This woman, daughter of a refugee family, born in Berlin in 1978, achieved already a lot in politics, but sadly is threatened by some far right people.
Now to Nr. 3: What made me feel joyful in 2019? I would have to say overall this is writing. To create more joyful moments in the coming year? Well, if at all possible, I want to continue writing at least a little bit on a dayly basis, and when this is not possible, then at least I intend doing a bit of reading. I also intend grabbing opportunities to communicate with as many people as possible. I know, there can be a lot of joyful moments in my life, if only I stay positive. There seems to be always something in my long life I can be grateful for.
And here is a link to a post by Patchworkmomma about a joyful holiday in Thailand:
In my writing I want to speak to people, meaning it would be good if people felt spoken to when reading something I have written. I like it, when people respond to something that I have written.
I want to be aware that it is very important to listen to people and to respond in some way.
The following is a writing challenge from Robin aka Patchworkmomma:
December Writing Challenge/ Prompts:
Choose one word which you would like to embody during 2020 as a sort of theme for the year. How would you like to see this word manifest in your life?
My answer: I would like ‘writing‘ to be a great part of the rest of my life, meaning, since I am already 85, I honestly cannot expect to live all that much longer. This makes every day, that I am still alive, extra special. Accordingly, my aim is, to make really good use of every extra day! How can I make good use of the time that is still given to me? For instance, I can continue to enjoy meeting family and friends as often as possible. Also, I can try connecting with my blogger friends as often as possible. I hope, that during the month of December I may be able to somewhat succeed in all of this. I hope, doing a bit of meditating every day may help me to get ready for this challenge.
Maybe, writing and meeting family and friends could also be sort of a theme for me for the following year, 2020!
And here is another Writing Challenge:
2. Who inspired you in 2019? Why? What gifts did they give you? How will you carry these forward in 2020?
Greta Thunberg inspired me in 2019! Listening to her speeches I became more and more aware that we are in a crisis and that too many people still try to ignore how extreme climate change is going to change all our lives.
What I could do for 2020 is to try more and more to live a more simpler life and to avoid excessive consumption!
I took the above pictures this morning. Today is Sunday, the 1st of December, which is the First Sunday of Advent for 2019.
I would prefer to have an ‘Adventskranz’ made of fresh fir-tree branches. But I am proud that I kept this Adventskranz that we have had for many years.
Recently I reblogged something I wrote about the German customs of having an Adventskranz:
“At this time of the year memories keep coming back about how we celebrated the Advents Sundays during the late 1930s and early 1940s. During those years we always had an ‘Adventskranz’ with four, thick, usually red, candles. On each Advent Sunday one more candle would be lighted. The ‘Kranz’ was made up of fresh fir-tree branches. When we sat down with one, two, three or four candles lit, my little brother and I would be allowed to do some ‘kokeln’, but of course always under supervision by Mum. ‘Kokeln’ would mean that Mum gave us a beautiful fresh twig of the fir-tree branches to hold over a burning candle. This made a fantastic smell. Oh, how we loved this smell. I could tell, Mum loved it too. This quickly brought us into the mood to sing some Christmas songs.”
Here I repeat what I wrote already this morning in another post:
“Next Friday is going to be the 19th of December. On that day we are going to have a Body Corporate meeting in Wollongong. The following day, on the 20th, we are going to have a Christmas Party for the residents and some previous residents. And for Sunday, the 21st, Peter and I are being invited to a Christmas Luncheon in Sydney.
Christmas Eve we are going to have the family at our place as is traditional for us. Early the following morning on Christmas Day Caroline, Matthew, Peter and I are going to travel to Melbourne in a rented car.
Ah, and I forgot, this coming Sunday, which is the third Sunday of Advent, we…
In my blog from December 16, 2012 I mention the four red candles:
“Surprise, surprise, this year we had just the right sort of small red candles. We saw them in a shop in Germany on one of our last days over there. I am so glad I bought them. They look absolutely beautiful on our Advents-Kranz. There are of course four candles for Advent. On each Sunday of Advent a further candle has to be lit, so we started with one candle, then two and today, on the third of Advent, we were able to light three of the candles.”
All the following pictures are from 2014:
Today is the third Sunday of Advent.[/caption]Our tree is ready for Christmas! We can still sort this out. We played joyful American Christmas songs. I liked this very much.
This is what I wrote on December 16, 2012:
The other day I lost everything on the computer. Just one wrong click and everything was gone! With some great help by hubby I am now back in business minus all my pictures. At the moment I wouldn’t know how to continue publishing pictures anyway. Apparently I used up my quota. I guess I can still write a bit about Advent even if can’t publish any pictures.
For the first Advents Sunday we dug out the ‘Advents-Kranz’, the one we’ve had for years. Usually we try in vain to get suitable small candles to fit on the green wreath made of artificial small fir tree branches. There are decorations of pinecones, shiny red apples and sweet little red mushrooms on it, all made of plastic and permanently fitted onto the wreath. Because we weren’t able to get candles of a suitable size we usually resorted to placing some bigger candles on the table, setting the Advents-Kranz up in the middle.
Surprise, surprise, this year we had just the right sort of small red candles. We saw them in a shop in Germany on one of our last days over there. I am so glad I bought them. They look absolutely beautiful on our Advents-Kranz. There are of course four candles for Advent. On each Sunday of Advent a further candle has to be lit, so we started with one candle, then two and today, on the third of Advent, we were able to light three of the candles.
We also dug out our artificial Christmas-tree again. (We didn’t last year because last year we had gone away on a holiday!) So we wondered what would it be like to put up the tree after a two-year break? Peter found the tree well packed away outside in the shed. Unpacking it, he established the tree was still as good as new. He had no trouble setting it up in the living-room. He also found plenty of electric lights and skillfully wound these around the tree branches. At the top of the tree he put a red ball with a golden pointy top on it. He also wound a bit of lametta around the tree.
I found some more decorations to hang on the tree, shiny balls and the like. On the whole I am rather pleased with our Christmas-tree. The only thing that was left for me to do was to pack all the empty boxes away. I also dug out quite a few candles to spread around the room. Most of them landed on our big dining-room table for the time being. We have a candle-holder with five big candles in it. Here is what is written on each one of them:
‘I love you because each time that we’re together something special happens between us and gives me one more reason thinking of you.’
And it says this is from jerry’s candle company.
There is something else I took notice of, meaning I took time to have a closer look. For the third of Advent we opened some special Christmas biscuits. ‘Fine Nürnberg OBLATEN LEBKUCHEN (Fine spiced cookie Assortment)’, this is what it said on the packet. And the cookies are really delicious!
Amongst all the Christmas stuff I found our ‘nutcracker’. This nutcracker is really special to me for we had it for so many years. I was very happy when I found it. It was such a pleasure unwrapping him and putting him on the table as a decoration. He may not be able to crack nuts, but by gosh, he looks beautiful to me.
Sorry, no pictures for now. I miss being able to publish pictures!
Peter took the above pictures a few days ago. TheJacaranda is in full bloom at this time of the year!
This picture of afternoon tea with my friends was already taken towards the End of September.This must have been a Friday for we are about to play our game of Scrabble!
This is a favourite bin of ours in Corrimal. It is great to be able to recycle things!
In October we did get plantagen shutters installed in several rooms.
Carter with his baby sister on the day of Nina and Troy’s wedding
Part of our back fence had to be replaced because of storm damage. It took quite a long time from when the contractors took the old fence down and the new fence was finally completed.
The finishing touches of getting a new fence! Actually the work still has not been totally finished!
Caroline and Matthew moved last weekend from a studio apartment to a two bedroom apartment next door. The removalist guys had to take everything down 30+ stairs and carry everything up next door some 53 stairs!
This is quite a lot of steps to carry every thing down and then up all these stairs!
The rooster in the above picture remarkably made it to the balcony at the new place! Again, they do not have anything above where they live, so it is like a penthouse apartment!
Survivors’ testimonies, archive footage and re-enacted scenes are combined to describe the effects of one of the coldest and hardest winters in German history, only shortly after the end of WWII.
MY INTENTION: Must see the above documentary! I, Uta, and Peter as well, we can remember all too well this harsh winter!
Now to the downloading of more pictures. I was at a loss this morning to find my picture folder. As always, Peter had to come to the rescue again. So we sorted it out now.
I think I’ll insert some of the pictures into another post!
I found the following in the comment section from 2015:
Aunt Beulah
November 30, 2015 at 1:31 pm
Thanks for sharing a bit of your life with us. The photographs are beautiful, interesting, and charming.
Reply
auntyuta
November 30, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Thanks so much for your lovely comment, Janet. Our ‘Adventskranz’ is of course made up of artificial green stuff, and we’ve had it for many years. I love the little decorations on it. Come advent I admire them each year again. Like a little girl I take time inspecting and enjoying each of the pieces.The other day I thought it might be interesting to see how these little decorations would come out in some photographs. So I spent a bit of time taking pictures and later on cropping some of them. I guess all of these decorations remind me a bit of my childhood. 🙂
ACTUALLY, we do still have this ‘Adventskranz’. I was just thinking, I might soon get it ready for next Sunday! 🙂
This is the Park near where we live.
These yummy berries grew there 4 years ago!
Here Lucas is 3and here Alexander is one!Well, this was four years ago!This is what it looked like from our kitchen window four years ago
Baby Carter arrived on the 21st of November 2016, a Monday. He arrived shortly after 5 in the afternoon. Soon after his birth at Wollongong Hospital a lot of family went to see him and his Mum, Roxy.
Roxy is one of our granddaughters. Our daughter Monika and granddaughter Natasha drove Peter and me to Wollongong Hospital the morning after the Baby had been born. Here are some pictures from Tuesday morning:
Today Carter is three!! We went this morning to see him and his mum and his two months old Baby Sister, sweet Evie!
Desmond White leads a very modern life, riding his bike around inner-city Newcastle, where he lives on his own in a fifth-storey apartment overlooking the wharf.
Key points:
The Australia Talks survey found 96 per cent of Australians use a smartphone
62 per cent of Australians spend between one and six hours a day on their devices, the survey found
Most people think technology is making life better in Australia
But the 93-year-old was unimpressed when he recently became the owner of an iPhone.
“I had one of the old traditional phones, which was misbehaving. All callers — and I’ve got a lot of callers — would say ‘what’s up with your phone, what’s wrong with your phone?'” he said.
Optus offered Mr White a new phone and he agreed, but he was surprised to find it was an iPhone that arrived in the mail.
“I was expecting one like the old-fashioned stuff,” he said.
Suddenly, Mr White, who once presided over a successful tyre business, found himself unable to perform the previously simple task of making a phone call.
“Everybody promised — I’ve got grandkids and whatnot — to show me what to do with it,” he said.
With most of his family outside of the Newcastle area, Mr White turned to a computer club for older Novocastrians.
“I somehow managed to be able to make a call, and of course receive one … but it would be nice if I could do ever so much more, because I know it has so much to offer,” Mr White said.
“Some of them feel a little bit intimidated, feel a little bit upset because the world is changing so fast.
Ms Keen said the generational gap was particularly glaring when younger people tried to help out.
“They [older people] say, ‘oh I asked my son, or my daughter or my grandson or granddaughter … and they say, ‘oh you do this, this and this, press this button, do that, that’s how you do it’,” she said.
“The person sitting there who hasn’t understood the vast difference in the language and all the terminology, and hasn’t seen that before, is suddenly thrown and they’re thinking, ‘I have no idea what that person did’.
“They go to replicate it later and they have no idea.”
It has been more than a decade since Australians were introduced to smartphones, and the ABC’s Australia Talks survey found 96 per cent of people in the country now own one.
Not surprisingly though, the data shows the older you get, the less likely you are to have one.”
I, Uta, copied the above. This new technology I find very scary. I get the creeps when I am bombarded with terms like ‘the cashless society’! I am not 93 yet, I am ‘only’ 85. But I have very poor vision. The idea that in future I may have to use an iPhone does scare me no end. My husband Peter is very close to my age. However, he knows how to use a smartphone and keeps in touch with the children and he also accesses all the information about the children that is available on Facebook. He spends many hours a day on these gadgets. I find it very helpful that he can always give me information about family and friends. So far it worked out all right that I have to rely on Peter for all this information. I think to have to spend hours and hours on these gadgets to eventually get some valuable information is not a very efficent way to get to the news that is important to me. I think I prefer to keep in touch via email or a ‘normal’ phone call if person to person contact is not possible. So far I have been lucky in that person to person contact has still been possible a lot of the time. And occasionally I still get some beautiful emails! And I like the World Wide Web and WordPress!
“Tutors at the club say where once people would come in curious to explore this new frontier, they are now coming in because they have no choice.”
So this is what the tutors say! NO JOICE? I hope this is not true for me. I just do not feel like going to that ‘new frontier’ and spending the last bit of time that may be left to me with torturing my brain with new things that I feel I should not have to learn at this stage of my life!! Please understand, I am willing to adapt as much as possible to new things that are necessary for instance to cope with climate change, but somehow I feel that new frontier technology I should not have to be confronted with . . . .
Today is the third Sunday of Advent.[/caption]
AuntyUta 