Christmas impressions...

I know I should post more art but the last days week was loaded with preparations for Christmas and driving around a lot since neither my in-laws nor my parents happen to live in Berlin.

 Morning at the border to Poland. Seriously I can't remember having seen such a wonderful dawn on Christmas morning. It was pretty amazing.

Preparations for the dinner are in my parents' household always... kinda nightmarish. If you ever had the chance (or bad luck) to grate fresh horseradish -and I mean garden fresh- you know how bad I want to avoid having horseradish duty. These stinkers are literally deadly. The smell and essence clog your lungs, sting in your eyes and make breathing so hard you just want to throw it out the window.

 The culprit.... I hate the horseradish a lot but dang, freshly prepared it tastes thousand times better than anything from the supermarket.

 Nature at it's best. Quail's eggs- nearly too beautiful to eat.We did it anyway... ._.

 

Oh it sparkles! My dad didn't like my glitter decoration that much but hey, if you leave tree decoration to a girl you have to prepare for glitter. At least this year no pink... :D

And here comes something we got this morning...

 

 A little package from the Czech Republic. :3 A big thanks to Danilo for the cookies and the little figurine. :D The figurine got tucked away into the side board and spooks all the Kulla figurines I got over the years.

We also got a cute christmas card from Marina. I feel bad I didn't manage to get my card printed but next year.... hopefully... meh! I should start earlier- the last minute jobs always kill the time frame for getting things done on time.

 

 And last but not least... a culinary adventure. I started preparing vanilla essence.

 

 After 24 hours it's so dark I had no idea how to get a proper shot. It will darken even more over the next days and hopefully in two weeks I have 1.3 litres vanilla essence which... might even last a year. 

If you wonder how it's done:

Vanilla essence instructions

The recipe is in German- if you still want to try it and the automatic translation confuses you let me know. The preparation is really simple.:D

I already wish you a Happy New Year and hope you'll have an amazing 2014.

Oh December...

... and I still haven't managed to get all presents for Christmas. I guess we'll do last minute packing with awfulsome help of the cats who tend to be more or less pretty unhelpful.

I had some strange weeks. A lot of stuff's going on at work and though I thought the end of the year would be totally relaxing... it's not. Dang. I always wonder why this year was/is so strange.


But... things to look forward: January will be a month I like. I already know... since the Nürnberg board game fair is coming up and I busted my booty for it and I hope people will love the games. Ha!

Winter does something strange to me: I turn into a soup monster. I think I cooked 7 different soups in the last 7 days and I'm still not fed up with... soup. Gods, I love these. So many options. Having somebody at home who mostly eats everything (except the really wonky tests- Azuki beans... we both hate you) helps a lot.

Don't think I can post something without the cats. Today's weird cat picture....

Why do cats like freshly used sport clothes so much? Tretel's love for sweaty clothes is simply disgusting but since Hantje turns into a purring jellyblob when she finds a stinkin' shirt I can't point fingers at him. It's weird. Seriously. Our dog loved to roll around in cow patties and the cats crawl into the sports bag stinking like rotten eggs (thermal water- it smells strongly like sulfur). Sometimes I have no idea if I should be offended or laughing.

 Aaaand a new mug motive with Kulla. Didn't forget my little bunny girl. Especially since she'll turn 10 next year. Already. Oh noes.

You can find the illustration here on Deviantart if you want to have a closer look. I'm a bit depressed I still haven't done the fourth book but at least one children's book will be out next year... even if it's not for Tokyopop. And not even in Germany. Well, not really depressed about that part but I promise more bunny illustrations next year.