Change of Scenery

Doing a little "spring cleaning" early this year!  I have decided to try and spruce up the blog a bit.  When I first created the page, I went with the basic layout and tried to be crafty with one of our wedding pictures.  Since then I have learned you can design your very own templates!  Woo hoo!  SO, that is my goal.  It may take a while since I am VERY new to all this graphic design junk, BUT I am hoping for a beautiful finish.  (NO laughing or making fun that I had no idea this existed until just now.  I knew you could do other web pages, just not blogger!)

Step 1:  Create a signature. 

DONE.  Success is glorious.  This is very basic and by time I am done with everything it may have changed.  I am going with a yellow and gray theme, I think.  Original, I know.  Judge all you want - I love it.

I think my Step 2 will be the banner.  O the possibilities. . .

Interested in doing the same?  I found a crazy helpful website with tons of tutorials to make your blog all schnazzed out.  Click here to be inspired to sit in front of your computer for hours!

Addendum: I may have gotten a little tied up in the renovation of the blog and finished in a day.  Yay!

Turning green! Or maybe just olive for now.

 I recently stumbled upon the blog Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity (FCCN) and am slowly becoming obsessed.  One of the posts really caught my attention.  I would be lying to say the title didn't draw me to the post.  It was the main reason I decided to check out this blog.  This post discusses F.A.R.T.S.  te he. 

Definition?

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This woman sets goals for herself and her family to lessen their carbon footprint on this world, make their wallets a little heavier and hearts a little lighter with F.A.R.T.S.  I am inspired!

Since getting hitched and moving to Dubai, Ben and I have been working on budgeting and figuring out what works best for us both and our lifestyle.  We have stopped eating out unless it is socially (for the most part.  Sometimes we slip. . . fries are essential to life on occasion.) and do a lot more cooking at home.  We tend to stick to what we know, but I do try and find some new recipe to try each week.  The problem with our classic and new recipes is that the stores here are not a reliable source for ingredients.  You really never know what will or will not be in at any given time.  Case and point - Ben and I were craving biscuits and gravy and Pillsbury biscuits were no where to be found.  Poop.  Instead of giving up hope I hit up Google for an easy biscuit recipe.  Found one, made them, they were awesome!!  SOOOO much better than Pillsbury!  You can read about it and find the recipe here.  The point of my rambling is that even before I knew about F.A.R.T.S., I successfully made one!  Pillsbury no more for this family!

So what next?

I have not yet figured out a something to do while still in Dubai, but when we return home I am excited to try a couple new things. 

1.  Cloth napkins.  Have a slew of them and ditch the paper napkins!  On FCCN she mentions that they have a spot for used, but reusable cloth napkins and for fresh, clean napkins.  Excellent idea!  How many times do you grab a napkin, wipe nothing off of your mouth once and throw it away?  Or is that just me?

2.  Bake my own bread.  This will likely be a work in progress for a long time to come, but there are people who make all of their own bread and never touch store bought.  They are my heroes.

3.  Learn to sew.  Once we are back in the States and settled somewhere I want to purchase a sewing machine and take classes.  I think it is ridiculous that a person of my height does not know how to hem a pair of pants.  It's like $10 to have someone else do it in Iowa City.  Dumb.  I also would like to learn how to do more crafty things with sewing.  Maybe put some of my Pinterest ideas into the works!

4.  A garden.  Start small and work my way up.  I have essentially no experience in the garden, may kill everything, but if something survives or pushes through I will have a celebration! Everyone is invited to feast on one tomato! Woooo!  But seriously, I would like to give it a shot!  Veggies and herbs and maybe some sunflowers.  Just because they are pretty.  Ben has extensive experience so I will look to him.

Big ambitions and excited to experiment!! 

 

Small Tidbits

Fan-freaking-tastic!

            

Sunday I had mascara under my eyes and no one told me about it. It was there all. day. Do I really look that tired that the mascara could be mistaken for giant bags under my eyes? Yikes. . .

Also on Sunday while trying to re-ink my stamper thing the ink bottle exploded and my skin is still stained. Awesome.

Yesterday I was walking around the entire day with dried coffee on my nose which no one told me about.  Ben pointed it out when I went to his classroom to meet up before going home.  Fantastic.

Today I forgot to put on make up and was told I look tired multiple times.  Apparently my real face is haggard and scary and I should never leave the house without make up again. 

Aside from being a hot mess this week, things are great! I have finally adjusted back to Dubai time from Germany time (yes, it took this long. . . ) and am able to fall asleep at a decent hour.  Things are stressful at school this week because the school is being evaluated, but teachers have been working hard to prepare and hopefully all goes well.  I did speak with one of the female inspectors today.  Please see below for our stimulating conversation:

IL = Inspector Lady   LJ = self explanatory

IL:  Good morning!  Are you the Librarian?
LJ:  Good morning!  No, I am not.  She doesn't come in until 9 a.m. if you'd like to try back then.
IL:  O, ok.  Thank you.

IL turns to leave, stops and turns back,

IL:  . . . Are you a student?
LJ:
. . .  

My goal for this weekend is to get posts up with pictures/videos from Ben's xmas concerts, some of Germany and a video or two of randomness that we captured in our everyday life.  Look for those soon!

Side note:  I was in the library at school when the janitor/maintenance man's cell phone rang.  His ring tone was My Heart Will Go On.  LOVE it!







 

Fun with Elf on the Shelf

I previously wrote a post asking friends and familiy to participate in Elf on the Shelf for a bit of Christmas fun.  We had two particpants and loved the photos we received!!  We hope to make this a bit of a tradition and get even more people involved in the years to come! Below are the wonderful pictures!  Thank you to Joni and Jamie, Keith, Kara and Nina for participating!  Seeing your photos helped us to feel a bit closer to home this holiday season.

# 1 - Joni Luke and her Santa! 



Joni with her Santa!

Hope Santa doesn't shoot a reindeer!

#2 - Kara and her elf named Merry!

Our sweet niece and her Elf on the Shelf book.

Kara with her elf, Merry.

Merry was present at the birth of Jesus, too.



Merry the musician.



Keeping a close watch.




Just hanging around. . .

Kara stayed in her bed all night!



 AND last but not least, our elf Tinsel:



Searching for a good Christmas movie on Netflix.



Snuggling up with Grover.

Hope everyone was good and Santa brought all kinds of goodies!

Christmas Time in Berlin

Because we are unable to be home with family this year, Ben and I chose to spend our Christmas in Berlin, Germany.  We left Dubai in the early hours of December 21st and arrived in Berlin around 1:30 pm.  Our flights were mostly uneventful although we weren't able to accomplish much shut eye. After landing we made our way through customs, figured out the train system here and made our way to our hostel. After we checked in around 3:30 pm, we decided to take a nap prior to exploring and finding something to eat.  We set the alarm so we would wake up after a couple of hours which turned into 16 hours.... Oops....

We awoke, showered and headed out into the city early the 22nd. Many, many places were still closed even though it was after 8 am, but we did find this cafe that had a large selection of German pastries and good coffee. Ben had a cherry strudel and I had some delicious thing that I cannot remember what it was called.  After breakfast we continued exploring on foot and purchased tickets to a few of the museums.  There were displays from Germany's past, as well as Egypt, Rome, and Greece.  Since it was about 27 degrees and we are used to thinking that 70 degrees is cold in Dubai, we were happy to get out of the cold for a bit.  I found the museums to be a bit lack luster since most of the cool looking things only had descriptions in German...

When we were finished at the first museum, we decided it was time to check out the Christmas markets.  We went to the closest market and the first thing we grabbed was a warm mug of gluhwein, or mulled wine.  Holy bajeezes it was delicious! It tasted like adult Christmas in a cup! The tasty nectar of the gods came in actual mugs which you pay a 3 Euro deposit for the first time and then continue to have the same mug refilled as you go.  You can have additional alcohol added, such as rum, but we chose the traditional wine sans the rum.

Next it was time for food! The Christmas market had many stands with traditional German food for us to choose from. Ben and I decided to share a bratwurst so that we would have enough room to try other foods as well. The brats were cooked on this large circling grill over an open fire and the guy spun the grill himself.  The brat was hot and delicious and the bun was very fresh.

There were many stands with yummy treats and I was drawn to the candied almonds.  They had many flavors to choose from including chili, rum and Baileys. The woman at the stand was very kind and allowed me to try most of the flavors and I purchased a small bag of the Baileys almonds for munching.  We also tried traditional Berlin lard cookie things and a pretzel covered in cheese - both we're outstanding!

After going through one more museum we headed back to the hostel. We stopped at another Christmas market where we tried chestnuts that were actually roasted on an open fire! They are so tasty! Ben thinks they taste like a potato with butter and I think they taste similar to edamame. Either way they are delicious! When we got back to the hostel we talked with the K's and decided to go see Stomp.  We jumped on the train and made our way to the theater, purchased our tickets and went next door for supper. Ben was excited to have a good beer and we were both excited for pork and sauerkraut. Ben had a brat with sauerkraut and I ordered the shank which turned out to be a huge chunk of meat still on the bone and incredibly hard to eat (but was still good).  After supper we went to Stomp which was AWESOME and then headed back to the hostel for the night.

My favorite part of the day was being able to enjoy the snow. It began in the morning and continued throughout most of the day. It helped to make Germany feel a bit more like Christmas even though we were away from the people we love.