Does this happen to you much?

It’s morning, I’ve got my coffee, I’m finished checking my email.  So I do a little surfing.  This time I’m thinking about milk and how much is a healthful amount to drink.  So I google “calcium in milk” and come up with this page:

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/milk/can/booklets.cfm

I learn that four cups of milk a day is good.  I notice at the top of the page the name Eunice Kennedy Shriver.  Could this be the Mom of Maria Shriver, wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger?  So I google her name.  I get:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/07/eunice.kennedy.shriver/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Yes.  That’s right.  I learn of the existence of Eunice only to find that 15 hours earlier, her name is in the headlines due to her hospitalization.

I think that is a weird alignenment and this happens to me  a lot.

I just started work at our local community arts and crafts center, The Crafts Tree.  I hope to expand the ceramics area of the shop to include handbuilt and wheelthrown pottery.

For clarity the word “ceramics” applies to all sorts of processes including the items made from molds and slip, those made on a wheel using your hands and those made in factories and used in your bathroom.  Ceramic = Keramic in German.

Christina Baumgartner who teaches at our Volkshochschule told me about Andrea Wolbring Keramic Supply in Baldham (east of Munich).  I don’t know how I would have found a supplier in my part of Germany without her help!  So with that help, I went on a road trip to find a ceramic supply outlet to gather info and materials.

The photos reflect the broad spectrum of tools, glazes, clays, kilns and wheels offered by Andrea Wolbring.  The staff was super helpful and they spoke English.  (yippee)  They offer a number of classes including Raku.  Check them out if your a ceramic artist!

When I was a kid my schoolmates called me horseface.   It’s part of the reason I turned bad.  When DD and I went to lunch, we saw these horses running around on the mountain.  On the way home, we stopped to pet them.  They were so pretty!

I’d like to thank all the people who have stopped by my blog and all the people who have commented.  I am discontinuing my blog, possibly permanently.  Blogging joins the hundreds of other to-do’s that I seem to never get around TO DOING!  I have a number or reasons that I don’t blog but the number one reason is that I don’t feel like I can be honest on my blog.  When I begin to write, I feel like I have to reign in my thoughts and create a polite entry.  I self-censor my blog entries because I live in a very small community and my family and friends read my blog.  I’m afraid of offending them.  I am currently reading CraftyPod’s Making a Great Blog. Maybe this will motivate me to clarify my thoughts and create a blog in which I can be proud.  Take care blogging, crafty world!

Ladies and Gentlemen, presented to you in pictures and words are a few reasons to go ride your bike.

If you ride your bike, you get to meet sweet girls just out for a walk with their burros.  Then swing by McCafe for an upscale coffee at a cut rate joint.

When the Spring blooms catch your eye, you can stop and smell them.  Divine.  Then stop by the corner market for your own flowers.  Place them in your handlebar basket and you’re off again.

On the way home with your treasures and pleasures you can relive your youth.  Remember when you were a kid, riding bikes with a friend and the “rule” was you couldn’t run over sticks?  Set your own rules for your ride.  I swerved around the pot holes.  Woo hoo!  Down right liberating!

I must add this little clip.  We live in a small town.  We don’t have none of that high-falutin’ big city graffiti.  Nope.  But I think this gets to the point.

{it is rumored that the old man who lived in that house before it was torn down was a N@zi.  it is also rumored that the backhoes dug up a bunch of buried gold.  did I mention this is small town?}

I had seen Elle Decor on the news stand.  I flipped through it and thought it might be worth subscribing.  I checked online and decided to go with the modern ecologically sound solution to my search.  A digitally downloaded copy!  I had to download software from Zinio.  Really, a painless process!  But the great part is that after reading the magazine, I decided it was far too high class for my little life.  Now I can flip past the leather sofas, velvet floor pillows and exclusive window treatments, completely free of the guilt of paper waste!  But there is one thing I gleened that I wanted to share with you.  Where last year it was deer antlers, deer taxidermy and deer silouettes, evidently this year it is terapins.  *gag*

Well, ok.  Since Regina at Creative Kismet was nice enough to blog about me, then I will blog some more.

I have wanted to ride my bike more.  When you live in a town that is only about 3 miles wide, it’s kinda lazy to always drive.  I have three bikes and one thousand excuses why I don’t use them.  My art bike has bad brakes, my vintage bike is still in the basement and my mountain bike makes my back hurt.  But I overcame inertia and today rode my mountain bike to the doctor.  I timed it.  The ride took only 20 minutes and that was at a leisurely pace.   I stopped and took a picture of this pretty tree.

The Kramer mountain in the background.

Tomorrow is Karfreitag.  Kar means mourning or sorrow in old German.  It’s a German holiday and so is Monday.  So stores will be closed; all of them on both days plus the usual Sunday.  Our little town is filled with long-weekend-travelers.  Mostly it’s nice to have visitors here to remind me of how nice my paradise town is.  But the driving is a little insane at times.  Mixed in with the normal Bavarian driving (getting out of ones car at a red light to visit with the car in front of you) are people who swerve, stop, slow and weave because they can’t find their hotel or ski rental place.  Life is always about trade-offs.  I continue to be happy with the balance here.

So today is the day of which I promised. The day of the big drawing! I need only collect all the names of the people who commented on my blog, put their names in a hat and…..oh wait. There’s a problem. Apparently almost no one commented on my blog. Huh.

I read quite a few blogs regularly. I enjoy them immensely. I comment. I think sometimes that I SHOULD blog. It was always on my list to re-start my blog. I thought, maybe it would be a way to connect with people. So I gave it a go. My statistics show that the most readers I had was on one day; 80 people. Of those two non-family members commented.

I will take the time I spent writing my blog and concentrate instead on reading my magazines which I love or crocheting, which I also love.

So I am not doing a drawing to find which one of my lucky commenters would get a gift bag. Instead I am giving two gift bags, one for each of my kind commenters. I will pursue internet interaction through other portals such as Flickr or Facebook….or something else.

Would Regina and Sara please send me your mailing addresses and I will send out your gifts right away!  Place an “@” symbol between the words: 

Here they are. They will be filled with goodies when you receive them!

For anyone who might care, the “o” in the title should have an umlaut.

So this is the last entry of my “Thanks for Visiting” give away. Tomorrow will be the big drawing to see who wins the much talked about re-usable gift bag!

Today was filled with housework. I have been trying to tackle my dusty to-do list. I have checked off swimming (3.5 years on list), rehydrate clay (seven months on list) and brighten dining room table (one week on list). I didn’t officially have it on my list, but “clean the downstairs bathroom” has been on my mind. Every time I went in there I tried to remember the last time I cleaned it. I won’t tell you my conclusion about the passage of time and my lack of housekeeping skills! Not only has the crudiness of the tiny room been on my mind, but also the principles of Feng Shui as well. I have been reading a book “Feng Shui in 10 Simple Lessons”. I can’t say I understand all of the concepts, such as Dragon Energy and Earth Energy, but I have picked up some good pointers. The main point that I gathered was to work on the balance of energy in your entryway. My little bathroom is right next to my front door! It was time to give it that cleaning it needed. I took everything out and scrubbed including washing the walls and oiling the woodwork. I continued out into the entryway. The details aren’t all that important. I just wanted the world to know that I worked my butt off in the name of better home energy.

The really cool thing I did today was to clean and paint my NEW LAMP! That’s right, after blogging about it, I started thinking about it. And thinking some more. Then obsessing! What if someone else buys it before I can get back to the thriftshop?? Oh the agony. I was thrilled to find the funky lamp, untouched, right where I left it! A little soap and water, then some paint and Voila!

Life is good!

Now, the other lamp…….{OK, I’ll buy it on Monday!!}

Thanks for checking in!

I bet you didn’t. I didn’t post yesterday. I had a computer breakdown at 11:30pm, so I just went to bed. Friday was another good day. Doctor visit: check! Grocery shopping: check! In addition to my normal life, I thought today would be a good day to go to the Friday Vegetable Market on the pedestrian way. I have been saving a used egg carton for just such a trip! So I grabbed my shopping basket (if you don’t have one, get one now!) and my egg carton and headed out. I had hoped to snap some cute photos, but it was raining. So I could only get some close-ups from under an awning. But the rain didn’t stop me from getting some asparagus, radishes, organic eggs, honey and some amazing cherry tomatoes. (they were so good, I ate them up like grapes!)

The problem with the market is that it’s pretty expensive. My tiny purchase of five items was about 20euro! I’m grateful I’m not on a budget!

Around the corner from the market is a permanent flea market in a cute old building. I have been meaning to check it out since we moved here 3.5 years ago! Inside there were two vendors with items such as old napkins, antique tatted lace, cut crystal, jewelry, silver cutlery and fur coats. Lots of fur coats! I thought the items were ok and some of the prices were good. I passed on a couple items that were cheap just because, believe it or not, I have enough junk!

Later I bought something really, really cool. But you will have to tune into my next entry to see that!

Please comment!!