Friday letters

Friday, Friday, Friday! I am so pleased you’re here! You would think after a four-day weekend I would be happy to do plenty of work this week, but in fact I’m really looking forward to the weekend. That probably makes it sound like I hate my job… I swear I don’t! But I’ve spent most of the week working on a single not all that interesting translation and I could use a break from it. Plus it’s looking like some fun things might be in order this weekend, and who wouldn’t look forward to fun things? I still have a full day of work to get there before that though. So for now let’s have some letters.

 

Dear scales. I very much appreciated you’re sticking to the same number despite all my indulgences in Berlin, but it’s been nearly a week now so it would be nice if you could start moving in a downward direction again…

Dear plants. I wish there was some way I could make you grow faster. I’m so excited for you to look all pretty on my balcony.

Dear Easter chocolate. I hope you know how much willpower it cost me to ignore you now that you’re half price in all the supermarkets! Please hurry up and sell out so I can no longer be tempted!

Dear home office. If I were to look up the word “chaos” in the dictionary I’m sure a photo of you would appear! I’m so sorry. One day we will find the right piece of furniture for you…

Dear Switzerland. In 5 days I will have been living in you for 2 years. Time flies!

Right, that’s it for today. Have an amazing weekend everyone!
p.s. Tomorrow is April’s photo an hour day with Jane and Louisa. Who’s playing?

 

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35 before 35: Cross stitch something for myself

When I added “Cross stitch something for myself” to my 35 before 35 list, I was initially planning on stitching a proper cross stitch kit – I now have two lying around waiting to be started, one huge one with poppies and a map of Northumberland. However, when I saw little pictures of various kitchen equipment in one of my cross stitch magazines, I instantly knew I wanted to stitch some of those for myself. My kitchen had been in need of some decoration, and they were in my favourite colour (red). Jan agreed that I could have them in my kitchen so I got stitching. I’m allowing this to count for the item because I think four little pictures adds up to a big enough project to be counted. Here they are in the order I stitched them. Maybe some people will recognise one that I was part way through a few months ago… 😉

Teapot

Sugar, coffee, tea

Pot holder and oven glove

One of the four pictures

Aren’t they the cutest? Now I’m just waiting for Jan to iron the interfacing onto the back so I can frame them. It’s his kitchen too, so he should make a contribution 😉

A room for living in

It is only Tuesday, right? I ask because this level of tiredness should not be occurring so early in the week, especially not this early in the week after a week off. This is at least Thursday level of tiredness. In fact, I’m so tired that even the thought of getting up to make something for tea makes me want to weep, so instead I’m sitting in front of the computer like some pitiful couch potato (Internet potato?) hoping Jan will get home soon, take pity on me and volunteer to cook instead. And since I’m here I thought it was about time I made good on my promise to show you more photos of the flat. So I present to you living room furniture…

Exhibit A is the sofa (what? I like stating the obvious, ok!). This picture was actually taken last week. Things look quite different now. For a start there’s a lot more stuff in that corner. (Stuff that shouldn’t be in that corner I might add!). And a stuffed skunk has found a home on the back of the sofa. Yes, I have a stuffed skunk! How amazingly cool is that? He’s amazingly cute and very, very soft and his name is Clive. Errm, anyway… moving swiftly on…

Here’s some living room furniture. The middle thing and the bit on the right are actually part of a set of three. The third part is on the other side of the room. I actually have a photo of that too, but I took it after Jan uploaded my photos so now it’s stuck on my camera until I can get him to do it again. I’m still having issues with doing it myself… simply plugging it into its cable doesn’t seem to work on this computer. Mostly it just causes everything to just freeze. It will only respond if Jan does computer scientisty things to it (types strange looking commands into a black box). So two photos is all your getting for now. I’m too tired for more anyway. I keep having to delete things after realising I’m typing nonsense – like two sentences ago I originally wrote “mostly it just causes everything to receive”. Receive what is beyond me. Definitely time to log off though!

Even slow progress is progress…

Slowly, slowly we’re getting there with the flat. The boxes are almost all unpacked now and we’ve got all the furniture put together… apart from Jan’s desk which we still can’t find the screws for! I just know they’re going to turn up somewhere obvious… Other than that it’s looking good, if you can ignore the fact that there are no curtains anywhere (we have some for the spare bedroom but need a drill to put the rail up) and most of the rooms have no lights. We’re still relying on lamps for most of our light! Why are nice ceiling lights so hard to find?! Everywhere we go they’re either ridiculously expensive or we just can’t find a nice one that we can agree on. *sigh*. We need to go back to IKEA for another bookcase though (the two we have are actually overflowing!) and some curtains – maybe this time there’ll be some decent lights too. Fingers crossed! Photos of the flat will follow as soon as I have access to them – Jan has uploaded them under his name, which makes things a little difficult, and for some reason I’m unable to upload them via the USB cable. I promise they will be here soon though, no more waiting for weeks and weeks between blog posts! Right now I have to go and catch up with all my favourite bloggers. This moving lark has caused me to miss out on so much. Boo and hiss! It will all be worth it in the end though, I hope…

Short and sweet

Thanks to the miracles of German efficiency we have actually had Internet in the new flat since Tuesday. Unfortunately we weren’t quite as quick with the furniture building, meaning the desk which the computer will stand on is still in bits and the computer is not yet connected. So I can only get online when Jan has his work laptop here and is around to log me on to it. Which is why I haven’t been able to blog despite having the Internet. Things are progressing though. Admittedly very slowly, but even slow progress is progress. The painting is all finished now, and yesterday we picked up the sofa from Jan’s old place. It’s looking a bit lost in the only corner of the living room that isn’t piled high with boxes, but it’s here and can be sat on. Result! We also got the spare bed put together last night (or rather MY bed, which has now been banished to the spare bedroom where it will be used roughly once a year), so my guest will actually have somewhere to sleep when she arrives on 31st May. Now all we have to do is make the rest of the flat suitable for viewing through the eyes of a guest… I’d better stop blogging and get on with it then! Thank goodness for public holidays – no work today = extra time for getting furniture put together! Now where did we put the screws for Jan’s desk?…

Furniture and things

First things first… some photographs for those who requested them (or actually just answered my question with a yes, but you know what I mean…).
We’ll start in the bedroom, just because those are the photos that appear first in the folder…
Photo one is the chest of drawers (well, duh! Talk about stating the obvious!). Currently looking very neat and tidy, but I’m sure it won’t be long before the same chaos that reigns on every other sufrace in the flat has made it on to there to. *sigh*. That cardboard box you see to the left of the drawers contains the bedside table. It was only put up yesterday and I was working on my dissertation all day so no photo yet I’m afraid.

Moving on, and the chest of drawers has been joined by a wardrobe. Just a small one for now – we only really needed somehwere to hang stuff up since the drawers will do just fine fo things that can be folded. Eventually we’ll get a bigger (and probably slightly more expensive) wardrobe for our room in the new flat, but that wasn’t the purpose of this weekend’s mission.

And now let’s take a trip to the livign room…
Here you see Detolf, the cabinet. I am so overjoyed to finally have some storage space! Those plates you see at the bottom had been living on on the floor gathering dust up to now. Finally, after a little more than a year, I’ve managed to find them a home…

And that brings us to my final photo.
It’s a lamp! Eventually it’s place will be next to the sofa – which Jan will be bring with him from his flat. I actually can’t wait to have a sofa to snuggle up on! For now, though, the lamp has to be content with standing to one side of my living room, looking slightly lonely and out of place.
And that, my friends, is that. Not bad for an afternoon’s shopping.

And in other news, we had an appointment to look at another flat today. It was at 9:15 this morning, so I arranged to work from home today instaed of taking a half day and not starting til around 12 pm (and before you ask yes I did actually do work!). The flat was nice but would need a fair amount doing to it – like a proper kitchen putting in for one! – which of course would be expensive. Once again it all comes down to the money factor! We’l discuss it tonight though and I’m hoping a decision will have been made by Thursday at the latest. Stay tuned!

Aches and pains

We went to IKEA yesterday and I am now sore! My arms hurt from carrying heavy furniture up three flights of stairs, my legs ache from walking up and down said stairs about six times, both with and without heavy furniture, my knees are stiff from bending down then getting back up then bending down again in a different place while putting the stuff together. But it was worth it – I now have a wardrobe to hang things in (we had been using the built in cupboard in the entrance area, but that has lots of shelf space and barely any room for hanging.. I’m so sick of finding Jan’s shirts draped over every one of my dining chairs!). We also bought the chest of drawers to match my bed because it was reduced by a ridiculous amount and a second bedside table to go with Jan’s bed as it was down to 9 euros from the original price of 49! Bargains all round. It made sense to get a second bedside table for Jan’s bed as it seems that’s what we’ll be using in the new place… while my beautiful, beautiful bed is relegated to the spare room where it will be used roughly every 2 years (I never get visitors).  And I got a little cabinet to put wine glasses and things in, which means the plates and cups that had been living on the living room floor can now be moved into a cupboard. Hooray!
If anyone is interested I’ll post some photos of the new furniture later.
Now I’m going to do some dissertation until Jan wakes up, at which point it will be back to furniture building (I hear my arms protesting at the mere thought of it… ouch!).

Happy Easter everyone!

Where I lay my head…

I promised Sleepyjane that I would post a photo of my new quilt cover once I got round to changing the bedding. Today was the day, and so here is the photo.

Why don’t you post a picture of your bed too? We could make a meme of it…

Time is flying, never to return

Has it really been a whole week since I last updated my blog? How on Earth did that happen?
I wish I could tell you it’s because I’ve been doing so many exciting things that I haven’t had time to sit down at the computer, but the truth is I don’t actually know what I’ve been doing with myself all week. I’ve been at work, obviously, but other than that… no idea. It seems somebody’s been messing with time again. Even today seems to have flown by at the speed of a hurricane. I’m currently in the middle of cooking tea (corned beef hash for those who are interested in such things) but it seems like a matter of mere minutes since I was eating breakfast. Only the rumbling in my stomach and the fact that it’s now dark serve to tell me otherwise.
A glance at my to do list for the weekend tells me that I’ve swept the flat, done some washing, tidied the living room and worked on my dissertation but failed to sort out my bank statements or clean the bathroom sink. Good to know. I also went to Cafe Brenner for coffee and cake with the boyfriend this afternoon (nice cafe, decent coffee, reasonably good cake – although Endle’s is better – but the staff could use some lessons in friendliness!). But can that really have taken up my entire weekend? It seems like so little for two whole days.
Tomorrow is Monday again. The last Monday in February, the final week of my probation period. Soon the moment of truth shall be upon us. As will pay day. Here’s hoping this month’s pay isn’t the last for a while…

Multi-tasking

I’ve managed to get quite a lot done today, most of it at the same time. Write some notes for my dissertation, wash the dishes, a few more notes for my dissertation, spray cleaning stuff on the shower, sweep the bedroom floor, back to the shower to rinse. Who knew I could be so productive?

Last night Jan and I went to see out with some friends to see a… well, not really a band. A choir really, I suppose. An A Capella choir. But instead of choir music they sing pop songs. Covers of pop songs, songs using the tunes of pop songs but with the lyrics changed. They were very good and very, very funny. Unfortunately, most of their stuff is in German, but there were a few English bits too. Anyway,  they’re called Füenf and you can find their website here in case you feel like checking them out.

I made cupcakes today as well. I even put little hearts on the top, in honour of Valentine’s Day. Jan and I don’t really do Valentine’s Day. It falls right after our “anniversary” (it still seems weird saying that when we’re not married), which is obviously way more important. And everyone knows Valentine’s Day is just a card manufaturers’ scam anyway. So we didn’t exchange any cards or gifts today. Instead, we took a break from our respective dissertations to eat cupcakes and drink coffee together. It’s always nice to spend time just being together, no matter what the occasion. But coffee and cake… I’m turning into a German! Oh well, happy Valentine’s Day anyway. Cupcake anyone?