... in books

I have to make a confession:

I am a HUGE fan of books!

I love to buy them, to read them, to have them!

I am certainly not the kind of girl who can lend books from the library because I need to posses a good book! I tried libraries and a failed! If a book was good and interesting I brought it back to the library and went to buy it so that I can put it on my shelf! I think in some way I tend to collect books.

And during my – from time to time – night long reading sessions I find some pretty good, nice, interesting or simply so true quotes, which I want to share with you.

The first quote is from Eleanor Brown’s book “The weird sister” which I am reading right now. My reading time is limited at the moment because university started again and I am somehow not so much in a reading mood as usually but I am taking my book everywhere with me and am hoping that next week will be better at least reading wise.

So, there is a story behind this first quote. I have two or three small groups of friends. The largest group consists of people I know from school and we meet often and regularly. I can really count on them but I am basically the only excessive reader in this little group. I have friends who read but I know them from university. But most of them love to read but tell me that during the semester the have so little time to read and they always ask me how I manage to read so much.

A good friend of mine cannot believe how anybody can read as much as I and I tend to shock him when telling him how many books some book bloggers read. Really funny!

Eleanor Brown - The weird sister

I think this quote explains pretty well how readers manage to read so much because for me reading is a hobby and I love to take time during the day to read. Some days ago my best friends tried to motivate me by telling me that I should study for two hours and then I should go and read – and I did study! Yeah! Reading is a reward for us bookaholics and we love it! Sometimes it is hard to explain the feelings I have towards books and why I read so much to others but I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses (okay, I stole this from a song, I know)!

... in recipes

Last week temperatures dropped below 10° Celsius here in Vienna. For me this meant two things – freezing when going outside and buying all the ingredients for an apple crumble.Warm apples in combination with vanilla ice or vanilla sauce are wintery heaven. Soooo good!

I’m sure that most of you know how to make apple crumble but for the few who don’t I will share my recipe with you.

 

Ingredients:

• Apples (I took four apples for three people – huge portions)
• Raisins or Cranberries
• Sugar (I used a combo of sugar and cinnamon)
• Butter
• Flour

How to:

Cut the apples into pieces (some recipes tell you to peel the apples but I didn’t – really depends on your own taste) and put them into a buttered casserole dish. I mixed some cranberries that a soaked with apple juice under the apples. You can also take raisins soaked in rum but we were out of those. 

For the crumble you mix some warm (room temperature) butter cubes with flour and sugar (I used a mixture of vanilla sugar and cinnamon) and knead it into crumbly dough. 

Sprinkle over the apples and cranberries and put it into the oven for about 30 minutes until the apples are warm and soft. 

 I served it with vanilla sauce but it tastes even better with vanilla ice cream!

... in pictures

It is autumn in Vienna!

In the morning it is horribly cold (around 1° Celsius), during the day we have wonderful fall days with cloudless blue sky – has any of you recognized that fall skies have a specific blue you never see during the rest of the year? – and in the evenings when everything is dark already you can see your breath form clouds in the air. 

I love this time of year. I am a huge fan of fall. For me it always resembles a new beginning. In fall I start planning, making goals, starting all over again. This year I even got a new haircut - really short in my terms.  For me it was always like that. Maybe it is something that stuck with me from school – the beginning of a new school year? It stayed with me anyways and as a student October is still the beginning of a new period.  And because I am a teacher-to-be I think it will always stay this way.

So, back to my original post – I love changing seasons. I love each season the same; at least when they are not extremely long or extreme in any other ways. During winter Vienna tends to be stuck under a cover of high fog with no sun for weeks. This is really depressing and I would really love it if this won’t happen this winter (did you hear me universe?!?). Right now leaves are changing colors, the warm winter coats and pullover are dug out of the closet, I can wear my beloved scarves again and write my blog posts with a pot of tea and a burning candle next to me (something I strongly connect with winter).

Are there some things or rituals you connect with fall and changing seasons? 

I would really love to hear about them. 

Oh, before I forget, there is something else which I love during the colder months of the year. But more about that some other time.

... in books

Hello again!

I just wrote my first entry today and then I started my daily blog round and look what I found:

It is Jamie’s birthday today. She is the author of the wonderful blog 
“The PerpetualPageturner”. Really have to take a look if you don’t know this blog – my daily must read!

Because it is her birthday today she started an international giveaway. Yeah! I always envied US citizens because they were able to participate in Jamie’s giveaways which are mostly US only. But today we all have a chance of winning. 

You just have to answer this question for her:  

If you could pick ONE author to crash your birthday party...who would you pick?

I think this is a wonderful question. Reading all the other comments was so nice because I loved reading about all the different authors people would pick. 

I picked Terry Pratchett because I really really love his Discworld series. I think it is one of the best series ever written – sorry to all the other authors but you are great too. I am just not sure if he really is a party crasher but anyways – I would certainly pick him.

I hope you will all visit Jamie’s blog (preferably regularly because her reviews are really good and her videos just hilarious) and maybe even participate in her giveaway.

So I will end this post with a warm Happy Birthday from Vienna to Jamie in the States!

Enjoy your day!

Welcome to my new blog!

I know that it seems like this blog is existing for a while when you look at the archive and the dates of the previous entries but “My Life …” is a new blog. 

For the last 1 ½ years I was writing two blogs at the same time. One was in English and was called “Mad about books” where I wrote mainly about books I read but basically about everything that was going on in my life. Some of these blog entries were imported into this blog. My second blog "365 Tage Fotoprojekt" existed since December, 31^st 2009 and was written in German. On this one I posted one of my photos per day. I always loved to take photos but I never had a real purpose for it. So I had a ton of holiday pictures but basically none of daily life, my dog, of beautiful flowers, etc. That was why I started blogging in the first place – I wanted a reason to take more photos and I also wanted to show everybody that I am able to take beautiful, funny, … photos. 

After two years now I will combine my two blogs into one – this one!

It was sometimes difficult to remember posting one picture per day, it was hard to find a text that went well with it and on the other hand I wrote about my everyday life on my book blog which was not my plan in the first place.

This blog now will combine everything I love. I will post pictures, book recommendations, cooking recipes, reviews or recommendation of good films or TV series, I will blog about music, going out with my friends, funny things I saw or heard (the tram in Vienna is perfect for overhearing strange and funny conversations) – pretty much everything!

I hope you will visit regularly and will enjoy my posts. I am really looking forward to all your comments. If you have a blog as well and want to exchange links, than feel free to write me a comment or an e-mail. I would love hearing from you.

... in pictures

What's in your bag?

Yesterday Iwas at a bar with my friends. Well it is local brewery. Does this classify as abar? I don’t know.

Anyways, wesat outside even if it was freezing (around 15°C) and after a little while Istarted looking for a piece of chocolate in my bag. I put it there in themorning after I received it from a nice girl after taking part in a survey atIkea. I am not one of those girls who regularly have chocolate in her bag,unfortunately. 

Okay, backto the story:

I waslooking and found a fortune cookie I received at a Chinese restaurant where Ihad dinner with my parents. Well maybe I am one of those girls who are hoardingfood in her bag. I opened it, read my fortune (“Change is happening in yourlife. So go with the flow!), distributed pieces of the cookie and continued thequest for the chocolate. After I found it our two boys started discussing thatI had a Marry Poppins bag that holds everything I own and sooner or later Iwill disappear in it while looking for something and they will only hear anecho of my voice when talking to me. 

So Idecided to take a “what’s in your bag” photo, post it here and send them the link. #

There isn’tso much in it. Isn’t there? 

Yesterday I also had a scarf in it because I waspretty sure that I would get cold and I really needed it. 

Things I had in my bag yesterday:

1. wallet
2. pens
3. lip balm (3 times)
4. i-Pod
5. cell phone
6. book
7. tissues
8. water bottle (empty)
9. watch
10. two bracelets
11. candy
12. band aid
13. some pills
14. gum
15. umbrella 
16. bag
17. hair brush (two times - I don't know why)
18. two barrettes
19. make up 
20. three small stuffed animals (one pig as a lucky charm, one dog I got from an ex-boyfriend many years ago and a microbe)

That's not so much, isn't it?

... in films

Today I want to share some really good links with you.

The first article is from the blog “The Broke and the Bookish” and is about differentways of reading books. The author of this post is Julia and she talks about the fun of rereading a book. During rereading Philip Pullmann’s “His Dark Material” series she discovers the different approach to reading between her and her sister. She said something that in my opinion really sums it up. She said that her sister savors a book like good wine while she devours a book like cake. That is why she can read a book more than once.

I am so like Julia. I can and I do reread a good book with joy. I love visiting the characters again and to relive the moment when I first read it. It always brings back good memories.

The second blog I can really recommend is “The Perpetual Page-turner” by Jamie. She writes wonderful and funny posts and entertains me so often because I can often identify myself with her entries. I want to share her super funny “I think Amazon is spying on me….” post with you. I feel like a member of her “Big Ass Purse club” – which I think is a super idea. My purses are so big that my friends often laugh about me and my luggage. Well actually, because I live in Austria, they call it “Reiseschwein” which can freely be translated as a travel pig. This is a quote from an Austria children book “Gretchen Sackmeier” by Christine Nöstlinger in which the main character goes on a trip with the neighbors’ boy and his mother packed so much into his bags that they are as big as fat pigs.

And because I think they are hilarious and sooooooooooo funny … the recent Kindle ads.