Bell-bottom Maternity Pants

I joined a sewing course in MVHS this spring. For my first project I chose a bell-bottom maternity pants. I got the pattern from Burda Style June 2010 edition, which I borrowed from the city library.

JDrama: Control

police, psychological
11 Episodes
Theme Song
Link

.synopsis
(taken from Drama Wiki)
Segawa Rio, a quick-acting detective, gets transferred to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s Violent Crimes Division after she got shot during her previous case. She is made to work together with Nagumo Jun, a level-headed but eccentric psychology professor whose skills at behavioral analysis are the key to tracking down the criminals. There's also Teranishi Kei, a shy young detective who's had a crush on Segawa since their days at the academy...

.cast

• Matsushita Nao as Segawa Rio
  
• Fujiki Naohito as Nagumo Jun
  
• Yokoyama Yu as Teranishi Kei
  

 

2011 Census

So... I got picked for the Census 2011 random household samples, supposedly only 10% of the whole population, to give detail information about my nationality, religion, marital status, immigration to Germany, schooling and employment histories, and my current occupation. I'm not allowed to decline this honor, otherwise I'd get fined (up to 5000€ according to some websites). The census guy will come this saturday morning at 9:30. I could either

1. fill in the formular with his help
   
2. get the formular from him and say bye-bye, fill it by myself and then send it per post, or
   
3. fill in the formular online on the website

I think I'm going to do (b), no point in making it easier for them to digitalize the data. Except that they probably have something like Louis' new printer.
 

24th Week

Weight: 61,7 kg
Belly Size: 99 cm

yikes! I've gained about 10 kilos in the last four months, I hope I won't gain much more in the next few months. XD

Today I joined a Toytown soon-to-be mums meet up, thanks to Louis for the alert yesterday. :)
There were seven of us, ranging from 12 weeks pregnant to 37 weeks, from Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, South Korea, Australia, NZ... and me. It was fun, informative and I got the chance to exercise my rusty English. yay!

Color Note to Get Things Done

Color Note is probably the most used app on my mobile. I use it for my to-do lists, shopping lists and as a notepad to jot things down on the fly.

I've read a bit about David Allen's Getting Things Done, which is a powerful tool to manage information, commitments and communication, put them into priorities and help one to spend time on the most important tasks. But it's too complicated for me, I don't like to spend much time just to brainstorm the lists. I'm the kind of "just do it" person because once I lose steam I'd be too lazy to do anything.

Maternity Empire Waist Shirt

A few months ago I saw a couple of "men's shirt into maternity tops" projects in DIY Maternity that I wanted to try. They seem easy enough for a beginner. Last week Philip went through his wardrobe and decided to throw away two of his old button shirts, perfect for my projects. :D

Weekly Cleanup

It's been almost a year since we moved into this flat, but there's still a room with a lot of boxes opened yet not sorted. Most of the time we call this room our office, other times our guest room, sometimes the room without a name.

Everytime I saw those boxes I kept thinking that I have to sort them out but always too lazy to start. The big desk was almost always littered with opened letters, flyers, receipts and vouchers as well, which made it even worse.

And so when I read this article last week about "24 Quick Actions You Can Do Today That Can Change Your Financial Life Forever" I decided to just do it.

Action #2: Employ the “Clean Slate” approach to your clutter (20 – 90 minutes)

Simple steps:

1. Pick a room, area, or desk drawer – Pick a single, specific area. Your closet, bedroom, kitchen, office – or even the top of your desk or a “junk” drawer.
2. Remove everything out of the space - Everything… that’s why it’s called “Clean Slate”. Move it into another area or room.
3. Go item-by-item - Ask yourself not “Should I get rid of this?” but instead “Does this item add joy, value, or purpose into my life?”… ”Do I really need it?”. If yes, move it back into the room.
4. If no, put it into one of three piles – Put it either into SELL, DONATE, or RECYCLE piles. After you’re done with each item, sell the SELL pile, donate the DONATE pile, and recycle the RECYCLE pile. Duh.

How this can change your life: Clutter slowly sucks away more of our time, energy, and money. By attacking specific areas where it tends to collect you can reclaim back pieces of these resources. For most people, selling excess stuff is the #1 way to generate extra cash quickly. This process is also addicting and can lead you down a rabbit hole that may just end in an organized and clean living space. Gasp.

I've done step 1 and 2, but the boxes are now lying around in our living room waiting to be sorted. XD I'm good at starting something, but not at finishing them.
They're mostly Philip's stuff, but he still hasn't got time to sort them yet. So I guess I have to do it instead. TODAY!

At the same time as I started that little project, I also collected the papers on the desk, sorted and filed them. Usually I filed them into different folders, but I'm now using this filing system mentioned in here. It's easier so I won't be so lazy anymore.

I bought a couple of white Kassett boxes with lid for this purpose. One is already filled with bank statements, insurances and salary statements. The other one is still waiting for the receipts and stuff to be sorted. :D

Shouldn't take long actually, I'll do it once I've finished cleaning up the washing machine...

Maultaschen vs Stulle

After years of playing travian, I'm now thinking of quitting. The last version relies too heavily on gold spending, much more than the versions before. And there's also this problem with the customer service... not that I'm in the habit of spending that much gold, or at all, actually.

So I'm looking for a new browser game to play.
A couple of days ago I found an interesting one called MiraMagia, which is still in beta phase and only in German version, another game by Travian Games GmbH.

IMO, once it goes international, it would make a big competitor to those games in facebook. It's pretty and colourful, user-friendly, easy to learn and it has integrated chat windows for different functions/regions such as the village chat, the valley chat (a valley consists of hundreds villages), private chat, support chat, general chat and off-topic.

Last night I was chatting with one of my neighbours around midnight when we both got hungry. We went to make something to eat, got back to chat and asked each other what we got.

NB: So what do you have there?
Me: maultaschen in broth
NB: What?
Me: ... maultaschen soup?
NB: yes

So I thought that was that and started asking what he had, but he asked me again what maultaschen in broth is. I thought *how dumb can this guy be?*

Me: maultaschen in hot water with stock, salt and pepper
NB: XD
NB: MAULTASCHEN?

By then I was laughing madly, I didn't realize that that's what he's wondering about. I've known this word since forever! Okay, since I've been living here. He's German and he's asking me about a german word?

But apparently Maultaschen are only known in south Germany.
Tasche means a bag or a pocket, and Taschen is the plural form. It is also used to describe a sort of pastry with filling both sweet or savoury.
Maul is the slang for mouth. So it can be very confusing for people who's never heard of it. :D

So I copied part of the article in wikipedia for him.

Me: You've just learned something new :D
Me: So, what do you have there?
NB: Yeah
NB: Stulle
Me: err... never heard of it
NB: YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF STULLE?
*rolls eyes* *who was it who's just asked me about Maul-bloody-taschen?*

While he's trying to explain what a Stulle is, I read the entry in the wikipedia.

Me: Oh, so you're from Berlin
NB: ... yeah...