Long time, no blogging

Let's see...October 9th was the last blog post....oy.  I went to Cheb (Czech Republic) and went thrifting with the girls here in town a couple of times.  We had a craft day and I taught them how to make mini paper bag albums with tags...Halloween theme.....yes, using up the crafty crap.  No pictures....I suck.  We went to Lego Land, a pumpkin patch and the Munich Zoo.  Did some Army wife stuff.  Celebrated two birthdays.  We just had another craft day on Wednesday and still no pictures.  I taught them how to make bunting.....they used burlap...I hate burlap. Ugh.  We made fabric charms and I left them all with supplies to make sunflowers out of coffee filters (which I had dyed ahead of time).  I didn't get around to making a bunting until today.....I cut out the pieces yesterday and made it today.....no sew.....fabric glue and a glue gun.  I realized that I had given everyone the toweling for the middle of the sunflowers, so I dyed more coffee filters and made rose/peony looking flowers instead.  I made 21 one flowers and want to make more.  I spent my entire 7 1/2 hours of free time crafting.....it was awesome.  I haven't done that in forever.  I need to do it more often.  :)

Floh Markt Treasures

July's goods....fake food for 2 euro and box of buttons for 3 euro,

6 September- box of stuff in top picture for 20 euro and that lovely pile of vintage American crafty crap was 3/1 euro and I bought 20 euros worth.  He threw in extras, because I spent so much.  I would've asked for the price for the whole big box.....but there were two German ladies digging along side me.  

20 September- My son was a doll and bought me a box of handkerchiefs for 6 euro.  It turned out to be 33 hankies.  The ones in the front are kiddie hankies..too cute.

Last weekend-  I got this adorable doll cabinet for 8 euro.  I am working on removing the stickers.....I've been using peanut butter.....it seems to be working (a little).  Goo be gone would probably work better. :) 

Kallmunz

I go on adventures with a fellow mil-spouse here in Germany (or at least we try to once a week).  Today was my day to chose and I chose Kallmunz.  I had read about it on another mil-spouse blog:  http://milligfunk.com/exploring-kallmunz-castle-ruins/   It sounded like a good day trip.  We climbed up those stairs to get to the ruins and walked back the long way (which ended by that sign).  We walked around the town for a little bit and then ate at the Trattoria.  It was really good pizza and I ate half of it in about five minutes.  

Random flower shot

I figured one easy way to blog is to post random photos.  They will all be photos I took while on my blog vacation.  :)  I like this one because of the bee.  

Best Zoo Food

Back in June (during block leave) we took the boys to the Nuernberg Zoo.  We got the currywurst, a schnitzel sandwich, bratwurst mit saurkraut and pommes frites.  Best zoo food ever.  The zoo was pretty nice, too.  :)

http://tiergarten.nuernberg.de/en/home.html

The Tiniest Mushroom

This mushroom was actually in some moss in my potted rose.  I can't believe how small it was....you know me I love mushrooms.  

A Journal of Nature's Blessing Swap

There they are....my contribution to the swap.  http://karlascottage.typepad.com/  Nothing to fancy or foofy....I figured the ladies who get the pages might want to foof them up themselves.  :)

I am a slug

  

A big, fat, slimy slug.  The last few months have been crazy and have sucked the life from me.  Between Army wife obligations, my oldest graduating from HS, Summer School, two work schedules to juggle and real school starting....I was just not in a blogging kind of mood.  I'll try better.  

So March wasn't a total wash

So I got a few things done.  I finished painting and glittering these eggs (there are actually two sets of the colored eggs).  I painted the insides gold after seeing someone else do it.  

I had two more sets of three eggs and decided to paint those gold (inside and out).  I sent them all into wee one's class for Easter.  I was going to decorate them with ribbons, lace and millinery flowers, but decided against it.  

I want to thank "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2" for inspiring wee one to pick out sardines at the German grocery store on Saturday.  He tried a couple bites of fish and three eyeballs...very proud (tiny bit revolted).  I love the pickles in the movie (so cute) and love the way Chester V talks and uses his hands while talking (very funny).  Speaking of movies, I watched some in March:  Frozen (Anna was a selfish bitch and I know I'm one of the last people on the planet to have seen it...just watched it Sunday night), "Black Swan" (that is some kind of cray-cray), "Hitchcock" (I have never seen "Psycho"...I know, I know), "Houseboat" (I haven't seen that one in forever...still like it) and re-watched "From Russia With Love" (Wee One loved it).  I read some books (I'm on a roll):

The American Way of Eating by TracieMcMillan

Eggs in a Casket by Laura Childs

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

How To Eat a Small Country by Amy Finley

We have played way too much Wii Mini-Golf, I made some more chocolate cupcakes (I want to perfect that recipe), we bought a meat slicer (and have used it once...we got it for $8 at the thrift store), started getting the backyard ready for spring (finally have enough window boxes for the whole fence), started sewing the last baby bunting, worked on taxes, tried looking online for a ball gown (sizes suck ass nowadays), made a mammogram appointment and all that other mundane crap (laundry, dishes- you get the idea)....so March was not a wash at all.  I may not have blogged much, but I got a lot done.  Here are two more links for the frosting recipes I used on the chocolate cupcakes.

 http://beyondfrosting.com/2013/10/08/reeses-peanut-butter-cup-frosting/

http://centercutcook.com/oreo-cupcakes-with-cookies-cream-frosting/

Lateral Promotion and Links

  Today, Hubby gets laterally promoted to 1SG.....he has been waiting for this for a long time.  :)  I can't be at the promotion ceremony, so I sent in cupcakes.  I made two kinds...oatmeal cream pie and chocolate cupcakes with thin mint frosting.  I went all Irish yesterday as well and made corned beef with veggies and colcannon.  Not bad for an Asian-American.  :)  No pictures of the cupcakes....I was too tired to care by the time I finished them up.  :)  Here are some of the links (Justin case you get a bug up your bum to make something different): 


  http://beyondfrosting.com/2013/09/29/oatmeal-cream-pie-cupcakes/


http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2013/06/chocolate-cupcake-recipe-the-ultimate-chocolate-cupcake-test-baked-by-50-bakers-and-counting.html


http://beyondfrosting.com/2013/02/19/thin-mint-cookie-mini-cakes/


http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Classic-Colcannon




Now that he has a job.....I'm hoping to get to some crafty projects that have been neglected.  Okay,  there is housework that needs to be done as well.  For example, taking down the Christmas Tree....wee one wants me to keep it up, but it needs to come down.  :)  Taxes...that would be good to finish up as well.  I don't get anything done when he is home.  :)  That stack of library books won't read itself either.     

A Whole Year

Hubby deployed and redeployed from Afghanistan.  That was the worst re-deployment ever.  That is about 0430 in the morning and we had been waiting since 0200.  The boys still made it to school.....they wanted to go.  It was chocolate chip pancake day for the wee one.  There was no way he was missing pancakes....he just kept saying, "van and school" over and over.  

Here are the hearts I made for Jennifer's swap...they had to be neutral colors.  They each had a silver glittered heart in the little lace pocket.

Here is what I made for Sarah's swap.  The heart charm was what I made, but I didn't just want to send them in a bag with my card.  So I sewed up some felt hearts and sewed the charms on to those...much better.  I used vintage fabric instead of paper on the heart charms.  It was leftover fabric from my Art of Craft heart.  Now i'm not sure if I ever posted a photo of that...darn.  Oh well, I was excited to learn a new artsy craftsy thing....it was my first time with the clear glass cabochons and tile glaze.

We have been in Germany for exactly one year now.  We love our town.  We love the food.  The weather can be a tad wonky at times.  But we are happy to be back.  Hubby just needs a job.  Re-integration takes forever.  He is so up my ass.  Hard to get anything done with him around.  I did re-arrange the living room (with a little help from Hubby) yesterday.  The boys seem to like the re-configuration and addition of a rug.  I helped out with a few bake sales since I last blogged.  Someone else needs to hold some swaps....I want to make things, but feel I need a reason to do them.  I do still have one baby bunting left to make...waiting for the felt and I might make a birthday gift for a party I'm attending next weekend.  I don't really want to buy anything if I can make something instead (she likes owls....I think I can handle that). That is about it.  We have gone to quite a few stores in town since he has time off.  We got a shoe rack the other day (had to make sure I got one before my parents visit again).  We have also tried two of the many donor kebab stands in town.  None of them live up to the best donor stand in Germany (I don't know if that one still exists, but it was in Augsburg in front of the Dehner's).  There are still a shit load of them to try though....half the fun.  I need to go.....I'm heading into Vilseck with the Hubby today.  I want to go the post thrift stores (there is one on Graf as well).  

Okay, I joined another one

Because I suck....I joined one more swap.  She still needs a few more swappers, so if you are in the mood to make some Valentines...go by this blog and see what you need to do.


  http://mamanjackjack.blogspot.de/2014/01/heart-to-heart-2014.html

New Year, New Swap

Okay, I need a jumpstart in this crafty stuff again.  It has been awhile.  One of the Bella's is hosting a swap on her blog.  http://www.glittermyday.blogspot.de/    I hope I make the cut.  :)  You make 10 hearts and send them to her and you get 10 back.  Any medium.  Sounded interesting and kind of fun. :)