An Angel for Mom

As I wrote before Christmastime is a very bad time for blogging creative results. Luckily I send some of my creative stuff to my family as small gifts in the Advent calender. Here are some:

An Angel for my mom

Some small hearts.

Today we will eat "Ratatoui" as an evening meal cooked by Rolf :). I'll hang out close to the kitchen to take some pictures because we will use special pasta today ;).

Stay connected.

:( I definitively need to get Swedish right

As I wrote before, languages are very fascinating, at least for me. I always want to understand the people wherever I am. Well, sometimes it's good not to understand ;) but apart from these moments I prefer to understand what's written or spoken. Today I took a look at a multilingual system and got hooked up again. This language is just adorable and short: "Lahajapaperililaus"
It's the only language that can state even complicated issues in one word.
Unfortunately I restricted myself regarding the amount of languages I learn to the current ones (English, Spanish, and Swedish). Once I'm good enough in Swedish I will pick up Finnish.
Working in an international driven company I probably should rather learn Polish or, Russian but I haven't developed interest in this languages yet. Some weeks ago a colleague mentioned that I should learn Rumanian instead of other languages because it's such a nice languages and so easy to learn etc. That's more interesting than Russian or Polish because I already know someone to talk to. Here's my language wish-list for 2010:

1.) Conserve my English
2.) Taking the next step to fluency in Spanish
3.) Finish the Swedish textbook (finally, I'm stucked in the middle)
4.) If there is time left (which probably isn't) start learning Finnish

I guess my annual goal planing session for 2010 will be complicated the world just offers too many fascinating topics to learn about. Once I'm done with the goal settings I'll let you know :)

Take care.

Christmas calenders the second

I forgot to show one of my other Christmas calenders but that's probably because I forgot that I have it too.
It's a calender that has one tea per day. I thought that it would be fun to have something to pimp breakfast with. During the past days I either found myself gulping down something in hurry or leaving home without breakfast at all. My guess is that I will put the tea into the shelf so that it is surrounded by all the other teas we have at home.

Christmas :)

The days around Christmas are always complicated. There are so many loved ones who deserve a small and nice present. Unfortunately, it's also the time of secrets and so most of the preparation cannot be topic of my blog :(.

Never the less I have something I can show you: my Christmas calenders which are numerous this year:

From my sister Marion:

From my sister Birgit:

From Steffi who swapped calenders with me:

Our community calender:

I wish all of you a great pre-christmas-time with lots of gingerbread and hot spiced wine.

About taking something for granted

Each beautiful day we take so many things for granted. Based upon our experience we walk around not noticing some the miracles, changes, and challenges life has to offer.
During the past weeks I faced more emotions than I did in my teenage years. I never thought I would feel so controversial emotions at the same time. There had been a lot of "what if" constructs in my mind most likely followed be "so what it's to late anyhow" ones.
I also think I haven't discusses all the "what if"s to come to a final conclusion but I have found some questions which sum up the aspects that are bothering my mind.

* What does it take to be a good human?
That one is very philosophical and can be split in two other ones.
* Shall a human be judged based upon his/her actions, or his/her intentions?
* Is the influence a person might have/had on my own live a valid option to judge on?

And then there is the illness, responsibility, manners, and kindness part:

* Is an illness an excuse for everything?
* Can an illness be used as an excuse for bad manners?
* In how far is it justified to give up one's own rights and emotions to nurse someone?
* Who is responsible for happiness, or the lack of it?

All in all these questions are tough to answer and I guess that everyone needs to find an own way to so.
As you read my mind is quite busy so I also need to do a lot of things to distract my mind from all those questions.
Someone once said that those dark days, filled with deepest sorrow, unleash an unbound creativity.
For me I figured out that it's true. To make my mind shut up I played piano, sewed Christmas presents, and did a whole lot of other creative activities.
As soon as possible (I don't want to spoil any presents yet) I'll post some pictures of the creative gifts :).

Take Care and don't take to many things as granted ;P.

Home Sweet Home

It's so good to be home again. I cannot say that the time in the hospital was really bad, no not at all, the personal had been friendly and caring but I just wasn't home.

Well, the new roommate I got was also quite challenging. She was either talking or she used to snore :(.

In the last post I explained the vegetarian chicken menu, for this post I have something special ;). Pictures! Yes, I photographed the last two menus I got, to share the beauty of dietary cooking with you.

The first one was supposed to be "broccoli soufflé" but I didn't find broccoli in it.

The second one was something with mushrooms in cream sauce.

It looks as if it tastes horrible but in reality it only looks this way. It actually tasted much better than the canteen at work ;).

I'll go to bed now, because I'm really tired. Tomorrow I have to manage some things (e.g. follow up appointments, buying funeral cloth etc.). Therefor I will drive into the city for an hour or two depending on how the pain meds will work, or not.

Take care :)

Welcome to the health resort

After the rather sad news I wrote about in the last post I want to amuse you with the experience I am making in the health resort which I am currently testing.

In general it's quite nice only the timetable for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is, well, not even close to what I would call nice. Thus the day starts off at 6:45 AM with meds followed by breakfast at 7:15AM. Once passed that hurdle there is some time to sleep again until 11:15 AM when the schedule is calling for lunch already. The afternoon is kind of free except for dinnertime 5:15PM.

I also learned a lot yesterday. Since I was originally scheduled for my tonsillectomy for 3:30 PM there was time to ask questions about all the funny equipment the doctors use to give anesthesia ;). Very interesting ;) one of the doctors/assistants, I don't know for sure anymore, explained why Profonol is such a good anesthesetic :). I think I understand why Michael Jackson liked it it makes a nice feeling before one totally passes out. After a while I woke up remembering the "dream" I had but I cannot recall it today, I only know that it wasn't the nicest one.

That's it for today I'll try to find a less boring afternoon activity. Maybe I'll take a short walk somewhere were they sell food because my vegetarian lunch contained chicken :(. I'll never understand why so many people strongly believe that "chicken" and "lamb" are not animals as well.

Welcome to the magic world of a dietary cook.

Take care.

P.S.: The average blog post per day ratio last month was 0.45 :).