my new old moleskine planner

before after

I'm a big fan of the plain moleskines for years. I carry a small black one as my diary and notebook where ever I am. This year I also went for a bigger one serving as my school planner. In a crazy spur of moment I choose red, although it's not my color at all and doesn't match with my bags or cloths. When I discovered Hannas tutorial it took me a while but than I realized, that this is the way to go.
Because the year is already on the decline there was not much to go wrong. Those remaining only 3 month I could easily live with a ruined notebook if it wouldn't work out.
What a chance just to try and play with motives, paper and glue. It was my first time crafting like this.
The overall results really makes me very happy. The topic matches very much me as well as the colors match my daily bags.

What does not satisfy me are the bubbles that came to life after I covered the collage with modge podge.
And although I applied modge podge as a finish two times it is not durable enough. Already the paper has some teared off spots after one day of using it.
Any suggestions for improvement are more than welcome.

In case you also want to start something like this: Have fun! It's a really enjoyable project for a (rainy) afternoon.

All the paper came from a magazine. For my english readers it says on the front side "not allowed to travel". Remember it's my work planner. ;-) The letters on the bottom say "I wish ...".
On the back side comes the "Have a good trip" for ME and hopefully for WE.

Septembermorgen

Jeden schönen Morgen im Frühling und Herbst erlebe ich kurz nach der Abfahrt zur Arbeit ein wahres Spektakel. Da ich nie die Zeit habe, um anzuhalten und Photos zu machen, nahm ich heute für Sonnabend ganz früh mein Fahrrad, eine Thermoskanne voll Kaffee und meine geschätze Kamera.
Eigentlich habe ich es nicht so mit Gedichten, aber es gibt einige, die mich mein ganzes Leben begleiten und die ich sehr liebe. Dieses ist eines davon.

Each nice morning in spring and in fall I experience a fantastic spectacle right after leaving home for work. Since I have never the time to stop and take pictures, I got out my bike this for Saturday very early morning as well as a thermos full of coffee and my great camera.
I'm not really into poetry, but their are some lines that accompany me all my live and which I truely love. This is one.
The original is by Eduard Moericke and the English translation by Walter A.Aue.

Septembermorgen - September morning

Im Nebel ruhet noch die Welt

The world's adream in fog's embrace,

noch träumen Wald und Wiesen:

Still slumber woods and meadows:



Bald siehst du, wenn der Schleier fällt,

But soon, through the dissolving lace,



den blauen Himmel unverstellt,

You'll see the blue of endless space,



Herbstkräftig die gedämpfte Welt

The milder grace of autumn's face



in warmen Golde fließen.

Transcending golden shadows.

frangipani on a grey, rainy day makes me smile

Thank you very much for your supporting comments regarding my friend.
Well, what happened was that she had a stroke some days before I had this frightening date with her. But her worsening was gradually and so it took some days till she finally got rushed into hospital. The doctors prognosis is that she finally will recover except for her eye sight. Poor "power lady" she has always been. She is the person most connected in her community, with friends and blessed with gorgious sons and daughter's-in-law living all very near by. So that is the good part.

Vielen Dank für eure unterstützende Kommentare zu meiner Freundin.
Es stellte sich heraus, dass sie einige Tage vor unserem beängstigenden Treffen einen Schlaganfall hatte. Da sich ihr Zustand schleichend verschlimmerte, dauerte es einige Tage, bis sie schließlich ins Krankenhaus kam. Der Arzt sagt eine gute Wiederherstellung voraus - bis auf ihr sehr eingeschränktes Gesichtsfeld. Arme Power-Frau, die sie immer war. Sie ist die meist sozial eingebundene Person, die ich kenne, mit zahlreichen Freunden und gesegnet mit tollen Söhnen und Schwiegertöchtern, die alle in der Nähe leben. Das ist bei allem der gute Teil.

The weather in Hamburg today is awful. It feels already like November, including my wish to curl up in bed, put on warm, comfortable cloth and get cozy and lazy.
For me and for whoever needs some cheering up there is the picture of a Frangipani tree, taken on Bali this summer.
Frangipani is my personal embodiment of the tropics. The sight...the smell...the delicious blossoms....

On the crafting side it seems that my mojo is getting back slowly. I have 'thousands' of knitting peaces almost ready, but they were hibernating - or better summernating. Now I started to get an overlook and a bit of picking up here and there.

Das Wetter in Hamburg war und ist scheußlich heute. Es fühlt sich wie November an inclusive dem Wunsch, mich im Bett zu verkriechen.
Für mich und für alle, die eine Aufmunterung brauchen, ist das Bild eines Frangipanis, aufgenommen in Bali in diesem Sommer.
Frangipani ist für mich der Inbegriff von Tropen. Das Aussehen...der Duft ...die zarten Blüten...

Langsam kriege ich wieder Lust auf Handarbeiten und Basteln. Ich have x Stricksachen angefangen und fast fertig, aber die schlummerten so vor sich hin. Heute habe ich angefangen, mir einen Überblick zu verschaffen und hier und da etwas rumzunadeln.

not here

Dear readers,
for today I had planned to write a post with a bit of musing about not publishing posts in quite a while (having a rough time, mostly mentally speaking) and why I didn't write about it (too public; I kind of envy the people who write a lot of very private thoughts and get very interesting and supporting responses and discussions; but I couldn't do so) and musings about me and my reasons for blogging (focusing my attention on the good things in my life through writing, picture publishing and your comments). Of course I wanted to embellish this post with some photos, especially since yesterday I managed to pull myself a bit out of the not-so-happy-state.

But no nice post today - life got in my way. I'm very concerned about the state of health of a girl-friend (77 yrs). I spent all evening with her children talking and making plans how we could convince her seeing a doctor about last night problems. And stop her from driving her car. Quite frightening and embarrassing.

Tomorrow I'll go on a business trip. So no blogging for at least the coming week and weekend.

:-Tally-:

.

Far, far away

This picture symbolize vacation pure for me. It could have been taken at a lot of places on this beautiful world. Well, maybe in Europe you wouldn't find affordable hotelrooms this close to the water.

Imagine waking up on your first morning after a 5-hour-train-ride, a night in Frankfort, a 13-hour-flight, some hours on the airport of Taiwan, a 6 hour-flight, a 2,5-hour-car-ride through a foreign country and great scenery.
It was like getting up in a perfect dream.

The next photo is taken from the second window - with mighty vulcano Agung in the background. More exotic scenery now.

Next you see what lies directly in front of me. No, was lying. I'm already back home for almost two weeks. At first very sleepy due to the jet lag and too full of impressions to spent much time on the internet. Meanwhile getting adjusted to work again; a new schoolyear wants my attention.

On the crafting side: nothing, except exactly four stitches of sewing on my summertime-cardigan.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell where I have been so far, far away: On the beautiful island of Bali in Indonesia!
I guess all of my next posts will show pictures from there.

I hope your summer holidays were as joyjul as mine!

***Thank you very much to my commentators for their compliments on my photographs. So very much appreciate, because it feels so good to get a feed-back. ***