i love pomegranate. i love it as a snack, in my cereal, i love pomegranate juice…you name it. the only problem i had was the peeling. no matter hwo careful i tried to peel it to get the seeds out, i always ended up having the juice splish and splatter everywhere. not to mention that the juice dies my fingers red for days.

to make a long story short. this week i learned how to peel a pomegranate without making a mess. i’ll fill you in on the secret wether you want to hear it or not. you need a bowl and a pomegranate. because it would be difficult to attempt to peel one if you don’t have one. so, once this is settled, fill the bowl with water and then start peeling while holding the pomegranate under the water. you’ll notice that it doesn’t squirt much and i think the peel comes off a lot easier as well. the seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl and all the peel stuff will float on top of the water.

this is so easy that i’m starting to believe that there could be an easy way to fold fitted sheets. maybe, just maybe… i should call up martha stewart.

that’s all i learned. aside from the fact that i should keep my expectations low so that i am not being disappointed. bummer.

franzi

if you feel like going to italy on vacation and want to go a …. well, special place, then maybe the one i will tell you about is. a blogger that i follow (now that sounds like stalking but it’s not, i just read her blog) went to italy recently and somehow ended up in this cave where they hang dead people. they put the bodies, all dressed up and stuff, on the walls. and then they just hang there waiting to mummify.

yeah, i know, totally creepy. they don’t allow you to take pictures, but she took them anyways (tourists…) and she posted them on her blog. so when you follow the link, be warned that it is pretty graphic. but i wouldn’t have believed it without the pictures. death still freaks me out, but this is more like those gunter van hagens shows.

so here’s your christmas scare for the day, i warned you! link to the dead

franzi

sometimes i feel like i am stuck with the worst family ever. for over nine months now, i am living less than two hours away from everyone else. so you would think that maybe i am somehow included in family outings. nope. so over and over again i have asked them to at least think of me and ask me if i would like to join. i mean, they do the planning. it’s not like i feel like calling every monday to ask about their plans for the next weekends.

and i don’t mean the spontaneous trips that just happen to be planned over night. i am talking about those outings that involve getting tickets, switching set parenting days around, you know, the stuff that involves more thinking and that you know at least a week in advance.

yesterday evening m mom calls to tell me about yet another thing they will all do together minus me. what did i do? i shot the messenger. i shouldn’t have done that but i was totally caught off guard and pissed, and disappointed that not even around christmas time they seem to be willing to include me.

i apologized to my mom this morning, i didn’t want her to feel bad because at least for this trip it wasn’t her fault. she got tickets, she was excited to be invited, and she told me about it. so for now i’m dealing with being disappointed, yet again. i’m good enough to buy tickets for them when a fair is in town so that they don’t have to stand in line, and graciously i am being asked if i want to come along (sure, with like 80,000 other people). fine. if that’s my role so be it. i should learn to keep my expectations low.

of course this didn’t make me feel like getting christmas presents for any of them today. so i just got things for me there you have it sweet family! if this continues christmas might not be happening at all

now i am strutting my new bag that not only looks mightily professional, it also fits my mac book pro. yay! and i finally have a black belt and a new pair of jeans. w00t!

sorry for my rant, you should have seen me yesterday. i would have posted something very nasty because gosh, i was mad. this is me calmed down.

franzi

seriously, when you are a grown up (more grown up than me) then act accordingly. the hormonal mess i was talking about is now behaving more like kindergarten. whatever. if this is how you think women should treat each other fine. call me when you’ve grown up.

on a more happy note, i have gotten used to my glasses and my eyes have relaxed a lot in the past week. after a whole day of staring at computer screens and all, my eyes don’t feel tired. and i noticed that i really need the glasses at night. the stuff i suddenly see is amazing. and it’s no wonder i was uncomfortable driving at night (or even sitting on the passenger seat). for the speed i was going i just couldn’t see things. granted, i’m one of those thinking-way-ahead drivers (yes, if my exit is coming up then i am trying to be in the exit lane about a mile before the actual exit) so i like to see-see what’s happening. i don’t want it to sound like i am totally blind without glasses. because i’m not.

i still need a bunch of christmas presents. a friend is taking me to tkmaxx tomorrow. maybe i’ll find something there. not for me, for others. i hope. not for me. though i need a bag and a belt. please let me be in a generous mood tomorrow so that i may find a gift for the ones i dearly love.

franzi

as much as i like gossip, i don’t like to be the main topic of the gossip. and i would like others to tell me that i am so that i know and can take precautions.

to make a long story short, i wasn’t told until today. i wasn’t sure if i should be shocked or just mad or totally indifferent. i chose shocked and mad because the topic of the gossip was my future at my workplace and the things that were discussed i thought were confidential (limited to those attending the meeting). well, not so much apparently. at least i was told before i made a potential major mistake (by playing dumb to someone who was told the real deal – not that there is a real deal to speak of, oh, whatever).

so from now on i have to be more cautious. sorry, but there goes trusting people…

franzi

i realize it’s not saturday and i also realize i skipped this last saturday. pardon me, i’ll try to be a better person some day. that’s not today and not tomorrow. change takes time, you know?!

so here they are, the things i learned in the past two weeks:

> jews are exempt from military service in germany. however, they may join the army if they want to.

> you cannot get piggy flu from money. unless you eat the money. apparently we are not in contact long enough to contract enough viral load to get sick. eating the money clearly changes the amount of time you are in contact with the contaminated money.

> i get tipsy from a glass of wine. seriously, i just wanted to have a nice evening and now i am wondering if my liver will jump the ship next. eyes bad, muscles in constant pain, wrinkles (ok, let’s not go there), i shrink… my body is giving up on me! isn’t alcohol supposed to preserve or something?

> i will never be mrs williams. after robbie proposed to his current girlfriend (be it a joke or not), i had to realize that only my friend who found another mr williams will be a mrs williams…teenage dreams coming to an end here…

> i should do laundry more often. this would result in me not stuffing my washing machine to it’s absolute limit hence hindering it to finish the spinning cycle correctly. there are better ways to spend your sundays with than spinning cycle after cycle to get your laundry semi dry.

ok, enough knowledge. i actually think i learned more than that. i hope. i mean, come on, 14 days and this is all i learned? what? that’s pathetic.

franzi