January in Retrospect

January has been a rather good month. Although I have been ill for a few days, I did several things I really liked and had planned for a long time. First, I finally went to the Mauritius Mediathek in Wiesbaden. I am trying not to buy new stuff (including books) until March, so it's great to get reading material there. And it's just a ten-minute walk from my home, so there is no excuse not to go there.
Moreover, we have started a new Cthulhu-campaign, as I have already written. At the moment, we are only three participants, but I hope that we will be joined by a new player in summer.
Another great thing was planning our next LARP. It will take place in the 1930s and all the characters will be police officers. It's so much fun, I actually enjoy organizing LARPs much more than being a player.
My boyfriend and me spend some time playing Little Big Planet on the PlayStation and had a great time jumping -and falling- around.
Foodwise I stopped buying cake during the week and baked a cake on the weekend instead. I love cake and now I spend the whole week trying to decide which one I will make for the weekend. We also went to Harput, a great Turkish restaurant, twice and I had delicious meatballs at the Hafeneck in Mainz.
I went to a march against the Pegida-group (I won't call them a "movement"...) which helped a bit against my frustration about these people.
I did not craft much since I spent too much time playing FarCry 4, but I have the feeling that my binge-playing phase is in decline, as you can see by me writing a post here instead of sitting in front of the TV liberating the people of Kyrat.
I went to a nearby cafe a lot (though I didn't eat cake, only buns, which don't count) because I can read there much more concentrated than at home. I had to read Medea.Stimmen by Christa Wolf for school and it's one of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. I glad it's on the reading list for the Abitur, otherwise I guess I wouldn't have picked it up.
All in all, this was a good start, let's hope the rest of 2015 will continue like this!

Distractions

I didn't post anything last week because I was very busy. I went to an Anti-Pegida march on Monday, on Tuesday we had our monthly get-together with friends and on Friday I finally started playing RPGs again. Hurray! We have begun playing a very long campaign ("Die Bestie", a "Call of Cthulhu" campaign) and I hope that we will be able to finish it. A few years ago I played the "Masks of Nyalathotep" campaign and I'm still proud of it.
The rest of the time I spent in fron of the TV, playing FarCry 4. I am not a gamer, but once or twice a year I find a game I really enjoy and then I tend to binge-play. So now I am tired, the kitchen is a mess and I guess I should go to bed early today instead of trying to liberate another area of Kyrat...

Tentacles and Politics

Last year I painted some mugs with porcelain paint. Unfortunately, the paint didn't last at all even though I followed the instruction on the pens to the letter.
On Friday, I decided to give it a new try and scrubbed the old paint from my mug. After painting it again, I put the mug into the oven for 50 minutes at 170 degrees. (On the pen it says "30 minutes at 160 degrees...) Now the paint seems to be more durable, but the brown paint got cracks and does not look very even. All in all, I like the result and the cracked paint in the letters fits the "topic" of my mug, but next time I'll use a different brand.

 Next, I used my button maker to produce a political statement. I think it's awful that "Social Justice Warrior" has become a pejorative word, or that people seem to think that it is a great way to insult somebody by saying that he or she fights for social justice. In my opinion, social justice is something everybody should strive for and to say that somebody is stupid because he or she believes that we all should try to abolish injustice is just cynical and disgusting. In German, the term "Gutmensch" is now used as an insult, and I don't like that, but at least the "Gut" in "Gutmensch" is open for interpretation and can refer to different kinds of "gut". "Social justice", however, has a very specific meaning.
But I'll gladly call myself a "Social Justice Warrior",  and I don't want the term "social justice" to become spoiled. Language belongs to those who speak it and therefore we can influence its development. So I will proudly wear my new button!

Things I made

I used the last few days of the holidays to make some things.
First, a small bag for my dice:

Next, I finished a small patchwork placemat. The top was finished this summer, but I never really got to finishing the quilting and I was a bit afraid of the bindings because all the patchwork placemats I made so far looked really untidy around the corners. So I finally took the time to look up a tutorial online, made the bias tape myself and finished the front side with hand stitches. I think it looks great:

And this is the finished object: (My camera struggles with the colours, in reality it's less blue and more like a greenish teal.)

I also made 8 jars of orange and lemon marmelade and sewed a pair of black leggings, but I don't really think you need pictures of that...

Holidays in Bad Pumpernickel

New Year's Eve was strange this year. Usually, I love to spend that day with my friends, but as I grow older this is increasingly difficult. Most of my friends have children now, so they like to celebrate the new year with them. I, however, am not that fond of this type of event. Therefore, my partner and I decided to go away for the holiday, somewhere quiet and peaceful where we can stuff ourselves with great food and maybe use a Spa.
Thus we went to Bad Pumpernickel (as I like to call it in reference to W.M. Thackerey's fictional German Spa town in Vanity Fair) aka Bad Brückenau.
We had great food and went for lots of walks in the snow and most of the time just marvelled at the beautiful yet somewhat fairytale-like area. The spa resort of Bad Brückenau is about three kilometres away from the town, so it's like an island where only tourists and hotel staff live. It was built by Ludwig I in the first half of the 19th century and it would be the ideal setting for a Castle Falkenstein - LARP. (In a perfect world, where you get LARP-locations for free...) Sadly, we both have a rather annoying cold, so we didn't frequent the spa often, but we had lots of fun exploring the parks around the hotel.

 This is the main building of the hotel.

 Our room was at the "Fürstenhof", a seperate building about 200 metres away from the main hotel.

 This is the "Kurhaus", where the ball took place. The statue in fron of it is Lola Montez Ludwig I.

 The protestant church, a wonderful building with beautiful Jugendstil ornaments.

This oak tree is thought to be about a 1000 years old.

My partner and me are not the usual clientele of this place, but the staff was really friendly and helpful and we never felt out of place. We attended the ball at New Year's Eve only to devour the delicacies from the buffet and left soon after the dancing started and spent the rest of the evening walking through the beautiful park and watching the spectacular fireworks.
All in all, it was much fun and I would love to return there, but preferably not on New Year's Eve.

Hello Again!

This blog is like a badly made zombie - most of the time it just lies there rotting, but sometimes it is risen and staggers around for a bit just to fall down again. Maybe I'll be able to write some more in the future, at least I can try.

Well, let's be optimistic.

The last year has been very mixed for me. On the one hand, I managed to acchieve most of the goals I set for me: I have established a more frequent contact to my friends and met them more regularly than before. Moreover, I have travelled quite a lot. I visited my grandmother in the Harz, I stayed several times with a friend who moved to the middle of nowhere, my partner and me spent two weeks in Cornwall, I went on a class trip to Oxford and I was in Stuttgart for a weekend.

On the other hand, there are some things that need to change next year. So these are my new goals:

1) I have to take better care of myself. While I was not seriously ill, I didn't feel great most of the time and I haven't been able to really relax for some years now. I can't go on like this, so there has to be healthy eating as well as regular exercise outside.
2) I want to have a regular Pen and Paper group again. Roleplaying has been my favourite hobby for 18 years now, but during the last few years I haven't been able to maintain a steady group.Of course, it's more difficult to find other players now, because most of my friends have children and or rather demanding jobs but maybe there are others who feel the same need.
3) Although I hate the word "work-life-balance" this is exactly what I need. I like my job, but I don't want it to consume my entire personality. So let's try to draw clearer boundaries between job and life. That means more work in school and less work at home.

And I would also like to update this blog more regularly, so maybe I will use it as a way to keep track of my goals.

If anyone reads this, I hope you had a most wonderful year yourself and I wish you all the best for 2015!

Things I loved in October

Here we go:
1) Our 1982 LARP
It went well, everybody had fun, it was totally worth the effort. What more could I ask for?
2) Everything made from apples
I love cooked apples in every form as baked apples, apple pie, apple sauce, in pancakes and everywhere else. But they are even better when eaten in the appropriate season...
3) Hot desserts
There is nothing better than finishing a good meal with a cooked desert served warm. In October, I actually took some time to make some of my favourite desserts: Upside down Gingerbread (more like a siruppy cake baked with canned pears), White Chocolate and Orange Bread and Butter Pudding, and Apple Crumble with Ice Cream.
4) Watching "American Horror Story"
Yes, it's silly and campy and has some gaping holes in its narrative logic - but it's just so much fun!
5) The Kryptonite Radio Theater
We saw them perform "The Call of Cthulhu" and it was the funniest evening I've had in a long time.
6) Knitting with 6-ply yarn
It's so unbelievably fast.
7) Watching Blackfish
Although I am by no means an animal rights activist, I am always interested in how people perceive and treat animals because it tells you so much about how people see themselves. And this documentary is so insightful in the ways people interact with orcas. Also, it's really suspenseful and almost like a psychological thriller. And i's a good opportunity to eat "Goldfischli"...