Clutter Rears Its Ugly Head Again

Lest I forget the original raison d´etre of this blog, I am still floundering over the above. This is the “cleverly” concealed pile of clutter that I have cleverly relocated to my son´s room and covered with a blanket- and in the corner of the photo you can also see an “in progress” garbage bag!

I have to get this sorted out this weekend- the sun is shining and I feel tired but good. My family have gone camping and I am all about peace and quiet at home (no, I am not sad about being alone at home Easter morning – I will enjoy the much needed solitude too much! and also have guaranteed uninterrupted sleep for however long they stay away).

Yet…..this is the last bit of clutter in the apartment (bar the usual exception- my wardrobes) …and it is not going away. I think I can pick away at this bit by bit and still get out for a bike ride (yes, I am still riding) in the sun to pick up some groceries. German shops must be closed on public holidays and Sundays, which means that today in the only day in four that they are open!

If I am “good” this weekend, I will also download CDs on itunes and get rid of them too…but one thing at a time.

My Spacious Self arrived this morning, sending my husband into paroxyms of mirth. He thinks I buy decluttering books without actually doing anything about it…though he does acknowledge the progress I have made at home. I am saving it for hospital in any case.

On a lighter note, here is the spread from yesterday´s biergarten picnic at Gauting.

Filed under: Decluttering to get my life back, Easter

Easter Egg Decorating

Hard boiled egg decorating is extremely popular here in Germany for Easter and luckily they are also a very popular snack!

I bought two kits from the many available and we might be trying them later today depending on how things go in the kitchen (we are doing biergarten picnics with friends Friday and Sunday (at a minimum) and I am cooking zucchini slice, meatloaf, tomato bruschetta, potato tortilla and cakes to take along as well as fresh salad ingredients!).

One of the kits has egg colours and then a “magic pen” to draw on the eggs with and the other kit also has egg colours with silver paper that you rub on afterwards for a glitter effect. I was also tempted by the marbling kit and the wax decorating kit, but really not sure how many boiled eggs we can get through! Miss Seven is very keen to decorate but doesn´t want to eat them…

The other option would be blowing the raw egg out and decorating the hollow shell for decorations to hang on branches, however I don´t think I have time for this today – next year I will try and start earlier .

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They turned out just like the picture on the box . The kids really enjoyed doing the dyeing and rubbing of the silver paper and we will take these eggs to our picnic tomorrow. The “magic pen” eggs we will do on Saturday for Sunday´s picnic. Eight eggs here, though I boiled ten – one broke in the pan and the other we ate after dyeing to check that they were cooked properly

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I forgot to mention a recollection I had. As a child we always spent Easter with my Polish grandparents and after collecting brown onion skins all year long, my grandmother would boil eggs in brown onion skin water to make lovely brown coloured eggs.

Then the more patient of us would sit at the table with sharp knives and painstakingly scratch designs into the brown to reveal a hint of white underneath – usually sheaves of wheat for some reason – though we would also draw flowers, lambs and write Easter messages.

I didn´t know until I did some research today that they are called Drapanki. This photo here shows the kind of effect you get more clearly. I will try this with my children in the future when they are old enough to handle sharp knives

Filed under: Easter, Things the children and I have done