Out of practice

I tried to sit down and write something 2 days ago, and I found myself staring at the screen with not a single idea in my head. It felt like mental constipation, and I could only wish that my brain were that empty when trying to fall asleep. *sigh*

It probably doesn't help that I haven't set foot out of doors since I helped John carry up our groceries on Monday. The weather has been shit, and I have a lot of computer-based work to do, having caught up on a lot of my household chores during the holidays, so there hasn't been a lot of incentive to get outside. The sun is out right now, though, so I'm considering running a few errands before it turns rainy again.

One of the things making me grumpy, besides the lack of crafting due to the aforementioned work, is the lack of creative writing. I've had one story circling in my brain, more and more insistently, for a while. It's a story I stole from my seestor, and have started, restarted, made an outline, made notes, and thought about while semiconscious. A few days ago, I sent what I had previously written to my kindle so I could see what I had come up with so far, and I wasn't happy with it. At the time I wrote it, I was pleased with it, but rereading it cold after so long, it feels technically accurate without having much heart. (That's probably what my clarinet playing sounded like back in high school as well.) Yesterday, I happened across a quote (allegedly) from one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett:

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

When I read that, something clicked for me. Rather than try to describe explicity what it is I see in my head, I need to write more like I talk. I also need to try to loosen up and not make everything perfect as I go. So I’m giving myself permission to barf out onto the page whatever occurs to me. Sort of like I do here. *g*

--Nee in Germany hates to admit she collects quotes

Anxious

Finished my knitting project. (You can tell that I've already put this dishcloth to use, so I would call that a successful  project.)



Then I got depressed because I realized I didn't have time to do any more sewing/crafty projects over the holidays, and I also won't have time to work on any once classes resume. As we say in our family, that sucketh.

I did manage to get a bunch of family photos onto an SD card, though, while John was driving Hannah back to Frankfurt; now I can save them onto my new digital picture frame and enjoy them any time. (And John thought I'd never get around to it.)

--Nee in Germany doesn't know how to relax, also wisdom from John

Annoyed

The supermarket closes in 2 hours, and I need to walk over, but I can't leave the house because I am waiting on someone to come by, and I wish they would just hurry up, because they are late.

But once that is out of the way, we'll be busy busy for the next couple of days. Tonight we're going to a New Year's sleepover at our friends', a fairly new tradition that saves me a long drive home in the middle of the night. Tomorrow we're invited to a traditional Korean New Year's Day lunch with our neighbors.

Hannah has to go back to work/training on Jan. 4, but the university is closed through Jan. 6 (Epiphany), so John and I don't have to teach again until Jan. 11. I've got a huge backlog of stuff to get through between now and then, but at least I don't also have to go in to the university.

I'm trying to practice my knitting, but I'm not sure I've got it down. More practice!

--Nee in Germany gets the craft-bug over the holidays

Addicted to LMFAO

... the musical group, not the Internet shorthand. I've discovered two things about listening to music while I work: 1. bopping around in my chair while I work keeps my back from getting jacked up, and 2. music helps smother all the rest of the brain noise that keeps me from concentrating on my work. I go through phases where I only listen to one album or one artist on repeat, but other times I just put my MP3 player on random. I'm about to download a few songs off amazon to add to my collection, such as from the aforementioned LMFAO, from Taylor Swift (I don't think I've heard more than 2 of her songs, only one of which I plan to download), and from David Guetta, for maximum boppiness.

We went to see Star Wars, and through a series of minor blunders ended up seeing it in 3D. I seem to remember having a headache after my last 3D experience, but it ended up being a non-issue this time. I *really* enjoyed myself, and afterwards I could understand how a friend's children ended up putting over 2000 "steps" on their Fitbits over the course of the film. There was a lot of excited wiggling going on, even if I *am* almost 43.

I cooked up some eggnog yesterday, which is the only kind John likes because it reminds him of the store-bought kind back home. That was never my favorite kind, personally, but whatever. Our neighbor who has been working in France since September is going to come over for eggnog and goodies this evening, since he also likes that kind of eggnog. Our house has been a magnet for Americans (mostly military) and USA-philes for a long time, so he has been exposed to various American foods. I didn't have time to bake until xmas eve, which is when Germans typically celebrate the holiday with their families, so Hannah and I took some cookies around on the second day of xmas and managed to catch several neighbors at home to ply them with buttery treats. Never fear, there are still plenty of homemade delights (minus the turtles, mmmm) to share with our recently returned neighbor over eggnog tonight.

Nee in Germany lives off cookies and licorice during the holidays

Placeholder for stuff I've been reading and thinking about

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor#6151391
made me think of this advice
http://thatbadadvice.tumblr.com/post/124839439584/good-advice-interlude-boys-are-confusing

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor#6130011
This made me cry:

"...I raised this woman. She won't take shit from anyone. She does things. She even offends me, and that's okay, because she is a rocket, and she is taking off, and I launched her."

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor#6130724

"To a lot of the people saying “ugh, cards, who cares” or “just skip it, no one I know cares about getting presents for [X] occasion,” this is why these things matter. The present itself is secondary. The thank you card itself is secondary. They matter as vehicles for messages of love. They matter as ways of saying “I value you, I am thinking of you, I treasure your place in my life and my community, and I want this tangible object to be a talisman of my care for you.”
The gift itself is not the thing. The card itself is not the thing. The relationship is the thing. "

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor#6131161

"On this foundation is built a castle of love."

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor#6131276
#FeminismThroughDadJokes is totally up my alley

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor#6131999
This made me catch my breath. This is advice that should be passed on to all people, but especially girls:

"There are a lot of questions on askme that hurt my heart because they are questions from women who want to know how to carve themselves into an acceptable shape for a man and I always want to tell them that they should never deform the person they were meant to be just so they can have some male-identified person with whom to associate. Life is too short to be a bonsai human for someone else's toleration and convenience."

Sniff

My baby is traveling around Frankfurt all by herself. *sniff*

She's traveled to and through Frankfurt alone before, but I bought the tickets and looked up track numbers, etc. This time it is all on her, and she texted me about her problems -- confusing train station, ticket machine that only takes small bills -- and triumphs -- only 5 minutes behind schedule, even with the problems.

As we say in my family (tongue in cheek), "She's so growny!"

Trying to be stoic

We took Hannah to her new apartment (room in a boarding house, really, but she shares one whole floor with a kitchen, bath, and dining room with only one other person, so almost like an apartment/roommate situation) today, and I managed to forget to bring her bathroom box, so no shampoo for her until the stores open tomorrow.

We all teared up when John and I left, and he cried a little on the way home, but I managed not to cry, what with my flinty heart and all. I called her when we got home and she sounded cheerful. She was getting unpacked and enjoying getting her room arranged to her satisfaction. She had even figured out how to get YouTube on the tv in her room, so I guess she can have 9gag and a game open on her laptop while also watching YouTube videos of drunk people doing things on her tv.

Gardening

I've bought an inordinate number of Coleus canina plants, i.e. piss-off plants, to keep cats out of my garden. Every time I manage to drive them away with a couple of carefully placed plants, they find a new spot to take a dump in. The plants are pretty pungent, with a strong skunk odor. The first time I bought some, I didn't think ahead, so they stayed locked in my hot, closed car while I did my grocery shopping. It was not an enjoyable ride home, even with the windows open. The last batch were bought on a less hot day, and I remembered the windows, but there was still the stink on my arms from brushing against them while I carried them up from the cellar. At least they work as advertised!

Off to Frankfurt

Today I am driving Hannah to Frankfurt to pick up the keys to her room in a boarding house. That's where she'll be living for the next 3 years while she completes her apprenticeship to become a cook/chef.

(Sorry for the briefness, but I've decided that microblogging is better than no blogging.)

Avoidance as a lifestyle

Urgh--I soooo do not want to grade papers and presentations, but I have a rather big backlog, and people are going to start wondering about them since classes start back on Wednesday. I'm at the point that I'd like to just set a match to all of it (and Hannah's room while I am at it--I wasn't kidding when I mentioned her hoarding tendencies).

During the xmas holidays, it is traditional for me to subsist mainly on candy and then have to change gears back to normal food in January. This year, I have decided to also cut back on the places where I would normally add sugar--coffee, for instance. I've discovered that I really only need some milk to cut the bitterness. I'm not keen on the idea of how much processing it takes to produce sugar, and cane sugar has the added drawback of not being produced in Europe. I don't actually imagine I can have a modern diet and still only shop locally, but I can make minor changes in both my diet and my shopping habits to feel like I am making some kind of contribution to my own health and the health of the planet. (Maybe it is a drop in the bucket, but I might go more crazy than usual if I don't do anything at all.)

My aunt and mom "fought" for years over ownership of a certain cookbook that contained the recipe for my aunt's famous divinity recipe. I finally got the recipe from her, but in such a stripped-down form (only ingredients, and no specific directions) that it has been a disaster every time I have tried it. So this year I did my own research and found my own recipe (from the Fanny Farmer Cookbook, which is fairly dependable), and I still ended up with egg-white-and-walnut-flavored taffy. I forgot the cardinal rule--no candy-making when it is wet. That is hardly ever a problem in the deserts of West Texas, but in Central Europe, on the shores of a river, during a misty December--yeah, another disaster was inevitable. Moreover, corn syrup, as an American product, is not available here, so that will be my last-ever attempt at divinity, I have decided, for most of the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph. Otherwise, my stubborn-slash-stupid side would not let me quit until I had finally conquered it.

In the process of wasting those egg whites and so much sugar, I managed to destroy my hand-mixer (stupid, heavy divinity), so now I need to shop for a replacement. I may just get the same one again, if it is available, as it was very reliable, except when I wanted to mix something that was clearly beyond its capabilities. I may get a stand-mixer, too. And a larger food processor. (I currently have just a food-chopper.) John bought me a multi-device several years ago, but the blender function ended up being its downfall. I didn't get the base threaded on properly, and when I tried to blend ice cream in it, the motor ended up soaked in eggs and canteloupe; I couldn't get it open to clean it properly, so I've only used it a few times, when I've felt ambitious and forgetful. Inevitably, it either overheats or the clutch (?) doesn't work properly and it turns too fast, again leading to too much heat. So if anyone has any recommendations, I am all ears. Actually, I will probably just buy a German brand; Bosch is pretty good, and I think I can get it in our local kitchen shop.

We went to our favorite German restaurant last night, and on our way in, we overheard some people in the street talking about "flood tourism". I guess some people had come into town to see the Neckar overflowing its banks. That's an odd reason to come, but if it brings business to our local restaurants afterwards, who am I to complain.

My adventures in puttering this morning included halfheartedly pulling some (but not all!) of the ornaments off the tree, shaking the needles out of the tree skirt so I could put it away, and sweeping the rest of the needles off the floor. Tree pick-up is not until Saturday, so I may have it all done by then at this rate. Now I need to get my shopping list finished so I can go to the post office and the store. Tomorrow I have to be in Frankfurt first thing in the morning with Hannah, so I need to finish up a few things so I don't have anything left to do for our outing.

-Nee in Germany is digging the sunshine that's finally appearing

Puttering as an extreme sport

Seems I have taken my puttering to a new level. Today I accomplished a lot of little things that needed to be done, but not necessarily right.this.minute. Some of them were to protect my sanity--finding 3 books I know I own but haven't been able to put my hands on in some time, clearing away my literal "to-be-read pile" that had become a tripping hazard next to my bed--while others would be due soon anyway--quarterly tax payments, etc. And others were things we'd been promising to do but just hadn't gotten our asses in gear on; now that my puttering has managed to procure bookcases for Hannah's room, it's her problem to clean out her hoarding and to fill them.

I finally broke down and bought myself a smart phone, since the Crushinator had done in my brick phone and John and I were getting tired of not being able to reach each other since we were passing the other brick phone back and forth. I still haven't actually been carrying it around since 1) I haven't gone anywhere, and 2) my SIM card has only been partially activated, but now that I'll be going back to work next week and the last of the paperwork for my SIM card should go into the mail tomorrow, I'll finally be forced to take it for a spin soon. Maybe I can figure out how to work the Blogger app...

I think I mentioned all the snow we've had. It's been warming up, so we've had a lot of melt-off, then we got a little rain and a lot more snow yesterday. By yesterday evening, the city was warning people to move their cars because the river was expected to flood. Sure enough, the water was up over the divider at the locks this morning. With all the new rain and snow yesterday, we made the executive decision to just eat out this weekend and to do our weekly grocery shopping on Monday. It's my turn, and I wasn't keen on driving down our steep, unplowed, cobblestoned street. It also bought me some more time to make a grocery list.

I spent one whole day catching up on laundry over the break. When it got to the point where I couldn't find one particular pair of pants that I had just had on, I knew I needed to do something to get the mounds of clothes reduced to a livable level.

Hannah's laptop is driving me mad. It acted like it wanted to implode around xmas, and we finally got it up and running again, and now it is starting some of the same shit, 5 hours before she has a paper due. (Yes, she has homework over the holidays. Germany is not quite Korea when it comes to school pressure, but in her final year, it is starting to get up there.) Grrr...

-Nee in Germany is avoiding the inevitable--work

Flailing

Well, it's that time of year again, when the holidays are past and work is looming before me again. That means just one thing in these parts: Brain-flail!

Luckily for anyone reading, I find writing about the brain-flail as boring as you must find reading about it, so I will just skip it and move on to documenting life in the slow lane.

John's been spending all his free time (that falls outside of the local quiet hours) carving in the cellar. He's already got 2 panels done for the door of his garden shed/stave church and has been posting pictures like an obsessed person on facebook. Weatherwise, he can't do much up in the garden itself, so this is the next best thing for preparing to build the garden shed in the summer/fall.

Hannah has her school-leaving exams this spring, and every academic assignment this school year has inevitably led to tears at some point. I think it's the same for most of her classmates, though. German schools are notoriously difficult, but the stress has been ratcheted up for Hannah's cohort because the state changed the number of school years but not the graduation requirements right before she started high school, so she and her classmates have had to learn 9 years of material in only 8 years. We had already heard horror stories about kids having nervous breakdowns in their last year, but it could get even worse for the kids in Hannah's group.

Despite the best efforts of my colleagues, I wasn't able to get a new contract in the English department, but I applied for and got a contract in the translation department instead. Now I'm kind of wishing I hadn't. Translating (which I actually feel confident in my ability to do) and teaching translating are two different beasts, and I feel like I am letting everyone in the department down. That being said, I've already realized that it is not totally on me: they dumped 8 courses on me for my first semester, without any materials or curriculum beyond course titles. [FLAIL deleted]

We finally made it to the xmas market in Michelstadt. That is a little town up north of us in the Odenwald, and we had heard good things about it but had never managed to go. We went with another family on the last Sunday, and despite the rain, it was crazy crowded. We ate delicious wild boar sausage and visited a really cool museum while we were there, but the rain and crowds put a bit of a damper on the trip.

Then we were invited over to the same family's for New Year's Eve, which is our tradition. This year we played a dinner murder mystery game (John was the only person to suspect Hannah, that sneaky murderess!) and then stayed the night to avoid driving home in the snow. None of the chicks wanted to go outside in the cold to shoot off fireworks, so we stayed in while the dudes went outside. They didn't stay out long, though; a new roof on your house will make you loathe to play with fire near it, it turns out.

[Here's where we pretend I have managed to pull together these disparate elements into a satisfying conclusion.]

-Nee in Germany

Busy busy boring

Life has been hectic recently, but in a boring way.

I had a ton of grading due last week, exacerbated by my usual procrastination, so that wasn't fun.

In the middle of that, John and I had to travel to the other end of our administrative district to take care of some paperwork (the glamorous life of the immigrant). Anything to do with bureacracy around here can get very complicated very fast, but it could have been much worse. I'd like to spend more time there in Heppenheim if we get a chance. There was half-timbering out the whazoo, which I hadn't been expecting.

We had our 19th anniversary and finally found some decent Mexican food a thirty-minute drive away.

We have paying guests in our vacation apartment at the moment, so we had to clean in preparation for them coming, plus we had to replace a curtain rod and install some new lights we had bought. (One of the perqs of the vacation apartment is that now I have a place to put all the crafty stuff I like to come up with. I can thank John for that realization. On to the doily patterns!)

Our friends came over 2 Saturdays in a row, first to brew some beer and then to bottle it.

John and I also tackled the plants growing up our house. He trimmed and trained the roses and the grape vines, and I cut back this other mystery ivy on the north side. I also planted some carnations in a stone planter outside the vacation apartment--also on the north side, unfortunately, so there might not be enough sunshine there for them to be really happy. We'll see.

-Nee in Germany is actually getting shit done!

Garden planning, back corner

When we bought the house, there were already several kinds of plants in the garden, mostly flowers. Most of them were kinds we weren't familiar with, like this:



While very pretty and colorful, they took up a lot of space.



And they harbored and sustained the mortal enemy of the vegetable garden, the gastropod.



Sure, they look all cute and interesting, but they can get almost anywhere. We once saw a tv program about an escargot farm, and the snail farmers demonstrated that the snails are able to crawl over barbed wire and knife blades without injuring themselves (thick layer of slime, ftw!). I found this one



on this thorned berry vine (in the middle of the picture) hanging 20 feet or more down a stone wall behind our house.



Moreover, they ate the hell out of the plants I actually wanted in the garden. I tried using this "slug-away" gel, but it is a pain to encircle every single plant, and then it washes away too fast to really protect the seedlings.



Luckily, pumpkin plants can mostly grow fast enough to replace what gets eaten, but not so much the pumpkins themselves.



So last fall I spent a backbreaking half a day digging up those flowers at the top of this entry to deny the sluggy assholes a shady bower to snack on while they wait to denude my garden during the night. I am planning to put tomatoes in there instead, because I have been assured that they (as members of the nightshade family) repel slugs.

-Nee in Germany is planning while the sun don't shine

Happy Birthday to Me

I had a good 41st birthday. My family told me "Happy Birthday" first thing rather than "saving it up as a surprise" (John's excuse in the past). (News flash--not a surprise.) Hannah wasn't even all the way awake when she told me "Happy Birthday."

John and I went down the street and had steaks at the local German cuisine restaurant (Hannah was at a par-tay) on my actual birthday. The next day, we had a strawberry cheesecake.

My two punkin's were so sweet. Hannah bought me a card and put it in the actual mail to me.


John got me a sweater I had said I liked (I only had to tell him how to find the shop 3 times *g*).


And my seestor's gift came in the mail today. Behold!


She knows me so well.

-Nee in Germany likes the little things (especially socks)

Nee deep in the compost

We had a couple of beautiful sunny days but woke up to frost on everything this morning. I wanted to put some vegetable scraps on my compost pile on my way out, but I couldn't feel my fingers by the time I climbed all the stairs up to the garden.


Picture this covered in carrot greens and peels.

We are still talking about relocating the compost, but that would probably mean even more stairs. No bueno. Ah, well, we are still young and spry...

A little at a time, sweet Jesus

A little blogging, that is.

Rather than overdo it today and then blow it off for 4 months *cough*, I'm going to try posting just one thing a day, but for the whole week.

We didn't have a proper winter, just a lot of cold rain. Now it has warmed up to spring-like temperatures, and we've even managed to get a couple of days of sunshine--aah! That isn't supposed to last, but we are trying to enjoy it while we can. I spent a little time outside yesterday, planning my garden, and John is out there pulling weeds now.



Tomorrow: garden planning ideas

Sleeping like a baby (-ish)

When we moved last year, I started pushing for new mattresses. We had been on our old ones for 9 years, and they were noticeably squashed.

We decided to put it off because we had a lot of expenses at the time (buying a house comes with expenses? you don't say!), but I still managed to come out worse in the deal because I ended up with John's old mattress on my side of the bed.(1) He's much larger than I am, so you can imagine whose mattress had more wear.

We replaced Hannah's mattress first when we found the cushy, snuggly kind she likes on sale. As far as I am concerned, though, cushy mattresses are a type of torture device. John and I wanted firm mattresses, and we knew we'd have to spend some real money on them, so we put off our shopping a little longer.

Then our city's twice annual large trash pickup rolled around, and we realized that this was our big chance to get rid of our old, saggy mattresses, but that we would also have to suck it up and buy some new ones. To the Internet! (2) We did a little research on (German) consumer reports and managed to find what we were looking for, with free delivery even.

Once again, I (and Hannah) got the short end of the stick when the large trash day came, because John was enjoying himself in Croatia at a conference while Hannah and I schlepped mattresses down this hill to the pickup point near that church tower.

Then I got to sleep on our couch for a week (joined by John at the end of that time) until the mattresses were delivered. That was actually not such a big deal, because it is quite firm, which I like.

Now when I get in bed at night, the mattress doesn't sink down, not even a centimeter. It is great!

(1) Here in Germany, double beds have two single mattresses side by side instead of one large, square mattress like in the US (and France, it turns out).

(2) We're so far out, there aren't any decent furniture stores in the area, and we were going to have to have the mattresses delivered anyway, so this seemed like as good a method of mattress shopping as any.

All roses up in here

I waited a day too long to pillage more roses from the garden.

The purple one is another freebie out of our garden, but here it is already a bit faded and turning brown on the edges. It only lasted a day in the vase before it dropped all its petals. John and I can't quite put our finger on the scent: air freshener? Hospital hand soap?

This one is one of John's purchases for the slope: Friesinger Morgenröte, I think (=sunrise). It is a beautiful color, but John and I disagree as to which is the better rose, his or the pink one above. I can't tell that it has much smell to it (maybe it, too, was picked too late), but John reports that it is supposed to have a slightly peach-like scent to it.

The garden came with another type of rose, as well. In German they are called Beetrosen (=(flower) bed roses), but I guess in English they are referred to as being "bushy". They put out clusters of itty-bitty roses. I like them because they seem very old fashioned, but John is not impressed.

Last but not least, we have the climbing roses that actually grow up the street side of the house.

Unfortunately, they seem to have some rust or something growing on them. John was advised by a neighbor (who used to be a professional gardener, I believe) that they needed to be cut way back last fall, but John was loathe to at the time. Watching them over the last year, and having a little more experience in the garden, he's realized that even if cutting them back kills them, they can be replaced. And if it doesn't kill them, they'll grow back quickly. So we picked up some reading on how to trim the various kinds of rose bushes, and I guess we'll be whacking away at them in a few weeks.

--Nee in Germany loves her rose pruning gloves--look, Ma, no pokes!

Gotta get outside

If I spend too much time indoors working (like this week, finishing up a big translating job), I start getting antsy. Getting outside, even if just for 10 minutes, really helps me stay even. Luckily, our laundry room is situated such that you have to go out the back door to get to it. So if I run a load or two during the day, I have a ready made excuse to step outside for a bit.

Sometimes I putter around out back, fiddling with my potted plants or pulling grass and dead plants up from various cracks. At this time of year, though, there is one main task: cleaning up after the giant horse chestnut tree behind our house.

Pretty, isn't it? It provides nice shade up there if you want to take a break and sit on the bench behind it, but it also throws shade on our garden (see the grass John planted to the left?). And it drops friggin' chestnuts everywhere. The loud "thunk" of them hitting is very distracting (and a bit unnerving at night).

This is the view after I had already swept and shoveled the terrace completely clean last week. This is probably 1-2 buckets worth of horse chestnuts. They are actually quite pretty, but inedible, so I set some aside to use in fall decorations, but I haven't come across or been able to think of anything good to do with them. I finally just piled some in decorative bowls and put them out in the vacation apartment we rent out. If nothing else, they are supposed to drive spiders away.




--Nee in Germany has got your conker!