

The storyline was ok, but what they made of it was incredibly boring. The main character was a crying baby and half of the movie you would see him looking sad into the camera. First we thought ok that won't be something great but lets watch it just because it's crappy. But when the film was over we blamed ourselves for that decision cause it was so lame. I don't want to go into the details but the best moment of the movie was when the bad boy was so frightened he pooped his pants. Pffff it made. Unbelievable!

So here is what you should show to your children. It is our new discovery. It is intense and rich and magic: Jim Henson's The Storyteller.

We found the DVDs in the library and watched the first three stories: Hans my hedgehog, fearnot and a short story. From the greek myths we watched all so far (if wikipedia is right and there are just four).. There is always the tale told by the story teller to his old dog (a puppet that is lovely played and is reacting to the story), there is the actual tale (performed by actors) and there are transitions with shadow figures. The athmosphere is dark and thrilling. And I love how the story is told in fragments, framed by the storyteller and the use of puppetry elements.

Go for it! For me it's one of the best finds lately.

16. August

Außerdem ein kleiner Link. Meine bisherigen Favoriten des "Kunstpiep"-Wettbewerbs auf www.fidena.de. Für den Piep kann man bis zum 25. September Videos schauen und abstimmen.

Vogel am Fenster

"POCK"

machte es gestern morgen so um zwanzig nach sieben. Und mit lautem Knall war ein Vogel gegen unser Fenster geflogen und wir wach. Dieser Abdruck zeugt vom unorthodoxen Versuch sich Einlass zu verschaffen. Oder auch nur von der schmerzhaften Begegnung eines nicht so kleinen Vogels mit dem Material Glas. Das tut weh.

Man kann zum Teil sogar die sehr feinen Strukturen der Federn im Abdruck erkennen. Dass der Vogel nicht comic-haft an der Scheibe entlang nach unten gerutscht und dann auf dem Rücken landend zur Erde geplumst ist, ist ein Wunder. Oder vielleicht ist er das auch?

Wir hoffen, er hat von diesem Zwischenfall nur einen leichten Schock und keine ernsthaften Verletzungen davon getragen. Der Arme!

Überall nur noch stammelnde Leute

und im Fernsehen wird die Sprachbehinderung gehätschelt.

Ich muss hier weg!

Present and Past

Some days ago I visited my old blog .

That was weird and funny. Reading what I posted some years ago.. and I just watched the latest posts not the earlier ones. I blogged there for about four years or so. I started when I moved from home for studying. I thought it would be nice to write about stuff from my life so parents and friends from home could follow a bit if interested and I don't have to spam them with my life via email.

In the end real life somehow got me and blogging was more like one of those habits you try to keep on doing but can't completely connect with any more. I was back at my old home town. My family was close again. I didn't know if someone still was reading it. I didn't know what to write about. I was mainly posting stuff I liked on the internet. So not bad but still not enough.

Then I started this blog. I started somehow at the point were I ended the old one here. Because somehow I wanted to have a space again were I could post stuff I found inspiring on the internet. (It wasn't facebook-time for me yet.) Then dropped again and somehow got into it by seeing all those great crafting blogs. And all those great blogs about (vegan) cooking and baking. This made me come back and restart blogging with a bit more content than just "copy and paste"-stuff.

So. here I am. At post 100. And enjoying this thing.

How about you? How long are you doing this?

Did you have other projects before? What were your topics, what are they now?

Morgens um fünf

singen alle Vögel. Ein Durcheinander-Konzert.

Taube und Hahn

Im Baum vor dem Fenster tobt jeden Morgen eine dicke Taube herum.

Das ist amüsant, weil sie über einen recht geringen Gleichgewichtssinn zu verfügen scheint.

Dass sie regelmässig fast vom Ast fällt hindert sie auch nicht daran mit riesigen Zweigen im Schnabel durch das Geäst zu hüpfen.

___

Heute Morgen hat ein Hahn laut krähend mein Spülen unterbrochen. Erstaunliche Sachen im Zentrum von Essen.

underwater seals make sounds like synthesizers, did you know?

and oh no, some animals sound really weird:


and once started with this youtubing you'll get sucked into a world of weird pets with weird habbits and more than this weird owners..