So long!

Hi All.

  
I'm not sure, but you have probably noticed that my blogging has been a bit uninspired lately. I feel like I need my head space for other things. So I have decided to sew some wildflower seeds in this here place and let it overgrow. I will probably still post photos, so that my family (and whoever else might be interested) can see what I've been up to, but there won't be any regularity or many words. I want to concentrate on life and making things happen instead of dreaming about them. I don't have any big plans, but I'm craving freedom at the moment. Freedom to do what feels right to me. This has been a joyful place to come to for over a year, but sadly, writing posts does not feel like the thing I need to do at the moment.

Abandoning my daily online diary doesn't mean that I won't be back with a lawnmower in the future, but for now, this shall be a quiet little plot, where spiders might build their webs and leaves will gather in the fall. I am sorry if you are a new reader and were expecting good things to happen here. And if you are somebody who has been around for a while, I hope you forgive me for turning my back on you. I will miss the company, and I hope you do not mind me visiting you without ever inviting you back to mine!

If you want to keep in touch outside of this blog, do write me an email! But don't be surprised if I take a while to answer. That's just me, it doesn't mean that I don't like you anymore!

So, I will leave it at this and say: to friendship, to new horizons, to life!

 

Big love, 

  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

 

 

Fine Tuning: Bruce Springsteen - We Take Care Of Our Own

See you tonight, Boss!

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  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Technology Loop

I finally signed up for Netflix and the first thing I started watching was Portlandia, which I've been wanting to do forever! I loved the show 10 minutes in, I can so relate to 90s nostalgia and chicken provenance. But what hit home most was the following scene. I feel like that a lot!

 
 © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Just because...

...they are cute and I love them!

Do you have somebody furry (scaly, feathery...) in your life? Tell me about them!

© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Fine Tuning: Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Two Against One

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  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Each Day In May...

Well, nearly each day, I took a picture with my phone for my very own photo challenge. I wanted to snap the alphabet, so I only have photos for 26 days, natch. A few people joined me and you can look at our collected efforts here. 

For this month, I am joining Fat Mum Slim again. Are you doing any challenges at the moment?

© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Goooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaal!

Coming to Germany at the beginning of June, it was hard to believe that I nearly missed kick-off for the 2012 Euro Cup here in England. There had not been much build-up to the European soccer championship at all, probably mostly due to the slightly unsatisfactory performance of the English team in recent tournaments. 

Driving through Holland on the way to my parents though, the atmosphere already started to change, with every service station being decked out in orange and billboards advertising products geared towards soccer fans looking to support their team by buying ice cream or burgers.
But my home country topped it all. More cars than not sported some kind of flag or sticker in German colours, and a visit to the grocery store revealed a whole cornucopia of products celebrating the German team, who are very popular after having played well for a while now.

You can start your day with eggs dyed black, red and gold or like a soccer ball.

Your sandwich will be topped with Nutella from a commerative jar.

 

During the match, you can pig out on themed gummi bears, M&Ms or chocolate with a soccer ball shape.

Not only your car will proudly wear your team colours, your whole family can support the country with panache, building up from the underpants.

Once you are appropriately kitted out, you can relax and watch the matches with your beer and a twin pack of chips. One part for the first half, and one for the second.

And when Germany wins, you can toast with whisky from your soccer shoe bottle! 

Marco and I watched the first Germany match in Cologne last Saturday, all proper in a beer garden. Luckily, 'we' beat Portugal 1:0. Shortly after the game ended, it started showing how crazy the Germans really are for soccer and their national heroes: our hotel was right by a popular area of town with bars and restaurants, so we could see and hear cars driving around honking and people waving flags until the early morning hours. I do hope that the team will do well, but I have a feeling that many of the fans might be bitterly disappointed if not, or already have burned all their energy celebrating their success so early on in the group stage. Tonight, 'we' play the Netherlands, and that should be a good game, although the Dutch are tough to beat.

If all fails for the German boys, I got allocated Greece in the sweepstakes at work, so I guess they will be my other team to support. Plus, I like Holland and England, too, so fingers crossed one of these four teams will make it far!

What about you guys? Do you enjoy the Euro Cup? Do you even get coverage where you live?

© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Giveaway at The Corner Of The Internet I Call Home

My friend Fiona from The Corner Of The Internet I Call Home recently hit 50 followers and is celebrating  this occasion by giving away a gorgeous necklace. Go HERE to enter.

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Fiona also recently emigrated from London to Perth in Australia and is slowly but surely settling into her new surroundings. Go check out her blog, because apart from getting to know Perth through her eyes, you will also find posts on ethical fashion, some yummy recipes for baked goods and a whole lotta blogging love!

© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Debbie Bliss Pattern Winner

I have certainly waited long enough to come forward with the announcement of the winner of the knitting pattern booklet, so just a quick drum roll now for commenter number 4, Grace! Email me your details and I will send your prize off to you as soon as!

Thank you, everybody who took part and left a comment!

© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Fine Tuning: Regina Spektor - All The Rowboats

 

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  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).  

Fine Tuning: Haim - Honey & I

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  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

No, seriously! Do you speak German? I ask because my good old friend Susanna has just gone and started a blog called Bücher, Essen etc.... In German. But maybe you would like to learn?! 
Susanna and I worked together in the same bookshop in Cologne for a few years, I lived with her for a little while and she did my bridal make-up. I will actually get to see her when Marco and I go to Germany next week, and I am very much looking forward to that! So far, Susanna has blogged about her cat Ratte, her bike, the town she lives in, and a few other snippets from her life. She shares vegan recipes as well! Overall, she is one lovely lady! I am really glad that I now have a real-life blogging friend!
Susanna speaks English too, though, so if you want to go and leave her a 'hello' instead of a 'hallo', I'm sure she will be pleased. In fact, why don't you go and welcome her into the blog world in any language whatsoever. Just tell her I sent you. Dankeschön!

© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Alright, then.

Seeing as that is the only bit of blue left in the London sky at the moment, I thought I might as well give you those updates on my projects I was talking about yesterday (when I said I did not feel like blogging...). I will just assume that me deciding to wash our pillows and duvet today is just coincidental with the weather deciding to give us some rain. Anything else is just too messed up to think about it! Well, at least I got almost everything dry before the first drops fell.
So, here is update number one, for le sky scarf:

I have arranged all my balls of wool neatly in cups and glasses on a tray. So far, everything has stayed tangle-free. It also lets me easily store the project on the living room cabinet, well out of the way of my darling cats. 

You can see that since I started at the beginning of May, the weather has been pretty grey, except for the last glorious week and a half. I have not yet used any of the deep summer blue, but fortunately also none of the thunderstorm grey. Although today I might have to...

Update number two is for the wedding quilt:

I'm done with cutting out the squares. All 270 of them! Suddenly this project is starting to seem a bit daunting again. But it's been fun so far, and I can see the finished quilt vaguely in my mind. Onwards and upwards, ho! I believe it can be achieved.

Which leaves update number three, my lovely craft room:

The floor turned out beautiful! Whenever I go upstairs now, I need to factor in about 10 minutes of staring at the light wood and the pretty wallpaper. I have not moved in yet, before that happens I will need a trip to Ikea and the hardware store to get supplies to build a desk and shelves. This won't happen until after we're back from Germany. But that's okay, as I have been using the room as a workshop for refurbishing a little cabinet that is going to go next to my side of the bed. Yay! That's another project I will hopefully be able to show you soon!

© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

It's Too Darn Hot

I must apologize for still being a bit unreliable with my blogging. It's finally summer in England (let's hope it lasts for more than a week!) and sitting in front of my laptop has not been a priority. I have not quite been tap-dancing around my living room in a bathing suit, but the picture of Mae pretty much conveys what I feel like doing at the moment. Letting the sun warm my bones! I have a book review to write for Forever Free and I could show you progress on my wedding quilt and my sky scarf, so hopefully I will get those things up here soon. 

But I must warn you that I also have a Germany vacation planned next week, to go to my parents' housewarming and then to spend some time with friends in Essen and Cologne, so there might not be much posting happening then, either. But I have a feeling I might bring back photos...

To be honest, at the moment I am kinda thinking of giving myself the whole summer off, but I think I would miss you guys too much! So for now, please bear with me while I tend to life.

For something to do, maybe you would like to enter my knitting pattern giveaway?

   © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Fine Tuning: Kanye West - All Of The Lights

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© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).