145/365 Wednesday, 05/25/2011

I have a bad habit...when watching movies alone I tend to stop and start them pretty randomly, sometimes watching two of them more or less at the same time...such is the case with this one...Werner Herzog's  "Encounters at the End of the World" I liked this image of the team doing survival training--wearing a bucket on their heads is meant to simulate how much they would see in a snow storm. I haven't seen the rest of the film yet but I will.

144/365 Tuesday, 05/24/2011

This is a picture of my most typical breakfast--some kind of (not to sweet) cereal, with some kind of berry, usually straw or blueberries and 2% milk. Sometimes I have a German breakfast instead, i.e. bread with cheese or some kind of meat (ham, turkey)or sometimes jam.

143/365 Monday, 05/23/2011

Just a quick picture of a folder I got somewhere. This was taken fairly late on Monday evening, which is when I realized I had forgotten to take one for Sunday, so the Sunday picture was actually taken during this session as well...

(142/365) Sunday, 05/22/2011

So why is this post in parentheses? Because I am liar, liar and my pants are on fire....this shot was actually taken on Monday and is functioning as a fill-in for Sunday, on which I took absolutely no pictures...this isn't even a case of taking a picture after 12am and saying it belongs to the previous day, no this is a flat out cheated picture..I got a bit busy and preoccupied--did some gardening and started mowing the lawn (until the lawn mower decided to stop working) hence picture-taking was not in the forefront of my mind...hope this doesn't happen too often in the future...

141/365 Saturday, 05/21/2011

This a picture of the town where I'll be living as of August this year. It's a nice university town...a bit sleepy in the summer (bit not as catatonic as Albion tends to be unfortunately) and I'm sure full of life once school starts in August.The University has almost ten times the number of students that Albion has--so it's no wonder they are much more of a presence in the town--which is actually population wise (w.o. students) a bit smaller than Albion. I'm looking forward to it and have already busied my self with list-making and move-planning...( I'm a big list-maker, planner...) 

140/365 Friday, 05/20/2011

Bill and I decided to take a somewhat spontaneous road trip to the town and university where I will be living and working for the upcoming academic year, August 2011-May 2012.

This all happened very suddenly and unexpectedly, but in the end I'm happy I'll be working again and getting paid and benefits and all that good stuff...As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog when all the sad/bad stuff went down in 2010 I made the decision to forgo the terminal year of teaching in order to more quickly gain some psychic distance to what happened. It was the right thing to do, but I'm glad I'll be teaching again in the fall. Our route took us almost due South right through Berne, Indiana--which happens to be home to a large Amish population.  I'm glad I was able to be discreet when I got this shot--it's kind of strange to be taking pictures of people just going about their business. Berne, Indiana is also interesting because of it's rather imposing clock tower which is a replica of one in the other Berne, the capital of Switzerland. 

139/365 Thursday, 05/19/2011

Sometimes when I plan out our weekly menus I get overly ambitious... such was the case on this day, when I started and Bill continued making falafel. They just didn't turn out quite right--the consistency and the spices. To be honest I think falafel will be something I seek out at a restaurant instead of making myself...but I was proud of my dicing skills and thought they should be documented...

138/365 Wednesday, 05/18/2011

We have almost finished rewatching the Sopranos. We actually never watched the final season or even much of season five. I liked the earlier seasons better, but overall it was still a very good show. Crazy people, crazy violent people, and people living in total denial...very well acted, and written plus great use of music. 

137/365 Tuesday, 05/17/2011

This is a screen shot of the rather odd movie that I watched while ironing my clothes on this Tuesday. I received a completely unexpected phone call that threw me into a bit of a tizzy for the rest of the day.

This movie, the title of which I don't want to give a way yet, since people are trying to guess it on the very active "Name that film" group on flickr was not nearly as enjoyable and endearing as the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, which we had seen earlier even though they have somewhat similar subject matter. 

136/365 Monday 05/16/2011

I like to crochet while I/we watch our television shows (that we either watch via netflix dvds, or netflix streaming on our "Roku"). I'm not very good at it and usually just crochet scarves or square pieces of various sizes. I have real problems with gauge--and with adding extra stitches. This small square (its folded over in the picture) was also a bit uneven in the end--the last part was wider than the first. Since I've just found out that I will be teaching again full-time for the upcoming academic year, I'm thinking of starting an easy long-term project--probably involving granny squares. I think it will be a nice way to de-stress from teaching--pop a dvd in, sit back with a cat or two and crochet a couple of granny squares...might be a  nice way to spend an evening.

135/365 Sunday, 05/15/2011

I was going to post a picture from the documentary we watched as the pic of the day, but then decided to post this one of a pretty sunset that I took standing on my porch instead. 

134/365 Saturday, 05/14/2011

Another day on which not a lot of pictures were taken...And so this one of Sophie underneath the butterfly shower curtain will have to suffice.

133/365 Friday 05/13/2011

Bill took out all the second glass panes in our second story windows and replaced them with screens. Our windows are old and need to be replaced but so far we haven't done that yet....(this one reason why I think we are doing ok money-wise-we tend to take a long time before we actually spend it...at least on bigger things...).

Mieze--our cat who is obsessed with looking out windows especially enjoys sitting "in" the window and looking out of the screen. 

132/365 Thursday, 05/12/2011

The blue jays are a confounding species--I like their colors and markings, but they do have obnoxious personalities (birdsonalities..) they squawk loudly and fight with each other.  I'm not sure if they are aggressive with other species, the way the grackles definitely are--e.g. a grackle would not abide a sparrow right next to it, which is what is going on here. But I maybe I'm wrong--I'll keep my eyes open.

131/365 Wednesday, 05/11/2011

I had to mail something and walked up to the Albion College student center, which has a post office. On the way I took a picture of these tulips that are in Albion's colors of purple and "gold"/yellow. 

130/365 Tuesday, 05/10/2011

So to be brutally honest it was after 12am when I took this picture. I thought the theme expressed by the book title was therefore appropriate for this post...I first became aware of Brené Brown through her TED speech that I came to probably via twitter. (It's on her website in the sidebar)  I'm in the process of trying to "let go of who I thought I was supposed to be" and am honing in on at least not completely hating who I actually am....the embracing will take a little longer--maybe until I've read her book... :-)

129/365 Monday, 05/09/2011

Hans likes to go for walks outside. I sometimes let him out without a leash but usually I put one on. He tends to wander less with the leash. 

128/365 Sunday 05/08/2011

I could have sworn I already blogged about this--actually I'm pretty sure I did...Blogger must have screwed up somehow and lost it--anyway it's just a picture of Bill and his mom walking in the metroparks near her apartment after our scrumptious brunch/lunch at Cracker Barrel where we waited  for our table in rocking chairs outside the store.

127/365 Saturday, 05/07/2011

A dark picture for a dark day. 

126/365 Friday 05/06/2011

A spring time shot of downtown Albion. This is one of the nicer - if not the nicest looking building on the main street-the home of Park's drugstore. 

Josh Lyman & Donna - The West Wing

125/365 Thursday, 05/05/2011
I've re-watched the whole West Wing series thanks to netflix. The last two seasons were different because the emphasis was on the Santos campaign. Jimmy Smits for president--yes pleeease!!! ;-)
The earlier seasons had subtitles in English and since Bill and I always like to watch things with subtitles I got very used to them. The later seasons dropped the English subtitles for some reason and only have them in French and Spanish. My French is better than my Spanish and I like seeing how they translate - often very America-specific - words and concepts. I like to think that watching it this way is also improving my French vocab a bit too. 

124/365 Wednesday, 05/04/2011

I had to run a couple of errands downtown on this day, so on the way back I took a picture of a historical marker commemorating a local story about "Mother's Day in Albion." Here's the Wikipedia entry on "Mother's day" which mentions the Albion connection.

123/365 Tuesday, 05/03/2011

I took this in the evening just outside my front door. I liked how the sky looked behind the big tree, plus all the dark buildings and lights.

122/365 Monday, 05/02/2011

This was taken last Monday--I worked hard to finish a book review I had promised would be ready by 04/30. 

121/365 05/01/2011

I took this after we had finished our breakfast at Roma's in Marshall, Michigan, at a fairly early hour Sunday. The reason it was early is that I was driving. I'm still slowly getting more used to driving and I really like driving early on Sunday's -- you can probably guess why...(very little traffic). I'm just going to keep on driving as much as I can until I feel comfortable enough to try for the license again. 

120/2011 Saturday, 04/30/2011

About every 8-10 weeks I schedule a haircut appointment in Ann Arbor--about 50 minutes east of Albion, off of Highway 94. Except for the traffic, we do love Ann Arbor -it's the perfect University town--interesting people, nice places to eat and/or hang out and of course a wider range of grocery stores, including our favorite--Trader Joe's. I was going to post this picture of a mural as the shot of the day, but since this blog about my "Alltag" --- my everyday life, I thought a shot of Trader Joe's kind of fit that theme better. We got lots of yummy goodies as usual. 

119/2011 Friday, 04/29/2011

Apologies for back-to-back Georgie picks...just didn't think to get a better one--plus I kind of like this one: two screens and a fluffy head!

118/365 Thursday, 04/28/2011

Just a quick one for this day--Georgie snoozing on my chair.

117/365 Wednesday, 04/27/2011

I'm not sure why, but we are seeing more goldfinches at the feeder this year. One reason may be that I am home a lot more and have more time to watch the birds. I had never seen three at the feeder like this before. And just the other day I saw two rose-breasted grosbeaks and another striking orange and black bird that was either a black-headed grosbeak or maybe even a Baltimore oriole!! I'll try and get a picture. 

116/365 Tuesday 04/26/2011

It's dead relative day here once again on Auspicious Alltag!! This charming image is of my paternal grandmother: Gertrude Prietz, who I'm pretty sure is the one sitting on the bench with her twin sister, (sitting on the arm of the bench) (whose name I don't have--if I find it I'll add it). I'm not sure why, but I truly love this picture--their faces, the pretty white dresses, their hair, the soft focus that makes it all kind of glow. It's a very sweet photo. 

115/365 Monday, 04/25/2011

Not a very interesting or pretty shot but I wanted to show different species hanging out around the feeder. In this case two mourning doves and a little black/brown squirrel.The doves are funny to watch. They waddle around on the ground bobbing their heads.  They generally follow each other, or rather it looks likes the male follows the female around and occasionally he'll sort of pester her for some "attention". He nudges her head and just kind of gets in her face and she makes him go away. And he does and the eat for a while until it happens again. It's cute. 

114/365 Sunday, 04/24/2011

"24" is a show where suspending your disbelief and incredulity will only take you so far. You need to send that disbelief and incredultiy packing or else you won't make it through for more than a few minutes before you pause and think/say-wait how did they/he/she blahblahblah...It helps if you realize that Jack Bauer is indeed Superman and Chloe O'Brien is sometimes Superwomen at least when it comes to disarming suicide-bomb vests remotely from her computer screen and stuff like that...

Nevertheless it does pull you in--its like playing a really stupid but nevertheless addicting video/computer game. I decided this would be the shot for the day because it's Jack Bauer's rendition of a German weapons dealer. Just add a pair of Euro-looking glasses and a cheesy leather jacket and voilà-Jack reappears as "Ernst Mir".  Never mind that his accent makes his German sound like complete gibberish, his excuse being that living in America for so long has rubbed off on his speech---apparently to the point of it becoming unintelligible to people who actually do speak German... ;-)