Sunday confessions! Kitty birthday, a spider rescue and 80's cartoons!

Hallo meine Lieben,


as every Sunday I am linking up with fabulous Alyx from Every day is a new adventure!






The most important thing today:


Happy happy birthday to the most wonderful cats in the world! It is Lumpi's and Tiger's 5th birthday!!!!!!! I hope you guys liked my birthday song and aren't scared anymore, I know I can't sing, but it came from my heart! Thank you for always making me smile, for always being there for me! I can't tell you what you mean to me! I love you endlessly!!!!

1. I am addicted to corn on the cobb. I have never heard that term before but since my mother-in-law mentioned it last weekend when we escaped to their house I can't stop thinking about it. And I eat it every day, one for lunch and one for dinner. I ate the last one last night so I need to go shopping today and get more. I can't be without it. Corn on the cobb sounds weird by the way. It does not sound like food. In German it's Maiskolben. 


2. The American version of the Inspector Gadget theme song is so lame. It doesn't even have lyrics. Please listen to the German version. I am sure you will have to admit that it is so much better. David won't admit it but I know that he secretly loves the German theme. This song is another ear worm. An awesome one. 

3. I can't believe that Chip & Chap are called Chip & Dale in America. Why is that? Chip & Chap makes much more sense. The Alliteration makes it sound pretty awesome. I am a little obsessed with cartoons from my childhood at the moment and it is kind of sad that European cartoons aren't famous at all in America. Everybody should know Alfred Jodocus Kwak.

4. I would love to be a member of Die Gummibärenbande. I love Grumpy. When we we kids my friends and I pretended to be the bears, we jumped around all the time, drank their juice and wanted to live in a tree. It was awesome. 

5. I was naked in our backyard yesterday. I took a shower in the morning and saw a little spider, he (I am pretty sure it was a guy) got wet and I was scared that he could drown so I took him and ran outside and put him in the grass so that he was able to dry. He survived and I was happy but I hope my neighbors did not see me. 

(That's Thekla from Die Biene Maja)

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Weird ear worms and Christmas ice-cream trucks.

Hallo meine Lieben,


I have the weirdest ear worms at the moment. I wake up and have some very strange tunes in my ear and I can't stop singing. I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I should see a doctor. Maybe I am going insane. 


Today I am singing " I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and gay" the whole time. It is getting a little annoying but I can't help myself. 

Yesterday it was another weird song. I don't know why i remembered that song but it reminds me of my childhood. My Dad had a tape in his car and we listened to that tape all the time when we drove somewhere. I loved that tape although I am definitely not a fan of German schlager. The song is called "Da sprach der alte Häuptling der Indianer". The singer is Gus Backus and the funny thing is that he is an American but lived in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was in the US Army but became a very famous singer in Germany in the 60's. That's so funny. 

The day before it was Elvis' "Muss i denn zum Städtele hinaus". Did you know that Elvis sang in German too? I mean, he lived in Germany for a while so it makes perfect sense. I love how he sings German with an American accent, it is so adorable. It always makes me smile.

Even The Beatles recorded some of their songs in German. I love the German version of "I want to hold your hand". Komm gib mir deine Hand...lalala. Or "Sie liebt Dich yeah yeah yeah" instead of "She loved you". 


I love the fact that American artists recorded German versions of their songs. Usually it's the other way round. Everybody wants to be as English as possible. I love American and English music but I admire every German artist who sings in German. My heart will always be half German, half American. Or maybe 51% German. Haha. 


I am realizing that talking about all those songs and listening to them again won't help me to get rid of my ear worms. But I don't think there is any way to get rid of them. 
I am not sure how long David can stand listening to me constantly singing...we will see. 


Do you have ear worms? I guess that's a normal thing, I just don't know why mine are always so weird. 


Another weird one is "Marmor Stein und Eisen bricht". I talked about that song to David yesterday and I made the reckless assertion that every German knows the lyrics of that song, no matter how old you are. Am I right? I mean, that song is from 1965 but you still hear it everywhere. You can't escape it. And after 6 beers you sing it enthusiastically. My parents loved that song and played it at every party....the kids sang along, the grandparents, everybody....Hach, childhood memories. 

I do realize that my post is pretty random today and I am sorry for making you listening to weird German songs. I need a beer. But at least you don't have to hear me singing. Which means you have an advantage over David. 


Yesterday a pretty weird thing happened here. The ice-cream truck came to my neighborhood. (Eismann!). Not very special but the truck played Christmas songs. Is that normal? Do all the ice-cream trucks play songs like that? I remember that the German Eismann always had a very annoying bell (Ein Bällchen Engelblau, bitte.) but he did not play any songs. So America wins here. But why Christmas songs? I heard "Silent night" and "Jingle Bells" and I have to say that I am still confused. 

Have a lovely weekend!

Book club! Mankell, hero of crime fiction.

Hallo meine Lieben,


it's Friday which means it's weekend and time to link up with fabulous Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde.


I have always been fascinated with crime stories, killers and detectives. As a kid I spent most of my time reading the detective stories of Die Drei Fragezeichen, TKKG and so on. But my huge fascination with bloody murders started when I read my first book from Henning Mankell.  My Mom was a huge fan of his book series and his detective Wallander and so I always grabbed her books and read them at a stride. This was more than ten years ago, I discovered many more fascinating writers, especially from Scandinavia but Henning Mankell will always be my biggest hero of crime fiction. His books have been published all over the world, the movies were a huge success and I hope this man will never ever stop writing.


I though it might be a good idea to read about the very first book of his Wallander series today.


It is called "Faceless killers". The German title is "Mörder ohne Gesicht". And here is what it looks like.

First I want to tell you a little bit about the background of the book.
Kurt Wallander is the protagonist of several mystery novels, set in and around the town of Ystad, 60 km south-east of the city of Malmö, in the southern province of Skåne in Sweden. As a young police officer, he was nearly killed when a drunk whom he was questioning stabbed him with a butcher's knife. He was once married to Mona who makes an appearance in several books of the series. His wife left him and they have a difficult relationship. They also have an rebellious child named Linda who survived a suicide attempt when she was fifteen. Later in the series she becomes a police officer too. Wallander also had issues with his late father, an artist who painted the same landscape 7,000 times for a living; the elder Wallander strongly disapproved of his son's decision to join the police force, and frequently derided him for it.


Inspector Wallander has few close friends and is known for his less-than-desirable lifestyle; he consumes too much alcohol and junk food, exercises very little, and sometimes struggles with anger. He frequently regards the crimes he investigates on a very personal level, throwing himself into catching criminals and going against the orders of his superiors to try to solve a case.


I really admire Mankell for creating such great characters. He put a lot of thoughts into them, they are all very multifarious and unique and once you started reading you want to find out more about them. You have no choice but you have to love Kurt Wallander!


As I have already mentioned "Faceless killers" is the first book of this fantastic series. 


On a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck.


Wallander and his team are put on the case. Mankell created more fantastic characters here: Rydberg is an aging detective with health problems and Wallander's mentor, Martinsson is a young rookie who becomes an important partner for Wallander, Naslund is a thirty year veteran and many other interesting characters. 


Maria Lovgren is taken to a hospital, but dies anyway. Her last word is "foreign" which leaves the police the one tangible clue they have–and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments. 
Wallander quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.


Once I started reading my first Mankell book I was addicted. This writer is responsible for my huge fascination with crime novels. A fact I will always be thankful for. I own all his books and they never get boring, even when you read them several times. 


I highly recommend watching the Wallander movies! 

What are you currently reading? Have a wonderful weekend!

50's drive-in, Mexican food and annoying neighbors.

Hallo meine Lieben,

happy Independence Day! I was obsessed with that movie when it came out. My friend Julia and I watched it every day for a couple of weeks, sometimes even twice a day. "I picked a hell of a day to quit drinking." Grossartig. I think I have to watch that movie again. Today.

Speaking about movies: On Monday David and I went to the Springmill Drive-in in Mansfield to watch Prometheus and Ted. Both movies were really good. Prometheus is more David's kind of movie and Ted is a movie I would have picked out. So we were both happy. And we only paid 6 dollars per person for two movies. I think that's a pretty good deal. 

Springmill was originally constructed as a single screen theater in the late 1950's but added a second screen later. The theater says that "this 50's style drive-in has all the nostalgia and the best in FM stereo sound.". It sure has the charm of the 50's but I also think that's a good strategy for not doing any renovations. 

We went to a Mexican restaurant first and then headed out to the theater where the first movie started at 9:50. The second movie started around midnight and I have to admit that I got a little tired around 1 am. I am getting old.

It was a wonderful evening, except of our stupid "neighbors" at the theater: A lovely mom of 2 boys who loudly kicked them out of the car to be alone with her husband/boyfriend/lover/whatever. I think she was unable to speak in a quiet voice so we were able to understand all her lovely conversations with her kids. I am not sure if it is a good education strategy to yell at your kids all the time....but I am not an expert. Maybe I am missing something. Well, it was a little annoying that they walked around the car the whole time, moved their chairs, played with their phones and yelled at each other. But okay, I am a patient person. Or maybe not but I stayed calm. 

The whole situation reached its climax when they decided to leave 5-10 minutes before the movie was over. It is very respectful towards the other customers when you start to pack your chairs in your trunk, talk to each other, close the doors and trunk of your car, turn on the lights and drive away when other people try to watch the end of the movie...but okay. Maybe they had an emergency. Maybe they just wanted to be the first in the line of all the 15 cars to leave. I don't know. It will always remain a mystery but I do hope that I will never have to watch a movie next to that lovely family again. 

The entry area of the drive-in. It does have the charm of the 50's. I like the pink and turquoise colors. I pretty combination in my opinion. It won't destroy the 50's flair when you repaint the white wall though. 

Unfortunately I haven't seen a car like that in the theater. That would have been very 50's. But you can't have everything.  

The screen. Looks pretty small in that picture but it has a decent size. I am not so sure about the quality though. Especially the second movie was not so pleasant. Don't get me wrong, it was fine but you can't compare it to other cinemas and really sophisticated movie critics might be disappointed. 

That's where you pay a very slow woman and her son 6 dollars per person to get in. We paid 1,20 dollar first and then again 10,80 dollars because she wasn't very talented at the payment system.

El Campestre Mexican restaurant. I tried to take some embarrassing eating pictures but did not succeed this time. 

David did a much better job. I am not sure what's wrong with my left arm in that picture. 

My delicious food. A huge plate with different vegetables. I just had to cancel the onions, a main ingredient of that meal. Brr...

Do you like drive-ins? What was the last movie you have seen? Do you like Prometheus and Ted?

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Ten on Tuesday! Hammocks, Storage Wars and funny dogs.

Hallo meine Lieben,


I hope you are all doing great! Our power is back! Woohoo! We spent a couple of days at my parents-in-law's house and it was great. I ate way too much and watched a lot of TV. We had a fabulous time but it is also great to be back home in a house with electricity. 
I am linking up with wonderful Lin from Linny's Vault!


1. My parents-in-law have a fabulous dog whose name is Nikki. And she makes the funniest noises ever. It sounds like she laughs and coughs and barks at the same time. 

2. It's really stupid to be without power but it is kind of cool that I had lots more time to read. I got 2 new crime novels from my Dad and another crime novel on my Kindle and I am making lots of progress. It is also kind of awesome to read by candle light.


3. I watched at least 10 episodes of Storage Wars with my parents-in-law and David yesterday. I think we got a little addicted. I did not help that they showed it all evening. We all think that Barry is really funny and hate Dave. We also watched a couple of episodes of House Hunters International. As you can see I did not read that much yesterday evening. Haha. But I have read some more when I went to bed. 

4. Right now I would like to be in a hammock at a beach, with a cocktail in my one hand and a book in the other. 

5. I still own a hammock that my Mom won in the 70s in a contest. It is green and very comfortable. I think I would be fine with being in that hammock in the garden if I can't have the hammock at the beach. You can't have everything. 
I wish my name would be Princess Consuela Bananahammock.


6. I think I will start doing a puzzle soon. I wanted to do that for a while and now would have been the perfect time to start. I mean, that's a great thing to do when you are without power. But we escaped to our family and only had to spend one night without power. I still want to do a freaking puzzle.

7. Does anybody remember using an "Esbit Kocher"? I know that I had one of them when I was a child and went camping (in our backyard) and I always cooked on that. Maybe I should try to get one of them...You never know when you will lose electricity again. 

8. My prediction is that Spain will win 2:1 against Italy. I know, the finale is already over when you read this but I am typing this on Sunday morning. I hope I am right because that means I am the winner of our Fussball bet. I have 23 points, David has 22 and my Dad has 16.
Note: I wrote this on Sunday because I did not expect the power to be back so soon. Spain won 4:0 so I got at least one point for that which means that I am the winner of our Fußball bet. David and my Dad predicted Italy to win.


9. I missed Breaking Bad.


10. Kirstie is a wonderful person and a reader of my blog (Thanks for that!) and her husband is German. Yesterday she shared one of her Facebook albums with me and I was able to watch her shopping at a German deli! I felt like in paradise (and I wasn't even able to shop, just look!). It was so cool to see all the amazing German groceries! Bitburger, Marmelade, Senf and Müsli....herrlich! Thank you so much for sharing, Kirstie! You are such a sweetheart! Thanks for making me smile so much!


Have a wonderful Tuesday! 

Mesa Verde National Park. Or: A lot of ladders and crawling.

Hallo meine Lieben,

still no power but I am so glad that I can schedule some posts here. I am sitting here at my parents-in-law's couch on Sunday afternoon working on my computer. 

Last summer David and I went on a road trip from Ohio to Colorado and Utah. You can read about our time at Arches National Park in Utah here. 
It was such a wonderful trip with lots of fabulous memories. I will never forget about it! Thank you again, Schatz, for this unforgettable trip. 

The only downside of the trip was that I got a really bad kidney infection after 2 days. I did not want to ruin the trip so I did not go to a doctor and just tried to keep going. It wasn't always easy with a 40 degree Celsius / 104 degrees Fahrenheit fever but I am a little proud that I did most of the stuff David planned. Although I wasn't able to go on long hikes.
In retrospect, it was a little irresponsible not to see a doctor. But hey, I really did not want to ruin the trip and wanted to be brave. 

On our trip we also visited Mesa Verde National Park. It was breath-taking!
Mesa Verde National Park is a U.S. National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. It features numerous ruins of homes and villages built by the Ancestral Puebloan people. By 750 AD, the people were building mesa-top villages made of adobe. In the late 1190's CE, they began to build the cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is famous.Mesa Verde is best known for cliff dwellings, which are structures built within caves and under outcropping in cliffs — including Cliff Palace, thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America.

So, I will share some of my pictures with you. The problem is that they don't do the place any justice.

A first overview. It really was breath-taking. I wish you would be able to see this in the pictures. But if you will ever be in the area you have to go and check out the place. It is so interesting.

This place is called "Balcony house". It included a lot of climbing which was pretty exhausting for me but it was worth every step. We had ranger Smith leading the way for us. 

They had some really bad forest fires a couple of years ago and a lot of parts of the park looked terrible like this.

A wild horse at the side of the road. I was fascinated. 

More climbing. I tried not to look down and everything went fine.

Spruce Tree House. It is the third-largest village, within several hundred feet of a spring, and had 130 rooms and 8 kivas. A kiva is a room used by modern Puebloans for religious rituals. It was constructed sometime between AD 1211 and 1278. It is believed anywhere from 60 to 80 people lived there at one time.

David in front of the Spruce Tree House. Our guide Ranger Smith was a pretty funny guy and he told us all kind of interesting stories and answered all our questions.

We had to climb ladders and crawl on the ground a lot. It got pretty tight from time to time. 

It was hard to find your way there which was a pretty good protection against intruders. 

David has to crawl too. Some strange woman asked me if she can take some pictures of me crawling because she wanted to show them to her kids. I thought that was a little weird but let her take a couple of embarrassing pictures of me. 

Do you like National Parks? Which one is your favorite? Have you ever been to Mesa Verde National Park?

Have a lovely week!

Sunday confessions! Storms, German bread, trees and mystical countries.

Hallo meine Lieben,


we lost power but I was able to schedule a Sunday confessions post! I really hope power will be back soon so that I am able to read all your wonderful posts! 
I am linking up with fabulous Alyx from Every day is a new adventure.

1. I feel like we are at war because I am not able to cook and I don't have any light. I can't watch TV and I don't have internet. I am really glad that I am a bookworm so I don't get bored like hell. I charged my kindle to the maximum and I am happy that I have a book light. And I am so thankful that we still have water! Yay!

2. Grapes are not a meal. I had no real food for 24 hours and I have to say that I can get a little grouchy when I am hungry. I had some salt pretzels and grapes for dinner. Then I went to bed but I was still pretty hungry. I woke up and thought the power would be back but...no. Nothing. They say it won't be back before July 8 which is very nice. So I should go and get lots of tofu Würstchen so that we can grill every night. And I need to find some German bread, I want a delicious breakfast! :)

3. David thought about setting the tent up and sleep in the backyard because it is too hot for him in the house. He needs air conditioning to be able to sleep  and he usually has a fan on. I feel really really bad for him because he won't get that much sleep in the hot house. 


4. I have to say that I felt a little sad at first because I will probably miss the new episode of True Blood tonight. But then I  realized that there are people whose situation is much worse than mine. Like families with kids or older people. I mean, I have water to drink, pretzels to eat and books to read. And I don't mind the heat. So I will be fine. But I really hope that they can fix it soon. And not at midnight at July 8. Come on, that's unacceptable!

5. I have read so many books from Iceland in the last weeks....so now I want to learn the Icelandic language so badly. It sounds so awesome and I am fascinated with it. The only problem is that only people from Iceland speak that language and I have no idea if I will ever be able to use it if I learn it. I am not planning on moving to Iceland, I just want to go on a vacation there. So maybe I better learn Spanish. Or Italian. Or another language that lots of people speak.

I hope you are having a wonderful Sunday! Stay safe!