Love Is All We Need?

Warning: This is probably going to be another post where I ramble on. My speciality. 

Lately I have been thinking a lot about love. What is love, who do we love, why is love so important? When we were kids things were simple. You loved your daddy and mommy, siblings, grandparents and favorite toys - and once you're older you will meet your Prince Charming and live happily ever after. Spoiler: it's not that easy. 
Taylor Swift once said:

“When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet Prince Charming and he's everything you ever wanted. In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is. Then you grow up and you realize that Prince Charming is not as easy to find as you thought. You realize the bad guy is not wearing a black cape and he's not easy to spot; he's really funny, and he makes you laugh, and he has perfect hair.”

Taylor is right. As usual, because she's Taylor. As easy as that. The older I get the more I realize how complicated things are with love. You don't just fall in love and everything is perfect for the rest of your life. Especially during the last two years or so a lot of my (female) friends haven't been treated very nicely by their significant others at some point and still decided to stay with their partners for longer than they should have. I know what you're thinking right now "Why are they so stupid to stay with someone who doesn't treat them the way they deserve?". I have been thinking that more than once, trust me. In fact I used to be that girl that stayed in a not so happy relationship longer than I should have. When I ask my friends why they don't just dump their boyfriends they always have the same response: "I love him. It'll get better". And eventually it will, but sadly mostly it won't. Hard, but true. Of course there are also my oh so bubbly, happily in love friends, but those are not the kind of people you write blog posts about, right? 

I have asked myself "why do we bother with love so much?" Now that I am not in a relationship anymore I see things much clearer than they were. I think humans are designed to need love like the air they breathe. Which is fine. But is love really all we need in life? Do we really just need that one person to be completely happy? I certainly don't think so. I do agree it is a huge part of our lives and being in love is great, but I don't necessarily think that relationships are the most important thing in life. I am sorry if I sound cynical - don't get me wrong, like I said I think love is wonderful, just not "all we need".

In my last blog post you have read about the change I made during the last half a year and some of my views on life. During the last few months I have been happier than I have been in a long time and I am single (doesn't mean that I was always super unhappy whilst I was in a relationship, to be clear. I just can 100% focus on myself now, which is very important to me at the moment.) So here is what I think is most important in life: Happiness. I truly believe that you can't live a great life if you aren't happy. Remember, you only get on shot, right? Surround yourself by your family, a good group of true friends who bring out the best in you and try to see as much of the world as you can, our planet is beautiful. Also work hard, you'll need the money to fulfill your wishes. 

To all of you hopeless romantics out there. Prince Charming will come. You might have to kiss a few frogs and maybe the person who you think is your "The One" will turn out to be more of a Rumpelstiltskin, but I truly believe that every single one of us will meet the right person someday, maybe after meeting a few wrongs before. You won't end up alone with a bunch of cats, I promise. And if you do end up without a man (which I highly doubt!) that's okay too. Cats rock. 

I would love to hear some of your fairytale stories - the good and bad ones. Email me: germerican-lj@gmx.de or tweet me @germerican_lj.

X's and O's.

L. 

What I am wearing:

Fedora Hat - ASOS

Sunglasses - ASOS

Necklace - Tiffany & Co.

Shirt - Zara

Jeans - Dr Denim

Shoes - Toms

Bag - Louis Vuitton Sac Noe 

The New Me

Dear You,

I want to apologize. It's been almost six months since I have last blogged and I feel like I need to explain a few things. When I started this blog on February 13th, 2014 (Happy One Year Anniversary Germerican!) I was so motivated and excited about having my own little corner of the internet, talking about what I love and maybe creating someones favorite webpage. Looking back 2014 was probably the worst time for me to start a blog. At first I was very busy with graduation from school and thinking about what I would like to do next. The next step in my life. First I thought about going to University right away, but I wasn't really passionate about the courses I had originally chosen and I ended up deciding that I wanted to do a few internships to find out what I enjoy and what not before I go to University, but I feel like at the same time I was trying to find out who I am at a person and what my place is in this world. Not going to lie, those months were pretty hard. I wasn't too busy with my internship (although I enjoyed it) and after a while I felt useless and stupid for deciding against starting University in the fall. I felt like a total loser and I wasn't happy with the life I was living. My parents and best friends were so supportive. They listened to me crying over the same thing over and over again and tried to help me out of my little hole. At the same time some things changed around me and I was constantly anxious. Me stressing about life wasn't helping my anxious moments at all. Things were building up so much that I got an panic attack during a very awesome Ed Sheeran concert that I attended with my best friends. I think that was the point were I realized that I am not 100% okay. It sounds stupid, but just the fact that my life wasn't working out the way I wanted it to be made me feel so bad. In December I started a job at a shoe boutique to make some extra money for University and things gotten better. On New Years Eve, while watching the fireworks with my gorgeous best friend, everything changed. It sounds so cliché, but all of a sudden I saw things clearly for the first time in months! I knew what I wanted in life and I knew who I wanted to have around.

I won't call 2014 the worst year of my life, because not everything was bad, just my school situation sucked and at the time I couldn't focus on anything else. 2015 on the other hand has been great so far. I have distanced myself from people who don't want my best or don't bring out the best in me and I feel really good about it. I don't regret that choice at all. I have decided for myself that I want 2015 to be the year I focus on myself and my happiness and so far, so good. It's only March but I truly believe that 2015 is going to be a lot of fun. On New Years Eve I have decided that I want to spend my money on other things than shopping. Don't get me wrong, I will still buy lots of clothes and accessories (I have bought two designer handbags so far, stay tuned for a blog post), but I also want to invest in trips and adventures.  Last month I spend a lovely week on the spanish island Fuerteventura with my mom and so far I have another two trips planned which I will eventually blog about. Also, since I am telling you all about my past months and what the future will bring, so far I have gotten accepted to two Universities in the Netherlands, which I am thrilled about, but I will talking about University in another blog post I think. Oh and speaking of change, I recently have started out working 5 times a week, including doing Yoga, and I feel awesome. I highly advice everyone who gets stressed out easily to try out Yoga.

Sorry for the unstructured and very long blog post, but I felt like I owed those of you who actually like to read my blog a explanation. YES, I will continue blogging. Last night I actually thought about deleting the blog, but my lovely Lindsey basically forbid me to do it - you should thank her. No, but really. I want to feel excited about my blog again and I have already planned a thing or two. 

Thank you for reading this post and if you have any questions or suggestions on what I could blog about send me an email to: germerican-lj@gmx.de or tweet me: @germerican_lj.

I am excited of what the future brings. 

Lots of love, 
L.

PS: I would like to say thank you to my parents, sister and amazing friends Alicia, Carina, Heather, Lara & Lindsey. You all have been so supportive during the last six months and I love each and single one of you lots and lots and lots. You guys are the greatest humans exciting on this planet and I feel sorry for everyone who doesn't know you. Also thanks to Kirsten who is the funniest person I know. That deserved to be mentioned in this post. X's & O's.

PPS: I don't have long hair anymore. In February I had 10 inches cut off, which I have donated to the Little Princess Trust - an organization that makes wigs for little girls who suffer from cancer. Check them out.

Okay. Bye now. X

Pumpkin Carving Fun

Hello everyone!

 

It has been awhile since I have last blogged, but here I am again. October is one of my favorite months of the year, maybe because it's my birthday month, but mainly because it means that Fall has finally returned. Don't get me wrong - I love summer, sunshine and hot beach vacations but personally I think that the world looks the prettiest with colorful leaves and that Fall season is the best fashion season. Who doesn't love big scarves, boots and jumpers/sweaters? Another thing I like a lot about October is Halloween. I usually don't dress up myself, but I love seeing little children dressed up as spooky creatures, full of excitement and joy when they go trick or treating - and I love the Halloween decoration. That's why two of my best friends and I got together last week and did something that is just a must during Halloween season. We carved pumpkins! Balu (my friends cat in the picture above) was keeping our company and since he's a black cat like my own, he just had to appear in this post. 

We had so much fun during the process and we were pretty proud of us once we were done. I think we did a pretty good job! 

my finished pumpkin

Alicia's finished pumpkin

Navina's finished pumpkin

Lara's finished pumpkin

I would love to hear what you guys think of Halloween and its traditions! Are you dressing up, if so what are you dressing up as? Did you carved some pumpkins yourself? Message me or send me pictures. As usual you can contact me either via Twitter or via Email!

xx,

L.

Summer Outfits

Hello!

I know, I know, it is mid-August and I am only now uploading this post. I have to apologize, I took these pictures almost two months ago and I only now decided to upload the post. Truth is I felt like something special additional to the outfits in the post was missing and I was kind of looking for this something to cross my way, but it didn't. I am not saying I don't like the post or the outfits, I do that's why I am uploading everything now. I didn't want to waste the pictures and although summer is almost over in a lot of parts in the world and uninteresting for those who live there I figured those who are luckier and can actually enjoy the warm weather for a couple more months might still find my outfit ideas useful and inspiring. 

Outfit #1 "Lazy and simple - but cute"

This was one of my favorite outfits to wear the past months! I wore this very simple little black dress with a sun hat and jelly shoes. The sun hat is such a summer must have, especially for a beach vacation. I tend to get head aches very easily, which is why I need to protect my head while I am in the sun - my head was perfect: stylish and useful. A lot of you might not be fans of my salmon-pink jellies or find them childish, but I am absolutely in love with them. Not only are they super affordable, they are also very "in style" this summer and so comfortable. Let's not forget the practical part of my shoes: when I went on vacation in Spain with my sister in July I wore them by the beach and while everyone else was disgusted by the sea weed I just walked straight through it, thanks to my jelly shoes:). This is a perfect during the day outfit, even if you just chill in your garden reading a book. My dress and shoes are from ASOS and the sun hat is from H&M - it's last season but H&M always has sun hats in stock during the summer, if you are interested in getting one I am sure you can find a cheap similar one. The book I was reading is called "Gone Girl", by Gillian Flynn. As a lip product addict I have to add that my lipstick is a the Chanel Rouge Allure No. 90. 

Outfit #2: The festival look

Those of you who enjoy the summer festival season a lot might be interested in this outfit. To me festival outfits have to be comfortable, but cute at the same time. I wore my Topshop crop top and paired it with some high-waisted black shorts I got last summer at Forever21 when I visited my best friends in the state. Personally I don't think that someone can spend a whole day (and night) at a event like a music festival dancing and standing around in heels, that's why I decided to put on my white Vans. Honestly I can think of more comfortable shoes than sneakers, they're perfect for days you are on your feet the whole time. Taking about comfortable: I decided to wear my black Longchamp back pack instead of a handbag because #1 I am obsessed, #2 it is SO beautiful and #3 it is just so much easier. You don't have to carry it around and have your hands free for drinks or simply when you throw your hands up in the air to dance haha:). You can still put a lot of stuff in there though, so that's good. If you do not like back packs I would recommend to wear a small cross body bag. For jewelry I kept it simple and wore little gold ring and two bracelets. The one with the colorful stones was a present by either my mom or my grandma when I was a lot younger and the gold one was my Christmas present from my best friend Heather which is from Alex and Ani. As a lipstick I wore my favorite red - the Rimmel London Kate Moss 107.

Outfit #3: summer weddings 

Sadly the lightening was horrible when I took those outfits pictures, please excuse the sun spots on me. Summer are perfect for summer weddings, that's why I decided to take pictures in a outfit perfect for this kind of occasions or maybe a nice summer dinner. I wore a basic striped dress from Forever21 (which is also last season) and paired it with some white wedge heels from Primark. I kept my make up very simple and did my brows, put some mascara and rouge on. My lip gloss is "Afternoon Tea" by Tanya Burr. For jewelry I wore my Tiffany & Co. necklace (as always).

Outfit #4: An everyday look. 

This is an very casual every day look you can wear for shopping or hanging out with your friends and family. My striped shirt is from H&M, my high-waisted jeans shorts are from Levis and my slippers are Birkenstock and probably my favorite summer shoes. I have had them for about two years now and I still love them so much. I am not wearing any jewelry but my typical necklace and in addition to the whole outfit some white headphones from my local media store. 

I hope you enjoy these outfits and do not find my writing (in general, not only this post) too boring. I am very, very stressed with making Uni decisions at the moment but I will try to blog some more in the future.

Send me your outfits if you use mine as an inspiration!

xx,

L.

Käsespätzle

hello! 

i'm finally back from vacation and ready to keep focusing on my blog. i have a few post that already have been written, but there is still here and there something missing, that's why they aren't online yet. 

besides the shopping, sight seeing and the views there is only one thing my best friends love SO much and that's the food, especially something called käsespätzle. spätzle are some kind of special kind of pasta and they're basically just over-baked with cheese. sadly you can't get the mixture they like in the states and i never can send my besties enough of them, because yeah, they love it so much :). i decided to make up a very, very easy recipe for you guys to make them yourself. 

step 1: 

get out for ingredients. you can take what ever cheese you like. i'm not sure if you can get spätzle (just the noodles) in your local store, but if not i found this link for a bag of 12 on amazon.com: 

http://www.amazon.com/Bechtle-Traditional-Spaetzle-Blackforest-17-6-Ounce/dp/B000S4EICE/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1407345404&sr=8-4&keywords=sp%C3%A4tzle

step 2:

put about a liter water into a pot and cook it, as soon as the water starts boiling you add the noodles and cook them for about 10 minutes. don't forget to stir them every once in a while.

step 3:

after 10 minutes you get rid of the water and let the spätzle cool down for a second or two. 

step 4:

now you put as much noodles as you want on a plate and cover it in cheese. put as much as you want on it, if you don't want a lot you can just sprinkle a little bit on top.

step 5: 

when you're done preparing your spätzle with the amount of cheese you like, you simply but it into the microwaves and let it in there for about 40 seconds - 1 minute - AND VOILA. you're done.

if you're trying out this recipe please let me know, either via email (germerican-lj@gmx.de) or on twitter (germerican_lj) (#germericanljblog) how it works out for you. 

enjoy!

xx, L.

Midnight Memories

I have a younger sister, which you guys probably already figured out by reading some of my previous posts. My sister turned 18 this May and since 18 is a big birthday in Germany (or maybe everywhere in the world?) I figured that her birthday present had to be super special. My sister and I are very close and there is one thing that we both love to do together: yam to One Direction while driving in my car. So when One Direction announced their world wide stadium tour I knew that I had to get us tickets to see them live in at their show in Düsseldorf, Germany. My sister was so excited when she opened up the envelope and got even more excited as she found out that not only her and I were going, but also my best friend and one of her two close friends.

I think we started counting down the days at 200 something when I bought the tickets in January, but time, as usual, went by so fast! As we were planning everything concert related I obviously also started thinking about what to wear and when I searched the web for outfit ideas and maybe some cool 1D merch to buy I stumbled over this page called X Apparel London. X Apparel London makes super cool shirts and accessorizes and they have a section where they offer special 1D and 5 seconds of summer shirts. I loved the shirts the second is first saw them and I also saw this offer where they sell 5 shirts with all the boys last names on them for cheaper if you buy them together instead of just one. 5 of us had tickets to the show, so I thought why not buy the shirts from X Apparel London and have each one of us wear one the 1D boys' last name. The girls thought the idea was great so we ended up purchasing them. 

me, my best friend, my sister & her friends before the show

On July 2nd we left home around noon since we had a almost 3 hour road trip to the stadium ahead of us. All the girls were super excited and the played not only One Directions, but also 5 Seconds of Summer's (the opening act) album on our way to Düsseldorf and had a lot of fun singing the songs we were about to hear on the top of our longs. I am pretty sure the cars passing us thought we were nuts and I don't blame them! The actual excitement started when we saw the signs at the stadium after arriving. 
Sadly, the fives of us had to split before going in to the arena, since my sisters friends didn't have since while the three of us (sister, best friend and I) had. My sisters friends ended up standing in line for about two hours, while we "only" had to wait for 45 minutes, which was annoying enough since it was super hot that day and we all wore jeans and our shirts instead of shorts and tank tops. 

me and my best friend waiting in line. can you guess our favorite 1d members? 

Can I just say that even if you are not a big fan of the boys you also would have had a "wow" moment after entering the arena. IT WAS HUGE. I work at a soccer stadium and I shouldn't have been surprised at all, but seeing the stadium with the stage and thousands of screaming girls was quite something. Luckily our seats were awesome, we had such a good view on the stage and the little runway they had set up in the middle of the stadium. 

Before the show the played songs and music videos and showed some 1D and 5SOS related commercials and oh.my.god. the fans went crazy. They screamed so loud without any of the boys being on stage or anything, I covered my ears because these girls were crazy (in a good way, I guess). 

Around 7pm the opening act 5 Seconds of Summer went on stage and they totally rocked it! They were SO good and very nice to the crowd, I really enjoyed their set! 

A little after 8pm One Direction finally got on stage and they were awesome. After this concert I am even more of a fan than I was before. They played around 23 songs and they're as good live as they are on the records, they just owned the stage. They were jumping and dancing around (very cute and funny!) and talked to the crowd (which made the girls gone wild, as you can imagine) and seemed to have a very good time and so did we. I have been to a few concert before but the Where We Are Tour show was definitely one of my favorites so far. 

If you live in America and or any of the places the "One Direction On The Road Again Tour" will play at I highly recommend to try to get tickets, even if you are not a fan of the boys and just like their or that kind of music. If you are more into pop-ish (punk) rock I would go and try to see 5SOS, just saying. 

So yeah, after all, all of us had a very great day and even though we didn't got home until almost 4am (although the show ended around 1015pm) we had a very, very great day. I talked to the girls and they also said that the enjoyed every second of it and that they are sad that it is over.

What I wore:

- Zara black ripped skinny Jeans
- X Apparel London shirt "Horan 93"
- Nike Vortex in red
- H&M purse 
- Rimmel London Lipstick "Kate Moss 107"
- Rimmel London Rouge & Bronzer

I hope you enjoyed this very long post, even though you might not be a fan of One Direction. Tweet or e-mail me your thoughts, I love to hear from you!
Twitter: @germerican_lj Email: germerican-lj@gmx.de

Where to find the 1D shirts:
http://www.xapparellondon.com/

Be brave. Take risks!

First of all: I am sorry for not blogging in May and most of June. Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I was busy with school, studying and figuring out the next steps in my life. I don't want to talk about that, I'm keeping this for another post. 


For me this year has been all about taking risks. I decided for myself a while ago that I can only, truly, be happy if I do whatever I like without caring about other opinions. I wear things I would have never worn last year, I get braver and braver when it comes to fashion. Some items in my closet are out of my comfort zone and I when wearing them I have to be very confident about myself and my body, but at the end of the day it was worth it, because I did that for me. I do not know who many times I have heard "Are you really gonna wear this?" or "You sure you want to buy this?". YES YES YES, I am, I do. 
I want to walk around with a back pack while going shopping. I want to wear these colorful shoes no one likes. I want to wear lipsticks in different shades and colors and I want to have strong eyebrows. 
But my life isn't only fashion and make-up, that's just smart part that makes me, me. I want study abroad, alone, without my family or friends close. I want to meet as many interesting people and travel as many places I can. I want to spend a lot of money I should have saved for "more important things". I want to be a little bit stupid. I want to live the moment and not think about all the scary things that growing up brings along. I want a second tattoo, with a important meaning. And I want to sit by the ocean, my favorite thing to do.

This post might seem a little bit odd and it is very unstructured. I wanted to share some thought with you and let you know that behind these words there is a 20 year old girl, who's life isn't just structured, just because her posts might be sometimes. I am like you. I have hopes and dreams and plans and wishes. 

I can't wait to share my summer with y'all and focus on my blog and my little blogspot world. 

Follow me on Twitter if you don't already to stay update with what I do or what I love and hate (@germerican_lj). Also, I love to write E-mails with my readers: germerican-lj@gmx.de

xx,
L.