"Blumen!", K-town Freshmarket, & August Happenings...

Yay mail!!!! I have been waiting for this package for about a month. Nothing excites me more than high-end ingredients for The Sugar Queen's magical kitchen!!! Nielsen Massey is one of my absolute favorite companies for quality flavorings. To me, their vanillas represent the best in quality and taste. Try chocolate chip cookies with the Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla and you will never be the same. Dana was kind enough to bring this box of goodies home to be during his lunch break. I'm making cupcakes for Crystal's baby shower this weekend, so I am thrilled to get these flavorings!!!

The month of August flew by.... I still can hardly believe that it's over. We managed to cram a whole bunch of furniture into this house, catch several festivals, and as always-- projects!!!! I want to do my best to give an update, because I've edited a TON of photos in the past few days... figured ya'll could enjoy them!

When D and I were moving furniture one weekend, we passed by this field near Weilerbach. This seems so normal to me now, but I realized it would be something my stateside friends and family would appreciate... particularly my dad. There are Germans who grow an assortment of flowers in fields by the road... then come the right time, the field is full of blooms! You can park by the road and make your way through the fields to pick out your favorite flowers. Then you drop the appropriate amount of euro in the coin box and take home your fresh blooms!!! I was SO excited!!!! D & I bought a gorgeous bunch of gladiolas that looked so lovely in our clean house. Chelsea R. - I wish you had been here, because we would have gone and spent the day among the sunflowers!

The same day we had to drive to a city near Bahn to pick up the new queen mattress. Along the way we passed this field. I was in awe of how the sky touched the fields full of wheat. I definitely made D pull over so I could get some shots. I'm really glad we stopped, even though I was forced to make friends with a rather large arachnid.

Paula & I spent alot of time together toward the end of August. She had come to me with the prospect of making pillows for her couch out of these beautiful linen towels she bought at a bazaar. We went to the fabric store near Globus and bought these awesome brass buttons to sew on front. Then it was time to break out the sewing machine! I was so excited for her and how the pillows turned out. Especially with the lace.

That day I didn't have my fabric yet to recover my pillows, so Paula, Jen, & I made another fabric trip to IKEA the next week. "WHAT?" you say... "IKEA HAS FABRIC??!?" yeah.... this was news to me too! I loved their prints and it was much cheaper than the fabric store near Globus. I wanted such a clean look for my living room particularly since we're painting the wall behind the couch a med. dark gray. I spent a day by myself lost in sewing land making the pillows for our couch. My hands hurt from hand stitching them shut... without a thimble. (Now I completely understand why my mother always had one...) Totally worth it though!!!! I was thrilled with the result! One house project down!

Paula had also told me about the fresh-market in Kaiserslautern. It's held every Tuesday and Saturday morning year round! You can get so many awesome things here! A fresh produce lovers dreamland! It was a blast walking through the different booths. I bought the most delicious peaches I have ever tasted in my life. Seriously. So delicious that my husband was & is STILL hooked on peaches. YUM! I was a bit shy about taking photos because I didn't want to get yelled at by German farmers.... and I think in order to be the photographer I want to become, I'm gonna need to shelve that fear A-sap. But some of these turned out fun! Thanks P for taking me on such a fun food adventure!

LIBRARY NEWS
The library is coming along!!!! My fairy-god-mother Amy was kind enough to pass along some furniture she was getting rid of. Including a perfect mad-scientist table! So I was finally able to move all of my mess from the dining room table to the office, where it belongs. Now my calligraphy-ing can be tucked away in a small corner of our apartment. Now I just have to organize! *sigh* Pinterest, here I come.... We were also able to commandeer an espresso machine from RYS. For $20!!! It's not a fancy one, but because both D & I worked at Starbucks, we know the in's and out's of pulling espresso shots & steaming milk. Which means we macgyver our own lattes. I love it! Particularly since we can buy the fancy syrups at Globus... and I can have an Amaretto latte on a daily basis! Heck yeah man!

WHY TILE FLOORS ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND...
We have had more broken glass in this apartment than any other place I have stored in my memory. From the shattered glass that comes in the mail to the shattered glass on the kitchen tile floor, you take serious risks running around our apartment barefoot. D feels alot better when I wear house shoes. I can't figure it out though...  I wonder if we simply have more glassware here? or if tile floors are really that bad. Either way, when P was over the other day, I was making us lunch and managed to cause this catastrophe. Brand new bottle of balsamic vinegar. Gone. Finito. Destroyed. Not to mention our kitchen reeked of vinegar... Not my idea of a good smell. P helped me clean it up though... what a trooper. So as much as I'm trying to be extra careful... accidents still seem to happen. So my conclusion is that tile floors follow Murphy's Law, despite your over-attentiveness at avoiding disasters.

MACARON OBSESSION LIVES ON
P went into France a couple of weeks ago and was kind enough to bring back macarons for me! I was so unbelieveably thrilled. These things disappear in our house like magic. There one minute, poof.... gone, the next. I have been dying to try out a new recipe soon, I just can't manage to have time on a day where it isn't rainy and overcast (a macaron no-no). So meanwhile, this will have to hold me.

Tonight is date-night and D is cooking! I'm jumping up and down ecstatic! I'm going to try my hardest to be good and NOT micromanage. I'm going to take deep soothing breaths and just "let it go...". He's making a gnocchi dish so this should be fun! Tomorrow I head to O-berg for my escape day with Jen! Saturday is Crystal's Baby Shower and Sunday D has an honor guard detail bright and early in the morning. Typical jam packed week at the Wollschlager's... I hope everyone enjoyed the update! There is so much more to come! I miss and love you guys!