My Life's Ingredients

We’ve been to see “The Hobbit – Desolation of Smaug” yesterday, and it’s absolutely FANTASTIC! LOVED IT!!! YAY!! And have to admit that Kili grows on me a bit more (but still have Fili and of course Thorin as my favourite Dwarves, plus Balin). Aidan Turner still won’t make it onto the Eye Candy list though. Loved the fact that there was more elaboration on what Gandalf was doing during his travels away from the company of Dwarves and Bilbo, as that was only hinted upon in the book. Really good! Same with the Necromancer, which was only mentioned in the book, but not much more was written about him. And then there was Smaug… WOW! NICE Dragon!! Wondering now how much they digitally altered Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice, given that Richard Armitage trained his voice that he speaks about 2 bars lower than his normal voice when playing Thorin – and goosebumps when listening to him will add him to my favourite voice artists, too! On that list are already Christopher Lee (my #1 voice

Right … ok … DH and I had the discussion that an average 2.5 year old has a vocabulary of about 200 words apparently. And we wondered if we should be worried that our girls have a fairly big portion of geekdom/fandom in their vocabulary (Doctor Who, Tardis, Dalek, Cyberman, Loki)… Not that we conditioned them or anything. And we haven’t even STARTED them on The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings yet…     Now … I think I can claim that I was a geeky child  … must have happened much later in life, in my teens and maybe even twens. While I believe Hubby ALWAYS was a geek in one way or the other.   As for the girls… ummm… they don’t WATCH much Doctor Who and only know Loki from some Youtube stuff. And yet they seem to soak everything up, can see even the “old” Doctor Who actors and identify them properly as Doctor Who! And then we visit my mum … she’s got a couple of Hundertwasser (Austrian painter) Calendar Pages framed (and I remember them from my childhood, they’ve just ALWAYS been on the

Today we’ve been at the Hofheimer Weihnachtsmarkt (the Christmas Market in my mum’s town). It’s always quite nice to be there, and usually we’re meeting old friends there. This year we had a special treat for the Hobbits, as my sis bought them tickets for the carousel (ok, they only went onto the Carousels at the Frankfurt Market – their first time ever!), but this time they even went onto a mini “Kettenkarusell” – and they both loved it! It was just such a sight to see them laughing at us and waving and shouting “hi” every time they swung by!   Afterwards we decided to go shopping to the big Mall close to my mum’s, but due to timings and the fact that it would have been very busy there due to it being long opening hours due to Christmas we decided to go to a big shop only to pick up some syrup for the Sodastream, get some chocolates etc. I even found a Pomelo! Which I’ve yet to find in Edinburgh somewhere!!

Nope, haven’t done any journalling/planning for JYC so far. It just seems with me being the driver when we’re in Germany and everyone wanting to see us and us wanting to go to Christmas Markets and shops … there’s always sooo little time for the one week we’re here in December. This year we even forgot the St. Nikolaus tradition for the girls! Ah well… another thing to keep for next year. Trying not to get stressed about things, but that’s not easy all the time. I think we’ve done most shopping, we still have to go and visit my dad for another lunch, and tomorrow we’re going away with my mum and her friends. Me driving again, as DH doesn’t drive in Germany, and my mum’s car is too small to fit us all in as my big sis is coming along, too, and her car is currently booked in for repair after Christmas, so she’s not allowed to do longer distances with it. I just want to have a break, want to sit down and start doing some crochet (patterns & wool I’ve got with me!). But it seems I’

Christmas cards … mmmh… being a paper crafter you’d think I’ll make my cards and then send them to friends and families. Well… I did… in the past. But it all got overboard with having to send cards to family friends that I haven’t seen in ages or maybe haven’t even met and only sent cards because they send some to us. Tit for tat and all that. Hand made cards were usually kept for best friends, crop friends and close family. People you’d think who’d treasure them. Then Royal Mail decided to put up postage to a stupid height for cards (first the overseas cards went, then even the UK ones were cut down). And once the Hobbits arrived I totally cut down. This year there will be only cards for Crop friends and my best Friend Sharon. Oh, and maybe some neighbours.  However, my family is getting some nice e-cards from Jacqui Lawson . And most friends usually just do the Social Networking Christmas greetings nowadays anyway.   I do like getting cards, but I don’t really do the tit for tat

… and this time I hope I can stick to journalling etc.   Yup, it’s time for the   Journal your Christmas (JYC) 2013!!! It’s my favourite class from Shimelle, and despite me having not finished ONE SINGLE journal/album since I started in 2005 (?), I’m hoping for the best for this year.   My plans are to use my newly (??!) purchased SN@P album for it and work with that. Have to prep some things, i.e get embellishments and cardstock/patterned paper sorted/into one box – I’ll try to get some time each evening to make my layouts. Or at least I am planning on blogging every day for the duration of this class. If you like Christmas and are a fan of Shimelle’s, you might want to have a looksie here to read what it’s all about and to purchase the class. As with all of Shimelle’s classes you purchase it once and then get the prompts (for annual classes) the next year around for free. For all the “alumni” – I’ll see you at “class”.  

Err… ok… the whole “weekly update” thing hasn’t panned out just yet, has it? But at least I’m posting more often than before, so that’s a step up. Right… yesterday was the 50th Birthday/Anniversary of Doctor Who. The whole household has followed the Birthday week programs etc, the Twins can identify all the Doctors, a Tardis (and yes, there are 2 in the Grassmarket and the Cowgate, i.e. on the way to hubby’s work – as pointed out by the girls), a Dalek. We’ve been clearing the garden a bit yesterday early afternoon (raking leaves and picking up firework leftovers from Bonfire/Guy Fawkes night (the sticks and packaging from the rockets once set off etc), then the girls had their nap and I went up the road to friends who had a Doctor Who marathon from 10am already. DH and the girls arrived an hour later and we stayed for 2 episodes with the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) . We decided to let the girls stay up for the 50th Anniversary Episode, “The Day of the Doctor” , which proved to

Stumbled over this version while trailing Youtube – have to admit I never heard of Sam Tsu i, but I really LOVE his version of Taylor Swift’s “Safe and Sound” and even prefer it over the original.  But you can make your own decision on that… And for comparison the original…

Well… always thought I’d manage to post the 10 things on the 10th, but then somehow it’s a week later, and it didn’t happen. Drafting the post didn’t happen either. So let’s see if we can revive it again. Not sure how many of Shimelle’s students are still doing the 10 things on the 10th, but I see some popping up in between. Explanation for this month’s 10 things … I saw “Thor – The Dark World” and somehow have to admit that I’ve joined “Team Loki” (that’s after I’d seen “Thor” and “Avengers Assemble” – but it just “hit home” on Thursday). So, this month will show some *eye candy* (at my age, am I allowed that ? And also have to double check, with some (?!?!) of them there might be the term “cougar” needed… LOL). So let’s start … in no particular order/ranking… 1) Tom Hiddleston /Loki 2) Richard Armitage /Thorin Oakenshield 3) David Tennant 4) Christian Bale 5) Zachary Levi /Fandral 6) Ben Affleck 7) Pierce Brosnan 8) Ryan Reynolds