Christmas dinner

We had our annual corporate Christmas dinner last Thursday. This time, I decided to bring my camera along to take some photos. I´ve been working in this company for almost 2 years and realized that I only had a grand total of 2 photos!

We started by mingling and having glühwine....this is lethal stuff. Warm fruity wine that enters directly into your bloodstream without you realizing it! I was high after only 2 glasses.

Then came the gift exchange. Everybody picks a number. Person 1 starts by choosing a present and unwrapping it. Person 2 gets to decide if she/he wants to steal the present from person 1, or unwrap another person. And on and on it goes. A present cannot be "stolen" more than twice and cannot have the same owner twice. Since my presents were gift vouchers, they ended up being stolen 3 times! I ended up with the Jane Austen DVD "Emma".

We then adjourned for dinner in this amazing restaurant in the Stadtsgalerie. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and ambience this time, since last year´s restaurant left much to be desired. For starters, we had pumpkin soup with coconut milk. Absolutely delicious. I´ve never been a fan of pumpkin soup but somehow this soup really tantalized my taste buds.

For main course we had duck fillet in some sauce. Eh, I´m not fantastic at remembering descriptions!

And for dessert, we had vanilla and chocolate pudding served with an edible orchid! Didn´t even know that one can eat flowers! I couldn´t bring myself to eat Singapore´s national flower so gave it to my colleague who was going from table to table to eat up orchids. Everything was absolutely yummy!

I really like my colleagues a LOT. Every teacher is really nice and I really am blessed with great working relationships with my peers. Its a pity that we don´t meet regularly like in most jobs. You can tell the restaurant was beautiful right?

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You can´t see me here because I´m completely blocked, but you can see how "international" my colleagues are - we´ve got Germans, Canadians, Americans, Irish, English, a Colombian and a guy from Trinidad in our midst.

Sub-zero temperatures

Temperatures dipped today and will remain at sub-zero levels for the rest of the week. I´m freezing!!!! Had to go to work today, so I wore my second-warmest jacket, gritted my teeth and trugged through the cold.

Notice the wind direction above? Learnt something new today. When the wind blows from the east, its colder because that´s from Russia. Wind from the west is from the ocean, so its warmer. Wow! Never knew that!

I finally finished my Christmas shopping today! Took a few hours after work - in the COLD! No choice, I had to do it before people go crazy with shopping. Its great to shop on a weekday though. Less people and fitting rooms are empty. But I only bought things I needed! So no extravagant expenditures on myself.

Coming up soon, my pre-birthday party photos!!! Had a blast!

Home-made Christmas cards

I wouldn´t say that I´m a very creative person. Arts and craft was always something that I struggled with in school.

However, sometimes I get this burst of creative energy that needs to be released by cutting paper, mixing and matching colours, experimenting with different types of materials, glue and stickers.

AND the satisfaction one gets from seeing the end product? Priceless.

So this year, I decided to continue my tradition of making my own Christmas cards. Man, if I didn´t enjoy doing it so much, it doesn´t make much sense, economically-speaking, since the materials cost a BOMB here!

However, yeah I´m still old-fashioned in that I believe that a proper card beats an e-card hands down and a home-made card still beats a mass-produced, commercialized card.

Or maybe I´m just influenced by all those German women who DIY almost everything by themselves!

So if you receive one of my 15 limited edition cards this year, you know that you´re precious to me and you´re worth the effort I´ve put in to design and hand-make them for YOU!

Some of my favourite designs for your viewing pleasure:-

The rest of the card I made..... You can click on it for a larger view.

What do you think? Could I start up my own card-making business?? hee. Want one of my cards? Drop me a message on my blog and I´ll choose one person to send a card to!

Tom Yum Soup

Ohhh, I cooked a new soup today! It was such a success and tasted so wonderfully heavenly that I had 2 bowls of it. Exactly what you need in cold weather like this. Spicy, sweet and sour all at the same time, this is the perfect soup to warm your stomach.

For the uninitiated, Tom Yum Soup is one of the main delicacies of Thai cuisine. I´ve always loved this soup and would order it umpteen times whenever I visit Thailand.

Needless to say, it has always been my dream to make it myself. Its just that judging by its exquisite taste, I always thought that it would require a lot of time and effort - hence the procrastination.

I was really surprised that this soup is sooO easy!

Of course the advantage of making it yourself means that you can adjust the level of spicyness, which in my case, is VERY important since my hubby ain´t your typical Asian who can eat everything spicy with ease.

It really helps that the Asian store where I go to, sells ready-packed ingredients just for Tom Yum Soup. So I didn´t have to source for individual ingredients from scratch. **great idea!!**

Tom Yum Soup
- A couple of Kaffir Lime Leaves
- A few stalks of Lemon Grass
- Galanga (Asian ginger)
- Lemon juice
- Fish sauce
- Fresh Red chilli

- Garlic
- Prawns
- Crab meat
- Straw mushrooms (I used those from a can)
- Fish
- Sotong / Tintenfish / Cuttlefish
- About 1 litre of homemade chicken stock

1. Using a non-stick pot, fry garlic in some oil.

2. Without waiting for the garlic to turn crispy, add the homemade chicken stock, galanga and lemon grass. Bring it to boil.

3. Add in the straw mushrooms, prawns, fish, cuttlefish and bring to boil. Add in the crab meat and lime leaves.

4. Season with fish sauce, lemon juice and palm sugar. Taste. Add in more fish sauce/sugar according to your preference.

5. Add in the red chilli. I put in only 4 small slices of it.

6. For a thicker and richer version, you can add in coconut milk. I made do without it because I preferred my soup healthier and thinner.

That´s all! Your soup is done. Serve hot with jasmine rice. Enjoy.

Turmeric and honey chicken wings

Ohhh, I think I found my favourite recipe for chicken wings! They taste just like those they serve in hawker centres in Singapore. You know, the S$1 per chicken wing stores? Hmm, yummy.....

1. Marinate 500g chicken wings (mid joints) with the following ingredients overnight in the fridge. No time? 1-2 hours will do.

- Ginger juice (from pounded 2" ginger)
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/8 tsp chilli powder
- 1 Lime

2. Grill in oven at 200 degrees celsius for 20-25 minutes or until done. Turn wings at half-time to ensure both sides are grilled beautifully!

3. Squeeze 1 lime over chicken for a definite killer dish!

My chicken wings upclose....

Source: Rasa Malaysia

Japanese Teriyaki Chicken

This dish is so easy to make. I could iron my clothes while the food was cooking by itself in the oven. Definitely recommended for the busy with little time to spare.

Japanese Teriyaki Chicken
- 340 grams chicken with skin
- 2 tbsp sake (rice wine)
- 4 tbs soya sauce
- 4 tbsp mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)
- 2 tbsp sugar
Additional sauce for rice:
- 1/2 cup soya sauce
- 1/2 cup mirin
- sugar
(Ensure ratio of soya sauce: Mirin is 1:1)

1) Marinate the chicken with the ingredients above preferably overnight in a transparent bag. No time, 30mins will do.

2) Put them in an oven-proof dish and grill at 200 degrees for about 20mins or until cooked

3)Cut some red pepper, fresh mushroom and season with olive oil and Italian herbs. Grill them together with the chicken in a separate oven-proof dish

4) Boil the Sushi rice in the rice cooker

5) Remove everything from oven, garnish with sesame seeds

6) Fry an egg (optional) to up the yummy factor by a notch

Ok, we love most stuff with egg. Sometimes, I don´t eat the egg yolk for health reasons.

New Moon

Last Saturday we spent a quiet evening by renting the "Twilight" DVD so that we could decide if we wanted to watch the "New Moon" sequel. I must say that the Twilight show was really pretty good! :) Hence, we ended up watching its sequel the following day in the cinema. Unexpectedly, it was actually darker and scarier than its predecessor.

The movies were adapted from some bestseller books. I haven´t read the books but the movies were good enough.

This is the typical story of a human girl, Bella Swan played by Kristen Stewart who falls in love with a guy vampire, Edward Cullen (Richard Pattinson) with the twist that this vampire is a "vegetarian" - he feeds on animal instead of human blood. I like how Edward likened being a vegetarian vampire to eating tofu even though you like meat.

The chemistry between Kristen Stewart and her co-star Richard Pattinson is really strong. The other co-star, Taylor Lautner who´s sorta the 3rd guy in the love triangle has an awesome bod!!! Check out those abs! Oh and guess what? I just checked out his profile and realized that he´s born in 1992!!! That makes him 17! Geez, why do I suddenly feel so old???

Great movie, amazing soundtrack and gripping storyline. Definitely recommended!

This is our God

Sang this song in worship yesterday. The lyrics and music are so beautiful.

Simple pleasures in life

The weekend´s over just like that! We had a short one since the hubby had to teach again on Saturday. The great thing is that it´d be his last teaching assignment until Feb. 2010. Yeah! Free Saturdays together again!

Sunday, we went for a short walk in Rosenstein Park before the church service began. Both of us slept til 12 noon since Sunday´s really the only day to sleep in - at least for my beanie. I get to sleep later on some days in the week.

As you can see, the skies are dark and cloudy these days. Very autumny. However, its really nice to snuggle up at home too. And the air´s crisp, fresh and all cold!!! Really fills up your lungs so smoothly.

Had to take a photo of this pavilion because it reminds of my "prayer closet". I used to go to the Botanical Gardens (in Singapore) on Saturday mornings to spend extended time with God.

Züricher Geschnetzeltes (Zurich sliced meat)

I tried a new recipe today. This is hubby´s favourite and he usually only gets to eat it once a year during Christmas at his parents´.

I figured why not try and cook yourself so that he gets to have it more than once a year?

I always thought it would be soo difficult to cook this dish because one pays almost 40€ for this dish in Zürich. However, when I looked up my Dr. Oetker book, I realized that it was really easy!Much faster and simplier than my Hainanese Chicken rice.

So here are the raw materials you need:-
- Fresh brown mushrooms (250grams)
- Whipped cream (200 grams)
- Flour (2 tablespoons)
- White wine (150grams)
- 2 onions (I took one normal onion and one shallot)
- 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
- A bit of lemon juice (not more than 1/4 of a lemon)
- 500 grams of veal
- Butter or cooking oil

Instructions:-
1) Fry the meat for 2-3 mins in a pan with either cooking oil or butter
2) Remove the meat and set aside
3) Fry the onions and garlic in the fat leftover from the meat
4) Add the mushrooms and fry for 2-3 mins
5) Add the white wine and whipped cream
6) Let the entire mixture cook for a while
7) Add in the veal to warm up the meat. Ensure that the sauce doesn´t boil so as not to overcook the meat
8) Season with salt, pepper, sugar, lemon juice and taste.
9) Serve warm with rosti and fresh salad

Veal is pretty expensive, we paid about 15€ for 500grams, but I figured out that since this is the first time I´m trying this recipe, I´d want to taste it in all its wholeness. Its definitely more tender and tastier than pork. For a more economic alternative, pork fillet works just as well.

Isn´t cooking such an art? From this.....

To this!

Walah, the completed dish with green salad. Hubby was in 7th heaven, savouring every bite of his beloved dish.....so you know that I don´t only cook Asian food...heehee.

Hainanese Chicken Rice - homemade

So I had a free day today and decided to try out the Hainanese Chicken Rice for a second time. Truth be told, this dish is really not as easy as it seems! I´ve got a recipe, but I still had to play around with the quantities of the ingredients! The amounts of garlic, ginger, shallots, salt had to be varied according to the taste.

Right: The chicken soup made from boiling the chicken bones for hours tasted awesome though! My hubby said he could just drink the soup for dinner! Hee.

The secret to this dish lies in the rice. If your rice tastes authentic, you´ve succeeded. I would say that my rice tasted authentic, but taste wasn´t strong enough.

I think there´s a difference whether you cook 100 chickens like those hawker centre uncles or just 1 chicken like myself. Still, when I added the condiments of dark soya sauce and chilli sauce, I must say that it tasted like the real thing!

There was so much leftovers that we decided to pack them into smaller portions and give them to the in-laws and our Indonesian pastor. :)

Recipe:-

Ingredients for chicken

1 whole chicken

5 slices fresh ginger

8 cloves garlic (smashed with skin intact)

1-2 teaspoon salt

spring onions

How to do it:

1.Rub salt all over chicken

2.Stuff 2 cloves of bashed garlic, 2 thick slices of fresh ginger and 2 stalks of spring onions in chicken and seal with toothpick.

3. Heat up oil, lightly brown 6 cloves of bashed garlic, 3 slices of ginger, 2 stalks of spring onions and 1 whole shallot (finely-cut).

4. Add enough water to the pot to cover the chicken. Add 1 tsp salt.

5. Simmer on low heat for about 20 - 25 minutes or till cooked.

6. Remove the chicken, plunge it in ice water for about 15 minutes or till chicken is no longer hot.

7. Return the carcass to the broth and continue to boil for a few hours to get a superb broth.

8. Cut chicken into pieces.

Ingredients for Rice:

400grams Rice

400grams broth from cooking chicken

4 slices Ginger

5 cloves Garlic, lightly smashed with skin intact

1 shallot, finely cut

4 Pandan leaves, tied in a knot

Salt to taste

How to do it:

1. In a wok, add 2 teaspoon oil, preferably chicken fat or vegetable oil.

2. Saute ginger, garlic and shallot till fragrant.
3. Add in washed rice and saute till rice is coated well with the oil.
4. Add salt to taste (about 1 teaspoon is enough).
5. Stir to mix well.
6. Pour everything into rice cooker.
7. Add in broth from chicken you cooked earlier

8. Add in the pandan leaves.
Let your rice cooker do the cooking. ;)

Complete the meal by serving it with a dish of chinese vegetables and oyster sauce.

Adapted from www.wokkingmum.blogspot.com and www.beaulotus.blogspot.com

Advent is just around the corner

Can´t believe that 2009 is breathing its last few breaths before 2010 starts! Advent is just around the corner and while I look forward to Christmas (and my birthday), I can´t elude the thought that the year is drawing to a close!

Makes me wonder what I have accomplis-hed this year... **Shall save it for another entry**


Anyway, we helped to sell Advent wreaths in church yesterday. Its all for a good purpose really. The proceeds go towards feeding and educating children in Africa, JAM - an international, non-profit organisation that my church has adopted.

I´ve always been cautious of companies like these, after all the bad publicity we´ve heard of charities absconding with millions of philanthropic money.


However, since the wife of our head pastor herself oversees the operations of JAM in Germany, I´m more than willing to support this organisation. 42€ is all it takes to feed a child for 1 year. For more information, please click here.

There´s this really talented lady from our region who spearheads the entire "Basteln Aktion" - Anybody with time and 2 hands would be taught how to make these wreaths from scratch. Yeah, she´s that talented!

This would be my 4th Christmas in Germany and I´ve always wanted to try my hand at making these things but have never got down to doing it! Well, there´s always 2010! Hahah.

That´s my sweetie doing what he does best! Being the cashier!

I simply had to take a photo of this amazing invention! This is the first time I´m seeing a German cash box! Its so "übersichtlich" - easy to keep an overview. The coins are arranged according to their value so its easy to see how much money you have, without having to count....and everything´s so orderly and neat....very typical German

That´s me and a Greek friend of mine....just decided to do a spontaneous shot, so I have a photo of what I wore! hahaha.

Rhema word

"Trust in the LORD and do good;
Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD
And he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:3-4

We had our leaders´meeting at church last Friday. It was awesome! I was really blown away.
My spirit was soo uplifted, my soul was at rest and I felt so recharged and renewed by God´s presence.

PLUS, I received Rhema word(s) from God. It was as if the entire sermon was just for me! Pastor spoke from the 2 verses in Psalms above. I´ve always liked those verses, especially verse 4 and have even highlighted it in my Bible.

1) Trust in the Lord

To trust in God means to trust in His character, to be confident in His goodness, His might, His love and to take the Bible at face value. To claim His promises and to proclaim it with my mouth. Afterall God made the earth by proclaiming,"Let there be light" and there was light. Likewise there is power is what we say.

2) To (continue) do good
Especially when one is going through a tough time. Many times my energy is sapped away when I focus on the negative things in my life.

But when I continue to do good, by being faithful to what God puts on my plate, eg. keeping my house clean, cooking one meal after the next, investing time into our youth cell group, doing my best teaching....It gives me a sense of purpose by knowing that I´m doing something useful with my hands.

3) Dwell in the land
To perservere. Not to leave when things are tough, but to stick my heels in with a backbone made of steel. That I wouldn´t leave (geographically) until God tells me to.

This is my rhema word! I´ve been praying about going to Bible school. The only catch about this is that it would be in Singapore.

It has been my dream for years to go for Bible school where I finally get to learn the theological and historical background of how the 66 different books fit together.

I wanted to be able to invest the time to finally understand the Bible in its entirety and not just bits and pieces of it.

I´m also the type of person who prefers to attend a school since the structure offers by a course forces me to be disciplined in my learning.

However, I couldn´t bear the long-distance with the hubby. Bible school in Germany would be 4 times as expensive and I would have had to wait until Sept 2010, instead of joining the Feb 2010 school in Singapore. - Yeap, I´ve done all my research and have even got accepted into the school.

The more I prayed about it though, the more I just couldn´t get the peace to go. And suddenly on Friday, this part of the verse made so much sense to me!! I knew that that this is the answer that I´ve been praying for, for sooo long.

So yeah, though have to shelf my dream (again), I know that God has spoken to me! That means so much more to me than my desires of my heart.

4) Delight yourself in the Lord and He will grant you the desires of your heart

Yeah, this is the favourite part of the verse. I truly believe that my hubby and I will attend Bible school together one day and until that day comes, I shall just continue to pray until it does. For now, I shall explore some online Bible course and attempt to do some self-study.

Center of my Life

Amazing song! :) I used to sing it when I was in Heartbeat (youth ministry) in Singapore. And found it out of the blue today..... what awesome lyrics. It´s about stepping out of your comfort zone, overcoming your fears and trusting that God will hold you. May it speak to your heart today. God loves you and is here for you.

Instant porridge

I had my first taste of instant porridge today. I bought it from the asian store a long time ago and realized that it was still sitting in my basket, together with all my other packets of Maggi or Knorr -lifesavers for the hungry.

Was a bit hesitant at first, but decided to give it a shot since I love porridge and don´t always have the time or patience to cook it from scratch. And its just so convenient when I have lunch on my own.

Oh boy, I was blown away by this brand! :) It was pork flavour and tasted just like the real thing! I had it with my pork floss from Singapore..... what can I say, heaven! Had to think of Crystal Jade´s porridge in Singapore.... Enjoyed every bit of it while trying to shut out the fact that it contained artificial flavouring / MSG.

Reverse culture shock

I had my first reverse culture shock today. My first class was with the students from the Arbeitsamt - When people are unemployed, they can apply for free "enrichment" classes whereby the government pays for their courses. My school offers courses like these.

I walked into the class, realized that most of them are new so I went on to introduce myself as well as the country where I came from - Singapore.

Student: "Oh, Singapore is a cold country!"

Me: "Beg your pardon? There´s summer all year round"
(thinking that he probably got Singapore mixed up with some other random country).

"No no, I´m not talking about the climate. I´m talking the people. They are so unfriendly, impolite, not smiling, ......."

"How long were you in Singapore?"

"2 weeks"

"On holiday or business?"

"On holiday"

"Well, if you don´t know any locals there, or have any friends to bring you around, people generally don´t go up to a stranger to make small talk. My German husband automatically gets to know my entire family and friends through me...."

Silence with a disgrunted look on his face.

I continued with what I wanted to say....yes, so I´m Pris, from Singapore. Singapore is clean and green. My hobbies are swimming, blogging, cooking..... Now please find out something about each other in pairs and introduce each other.

"No, Singapore is NOT clean, its dirty, ugly, horrible etc..."
Came the unexpected reply.

By this time, I was trying so hard to hold my temper. What did I do to this guy to deserve such insults and horrible comments about the country I come from? I´ve only met him 2 mins ago!

I shut him by saying, "Singapore IS clean and green meiner Meinung nach" - according to my personal opinion.

FYI, this guy blurted out all his negative comments in front of the entire class, with no sign of respect whatsoever, for the fact that he knew that I´m from Singapore. I was sooo taken aback by his comments.

I know that Singapore isn´t perfect, but its not deserving of all these comments from a person who only spent 2 weeks as a tourist in Singapore, who knows absolutely nothing about the culture or people.

And this person refused to listen whatsoever to what I had to say - to hear the point of view of a native Singaporean?!? I couldn´t help feeling patriotic rage rising in my veins.

I thought that I might have been over-reacting, but as the class progressed, I realized that he´s really the epitomy of negativity.

Whatever he said dripped with sarcasm and dampened the entire atmosphere of the class. You know, the type of person who is done with the exercises the fastest, but is tongue-tied when he has to present his answers to the rest of the class.

And yes, I know I should forgive and all, but I needed to vent. I told my hubby about this incident and he said,"Now, do you understand how I felt when you kept going on about Germany this, Germany that?"

For which I defended myself saying,"I would never go to a German, someone whom I´ve never met and bitch about Germany, pointing out all the worst of the country, which is not even true???"

But yeah, I saw his point. And I truly felt sorry. I think after staying in Germany for more than 3 years, I´m learning to accept the differences in culture more.

I´m also watching my tongue more whenever I meet a nasty German or have a bad experience here. A few black sheep doesn´t make the entire flock bad.....

And there are SOO many great Germans here, whom I´ve had the privilege of getting to know - you know who you are, who´ve helped me to feel more at home here.

So yeah, here´s officially saying Sorry to whoever who might be personally upset by my "not-so-diplomatic" comments about Germany esp. during my first year in Germany.

Quoting from a book I´m reading now
"We aren´t here to change or judge the culture. We´re here to introduce them to the One who created them and their culture. God will make the necessary adjustment in their culture in order to redeem all of its intrinsic beauty. We are not here to change peoples´cultures. Plus, I have learnt so much from them (Germans) and their sense of priorities that our Asian culture would do well to heed" Art Sanborn in "A walking miracle"

I like Germany and Germany´s beautiful....almost as beautiful as Singapore. hahah. Nah, I must say I really am learning to appreciate Germany more for what it is. A beautiful culture and people created by God and loved by Him.

And for me, its home as here is where God wants us to be.

Scallop happiness

The weekend´s over! Well, both of us had short weekends, since we had to work on Saturdays. Notwithstanding, we spent it really well. My hubby slept a total of 14 hours from Saturday to Sunday and I slept about 12 hours! Oh man....can´t remember the last time I slept so long. Ok, so I do sleep a lot normally, but 12 hours is still a record. Hubby had a massive headache which explained why he had to skip church and I went to church on his behalf. :) Gosh, I should start cleaning my house now.....

We had fresh scallops for dinner last Friday. Stuttgart´s in the middle of a huge land mass which means that fresh seafood is rare and expensive.

Hence, when I saw Edeka selling fresh scallops for 4€ /100grams, I decided to indulge and bought 200 grams for dinner. I must say that it was real treat to grill scallops in the comfort of your own home, knowing that it cost a fraction the normal price one pays in a restaurant.

However, this being my first time grilling scallops, I think I overdid it a little and some parts were a bit chewy. Nevertheless, it still retained its succulent flavour, oozing with palatable goodness.

My portion with lemon chicken, a fried egg and complete with red wine to intoxicate the senses.... We were both in 7th heaven after our meal!

Duck noodles revisited

Dinner today was duck noodles. Really fast and tasty.

I cooked Mee Reebus sometime this week (from Prima Taste) and realized to my disappointment that the hubby doesn´t like the taste of it. He ended up having frozen pizza baguette and I had to eat up the entire portion by myself, spread out over 2 days of course!

As I had used too much noodles for this meal, I had to think up of something quick to use the leftover noodles before they spoilt.

I had some frozen duck in my fridge (from Aldi) and decided to make duck noodles! Great choice I must say. Managed to finish up the noodles, duck AND frozen vegetables that were sitting in the freezer for quite a while.

I used the usual garlic, onion, light soya sauce and flavoured the noodles with a packet of duck flavouring that I had got from a friend of mine a l-o-n-g time ago. The duck was done after grilling it for 30 mins in the oven. Strongly recommended!

Yup! One dish and I got rid of 4 different types of food.

**What a sense of accomplishment**! heehee. Isn´t cooking always a mad cycle of getting rid of food in the fridge and stocking it up so that there is food again?

What it looked like when served in individual portions

Layering

Above: My new grey jacket and black skirt from Fashion Club in Munich. I really love my jacket because its so versatile. One can wear it with a long-sleeved summer top and wa-la, you get something to wear in autumn too....Plus layering is the whole hype these days.

Have I already mentioned how cold it is? It was only 1 degree yesterday! These days the sun is rarely seen, but it rains so very often. Or the sky is just overcast.

I bought a new pair of leather shoes, size 39, which is actually my size but the cut is a bit smaller than normal. I decided to give it a shot anyway. A few steps out of my door, I realized that they were indeed a bit too tight and wanted to go back indoors to change my shoes, so that I could return the new pair.

BUT I realized that I had stepped into a couple of puddles on the ground and could not bear the idea of returning shoes that have been wet by the rain. So yeap, I´m stuck with shoes that are half-a-size smaller than my feet....any ideas how to expand leather shoes? Or do they expand on their own anyway?

Notice anything unusual about this picture?

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Nothing? Look again

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Went for my 3rd acupuncture appointment and when I got home, guess what? A needle was still stuck in there! It was apparently camouflaged with my hair and the doctor didn´t see it! Stephan insisted on taking a photo before delicately removing it for me. I still don´t like needles...they prick the pain out of me!