Incoherent Scribblings

A Question of Goals

Today, in keeping with my second half of April goals, I finished my second pansy on “Stiefmütterchen.” I stitched it up in five hours, but now I will be putting it away for a while because my SAL buddy has something on a deadline that needs her attention.

For the rest of the week I will be stitching on “Passing Admirers” and hope to get at least five hours in on it before May 1. If I do, then I will have completed my second half of April goals with flying colors. In fact, I will be super proud of myself if I get in the 5 hour rotation because I will have completed my goals in addition to prepping my EMS RR border (which was NOT on my goal list).

And because today is Wednesday, it is also time for the Stitching Blogger’s Question and that is:

Do you set stitching goals?

Personally, I never thought I needed to set stitching goals. However, I work on a “screaming rotation” and one day a couple of weeks ago I realized that while I love doing a “screaming rotation,” I wasn’t really making much progress on my big projects. I decided the only way that I would ever get them done was to set some goals. And so I did.

Currently, I have one “running goal” and that is to stitch 90 minutes per day. I also have one long-term goal and that is to finish “Passing Admirers” by September (one year since I started it). Starting with May I will also be making monthly goals. (In fact, I was just thinking that I should sit down and decide on them tomorrow!)

Germany: A-M

Inspired by the A-Z list I did about myself a few weeks ago, today I decided to create a list to describe Germany from A-Z. Today’s installment will cover A-M.

A is for the Autobahn

The freeway that people the world over dream about racing down because it has no speed limit. Well, keep dreaming! Lots of places do have a speed limit and those that do not… Well, let’s just say you spend at least as much time in traffic jams on the autobahn as you do racing down it!

B is for Beer

By far Germany’s favorite beverage.

C is for Compound Words

Technically there is no longest word in German and, if necessary, you are free to make up your own compound words to describe something.

Try this one on for size: Fussballweltmeisterschaftsqualifikationsspiel (World Cup (in soccer) qualification game)

D is for Deutsche Mark

“The official currency of West Germany from 1948 until re-unification in 1990 and the official currency of Germany from then until the introduction of the Euro in 1999 (coins and notes were withdrawn from circulation in 2002, it is guaranteed by the Deutsche Bundesbank that all DM cash may be changed into Euro forever). One Euro was set to be equivalent to DEM 1.95583. 1 Mark = 100 Pfennig (pennies).”

–- from the Wikipeida

E is for Eight o’clock

The time that most stores close in Germany Monday through Saturday. On Sunday, almost nothing is open. (Hint: ALWAYS check on Saturday afternoon that you have enough toilet paper!)

F is for Fußball

Known as soccer in America, Germany’s favorite sport. (Along with beer drinking.)

G is for Goethe

The author of Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of Germany’s most famous Romantic authors.

H is for Holidays

With about 12 public holidays a year and up to 30 vacation days, Germany is tops when it comes to the number of work-free days available to employees!

I is for the ICE Trains

Traveling at about 175mph, if you take a trip on an ICE train you can (theoretically) travel from Hamburg to Munich in six hours.

J is for Joschka Fischer

The leading figure in the German Green Party, Fischer has been the German foreign minister and deputy chancellor in the red-green coalition since 1998. According to many inquiries, he is the most popular politician in Germany. (More information on J. Fischer can be found here.)

K is for “Katholik”

Many people are under the mistaken impression that Germany is not a Catholic nation. While it may be true that the north is mostly Protestant, the south is Catholic. This was recently highlighted by the election of German Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) to the position of Pope.

L is for Lorelei

“According to German legend, there was once a beautiful young maiden, named Lorelei, who threw herself headlong into the river in despair over a faithless lover. Upon her death she was transformed into a siren and could from that time on be heard singing on a rock along the Rhine River, near St. Goar. Her hypnotic music lured sailors to their death. The legend is based on an echoing rock with that name near Sankt Goarshausen, Germany.”

–from the Encyclopedia Mythica

M is for Munich

The state capital of Bavaria, Munich is Germany’s third largest city with a population of about 1.402 million (as of 2004). It is also where I live!

Some links:
History and Other General Information
Tourist Information
Insider’s Guide

I hope you enjoyed the list so far. Please check back tomorrow for Germany N-Z!

Miscellaneous Bits

I have quite a few stitching related things to post today, but since they don’t really warrant entries of their own, I am going to cram them all together in one update! So, here is my weekend stitching report:

1.) A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a round robin over at the EMS Cross Stitch Board. I got my rota for it on Thursday evening. The first post date isn’t until June 10, but I will be on holiday (at the Black Sea) then so I will have to post it about a week in advance. The group consists of me, a lady from the UK, another lady from Germany, and a little boy of nine (9!) years from the UK.

Though I think it is great that a little boy is interested in stitching, I really hope his stitching is decent and he takes care to keep the pieces clean. I doubt his mom would let him join if he wasn’t a “serious” (as serious as a nine year old can be) stitcher, so I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t help but be a little nervous.

It is an Open Theme Robin and I am going to do a “Stoney Creek Cats” theme. I have a book with 14 different patterns in it, so I will supply them this time around. Right now, every time I open the book I change my mind as to which cats to include! But I won’t start stitching my square until May and since I have until June to post, I guess there is no need to hurry my decision.

A while back, I decided that one of these days I would like to make a bell pull with one of my finishes. However, because of the length of bell pulls, I realized that they are something you need to plan before you begin stitching. Therefore, I have decided that upon its return this RR will end up as a bell pull. I spent Friday and Saturday planning it and stitching it a very cute little border. Now it is just waiting for the cats to be stitched onto it. (You can see the border here!)

2.) In other news, the free site that was hosting my cross stitch gallery made me mad, so I converted everything to my own website. (http://blondelibrarian.net/gallery/) It shouldn’t look any different than the old gallery, but let me know if you have viewing problems.

3.) Finally, in keeping with my 2nd half of April goals, I started stitching on my second pansy from “Stiefmütterchen” today. Actually, it is pansy #5 on the chart, but since my fabric is divided up into nice little squares I can stitch those pansies in whichever order I want. I will post a pic in my new gallery when finished. How are you coming along with yours Susie?

Anyway, as you can see I had a very productive weekend. Let’s hope I follow suit the rest of the week!

Week 116 :: Unconscious Mutterings

Just a little Sunday muttering…

1. Detachment :: Distant
2. Regard :: Give my regards to Broadway!
3. Community :: Center
4. Strike three :: …And you’re out!
5. Congregation :: Church
6. Generous :: Philanthropist
7. Pretention :: Do you mean pretentious?
8. Pregnant :: Woman
9. Drinking :: Game
10. Brilliance :: Diamond

The Yellow Bag Bandits

This past Wednesday, for the second month in a row, we forgot yellow bag day.

Now, I am sure you are asking what is yellow bag day and why is it such a big deal that we forgot it again?

For those of you not living in Germany, keep in mind that the Green Party is pretty powerful here. As you might imagine, recycling is high on their agenda and as a result, Germany has a pretty serious recycling program. In fact, I have heard that there are even “recycling police” whose job is to go through an apartment complex’s garbage and if they find stuff in the (as I call it) “nasty garbage” that should have been recycled, they have been known to fine entire apartment buildings.

In this area, the “recycling police” aren’t that anal, but shortly after we moved here we were told that there are three types of garbage in our little town. First, is “nasty garbage.” This is the garbage that you really have to throw away; bones, potato peelings, used cat litter, etc. Second is recyclable material which is denoted with the famous “Grüne Punkt” and mostly consists of packaging. The third group is made up of paper, cardboard, glass, wood, and a few other things that I can’t remember. The items that make up the third group are to be kept separate and are not picked up by garbage men, but must be disposed of on your own at various recycle bins in town.

It isn’t as complicated as it sounds, but did take some getting used to. I have never been against recycling, but at the same time never lived anywhere that had a recycling system. So, with the exception of when I lived in Iowa and got 5 cents for every pop can I returned, I am ashamed to admit (on Earth Day nonetheless) that until I moved to Germany I never recycled.

Nasty garbage is picked up by garbage men based on a contract with your apartment building. In our case, nasty garbage gets picked up every two weeks. (Thankfully, there are dumpsters outside so we don’t have to keep our nasty garbage in the house.)

Items with “der Grüne Punkt” are put in yellow bags and are collected once a month by the “Grüne Punkt” guys. Once a month! This wouldn’t be so bad, except take a moment and think about all the packaging-type garbage you produce. Milk cartons, yogurt containers, aluminum cans, cheese wrappers, paper towels, cereal boxes… the list goes on and on.

Because yellow bags are picked early in the morning, the night before yellow bag day, there are literally mountains of yellow bags on the street corners. Our yellow bag day is generally Wednesday, which means we need to take our yellow bags out to the pile on Tuesday evening. However, if a holiday happens to fall during the week of yellow bag day (which is what happened last month with Easter) the schedule gets shifted and so, last month the yellow bags were picked up on Tuesday. Since Tuesday isn’t our regular day, last month we completely missed yellow bag day.

Our apartment building may have a dumpster for nasty garbage, but we must keep our yellow bags in the basement. So, since we missed yellow bag day in March, we started April with four yellow bags (we produce about one yellow bag per week).

A. noticed mounds of yellow bags on his way home from work on Tuesday night this week, and though he mentioned it to me, we completely forgot about it until about 9:00 Wednesday morning. And of course, by then the yellow bags were gone and we were left with seven yellow bags in the basement.

So, last night under the cover of darkness with seven yellow bags in the trunk we drove around town looking for the area where the yellow bags had not yet been picked up. When we reached next village we spotted a mountain of yellow bags.

As we drove nonchalantly down the street we turned off the headlights, sneakily stopped the car just in front of a pile, quickly tossed our seven bags onto it, jumped back into the car, and drove away. As we drove home I told A. that we should have worn black to do our deed; then we would have been dressed like the bandits I felt we were!