So it wasn't chicken...

OK, after all this no turkey thing we were going to have chicken...
Well the chicken turned out to be guinea fowl and I tell you what:

Turkey for Thanksgiving????
Na!
I am going to have guinea fowls from now on!

They were absolutely delicious!!!!!
(We had two of them)

Forgot to take a picture so googled one :-)

Along with it we had green beans with bacon, Brussels sprouts, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes and because we had a "non poultry eater", Simon turned a leg of beef off the bone into Beef Medallions in a thick beef and onion gravy (yummy).
To round it off we had home made Latte Macchiato and pumpkin pie and an apple cinnamon crumb top pie.
So all in all it was a "heart attack on a plate"! (Calorie and cholesterol wise I mean)


And... (Best of all)
The evening turned out very nice, with almost no arguing and everybody being happily stuffed to the brim!

LOST in Discussion

Another view from my mums house. Simon took this picture on Christmas Eve.
Today was a good day.
No major upsets, no arguments (well almost none) and children who were strangely pleasant...
Schools seems to have been fine, as there were no "such and such did so and so"s.
They did their chores without me having to ask and the younger even emptied the dishwasher without complaint.
We prepared our food together and after lunch they sat down and did their homework.
(I did check their necks to see whether there were strange markings or any evidence of tampering.)
We (well mainly I) have decided to change our eating habits today. Actually I decided that yesterday but I implemented the changes today. My older daughter is having a real problem with over-eating. Unfortunately she inherited that from my fathers side of the family. So we, I did consult the girls, decided that it was time to go on a family diet or rather a "healthy eating regime" as my younger daughter put it.
I have made a weekly plan for meals and one for snacks. Food-wise I am going to reduce the fat to a minimum (as cutting fat altogether is wrong because the body will think that it needs to hang on to the fat in the body as there is no more coming) and fill the plate with vegetables. Rather than having a side of veg there will now be a side dish of rice or potato and the occasional slice of lean meat. We will have one "normal" meal a week, that the girls can choose but other than that we will stick to the plan.
Fortunately I have kids who will eat almost every veg and fruit going, raw or cooked even the real exotic ones!
For breakfast there will me Yogurt with some Muesli and a Grapefruit.
The snack plan is as follows:
There are five slots for each of us and a list to pick from: Carrots, Oranges, Celery Sticks, Apples, Grapes, Grapefruit and whatever other fruit or veg has been bought in fresh that week.
Each of us can pick when and what they want, but no more than 2 from each category (of course the grapes will have to be handled differently, maybe counted?) until our five slots for the day are used up.
My younger one fears that she will fade into nothingness but I did assure her that there were still plenty of calories left in the food we are going to eat for her not to disappear like the Cheshire cat.

The older had her first violin lesson after the holidays and she did surprisingly well for not having practised at all.
She was taught the first and the second finger today and already has some small pieces she has to learn until next Monday. This is only her 4th ever lesson. They are always on Mondays for 22.5 minutes! She is learning very fast and her teacher said that she has talent. All I have to do now is convince her not to be so lazy and practise more.
I so wish I had a piano again. I used to play when I was younger and I really enjoyed it but unfortunately, laziness runs in our family and I did not keep up with it.
Now, I really don't have the money to buy a piano nor do I know where I would put it in our small flat (although if I moved some stuff around....)

Tomorrow we are going to clean the car, providing it isn't pouring down with rain.

Oh and no, I haven't made that phone call yet. It is on my to do list first thing in the morning. I even wrote it into my calendar!!! Along with a number of other things which I have thus far avoided to do...

I speak to Simon on the phone every day. He has a rate where he can call me for free. Sometimes we only say hi and good night but most times we talk for at least 30 minutes. We have talked all through the night before...
Usually he tells me about his day and work, I tell him about my day and the kids and then the conversation drifts of into one direction or another.
You see, whenever I see or read something interesting, strange or funny I think "I ought to tell Simon about this", which I do and we then discuss it or not as the case may be. I can talk to him about absolutely everything. There are no taboos, nothing he doesn't want to talk about and certainly nothing where he is "too much of a man to even consider such a topic" (like tampons and mascara and such things).
And we have great discussions, though sometimes a tad heated!
Tonight I read to him from a website I had discovered today http://www.mistupid.com and we were both nearly wetting ourselves with laughter. I haven't laughed this hard in , ...I don't remember how long.
Simon says (no pun intended) that hearing me laugh is the most beautiful thing in the world. I haven't been doing it much lately.
Things just get on top of me and I sort of forget to be happy.
Strange, I know but that is what happens.

Oh and I am now officially LOST.
Wonder what that is? Find out: http://www.lost.eu/150f1

Concerning Hobbits (and Burgers)

I am depressed today. I found out that the house I used to live in, where I was really happy and we had ample of space, has become available again. But as things are at the moment, it might as well be a villa in Monte Carlo. There is just no way I could ever afford the rent. What makes it even more frustrating is that I live in a very small flat at the moment where my girls have to share a room and I sleep on the couch in the living room. I know this is only a temporary situation but it sucks all the same! On top of that there is the fact, that I have to drive by the house every time I go to my mothers.
There is no other route.

On a good note: I am working on a local theatre project at the moment "The Hobbit" and we just scheduled some additional performances because every date we set sold out within a matter of a couple of days! I have to make-up Thorin Oakenshield and the dwarfs, Beorn and as of next week Bilbo as well. (Bilbo is being played by 11 year old Amelie and she is fantastic!!!!!!!) Here are some pictures of the play . Keep in mind that this that this is a production staged mainly by children and teenagers. And yes, Tolkien would turn in his grave if he new of the liberties they took when adapting the book for the stage but I think it is great and all people involved (well over 100) are doing an incredible job!

Double shame on me by the way!
Neither have I made that phone call to VW nor have I taken down the Christmas tree...
Mainly due to the fact that I wasn't in most of yesterday and today and also me forgetting that today is a holiday in Bavaria (Three Kings Day/Epiphany). Which also made lunch an adventure.
We cooked and had lunch at my mums today. I had thawed some minced beef which my younger daughter only eats in form of burgers or in lasagna (both of which hide the fact that it "looks like worms" according to her). So we were going to make beefburgers today. We were going to buy the tomatoes and the lettuce and the buns on out way to my mums but of course, it being a holiday, the shops were shut. (And yes there are countries where the shops aren't open 24/7. Bavaria is strictly against it. The rest of Germany wants to loosen shop opening laws. I think Bavaria will be the last State to follow suit, if at all.) So I already had the moans in the car all the way to my mums (going past "my house" btw...). When we got there I raided my mums cupboards and fridge. We ended up making burgers without buns with a side of boiled potatoes and green beans. It tasted lovely but it wasn't what the kids wanted so I still got the "but you said we were going to have burgers" through a mouthful of food. Well we did! Just not they way they had envisaged them!!!
On Thursday I bought two games at the local shop. They are a sort of cheap version of Trivial Pursuit for children. One is about space and one about the other one about Technology. We have been playing the space version a few times since and the girls took it with them when I took them to work with me today (after the lunch at my mums).
Some of my dwarfs played it with them and I was so proud of my daughters! They actually remembered a lot of the questions from the two times we had played the games previously. And the questions aren't all easy or would you have know what an apogee and a perigee is and which is which. Or what the German space shuttle carrier rockets are called!
Well I was quite amazed anyways!
After I was finished we went round a friends house where my kids behaved like they hadn't eaten for years and ate one slice of bread with pate after another. (What must people think of me...) we had a good time and because they had behaved so well while I was at work I bought them both a magazine at the petrol station (about the only place you will find open today apart from of course the restaurants and pubs and clubs). They were so happy they even did their chores when we came home without me having to remind them 10 times, got themselves ready for bed and listen to the audio book CD which was attached to one of their Magazines.
Hooray for me! O got at least somewhat of a chance to relax and wind down. I am so glad school starts again on Monday!

PS I have edited this post seven times now. I guess today is not my day so if there are any more mistakes I haven't spotted please tell me!