I’m back from Germany

Long time no talk my friends. I only managed to write one post in 4 weeks while I was in Germany and you can click HERE if you missed that post which was my macrame feather purse charm tutorial. It went over pretty well on the world wide web. You can see a photo of one of the feathers in the below picture. I hung it on my new HomeGoods basket that Willy is sitting in.

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In the background you can see my new old rug from my parents house. It’s the perfect size for our small hallway but unfortunately Willy thinks it is solely placed there for his entertainment. So I’m not sure if it can stay right there.

The cats are pretty happy to have us back. I think Lucy waited for us to come back so she can cross the rainbow bridge. It’s been an awful couple of days and only adds to my depressed slump I am in. I think I will get into everything that has been on my mind in another post. I want to keep my mind off of things and just talk about Germany today.

Our kids are happy to have their furry siblings back too.

Back to our trip across the big pond.

Things went a little differently this year in Germany. Everything was weighed down by the incredible heat and drought. I was floored by how used to I have become to air-conditioning. In Germany almost nobody has airconditioning, because in the evenings it usually cools down significantly. This didn’t happen this year though. It was continuously hot unless you headed to a church or castle dungeon. That combined with everyone’s BO and wasps bothering you. The wasps!!! Ugh!
And I really don’t want to sound like a complainer but everything just happened a little different than the previous years. Things moved slower and I focused more on trying to have my kids meet German kids their own age. That plan worked better for our daughter because our son has hit full on puberty and everything and everyone is annoying now. He probably won’t want to write his annual traveling post either. It’s not all his fault either because my husband’s camera ended up not working during their trip to Dresden. They now only have cellphone photos and they might not be enough for a blog post. Such a bummer.

Regardless of things moving slower, we did get to visit some of our favorite locations again.

We once again visited Rothenburg ob der Tauber which is about 2 hours away from my parents house. It’s one of my favorite cities because it is a well-preserved medieval town.  There is so much to see and to learn. The last time we had been there was years ago and my daughter was still sitting in an umbrella stroller. Now at age 11, she couldn’t really remember her earlier first visit. It really was time for us to go back.

My son has really hit a growth spurt and will soon be as tall as my husband.

The fighting of my kids drove me crazy again and is definitely more noticeable when you spend that much time together. It’s rare to be able to snack photos of them together.

During our Rothenburg visit we wanted to find a another smoker to add to our Christmas collection. (Click HERE and HERE if you want to see my last Christmas home tour).

My parents also gave me their smoker which is a grandma drinking her tea. It’s not my favorite but I’ll add it to our collection anyways because it’s from my parents.

My mom had also found a blue and white egg at the thrift shop for me which I brought home.

Below you can see it opened. Isn’t it cute?

I brought the below copy of Henri Rousseau’s “The Dream” home with us which I had ripped out of a calendar when I was in school in my late teens. I had totally forgotten how much I had loved this painting. My parents recently found it in one of my art maps that were stashed away and forgotten.

One of my art school projects was to copy a favorite painting but I failed this one miserably. I still love the painting as much as I did as a teen and I want to find a spot for this small copy in our house. I also want to go to NYC and see the original.

My parents also found many sketches I made. Amongst them was another favorite of mine. It’s a sketch of my ex-boyfriend’s dog. She was a pitbull and I think you can see in the sketch how sweet she was. It’s crazy what kind of memories come rushing at you when you find forgotten things like this.

Below is another one of my attempts of copying a painting. It’s definitely not my strength.

I love visiting Schloß Mespelbrunn every year we go. It’s so close to my parents house. It’s still privately owned and original. There aren’t many tourists and it is so serene. You can read more about it inn one of my older posts HERE.

My son is always happy about all the good food we eat in Germany and it’s so nice to have friends with a yummy Italian restaurant. Needless to say that I gained a lot of weight back. Upon returning to the US, I was told by my son that he misses Opa’s refrigerator because he has all the sausages, cheese and bread he wants to eat.

My husband and son’s man trip was to the area of Dresden and they got to see Schloß Moritzburg where my favorite Christmas time movie called “Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel (Three hazelnuts for cinderella)”  was filmed. It is the German/Czech version of Cinderella. While growing up in Germany, it always aired during Christmas time and to me Christmas isn’t perfect without this movie. You can read more about it HERE.

Here is a bad resolution version of it on YouTube:

I’m increasingly gravitating towards incorporating rustic pieces which is something new for me. Above I’m trying to figure out what to do with the a driftwood piece I found on our annual beach trip. Maybe a candle holder? I’m just not sure yet.

I’m definitely happy to snuggle with my furry children again who are happy to have us back but like I hinted above I have the awful task of putting our poor old white kitty cat Lucy to rest today. I will write more about that in the days to come. It is the most difficult part about owning a pet.

Tschüß,