This may be my new favorite German word: geriffelt.



Oh, and I was quite pleased to find cheddar and sour cream chips. They're not Ruffles, but they're pretty good.

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If you think I've been slacking off with the blogging, you're probably not reading our private family blog. I post over there several time a week. And while most (all?) of it so far has been about our beautiful daughter and how she joined our family, I do have some crafty stuff coming up. And perhaps even some witty observations about life in Vienna. If you'd like access to the private blog, send me an email (my address is on my profile) or leave me a comment.

My younger sister Christy told me that my blog has been rather lacking lately. I kindly reminded her that I had been updating the private blog, but she didn't seem satisfied. So I decided to blog all about our handmade holidays before she has a chance to blog about it. That'll teach her to complain!

In mid-October my older sister Amber suggested that we exchange handmade gifts this year. I had been going back and forth on whether I would make Christmas gifts this year, but when I heard that everyone was up for the challenge, I knew I had to participate as well. Even though it was a little stressful at times, I think it was worth it.

Here are some of my favorites.

My mom prepared a large brunch and dinner the day we celebrated. Before dinner she explained that she had prepared something special for each person. She had contacted each of our husbands' mothers to get some of the favorite family recipes. She also made each family a cookbook with family recipes.

M. received two really cute books. Amber made a quiet book she called "Let Me Do It!" Each page has something to do -- attach the dog leash to the collar, zip/unzip the dress, unbuckle a belt. Christy made a texture book -- bumpy, silky, etc.

Here are a two pages from "Let Me Do It!":




I don't have photos of the book Christy made, but you can see it on Christy's blog here.

I made the aunt and uncle dolls from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules with Fabric book for my nephew. (I also made them for Brian's niece.) I try to make gifts that include our photos for our young nieces and nephew so they'll recognize us when they see us. :)


Christy made a really cool gift for our niece, but I won't spoil her fun by telling you all about it and posting photos. Suffice it to say, it's been a big hit around here and I've already told her that M. would love one for her birthday or next Christmas. Keep an eye on her blog, because I'm sure she'll post all about it.

There were a lot of other great gifts as well, but I didn't take very many photos. I received an apron and a cargo scarf (a scarf with pockets and key chain). And I gave key chain wallets, pajama pants, an art caddy and a sticker book. I'm sure my sisters will share photos of more gifts on their blogs here: Amber and Christy.

While getting the swine flu vaccination today I noticed this cartoon hanging on the wall. So naturally I had to come home, find it on the internet, and share it with all of you.

Ah! Christmas! It's just around the corner. I was in the city center today and noticed that the Christmas decorations are already up. And with less than 50 days until the big day, why not!


Credit: "Vienna - Graben" by charley1965

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charley1965/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Here are some things I hope to do between now and Christmas:

• Make as many Christmas gifts as possible. I don't think all of the gifts will be handmade this year, but I hope that most of them will include something handmade.
• Bake Vanillekipferl (traditional Viennese Christmas cookies). Our neighbors gave us some last year and I decided then and there that I would make them this year.
• Visit a couple of Christmas markets. I might even buy something other than food and drinks this year.
  

I've been a little under the weather for the past week or two and now it looks like Brian is sick too. You know what that means.

Have you noticed my absence lately? It seems like I've run out of things to say. I know. I never thought it would happen either. There are a few random things that I've thought were blog worthy, but they never seem to come out right when I sit down at the computer. So instead of making them into individual blog posts, I'll just share them in little bits and pieces. Yeah, I know that's pretty much the same thing I was doing with the Friday Filler, but it just never seems to come together on a Friday anymore.

So here goes...

I had just about decided to not make handmade Christmas gifts this year when my sister suggested that we all make handmade gifts. She said my gifts last year were an inspiration. She didn't use the words "inspire" or "inspiration" or "coolest sister ever", but I think we all know what she meant. So I jumped on the bandwagon and am pretty excited about it. Excited enough to make a list of what I'm making for everyone, but not excited enough to actually start on the gift-making yet.

While chatting with my other sister last week we found out that all three of us were planning on making the same thing for my dad. I guess we look at the same blogs. Not to worry girls, I already have something else planned.

On a completely unrelated topic, I help a woman with her grocery shopping every week and she's always saying the funniest things. Unintentionally, of course. I can't decide which of the following is funnier.

From two weeks ago: After spotting a billboard of two dogs sitting on a park bench she told me, "If I ever get another dog, it'll be a jack daniel."

Last week: She asked me when is Halloween and I told her Saturday. She responded, "Saturday? I thought it was always the last Thursday of the month."

And on a final note: meal moths. I hate them. I think I've gotten rid of them. But I know that as soon as I click Publish and go into the kitchen I'll find another one. It's inevitable.

I finally got around to uploading my photos from Ethiopia over the weekend. You can see all of the photos here: Alisha's Ethiopia photos on Flickr.

Most of the Ethiopians we had contact with were very eager to know what thought about Ethiopia and Addis Ababa. The thing is, we saw very little of Ethiopia except for the areas between our guest house and the orphanage. Even though our driver took many different routes, we really didn't get to see a whole lot. Once while we were riding along the driver just happened to spot his friend and pulled over to say hello. His friend happened to be a tour guide and offered his services if we wanted to see more of the city. I felt like it was quite a coincidence that the one time we were alone with the driver he ran into this tour guide buddy. (We shared the driver with another family and we were almost always together in the car.) Later the other family was in the car alone with the driver and they happened to run into the tour guide as well.

So, we didn't see a whole lot, but here are a few tidbits from our trip.

One evening we went to an Ethiopian restaurant where we had injera and wot and watched traditional dances and musicians. Injera is a spongy bread, similar to a pancake. It's used to pick up and eat wot, which is any type of stew.


Injera and wot at Yod Abyssinia.
It was pretty good, but some of it was really too spicy for my taste. The restaurant had murals of famous sites in Ethiopia. Our driver, who joined us for the meal, sat next to Brian and told him about each of the sites. And, he said, his tour guide buddy could take us to some of the sites. I really liked our driver and rather enjoyed that he was trying to help his friend's business.

There's a lot to say about the driving in Ethiopia. We only saw one traffic light the whole week and there seemed to be few driving rules. Even the lanes were subjective. The roads usually had at least faint lane markings, but they were often ignored. A road could be vary from one to four or more lanes just based on the traffic at the time. And the roads were not just for vehicles, but for pedestrians and animals as well. Here's a short video of one of our drives. There wasn't a lot of traffic on the road at this point, but there were a lot of pedestrians.


And the polution! It was unbelievable. It wasn't unbearable most of the time, but when we were on the road it was awful.


Many of the vehicles reminded me of Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown. Only it was a cloud of exhaust rather than dirt that followed them around.
The blue and white taxis became a very common site. We drove past a couple of locations where the taxis would collect to pick up passengers. The taxi vans were the most common. They had 5 rows of seating with 11 or 12 seats -- and usually 20 or more passengers -- all in about the size of a U.S. minivan. My guess is that they work similar to city buses and there are designated pick up and drop off areas rather than door to door service.


Another common site was the women cleaning the streets. They wore pink coveralls, large straw hats and a scarf cover most of the their face. The scarf, I'm pretty sure, was to keep out some of the exhaust and dirt. They worked in pairs or small groups -- one with a wheelbarrow and everyone with brooms.


Another thing of note was the construction. There were half-built buildings everywhere. Brian read that there was a big construction boom in Addis Ababa, but with the recent economic conditions many building projects were put on hold or abandoned. Some of the buildings were still being worked on, but it looked like many were just sitting there. In any case, we found the scaffolding quite impressive.


You can check out all of the photos here.