Happy New Year

Here we are, folks. The last day of the year.

I have to admit, I had a pretty good year. My first two novellas came out this year with The Wild Rose Press. I’ve made some great new friends between this blog, Facebook and Twitter. I got to go RWA National Convention, I made PRO, I finished up my associate degree I’ve been working on forever, and I’m back to writing full-time. Those are just the highlights. I can’t complain.

I’m expecting next year to be even better. I’ve got a full load planned for writing, I’ve got great friends and critique partners to help keep me on track, I’ll be starting my bachelor degree, and I’ll be pursuing an agent this year. I’m excited to get started.

I'll be spending the evening with wonderful friends, playing games and having fun. Tomorrow is family day and Sunday I'll be winging my way back to Germany to brave the snow.

How has 2010 treated you? What are your highlights? What have you got planned for 2011?

Have fun celebrating, but stay safe.

Happy New Year!

Holidays: The End of your Healthy Lifestyle?

I’m winging my way across the ocean today (plane and weather gods willing) while you read this. Hopefully on Friday, I will be writing from sunny Texas.

Weightloss Wednesday, right before Christmas. What shall we talk about?

Should we discuss all the cakes, cookies and pies everywhere we turn? How about fat-laden mashed potatoes, all the bread you can eat, and the alcohol that flows freely at holiday parties?

What’s a poor girl trying to make healthy choices to do?

Give it all up until after the first of the year? We could do that. But that’s 2 weeks and if you’re anything like me, you’ll take license to eat whatever you want and to damn the rest. When it’s time to start back up again, you’ve gained back that 20 pounds you lost before Christmas.

Deprive yourself? You watch everyone around you shoving all those calories down their throats without abandon. You start feeling left out. Then is desperation, or possibly even spite, you indulge. And indulge and indulge and indulge.

Neither of these options sound all that appealing, do they? With a plan in place, you can weather the holidays, indulging in the traditions that make up your family holiday and keeping on a healthy track. After all, balance is what it’s all about, right?

If you have a holiday gathering, eat a little less during the day beforehand and get in your exercise. You’ll feel more in control and by conserving some calories and burning more with the exercise, the food you eat at the party won’t make a dent in your plan.

If you’re hanging with the family, incorporate some healthy snacks along with the baked goodies. If you eat a bunch of low-cal veggies, you don’t have as much room to hold the high-cal foods. You may even find that you don’t crave them as much as you thought you would.

There’s always lots of alcohol at holiday parties, right? You can still indulge. In moderation. Alternate glasses of wine with sparkling water. Or do like the Germans do and mix half wine and half sparkling wine. That’s a popular drink over here and it cuts your alcohol intake in half.

One important thing to remember is that the holidays are separate events. If you stick to your healthy lifestyle most days and indulge at those special parties or family gatherings only, you’ll still be on track in January.

What are some of the ways you balance your healthy lifestyle with the holidays?

A German Kirwa

A Kirwa (pronounced keer-va) is a local festival, usually in the fall. Each region has their own customs and traditions. Speichersdorf had their Kirwa last weekend. On Sunday, we walked down to the Landgasthof Imhof, a local restaurant. All the fun started there. On the previous Wednesday, the ‘grave’ of the Kirwa was put out.

This will stay out all week and was just taken down yesterday.

We started off with a parade. Two young girls (twins) pulled the cart, followed by a band playing traditional Bavarian music.

Then came the young couples. Each couple followed behind, the men carrying a krug of…you guessed it, beer.

The parade went around a loop in town and stopped in a clearing. Once there, the young couples formed a circle and the men put their krugs in the center of the circle.

Then they danced.

After a few dances, the men would take a drink and head back to their ladies for more dancing. Then they headed out and continued their parade.

They made a total of 3 stops, the last one ending where it all began, in the parking lot of the restaurant. They danced some more and then they formed a half circle. Here, the men took turns saying little poems of the happenings in the town over the past year. After each man spoke, the band would play.

After every man had said what they wanted to say, the entire procession posed for pictures.

Afterwards, it was time to move inside for…you guessed it, a beer.

Happy 4th of July

As you know, yesterday was July 4th, our nation’s birthday. Normally, we all celebrate (I think) with cook-outs and fireworks. Being here in Germany, we still do that as there are enough Americans in the community to celebrate. The neat thing is that the Germans will come out and celebrate with us.

Also, this year marks the 100th year of Grafenwoehr being a military post. There have been all kinds of activities throughout the week, such as a recreation of the first shot fired here  and culminated in a big celebration yesterday.

I work part time at the craft shop on post. As such, I am an employee of MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) and had to work yesterday. It wasn’t too bad. My co-workers and I had to run a food tent selling hamburgers, cheeseburgers and steak. I got to take the money since I don’t have a food handler’s card.

The weather co-operated a bit as it wasn’t quite as hot and humid and it was overcast with a breeze so it was comfortable all day. There were those blow-up things with the balls for kids to play in, food (as I mentioned) and a couple bands, finishing off with a bang. Literally. Fireworks, you know.

One of the bands was a local German band. I didn’t catch their name so I can’t pass it along, but they were pretty good. The other band was pretty cool. They played covers, but the vocals were good and they got the crowd going. The USO brought them in from the States. Maybe you’ve heard of them. The Lt. Dan Band. Yes, Gary Sinise’s band.

Gary Sinise, currently of CSI: NY fame, plays bass in the band. He’s pretty good. Afterwards, some of the soldiers and their spouses got to have their picture taken with him. I wasn’t so lucky, but it was neat that he flew all the way here with his family to party with us.

So, that’s how I spent my 4th of July. How about you? How did you celebrate?

Zoigl Bier

Saturday night, we got another taste of Germany that not every tourist gets when they visit. Zoigl bier.

Zoigl bier is brewed in two small towns here in the area where I live. It's brewed by communal brewers so it's also called Communbier.

Zoigl is a beer style going back to the times when brewing rights were granted to individuals living in a defined area of town. They place a sign outside the gasthaus, a star often called the Star of David, when the Zoigl bier is ready.

It is only available when this star is out, but oh what a party it is. My neighbors organized this outing. It was our upstairs neighbors, our next door neighbors and then a couple of American friends of mine from post. We hired a taxi for the 30 minute ride each way so that we could all imbibe.

It's called a bottom-filtered beer. Personally, I don't really know what the difference is, but I'm always up for a party. The place we went was a converted house and we were sitting in the garage. They also serve great snacks. I had the cheese plate for dinner. In the middle of the plate was sauer käse or sour cheese. It was actually cheese that was marinated in vinegar and onions. It was pretty tasty.

 They also made fresh pretzels in the same star shape as their signs, but I forgot to get a picture of that. Oops. It was too good and we tore into it right away. We had a good time talking, laughing, eating and drinking Zoigl bier.

As I said before, not many tourists get to experience this side of Germany. Not unless they know about it and can find the small taverns that serve it. I feel lucky, once again, that our German neighbors have taken us under their wing, befriended us and include us in these jaunts around the area. I can honestly say that when my time here is over, I will have experienced Germany as most Americans have not.

Oh, an aside. Armin, my neighbor upstairs told my friend Sabrina that though he had an accent when he spoke English, I've been learning a lot of German and when I speak it, I have no accent. I sound like a German. Cool, huh?

So, who's coming over to visit this summer to try the Zoigl bier?

Birthdays

Today is hubby's birthday. It's the big 4-0. It's funny how we react when we reach a certain age.

I remember when hubby turned 30. He had such a hard time adjusting to it. Me, it's a number. I still think I look pretty good for my age. Some people have mentioned I look younger. Okay, I'll take it. But I'm not particularly upset by getting older.

I wonder if it's because people start thinking of things they want to do and see their time ticking away, faster and faster. Perhaps that's why getting older doesn't bother me so much. I'm doing the things that I love to do. I'm married to a wonderful and supportive husband that I love, I have my puppy, I have an awesome family that has always supported and loved me, I'm pursuing a writing career and I'm working on my college degree (finally). Of course, there are other, smaller things I'd like to accomplish but I have time and if I run out of that commodity, the big picture is pretty rosy that I'm not going to shed any tears.

Last week was my puppy's birthday, as far as we know. She just turned 4. We got her from the humane society in Brownwood, TX and were told that the litter of pups was left with a note saying the mother had died the previous day giving birth.

I found her picture on Petfinder.com and convinced my husband to go "look" at her. As soon as I saw her, I had this feeling deep inside that she was meant to be a part of our family. Hubby knew that if we went to "look" at her, we were bringing her home with us. Oh, yeah, did I mention that Brownwood was about 100 miles from where we lived? Yeah, she was coming home with us.

She was 7 weeks old when we got her. 3 pounds of wiggly puppy that fit in my hand, she grabbed onto my heart and though she's 20 pounds now and quite the mouthy little thing, I love her as if she were my child.

So today I wish my husband a very happy birthday with many more to come and my puppy, Peanut, a belated happy birthday (although she did get her Frosty Paws last week). Thank you both for filling my life with love.

Back to Business

First of all, thank you to all who posted well wishes for me Friday. It was a happy day for me, though I did have to work the part time job that day. I was bursting to tell everyone, although my coworkers are tired of hearing about it, I'm sure. Suzanne, you are the winner of a free copy of Stellar Heat. Please email me at riley@riley-quinn.com with the email you want it sent to.

This past weekend was a busy weekend. We started off Saturday with a trip into post to do laundry. I think once we know we're staying longer, I'm getting a washer and dryer for the apartment. The German version is much different though, but trekking into post and then NOT being able to do laundry… When we showed up at the laundromat, it was full of soldiers. I mean, every single machine taken. I've never seen it that busy before. So we headed to the PX (Post Exchange – kinda like Walmart) and an early lunch.

Outside the PX was a Turkish company selling carpets. Now, we've lived here over a year. We've needed carpets for the living room for all this time, but we finally got around to buying some Saturday. Below is a picture of the large one. The couch (in pieces, as you can see) sits on it perfectly and I think the coffee table we have coming will slide right into place. We have a smaller rug and a runner coming that should be here on Wednesday. Once we get the furniture (end of May *fingers crossed*), I'll post a pic of the whole effect. I can't believe the difference the one rug makes.

Then we ate lunch, bought groceries and headed home where we were promptly invited to join the neighbors behind us for dinner. Our neighbor's birthday was Saturday and his son's birthday was Sunday so we celebrated by grilling out. I know I've talked about German food before but have I mentioned the spread they put out? Yum. We had bratwurst, bauch (not sure if I'm spelling it right) which is kind of like really thick bacon, and pork steaks along with potato salad, pasta salad, bread and stuffed banana peppers. Everything was so good.

Sunday I did some work in the office, had my chat with my accountability group and then trekked upstairs for another birthday party. There were 3 kinds of cake, coffee and then later in the evening, baked trout. I swear, I don't know how Germans keep from being huge. Must be the schnapps.

So, lovely weekend with beautiful weather. Yesterday it reached 75 and was sunny. As my neighbor, Renate, said, "Balcony season is open." Today is more like the Germany I'm used to, though. It's overcast and rainy. Cooler than yesterday, but still about 60. I guess that's good incentive to get my work done, right. So, I'm off to the laundromat for another try, along with my trusty AlphaSmart. I really want to finish those last two chapters of the rough draft of OOTS this week.

What was your weekend like? Busy? Relaxing? Good weather?

Rosenmontag

Today is another taste of Germany - a very wild taste.

In Germany and other German-speaking countries like Austria and Switzerland, today is a very festive day, the high point of Fasching (fah-shing). Fasching, or German Karneval, is much like Mardi Gras in the States and Rosenmontag, or Rose Monday, is comparable to Fat Tuesday in New Orleans.

Celebrations usually include dressing up in costumes, dancing in the streets, parades and heavy drinking. Drinking in Germany? No way! Though not a national holiday, in many of the cities that strongly follow tradition (Cologne, Dusseldorf, Mainz), many companies and schools close the Thursday before Rosenmontag through Tuesday. Just before midnight on Tuesday, there is a solemn procession to the Rathaus (rot-house), or city hall and they usher in Ash Wednesday and Lent.

You can see what a fun bunch the Germans can be!





Ever been to Mardi Gras? If so, care to share your experience?