Backyard Cats

Backyard cats are the sort of cats that just happen to be there one day and refuse to go away again. So you start feeling sorry for them and start feeding them. After that they won't ever go away again. They will stay wild and won't let you touch them but also go begging for more food every time they see you.

And of course they will get kitten every now and again. And besides them being wild backyard cats the kitten are still adorable!

This fellow is called "Fleabomb". Guess why! He is a little older than the other three.

The tabby one must be a girl! She is so cute and decent! A little Bella!

Her daring brother.

And all three of the last litter.

Todays work!

These ones are made out of a fake pauashell-cane. Yet to be sanded and polished.

These were a try to make something usefull out of an old fake-agate-cane. Well, nice. But not more.
And these that look like bright sunflowers are original dragon-eye-cane. But I like the idea of them being sunflowers too!

Pens, pens, pens...

Every one of them unique.
Mind you, if they don't seem to be straight then it's just an optical illusion!

Michiko's new home

It took a long time until this new cage got ready. But not because it's a lot of work it was rather the lack of time. I started building it in August and then two weeks nothing happened and so on...
But I think the result is worth showing!
Here the right side with her house (she doesn't use it much) and the closed door to the outside.

The left side with her wheel in the "deep side"... And her sand bath on top of the platform.

More pens!

It is a lot of fun if you can just be busy for yourself and the product is something nice to look at. As here as I was working away the polymer clay canes I had been storing for some better days. All in all came out 13 pens and a lot of beads.

As I worked a lot with translucent clay there is a big difference between before and after the baking.

And here are the beads. Those kiwi beads are the rest of my kiwi cane. Maybe one day I'll make a new one. I really like it.

Ich und Ich

Letztens beim Autofahren wurde im Radio ein Song gespielt, von dem ich dachte, er wäre genau für mich geschrieben. Es kommt nicht oft vor, dass ich mich so in Musik versinken kann...

Der Song heißt "So soll es bleiben" von der Band Ich und Ich:

[...]

Wenn es da ist werd ich feiern.
Ich weiß da ist noch mehr.
Es liegt noch soviel vor mir.
Ich lauf noch hinterher.
Bis jetzt fühl ich nur die Hälfte,
von allem was geht.
Ich muss noch weitersuchen,
weil immernoch was fehlt.

Ich will sagen:

So soll es sein,
so kann es bleiben.
So hab' ich es mir gewünscht.
Alles passt perfekt zusammen,
weil endlich alles stimmt
und mein Herz Gefangen nimmt.

[...]

Back to the Pearl!

After some time of storing my Fimo-canes in the fridge I finally found it the time to take them out again and make something nice.

Here are the results: Kiwi-cane in pearls and cubes.

And mixing my Monarch-, Blue rose- and Red rose-cane I got some interesting results. I made a pen, 4 double-sided rectangles and some one-sided pendants. The rest was made into some pearls.

Hope you like them!

Invitation cards

As for my coming leaving I created some cards to invite friends and family to my big party.

The Settlers of Catan: Traders and Barbarians

This scenario is a really awsome way to play the settlers! The idea behind it is that the barbarians have destroyed Catan. The Catanian traders now have to set off to carry tools to the marble pit, sand to the glass factory and both back to the ruined castle.
The carriages move along paths either wild or paved. It is always an advantage to move along your own streets.
Coins are recieved if you successfully bring your item to the goal, you need them to pay foreign street owners or in exchange for raw materials.

Playing this game we noticed that we hardly gave a damn on expanding our settlements or moving to other places and build new settlements. The roads had our full attention. We carried the items to and fro.

But it was jolly good fun! A totally new experience playing the Settlers of Catan!


For me it's a 10 out of 10 points! Hope to play it again soon!

Centaur Boy

Once again I started a little modelling with Fimo. This little guy is made out of Puppenfimo(c). He is made out of one piece before baking.

After baking I coloured him with pastel chalk and fixing it.

The hair was added last, I'm still working on doing this better. Me not so satisfied yet. ;-)

Bohnanza!

Do you like beans? Baked beans, soy beans, kidney beans, black-eyed beans, coffee beans and many more...

Bohnanza is a German-styled card game about trading and farming beans. Author is Uwe Rosenberg and the game was first published in 1997.

I remember I first played it 2000 with a group of five people. It is great fun! The more people play the more movement the game has.
The idea is simple. You get bean cards on your hand and can farm 2-3 types of them at the same time. Tricky: you have more bean types on your hands and are not allowed to change the order. So either you have to harvest unprofitably or trade your cards with the other players.


There are also a lot of add-ons. Al Cabohne for example is for 1-2 players. High Bohn can be played with Al Cabohne or Bohnanza, Bohnaparte and La Isla Bohnita can only be played with Bohnanza.

It's a great game but unfortunatly I always lack in people playing with me. So I hardly know the add-ons. Maybe one day I will find someone eager in playing beans! ;-)

My score:
9 out of 10 points! (for Bohnanza)
7 out of 10 points for Al Cabohne (it lacks in the fast moving of Bohnanza)

Strawberry season!

"Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"

Izaak Walton (1593-1683)

The Settlers of Catan: Caravan in Catan!

The caravan in Catan is a quite small scenario. You can buy it in a box with several other new scenarios.
Instead of the desert there is an oasis placed in the middle of the island. From here will be the caravans starting. You can continue their route with paying a card of hay and wool. The camels take influence on the points a road or village count. These are the camels of the new version waiting for being placed on the game.


And this is the scenario of the old edition. (Unplayed yet)

Working Holiday Visa

My immigration plans to Australia are a little bit complicated. Well, first things first. I will go this part of my life step by step and at each point I need to check if I can go on to the next point.

First step:

Entering Australia with the Working Holiday Visa (subclass 417).

• This visa allows me to be in Oz for one year and to work for a maximum of six months for the same employer.
• It is for people between 18 and 30 years. For the application you shouldn't have held your 31. birthday.
  
• After applying you have 12 months to enter Oz. So officially it is possible to enter Oz for one year on the day before your 32. birthday.
• You must apply for this visa from outside Oz.
• There are no dependent children to travel with you.
• You need sufficient funds of money. Approximately 5,000AUD (ca. 2.900 EUR)
• You need a return flight or additional money to be able to pay it.
  

For further information check the official immigration site: >klick<

Second step:

Apply for the second Working Holiday Visa.

• To be eligable to do so I must complete three months of specified work in regional Australia.
• For applications there are the same age rules as for the first visa. So you should have done those three months before your 31. birthday.
• If applying from outside Oz you must be outside Oz when getting the visa granted.
  
• If you apply from within Oz you must be within Oz when getting the visa granted. Easy, eh?

For further information: >klick<

This is planning for the next two years. Enough to think about for the moment. As I always have to have the requirements for the second year in my mind I think that will keep me busy.

Learning to play the Settlers of Catan

Thanks to my curious koala I found a great help for learning how to play the Settlers of Catan! :-)

Here is Prof. Easy giving a lifelike tutorial:

The Settlers of Catan


Hope you enjoy it!

Hide & Seek

My russian hamster Michiko surely is a "bigger=better"-hamster. As I can't provide her enough space in her aquarium I thought long about this topic. Letting her run in the living room under supervision was nearly impossible because she woke up when I went to bed. And trust me, I don't go to bed early!

So there was only one way: Letting her run around in the living room on her own. Making sure that there are no cables lying around and no place where she can hurt herself I started trying it.

It's working good for several weeks now. She collects the sunflower seeds I hide for her anywhere and is back in her aquarium in the mornings. I wasn't always sure for that but after hearing a little scratch I was satisfied. I had to close the aquarium over days because of the birds and when I'm at home I leave doors open...

Well, one day I discovered that she made herself a little nest in my shelf. Hidden behind my board games...
A small larder.
And her bed. (Don't notice the torn down wallpaper...)

I had already laid newspaper in this place because she had always liked hiding in there. For long time nothing had changed and suddenly there was all this bedding in there! She carried her toilet paper across the whole living room!

The Game of Life

The Game of Life is a huge board game full of stations in your life. You start moving as a single person in a car, you can choose to go to university, you get a job, an income and you marry. If you get children is luck and if you win or loose money is also a good part luck. Buying life insurances is a very good idea because after you retire you usually have to pay a lot of things.
Instead of dices this game is played with a colourful wheel. Sometimes there are moments in your life where you have to stop. And sometimes you have to decide to go the right way.

This is my car on its way through life. I married a woman and we adopted twins, a girl and a boy.

The game has a lot of charme, maybe because I played it a lot when I was young (I used to marry men, so it really is ages away!).

I give it 8 out of 10 points.

Schweppes©

Yes, I confess. I love tonic water. Pure. No gin. Just plain tonic water! And as I'm a curious girl I wanted to try more from my favourite tonic water brand.

Schweppes©
My favourites are Indian Tonic Water, Bitter Orange and Ginger Ale. Californian Citrus Summer I discovered new. It's sweet soda and quite ok. I still prefer the bitter taste.

These are some bottles I bought in France. Peach and Coconut are Schweppes© flavours you can't buy in Germany. For whatever reason. They are sweet but I still like them! The yellow tonic bottles are another brand, I haven't tried them yet. But I'm always curious to test drinks.

Goodbye-Shirt

This t-shirt was made under bad omens.

Something happened that has never happened before when fixing the color to the fabric. As I painted the front and back side I placed the shirt in a rather adventurous way in my oven and I think I decided to use the wrong heating style.
Well, I burned it.
It had a brown scar on the backside and when I tried to rub it off I suddenly had a hole in the fabric!

Ok, two possibilities: paint it new or recycle.

I chose to recycle it. To get more traveller style. I cut out the painted fabric parts that luckily were unscared. Then I glued it onto a new shirt to keep it in place while sewing it on.

Some days later I noticed that on the front there were glue spots visible! Ok, I thought about it and searched for some iron patches to hide the spots.

Iron ready, patches placed. A cloth over the first patch, ironing for 3-4 minutes. Turned it over!
I ironed the patch onto the cloth!
Now I got really mad!
I teared a hole into the cloth with trying to get the butterfly off again. Then I glued the first butterfly and the second was perfectly ironed.


Thanks for reading. The story behind the t-shirt is self-explaining. In English it means: "And I'm gone then..."

Front


Back

I just hope my adventure is not such a failure as this shirt!