Books & Food & Rock ‘N’ Roll

Last weekend I took a little timeout from the pile of crap that 2014 has presented me with so far and drove to Frankfurt to meet a friend of mine and spend the weekend doing what we do. Which is so to say shop, listen to music, eat, visit the book fair and get tattooed.

I left work early on Friday and had to take an unplanned quick stop at home because – what a coincidence! – my mom had been admitted to hospital again on Thursday. This time it’s another hospital and it’s more of a ‘better safe than sorry’ thing and she’s feeling fine. But it was still bad timing because she was meant to take care of my cats. I had to get home and clean my place a little bit before I left, so my neighbor, who had kindly agreed to be the cat sitter, wouldn’t die of a shock.

The drive to Frankfurt went surprisingly well. I gotta say I love taking roadtrips by myself. I also like taking them with (the right) people but driving by myself has its own perks. No quarreling over who gets to choose the next song. No multiple stops at every other rest stop because someone always has to pee, needs a snack and plainly wants to stretch their legs. And you get lots of thinking and planning to do in your mind. One of these days I’m probably trying to set up Siri so I can make notes while driving. I had so many good ideas for this project I’m working on but it’s hard to remember them all. I also got a lot of really, really bad singing done. I never sing along to music with people around – don’t ask me why! – but when I’m alone in the car, I give it my all, no kidding. Anyway, surprisingly, I only got stuck in traffic once, for about thirty minutes, the rest went so smoothly, I arrived early enough to freshen up at the hotel. The hotel wasn’t anything special, but nice and clean and I loved the design of everything. A lot of blue and beige and a modern design. The only thing that left us puzzled was the sink that was right in the room instead of in the bathroom. Admittedly, there was already little space in there anyway but still!

The first thing we did on Friday night was head to a tattoo appointment we’d scheduled to get our shared tattoo. It’s half friendship tattoo, half John Green appreciation and I love it. “Okay?” – “Okay.” is something that Hazel Grace and Augustus say on the phone continuously. It’s their thing, a way to reassure and comfort each other. It’s one of the things that screamed ‘friendship’ to me about this book, so it was only right that my oldest friend and I got those, especially since we’re both so in love with John Green’s writing. I got it on my lower arm, just below the elbow. In the picture, mine’s below, the one with the question mark. So far it’s the most painful tattoo I got, even my foot and the spine area were easier to handle. Maybe I’m getting more sensitive with age, I don’t know. I also bled a lot more than my friend. Body, WTF u doin’? Anyway, we got it done at a very cute studio by a very nice and lovely little lady. She had pictures of her work all over the place, as tattoo artists do, and she does a lot of Tim Burton stuff, too. I wanted her to ink me all over!

After we got our ink done, it was time for food. I know it isn’t smart but I never like to eat before a tattoo appointment. I mean, I drink sugary stuff, so low blood sugar won’t be an issue but I don’t like a full stomach while I’m supposed to sit still. So I was ravenous. We ended up at the cutest burger joint I’ve ever seen. It’s called Bully’s Burgers or something like that and their mascot is a little French bulldog. They have pictures of it in different poses and memes all over the place. So adorable! It’s also tiny and we were lucky to get the last table. They pretty much offer only burgers in different variations. I had a Spanish burger with chorizo and ordered sweet potato fries and guacamole dip on the side. The burger was alright, though I wasn’t crazy about the chorizo but the fries were amazing. I kept eating even when I was full.

The next day was dedicated to shopping, shopping and shopping with a side of excessive eating. We drove into town where we’d been told we’d find a place that sells Urban Decay (which, shockingly, we weren’t able to buy in Germany yet). When we got there, though, we were told that we were one week too early. Noooo! So, we had to compensate this shock by spending our cash elsewhere. We raided Primark and then moved on to H&M. It sounds stupid because you can find H&M anywhere but the one in Frankfurt is the only one that also has a Home department. I spent way too much money there but who can pass up a shower curtain with little skulls on them? Or a pillow case with a circus monkey on it? Right?

Otherwise, the city center didn’t really have a lot to offer, so we moved on to the Skyline Plaza, a mall that apparently had a great view of the skyline. This proved to be only half true because it was way too central to over a full view but the roof garden was still great. They had little patches of green up there and also a restaurant with a terrace. Overall, I can’t say that I was disappointed with it. The weather sucked a bit but the sky scrapers still looked pretty cool against the background of the huge clouds.

The mall itself was less spectacular. You got the usual chain stores, some fast food places, nothing surprising. Except that Zara also had a Home store there. I bought two glasses with skulls on them but otherwise found the stuff there too expensive for what it had to offer. Most of the things I bought in that mall, I could have found here as well. Shopping was still fun because I got to do it with a good friend and because it’s always more fun when you do it on a day off and with nothing else on your schedule but I had hoped to find more interesting shops in a big city like that.

Originally, we had planned to go see a movie but then the waiter in the rooftop restaurant messed up our order, so dinner took ages and we couldn’t really agree on anything we wanted to see or hadn’t seen yet, so we went back to the hotel after dinner. My friend showed me the road movie she and her friend took of their last vacation and we just caught up with each other’s lives over a good old round of crappy television. Not exactly a ‘party hard’ kind of night but we had a long day ahead of us on Sunday, so getting some sleep wasn’t such a bad idea.

The next day, we went to the book fair. What a disappointment! I’d been there two years ago and it was pretty cool. This year, we bored ourselves through the fair with nothing to do and nothing to see. None of our favorite authors were there and even though we’d planned to just let it surprise us, we ended up never even finding our way to anything that was going on. The map of the place wasn’t clear on anything and it was so crowded that we were just pushed around all the time. Last time I went, it was a Saturday and less crowded, probably because you can only buy books on the Sunday. This time around, it was like the whole country had decided to come to the fair. And they all brought their tiny kids or came in elaborate cosplay costumes that were great to look at but let’s face it, a huge ball gown or some kind of warrior costume with huge spikes all over the place aren’t really ideal to move smoothly through the masses. Not to mention that every few steps, someone showed up in a really cool costumes and people would stop in the middle of everywhere to take a picture. It’s shocking, I know, but I ended up not buying a single book. I simply couldn’t concentrate for long enough to really read a single sentence, let alone decide if it sounded interesting enough for me to buy the book. So I just took a lot of notes about books I may want to read eventually. The only thing I took away from the fair was a postcard that I felt summed up the weekend quite nicely.

When we left the fair – and paid half a lung for parking – it was time for my friend to get to the train station. We arrived with enough time to have a quick snack together. Again, the waiter forgot my order – boo! – but eventually, it arrived anyway. I had lovely apple strudel with cream. Gotta treat yourself, right? I really haven’t made smart food choices this weekend but considering that I didn’t eat much but walked a lot, it was still okay. And the strudel was so worth it. So, so worth it. I mean, come on, it had marzipan in it. Marzipan! Plus, I went to get a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks for the way home and they didn’t have any. It was the first Starbucks I’ve seen that had pumpkins all over the place and pretty much forced you to order a damn PSL…and they didn’t have any left. What the…?! I’d say food-wise, I wasn’t really lucky in Frankfurt.

Overall, it was a good weekend. Not ideal and some things went wrong or were a little disappointing. But I got to see my friend again, we got to catch up, there was new ink involved, we did some satisfying shopping…and the food was great, once it actually got to me. And since I didn’t get to go to Vienna, at least I got to see Frankfurt this year. That’s a little something at least.

 

Progress

Yesterday was great. I went to my doc in the morning and – after an excruciating thirty minutes in the waiting room – he said he fully approves of the Endobarrier thing. In fact, I had the feeling that he was trying to convince me. So it was a quick affair, he realized he didn’t have much news to tell me and we mostly discussed the risks (very few) and advantages (a lot) and he gave me a form to fill out and hand in later. The form was a bit of a mini-challenge for me because I forced myself to be brutally honest and not leave anything out. For the first time, I actually admitted that I was suffering from depression sometimes, something I hadn’t even shared with my doctor yet. But I figured I should be better safe than sorry.

So now I need to go hand the form in sometime this week and then wait for the hospital to get in touch.

What bugs me a bit is that he said they’re working together with a hospital I was told one bad thing about. Nothing major, no complications, just that one person wasn’t really in synch with the doctors there. But that can also be a personal issue. I’ll have to see what they’re like when I go to the interview there. I asked for a rough time frame and my doc said I should count in weeks, rather than months. Excited much?

Another thing I meant to share here is a great recipe I found through MyFitnessPal’s blog, Hello Healthy. It’s for an Apricot Quinoa Summer Salad. I had bought a bag of (hella expensive) quinoa on a whim a while ago, then noticed I had no recipes for it at all. So it came as a bit of a coincidence that HH shared this recipe just now. You can find the recipe here.

When I made it, I left out the zucchini because I’m not a fan of it raw. I also couldn’t find apricots anywhere but desperately wanted to make this salad on Saturday, so I went with white peaches instead. And I diced them instead of leaving them in bigger slices. I’d daresay that the difference is small. The apricots probably make it all a bit sweeter and they’re a little smoother, too, but I really enjoyed my version anyway. Also, the recipe isn’t clear about which ‘spices’ you should boil with the quinoa. I ended up adding a bit salt and pepper, the garlic and some of the parsley once the quinoa was starting to become fluffy and most of the water was gone. It worked perfectly for me.

I looooove the quinoa. The consistency and taste is exactly my kind of thing. I don’t know why mine is lighter than in HH’s picture but as long as it tastes good, I’m good.

The salad stayed good for about three days and I personally liked it even more after it had all soaked in the dressing for a day. Yum!

 

[Rawrcipe] Kathy Goes Sukiyaki

(Like my ‘Book Rawrviews’, I came up with the idea for this new tag because it is kind of a recipe but by no means am I anywhere near a professional or anyone you should go to for sound advice when it comes to nutrition or cooking. It just documents things I’ve cooked and liked and want to share in my little blog.)

As announced in the previous entry, I ventured into my kitchen on Sunday and cooked myself a nice Asian dish. I called it Thai-influenced in the last entry but to be honest, I think Sukiyaki is a Chinese thing. For some reason, I think of most Asian foods as Thai. Forgive me for the ignorance.

I made this thing from scratch and while it wasn’t a full success because it turned out way, way, way hotter than I’d planned it to be, I still found it delicious, so I decided to write down what I used anyway, even if it’s just for future reference.

Glass noodles with chicken and sukiyaki veggies

I used…

200g Glass noodles (I used Thai glass noodles but I don’t think it makes much of a difference here)

150g Chicken breast

200g Broccoli

2 Bell peppers (one red, one green)

3 Spring onions

75g Red pepper paste

200ml Sukiyaki sauce

Coriander

Garlic

Ginger

Salt

Pepper

 

Those made enough for two large or three small servings.

I simply boiled the glass noodles and the broccoli. Then chopped the chicken and the veggies into small pieces. I let the garlic and the onions roast in a pan with a tiny bit of oil for a minute or two, then added the chicken and then the bell peppers. After another five minutes or so, I added the broccoli, ginger and the red pepper paste and let it roast for another five minutes until it had all adopted a nice spicy flavor from the paste. Afterwards, I poured the sukiyaki sauce over it all, spiced it some more with the coriander, salt and pepper and let it cook for a good 15 minutes.

Once it was done, I just gave a bit of the mass over some glass noodles and tadaaaa!

With hindsight, however, I should have added some coconut milk to the sauce to make it less hot. I don’t even know why I didn’t think of it because I still had a can of it available. If you’d ask for a suggestion, I’d say definitely add that until it’s tolerable for your personal taste.

But otherwise, it was really, really delicious. Once my mouth starts burning at the mere thought, I plan to experiment with it some more.

Oh, and the veggies are totally subject to personal taste, too, of course. I just looooove broccoli but it’d probably do well with green beans, cauliflower and a number of other veggies, too.

Sick Sick Sick

Another beautiful and sunny weekend. Another weekend spent worrying about my mother. My stupid, irresponsible, reckless mother.

I’m not even gonna bother getting into what’s wrong with her this time. I wish I could say that I don’t care either. I just hate how she just sort of casually drops that she’s had fever on and off since Tuesday. I don’t want to sound selfish but I hate how she doesn’t even stop to think about how much this ruins my day. I mean, sure, yeah, if she really doesn’t care about her own health much, I can’t force her. But I’m just really worried and it’s like she doesn’t get that at all. She keeps writing things off as ‘just a cold’ or ‘only a virus’ but hands down, how many healthy people catch one thing after another? There must be something wrong and she just ignores the elephant in the room completely.

So instead of having a great Saturday, I had to do a groceries run (on the Saturday before a bank holiday on Monday!) and otherwise mope around and just worry. Gee, thanks, mom! Kinda makes me wish I had been a difficult child, enough so to ruin a large part of her free time as well.

As for my personal health, I am shocked to report I am more responsible than my mother. I went to that appointment and I don’t know if I’m satisfied with the outcome. My doctor thinks that my stomach issues are just related to too much or too active or too whatever stomach acid. I mean it’s great that she doesn’t assume it’s anything serious. But I’m not sure if I’m really down with her theory, either. It seems unlikely that that kind of pain comes from acid. Shouldn’t it be more of a burning sensation then? But anyway, she prescribed a huge pack of Pantoprazol which by now I think every doctor is sponsored by because I’ve never had anything that I did not get a prescription for this drug for, even if it was just the sidekick of something else. So I’m supposed to take that and come in in two weeks again for an ultrasound and more blood tests. Could be better, could be worse, I suppose.

Last week’s weigh-in was disappointing, as predicted but at least I didn’t gain anything. I’m hoping for a better result this week though I’m starting to think my scale is just a cruel bitch.

I sinned with McDonald’s today although I don’t really care what I eat if it fits in with my calories. I just couldn’t be bothered to cook after I left the battle field that is a grocery store before a bank holiday. 30°C weather and a holiday just turn people’s brains to mush. And suddenly, the shopping carts are used as weapons. But I bought almost nothing that fits the junk food category. Instead, I bought the ingredients for tomorrow’s (hopefully) delicious lunch. I’m making a Thai-influenced dish of glass noodles, chicken and vegetables with a sukiyaki-red pepper sauce. Sounds delicious and dope but will be really easy to make. I hope. I’m already salivating just thinking about it. I even thought of ditching McD’s and making it today but didn’t want to buy more chicken and the filets I have were frozen so I’m gonna have to defrost them over night. Curse my microwave for not having a defrost mode. If it’s actually good, I may even write a food porn entry about it.

Back to Business

I went back to the gym yesterday. This time the long break didn’t happen because I was too lazy or kept making excuses but because by mid-January, I started to feel ashamed. I was so afraid of running right into my trainer, or anyone else who remembered my face. I kept saying I’d go tomorrow, this week, next weekend… And it never happened because I always chickened out, even though I was itching to go. For a while I considered giving up on the gym and using some online service or app. But I know that won’t surface for me because I enjoy using the machines at the gym a lot more and it feels more like doing something. To me, anyway.

So on Monday, I finally decided to get my butt into gear again, suck it up and get over it. So before I went to bed, I packed my gym bag so I wouldn’t have an excuse in the morning. Getting and staying motivated throughout the work day was the worst because things just suck at the office and every afternoon, I just want to go home. But I kept telling myself that nope, this time I wouldn’t chicken out.

In true Kathy fashion, of course I ran into my trainer the first thing when I arrived because he was working at the check-in. Of course. He gave me this weird look like “Do I know her?” and then kept looking at me like that each time I passed the counter. I was starting to feel relieved like maybe he really didn’t recognise me or hadn’t realised that I hadn’t come back for ages. But just when I felt safe and I was done and went back to check out, he definitely recognised me and was all like “So…how was it?”, throwing me off guard. And I just mumbled something along the lines of “Really, really exhausting.” So he smirks and goes, “Well, it’s hard to get back into it, so you better stick with it this time!” Ugh! Awkward! 

But at least that’s done and over with. And the workout was really, really good. Of the “Damn, my lungs hurt, but I’ll just keep going!”-variety. The circle training went amazingly well, even though the muscles in my arms were screaming by the end of it.

And one of my closest friends also joined a gym again. We live 800km apart, so it’s not like we can actually, physically go together but we have ‘mental gym dates’ and tell each other about it which helps a little bit. 

Vegan Banana Ice Cream in the Making

I’m also trying to watch what I eat a little bit more again. Not just counting calories but try to eat better and healthier. A co-worker let me borrow a vegan cook book with healthy recipes the other day and some of them sound really good. I tried the first recipe today, vegan sundae ice cream to feed my munchies. The original recipe is from Vegan for Youth by Attila Hildmann, in which he pretty much just mashes frozen bananas. But that proved to be really difficult for me and my cheap blender, so I added about 50ml of almond milk. And since I wanted some other taste than plain banana, I also added two teaspoons of peanut butter (for two bananas). When I was done blending and mixing, it was a little too soft and warm for my taste, so I put it back in the freezer and we’ll see how it turns out then. I know it doesn’t look too tempting in the picture but the taste was really nice. But I have to say, using a hand blender, it was really, really hard work to get the bananas all mashed and creamy. I think I almost screwed up the device, too. It’s a really cheap one, so I wouldn’t be surprised and it’s probably easier using high quality appliances but damn, those bananas were tough! 

Goodbye 2013! My Year in Review

We talked about 2013 on a forum I frequent the other day and when I wrote my short recap, I came to the conclusion that 2013 pretty much just was for me. It had its ups, it had its downs. I’m not sure I’ll look back on it as a year that was all that special on a personal level.

But even though, or maybe because, it was so unspecial, I’d like to focus on it in a bit of a detailed view. It’s good to look back on things and learn from them, appreciate them and just remember them. This also led to the first time ever that I jotted down notes before writing a blog post. I’m pretty sure what I’ve written in this blog in over a year now is a dead giveaway for how unfocused my blogging usually is. I sit down and write and to be honest, most of the time I have no idea where I’m going until I’m done. But when I decided I was gonna write a recap of my 2013, I quickly came to the realization that reviewing a whole year just isn’t gonna work without notes. Without thinking long and hard, I couldn’t tell you what I had for lunch today, so remembering the past not-quite-365 days without a reminder here and there would be close to impossible.

In the process of taking my notes, I quickly started putting them into categories. Originally, this was just meant to help me organize my thoughts but then I figured it was a good way to do this. So here’s my year…

Personal Highlights

• AFI: I wrote about this long and hard already, but my favorite band released a new record this year, after four long years of absence. It is hard for me to write about this on a platform like this blog because I’m aware how this comes off with other people. The majority of people have fond memories of being a fan of a band – when they were 14. They can’t fathom what it’s like when that kind of love for (an) artist(s) remains. With most people that gets replaced by other things that become important to them over the years and just like with other values that we are taught are ‘publicly acceptable’, we come to feel like ‘the odd one out’ when we feel differently. I’m not ashamed of how I feel about AFI, I’m just afraid of not doing how important they are to me and on what level justice by not finding the right words. I don’t want people to think this is a silly thing, just because I fail to explain it properly. For now, though, let it suffice to say that I’ve missed being an active fan of this band. And by active I mean actually having something new to deal with, having a word to spreads, having a tour to hope and plan for. The latter still hasn’t happened but I’m confident that it’ll happen in ’14. As an album, ‘Burials’ hit me on a very emotional level. The hurt and anger and emotional stress of this album is so raw and familiar to me that I think it would have caught me off guard either way, whether it is by AFI or another artist. For weeks, I built myself a home inside those songs and lived there quite comfortably. Which is exactly what I’ve always known and needed from this band. Which explains quite perfectly why they’re such an important part of my life.
• Friendships: 2013 Has been quite the nice little rollercoaster ride for me when it came to friendships. I got a lot closer with one friend who is especially important to me because we have so much in common and are so very alike in aspects that matter. So far, there was this invisible wall between us that drove us apart whenever we started opening up, as if we were afraid to do just that. At some point, after a lot of fights and drama, this wall disappeared and we grew so much closer which is a nice, if even a little scary, feeling. With all of my anxiety and trust issues, I still feel the urge to run every now and again but I can even tell her about that without feeling like she thinks I’m crazy. Then another friend came back into my life at a time when I least expected it, catching me off guard and leaving me to contemplate things all over again. Now, after several months have passed, I’m confident that letting her in again was a good decision. It’s still a bit tender, like a new tattoo and I think it’s still a matter of trial and error with finding the right dosage of each other but at the moment, it feels right, like we’re doing the right thing. What I didn’t like was how it threw me into yet more drama with people who I feel have no say in what I do with my life and who don’t even know me. On the kindergarten frame of mind level, they still think in social groups and all you can do is choose not to play their games. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try to still drag you down. I know that it’s partly my own fault for allowing them to do that and for letting it get to me but sometimes I can’t help it. Especially when some people are so obsessed with getting at me that they cannot even let it go, even when I choose not to comment on or reply to anything they say or do. The third friendship that is giving me a bit of a headache is also my oldest friendship. A girl who’s been nothing but kind to me in over ten years. Almost 15, I think? We used to be so close but over the past couple years, I feel we’ve drifted apart. And I’m not completely innocent, I know that. It’s just really hard to face this huge and important talk I know we’re supposed to have about it all eventually. It’s actually one of my goals for the next year to try and save this friendship or maybe move it to a new level, if need be. The last one that deserves to be mentioned here is a girl I met through my weight loss journey. We’re not so close, yet, that I’d see her as a part of my inner circle but we’re in such a similar position with where we are with our weight loss and what we’re struggling with that our conversations get increasingly personal and it’s nice to share that with someone who truly understands.
• Mallorca: After I don’t know how many years, I finally had a proper holiday again! I’ve blogged about this more than is healthy already and I’n still missing the last part which I may add later just for closure, so I’m not gonna go on and on about it. Let me just say how good it was to get out, change the scenery for a bit, enjoy the sun and think of nothing but which sights I wanna see tomorrow for a while.

Things I Learned / Achieved

• I’ve finally accepted and come clean about my own anxiety. It shows in many ways but mostly, my social anxiety is really, really bad. I go through good phases when it doesn’t bother me at all and life seems easy to me but the bad times are never far away. I’ve told my closest friends about it, so they know I’m not being unnecessarily difficult. Which doesn’t mean I get to hide behind it and be reckless, but I hope it’ll help them understand how my mind works sometimes. It’s also something that I know fessing up to was just the first step of. I’ll have to work on it and constantly push myself to my own limits so hopefully, I’ll get better at dealing with it, even though I don’t dare hope this will ever leave me.
• One of the best things I’ve done today was changing my doctor. In Germany, everyone has a regular practitioner that you go to for check-ups and temporary illnesses like a flu and who you will also go to for a recommendation of professionals regarding more difficult or permanent things. My old one was just really not very helpful and supportive and I’m so glad I switched because even though I’ve only seen my new doc twice, she’s already helped me a lot and made me feel much better about myself and my health issues.
• The other good thing, though I’ve not been doing so well in the past few weeks, was changing my gym. It’s a much more professional place and gives me the opportunity to follow a much more personal and custom plan. Unlike my old gym, it makes me feel like I’m not alone, like there is someone who will listen to what I want to achieve and help me get there. When you’re a born lazybutt like me and someone puts you into a gym, you just feel overwhelmed. Where do I start? What do I do? How do I use all those machines? What courses are right? At my old gym, though people there were nice, I just felt alone with my quest and like everything they had to offer was made to suit everyone. Which just doesn’t help. I have to lose a significant amount of weight, the next person may be skinny and wanting to gain a lot of muscle. So we have different needs but the gym wasn’t really prepared to offer help with that. So I already feel better knowing that what I do when I go there is the right thing for me.
• I took up writing again. Nothing major but when Secret Santa time came around, not only did I finish the actual story for that but also one for a friend and it reignited the spark I’d been missing for so long. Since then, I’ve had a million different ideas and hope to go through with at least some of them, rather than adding another few dozen unfinished pieces to the long list on my hard drive.

Books

• The Land of Stories 1 & 2 by Chris Colfer: I’ve been a fan of the TV Series Glee for a while but never knew that Chris Colfer had written a book, or two by now. So I stumbled upon the first book by accident when I found a thread on a book community in which someone offered her copy as a wandering book. I signed up and had to wait for quite a long time. So long, actually, that I had considered buying it instead. But then it arrived and I read it and loved it so much that I immediately pre-ordered part two which I also got to read this year. I recently learned that Chris is working on part three and this got me so inexplicably excited! Fairytale adaptions are one of my weaknesses and he does it so well!
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: For some reason, TFIOS was almost the last book by John Green I got to read after falling in love with this author. Even though it is his most well known and popular publication so far. I think I was a little afraid of my own expectations. It is, after all, a YA book about a girl who has cancer. You find way too many books about The Big C on YA literature shelves and one day I hope to explore why that is so. Most of them are amazing but you know what they say, ‘too much of a good thing…’. So I was a little hesitant. But TFIOS really is as amazing as they all say. And more. I am 31 and I have a teeny weeny crush on Augustus Waters. There, I said it!
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: This was probably my big surprise this year when it came to books. I bought this as part of an Amazon special in which you could buy three English paperback titles for 10 €. Most of the titles on offer didn’t seem very appealing to me as they were a lot of romance or sequels to books I hadn’t read. But I already had The Time Traveler’s Wife and The Map of Time in my basket and needed a third book and then I saw Ready Player One and remembered having read a good review about it somewhere. The plot seemed vaguely interesting, so I put it in my basket. It ended up being the first I read of the three and even though I was so suspicious about it, it turned out being one of my favorite reads this year. It was nerdy, clever, sweet at some point and set in a really, really detailed future world that you could imagine to exist a couple hundred years from now. Even though I’m nowhere near as obsessed with virtual worlds as the characters in this book, I can understand where the author is coming from. It’s so easy to lose yourself in online games and identify with your avatar in one way or another and Ernest Cline simply took it a step further, creating a wonderful ‘What If…’ scenario.
• Authors: I discovered two new authors this year whose work really impressed me. One is Linda Castillo whose Kate Burkholder series I started with early this year. Right now, the fourth book is waiting to be read by me. It is set on the edges of an Amish community and besides the tension and suspense her stories offer, I like learning about these people and their traditions without it being boring in any way. With Neil Gaiman, I’m a little late to the party. Whenever I mention how much I enjoyed reading Neverwhere, everyone just rolls their eyes at me. Apparently, the whole world has been a fan for years. I’ve enjoyed this book so much that I made it a plan for ’14 to read more of his work.

Movies

• Despicable Me 2: If you know me, you know I’m slightly obsessed with the Minions. I have posters, figurines, apps…whatever I can get my hands on and can actually use in some way. The first movie was probably one of my all-time favorites and I was looking forward to the sequel like other people are looking forward to their wedding days. For months, we had posters outside the cinema near the mall and every single time I saw them, I’d squeal. When the time finally came, sadly, I only made it to the cinema twice, not a million times like I’d planned. But it was glorious. Amazing. My God, how I enjoyed this movie! And I didn’t even particularly care for the plot, though it was enjoyable. I can’t wait for the Minions movie!
• The Hunger Games – Catching Fire: I’ve read the books, I’ve cried, I’ve been tempted to throw my Kindle at the wall. So I have to watch the movies, too. And how brilliant they are! Catching Fire was so close to what I imagined things to look like while reading the book, I spent most of the time in the cinema convinced that I had already seen the movie. Which was impossible, I’d hardly even seen trailers. But it really came so close. I loved every second of it and can’t wait for the next part.
• Now You See Me: This was my big surprise this year. I love Amy Adams, so one night when my friend and I found ourselves on the steps of a local theater, spontaneously in the mood to see a movie, I instantly voted for this one. But at the time I didn’t expect more than a bit of mild entertainment. But this movie was so, so good, really smart and had more strengths than just the magic tricks / special effects.

Goals 2014

• Lose weight: I don’t remember a time in my life when this wasn’t part of the plan. Instead of making it a goal to be a skinny supermodel by the end of the year, though, I’m just not gonna set a specific goal but just promise myself that I’ll do my best to achieve as much as I can.
• Be more organized: Again, this is a rather vague thing that involves more than just tidying up more or keeping the paperwork at home in line. It also includes small things like taking notes at work, using post-its for actual reminders rather than just doodling, remembering distant friends’ birthdays and sending cards out in time, taking two minutes to remove my makeup at night, not constantly forgetting to brush my hair, clear the dishes right after meals, and so on. If I get better at this, it’ll be easier for me to deal with everyday life in the long run because I know things are just running automatically and I don’t have to stress myself out so much over the smallest things.
• Stay calm / Relax more:  I tend to freak out at the smallest cause because I’m just so annoyed with things in my life right now. It doesn’t make things easier and it doesn’t help and the only thing I achieve with it is make myself feel worse, so I need to find a way to stay calm and not act like a crazy ghetto bitch.
• Rekindle friendships: There’s one particular close friend I already mentioned earlier who I’d like to become closer with again because I really miss her friendship. We’ve drifted apart a lot and I know we’ll never fully be on the same emotional level and share so many interests again but that doesn’t mean we can’t make this work. And then there are a few other people who I’ve never really been close with before but we were on casual terms, checking in with each other every other day and that’s gone down the drain over the years, as well. I’d like to get back to having that extended circle of friends again and let them know I’m here if they need me.
• Save Money: I’ve really lost my way here. I went from having almost 1.000 € in my savings account + another 150 € in my piggy bank to have almost nothing left. And with the prospect of a possible AFI tour soon, I really need to get my act together. I’ve done well this month already by putting aside almost 100 € again and I hope to stay on this track. Also I want to stop abusing my credit card for spontaneous purchases whenever I don’t have the cash, so I can use it for the tour as well.
• Go veggie: I want to give the vegetarian diet another go. I thought I may start by challenging myself to stick to a veggie diet for a week, if that goes well, extend it to two weeks, and so on. If I fail, I’ll start again. In the past few weeks, I’ve already explored several veggie lunch alternatives I could rely on at work. There’s a bakery / lunch restaurant that has freshly cooked pasta dishes every day and most of them are vegetarian. And there are a bunch of different supermarkets nearby that offer different kinds of salads or other vegetarian dishes. So even if I forget to pack lunch, I’d have good alternatives.
• Cook more: This goes along with the goal above because it’s certainly easier to stick to a certain diet when you’re prepared. But it’s also easier to lose weight and be healthy when you eat homemade food that you know the actual ingredients of and that you can alter according to your own likes or dislikes.
• Laugh more, cry less: Sort of explains itself, really.

Challenges 2014

• Lose weight: This is not one big challenge as such but rather one I plan to take baby steps with as before. Right now, I’m still on the first step that’s listed on my Challenges page which is to lose 2.2kg by mid-January. Since I’m still lacking a working scale, I have no reliable result but hope to be on the right track.
• Goodreads Challenge: As every year, I’m gonna take part in the Goodreads Reading Challenge again and since I’ve struggled to reach my goal of 50 this year, I won’t up it and set it to 50 again. This time, I’ll put the widget on my Challenges page as well as soon as Goodreads lets you do that.

So, that’s all, folks!

I hope everyone has a great NYE, a lot of fun, whether you’re partying or staying home. I know I’m ready for 2014 to arrive.

Ready for 2014!

Be safe and see you on the other side!

Half-Way There #3

It’s just one more day til Christmas here in Germany. I think most other countries celebrate on the 25th and even though we’ve been introduced to this by American and British movies, we still hold on to the tradition of having a fabulous Christmas dinner followed by unwrapping and quality time spent with the family on the 24th.

And of course, I finished most of the items on my little to-do list just in time.

• Write piece for a Secret Santa due on Dec 25th 
• Finish making mixtape + cover for another Secret Santa
• Write another Christmas piece I’ve set Dec 24th as a deadline for
• Buy last piece of gift for friend
• Buy gift for mom
• Buy Christmas cards
• Mail gifts and cards
• Put up last pieces of Christmas decoration
• Tidy up and clean living room
• Buy ingredients for baking
• Bake Christmas cookies
• Plan meal for Christmas Eve and look up recipes
• Finish Goodreads reading challenge for 2013

As you can see, the only thing left undone is the baking. I had bought the ingredients last week but forgot the butter and then never got around to it. Now I plan to bake some last minute cookies after work tomorrow. I’m gonna make Vanillekipferl, a German Christmas treat. As the name suggest, they taste of vanilla and they’re very crumbly and taste best – like most things – when they’re just out of the oven! Knowing me, I’ll forget, but I may take some pictures when I’m actually done.

I was gonna make white chocolate rum balls, too, but those are just too time-consuming so instead, I’ve decided on using the white chocolate I bought for those to make cupcakes for the Christmas movie night and dinner my friend and I have planned for the 26th. I’ve never actually made proper cupcakes (I tried once but only had an American vegan recipe and ended up using all the wrong German alternatives), so I hope that’s gonna turn out fine. Watch me buy some candy from the gas station and bring that instead!

I bought my mom’s gift today, with her in tow actually. I know that was a last minute run but I had tried to buy it on Friday but couldn’t find it anywhere. She’d asked for a gift certificate, preferably Amazon. But would you believe they had no affordable Amazon gift certificates left anywhere. Only the really big ones and while my mom is worth more than money could even buy, I simply can’t afford to spend that kind of money. So I decided to go and look for one again today. But when I mentioned that I had to drive to the mall before work, she tagged along. Zing! Luckily, I managed to slip off and get her gift at one point.

The writing also went fairly well. Once I put my mind to it – and I actually like the piece I’m working on – it’s easy for me to keep going. So I had my actual Secret Santa piece done yesterday. And I literally just finished the other piece a few moments ago. All this writing has really fired me up again and I’ll try to write more. I’ve never been one to pop out another piece every few days but I used to write way more (and actually finish some, too) and I’d like to get back there.

For now, though, I’m really damn pleased with myself. I think this is the first year that I’m actually

Merry Christmas to Me

finished with everything before Christmas. I’m not even counting the last item on my list now because baking is fun and it will be even nicer to enjoy the warm cookies tomorrow, on the actual Christmas Eve, so I could as well have planned it. And everything that had other people involved was finished more than just in time. Could it be I’m actually growing up? And, oh yeah, because I’ve been such a good girl – and also, maybe, because I was getting slightly pissed off with the crazy people at the mall today and still didn’t kill anyone – I treated myself to a new bag. Oops! But hello, gorgeous! Welcome to my pretty little army of bags! I regret nothing and it was on sale anyway and it has little skulls on them which my old favorite bag also had. And let me tell you, I loved that one. So much that I carried half my life around in it and that may just have been a little too heavy because the straps got ripped off. Tragic, I know.

Anyway…Merry Christmas, you guys! Or Merry Whatever-It-Is-That-You-Celebrate! Hopefully everyone who reads this has wonderful holidays.