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

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!!!

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!

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...

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

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:

Happy Birthday!

You can congratulate Anne here: Anne's guestbook

Palingsoap, or "Sachie and the Eel"

Now that Puschkin is getting older, we try to enrich his diet with different snacks. Today on the menu: eels. He used to get totally wild about that years ago, but today he sniffed, smelled, licked and just walked away. Okay, we'll try something different next time!

Of course the others could eat along, but the only one who really liked it was Sachie. Of course. Eating is his no.1 hobby!

ps: yesterday I had such an awesome day at Brigiet's birthday but my camera hasn't left my bag during the day. Being there and celebrating was just enough.

Let's hope the mailman hurries...

A box? What's in it?

Nothing? Well, not anymore, everyone knows boxes are for cats!

It's going to Sweden? Those people who shared their vla with me? In that case, I'm aboard!

HyperHyper!

Sigh. It's one of those days/nights again.

Friday was a good, actually a very good day, but the bill came when evening fell: exhausted, felt like the smallest sound or touch would make me burst out in hysterical screaming. Or something like that. So, counted my blessings (the main part of the day was nice) and went to bed early with an extra pill and a nice book.
We had planned a birthday visit to my brother in law, but I was still at the edge of screaming, so we stayed at home. Slept all day.
This morning there was energy again, hooray!
We went for a cup of coffee, nothing big or fancy or far from home, just coffee. And I enjoyed being outdoors. But then I noticed the joy was overwhelming me. Too much, too fast. Heard myself talking faster and faster, more and more unfocused and I knew if I'd give in to all the ideas that were dazzling in my head, I'd lose control and happiness would end up in tears.
But hey! I was aware of this mood swing while it was happening, and that's such a difference with years ago! The swings are unwanted, but I can now guide myself through them. Well, at least this time I was able to do that. Often it occurs so rapidly that I'm in the middle of it before I realize what's going on.
Anyway, I told Albert. He'd already noticed ;)
Agreed with him and myself that the rest of the day should be very quiet, without activities that invite my head to go spinning. We had dinner, watched some tv, I registered some books and then it was time to go to bed.

Awww, couldn't focus on the book I was reading and was too restless to meditate. Ideas, ideas, ideas, all waiting for me to explore. Tense, so tense.
Couldn't resist the urge to leave the bed, so here I am, in the middle of the night, sipping tea, smoking. Maybe trying to find words for my feelings helps?
We'll see.
Going back to bed, try to get a few hours of sleep before the day begins.

Good night!

We <3 Wageningen!

Today we got to spend some time in Wageningen again, always a joy!
Some pics:

<-- yikes, me no like this plant tower!















<--- is she trying to pick up old men? is she hitch-hiking? no, she's expressing her love for oliebollen! (but she didn't buy any - good girl!)











<---picking up a "from Holland to Sweden" proof box at the post office













<--- tea time!













<--- probably our favourite spot in Wageningen. Is it because the café is called "De Kater" (the tom cat)?

<--- bright white hairs pop up in Albert's beard; I simply adore them! (and the owner is cute as well!)

<--- book release

<--- another book set free

<---but this one I just bought, so it can stay with me for a while. A friend tipped me about this writer and I kept seeing these books everywhere. How could I resist?

<---and this reminded us of that same friend :)

<---waiting for the bus

<---little surprise for one of the cats

<---Albert, realising sunglasses would be handy

<--- me, thinking it's forbidden to smile when you're wearing sunglasses...

Bye, Wageningen, see you again soon!

(oh and please give us a house, we want to grow old(er) here!)

BookCrossing generosity

Yesterday a heavy envelope landed in my mailbox. I wasn't expecting anything, so what could it be?
When I saw the BookCrossing sticker on the back and the name on the front, I already started smiling: a present from another BookCrosser! Whooohoooo!
Last year I joined a gift exchange initiative (Holiday Gift Giving) and it was a blast. Sent out lots of envelopes and received even more wonderful gifts. Big ones, small ones, all chosen with care and received with a big smile.
I wasn't aware there was another Gift Giving project going, but sweet Shemchin remembered my wishlist from last year and sent me presents anyhow!

This all came out of that envelope: 2 books on making cards (inspiring, very different from the books about that topic I've seen before), a wooden bookmark, a BC key fob, a BC pin, All American candy, 2 boxes of clove ciggies (a brand that's not available over here) and a huge amount of BC stickers.
I feel SPOILED!

Thank you Sheila, you're so full of surprises! <3