Many of you knew, that I sang in a choir. What most of you don't know is, that I quit the choir this year. I realized, it's time to go for a new challenge, as singing in the choir didn't fulfill my musical need anymore.

I've been wanting to learn violin since I was small (my parents didn't let me though - I had to learn instruments, which my sister was learning), but meanwhile I am not sure, either the left hand position and the high tone of violins are really my thing. Thus, I decided to learn cello instead (I started with mandolin too, because I was too impatient to wait until the cello lesson began in March) and luckily I could rent the instrument from the music school before I get my own (I hope, I'd get my own one day - I didn't realize a good cello is SO expensive before *sigh*).



My teacher comes from classic, but I don't see my end there. Thus, I always look for cello musicians, who do different things than classical music. The CD on the photo is the one I'm listening since a few weeks. This video underneath will show you a bit of my favorite group. I listened to their music and watch their videos on my iPod back and forth during the whole winter.

I haven't been very creative since I work full-time and it has been ages since I worked with clay. Yesterday while watching TV (which I do quite often ever since we got the cats, as they come for a cuddle - they turn my life upside down, I tell you ;)) I had a desire to sculpt, so I did.



For the first few minutes I could only knead and re-knead and repeat - I guess, my hands already forget how to sculpt. I first shaped the body of the little cat and worked on the bust before I finally finished the face of the little cat. My only tool: nail filers - the only thing, which was in my reach in the living room.



I'm pretty pleased with the results and so do the cats, I think ;)

I'm quite a visual person, thus I love books with pictures. But I love not only children's storybooks, but especially dictionaries and encyclopedia.



It started with a German pictorial dictionary, which I bought when I learned German. It was *the* book I read before I came to Germany - I spent hours looking at the illustrations and the descriptions.



I even made indexes for faster access. Oh yes, it was a long time before internet has made everything so simple as nowadays :)

A few years later, when I studied computer science, I bought a dictionary about computer science, which also has some pictures in it. Not really exciting pictures as in the books in this post though (thus, to be frank.. I forgot to take a picture of it this afternoon)...

I found this French dictionary in a second hand shop a few months ago. As a person, who cannot speak a word French, I bought it because of the pictures. It's old - from 1916 -, so I was delighted to find some colorful illustrated pages in it.



My latest discovery was this music encyclopedia, also from the second hand shop. I almost missed out on this, as I seldom browse in the music book part, which is just above the art book part. But the yellow linen cover attracted my attention and as I leafed through the book, I was very excited about the typical kind of illustrations from the 70's (the book is from 1977).



I knew do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti. In this book I learn something new: ja-le-mi-ni-ro-su-wa. I never heard of it before. I'm sure, I'll learn some more new things from this book, which is actually for children.

I hope to find more of such pictorial dictionaries in the future.

You might have enough of our cats for now (esp. if you follow me on Flickr), so for a change I'd post something different today ;)



One thing I dislike about living in this part of Germany is the lack of fresh seafood. In Indonesian I was a great fan of shrimps. Since I often only found some cooked ones here, I seldom eat any. But last time, I got a big bag of deep-frozen, uncooked and unpeeled shrimps.



Normally I simply sauté them in margarine, spice them only with salt and pepper and a bit of lemon juice and eat them with rice - that's how I loved it in Jakarta (margarine is not the thing I normally prefer to cook with, but in this case I do, since it brings my taste buds back to my childhood - the best shrimp dish on the street restaurant!). Today I got some green asparagus and mixed color chillies, so I mixed them in - yumm!

What'd you cook, if you had those ingredients?

Happy Easter! ^o^
I hope, you found many eggs. My son and I didn't search for any, cause we found two better "eggs" with ears and tails - cats. Yes, we finally got our own cats from the pet shelter.



As a dog type of person I've been hesitating for so long to let cats into the house. I knew cats only as scratching, wild creatures (for my grandma's cats were more or less wild ones), but since we moved into this apartment, our visitor had taught me for the better. I never met a cat more gentle and cuddly than him. My son on the other hand loved cats before he could talk. He'd cuddle all cats he met even if he got scratched. Thus, in January I decided to took two cats home, but the pet shelter didn't have any "house cat" at that time.

Last week we finally got a call. We visited the two and my son felt instantly in love with the black one, which came to greet each of us. Since they came together to the pet shelter, we didn't want to took them apart (and neither did the pet shelter).



Our cats have of course their own characters. S, our black cat, is curious, fearless and cuddly. But having an experience with his long claws twice, I now cover myself with a blanket before snuggling with him. But I think, he realizes the issue now and starts to be more careful with his paws when I pet him.



Probably like any other cats too, S loves high places. Each day he looked up to the highest places in a new room. On the first day he managed to climb the locker, on the second day the cupboard in the kitchen.



Since the first day he's been thinking how to get onto the book shelf in the living room. This morning he did it, jumped straight away from the backrest of the sofa.



Before we got the cats I wanted to hang an artwork behind the sofa, but now I'm going to turn the wall into a catwalk.



H, our tabby, is rather a shy and skittish one. She needs time for everything. But once she feels secure, she is very cuddly and very gentle.



Watching the two in their activities are much better than any egg hunting :)