Another Award - it's not manic Monday

I can't believe it - 2 awards on one day! This week has started better than the last one did.
Thank you CRAFTYTRACY,http://craftytracy.blogspot.com/ for thinking of me.And also for all those lovely doggy pics that you put up each day for me!

And now to the Conditions of the award:


I must thank the person who gave me the award, list their blog and link to it.(done!)
I must list ten honest things about myself.
I must put a copy of the Honest Scrap logo on my blog.
I must select at least seven other worthy bloggers and list their links.
I must notify bloggers of their award

I'll start with 10 honest things about myself:
1: I'm addicted to scrapping!
2: I hate housework and ironing!
3: I love craft-shopping
4: I'm addicted to coffee.
5: I don't have a lot of friends, but those I have I love with my whole heart
6: I love reading, and I'm addicted to the books of Peter Ackroyd
7: I love dogs , and am very sad that dogs aren't allowed in my flat.
8; I love music, good music of all sorts, but especially classical music.
9: I like spending time on my own and being quiet
10:I like walking along the Rhine and just watching the water.

The seven worthy bloggers will be chosen as soon as possible!
Thanks again Tracy, you are a darling!

Thank you Susie-J for my award.

This is my first award and I am very proud of it. THANK YOU SO MUCH SUSIEJ!!I am really thrilled and a bit at a loss for words, which doesn't often happen. There are some conditions attached - I must thank SusieJ, for giving it to me and pass the award on to five other Bloggers - will be done in the course of the day- and list 5 things I am addicted to. Well, that's easy:
Scrapping, buying stash for scrapping, going places where there are craft stores to buy stash for scrapping, drinking coffee and eating chocolate (which I try to reduce to a minimum)
Thanks again SusieJ

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Frankfurt, here we come....

Yesterday we had a crafty day out. After the catastrophical past week it was lovely to have a real fun girls day out! The store was well filled with stash and bargain hunters, but only women . expcept for one man who was at the stamp-sale cash desk, working with an inner peace which almost sent me to sleep and the tempo of a foot-weary snail. Crafting really seems to be a girl thing. Craft stores usually have those ugly little plastic baskets in horrible colours. OK, good enough for a few stamps or some embellishments. But - I'd better say this quietly- they are all magically prepared!! They are able to force things to jump from the shelves into your basket, and they just refuse to go out again. The spell only gets removed when you get to the cash desk and the assistant passes her magic wand over them. This causes red lights to appear in her little machine, and before you can say Mary Poppins, you're are being hypnotised to pay a lot of money and then take your pretty little goody bag back home with you. And I know from my own experience and from confidential discussions with other scrappers - this basket-springing-scam is being practised all over the world, even on the Internet! Actually, it's even worse there, as these shopping trips always take place in the middle of the night, where we get manipulated by crafty elves to get up and start buying. And 2 days later, when the parcel comes, we have no idea what's in it, so it's always a lovely surprise!

After we had spent all our money for the coming month in that lovely shop we moved on to more basic things, like tanking the car and then tanking ourselves at McDonalds. Don't much like McD, but they have got better over the years, and it was a nice place to sit and eat. And I mean, McD were not responsible for the screaming kids who came in from time to time. But I still don't understand why some Mums change their children's nappies on the table instead of using the bathroom, where there was a baby corner just for that purpose.

My friend B who drove us to Frankfurt in her lovely dark red sports car had arranged a meeting with one of her scrappy friends there, so we had a nice natter together. Regine makes lovely little BIA and other albums, and brought us each a pretty diskette album, lovely idea and a wonderful surprise, as I had never met her before. She was a very friendly and chatty scrapper, it was nice to meet her.

At abou 5 p.m. we started off on the journey home, its about 270 kilometers each way. The weather was gorgeous, so the car stayed open, and we were able to race topless over the motorway on the way home.I love it when the wind blows round my ears and you can see the clouds scudding by, when the car brumms under my backside and we drive really fast, it's the teenage dream re-lived. B is a very good driver, I would drive to the end of the world and back with her.

Well, we didn't need to go soooooooooooo far yesterday. We made a stop on the way back in Bad Honnef, a very pretty little town on the romantic part of the Rhine where the castles are high on the mountains and not far from the famous "Loreley Cliff", made immortal for ever by the lovely verses of Heinrich Heine

"Ich

weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten..."

But for us both it was a little trip down *memory lane* as both lived there at different times in the past, and as my favourite Café (Nottembom) was still open, we sat outside in the mild evening air and drank an iced coffee to get strength for the last lap of the journey back to Düsseldorf, where the great Poet Heinrich Heine was born. And back home I spent a lovely evening sorting my memories and stash . Thanks for a lovely day out, B!

Soap in my eye and early birds which did not catch a worm

It's Tuesday today. Probably will be all day. The sun is shining and the birds are singing - so what? I am not in a good mood today. Went grumpy to bed and got up grouchy, not even the coffee tastes good. OK, I forgot it and now it's cold, and that is never the same. Went for a shower. Nearly broke my neck because somebody left her dirty clothes from yesterday next to the bath tub, so I had to trip and slip as I got out of the shower, Managed to get soap in my right eye and up my nose today, well, 2 parts of me will be clean now. It's especially annoying when it's the right eye, as that's the *good* one, the one I can see with, so it's like having both eyes closed up, which is why I stepped on the dirty clothes from yesterday in the first place. And because I was in a hurry as I was only halfways dry when the doorbell rang. Nobody ever rings my bell unless they need something, they've come from Telecom and want to sell me a contract which is even more expensive than the one I have, or they want to save me from going to Hell like the Jehovah's Witnesses. I always feel a bit sorry for them, they were persecuted under Hitler in the "Third Reich" and many died in concentration camps and were tortured. And the 2 old gentlemen who stand by the little bridge over the moat in our little township and offer their "watchtowers" are always very friendly, and smile and nod when they see me wobble by on my bike. But what the hell do they want from me at 8:30 in the morning? A postman bringing a pile of stash will be forgiven if he disturbs my morning ablutions, but these 2 bony, toothy and flat-footed ladies not! I only opened the door because I thought it was the postie. And there they stood. Very long and very thin, wearing pleated skirts, neatly patterned blouses and ugly, sensible shoes. I was *dressed* in a back to front pyjama trouser, a towel round my head and the other towel tucked around my upper bits which Newton has changed so much in recent times. They just stood there looking, smiling politely. I stammered out "Oh, I was expecting someone else!" They exchanged knowing smiles before telling me that they were there to tell me about my last chance to find a place in heaven. Sounded like an an advert for a last-minute trip - "Be an angel, come to heaven". By this time I was really getting mad, the water was trickling down my legs and making a pool on the floor, goodness knows what those ladies thought it was! I kept calm. "Ladies, as you can see, I am not yet ready for visitors, and would like to be able to get dressed in peace". "Don't worry," came the prompt answer, "We can wait", as they beamed at me with heavenly lights in their eyes. Well, it must have been the soap in my right eye making me especially ratty, because then I shouted so loud that the whole house must have heard it, "S*d off and leave me alone!", went in, and shut the door.After getting dried, combed and dressed I went down to the letter box to get my post. 2 bills, a catalogue with cardigans for ladies over 190, a furniture prospect and, wait for it - a copy of a JW magazine, with a little note attached. "Sorry if we disturbed you, we can gladly come back another time. You always meet twice in life". Ladies, not if I see you first!!!

Just another manic Monday

Well, it's Monday again. Another week bringing lots of possibilities. Chances to see and do interesting things, to do more crafting, to meet nice people, to go out, to stay home, to do h****w**k, not to do h****w**k, to get stung by wasps using chemical warfare - the possibilities are infinite, the means to do them mostly not, which limits the chances straightaway. On the other hand, the more chances we have the more difficult it is to choose. If you have the choice between 2 different things, it's just this - or that. If there are 12 or 20 or 200 different choices, it gets much more difficult, as anyone standing in front of a well-filled wardrobe or shoe-shelf knows: the more the merrier and the louder the heart-rending call, "I've got nothing to wear!" There used to be a radio programme in England about which book and which record you would take with you if you were on a desert-island. I always found it impossible to make a choice. Today, you can take your multi-tasking cell-phone and memory stick and have whole libraries of books and music at your service. But at the same time, the greater the choice, the greater the emptiness, because we are not able to see an unplanned day, an hour with nothing to do, five minutes without music, voices or other people as a chance to look inwards at ourselves and to contact our inner feelings. Perhaps it's just that that we want to avoid at all costs. I remember hearing a song - I don't know who sang it - "We're busy doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do. We're busy going nowhere, isn't it such a crime? We'd like to be unhappy, but we just do not have the time!" That about sums it up, a sort of compulsive business even when we are just doing nothing. Have a nice week, and take a few minutes now and then to really do nothing and not even think about it!

Good morning sunny Sunday!

I am beginning to think that that wasp which stung me yesterday must have been carrying a fully loaded KO hypodermic syringe under it's left (or right) wing ( I am purposely stating *left* and *right* wing as I do not want anyone to think I am trying to be political) . I am used to stings irritating for a few days or causing allergies, but this one just knocked me out. After having slept all afternoon on my wonderful recliner /rocker, I half woke up for a couple of hours, tried to do some typing which had more mistakes per square inch than high pixel photos have dots, and then staggered off to bed and slept for another 8 hours. Woke up because 2 birds were having a loud argument in the tree in front of my window. I don't mind them using my tree, I don't mind them singing and chirping and laying eggs and doing all the other little birdie things which are natural to them - but why the hell does it have to be at 7a.m. on a Sunday? All I ask is a little consideration, or that they argue in front of the neighbour's window, for instance. (Sorry, W., if you're reading this, no offence meant, you like getting up early anyway....) Anyway, as I was up, I wanted the day to start positively. Went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and smiled at my self in the mirror. At least, that was the intention - who the hell was that wrinkled old hag-bag grinning at me from under hair that looked like it was the site of a bird's fighting-ring? And what was that big red mark on her neck? It couldn't have been Dracula, he chooses young and crispy gals - it could only be the sign of the wasp! OK, decided that this experiment with smiling in the mirror should be put off to a better time, like when I can't find my specs or when I have already had at least 3 bottles of pro-secco, I tend to see better then. Well different, at least. Wobbled on to the kitchen, still under shock, and made my first cup of coffee with my "Dolce Gusto" machine, the best thing I have ever bought, that is for sure. Always makes lovely coffee, no mess, no fuss, it was made for me! So, reached the safe haven of my computer table without adding to the pattern on the carpet and wrote my morning greetings on the forum, before starting the same on here. And if there is one thing I do not want to see today, it is a wasp!