Worms

A few weeks ago Robin and I visited Worms with Robin's parents and his brother Jörn. It is arguably the oldest city in Germany. According to Wikipedia, the city has existed since before Roman times. We walked by a Jewish Cemetery that said it was established in the late tenth century.

I took a few pictures of some of the things we saw there (of course). I even have a video :)

This video isn't really so you can see things, mostly it is so you can hear the church bells. In larger cities, or cities with large Cathedrals, the bells ring like this at certain times each day. Here in our smaller town, the bells ring too, it is just much quieter.

Worms has something with dragons. Little dragon statues, like this one, were all over the city. There was one in front of a bank that was a piggy-bank dragon with a "one euro coin" being put in to it. They were pretty neat.

The Cathedral (you can see it a bit in the video) had pretty windows. Here are a few pictures from the outside. I didn't take pictures when were inside the Cathedral, but there were a few really neat stained glass windows.

This is an angel that was on the outside of the building.

Domestically Disabled

I don't consider myself the most domestically talented person. I can a few things if it only involves boiling water. I can sew on a button. I can sweep, sort of. I can iron if it isn't too complicated, but usually I end up putting just as many wrinkles in as I take out. I can clean, but I really don't like to.... I can do laundry, but it might take me the whole week to get around to folding it. I can do dishes, but I am much better at it when there is a dish washer involved. Basically, I get by, but I'm not that good at it.





This week has stetched my domestic abilities to the limit. Sewing, baking, decorating... all involved.


Project 1: Table cloth

We have a round side table in our living room. It has a tablecloth on it that Robin's mom sewed many, many years ago. I like to use the table cloth because then I can hide things under it. I liked the shape of the table cloth but I wanted a different color. Again, I don't sew. The only things I knew about sewing are what I saw my mom do and what I learned in my 7th grade home ec. class. Not much. To make things interesting, I also didn't have a pattern. I was able to find some inexpensive fabric to use (in case the whole thing didn't work out I didn't want to spend too much money on it). I guessed how I could make it... measured, cut, and sewed. Amazingly, it worked out. Just don't look too close, you can see all the mistakes ;)



Project 2: Decorating

We have a long, white wall on one side of our living room with nothing on it. It was driving me crazy to see the HUGE white area with nothing on it. I thought about it (a lot) and couldn't come up with any ideas. For weeks and weeks. I started to get a few ideas, but none of it was working out. Finally, I came up with a quote I wanted to put on the wall, and I cut some vinyl out and put it on the wall. It turned out really good - about 1 foot tall and 3 feet wide. Now there is at least some thing on the long, white wall to break it up.

Project 3: Baking

I did a few things for Valentine's day. I also made bannana bread muffins.

In addition, I hemmed a pair of pants, repaired a hole in a different pair of pants, patched 2 holes in one sweater, and did some cleaning. Whew, what a week.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day isn't really celebrated here in Germany. It is coming more and more, but for now, it isn't a big deal. I do celebrate Valentine's day so I made sure to remind Robin when the date was. He did a really good job :) I finished getting ready that morning and when I came out, Robin had made breakfast and set the table with flowers for me. How nice. I made Valentine's day cookies - twice. We also had a nice dinner.

Getting Organized

Robin has been home sick for a week. While he is home, he has taken time to do a few things around the house that he normally doesn't have time to do (but that he can still do while he is feeling under the weather - no heavy work).

Yesterday, he organized his closet. He got rid of things he didn't need and put everything in place. After that, he labeled everything.

Looks pretty good. Everything has a spot, everything has a label.

Spring is coming

Everyone knows (and hopes) that spring is coming soon. I brought home a hyacinth plant a few weeks ago. When I got it, it just just bulbs in soil. It didn't take long for it to spring up and for the flowers to bloom. It smells so good in our apartment. and looks nice and springy too.

It's February - would you like some ice cream?

A few days ago, I was helping someone pack up their house in preparation to move. There were lots of things that she didn't need any more. She offered me several things - mostly I said no thank you because I didn't want to bring home too many things, but one thing I said yes to was an ice cream maker. I have never had one... it isn't nice, but it makes enough ice cream for two.

I thought it might be nice to start with a nice yogurt ice cream. I like frozen yogurt and we had all the ingredients at home for it. I mixed up the ingredients and poured it in the ice cream maker. 25 minutes later - yummy ice cream.

I was really impressed by how it turned out - really smooth and really good. You could even say it is healthy - almost.

Taking Things Apart

Robin and I went to the computer repair store the other day to pick up my dead computer after all the data was saved from the hard drive. As we put the computer in the car, I heard Robin say something to himself about finally getting to take it apart.

Robin has been home sick from work for a few days, and has had time to sit down with the old laptop. I saw him go get his screwdrivers, sit down with the laptop at the table, and asked him what he was doing. Well, taking it apart of course. I asked him to wait a minute while I got my camera... he didn't really want to wait :)

He didn't take everything apart, mostly just opened it up to see what it looked like inside. He pulled out the hard drive and memory... and decided to put it back together to work on it again some other time.