eBay small ads - the struggle is real :-)

Hi, Y'all

As you probably noticed, we are in the midst of packing our bags to leave Germany for good, and we took the opportunity to declutter thoroughly. And we didn't stop there - due to the fact that in Malta (and in various other countries) properties are rented with furniture, we had to get rid of all our shelves, beds, cupboards - you name it. 

Therefore, we started early in Summer to list everything on eBay small ads (a service like craigslist or Facebook marketplace) in order to have it sold by the time we're leaving. And believe me, I could write books about it! Here are some real life stories... 

But first something else real life - only for entertaining purposes, and I hope it melts your heart!

But back to topic: First I listed glasses and china tableware, and as it is heavy and fragile by nature, I listed it as "pickup only". Guess what happened first: "Could you mail it to me?" Well, the tea light holders from IKEA might be worth less than the shipping costs, therefore "no, I can't". Now, hubbie's oldest child is happy for her new wedding decoration, and here is where the circle closes, because a decade ago I bought them just for the exact purpose. 

A girl from the Frankfurt area was as charming as she was adamant about my china, and thus I actually packed two large boxes with all the upholstery material I could find in my basement. And miracles happen - a shoutout to DHL who managed to ship a fine bone china tableware set for six safe and sound to Frankfurt! 

Some time in August I listed a small flatscreen tv for 25 Euro of which the remote control got lost or never existed, I can't remember. A guy contacted me very politely (salutation, kind regards, might it be possible, etc.) He lived on welfare and minimum wage, but as he had a very old tube tv with high energy consumption he would like to buy my tv. But it might take some time to save up to gather the 25 Euros - would it be possible to reserve the item for the time being? I was deeply touched by his honesty and decided to give it to him for free. He came with a package of coffee and we had a nice little chat. Very nice experience for both of us!

After we went through our alcohol stash we didn't need our wine shelf any longer. It could hold 54 bottles, was made out of solid wood, and came at a decent price of 20 Euros. Nevertheless I was contacted by someone first questioning the construction of the shelf and then offering to pay 10 Euros. Let's get real: If you can afford 54 bottles of wine, champagne or some other good stuff, you should be able to afford 20 bucks for a shelf, right? We decided to take the shelf with us, as we learned that the Maltese make some good wine, too!

I won't mention all the people contacting me with only one word, for example when I listed something for 50 Euros, they just sent "40", no hello, no currency, no thank you, no greetings or salutations. Or the classic: "last price?" Don't get me wrong, I know that many of the people answering small ads are no native speakers and I don't care if they spell something wrong or. But you realise if somebody has a natural politeness regardless how broken the German they use. And there are these special candidates who never had good manners regardless where they were raised. 

We were very lucky because we only had two or three potential buyers who had exaggerated ideas of the offered items (That's weird - the silver coloured chandelier isn't as golden as I thought...) or simply didn't appear to pick up the goods. I think this is very rude, and in that case I wasn't afraid to recognise them to the eBay system, so they might get banned or so. In my opinion you should invest the minimum amount of time and send an email stating that you're no longer interested, that's the smallest act of politeness.

A few times potential buyers backed out but informed us. I guess, such things happen. But twice it was when selling our kitchen - that was a bummer, I have to admit, because we were under pressure time wise. Our landlord didn't want to take it (I already talked about that), there is no renter after us and the landlord didn't want us to look for a new renter, thus we were solely in charge of selling the kitchen. And what you have to keep in mind: We listed it not at a bargain, but for a reasonable price, and it was an American sized kitchen! Which means tons of storage space, an extra cabinet for cleaning supplies and old school vacuum and such, a breakfast bar AND an island. Surely you would need adequate space to place all these kitchen cabinets; it's not comparable to a normal sized German kitchen. Therefore, it wasn't that easy, but in the end a very nice lady contacted me who wanted to buy it as a wedding gift for her daughter. All for of them (which means her, her pregnant daughter, soon to be son in law and her husband) came to look at the kitchen and were very appreciative about the design and quality of the kitchen and the electric appliances (I thought, mum would have liked the kitchen for herself) and were so excited, that they even bought our laundry dryer! I liked the idea of the wedding gift, and the fact that they didn't even try to lower the price :-)

Afterwards we realised, that we know the daughter, we only didn't recognise her due to her face mask. We met her once with her puppy "Erna" and talked to her for a bit. In the meantime, puppy Erna had her first birthday, but that was a nice coincidence. Tuesday, 10 days ago, father of the bride came with some buddy, and the two of them demounted all of the cabinets. The next day, they came accompanied by three other guys and a truck and removed the whole kitchen. Very nice people, and it was nice talking with them while they were busy working on the kitchen. What I liked most: They were very organised, but at the same time pretty calm, and without any hectic they took apart everything and labeled it carefully. Very nice! For about a week our kitchen without kitchen looked like this: 

But as I got to know these people and found them sympathetic, I am at peace with giving away my dream kitchen. I know it will be in good hands and good use for the next 20 years. 

Are there any lessons learned? Yes! Never offer items with a high demand (washing machine for example) when you still need them! Even if you mention: no pickup before this and that date, people tend to ignore that. When I listed said washer, I had a double-digit list of possible buyers in no time! Next time, I know better.

And I learned another lesson: Never list anything on "Quoka", their security system is practically non-existent. We listed a bike there, three people wanted to buy it, and all of them were scam. First time was a classic: Someone agrees to buy the bike, asked for our PayPal account and sends a faked payment confirmation from Paypal with a significant higher amount than agreed. The difference is supposed for the transport of the bike and we should send the money directly to the shipment company. We informed PayPal and Quoka about the scammer and could avoid any harm. But when the next two candidates send an almost identical text to buy the bike, I deleted the ad, and the significant other of our youngest now has a new bike :-) So please be careful, even (or especially when) someone wants to shower you with money! 

Stay safe and sane if dealing with Craigslist and others!!!

There's something going on...

Hi, Y'all!

It's been a looooong time... For those of you with a good memory: I am the one who wanted to post quite regularly :-D

And then life got in the way - once again. Hubby and I are working on a huge project with lots of prep work, thus I had tons to do. On the other hand, I didn't want to spill the beans until everything was safe. And at this stage it felt weird to blog about recipes and sewing projects when I was occupied with something completely different. 

Well, I won't be beating around the bush any longer, and some of you we told already in person: we are moving. Yes, once again - you know the drill. But this time is different, because we will move to beautiful Malta! The smallest of the small European dwarf states with its two official languages English and Maltese caught our interest, and at the end of October we are diving headfirst into our next adventure!!!

Few educational facts: Malta has a square footage of appr. 316 km² and is thus smaller than the German city of Bremen. With its 520.000 inhabitants its ranked in between the German cities Nuremberg and Hanover. Manageable, but nevertheless there is hustle and bustle: firstly because of the limited space on an island and secondly because with its 300 days of sun per year it attracts a lot of tourists. But apart from the main island, there are another two islands belonging to Malta: the relatively quiet Gozo and the tiny Comino - with only two constant inhabitants. 

Fun fact: Malta was backdrop for numerous hollywood blockbusters - among others Troy (starring Brad Pitt) and Gladiator (starring Russell Crowe) were filmed on Malta, and lastly Game of Thrones, of course. Besides, Popeye was filmed here sometime during the seventies or eighties, and the scenery never was destroyed - moreover, the Maltese use it as an amusement park nowadays. An enterprising bunch are these Maltese people :-) 

Well, and what will we do, once we're relocated? The following picture might speak for itself, and no, this is no Apple advert! 

In case you are wondering: For sure Heinrich is coming with us, and because of him we are planning a little roadtrip of 2400 km... Because we feared that he wouldn't be allowed to boarding a plane. Due to the risks that brachycephalic dogs as Heinrich bear, some airlines as Lufthansa for example put these breeds on their no-flight-list in 2020. So now he will get dewormed at the end of the month (he is already vaccinated and microchipped), and then he and his European Pet Passport will accompany us in the car to Malta - our furry little globetrotter. 

And until then we are organizing our butts off, because in Malta rentals are usually completely furnished, and therefore we have to get rid of all our furniture. Especially selling our dream kitchen is a pain in the neck: two potential buyers already backed out, our landlord won't buy it, and there are no new renters in sight - at least there were neither any realtors nor any potential tenants in our apartment. And there was no feedback to our suggestion to find new tenants ourselves. Honi soit qui mal y pense...

But to avoid any hard feelings please take a look at these gorgeous pictures - and from now on I will keep you posted on a regular basis, I promise! 

Stay safe!!!

 

Some things just take time...

Hi Y'all!

I'm a big fan of DIY projects which are quick, easy and with a purpose. But sometimes things just happen differently...

Last winter I had a craving for color (tbh I like color all the time), and therefore a project by #crystalsandcrochet caught my attention - a crocheted mandala, gigantic and a fireworks of color and patterns. I had no idea what to do with such a monster, but I liked it a lot. What shall we do - not with the drunken sailor but with a circular blanket? Might be pretty for a picknick but on the other hand it seemed impractical due to its 3dimensional patterns and stitches. Furthermore, I'd have to coat it with some waterproof fabric.

Wait and see, I ordered to collections of cotton yarn in all colors of the rainbow and soon started crocheting. I was inspired by the pattern for the mandala madness and followed it more or less strictly.

In the beginning you could see it quickly progressing, but after a while the rounds took more and more time. In the first picture the mandala has the size of a dinner plate and in the second roughly the size of a vinyl record - some of you might remember... :-)

I made this project just for me, because of its sheer beauty. Without knowing its purpose but surely sensing it would take me more than just a weekend or two of crocheting. Or three or four... But that's totally fine! 

But at some point I had used up all my yarn (20 skeins with 50 g each), and the mandala had a diameter of appr. two standard sized French Bulldogs :-)

And the experts with an eye for the detail might detect that I already started with a dark grey yarn. That is because I finally decided to square up that blanket, although I made more than enough quilts to keep me warm. But our balcony - which is mostly colored in white, black and copper - could use some pop of color. (And therefore I finish the blanket with grey, haha!) But in fact it ties perfectly with the grey pillows on the windowsill of our balcony (althoug it doesn't look that way on the pictures further below...) 

To avoid any boredom, here are some pictures of the details:

But how do I square up a circle? In principle, it's easy: You divide your circle in even eights like a pie and start in the first piece of pie with small stitches like a slip stitch. Slowly you ascend with larger stitches, e.g. single crochet, then half double crochet, double crochet and treble until the end of the pie piece. In the next pie piece you mirror that - which means you start with the large stitches and descend all the way down to the slip stitch at the end of your second pie piece. Repeat that process three times et voilà you have the foundation for your four corners. 

With small circles (let's say like the palm of your hand) that's pretty simple, but with that ginourmous beast I had created, it was not so easy. Somehow it stayed rounded instead of a proper square. After two failed attempts I chose another approach and started right in the corner.  

I began with a scallop pattern in the middle of two pie pieces and crocheted in rows until the end of the two pieces, and thus I formed one corner. I repeated that for another three times and after that I continued in rows of half double crochets until the ten skeins of grey cotton were almost gone. Sounds incomprehensible? Well, maybe it is :-) 

Not a big fan of the scalloped center, because I wanted that grey to be completely plain. But that was the only method to produce straight edges in that square, and then I wanted to get it done finally.

I finished it off with tassles in all four corners which I like very much. And while making them, I added some for the two pillows as well. Looks really pretty and cohesive now. 

 

And that's the ensemble in action - approved by Heinrich himself :-) 

If that isn't a pretty pop of color, I don't know! 

Just enjoy!

Hi, Y'all!

The last two weeks were insane, because Heinrich was ill. Our pets are family for us, and therefore I worried a lot. What happened? He got nipped by another dog - not funny, but sh... happens. Not overly dramatic at first, so business as usual. But then the whole thing got infected and he had an abcess, thus we went for the whole nine yards - vet visits, emergency clinic, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs and a little dog who hates going to the vet but bore everything very bravely. In the end the buzz cut will grow out, the swelling not longer looks like there's an alien going to hatch and begging for treats already works. Healing in process!  

And after that load is taken off my heart, I can happily post again what I did the last weeks apart from that. Let's start with the kitchen... 

For Easter I wanted to treat our mums and mixed them a nice bottle - this time with coconut cream, pineapple juice, white rum and molten (or melted?) white chocolate. Unfortunately one bottle did not reach its destination because - allegedly - packaging was not sufficient and the bottle broke. Interestingly enough the second bottle packaged in the same way, reached my mother-in-law in perfect condition. And besides, the first bottle was unharmed on its way from here to Eschweiler, but then already almost on the homerun, someone didn't pay enough attention. And as you might imagine, there is no arguing with DHL even though I had an insurance :( 

During the Easter holidays we were in Stuttgart visiting the girls. As a gift I had prepared a vegan "Eierlikoer" - supersimple and superdelish! 

Basically, you mix vegan vanilla pudding (with oat milk, can be storebought by different manufacturers) with vanilla extract or vanilla sugar and vodka. For the color you might want to ad a pinch of kurkuma, but for the taste it isn't required. To add some kind of egg flavor you could add a pinch of kala namak salt, but that's totally optional. Worked pretty well without. 

Perfect match: braided bread vegan style. Eggs and butter basically are substituted by apple sauce, and besides it's a normal yeast dough - in this case with spelt flour: 

My mother-in-law- sent us an Easter package filled with goodies, and above others it contained a falafel-mixture directly from Israel, which I had to test right away. Thus, we lately had falafel burger with home made sunflower seed bread, grilled red pepper and ajvar with oven carrots as side dish. Very crossover and very tasty! 

To balance out the vegetarian dishes we had pesto chicken the other night. Easy, as always: Just put some pesto and grated cheese onto the chicken breast and bake that in the oven. Place it on a bed of tomato spaghetti and throw some cherry tomatoes and basil or spring onion on top. Totally recommend as it is so aesthetically pleasing :-)

For lunch I usually prepare something quick like toast or wraps. Normally I fill them with hummus and bell pepper and roll them up. But then Instagram made me do this instead - please take a look of all four stages of wrapping:

Fried that in a pan until the cheese was molten or melted or in a state that pleased our palates - fancy, right? 

We both like the French pizza version called "Tarte Flambee", and up til now I always bought the ready made dough. But a few days ago I found a recipe so simple I had to try it: 300 g flour, 150 ml water, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt - mix, roll and fill. No yeast, no baking powder, no waiting for the dough to rise. That amount of indredients is suitable for two smaller crusts, but I made one large sheet pan out of it. Topping was light creamcheese, red onions, bacon bits, mushrooms, grated cheese and chopped walnuts. Add a spinach leaf salad and a glass of white and start the weekend! 

But it takes two to tango, therefore I'll show you not only my kitchen accomplishments but also what I made in my sewing room. There are two colleagues/neighbors who are expecting their second children and thus I dug out my sewing machine and made two sibling teddies (or teddy siblings), rice-filled heat pads and little hats. 

And for my colleague who is waiting for his first born I made some leather booties and a rabbit toy - very cute! 

And last but not least I want to show you my latest experiment: A while ago I stripped one of our bedding sets from a perfectly cute but very impractical ruching and piping. Then I was left with a long cord and an even longer fabric strip which I used to make a rope bowl. The basic principle is as follows: You wrap your fabric around the rope, and then you roll up the rope and connect everything with a wide zigzag stitch. When the bottom is large enough you start building the wall of the bowl. Was a bit tricky and the rounding of the bowl has room for improvement, but for the first attempt I quite like it. 

 

With that said - have a nice weekend and enjoy Spring time!

Another heartfelt hello from my kitchen

Hi, Yall!

You already know, I'm a huge fan of meals that are either prepped rather quickly, not very complicated or have only a few ingredients. And as I like to try new things (at least in my kitchen), I'll show you what's on our plates lately. 

Let's start with Saturdays' breakfast. Unlike in the US for example, we have the same breakfast any given workday: muesli, coffee and a small smoothie with various fruits, but on weekends our breakfast is more elaborate. On Instagram I saw pancakes with only three ingredients - banana, cinnamon, eggs. And that shall work??? Well, challenge accepted. Thus I smashed three ripe bananas, added four eggs and a teaspoon of cinnamon - rather liquidy situation... Anyway, let's dump it into a non-stick frying pan and put a lid on to get it quickly cooked without burning one side. Ooof, you have to turn them veeery carefully, but then you get little banana-sweet pancake-miracles. Add some fresh fruit and you're done! 

Meanwhile I made some amends to the recipe which means I usually a cup of oats and mix the whole thing with an immersion blender. Thus you get a smooth mix but still very runny. Surely you could add more oats, but I didn't want that. Due to the fructose the pancakes get rather dark although they are not burnt, even when they look like that: 

You could drown the pineapples in maple syrup but there's no obligation. The riper the bananas, the sweeter the pancakes. Really yummy! 

Let's stick with breakfast for a while. On Sundays we usually have eggs, and I wanted to serve them differently. Thus I chopped various ingredients (cherry tomatoes, ham, spring onions, mushrooms and put them into my muffin pan. Then mixed the eggs, poured them into the muffin tins and added some shredded cheese on top. Put that in the oven and afterwards try to meticulously peel the egg Mcmuffins out of the pan :-)

From a visual perspective there is room for improvement, but they are super for on-the-go, for a picnic or even on a burger bun with some tomato sauce. 

Little snacks are always a must-have: A healthy option may be a toast with curry cream cheese and mango slices. 

Or blueberry muffins without sugar but with rolled oats: 

If you don't have time (but some calories to spare) you might opt for store bought puff pastry. These cinnamon spirals are quick and easy and very delicious. 

In Switzerland they have a pretty popular dessert with pureed sweet chestnuts, but here in Germany you mostly find them roasted over open fire at the Christmas markets. However, you can buy them already cooked and I originally wanted to add them to a side dish with Brussels sprouts. But then I changed my plans, and the chestnuts patiently waited in the fridge to face their destiny. I put them into a cake dough with lots of chocolate chips and chopped hazelnuts. The cake was more on the compact side and not so fluffy but if you like a more rustic cake this one's definitely right for you. 

But I also want to add some dinner dishes - some with meat, some without. First thing is a boar filet. Although a boar is a large animal, the filet which was included in our last meat order from Grutto followed the more minimalistic trend... Suitable as a starter but not enough for two adults as main course. Therefore I wrapped it in minced meat and planned to wrap it in puff pastry as well - a wild filet Wellington, so to speak. But hubby is not very keen on puff pastry and then I wrapped the whole package in bacon strips and cooked it in the oven. That was something special, I can tell you!

Oh, and there is diced Gouda in the minced meat - not the baddest of ideas :-))) 

And while we're talking cheese... Here's is some deliciousness with cream cheese: Philadelphia chicken! Wrap chicken breast with bacon and start baking it in the oven. Then mix herbed cream cheese with cream and pour the mixture to the chickens. Let that sit in the oven for another 15 minutes and you're done. It's served best with rice or anything that can suck up the delicious sauce!  

Apart from that you can also make an awesome burger filling with chicken. Pulled pork is a staple but did you know you could also use chicken? Well, I chose a slightly simpler version than having the chicken in the smoker for hours. Instead I cooked a broth with chicken breasts, leek, carrots, celery and all. Afterwards I pulled the chicken apart with two forks. One part I put back into the broth and put that into my freezer. Now I have home made penicillin aka chicken soup in case we catch a cold. And the other part I mixed with a classic BBQ sauce (sweet, hot and smoky). Put that in a home-made bun, top it off with some tomato and a slice of Gouda  and you got yourself a delicious pulled chicken burger. 

For the right balance please find below a fish dish :-) Super simple but super impressive... First you slice up two zucchinis (carrots work perfectly too) and mix them with some olive oil and spices (in my case mostly thyme and rosemary). Put that on a lined baking sheet and add some salmon (skinny side down). Add two to three teaspoons of pesto (red and green work perfectly fine) on the salmon and place cherry tomatoes cut in half on top. After 25 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius it's ready to eat - low carb and pretty awesome looking! 

In case you are willing to spend some elbow grease, here is a recipe that takes some time, but is awesome when you have to cut out carbs. Cauliflower pizza crust! OK, this is not a yeast dough, sure. But hubs and I really liked it. In fact we liked it so much, that we made it again only two days later! 

First you have to shred the cauliflower - in a blender or food processor but you can also grate it manually. Then you have to blanch the cauliflower grains in boiling saltwater for five minutes. Then chill it with cold water, put it in a kitchen towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. The less liquid remaining in the cauliflower, the more crunchy the crust. 

Mix that "dough" with two tablespoons of grated almonds (or almond flour), one egg, 80 grams of goat cream cheese (or the normal one) and a healthy dose of thyme (or oregano). With a spatula spread that mass onto a baking pan and bake it for 40 minutes. 

If you google it, there are different variations of that cauliflower pizza crust: with flour instead of almonds, cauliflower pan-fried instead of blanched, shredded cheese instead of cream cheese. Except from the pan-fry method I didn't test any of that, but I guess, it's worth a try. 

Now it's time to put the toppings on the crust. I recommend not to load it but keep the toppings relatively thin, because otherwise it won't stay crunchy. (TBH: ours didn't stay crunchy, anyway.) In case you're not bothering, go for it! I topped it with tomato sauce, onion rings, bell-pepper and olives, and cheese, of course. 

That goes into the oven for another 10 minutes (or a bit longer) and then you can dig in! 

In case you got your mouth watered - you're welcome!!!