(How much I love making references to songs I love ... :D)
Hello children!! :)
How have you all been? I have been going through some ups and downs, as you may have guessed. One of the ups happened yesterday when I went shopping with my sister* and my mother*. One chain of supermarkets over here (Netto) has (a newer version of) skip-its there, and offers them at a price of 3 €. If this price is justified or not, I will let you guys decide. We ourselves tried it out today, whatsoever. We weren*t shy concerning what we might end up with - broken bones, terrified teachers (WHOSE teachers anyways? I just love alliterations! ^^), death, ...!!
So super-courageous us took the skip-it (in neon blue) and tried putting them to our ankles, without knowing that the thing you put your foot through had an extra "entry" for thicker feet (There*s a part you can pull out, and then it opens) - like mine. After a little fight, getting rid of my left shoe, etc. I noticed that I am right-footed, obviously (Or that it works better with my right ankle), so I got rid of it again, put the shoe on, the other shoe off, and in it went.
The skip-it is supposed to blink/change the colour inside when you play with it, but after a short period of time, there was no light inside anymore (I DESTROYED IT!!! I just think it maybe needs batteries?). Also, the (probably useless) cap/hat that covers the wheel flew away while playing. SEVERAL TIMES. It ended up in the trash.
The start of playing being rather hard (I am not used to the thick "cord", which is actually all plastic - just like the loop at your ankle, and the actual wheel construction), I soon got the rhythm right and ended up with a record of 44 (or 43, according to myself) rounds all in all :), and since I am rather untrained, this is actually kind of great. I hope to beat that highscore soon, whatsoever!! :)
Okay, what I liked was -- playing skip-it again, that it worked out well in the end, that you can remove it even with big feet (BIGFOOT AHOY!).
What I did not like -- the entire construction is a little "cheap", and the entire thing is one huge piece put together.
... But then again, who am I kidding? It was fun to play again!! :) I hope I will play it more often from now on, too :). It brought a lot of fun, memories, happiness, and I just recommend getting this feeling to everybody! :D
Question for today : Do you do something on a regular basis that reminds you of your childhood or of the way your ideal childhood would have been (e. g. a game you still like playing, an instrument you learned back then and still enjoy playing, etc.)?
Have a wonderful rest of the day! ;)
(The reference was to a band called X-Mal Deutschland, by the way.)
This is my first entry in a blog this year, so HAPPY NEW YEAR, dear readers! Today*s subject will be ... hmmm ... What could I do? Ah, I know. TV SHOWS!! :D
Somehow I felt like checking out whether a certain series I loved in my childhood days was released on DVD already (They*d certainly have me buying this, if they just did it!!), and as the text within the brackets suggests already, I wasn*t successful. *takes a deep breath*
I am speaking of a series I loved in my childhood/youth days and which I forgot to mention in this entry. Unfortunately, that is. It is great, though; I am speaking of "Neues Vom Süderhof". It was a series broadcasted on TV stations such as Das Erste/ARD, WDR, and so on, and actually, I am mainly refering to the first season of the series (The first 13 episodes, that is).
The setting was a farm on which two sisters lived, their names being Beatrice / Bimbo and Manuela / Molle. The farm was located in Northern Germany without an exact town given as place to happen, even though in some episode(s) their mother (in the series) mentioned they*d go to Husum for some reason (To the theater, if I remember correctly? Or maybe to a concert?), which is located in Schleswig-Holstein ...
ANYWAYS, the family soon grows bigger when they hear about what happened to Bimbo*s and Molle*s aunt and uncle (They died in a plane accident), and so, their cousins Dany (SP?), Peggy and Ben move in with them. Dany and Peggy are about the same age as their cousins, and so they end up in the same classes, and throughout the series they - and now this sounds so cliche, but it is true - have several adventures happening in their lives.
When I was a child, I loved this series. (Ah, I said this already ... Say something NEW, Rina!!!) I assume many children wanted to live in such a beautiful rural area like where the farm was located, and also it encouraged me especially to always seek for the adventure behind new things I saw and experienced. ;) And, yes, I admit it, I wanted to have a pony like Klärchen (== Bimbo*s pony in the series).
Whilst many people I have met acted like the series didn*t touch them, I have to say something else : It still is one of my favourites. I had every single tape (As in, cassette ... Not VHS.) of the first season, we recorded the episodes from WDR and so on like an addicted bunch of ... whatever :D, and the first "fanfiction" I wrote without knowing what I was doing was for the series. Mainly because no new episodes were released, and I missed the old series, so I wanted to invent my own adventures :D.
Several months back my sister* gave me the first book(s) of the series (It is a book which is like three books in one), and I was so happy about this :). It meant the world to me. ^ ^ Somehow many VHS and the tapes went lost in countless moves and such, which means I don*t know where they are right now. However, this is some kind of reminder to keep checking whether there will be any DVDs released for the series. Maybe all the Süderhof fans and me will be rewarded :D.
Today*s question : What series did you like watching as a child? Would you buy DVDs for them if you knew they existed? ^^
Have a wonderful rest of the day.
Recently there were news about a truck full with chocolate that suffered a car accident on a highway here in Germany. (Can I call them highways even? I am not sure!) We somehow then ended up talking about "creating your own chocolate" on a certain web site. I haven*t tried this service, but anyways, if you (ever) live in Germany and are hungry but can still wait for a little while, here*s the link : Chocri!
Now this conversation about customising one*s own chocolate made me think of the Zuckerbäcker*s homepage. And now I happened to order something from this site, and ended up with three combinations of sweet bags. (The shop offers sweets that were famous in my childhood, hence the entry.)
I don*t even know anymore whether the sweets I ordered now (Believe me : It was a lot!) still "exist" out there, but I just find the idea behind the shop great and wanted to write a little about it. You both have the opportunity to select an existing combination from various ones in a shop, or to mix bags filled with your favourite sweets yourself.
The mixing itself also led to my sister* & me talking about the sweets from our childhood; like, "Do you remember the white mice?" - "Not that I know of, but I*d love to try them ..." -- "Ohhh, those frogs were so delicious!!" - "Yes, they were ♥!", etc.
I am excited & now happily waiting for the sweets to arrive. I know I will not starve beforehand, and I won*t even starve the day they arrive, but still ... Excitement!! :) I will maybe post a little review once the sweets arrived.
So today*s questions to you :
1) Do you remember the white mice sweets? ;D
2) What were your favourite sweets when you were a child? :)
3) Do you know of any similar pages abroad? If so, what was your experience with them?
Before we start, I wanted to ask you : What made you enjoy your childhood? I know this question can be hard to answer for some, as you may have gone through times in your childhood that no child should have to go through. If it is too hard for you to remember, then just wonder : What would have made your childhood awesome? What would have made you enjoy every single bit of it? :)
I have been quite busy recently with painting (with felt-tips :D), writing, and making music recently. The latter was in connection to my step sister*s child (I*ll just refer to him as my nephew from now on. Makes it easier and describes my relationship to him much better :)!); I am working on a music CD for him, with self-written children*s songs. I don*t know yet whether he*ll enjoy listening to it, and it is a bit odd for me, too, but still! ;)
Apart from being busy, I have neglected this blog whatsoever, mainly because I didn*t know how to start ... I want to start off now, however, and tell you a little about things that have made my childhood awesome ^^.
* Chess!
I think I started playing chess as soon as I could comprehend the system it worked (about the age of two or three). My grandfather* was a great chess player & taught me the rules and which figure can do what and so on. I don*t remember anything anymore, because after several years of practicing, about the age of eight or so, I said, "It*s over, no more chess for me!" and didn*t touch a chess figure until I was twenty and had to give in, because I could barely remember anything. Chess was great for strategic thinking and I still do have a side to myself which likes sciences and especially math because math tends to be a mystery to me, a mystery to be solved :D. Like a riddle or something along these lines ... It was awesome to get the chance to play chess, and also the fact I could share this hobby with my grandfather*.
* Drawing!
About the same age I started playing chess, I also learned how to draw from my grandfather*. Over the years, I developed my own style and challenged myself to incorporate new styles into my own ... I also have to say thank-you to the series "David The Gnome" because I learned drawing while watching it, especially because I developed a liking for drawing portraits. I still love drawing portraits, but of course my style changed ... It is just, I still love drawing. It was a new love I discovered in this time, and something that freed my imagination from any ties it was attached to.
* Experimenting musically!
Because of our "radio show", I also tended to think, "When doing a radio show, we also need music, so let*s create some songs!!" So we did. We jumped on the beds and went on and on in songs we made up. Also, I remember, my grandparents* had an organ in the first floor (or second floor if you think the ground floor is the first), and whenever visiting them, my first move was upstairs, to sit infront of the organ. Even when I wasn*t able yet to read the notes and such, I developed a system of writing down my musical ideas, so that I could re-play them. I started learning to play the recorder at age six, wanting to move on to guitar as soon as possible. I joined the choir at age eleven, and got my first guitar at age fifteen ... Sure I was older then, but ... making music was extremely important to me! I also wrote a song when I was ten, about the end of the world. It was pretty sarcastic & I still remember the chorus :D.
* Movies for children!
Sure this made everything more awesome! :) Movies I liked were many, many ones by Walt Disney, as well as some by Don Bluth, whose worth I found out way too late whatsoever. I think the movies by Bluth WERE precious ("All Dogs Go To Heaven", "The Land Before Time" (THE FIRST PART!!!), "The Secret Of NIMH", ...), but they partly scared me as a child. But looking back, I am still grateful I knew them so early, I heard of them so early, and that I still can recall them. Of course, Disney movies are awesome, too. :) I still love watching many of them, and they still make me cry, which is a good sign to me, too.
* Riding bikes!
Sometimes we*d pretend our bikes were horses ... I remember how much I loved getting on my bike and exploring the outside world :D. The same counts for many more things of course (inline skating, for example!), but riding bikes was something I *loved* doing. I wasn*t linked to a certain place, I could ride the bike wherever I want, and I could "travel" ... Or at least I had the idea I could do that so easily. ^^ Feeling the freedom & racing down hills was so exciting, and I still remember it with a smile. Right now, I don*t have a bike ... That*s a long story why this happened, and I am not willing to tell, but ... Yeah. Bikes ARE awesome. (And I recently watched a report on bikes and what*s going on in the bike-making community. How to build bikes, new inventions, ideas for services, and so on -- It holds great potential! And it*s healthy, too :)!!)
* Skip-it!
No, I don*t mean skipping school (Though I must admit I sometimes did, to watch "The Rose Of Versailles") ... I mean this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8B0PfV2R0I ... It somehow symbolizes a whole bunch of other games I thought were just for kids, like collecting stickers or these slime trolls or glass comforters ... Or playing board games, or hula-hooping, or playing "We are a circus crowd!" (... And falling of the trapeze after asking a friend to push it as "hard as you can" ... Not that that happened to me ... Nonononononono. No. No, of course not :D.), or mixing your own perfume (... And later on discovering that it smells funny. VERY funny.), ... ^^
* Television shows for children!
Oh my, I can recall so many. I can still sing the intros, too, of most of them. Apart from others I loved the following : "The Rose Of Versailles", "Robin Hood" (anime), "Treasure Island" (anime), "He-Man", "Alfred J. Kwak", "Barbar - The Elephant", "The Animals Of Farthing Hood", "Jungle Book", and so on. I also remember watching "The Love Boat" as a child, or "Mister Ed", or several more ... "ALF", for example ... Not to forget shows like the "Sendung Mit Der Maus", or the "Sesame Street", or the "KINDERHITPARADE"!!! I loved the latter :D. It *was* amazing, and no, I didn*t watch them all in one year ... It has developed over the years of course, and there are still more. ;)
* The radio show!
I already mentioned it. My greatgrandmother* had a cassette tape deck and it also featured an integrated microphone. We*d find some tapes and record ourselves on them. With lots and lots of useless things and comments, and then, we finally developed something like a radio show (Which only we could hear of course. Luckily, it wasn*t broadcasted ;D!). It was fun. Sometimes we had star guests like angry people who wanted us to be quiet now for once. Haha. :D
* Writing!
As soon as I learned to read and was able to spell out single words, I sat down and wrote stories. Some were more like fanfictions, because I thought it was sad I didn*t know more adventures of this or that TV show (Esp. "Neues Vom Süderhof" ...). I also remember I searched for some books for quite some time, didn*t find anything resembling that idea, and wrote my own then. It was fun. At some point, I once asked a teacher of mine to read a story I wrote, but she ... was very hesitant and ignorant and didn*t want to ... It somehow led to me not wanting to write much anymore, for some reason. I am getting the urge to write more whatsoever, although it is mostly poetry. I do have some ideas for novels as well as non-fiction books whatsoever, so stay tuned!! :)
&, last, but not least :
* Companions!
I didn*t have many friends, but those that I had were really precious to me. I think this also led to me enjoying life as a child and teenager more, and also sharing moments with them, at celebrations, in school, whatever. Most kids at school didn*t like me much, but I certainly had friends still, even though not in the nearest circle of people around me. It was okay, whatsoever. They taught me a lot, about themselves, about myself, about this world, and I am grateful for this!! :)
Okay, these were just some thoughts. I now am looking for ideas to make lanterns for St. Martin*s Day :). Also, my sister* & I also want to carve pumpkins this year for Halloween. Do you have any tips for absolute beginners like us?
(I forgot to mention how important listening music was to me as a child! I always linked certain songs to certain memories and/or people, and I was a huge David Bowie fan ^^!!) God, I still love David Bowie. :)
** Have a wonderful day today & thanks for reading!!
Inspired by several things going on in my life that kept holding me down and the fact that my eyes seem to light up once thinking of happy childhood memories, I decided to create this blog :). It will basically cover stuff related to my childhood (not only mine), tips on how to live with less worries, enjoy life, and maybe also some words concerning the other generations (since I was born in the early to middle 1980s, I couldn*t cover other times than the 1980s & 1990s!) :).
Feel free to contribute by posting your comments below!!
