Now, that I'm home.. from the Polish Pottery dish shopping adventure

I wish that I had bought these items....

Polish Pottery Shopping

We stopped at many different places.. sometimes an area would have up to 6 different shops and truthfully.. I didn't go into all of them. There was just too much to see- and it sometimes took quite awhile to get waited on.. standing in line with the others from the bus who had made purchases.. (only 1 person ringing up purchases and wrapping up the pottery).. so, sometimes.. I only went into a couple of stores.. because of spending so much time waiting in line.. (we were only given a certain amount of time per bus stop- but, it was plenty of time to shop.. trust me!)






I can appreciate the newer painting styles and colors.. but, I will admit that I am drawn to the traditional blue patterns. I had already purchased some polish pottery casserole dishes and other pieces when I lived in northern Italy about 12 years ago. So, I also only purchased the blue and white patterns so that they would 'mix and match' nicely with other pieces that I already owned.

Some of the newer styles...






I'll be posting photos of what I did buy soon...

This weekend, I went to POLAND and bought..

Polish Pottery.. of course!


I went on a trip arranged through the base. The cost was $59.00 for a long, long, long bus ride. We departed at 12:30am.. on what was officially 'Saturday' early morning. I don't sleep on public transportation. I wish I could- but, I just can't.
Yet, in my eternal optimism- I did bring a pillow 'just in case' this was the first time in my life that I went to sleep on public transportation.

Of course, I didn't and there I was BORED.. BORED. Everyone on the bus was asleep.. no snoring.. all females on the bus except for the bus drivers. Not to say that females don't snore- but, you know what I mean.. women don't USUALLY SNORE or snore loudly.


I didn't want to turn the light on for my seat and read, knit, or make shadow puppets. No, I kept trying to go to sleep... and it was useless.


We had a 30 minute rest stop, about 3:30am. Nothing was open and many of us bought ice-cream bars.. the only option at 3:30am. We had to pay to use the toilets.. at the autobahn rest stop.. about 50 euro or about 80 cents (USA).

Now, the toliet had quite an interesting feature.. automatic cleaning of the seat.. here it is in action.. see the tiny stream of water?

Well, I was about to open the door and before I walked out of the stall- I was amazed when the toliet seat rotated around in a circle.. see how the oval is wider now?

Yes, I was in the public pay toilet taking photos... what else was I to do? Of course, if you've read my blog for very long.. you know that this isn't the first toilet photo either. :D


We arrived about 6:30am to this tiny town on the highway. I'm sure that there was more 'town' somewhere.. but, all we saw were 4 buildings.

Click on the photo and you can read the name of the town that we stopped in. There were 2 polish pottery places across the street from each other.



*Darn it... The photo downloading isn't co-operating with me. I'll publish more photos tomorrow.

Behold the POWER of the YELLOW BAG!!

WHITE GARBAGE bag inside the YELLOW BAG



In Germany where I live, there are very specific 'garbage pick up rules'... I left Seoul, Korea, a year ago, with twice weekly recycling garbage pickup of any type of trash that you'd possibly have. It just had to be placed in the correct recycling bins.

TO...my new home with once a month paper pick up, twice a month 'refuse trash' or as I call it: Bad food and once a month 'yellow bag' trash.

Yellow bag.. trash consists of: plastics, Styrofoam, pieces of aluminium foil. There is no arrangement for the pick up of: cans, glass, or cardboard boxes.

I continued using the American kitchen trash bags in 3 plastic kitchen trash cans.. to help sort the trash and keep it divided up in the proper categories of: PAPER, aluminium cans (even if I don't know where to toss them- I know that they don't go in the trash that does get picked up and putting them in their own bag helps), and of course the yellow bag trash.

When I first moved here.. I asked my landlord where to get the 'yellow plastic bags' for the yellow bag trash. HE gave me a few and they did last a long time- since, this trash is only picked up ONCE A MONTH! I would simply lift up the white kitchen trash can plastic bag from the 'yellow bag' trash can.. and slip it inside the provided PLASTIC YELLOW BAG.

However, recently... I ran out of the YELLOW BAGS for YELLOW BAG TRASH DAY. I asked around and no one knew where to get them either or they told me that they'd been given regular amounts from their landlords, or they just put the trash out in the regular American plastic garbage bags and that the trash guys had taken their 'trash' and left them the much needed plastic yellow bags.

So, that is what I did. However, apparently.. the trash guys in my town.. follow the rules a bit more stringently. They left my nicely tied white plastic regular kitchen trash bags... on my yard to wait for the next month's yellow bag trash pick-up day.. but, they did at least leave me a roll of the REQUIRED PLASTIC YELLOW BAG TRASH BAGS.

So, apparently.. that plastic 'yellow bag' wrapped around the nice, clean, white plastic garbage bag.. lets the trash men know that THE PLASTIC YELLOW BAG is TRASH.. but, a plain PLASTIC WHITE TRASH BAG??.. well, clearly it could be just anything.. but,apparently trash and must be left behind.

So, the lesson is: THE PLASTIC YELLOW BAG HAS POWER... the WHITE PLASTIC TRASH BAG does not!

Newsflash! I made a pair of real socks to fit a human...

It all started with this yarn:




I first made a pair of fuzzy feet... (pattern can be found on line) that I discussed in a previous post. Pre-felting..

Felted..


Then, I knitted some little sock ornaments. I have made more since this photo using a variety of little sock ornament patterns.


And.. eventually after knitting what seemed like forever.. I had a pair of socks. I was even able to knit the stripes/colors to match on both socks. On one side, near the ankle, there is a small smattering of red stitches.. and I was amazed that the yarn did the exact same thing in the exact same place on the other sock too.

Goodbye summer

We've just finished our first week of school for the new term. The little first graders were so cute this week.. telling me that they were 'not little kindergartners now- but, that they were big first graders!'

Here is a little straw fella that was posted at the city limits this summer. I never had my camera or either had a car right on my bumper so I wasn't able to take the photo for some time. I was sad to see one day that someone actually 'knocked him down'... but, he was finally righted and is still standing proudly welcoming all to Grafenwohr, Germany.
I do believe that the little sign at the straw fella's feet.. is a message in German to NOT KNOCK THE STRAW MAN DOWN or something to that effect?

The mornings have already started getting darker- just this week... oh no.. tell me we aren't entering the 'dark season of leaving the house in the dark and coming home in the dark' already! =:O