When Martin and I met, he was pretty quick to whip out his little black book.  Unlike most guys, his little book had not a single phone number or reference to any girls.  The only numbers were records like flight hours and technical details of his flights.  Yep.  Martin’s little black book was a pilot’s log book.

…and now guess what I’ve got now that I’m learning to fly!  After I left you all a great list of possibilities to pick from for my first aviation gear – from leather jackets to parachutes – you can probably guess now that I got my hands on my own log book.  

Log book not shown… too busy flying, maybe?

Pilots describe their flying experiences two ways:  (1) the number of hours they’ve logged, and (2) the type of certifications they’ve earned (like multi-engine or certified flight instructor).  There aren’t a whole lot of numbers in my book yet, and I’m still learning to talk the talk.  And now you can, too.  Ask a pilot how many hours he has.

Did you all have a lovely weekend?

Howdy!  June is already thinking of leaving us.  I’ve been making an effort to really embrace the season and the local lingo.  It’s been raining a lot, though – almost as if this is supposed to be Germany.  Despite all the rain, you can still see from the horizon that the grass will always be as brown as can be.  And the poor birds are as soaked as can be.

How has your June been?  Have you had the chance to embrace your home or appreciate the things you have?  I do hope so.  It’s so easy to lust for more, and I know that if we weren’t moving so much, I would be all over an old ceramic barrel that’s as high as my knees because it could be a wonderful way to store miscellaneous things in an entry way or mud room.  I saw in town, for sale next to the cigars, believe it or not.  

Shall we end the week with a few notes?

1. Gabrielle Kai takes the most beautiful everyday pictures.
2. If you’ve always wanted to make your own dairy products or if you feel desperately deprived of German fruit quark like my husband, this cookbook sounds dreamy.  And if you don’t crave quark, Angry Chicken is sure to make you in her review. 
3. We had five deer wandering on top of the roof the other evening.  (Remember how our house is built into a hill?)  It sort of felt like we were living in an apartment building, and the people above us were having a party.
4. Beautiful mouse pads are to be had here.  I don’t need a mouse pad, and I don’t need more stuff.  So if you get one, please share.
5. You can make the cutest paper crowns thanks to Ms. Tee’s fab idea.  Perfect for being Queen for the day.
6. And finally, a question.  We can buy local eggs.  It’s amazing.  But I’m sort of out of the loop with eggs in America… does $6/dozen seem totally crazy to you?

Have a beautiful weekend, and I’ll see you soon.

p.s.  What’s the opposite of “howdy” anyway?

Is it just at our house or do all of you get a ridiculous number of bills with return envelopes, too?  You all know that I’ve gotten worked up about all the waste we have on numerous occasions.  We even talked here on Making This Home about ways to eliminate junk mail.  But despite my efforts to keep out the mail we don’t want… those bills just keep coming.  And with them are those annoying return envelopes.

I never really noticed just how many envelopes we got until we had four separate accounts at one place.  Instead of putting all of our bills in the same envelope each month, we got four letters in the mail with four return envelopes.  When I called to request all of my bills in one envelope to save them money (maybe they didn’t know a girl could have four accounts), the lady thought I was nuts.  It was much easier to mail me four envelopes.

Regardless of if you use return envelopes to pay your bills or do everything online, how many of you would mail back four payments?

I needed a solution to all this waste.

Now Martin says I take things to the extreme.  That might be true.  You can’t stand for what you believe unless you stand up for it all the time, right?  So today I fully intended on writing about the new pilot item I got; then the mail came.  Change of plans.  So now I thought I’d completely embarrass myself and admit my excess envelope solution when it comes to small businesses and and local places like the power company.

I reserve the top drawer center of these plastic bins for things like return envelopes.  

Once or twice a year, I scoop up my envelope collection and knock on the door of the business that sent the envelopes.  I hand them the stack and casually mention how I accrued it.  Oddly, the same woman that told me it was easier to mail four bills every month was thrilled when I gave her my heap.  She told me they could use more envelopes! 

Do you find yourself standing up against something you don’t agree with even if you’re standing alone?

(First image from Flickr)

There comes a time in every beginning pilot’s life when she absolutely needs one thing.  Without this hunk of gold, you might as well be a carpenter who has no hammer.  What’s the point, right?  The weather has been stormy and down right miserable for learning to be a pilot lately, so I thought I’d let you try to guess what I got to make my flying experience a whole lot cooler.  It’s far more interesting than another post about textbook stuff if you ask me.  Ready to guess your little hearts out?

First off, is the pilot must-have we’re talking about a genuine Cockpit Antique Lambskin A-2 Leather Jacket?  You know every pilot’s sporting one of these.

Some even go for one of these.  Ooh la la.

Maybe I snatched up my own aviator glasses.  Yes?

A parachute?

A little log book then?  (Boy this is more fun than studying.)

I’ve seen these fuzzy fellas for sale at a few airports, and they’re really friendly (if not a bit dusty).  Could this be The Must Have Item?

And my parents would be so proud to see me land back home sporting one of these.  Do you suppose I got my own aviator cap?

And if you’re still just not sure what the must-have pilot accessory I have is, I suppose it could be this last item since almost Every Single pilot is male:

No one has told me if this flashy underwear is must-have, so I don’t really know.  All I know is that it’s really cool to have the phrase “remove before flight” on your clothes so you can match the parked planes.  They have “remove before flight” signs covering important equipment from dirt and bugs.  See, men can coordinate their clothes!  Not surprisingly, “remove before flight” clothing isn’t available for women.  (Is that because the lack of women in aviation or because the idea is really weird?  I’ll let you decide for yourself on that one.)

Anyway, we’re not here to judge aviation fashion.  We’ve all seen Leonardo DiCaprio wearing a lot of these things.  The question at hand is what aviation accessory I just added to my collection of stuff to haul with us when we move again.  Any guesses?  

Feel free to throw in any other good aviation tools you might recommend while you’re at it.

(All images from MyPilotStore except hat and glass from Amazon)

It probably comes as no surprise that we’re big supporters of the idea that the kitchen is the heart of any home.  After all, we spent months and months building our tiny (albeit super small) kitchen in Berlin.  It seems that no matter where we live, I’m always showing you the kitchen first (like here in Denver, too) and swearing off preservatives and additives in our food.  So after more than a handful of requests for our favorite cookbooks we’ve collected over the years, I thought I’d finally dish the goods.  Plus they’re all less than $27 bucks – the same price as dinner out.  Let’s dig in.

1. The New Moosewood Cookbook –  Besides having a really cool name, this book’s one of the top ten best selling cookbooks ever.  The down-to-earth, handwritten style had me hooked at first glance.  (I used to spend hours trying to find decent vegetarian cookbooks.)  Wait – vegetarian?  Yep.  We’re a meat-free household.  Mmm lettuce.  The Moosewood Cookbook had Martin hooked after a bowl of hearty soup.  Or was it the cake?  Either way, it’s hands down the best soups and fruit-based recipes ever, which explains why this book is still in print 30-some  years later.

2.  Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - This book is called the Julia Child cookbook of vegetarian cooking.  It’s really handy for those days when you think you brought home lettuce only to discover it is something called kale that you need to cook first.  Jet lag, language barrier… I don’t know.  There are a lot of different fresh vegetables in Germany than I grew up with; that’s all I’m saying.   We’ve got one copy in Germany, and I got a second for Christmas to keep here.  You know how hard it is to part with something you love.

3. Vegan with a Vengeance – Call me a hippy ’cause I love this book and the punk rock author, Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  It’s introduced us to a lot of really fun ingredients and really freaked Martin out on several occasions when he discovered we were going to eat scrambled tofu “eggs” (which really are amazing, by the way).  Every recipe in this book has no meat, no dairy, and no eggs.  It’s the only book I’ve purchased myself; the rest have been gifts over the years.  This book is in Germany, and I miss it.  Waahh!

4. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian – Well I hate to say this after years of bragging about Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, but I think this book has taken the lead.  The author, Mark Bittman, has a kitchen just slightly bigger than ours (wanna see it?).  He also has the world’s best pancake and quiche recipes.  Apparently How to Cook Everything is pretty brilliant, too.  You know, if you’re into that red slimy stuff.  I mean cows.

Any page-turners in your kitchen – vegetarian or not?  I know my family would especially be interested in a few heads up.  Christmas comes faster every year, ya know.

We have to live with less.  From our 36 square foot kitchen in Berlin to the what-we-can-stuff-in-the-car life we seem to be adopting in the United States, Martin and I have learned that life doesn’t get better when you have more stuff.   I won’t argue that it’s nice to have some things, especially the things you use and that mean something to you.

A while back, I started a little treasure chest filled with the things that make me happy when we live in someone else’s furnished home.  We can’t really rearrange their cupboards or get rid of things that don’t fit our lifestyle (you know, like toxic conventional cleaners).  What I can try to do is make a place that’s just mine.  

Every time I get frustrated that the silverware isn’t next to the dishwasher or the oven cooks a little differently than the last one I used, I open this drawer:

It’s filled with the little kitchen items worth smiling about.  It’s also the stuff I can’t always find in someone else’s home.  My favorites are:

• an apron from Valentine’s Day, made by this etsy seller (upper right)
• cloves for making homemade chai (lower right)
• dishwasher safe silicon cupcake liners and pastry brush
• cookie cutters from a family wedding
• two metal tea infusers to feed our excessive tea habit

I think you have to create your own moments of happiness.  You can’t expect other people – or their places – to always create them for you.  When you feel like you don’t have control, try carving out a little space that’s just for you.  (As for me, a quick “before” picture is all it takes so I can put everything back how it was for the owners.)  A little draw in the kitchen is just right.

As it turns out, that little bit of happiness can come from one small space without much money.  My mom always told me, “Be thankful for what you have.”  What a wonderful way to create a simple life.