So who else fell in love with living small after reading all the entries to Monday’s giveaway?  Thanks for the support with my newest upcoming adventure – speaking at A Woman Inspired.  You’ve given me some wonderful ideas for my talk on January 26th at 9:30 am CST).  Now I’m chomping at the bit to share a slew of new ideas along with some photos and other fun visuals (I’m doing a little screen sharing so listeners get to see my computer desktop as we go).

Before I announce the lucky winners, remember that you can pick up a ticket to the online conference (Jan 25-29) right here for $12.95.  We were just doing a training session together, and I’m really excited to hear these women speak.  This way if you didn’t win, you can still get in on all of the fun.  Or if you’re sleeping through half of the conference like me… no, no, not because it’s boring.  Because of the whole time difference thing… You can just download the whole shebang and listen at your leisure.

As for the lucky five who are attending A Woman Inspired for free… let’s give it up for Random.org’s five picks:

Hope the five of you enjoy the conference.  I’ll see you there.

Ladies, expect an email with your ticket several days before the conference.

We are so in love with you.  We feel like you are our little baby, and in many ways you are.  Never you mind that Martha Stewart’s kitchen is twice as big as our entire house.  We like you just how you are – all 36 square feet of bubbly, delicious bliss bundled all together in the tiny corner of our living room.

Remember what you looked like when we first met?  I was already trying to give you a sunny disposition with my yellow paint the moment I got the okay… and I figured out where to buy paint in Germany.

You just needed a little more American in you and a little less German – merely meaning Germans like closed kitchens and call open kitchens “American”.  Well that and I don’t know how to cook like a German.  But you seemed to hit it off with my American measuring cups just fine.  And the cosmetic surgery!

In fact, if I do say so myself, you quite prefer English these days.  Or at least I hope so.  Last time I checked, Veganomicon was not being published in German.

But enough of this lovey dovey stuff.  You know what you’ve taught us?

Bigger does not have to mean better.

A life of minimalism can be a really good life.  We don’t need a lot of kitchen stuff to make good food.  We’re not tempted to spend money on one-use gadgets.  In fact, we’re getting used to having less.  And we’re loving it!  (Here’s where you start beaming.)

Do you know how many people have questioned the necessity of more than two burners on their stovetops since visiting Making This Home or meeting you in person?

Did you know that you taught me to stop turning to the microwave for quick fixes?  I really like your little oven/microwave combo unit.  Now I can cook butter on the stove or warm up soup.  Actually, I have to when the oven is on.  I was seriously a microwave girl before.

Don’t tell me you aren’t loving your very own half-size dishwasher.  You went all these years without one.  Now you have your own tiny Katie-spoiler to go with all the other little appliances.

And you know what the coolest thing you’ve taught Martin and me is?  How to have fun.  In the kitchen. Together. Here’s the three of us making caramel.  Aren’t we cute?  I mix.  You cook.  Martin and his lab gear measure.

I’ll bet Martha doesn’t get a graph reading of the temperature of her caramels like you do.

So thanks little kitchen.  Thanks for teaching us to live more simply and do more by hand.  And – most importantly – thanks for keeping our tummies fed.  We couldn’t have done it without you.

Hugs and kisses.

Katie

P.S.  Mind if I mention the little list of treasures we love with our readers?  They might like to see what’s in our Amazon Shop – you know, some of those good things like our favorite eco-products and organizing tools that bring us peace and happiness.

Any other kitchen love out there?  Please share… promise ours won’t get jealous!

You’ve seen me write.  But have you heard me talk?

If you sit in my German class, the answer to both is, “A little.”

If you are my husband, your answers are “Writing?  Yes.  Talking?  Oooooh yes.”

And if you’re a reader of Making This Home, you probably say “yes” to the writing and “no” to the talking, right?

Well that’s about to change.

I’ve been invited to speak at A Woman Inspired, a conference all about raising women up and creating a fulfilling, inspired life (January 25-29).  Yes, yes – I’m still trying to catch my breath about this one.  What an honor to to participate in this conference!

Best of all, the conference is online.  I get to speak right from our little house, which is just perfect.  Jetlag + inspiring performance = not so much.

The topic is “Nurturing Creativity & Efficient Living“, and my hour-long presentation + Q&A is entitled:

Now I suppose you’re looking up at that title about an inspiring giveaway and wondering about the goods, yeah?

Well five of you are in luck!  I have five tickets to give away to An Inspired Woman.  Winners just login, pick and choose presentations they’re interested in listening to (I speak at 9:30 am on Tuesday, Jan. 26), and turn up their speakers.  Then they get to ask the speaker questions just as if we were in the same room together.  And like all good conferences, you get a really fun gift bag.  (If you can’t make it to the conference, you can quickly download the whole thing shortly thereafter.)

Here’s how it goes:

THE PRIZE:

Five winners will receive free tickets to A Woman Inspired (valued at $12.95 each).

HOW TO ENTER:

Leave a comment below with a suggestion you think I should include in talking about living with less – it could be something we’ve talked about on Making This Home, something you do, or something you wish we’d talk about.

**Even if you aren’t able/interested in the conference… I’d still love your thoughts on points to talk about**

DEADLINE:

Entries must be received by Tuesday, January 12 at midnight EST.  The winner will be announced Wednesday.

Lots of luck!  Hope to see you there.

Last weekend, I finished my daily journal for Christmas (I told you about this project here).  I really wanted to capture our first Christmas in Europe together as well as I could.  A daily journal seemed like just the ticket.

At first, I felt a little nervous.  It seems countless people have attempted these “December Daily” projects and failed – it’s just so much work in an already busy season to paste photos, details, and other scrapbooking elements into a page Every Single Day leading up to Christmas.

I didn’t have access to all those fun scrapbooking resources.  They’re not as popular in Germany, and they’re gosh darn expensive.  So I decided to just journal.  I only wrote about our days.

And as a result, I managed to keep up with my journal.  Horay!  (The key was making a bunch of journal pages beforehand so all I had to do was sit down and write a little each time I had a chance.)  The lack of photos and photo layouts turned out to be a huge time saver.

These journals traditionally end on Christmas Day.  But Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve in Germany, and I felt like our celebration was really going to last until January 1st… which was the day our guests all left.

So I kept going until January 1st.

Some days, all I wrote about was finding LED Christmas lights or remembering my favorite thing about dark, winter nights.  Once we even found a special cheese at our grocery store called Christmas cheese!  And other days were packed to the brim with going to see Avatar (in English) and scoping out Christmas markets or visiting family.

I finished the book with a list of goals I have for 2010.  This project is definitely something I want to do again next year.  And if you’d like, I’ll be sure to share the journaling process and ideas I have next season.  Would you be interested?

Psst, don’t forget – if you’re looking for a little help with creative journaling, be sure to swing by my shop.

Over the Christmas holiday, it suddenly occurred to me that I can keep playing the I-don’t-understand-German card… but it’s a big fat lie.  See, somewhere along the line, I started understanding.  When someone gave me directions to our seats at the show or told me that tickets to the museum was sold out, I got it.

I never planned on learning a second language.  In fact, I was grumbling through Spanish 101 when Martin and I met.  He can still tell you horror stories about Katie taking a language class.  It was a bad mix for a simple reason – I had no passion for learning to speak anything more than English.  I was honestly taking the classes because I had to and because Spanish seemed like the obvious choice.  I mean, it’s not like I was ever going to live outside of the United States or anything, right?

It didn’t help that I sounded so much like an American that I had to WRITE Spanish words down on a piece of paper just so that Spanish speakers could understand me.  Spanish class and I were enemies.  If I were the vegetarian, it was my medium rare, double decker bacon cheeseburger.

And now here I am, trying really hard not to type this post like a German speaker attempting English… which I seem to be struggling with every so often when I sit down to write to you.  I am nowhere near close to being finished, but I am at a point where I feel comfortable.  After my next exam, I figure I’ll be starting the 300 level (in American universities) or B level (by European standards).

People continually contact me about moving to Germany, and the biggest fear is the language barrier.

When we moved to Germany, my vocab consisted of words like “Croissant” and “Autobahn” and “Bratwurst”.  Oh, and “Bier.”  Who doesn’t know that one?

All of that was okay.  I was golden for the first few days.  Hold up two fingers.  ”Croissants, bitte.”  Wait for the clerk to hand me my purchase while I read the total on the cash register, juggle coins, and finally hand her the biggest one I have.  (Don’t want to appear to be a foreigner and take too long, you know.)  Point out the cooler in the bakery and tell Martin, “Bier.”

You learn as you go.  And you *need* to take German classes here.  Yeah, the law says so.  But I think it’s important to really understand and embrace your new home.  Would I sound too dorky to admit that it’s actually pretty cool to study here?

The things I most love about studying in Germany are:

1. The teacher is a native German speaker, so you learn to sound like a native
2. The teacher won’t speak your native language.  Okay, most of my teachers have been able to speak English, but they sure can’t say more than a word or two of Vietnemese, Polish, Turkish, or any of the other languages my peers speak.  So everything – from day one – is in German.  And that’s really cool.  It’s the reason I understand when German speakers talk to me today and why I sound a little less American than my Spanish ever was.
3. You have to communicate with classmates in German… and then you have to hope you understand each other.  Pregnancy – that seems to be a frequent topic when a married girl misses school because she’s ill.  Well that and me trying to remember that when a Vietnamese girl says, “Kevin?” she’s really talking to me.
4. The learning doesn’t end when school is over. Oh no.  When our doorbell rings, when I grocery shop, when someone asks for help moving a stroller – it’s all in German.
5. Your growth is really easy to measure. All of a sudden, you can order things at the bakery.  Then you understand how much you owe without looking at the cash register.  Then you start understanding the clerk.  Do you want a bag?  Do you like living in Germany?

As of about 2005, most people who move to Germany are now required to finish a specific level of German called “B1.2″, which is about 650 hours of German lessons and integration classes.  I think it makes sense.  We ought to have a very basic understanding of the local language and government.

I’m just so thankful that it’s actually fun this time.

Did you ever study another language?  Did you enjoy it?  And, umm, did you finish?

(Images by Katie of a Berlin sledding hill where, remarkably, no one seems to run over anyone)

I received the most wonderful surprise over the weekend.  And now all I can say is, “Das ist der Hammer!”

Or in other words, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!”

It seems while Martin was off coaching me on how to get the local lingo down (“Das ist der Hammer” literally translates to “That is the hammer”, but means “OMG”), some of you were sneaking over to Apartment Therapy to nominate Making This Home for a couple of awards.

I’m beyond thrilled.  This little site got 12th place in the “Green Home” category of The Homies 2009 – a contest all about sharing the best in home blogs.

The top six blogs in the “Green Home” category along with others like “Home Design” and “Home Cooking” are head to head for first place.  (I think the voting ends today.)  Or maybe they’re going hammer to hammer.

Either way – thanks you guys.  ”Ya Mann!”