Happy Holidays!

Movies for Christmas

Okay, so you will have time to yourself during the Christmas season and you don’t want to watch a typical Christmas movie. Here’s a small selection of movies I enjoy watching, during Christmas season and during other times. Let’s have a look at the list, shall we?

“Clue”: I know, this is a love/hate movie. Either you really love it or you really hate it. Personally, I love this one. It has a great story, great actors, great lines - and it’s the only crime story I know with three plausible solutions, too. I love seeing Tim Curry as butler and quite a host of great actors as the guests. It’s also one of the few movies in which I can actually bear seeing Angela Lansbury.

“Despicable Me 2”: I love the second one even a little more than the first one (but if you’ve seen neither, you should definitely watch the first one, too). Brooding Grue is a great character, but he’s even better when seen together with bubbly Lucy. Not to mention he’s a fun dad to watch with his three girls.

“Hot Fuzz”: They say the middle of a trilogy is always weakest, but I like the middle of the Cornetto Trilogy more than beginning (“Shaun of the Dead”) and end (“World’s End”) together. I just love this over-the-top police story.

“Kingsman - The Secret Service”: Agent movie doesn’t have to equal James Bond, you know. Kingsman has all the Britishness of James Bond, but with a lot of interesting characters. IMHO, you just have to love a movie where the instructor training the possible future agents has them jump out of a plane only to tell them afterwards that ‘one of you has no parachute.’ Merlin rules! Plus, in the light of recent movie events, Mark Hamill actually is in this one, too.

“Black Butler”: This one is the real-life movie, not part of the animated series. It changes a couple of things (among them the gender of one main character), but it does keep the basic idea. And no matter whether he’s animated or real, Sebastian remains a devil of a butler.

These are a couple of movies I might watch during Christmas season, if I get around to it. I might also give a few seasons of “Mein Leben & Ich”, a nice TV series, another go.

End of the Year

Another year is approaching its end and the last few weeks - about one and a half months - have been quite stressing for me, at least health-wise. Things are looking up again and I’m sure the next year will start better than this one has been approaching its end.

Looking back at 2014, I see a very mixed year. I finished my evening courses in accounting, which is good. I have written quite a bit and expanded my list of stories over at Feedbooks (more about that in my Writer’s Blog), which is good as well. My years of not really taking care of my health have caught up with me early in November, which was bad. I got myself an account at Facebook, mostly to chat with a good friend in New York City in peace. We chat a lot and that is good, too. In addition, I have found Facebook to be a good way to while away some time and to find pictures and inspirations, which is also good, at least for me.

What will 2015 bring? To be honest, I have no real idea. I hope my health will improve again. I’m rather sure of it, actually. I know I will continue to write, so new stories will appear on Feedbooks. I hope to find a new job, too, something that pays well enough to keep my expenses covered, but allows me to spend my spare time writing. I hope to find the courage to approach some publishers with my work, perhaps find one that will publish some of my stuff. Not for the money, just to get a foot in the door and expand the reach of my work. I hope to lose some more weight, too, but it’s no high priority for me.

Another year is almost over and my Christmas spirit and End-of-the-Year good mood are making an appearance. Goodbye 2014. Hello 2015.

New Year's Eve

Well, here I am, three hours from 2014. I know it was a slow year for my blogs, especially this one and Feminism Wow. I did a little more updating on Writer’s Blog, since I have been writing a lot more, story-wise, than during the last few years.

I’m spending a calm evening at home, as it were. I’m working on “Living Conditions,” one of my stories, rereading old Loki Files (#2 currently), playing a little “Ballad of Solar” in-between, and listening to Meatloaf. But that’s okay, I like calm evenings at home.

The next year I plan to get a better grip on the Cambridge comma (my mortal weakness), among other things. I also hope not to leave my blogs out in the cold as I did this year, even though some of my vigour might have drained from me. My burnout taught me one thing for sure: sometimes it’s not worth getting all hyped up about something. Why should I get all angry and, perhaps, sick about it when everyone else doesn’t care, after all? There are still quite some valid reasons to get raving, though, so I will be writing. Not tonight, however, I’m keeping true to my principle of ‘no bitching between Christmas and New Year.’

Biggest shock of the year? Well, I am on Facebook! Mostly because my brother in everything but blood made me, so we could chat there in peace. Which we do ‒ very often. I’m almost done with my accounting course, too, so next year I’ll be job hunting. I still can’t believe I learned it so well…

Happy New Year and a Good 2014 to everyone still reading this blog! Have a great day/night, just as I do!

End of Year Greetings!

White Christmas

Usually, around here where I live, we can sing the song about dreaming of a white Christmas, but we rarely get one.

This morning, there was hardly a trace of snow left. The street and walkway were the usual dark grey of a slightly rainy morning, the evergreens in front of my home were, well, evergreen. The ground was dark brown (no grass) and the fence was light grey. During the morning, towards noon, snow started to fall. When I went over to my parents for Christmas Eve (which is an important day in Germany), there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. When I came back, about six hours later, there were ten centimetres of snow on the ground. The street and walkway are covered by thick, white icing. So are the evergreens and the fir trees from across the street, the ground and the fences. And snow is still falling.

For me, the snow is a minor problem, but for a lot of people in Germany, the snow is a major nuisance, because they don’t get where they’re supposed to be, whether it’s in some hotel where they wanted to spent Christmas or at home with their loved ones.

Easter Eggs

… the non-digital kind. As every Friday before Eastern, we (my mom and me) made our coloured eggs.

Those are mine out of the batch of 21 we made. We’re always doing 21, because the number can be divided by three and it’s usually three people eating them.

The Easter Holidays are beginning and that’s a great time. The weather’s getting better (slowly), too.