Getting up to snuff

Life is good. I really do enjoy my job these days. It feels more like "work" and less like a "job", if you know what I mean.

I've been reading a new book (I know, shocking): Barbara Sher - I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was. I'm still reading it, working my way through chapter 3 which features a lot of exercises such as "What does meaningful work mean to you", "Describe the job from heaven / hell", and "Who says" to figure out where the voices in your head come from and who is saying what.

So at the moment I spend a lot of time with my beloved mindmaps. Mindjet published an app with all the basic features included for free, so that one plus dropbox currently make up my most important tools for combining thoughts, train rides, and laptop. I am still a huge fan of old-fashioned paper notebooks & pen, but I have already noticed a significant decrease in height of piles of scribbled notes about Lord knows how many different topics on my desk. :o) Mindmaps just work well for my thought process - think it, write it, read it, structure it, learn from it.

In the past two weeks, I treated myself to two consumerist purchases. One was a necklace in surfer-style with gecko. Absolutely love it! The other is a hazelnut-colored nightstand. Originally, I had thought about building my own as I wasn't able to find anything goodlooking, affordable, that fit the measurements of the space we have available. Then I did find a 30€ solution and must say I quite like it:

My greens are doing fine as well. One onion is climbing the heavens, the other is unhappy with something I can't seem to figure out.

The red peppers are continuing to grow though the larger ones have definitely slowed their growth and focus more on leave production.

In this past week, I added an avocado seed and tomatos! The avocado will probably take forever to develop roots and produce that astonishingly vital green stick of a plant that will just keep growing, no matter how many times you'll cut off the leafy top, only to come back with at least twice the amount of stems.

For the tomato seeds (bought at the store for 0,15€), I built a new greenhouse - this time using a cheese box and a sauce container. We'll see how that'll work.

So, things keep plugging along merrily :o)

Oh brave new world that has such tech in it!

Crazy thing, this mobile internet... For the past couple of days, I have found myself staring at my phone a lot. Dennis has been staring at his phone a lot as well. We feel like modern teenagers. I even downloaded Angry Birds - which (I learned in Thailand) is a very hip game to be playing.

I have, however, also found great stuff. Most importantly, being able to send and receive emails on the go is something I have grown to LOVE. Then, there is the TED Air app that finally lets me watch the all-importand and awe-inspiring TEDtalks again. Just for this feature, getting the new cell contract was absolutely worth it. In case you have never heard of TED, go check it out. Right now.




Welcome back! Did you anything but love the stuff that is on that site?! I have drawn so much inspiration and gotten so many WOW effects from on there, that it partly made me who I am today. If you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan. Seriously, go take a look. It's FREE, in case you are scared that this is a scam. Just pure amazing content.

Besides TED, I have found a number of games that I haven't played in years: like MAHJONG (wicked!) and mastermind. Now I really need to find a good gameboy emulator - and monkey island *grin*

Apart from gaming (which hopefully fades again after the first round of excitement) I can now use MindManager on the go - creating mind maps as the thoughts come pouring in.

One of the first apps that I looked up was a QR code scanner (the small, black and white square codes that show up ever more frequently on ads etc.), and with it, I got mysteriously taken to the franchising website for School of Rock, a concept to teach kids to rock on stage and in life through music. Fun stuff, I can tell ya.

So much more to explore. Had I known what I was missing, I would have made this experience (read: this epic transformation :o)) one of my goals :o)

Good times.

P.S.: Written on my phone. Edited on my laptop.

Mobile Madness

I have an announcement to make: This is my first ever blogpost written entirely on my PHONE! i am starting to enter the mobile age *^_^*

But I can tell you, this has been a pain! I am still learning how to use the touchpad - and it is not exactly agreeing with me. For some reason, the text field is larger than the screen - and for some reason, the focus is on the center all the time instead of following the typing. Highly annoying.

Also, it doesn't like to let me mark text to correct spelling. So you'll just have to live with that "i" somewhere near the top.

Ok, I'm exhausted. That's it for now!

Garden Update

Just a quick garden update:

Although it's -12°C outside (a temperature I can't recall ever having occured in these regions during my (short :o)) life-time), both the peppers and the onions are doing fantastically great! I'm starting to think that my thumb has finally found some of that green that it was lacking so obviously :o)

I also bought tomato seeds! So once this frost outside has moved on, I'll give the mini-greenhouse another try!

Freu :o)

Fun times ahead - sportive planning of the future :o)

Hah! I made a wonderful discovery today! A sports-related discovery :o)

On Friday, I received the confirmation for cancelling my gym membership. Which gives me time, space, and freed-up money to go look for an alternative. And glancing over to my goals list, those alternatives could very well involve dancing Salsa and doing Kung Fu. Or in short, dancing and martial arts :o) Both are activities that I extremely enjoy, yet rarely do while I'm in the country. And these goals were brought on-board to end this insane absence of something that gives me so much energy this year.

Turns out, we have an absolute gem in Bochum: Die Körperwerkstatt, or body garage, a place were gym equipment meets martial arts passion and dancing expertise! They have an extremely comprehensive martial arts program (Kung Fu, Tae Kwan Do, Capoeira, Muay Thai / Thaiboxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and even rarities like Krav Maga and Vale Tudo (I have no idea what that is...)]. Additionally they have Tai Chi and personal defense, which might be a nice addition - but I am soooo excited about the sort of energy that I could draw from studying that kind of variety of fighting!!! I didn't even realize that Capoeira was a fighting style, I always thought of it as more of a dance.

Speaking of dancing, in their dance segments they offer everything from Jazz dance, Modern, Ballet, Street Dance, Hip Hop, "Latin Moves", something called Body & Soul, and Zoomba. Plus classes on Tap Dance and Flamenco. How crazy is that?! Crazy beautiful!!

And the BESTESTEST thing of all is that ALL the classes are evening courses! There is one single class that starts at 5 p.m. (which I won't be able to make due to the commute), but all the other classes (both dance & fights) take place between 6 and 9 pm, Monday through Friday, with afternoon classes on weekends.

Soooo excited :o)

I still have to check exact costs for all of this, but they offer a student discount and charge for what you'll actually use, so I will make this work!

One of the reasons why I sort of stopped going to my previous studio was that it was somewhat out of town. So when I got to Bochum after work, I would have to take an additional train to a different part of town, and then after training would have to commute all the way across town again to go home.

Körperwerkstatt sits RIGHT next to the train station. Taking the exit where I always take my tram, I can almost spit to them from there! (well ok, that's slightly optimistic, but it's in plain sight). So no more last minute decisions about which tram to take - training tram or home tram... :o)

Boy am I excited!!! :o)

Do I HAVE to garden TONIGHT?!

I really didn't feel like it. Should I? I can always wait another day.

That's what I've been thinking for more or less a week regarding re-planting the red pepper seedlings on my window sill.

The only reason that I actually went to the basement, grabbed all the stuff, cleared a kitchen surface, and got myself some gravedigger fingernails is that I wasn't sure whether those poor tiny creatures would still be alive by tommorrow.

And I must say, I'm glad I did it - roughly 20 minutes of work, all in all, and now I look what I've got:

The three strong ones with leaves are now roomies - hope they'll make it!

When something is starting to look like a tiny forest, I can't just dump them in the garbage and call it quits...! Large puppy-eye-syndrom, I'm afraid.

And this one's just heading for the sky - upside down :o)

Two letters, two more goals?

Sunday. Poetry in one word.

Outside, the weather was grey and freezing cold all day long, so I had absolutely no bad feelings for staying indoors the entire day. And it looks like the next couple of days are going to bring some ice-cold breezes with them...

So apart from sleeping through the day, eating, doing laundry, eating, and sleeping, I didn't do all that much goal-reviewing. Well, there are two more days left in the month, so what's the rush, right?

I did, however, finish two letters to accomplish two more goals: I now have officially cancelled my gym membership. Maybe tomorrow I can tell you a bit about the alternative that I've been checking out :o)

And letter number two is the response to the DRV's letter to get my retirement account cleared for good. This should remain interesting for a while.

That's it, what a great Sunday :o)

So what have you guys been up to today?

G to the O to the A to the L - G.O.A.L.!!

GOOOOOOAAAAAAL!!

No, I am NOT a soccer fan :o) Today I completed my first goal for 2012! And totally out of the blue, too.

As you might or might not have noticed, for some of the goals on my list it will be kind of hard to tell when I actually achieved them. They are not exactly S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Some of them are more a reminder to myself to do more of something in a given period of time (e.g. "people-watching", "more live music"). Others are bound to a specific task, but are not in themselves telling me when I can check them off the list ("grow onions", "grow peppers"). I guess, since it is the end of the first month of the year, it might be time to re-evaluate some goals. (hm, are my goals getting S.M.A.R.T.E.R. then? :o))

ANYWAY, Dennis dragged me out to the "city"-center of Bochum today, and while we were perusing the better of its five streets, we stopped at a cell phone shop.

You should know that I have been with the same cell phone company for the past eleven years (geeeeeeeez...), and what can I say, I was always very pleased with the service & products of o2. But for some reason, I really don't like going into cell phone shops, which is why I usually stay out of them (duh.). Well, not this time. As I mentioned earlier, Dennis dragged me into the store, was instantly recognized by the two lovely ladies in the shop as he had changed his cell phone plan in the past week and has been totally excited about it.

We left the shop about 5 minutes later - equipped with a new cell phone plan for myself, the confirmation for a better deal for Dennis, and all the info that I might need to get myself a new phone. The exciting part, though, is that by midnight tonight, I will have a plan that costs half of what I usually calculate for a month (50€, now at 24,99€), I have unlimited calls to o2 customers, unlimited calls to (German) landlines, 120 minutes of calling per month free to all other phone companies, 120 SMS free per month, PLUS UNLIMITED INTERNET ACCESS. It might be hard to grasp, but for someone who really enjoys the internet, I have been pretty backward and old-fashioned regarding the whole mobile trend. I always thought that calling and texting is quite enough for a phone to handle. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't even fully understood how bluetooth works...

For a while now, though, I have been getting confronted with all sorts of advertisements and recommendations for various apps - AND I'M DYING OF CURIOSITY HERE!

So now, I have the cell plan to actually access the internet. I'm not convinced that my current phone (a 5-year old HTC XDA Nova) is up to the task, but I can use a newer phone that was surprisingly gifted to me last week (a vodafone 858 smart).

So watch this space for all sorts of app reviews to come :o)

Goal #1 - DOWN! Thanks, Dennis :o)

Pidgeons, Pirates, Proclamations

Friday oh Friday, thou hast such beautiful hours in you!

The weather was perfect today! After a busy week at work, I managed to take off early today - getting the benefit of glorious sunshine, mild temperatures, a fresh breeze and hoppin' good mood :o)

I stopped in Essen on my way home, grabbed some Asia noodles, and planted my four letters right in the middle of the sunshine, overlooking the busy shoppers hustling by to catch some of those final winter sale discounts. I must say, I felt thoroughly content.

Then, of course, I noticed the growing crowd of pidgeons greedily eyeing me. I suppose they were rather eyeing my food, but briefly I felt like I had just entered a pirate movie - Stan, limping, with one foot only a stump, Pete, messy, with dishevelled feathers all over the place, John Jack Guybrush with an eye hanging out of a socket (ok, I made that one up).

Pidgeons really are the rats of the air. Although contrary to my belief that rats are damn smart, pidgeons always strike me as mind-numbingly idiotic.

I sat there, watching three of them inching their way forward, smelling the food (do birds even have a sense of smell?!). Occasionally, I would shift my positions rapidly to shoo them off a bit. Then a good couple of feet away, someone must have dropped something, and all of them took of, hustling over to the single crumb of whatever, with pidgeons flying in from all over the area! They must have been around 15 by then. By the time they realized that what had been dropped had mostly been a bottle cap (and thus not entirely edible), ALL OF THEM decided to come back over to my place! Only this time, they weren't satisfied with shuffling on the floor but found their spots right next to me on the wall. Great. Fortunately, they are easily shooed away.

Remember the pidgeon lady from Home Alone 2 in New York? You get the idea :o)

Well, sunshine, food, people-watching, and shopping, what more can you want on an average day :o) One of my professors once noted that women are odd creatures. They love shopping, hope to find a good deal, but if they fail to find something, there's always a "Claire's" or "Six" close by to at least buy herself a set of earrings.

Wise words, mister. Look at what I found :o)

Welcome to the globalized world :o)

And the strong prevail!

Or... Let Nature Run Its Course Part II

Just sharing some small victories with you! I didn't give up on them, and they didn't give up on me either :o)

GO NATURE - GO NATURE :o))))))

Let nature run its course

As you might have noticed, I have one goal on my list that would usually not require a lot of work if any.

I'm talking about "growing out my hair".

As probably most women, I have a close connection to the growings on my head. I have heard numerous horror stories of people (well, women), who went to apprentice clippings and came back just sobbing in agony about the mixed salad that was left on their heads.

I believe that is because we as humans, and especially we as women, identify ourselves excessively with that person in the mirror. I used to think that any mishap that happened with my hair would automatically mean that the world and its people would gang up on me and deny me social living status. "What, with that thing on your head? Get the h.ll outta here."

As a kid, I had my hair sorta short, later it grew out, at one point down to my buttocks. Then I got sick of it (my hair is extremely straigt, from root to tip - many a woman envied me for it, but I just found it incredibly boring) and cut it. First to shoulder length, then successively further up the chinline, until I pretty much hit punk length. It has been meandering back and forth between mohawkish and shoulder-length ever since. Usually, I am quite ok with my hair, but there comes the point were it just starts growing too long, then I get nervous and then I find myself at the hair dresser's, explaining exactly what I want, I even bring pictures. The ladies are always very understanding, nodding, acknowledging. Then, once they start wielding their scissors, all I said seems to have blown straight out of the window.

More than once I have sincerely doubted my ability to explain what I want. Maybe I just don't use the right lingo. I must obviously be very badly trained in the correct language to be used in such occasions. The result is always the same. I walk out of the hair studio with hair a lot shorter than I anticipated, it always looks pretty good, even the cuts that make me look absolutely boyish, and curiously, the cuts always resemble one another. It seems that I have one of those faces that each hair dresser within a 200-mile radius just automatically assumes should have this certain look going along with it, no discussion.

Well, that's the reason why "growing out my hair" has made it as a separate goal to my list. I don't even want to get back to long flat-as-hell mats of ginger hair. I just want to have a chance of actually letting it grow in the sections that I think need more length, and having it short where it's getting annoying.

So I have decided to start experimenting. I will study hair, my hair. I will give DIY haircutting a try :o)

I found this lady who perfectly puts into words the feeling I have when I'm at a hairdresser's. There's also some pretty spectacular stuff out there on this topic. Mostly spooky ghost stories of what can go horribly wrong. Others just take up their set of scissors and go for it. Take a look at this fearless lady (with very forgiving hair :o)).

Hairfinder.com seems like a pretty good resource - so I don't see any reason for not trying this one out.

Does anyone have recommendations, bewares, anecdotes? I'd love to hear about them :o)

You got........ MAIL!

I gotta tell ya, I LOVE getting mail :o) It's odd, even if I just receive pamphlets that don't really apply to me, I get mildly excited.

And today I had prime mail content (no, not the winning lottery ticket, but that would have been nice as well. I'd be available tomorrow...?).

I received:
- the confirmation for opening my state-backed retirement insurance (Riester)
- a reaction to the account clearing measures I took regarding my national retirement account two weeks ago
- an advertisement from ING DiBa (a bank) for a free checking account with a bunch of additional free features

This means that three of my goals have been tackled today, without me having to do anything for it! (well, today).

Point 1:
I am now waiting for one final document on the business retirement account that I signed up for, then I will consider myself thoroughly retirement-prep'ed. Ok, sure, I will have to check back in a while to see whether I'm on track, but I feel like now I can just let things run for themselves for a decent while.

Point 2:
That the agency that is taking care of my national retirement account is reacting tells me that my efforts to let them know about missing entries has worked (yay!). Two more files to fill out, and the reaching of goal "sorting out retirement account" is in very close proximity :o)

Point 3:
Receiving advertisements that are actually useful must be a clear indication that my goalsetting is being responded to by the universe (*^_^*) I LIKE!

So on top of receiving mail, I received USEFUL mail. GOAL Mail :o)
That just makes my day.
Good night!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Heeeeello!

What a great day! I had a spectacular time at work today, made it to the train just in time before a huge downpour started, and kept reading in the entrepreneur magazine that I bought for an outraging 8,80€.

And I have to say - I LOVE IT! I get so many ideas from reading this magazine! Although there is so much info in it that I probably won't be able to finish any given edition that I am about to read, I have decided to go ahead and subscribe for a year :o) Now I'm very excited for the future issues to arrive! Being an international reader, I'll have to be patient for 10-12 weeks until the first delivery finds its way to my home, but the meantime will be filled with sweet anticipation :o)))

I was thinking about posting a bit of the article that I found so fascinating in the magazine but now I'm opting to update you on my kitchen greenery - or the partial lack thereof. Remember back when I planted onions and red pepper and mandarine seeds? Well, turns out I'm not being so lucky with the seedling part of the activity. Both of the mini greenhouses started producing bunches of fluffy mould today... not a good sign for the pepper seeds. And upon seeing the fluff, I checked on the mandarine seeds, and found itsy-bitsy pieces of fluff on there as well... I haven't given up on either yet, but it doesn't look too good.

The onions, however, are growing very happily :o) Already on the second day of being plunged into soil, tiny white roots found their way out of the pot to the puddle of water. Their greens have been "on the sprout" ever since! Not so much in height, but in number, firmness, and over all greenness :o) Those make me happy every morning!

Good night, Peopz!

Business Bed Bureau

Phew, the weekend flew by like nothing! I got myself into mild trouble with starting to sort files - partly for straightening out the finances that haven't been included in straightening-outings yet ;o) And partly to start getting ready for filing my taxes!

It's still pretty early in the year, tax filings in Germany are not due until May 31st - but the earlier I file them, the earlier I have a chance of getting some of my payments back ;o) I guess that's universal for every country.

As I started thinking about tackling the business plan goal (you see? thinking about tackling... I'm still in the early stages :o)), I have decided to expose myself to fresh entrepreneurial thought. Ideally, I'd be mingling with a bunch of überhuman business magnates that managed to stay down to earth. As I am currently lacking such contacts in the business, I went for the next big thing. Buying a magazine in the field...

I am always amazed at the sheer size of the magazine market. And yet, I find it pretty difficult finding a product that is worth going back to time and time again, at least for a little while. Over the past year, I have been an infrequent reader of Business Punk. (Infrequent, because I only read 3 issues so far. On the other hand, as far as I know only 3 issues have been published until now, so maybe I am really more of a hardcore fan...?). That's a highly recommendable magazine for entertainment with a taste for business. I quite enjoy reading it, but it isn't entirely helpful for soon-to-be entrepreneurs.

Which let me to (*drumroll*) the entrepreneur! With that title, I had to be hooked. It took me three trips to the book store to actually buy it though. The cover looked great, the topics sounded interesting. Only one thing really annoyed me. The original US-version costs $4,99 as printed on the issue. The book store recalculated that into Euros - translating $4,99 to €8,80! OUCH!

Well, I guess book store owners have to carve out a living somehow as well... Conversions like that are a definite reason for just subscribing to the original though. Which I promptly checked out. I bought the magazine, I've read about a third so far and quite like it, found a gift coupon - and the coupon is for $9,99 - for 12 issues! Even better than the Kiplinger's deal! This one comes with a hook though - to include international mailing bumps up the price tag to $35,97 dollars. Which, of course, is still a better deal then 12x €8,80, but not as great a deal as I thought.

Soooo, as my final comment of the day - I spent the best 10€ ever today :o)))))))) I bought a portable bed bureau *grin* A wooden surface mounted on top of a textile bag filled with polyester bubbles - to set on your lap while sitting in bed, with your laptop on it! Here's a picture:

So what more can I say - Goooood night everyone :o)

Charitable Giving

Sometimes I wonder whether it's rude to just start writing a post without saying so much as a hello. Hey folks, what've ya been up to? Life's grand, cheers?

Anyhow. I just finished reading an article called "How to Give Like a Billionaire" by Dan Kadlec, published in the special outlook issue of MONEY magazine in December 2010. Dennis and I were on our way to Northern Michigan, USA, and I had stopped at an airport book store to pick up something to read. I ended up an issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance and aforementioned special outlook issue of Money. (As a side note, it is not unusual for me to buy a magazine somewhere, sometime, and only end up reading it a LOT later).

I was very impressed with Kiplinger's, liked their personal tone, broad range of financial topics, while using a language that was easy to understand for newbies. I was already regretting that we were living in Germany when I saw that their 1-year subscription only costs $12!! In our case plus $17 for shipping, but I was sold. We've been subscribed since November of last year and I am looking forward to each new issue.

With Money Magazine, it took me ages to actually read the issue. They have a lot more ads in the paper, but the content is pretty good as well. And to circle back to the beginning of this post, that was where I read the article on giving like a billionaire.

7 Principles:
Billionaires... concentrate on a few key causes.
You... can write bigger checks to fewer charities.
Billionaires... are businesslike about giving.
You... should plan out your giving for the year and take time to research charities.
Billionaires... take their wealthy pals on a weekend retreat and hit them up for pledges.
You... can round up your like-minded friends and pool your charitable resources.
Billionaires... establish lasting legacies.
You... can benefit by working giving into your estate planning.
Billionaires... donate the fruits of their wealth.
You... can give away highly appreciated assets.
Billionaires... have fancy foundations.
You... can open a donor-advised fund to spread your giving over time.
Billionaires... sit on non-profit boards.
You... can give your time to your favorite cause.

To read the entire article, go here.

So I figure I'm on a pretty good path here:
I don't have billions to give away yet, but I am making plans on what to give this year (check).
I am researching charities to choose one whose cause I can identify with (check).
Since I don't have heaps of money, I am planning on giving my time (check).
Conclusion: Sounds like a plan to me (pad self on the back).

To help out with (check) #2, the author of the article was friendly enough to list a number of links that I hope will turn out to be helpful:

- charitynavigator.org: lists information on more than 5,500 charitable organizations, with star ratings, financial health, and efficiency with donor funds

- Guidestar.org: has tax information on more than 1.8 million US charities to see where your money is going

- DonorsChoose.org: helps you find projects that you can fully fund, such as buying a drum set for a school band

There is even a note of a subsidiary of eBay's, called Giving Works - apparently it works just as ebay itself does, but no listing fees and commissions need to be paid as long as you agree to donate all of the sale proceeds to one of 18.000 charities. I'm slightly shocked that I've never heard of this before.

The only thing that I didn't find additional information on in the article is where a good place to start looking for volunteer opportunities would be. But then again, I will probably just have to ask that question.

Time to think about giving back! :o):)

Back to business as usual...?

Today is January, 11. Eleven days into the new year. That is 8 working days.

You know, I was just about to complain. Writing something like "we're just halfway through the second week at work, and already I am sleep-deprived. That's... not ideal" and so on.

But actually I don't really have any reason to be complaining, to be honest. I am having really great days at work at the moment. I am getting to speak tons of languages, get to structure and analyze things, and get to do a lot of thought-intensive work, which I find pretty stimulating creatively.

In addition, I somehow manage to be home earlier, or at least use my home-time in a more relaxing way than I used to. So it feels like I have more time. (hm, here's a thought - that might be in direct positive correlation with the fact that I stay up later, hence the sleep deprivation ;o))

Granted, I haven't done much goal-work in the past two days, but I think that's ok. I have more than 42 weekends left, plus VACATIONS :o) So no need to worry just yet.

Oh, and actually I did do some research for "writing my business plan" today! It turned out that a good friend of my lover's happens to be selling dental equipment online - very niche dental equipment :o) So I have found myself a life sample of how e-commerce can work. Well, according to his description, he currently thinks it's not (yet) working ideally, but I'm sure I can learn from that as well.

Not sure how familiar you guys are with e-commerce slang and internet marketing pass phrases. But I did, for a while, look more closely into dropshipping. Then I realized that US law is quite different from German law in some terms. I tend to get ideas and inspiration from American media / books / people, but frequently I stop dead in my tracks when realizing that some concepts are not as easily applicable to other markets. Which of course is an excuse, I am shamely aware. (Shamely aware? Is that even a word?!) Well, I am ashamed to admit. That's what I wanted to be saying. Moving on now.

I also went to a start-up counselling agency a couple of months back, whose folks warned me about the dire effect that German warranty laws can have on a small business. And this weekend, when speaking to a former (physical) business owner friend of mine, I heard the same sermon again. Which brings me to the conclusion that either German folks are willingly putting up with a lot more crap than other people do, or they are not aware of the differences - or, of course, haven't taken too close a look at what better ways to do business are out there. Well, that's what this whole business plan writing exercise is about - collecting ideas, information, facts & fiction, learning the rules (so I can break them properly ;o)), and - most important of all - figure out a business style that suits me and my lifestyle (desired lifestyle, that is - although I guess it will have to fit my current lifestyle first to be going anywhere besides nowhere...)

This is getting confusing, I'll stop now.

To leave you with a cheerful note, I have an announcement to make:
My onions are grabbing hold of their new habitat! The shoots are a bright green, have pulled themselves upright, and are now perkily finding their way into the sunlight :) Go, onions!

where art thou, volunteer opportunity?

First day back to work this week, so I didn't think I was going to do much for my goals. Apart from earning a salary, that is ;o)

It turns out though that the señorita that I take the train with knows a thing or two about volunteering in Bochum - which is currently my home town.

So far, I haven't really put that much thought into giving to a charity, to be honest. There are enough bills to pay as it is. But I figured I could throw in some of my time. Back in 2005, I took part in a volunteer camp in England, situated beautifully in the Peak District National Park, with grit and lime stone formations, rolling hills, endless blue skies... I loved it there! For two weeks, I was part of a group of internationals that were shuttled around Peak District to different work locations, building bridges, fixing gateways, cleaning footpaths, clearing thickery. I don't think I ever felt more alive than during those two weeks. Of course, the weather was mostly miserable, some days were freezing cold, and sore muscles were just part of the day - but that's what I loved about it. At the end of the day, I was totally exhausted while knowing exactly what I had achieved that day. As my dad frequently says: if you want to be happy, be a gardener.

Anyhow, I was listening to the radio and surfing the web, when some news came on about a new German agency (Bundesfreiwilligendienst) which was called to life to fill in for the previously mandatory civil & military services. I think last year, German politics decided to cancel the mandatory youth services, so the system is now gradually switching to a volunteer-based approach.

I even found some interesting projects on there. The only draw back is that these positions are supposed to be full-time (or at least 20 hours a week), for a minimum of 6 months straight. Great in theory but not feasible for me at the moment.

My commuting partner then mentioned that she is newly involved with a group of kids to teach them about animals and the environment - once a month, for a couple of hours on a Saturday. Now that sounds like a time frame that I could work with.

That's were my next research will be taking me :o)

If I don't find anything right now, there are always other ways of giving back that can be integrated into daily life without major changes, and even at no expense to you. For example when ordering from amazon, you could use the link amazon.mpconsult.eu (to order from amazon.de) or from amazon.com to have Amazon pay a part of your shopping expenses to Sarnelli House, an orphanage for young kids in thailand that have been infected with HIV upon birth. If you would be interested in learning more about Sarnelli, let me know and I will connect you to the people who can give you the information you are looking for.

If you happen to know of any volunteer opportunities that involve outdoor activities, please drop me a line in the comments - I'd love to hear about them!

That's it for tonight, sleep tight!

Anger Management

I just spent the better part of the day obsessing with the search of a little table or container to put next to our bed, as a night stand or shelf to store books and magazines and such. Problem: The slot is only a little over 40 cm wide.

I'm going insane over this! Of course there is a great variety of things, but very little that's actually appealing to me.

Then I found this:
(sorry, the pic is not working, here's the link)

And absolutely LOVED it.

Want to know what the problem is? It costs freaking 399€!!!!!! Plus 59,90€ in shipping and handling!!!! ARRRGH! I am currently quite pissed that I don't (YET!) lead the life that would allow me to just briefly check my cash balance and say "ah, what the hell" and click the order button!

But hey, something to look forward to, right?

While sulking about the whole thing, the idea came to mind to make this my DIY-project for the year... I once built wooden CD shelves and also a book board. Plus I like working with wood.

So we'll see.

I'll go cool off now. Have a good one.

Sorting, Planting, Chocolate fingers

Hey y'all! (Have I mentioned that I spent a year in Northern Michigan? ;o))

Back here after a good day at work yesterday. Last night, I got stuck on reading Questionable Content, a highly recommendable web comic - that is if you don't object to sexual puns and lots of swear words!

So today I set out to do some goal work! As today is Saturday, I did what I usually do on a Saturday morning - clear the piles of papers, notes, books and mail off my desk that usually gets accumulated over the week. Part of that pile was the thick folder of files for Thursday's Civil Servant Adventure, so those are now safely stored in about 4 different ring binders. I did tell you that I was a structure freak, right?

Reward: a cleared desk. Brown (ok, slighty greyish, it could use some dusting). I am mentioning this because not too long ago, it was hard to ever find a spot of surface of this desk. For Christmas, I bought myself a file registry, in the shape of a slick black box. Now I can sort all the things that still need doing in the corresponding file and have it out of sight until I need it :o) Hence the empty desk. I do realize that this sounds incredibly geeky, but hey.

Anyhow, today's post was supposed to be about plants! I just spent the better half of an hour listening to Jethro Tull, planting all of the following:

- 2 sprouting onions
- 4 mandarine seeds
- roughly 70 red pepper seeds, using the mini green houses!

Sprouting onions.

The onions just got stuck into wet soil, bottoms down, sprouts out into the air. As I have no idea whether this will work, I'm excited to see what comes out of them.

The mandarine seeds I just lightly pushed into the wet soil. Can you spot the four white dots?

As I was told to put them in a dark and warm corner, they ended up in my garlic & onions drawer :o) I'll just have to make sure that I don't forget the mandarines there and keep watering them...

The red pepper seeds I just spread out over the punched sheets, mixed them with soil, and soaked the mix with a spray gun.

More wet soil on top, clear foil around it, voila. Please note that I have no idea what I am doing here, so don't do that at home unless you can live with the subprime consequences ;o)




I was thinking about calling the goal "grow onions" achieved, but I guess I'll wait and see whether they actually thrive. If not, I have about 360 days to try again!

That's the thing with making your goals less than crystal clear, you can't be sure when you have achieved them... I might have to toughen them up a bit :) But this will be a work in progress - this year is all about formulating, pursuing and achieving goals! I'd love if some of you joined me and shared their ideas, stories, successes and setbacks with me!

Have a great Saturday evening! We'll be watching HappyThankYouMorePlease - saw it on the plane to Thailand this/last summer and loved it! If you've heard about the TV series How I Met Your Mother, main actor Josh Radnor aka Ted Mosby directed the movie! Well worth seeing!

Enjoy!

Civil servants

As the saying goes: Time flies when you're having fun.

Today was not one of those days. I am very fortunate to have flexible working hours, so this morning I decided to come into work one hour late AND leave an hour early - and still it felt like the day was just not going anywhere. When I was beginning to think about going home, I realized that it was only shortly after 10am...

Or to put it in my colleague's words:
"First day at work after holidays = fail. Please make me unhave it."

Anyhow, I had a good reason for taking off early. I went to tackle another one of my goals! Sorting out my national retirement account. Last weekend, I spent sorting files and official documents, juggling application papers, and trying to wiggle my way back into my earlier youth to figure out whether DRV had listed all of my activities, such as work and studies.

To make things short, I was bringing a flex-folder of considerable size, coming without an appointment, and pretty late in the evening. To defend myself, I tried calling about 17 times to get prior information or actually schedule an appointment, but the only response I ever got was a "sorry, no one's available right now, call back later, click." AAAARGH.

Well, they had to deal with me. I arrived at 5:21pm, their opening hours ended at 6pm on a Thursday. Not a single customer was there. The receptionist was shuffling magazines to keep busy.

Despite having to live through an ongoing tirade about how I really should have called or made an appointment, I successfully left the building at 6:01pm, with a much lighter folder, a confirmation of having submitted all the necessary paper work, a happy civil servant that was ready to head home on time, and with the flattering feeling that it was highly unusual for "such a young person" to actually take an interest in sorting out one's retirement account :)

Now it all depends on how quickly they process the whole thing. I'm getting closer to checking off my first goal for 2012! *grin*

When the postman comes a'knocking...

I must say, this kind of goal hunting is working out pretty well for me. Granted, it's only day 4 of the new year, but I have already put work into achieving goals where normally I would have said "nah, I can do that tomorrow"... And don't we all know that sentiment...

Updates on my findings:
Over the past two days, mail arrived from two major health insurers in Germany. One of the finance magazines recently ran a test on the quality of health insurers that do business in all of Germany. I did a couple of the selections available, and three interesting results came up:

a) It seems that the best health insurer for both my region and myself is "Techniker Krankenkasse".

b) My partner in crime is using a different insurer (which is not the interesting part of the discovery yet...), took the tests, and it turns out that he is using the perfect match :)

c) The insurer I am currently using isn't all that bad after all. They made rank 4 although they are more regionally situated. As they don't offer special benefits in my area though, I will stick to my goal of switching - to a) ;o)

So today I received the application and everything for TK. The other infomail was for DAK, which I also scored very high on, but they turned out to be quite a bit more expensive, with pros that were more or less negligible. So it is settled.

I also passed by our HR person today, informing her that I was thinking about changing - and she had nothing better to do that curse me just in case I wouls forget to inform her about the details! A very friendly curse though, so no offense taken.

...

Oh. I just went over to check the link for DAK - and found out that starting in April (roughly the time that I would be changing), they will cut the extra costs I was referring to above... Damnit, I guess I will have to do some more research after all.

Ah well, one step at a time. 363 days to go :)

And back to work

Well, it's official. The new year has started and the first day of work has been achieved :o)

It was a good day apart from the fact that I missed the train on my way home. Which stinks because instead of 1,5 hours I needed 2 hours and a quarter... But I made it home, and in a fairly good mood as well, I might add :o)

Good enough so, that while I was waiting for my super healthy (*cough*) frozen sausage pizza to get done, I decided to try out my DIY discovery from last night - the mini greenhouse! While I was fidgeting around with those, Dennis got so antsy from watching me that he went to find himself his own milk box - and did a second one :o) Group greenhousing at its best *grin*

And now (drum roll please!), here they are, each one truly one of a kind ;o)

It remains to be seen whether soil will actually stay inside the boxes ;o) Well, you never know until you try. I already have plans for mass production.

This is it for now - good night, everyone!

Wonderful Sundays

Could the year begin with anything better than a Sunday?

It's incredibly mild outside today, so a distinct feeling of spring time is sneaking around the house :o)

Which brought me to starting some prep work for tackling my goals. From our fruit chocolate fondue last night, I saved mandarin seeds. A little while ago, I also dried the seeds of red peppers.

It seems that, when rearranging our kitchen, I apparently didn't do too good a job of storing the onions (supposedly in a dark place), therefore I have two prime examples for sprouting onions now :o) I just read that onions should grow into leek when you stick them in soil. I guess I'll give that a try! Should work the same with garlic, they said.

Regarding the peppers, I just learned that the red ones are the ripest of the bunch, so seeds from red peppers are the most likely to succeed! Lucky me :o) Now I just have to find a way to avoid the disastrous effects of my missing green thumbs ;o) At green-24.de they had all sorts of helpful information. Google is your friend after all. I am tempted to ignore the time frames they give though - I will give it a shot to let them sprout in the middle of the winter, indoors.

And the mandarin seeds seem to sprout best in a dark surrounding and damp soil, and once the greens appear, move them to a sunny place.

Hah, I just found a lady that created a photo series on how to build your own mini greenhouse out of a juice box :o) It's in German, but the pictures are self-explanatory! Things like this make me happy :o)

Will keep ya posted and have a great start into the new year!

Step by step into the life of my dreams

It's here! Happy new year, everyone!

I had a fabulous time last night. We opted for bypassing the happy party people in Cologne and Frankfurt and instead had an excellent chocolate fondue with a variety of fruit (including a Khaki (?) that my friend Dorothée left us with), a Billy Joel Live in Concert experience, and watched Michael Jackson's This is it. I am amazed at what that man could do with his body. Not that this is news, but shockingly, to me it was. Sure, I had seen the moon walk, but to have an entire crew of people do the robo dance in sync that just screams MICHAEL was pretty spectacular.

Billy Joel did a concert together with Paul McCartney. This made me think: a) for next year's new year's celebration, I could definitely do with a live concert, and b) I will have to add another goal to my list: MORE LIVE MUSIC!

Then we watched how our neighborhood blasted itself into pieces. It was pretty, for the most part. I also got to sit on my window pane. From the soreness of my bum, though, I am now more convinced than ever to tackle my goals of cozying up that prime spot.

Can't wait for this year to happen :o)