June 21, 2009

Betuwe Sunrise

Last week I got to spend a day at my parents' house, on their weekly Noah-day. Enjoyed it to the max, the little guy is so friendly and cute!
Brought my pocket camera for some snapshots, but it's a love/hate thing between me and that cam. It doesn't do what I want it to do ("shrink, my camera just doesn't listen to me, what should I do?") and the nice Noah-report I planned went nowhere. Guess I'm expecting too much from a rather cheap thingy...
Anyway, I dusted off my old buddy, a Konica Minolta Dimage Z10. It's slow, only 3.2 mp and it's slightly more automatic than I'd wish, but the results are okay.
Last night was another sleepless one and around 4 a.m. I just needed to get some fresh air, so I took my bike & my old buddy and together we watched the sun rise on the Betuwe.
You can click on the slide show to see the images (>100) larger...
(ps: the shots I took in Uden will follow soon)
Please follow this link to view the slide show. The embedded version caused problems on this blog.
http://www.slide.com/r/ABHHsFbqcD-5CODZjcZeT4Rgb94yImaw?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

June 20, 2009

Sad Giraffe

Sad news this morning: the 16 months young daughter of friends passed away. Can't imagine how horrible that must be for the parents...we feel bad for them, had a candle burning all day.
On the card we received was a giraffe, reminding of the giraffe on the birth announcement last year. So I got to draw another one. Hang on there, J&D!!!

June 16, 2009

A Million Giraffes




On the BookCrossing forum someone posted a link: http://www.olahelland.net/giraffes/.


How awesome, this guy has made a bet with a friend:


My friend, Jørgen, doesn't believe I can collect one million hand drawn
giraffes by 2011. I'm gonna prove him wrong. So far I've got 1719 giraffes, so I
need 998 281 more! And I have 563 days left to get them.Let's show Jørgen how
amazing the internet is. Search is coming soon!
Needless to say I got inspired and I just uploaded mine. And even Albert joined!

So here's my request to my readers: please visit that website and take a few minutes (or hours/days/weeks^^) to draw a giraffe. Must be hand drawn or hand made (knitted for example) and it doesn't have to be pretty or a masterpiece. You can upload your giraffe at the site itself. Please join!


June 15, 2009

Congratulations Maartje!

My little sister graduated today!
Well done sus!

Blisters, Temptations & Haircuts

Just a regular day.
Been to 'school' and I often pay a visit to the little chapel on my way. Love the silence and the possibility to light a candle. At the moment my candles are for Pebby & family, they're going through such hard times.

Noticed I'm only wearing my Converses, so I'm giving another pair of shoes a chance to get some fresh air. After wearing them for a few hours I remember why these shoes aren't on my feet very often: they hurt! Blisters! Bought a pack of blister patches, what a relief...














Note to self: never have a drink here, the slogan reminds me of a politician I hated;)






Just enough change to buy yarn at the market...







...temptation is lurking...








...but I made it! :)
Embarrassing moment when I wanted to pay for the yarn and noticed I was 10 cents short. Did my IQ drop again?! (maybe it did, but on my way home I saw a hole in my wallet) The seller was kind and gave me 10 cents discount:)






In the bus homewards a guy with a hat sat in front of me. I love it when people have the guts to wear a hat!






My hair was getting sooooo long, so I went for a haircut last week.
This is the "before" shot.
Chose to go to a hairdresser in Tiel so I wouldn't have to gossip along with the hair people in our own village, but my gosh, what a commercial shop I picked! The girl who washed my hair tried to sell me some shampoo that I just couldn't live without and had comments on the few grey hairs I've got (nope, I don't need you to dye my hair, I can do that myself way cheaper. Besides, I happen to like those white hairs!).
During the haircut, they placed several products on the side table so I could think about buying those and I got advice on which texturizer to use, of course available at their counter. And why wouldn't I buy their vip card? Pay ahead for 8 haircuts and get 2 extra for free! Well, because I'm not planning to return here. I'm satisfied with the result, but I'd rather practise my "saying no" skills somewhere else.
And this is the "after" shot.
As you can see, I didn't get much sleep last night;)
And yes, my hair is darker. My own color isn't as bright as it used to be, a bit dull as well. So, sorry white hairs, you're covered up after all...



June 14, 2009

Crafty


So my new cell phone needed a cover. Have had a "clam" phone for years which was really purse proof, but my new one is a slider. Don't wanna get too many scratches on the screen, so I browsed around for ideas. Found some really nice "phone socks", but so pricy! And I'm quite a picky shopper;)
Found nice cotton yarn in earth tones and picked up my crochet needle. Happy with the result!
It's addictive though (beware!), started on one in purple as well. Maybe a nice webshop item?
Oh and I really need to start using the portable photostudio I bought so I can shoot a pic indoors without that annoying flash. The purple looks too blue here. Ah well, the idea is clear :)









The Impossible Quiz 2 - can you do it?


The Impossible Quiz 2 by ~Splapp-me-do on deviantART

June 5, 2009

Your Votes Please! European Council.

Ah, voting time! My first time with the good old red pencil instead of the computer system. Somehow it feels more official. Put my heart & soul in colouring that box ;)
I thought of voting for the "Partij voor de Dieren" (a party that fights for animal rights) this time, but it didn't feel okay not to support the party I'm a big fan of, GroenLinks. Their opinion on animal rights is really strong as well, plus I agree with their opinions on social & environmental issues. In these times of growing xenophobia, I think it's important to carry out a message of tolerance & equality. I hate what's going on in this little country: nowadays it seems to be totally accepted when people shout things about foreigners and closing the borders. It keeps shocking me, but it's even more shocking that it isn't frowned upon anymore. Holland has changed.
Can we stop these messages of hate? I don't know. All I can do is vote from the heart and be open about that. And it's good to see I'm not the only one: 8,8% of the Dutch voters went for GroenLinks and that means 3 seats in the EP. Keep up the good work, Judith, Bas and Marije!
just a split second after dropping my voting paper into the box ;)

A, M & the city

As we're not going on vacation, we plan day trips. Had a very nice day in Utrecht city as you can see below: