barefooted freak.

this was my day in a nutshell.

ok, the nutshell needs explanation.

first, i have to go to class to learn german.   the german government requires anyone outside of the euro zone that comes into the country and wants to stay, to take the classes and learn the language and some of the culture, government and laws of the land.   i really wish america had this.   the classes are intensive.   if you're not working, 4 hours a day, 5 days a week.   the classes cost 1.20€ per hour.   if you show up regularly and pass the course, you get half of that money back.   it is fascinating!   not the language.   the language is hard and sometimes, most of the time, makes no sense.   the people that i go to school with, however are very interesting.   i have people from all over europe and africa.   

here's where my recent awakening and the revelations of the day come in.   i have for a while, being in a very different culture, that is more . . . hmmm. . . . less. . . . . well . . . the culture here finds me. . . .stranger than the american culture finds me, which is actually saying quite a bit.    europe is more free with fashion, not the quick moving fads.    more free with the body but less free with the bare feet (weird).   more art, more self expression in dress, hair, piercings, music,  but less free with what kind of behaviour is socially acceptable.   hard to explain.   but my bare feet are weird.   my sliding on the ice patch on the sidewalk is weird.   my joking and being silly is weird.   so, although i am used to being the strange, weird, odd, bizarre, etc. freak, i am not used to a culture trying to change it and being so very shocked by it.   i am not used to so much pressure and i'm not used to so few people that are the same crazy, fun freaks.    it's stifling.

now that i am interacting with more people on a more regular basis, i feel it more.   and, it cannot be.   i refuse to be something other than what i am.   i am not trying to stand out.   i am not trying to be weird.   i just am.   i do what i do for my amusement.   if others come along, fine.   if they don't, which happens a lot here, i go alone.

that brings me to today.

in class, i have started to throw things in for my amusement.   when asked to guess what another student ate during the day, i said bread and butter and ostrich eggs for breakfast, dino meat and veggies for lunch and alligator with noodles and gravy for dinner with a side of vodka to wash it all down.   today, when we were supposed to practice telephoning work to tell them we were unable to come in for the day.  i gave everything in perfect grammar and said i couldn't come in because i had to shave my legs.   later, while listening to explanations of things i understood, i put my face between my hands and squished my face.  i didn't try to attract attention to it, i just sat there listening, and doing pudgy faces.   it amused me.   

a friend of mine told me i forgot to grow up.   and yes, i told her, "no, i refused, there's a difference."   then i told her i would remain a child as long as possible because adults are boring.

later, as i was riding my bike home, i smiled and greeted as many people as i could.   i just think it's polite.   i happened to be wearing a earwarmer thing i made.   it didn't turn out the way i wanted, but it keeps the wind out of my ears.    anyway, as i greeted people, i got a familiar look from many of them.   it's that "socially unacceptable, non-conformist, what a freak" look.   i realized that it didn't bother me.    i realized that it gave me freedom!  i mean, if i'm going to get this look, i can do anything.   it's like being afraid of catching because you're afraid of getting hit with the baseball.   once you get hit once, you're not afraid anymore, it's happened.        there is nothing more to be afraid of.    

i realized that the people that have to be around you, school, church, whatever, will get used to it.   the people that don't, who cares?   the people that have to be around me, find that i am generally a good person and can put up with my quirks, even if it's just because they have no other choice.

here's what i learned as well.   i can't allow myself to sink into gray.   it's not what i am.   i am respectful, kind, intelligent, loyal, resourceful, witty, and helpful.   i am also a goofy, silly, weird, odd, bizarre, strange, barefooted freak.

i don't fault anyone for being what they are.   if people want to be tight and straightlaced, fine, be it.   own what you are.   don't hurt others on the way, be honest about what you are, change what you don't like, but keep what you do.   be true to what you are and all of the wonderful things you can become.   you are the only you that this world gets, don't let us miss out on that.   don't let you miss out on that.

have a great day

and smile

even if the world sneers back

someone important needs that smile from you

even if no one else does

you do

scary thursday!

this thursday blew right by me and here i am almost saturday remembering that i missed thursday's post.   ok, here go!
i'm afraid to say it but, today,  i am grateful for fear.
oh yeah!   that nasty thing that holds us back, keeps us alive, turns on lights, checks doors, closets, and under beds, and pulls covers over the head.   fear!

originally, fear is a great thing.   it's supposed to keep us from doing stupid things like jumping off high places, talking to strangers, playing with animals that can kill us, wandering around in the dark, and hiring clowns for birthday parties.   we as humans, well, we are not that smart as a species.  we own poisonous snakes and spiders, strap ourselves into chutes and bungee cords and dive head long out of airplanes and off of bridges. we own animals that can eat us.   we hire clowns!   really!?   what is wrong with people!?    i can see the animals, i love animals.  i won't own something that can kill me. . .or has eight legs.  no legs is fine, but eight? not so much.  
although i am not afraid of heights, actually love them, i am afraid of falling from great heights.   ok, not the falling i would mind so much, it's the sudden and rather messy stop at the end i have a problem with.  even with that minor fear, i would love to go bungee jumping and skydiving.
clowns.    clowns are evil!   here's the story of how i overcame my fear of clowns.  ok, it is a rational and important thing to be afraid of.   i mean, clowns are not to be trusted.    i have, however, overcome my urge to scream and run; or destroy, shred, and burn so it can't come back to get me.   see, i can be rational.   let me first say, most clowns are fine.   we went to the circus, no problems with those clowns.   but, we went to a museum and they had a seriously creepy clown that played music there.   i took a couple pictures of it for my friends that like scary clowns.    they are sick and twisted and wrong . . .but that's why i love them.   point is, i didn't hide from it like i would have several years ago.

my husband and i had been married around 3 years.   he liked bringing home stuffed animals and such and throwing them in my lap.   one day, he came home and threw a rat looking clown in my lap.   rat is fine, love them, raised them, no problems.   the clown part of it freaked me out though.   i jumped up on the back of the couch and stayed there for a very long time.  it laid on the floor and stared at me.   my husband went into the kitchen without even noticing and proceeded to make something to eat  go out the back or something.  no i dea.   i was rather concentrated on escaping the bringer of death he had just tossed into my lap.   a grenade would have been easier to deal with.   i finally talked myself down from the couch.   i was too afraid to leave the stuffed clown.   i was afraid to turn my back on it.   not kidding.   logically, i knew it was just a thing, not alive, no threat.   but, somewhere in my head, i also knew that it would kill me if i made it mad.   i wouldn't let it out of my sight for weeks.  i literally carried it with me everywhere.   i was starting to get it under control.   the my husband brought home some even creepier clown statues!   way to be  observant, dear.   this time, i decided that i was not going to be controlled by my fear.   i couldn't be.   at first  i just stuck them in a closet.   that may seem like no progress, but in my head, it was an insult and may anger the clowns.   yep!   this is how rational fear can be.   then one day, something fell and broke one of them.   i freaked out!   all kinds of totally non-logical things went through my head.   against all my fear, i took the other one and busted it into pieces as well.   i smashed them both and just threw them into the garbage.   this is so stupid!   it is so ridiculous!   it is insane to fear something that isn't alive.   but, many fears are not  rational.   that was the beginning of my fear battle.   i am still terrified of such clowns.   still terrified, absolutely terrified.   but, the rational has taken over.   i have had to give the control of this section of my life over to the front, conscience part of my brain.     the back subconscious still thinks they are going to show up in the middle of the night.

so, now that you know my psychotic fear, why am i grateful for it?    well, how do we grow if we are not challenged?    what challenges us more than our own irrational fears.   often, we suffer alone thinking that no one else would understand, other people might think we're  crazy.   i have admitted and overcome.   the start was deciding that i wanted the power back, then giving myself permission to be weak.   no one wants to admit they have problems.   the ironic thing is that we all have them.   usually, the biggest problems  the ones we don't want to admit to the most, are the ones that are the most obvious.   yes, we have some hidden ones, and we shouldn't be afraid to admit them.   i had to outright explain my fear to my husband.   he didn't understand, and he thought i was nuts.   whatever.   he has some irrational thought processes of his own.    who doesn't?   whether fears or just weird psychological "needs", we all have them.   overcoming the stuff that holds us back is the battle we should be fighting.

that's my gratitude for fear.   my gratitude for the growth that has come from them.

i hope you can identify, admit, fight, and overcome, and grow from your crazed, scary, illogical, bizarre, hidden fears.

because i have overcome, i want to post the pictures i took of the scary clowns.   they are not actually that scary to me anymore.   i have spent a few hours editing the picture and working with it in my zazzle store to make products out of my fear.   i actually have found the friendly in it finally.   but, i am warning you, incase you're scared of clowns too.   that's what is coming up.     what i've been working with mostly is the face shot.   yup, i just had to get up close and personal so i could share with some friends, and just because i knew i could.

double spider braid

 

 if you missed the spider braid:

http://plaidipusmound.blogspot.de/2013/03/spider-braid.html

this is the double version.   at least it's the first attempt at it.   it's mixed with this technique -

http://plaidipusmound.blogspot.de/2012/06/braided-swedish-piggies.html

section off your ponies, leaving loose hair around the outside.

you'll need to take little sections and get them ready before hand by crossing them to the other side to use later.    if you take a section from one side and then the other, you will get a weave effect instead of all of one side on the top.   you need to do this on the top and bottom.   don't section off all of it, you need some for the outer side of the ponies.

 start your braid around the outside and take in the little sections you separated from the opposite side.   i took in a little from the same side as well too far down.   this was an experiment.  i think most of the pony should go to the other side except the hair next to the braid on the outside.   that should come from the pony closest to it.   next time, i'll do it like that.   

at the bopttom, i just braided both braids together.

dolphin braid

 

let me first explain the name of this braid.   my son named it.   explaination over.

ok, you can probably figure this out by looking at it but  . . 

section off the center from front to about half way back.   then section off two sections on each side.   braid your sides first but not to the end.   your just going to take it past the head a bit and band it to hold it.  you'll take the bands off again to braid it in.

 

after you braid the sides, start the center braid and as you get to the side braids, take off the band and add the end into your center braid.

 after it's all braided, weave the braid around the bottom section of the braid on the head.   tuck your ends in. 

more twisted ponies

super simple!    i made a couple of braids from the sides to hold the wispy stuff and then twisted the top front to hold that back.   then just a pony.   i took little pieces and twisted them and used the topsy tail to tuck them back through the band on the pony.   no problem.   you could do more but i had to get going so she just got a few.   you could do the same with braids as well.

  

wrapped braid

 

this was our hair adventure this morning.

i split down the center, then one side at a time, split from top of the ear to the back center.   

i braided along those lines.  

that was basic, now is the funky part.  i didn't braid all the way to the end of the hair, i just braided a little past where it left the head.   after all three were braided, i braided the braids together from the bottom up and to the end.   that takes a little concentration from me.

now, you have a braid sticking straight up.   tuck that braid down through the top two braids and then around the center braid a couple times.   that brings you to the bottom.   i used a topsey-tail to pull the end up through the braids to the top and left the end to fan at the top.

 i was afriad her ends were going to be a bit dry this way so i added some coconut oil and used the curling iron to heat it in.   the curls are absolutly the perfect touch to this i think.   it just dressed it up a bit.

taking a bite out of thankful thursday

today i am grateful for teeth. 

not happy about the blonde curly boy biting his sister, and he wasn't pleased about mom biting him.    mommies are never happy about teething babies trying out their teeth while nursing, OUCH!   

teeth are nice for eating things.   eating without them isn't so great.

i'm grateful for biting carrots, and celery stuffed with peanut butter, and nectarines, and chocolate.

i am grateful that my tomboy princess is so good about brushing her teeth and taking care of them. 

imagine how boring a halloween pumpkin or vampire would be without teeth.

 t-rex would be lame without his teeth.   what would a saber tooth tiger be without teeth?!   he'd be hungry, that's what!

comedy would be less comedic without wind up chattering teeth. 

there would be nothing to show for a fight or a missed baseball if you didn't have teeth to knock out. 

the tooth fairy would just be some crazy little winged thing with no teeth to collect, let's not add to the unemployment rate by taking away the tooth fairy's job. 

what about all the other things that have teeth?   combs and gears have teeth.   a variety of digging equipment have teeth.   the all important zipper has teeth!   that is an important one.

where would the candy industry, toothbrush/toothpaste companies, or dentists be without a sweet tooth?

evidently, there are tooth tattoos now.   well, ok then.   whatever makes you smile and show your funky tattooed teeth i guess.

there is a page with cakes that have teeth . . it's a bit horrifying honestly, so i won't share it.

fish have teeth.   fishing would be no fun if you never got a bite.  

and with that, we have come full circle with our tooth conversation which has really become a bit long in the tooth itself.   now, that we have taken a bit out of thankful thursday and sunk our teeth into reasons to be grateful for teeth, i think i'm full up to the back teeth with this conversation.   if i said otherwise, i'd be lying through my teeth.     you might be ready to give your eye tooth to have this be over with but it doesn't seem to be going down without a great deal of gnashing of teeth and is fighting tooth and nail.   fortunately, i am armed to the teeth and am ready to give it a kick in the teeth.   so i'll grit my teeth and get my teeth into it.   more tooth idioms seem to be getting scarce as hen's teeth.
ta-da!   next week we'll get the bit between our teeth and cut our teeth on something else.

ok, now i'm done and actually posting this thankful thursday posting on thursday by the skin of my teeth.

chillin' the gratitude

today i am grateful for refrigerators.

why, you ask?

because i want my milk cold.   the rest of the food being cold is just a perk.

ok, seriously, refrigeration is an amazing thing    have you ever thought about the ice box.   i mean an actual ice box with ice to cool it.   companies actually cut, stacked, hauled, drove, shipped, etc.natural ice from places where it's always cold.   they lost huge amounts of it on the way.   the ran it through huge saws to chop it down as fast as possible before delivering.   can you imagine?   your product melting before your eyes.   working as fast as you can because time really was money.   your profits were really just melting away.

fast forward to quantum physics.   now that is awesome!   it's the study of the super cold.  not naturally occurring cold, bose-einstein condensates.    amazing how molecules act in the extreme cold.   they all flatten out and lay together and start to act as one.   how cool is that?   a bose-einstein condensate actually slows down the speed of light!   crazy huh?

when you go to the fridge tonight for your midnight snack, think about how cool, refrigeration is, and be grateful

crochet horse bag

here we are again, another birthday party for my tomboy princess to go to.   have i mentioned that i really am at a loss for getting other kids presents?   this time i had a little help though.   friend books are pretty popular here so i had the girl's page with colors and hobbies etc to go from.  

first, my tomboy princess decided to crochet a bracelet for her friend.   she did pretty well.   she even crocheted beads into it!   so proud of my crocheting protege.

back to the birthday girl.   as with most little girls, she likes horses.   that's handy, i can draw a horse.   she also likes to read, you would think i would have made a bookmark then wouldn't you.   no way!   that's too easy!

instead, i made a book bag.   could have been super simple. . . until i got ahold of it.  

pant leg, stitch the end closed and add a handle. . . . . but then i had this big idea . .  .

use the crochet technique i've been patching pants with to put a horse head on it with long flowing mane and fancy stitching on the bottom.   

then once i got going on it, i decided to cover the stitching with more crochet and figured it needed a lining to 

protect the back of the stitching.

a couple of tips i picked up on the way through this project.   

draw a pattern on with a colored pencil.   i used a yellow and it worked fine.   the nice thing was that i could rub it off really easily so could change my mind as i went.  and i didn't have to keep checking where i was or try to figure out where to go next.   i just followed the lines.  

    

do your crocheting first.   make sure to tie everything off .    at the end of my lines i pulled the loop down through the fabric to the back, pulled the end through, and tied it off. 

for the lining, make your tube, put seam side to the inside and right side to the inside of the pant leg.    then, when you are done sewing and turn it, it puts the good side showing on the inside of the bag.   i sewed the end closed after that so i could reach through if i needed.  

when you stitch your handle on, make sure it's straight and not twisted. . . .i did and it still ended up twisted.       i have decided that it gives it character.   handmade things have flaws that make them individual and unique!   that's my spin on it.

snip the edges to fray them, doesn't take too long

i loved how it turned out!   it did take a fair few hours to do. . . like 20.   but if i make another, it probably won't take as long.   at least i'm hoping, because my princess would really like to have one as well.   so get yourself some good movies or audio books or something for this project.   it may have taken less time had i been able to just sit down and do it.   of course, i have kids, and house, and meals, and various catastrophes to attend in the midst of my crafting so that adds time to any project.   wouldn't life be boring without the distractions?  i'm enjoying the catastrophes while i have them, because someday, the house will be way too quiet without them.

even though i loved it, and the tomboy princess loved it, we were missing one approval - 

that's right -

this bag has been cat approved

now, it's official.

mix up book

my son has a book where the pages are split and part of the sentence is on each section.   he got his from the library's damaged and needs to go sale.  

 it's really damaged, as you can see.   he loves this book though.   he has actually loved it to death and now i have to figure out how to bring it back to life.

in the meantime, i thought it would be fun to make our own.

here's my theory on it.   

take this paper.

make several copies.

let everyone have a couple.

explain what your doing and that they have to keep things within the gray dotted lines so they match up with the next persons pictures.

have them draw themselves or monsters, aliens, animals, book characters, who or what ever they want.   you could set a theme if you want too.   the outline is there so they have to keep with the outline so everything matches up.   you could do the same thing with just dots at the cut marks and they have to match the top and bottom of their head bodies to the dots so they line up with the next one.   i have a 3 year old so we are going with the simple version.

on the other side, they write their sentence or sentences depending on how old they are.  you will need to keep them short and give them some kind of outline or they won't match story wise.   you can see in the example, it says a name on the first section, then two things they are doing that matches the picture drawn.   

example -

laura = head

eats 3 scoops of ice cream = body holding ice cream

the dog likes it too = a dog at her feet licking the ice cream she drops.

fold your paper in half.   do not cut them yet.   it will make your life that much harder and that much harder to match up and glue your book together.  

now, you need to make a decision.  do you want to punch holes or sew or just glue.   if you want to punch holes, do that before you glue.   it's going to be hard to do it after you glue everything together. 

glue back to front into a book like this -

as long as the top and bottom of the paper matches, the cut lines should match up.   i would use glue sticks so it isn't as wet.   you could also glue different pieces of colored paper in between the book pages to make them more stable and make it easier to match the right ones together.   let the colored paper stick out around the edge a little.   you can see in the real book that the words are all on a different color background so they match when they are in the right order.

after your all glued and dried, you can sew across the binding or run yarn through the holes if you punched some.   if you might want to add to it later, i think punching holes is the way to go.

we are actually going to do ours for a conference activity.   but they would be fun for scouts, school, family home evening, etc., yada, whatever . . . . you could do systems in the body, like skin, muscles, bones, nervous system digestive system etc.   you could do a progression of clothing styles through the ages, or traditional clothing from various countries.   you could simply do strengths of each member of the family to see how you compliment each other in building your family.   just a few thoughts.

i'll post pics after we are done with ours.   i hope you have fun with it.   

cinnamon gratitude

here we are on thankful thursday again.   yesterday, i had some friends over.    it was nice to sit and talk and just hang out for a while so i am grateful for times like that.   but that's not my gratitude for today.

my kids did a great job helping with spring cleaning over the last week.   and i'm grateful for that, but that's not my gratitude for today either.

yesterday, we made snacks to share with everyone.   i'm grateful for pinterest, my joy in experimenting, and  my air popcorn maker.   there is no such thing as salted popcorn in germany, so i make my own.   also not my gratitude today.

in honor of friends coming over, and because i like them, i made cinnamon almonds.    i love those things, but they are super expensive to buy in their neat little paper cones.    HA!   i made my own for the price of a bag of almonds, some cinnamon, and sugar.   take that expensive street vendor!   so today, i am grateful for almonds, sugar, and cinnamon.   but my gratitude for today is just cinnamon.

i love cinnamon!   think of how many things have cinnamon flavor.   cereal, toothpicks, gum, applesauce, apple pie, apple cinnamon Christmas ornaments, pancake syrup, candy, cinnamon sugar . . . come on, you think of some now.

i grew up with cinnamon sugar on toast all the time, especially when not feeling good.   turns out that cinnamon is good for upset tummies.   great for pregnant morning sickness too.   cinnamon is one of those things that scientists keep discovering more and more wonderful things it does.   nice that science starts catching up with grandma's remedies and nature.  

today, be grateful for cinnamon, it smells good, tastes good, and is good for you.   i won't tell about the good for you thing though.   i don't want to spoil a good thing by making it good for you.

i bet you would like to know how to make those cinnamon devils, wouldn't you?

ok, here ya go.   the recipe is everywhere and they all pretty much look the same so i'm not going to quote everyone here.

you're going to want a cookie sheet or bowl or something ready to receive your little darlings.   i put parchment paper out on a tray.

in a frying pan, larger is better, combine -
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 Tbs vanilla
1 Tbs cinnamon
use a med/high heat and bring everything to a boil.   stir it so it all dissolves well.

now add -
2 cups almonds

now turn your heat down just a little and stir.   well, don't whip the things but just keep them moving.
don't worry about the stuff sticking to your pan, it comes right out.   i used a bamboo spatula, just use something that won't melt.   even cinnamon isn't going to taste good with melted plastic.

eventually, they will dry out and all the cinnamon will be sticking to them and you are going to want to snitch  one right out of the pan.   be careful, just give them a second to cool off, really, it's not going to take that long.

ta-da!   if they taste better out of the paper cone, by all means, roll up a cone, but mine don't make it that far.

btw - these are not junk food.   it's almonds, which are super healthy, and cinnamon that is super healthy.   so there is no guilt at my house over these.

i didn't take pictures yesterday to show you so i'll have to make more to post for you.   the sacrifices i make for you are crazy!   i just hate to have to make more cinnamon almonds!

turn tail

super easy and fast!

i needed a quick fix for the tomboy princess this sunday.   the time changed and i forgot to set the clocks ahead.   ooops!

i had been playing with this the day before so i just did it again really quick.   

separate a small front section, pony and turn.   add another section, pony and turn.   continue all the way down.

 you can see that i put the ponies closer together today than yesterday and the tail looks more like hearts.

  in the front, you get a little tiara shape.   we have a little tiara that i put into it today.   it fits perfectly in this do.

braids with a knot

nothing major, just inspiration i think.

 split the hair mostly to one side.   braided both sides but left the end unbraided so i could braid them together.

 then, i brought the braid up through between the braid and tied it in a knot.   it actually stayed pretty well.