Halloween

In preparation for Halloween, the hubby and I talked about getting a pumpkin for carving. Whereas I would’ve gotten a pumpkin the size of a basketball, the hubby went for this:

Apparently Texas isn’t the only state where things are bigger….

Look at that beautiful lopsided grin…

The hubby gets to work….

Finished. We then put it out on the doorstep. Not an hour later we had the neighbors call in for a visit after they saw our pumpkin. They loved it.

Now all we need to do is stock up on sweets and look forward to next weeks trick or treating.

Happy Halloween!!!!

that’s why i hate tuesdays – part II

Remember my rant on how I don’t like Tuesdays about a week ago? Well Karma is a bitch.

What happens when you’re done grocery shopping, which most of you know I hate with a passion? Of course, you load the groceries into your car and you drive home.

That’s what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately that’s not what happened to me. Instead you turn the key in the ignition and your car pretends to start but then doesn’t and then it starts to rain and you didn’t bring a coat and you’re a wee bit cold and your cell’s battery is almost dead and you don’t have a single cent of cash on you. And the last call you’re able to make is to your husband, who, being stuck in a meeting, rushes to your aid. And at least he has a charged cell phone and calls the ADAC, which is the German version of the AAA.

And he patiently waits with you for the mechanic to arrive and the two of you watch the ADAC guy check every little thing he can think of, yet your car won’t budge. And then you wait some more for the tow truck and you sit there in the rain, staring through the windshield, watching your car being towed.

One minute it was running fine and the next it…oh well.

Bye, bye Schnuck…I really hope it’s nothing serious and you’re back home soon.

stop and smell the roses

My parents came to visit us and brought along my grandma, who had never been to see our house. Not only did they help us with several home improvement projects, there was also enough time for extended family meals and a visit to Dachau’s lovely city center and Schloss.

Before we headed there we had to have a typical Bavarian meal in authentic surroundings. A few year’s ago, when my Dad was working in Munich, he and his colleagues would regularly head to this restaurant and they quickly crowned this their favorite.

Next week’s lunch menu was already displayed outside…yummy

This is what my mom and I had

…yeah…bye bye diet.

My Dad had a huge Schweinshaxn

which clearly made him happy. Would you look at that smile on his face?

Grandma enjoyed her Krustenbraten but couldn’t even eat half of it. The portions were ridiculously big.

We then headed to Dachau. The weather was amazing and so was the look over Dachau’s old city center with Munich’s “skyline” in the distance.

We strolled through the beautiful little park that belongs to Dachau’s Schloss

It was definitely a day to stop and smell the roses

Sigh. They were gorgeous.

I didn’t want this weekend to end – ever. Alas, all good things must come to an end. We’ll always have the memories and the pictures.

what a day

Holy cow, what a day this was. I am not going to go in to great detail but I knew this day was going to suck when I opened a bottle of milk to pour some into my coffee this morning and dropped the bottle. And for maximum impact, just for the off chance that the bottle wouldn’t break, I dropped it when I had not yet put the lid back on.

Yeah so my day did not suck as bad as this golfer’s day. The guy chipped a rock on a Golf Course in Irvine, California, that is said to have sparked a fire and the blaze burnt over 25 acres of land.

Here’s to hoping the weekend will roll around soon.

tuesday, worst day of the week

What’s the worst day of the week for you?

For me it is Tuesday. On Mondays I’m reasonably relaxed and have gotten over the awkward Sunday feeling (that’s when you know you can’t avoid going back to work tomorrow unless your house is hit by an asteroid but then again that wouldn’t be a fun reason to stay home either but I digress).  Wednesday is Hump Day, a reason to celebrate and Thursdays? Well, Thursdays are great because really, it’s only another night and a working day before the weekend. Need I even mention Friday? Fridays simply knock your socks off. Tuesdays however - are strange. Relaxation has worn off and the weekend is far, far away.

So with it being a Tuesday and all, I needed a little pick me up and I received it, just in time, by email. I have no idea where it originated, apparently this thing is all over the web but I hadn’t seen it yet.

Gosh I laughed so hard….it’s simply hilarious. Enjoy, if you haven’t already.

not too long ago in England…

…a woman was caught on CCTV throwing a cat in a trash can or the wheelie bin, as the Britons call it .

Grrrrrrrr

Now she’s receiving death threats (not from me, mind you) and is currently even protected by the police.

While I think threatening her demise is “a bit” overboard, I am in full support of subjecting her to this:

*SNORT*, ROFL, Gröööööl

go nanie, it's your birthday - we gonna party like...

Mr. Kat turned 33 today. Happy Birthday to the best husband anyone could hope for. A husband who happens to also be my best friend and soul mate. I love you Nanie, with all my heart too.

Even though I will forever be 11 months older than the hubby, it gives me enormous satisfaction that for the next 31 days he will be the same age as I. See, the hubby loves to poke fun at me and my “old age” and when we are talking about growing old together he cannot resist but saying how I am “old” already. Haha…the joke’s on you now honey. Ok, ok we’re really only 11 months apart but one takes every little chance to make life as fun as it gets.

The reason I share this on my blog? The hubby hates his birthday. Doesn’t hate it as much as he HATES it, with a capital H. And because he’s away on business this week, I wanted to let him know that he rocks and that I am happy that 33 years ago on this day, he came into this world - on the other side of the iron curtain. Had anyone told him that he would meet his East German wife, in Ireland no less, he would’ve flipped him (or her) the bird. But I guess life has plenty of surprises in store for all of us and I cannot express just how blessed I feel that this fate, of one day meeting this West German boy on an Island with more sheep than human beings on it, was bestowed upon me.

I truly want to grow old with you – literally.

Happy Birthday
xoxo

the mojo - it may return

Hello world. Remember me? I have been missing for what seems an eternity. The reason? I had lost my mojo. I blame stress in the workplace and working on our house to get the guest bedrooms done before my awesome American twin Melisa and her lovely family got here.

What a great week that was and talk about a boost in morale. I will eventually write a post on their visit but until I do (knowing me, I wouldn't hold my breath), head on over to Melisa's blog, if you haven't already, and read about her (their) adventure(s) in Germany.

Melisa is every bit as fun(ny) and beautiful as she appears on her blog and her husband and their two boys are just as adorable. When we met for the first time, face to face, in the airport, it was like welcoming a good friend that I haven't seen in a while. There was no awkward silence or anything...we jumped right in where we never left off...Hehe.

Words cannot do these four justice and when the time came for this lovely family to return home, they sure as hell left two very sad faces behind. From here on in this Thursday shall be known as "Black Thursday". Ok, ok...this may be a bit melodramatic but it was REALLY sad to see them go. So come back soon!!!

It was fun to see Germany, and Bavaria in particular, through their eyes and in the process the hubby and I learned to appreciate a few things we had taken for granted to date. Either way. Melisa's enthusiasm and energy has prompted me to take up blogging again. So I'll be here and I can't wait.

The Wedding Cake Top - Oh So Yummy

twitteridoo

blood in your shoe. Well not really.

The other day I was thinking how long I have been on twitter and how, unlike most of the people I follow,  I don’t tweet very much.

I have been tweeting since December 11th 2007. That’s 2 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, 6 days and 19 hours to be exact. How do I know? Well, I checked my account’s vitals with Tweepstats and so can you plus anybody else’s really.

Although Tweepstats has tons of fun statistics, it doesn’t tell you what your first ever tweet was. Luckily My First Tweet does. Only drawback, it does not show people’s first tweet who have more than 3200 updates. Blabbermouths :)

 

Even more fun is New Born Tweets. Sign in and it gives you your Newborn Tweet Sign. Mine is Sagittarius. It also told me that my first tweet is 594 days older and 45 characters shorter than the average newborn tweet.

 

My first tweet doesn’t say much about me. Who’d have thought that one day, I’d want to go back to see what my first tweet was. Had I had any faith in Twitter, I would have written something more meaningful. Apparently I had a ton of emails to read that December morning so I suppose I may have been in work. Or not. I don’t know. I do not remember anything about the day I joined Twitter, let alone why I did it. Now I tweet in German and English, and I am not following a lot of people. In return, not a whole lot of people are following me and even among my few followers there are quite a few bots or marketing dudes/dudettes.

I use Twitter to amuse myself, mainly by reading tweets for their informational value. It’s faster than most news sites.

Occasionally I enjoy watching a TV show and tweeting about it with like-minded Twitterers. Like Germany’s Next Topmodel #GNTM, Unser Star für Oslo #USFO, Eurovision Song Contest #ESC or the worldcup #worldcup #ger.

Twitter is fun. Writing with 140 characters is fun. Bitching on Twitter is more fun but that’s really it. I don’t live to tweet or tweet to live and I want it to stay that way.