It is the East and Juliet is the Sun

Part 22: Weekly Overview (Week 45)

2011-11-17T09:19:00.000+01:00

Last week was madness again!
- Marijn keeps coming home really late from Amsterdam. Which means that I pick up Elias from daycare on Mondays and Wednesdays, walk him home, wash him, feed him, cuddle him before I put him to bed. Around 7:30pm I'm starting dinner and hopefully somewhere around 8pm Marijn will be home too. Usually he's later though.
- Last week was the last week I had to work for four days, this year. Marijn took an extra day off to take care of Elias. He was home on Tuesday and Thursday, I was home on Friday.
- We ate an awesome pasta dish I made with mushrooms, spinach, cream cheese and bacon bits. It was so good we're having it again this week.
- On Saturday morning I went to Jennie's. We had some stuff to talk about (Royal Lemon) and some scrapping to do (workshop 2012). Overall, we had a VERY productive weekend. I always love going to her place. My me-time starts and ends with a grande skinny latte at Starbucks Schiphol, and in between we usually have fries from de Patatzak, which is the BESTEST EVER :)
- I finished half an album and three layouts. We also made a plan for Royal Lemon in 2012.
- Jennie makes the best grilled cheese. Yum.
- Marijn and Elias stayed home and had a so-called man-weekend. I think it involved going for some shopping on Saturday, eating chicken, lazy pajama time and some walks in the ice cold weather we've been having since last week. Marijn loves his daddy-weekends and never judges me for leaving him and E for a night. He knows Jennie doesn't live around the corner so I can pop by for an hour or two.
- Elias' 7th tooth is coming! Finally! He loves playing with random household items. His favourite right now are the clothing pins. He really likes tossing them all around and then looking at me with his mischievous grin. :)
- We're no longer feeding Elias four bottles of milk per day. He now drinks three, and also has one service of fruit, one serving of veggies and sometimes a little bread (although he's not a fan yet). He sleeps two, sometimes three, times per day.
- He loves going to the supermarket with me and hold one or two of the items we're buying. Last week he held and played with a pack of toilet paper and had a blast. He's so funny!

See you next week! I'll try and upload some more photos later.

Part 21: Scrapping about Elias

2011-11-11T10:01:00.001+01:00

To be honest, I've been seriously lacking creative mojo for the past months. I've been extremely tired and not in the mood to scrap. But I managed to finished a few layouts about Elias. Here are three of them, I'll show more later. Fact is, I've been scraplifting, so the first two aren't really mine. But hey, better a lifted layout than no layout. :)

Part 20: Weekly Overview (week 44)

2011-11-11T09:52:00.000+01:00

- This week was all about work! It was the last week of 2011 that I had to work for four days. The rest of the year I'll be working three days. Marijn spent a lot of time in Amsterdam.
- Elias has been really sick last weekend. Coughing, vomiting...poor smurf.
- We got a new tv from my parents! Which is awesome, because our old tv was showing everything with a nice blue glow. I see a lot of movie-date-nights at home in our future and I'm compiling a list of must-sees.
- Another two photo-albums arrived from Webprint. I'm slowly accepting the fact that I'll never be able to scrap all of our wedding-pictures, and it's been 3 years now! So I decided to upload them in small soft-cover albums. There are going to be six in total (getting ready - ceremony - guest portraits - photoshoot - dinner - party). First three are done! They turned out really cute! Next month I'll have another one printed. Hey, it's all about spreading the cost baby. ;)
- I'm getting ready for Sinterklaas. Can't wait to celebrate with Elias and the whole family. Sinterklaas has always been one of my favourite family traditions and I plan to make a big hoopla about it the upcoming 20 years!
- The realtor showing our apartment to two new potential buyers. The total is now 7, and no bids yet. I like the way that our house is always neat and clean right now, I hate the fact that half of our crap is in storage.
- I've been working on my bucketlist of 35 things I want to do before I'm 35!

Part 19: Weekly Overview (week 43)

2011-10-30T18:45:00.001+01:00

Here's what happened this week:

- I went to stay with Jennie last weekend. Carla and Linda came too, we scrapped, laughed and made plans for Royal Lemon in 2012. I started working on the workshop we'll be sending our members, made 8 cards and started 2 layouts. Overall, quite productive and lots of fun!
- Elias went to daycare on Monday and Wednesday. I think he's been licking other children again, because he's all snotty again. (note to self: find out how one keeps child from licking everything)
- We had our first Parent-Teacher-meeting on Tuesday! Auntie Hanne and Marijn's mum came to watch him, and off we went. So far, Elias is doing great. His social skills and fine motor skills are developing great. He loves playing with the other young children, but also likes to sit with the bigger kids at the table. He can entertain himself, he's always smiling, he loves the teachers...so we were quite proud of our little smurf!
- That same evening we went out for dinner, celebrating the fact that we've been together for 12,5 years! Holy smokes, that's a long time!
- Marijn had to work every day this week, four of them he went to Amsterdam and wasn't home before 8pm. It sucks, not having him here. But on the other hand, this project he's working on is quite awesome and lots of people would give a limb or various intestines to be in his shoes. I'm really proud of him.
- I had the week off. Mandatory fall-break. I did all sorts of stuff around the house, and also enjoyed two days all by myself. (Yes, I brought the kidlet to daycare while I had the day off. Do you know how much we pay for daycare?!?)
- Mom came on Thursday, to spend some time with E. I always love having her here. So does E.
- We had potential buyers for our house coming over on Saturday and Friday. Makes a total of 5. Still no offers.
- Marijn was gone on Saturday evening, playing with band 1 (Captain Ortega) and on Sunday evening playing with band 2 (Moksha). While he was practicing this afternoon, Elias wanted to play the bass too. He loved it!

The upcoming week I'll have to work 4 days, so it's going to be busy!

Part 18: Series

2011-10-28T09:01:00.000+02:00

I've had some spare time this past year. Well, actually, I've spent more hours in front of the computer, or on the iPhone and iPad than I can count (Apple gadgets seem to be a necessity when it comes to late night feedings or short baby-naps).

My dl-queue is always filled these days! I've added some great series (like The Lying Game...thanks Carla! And Masterchef Australia, waaaay better than the Dutch version, which is just plain yuck) and also dropped some (like Private Practice...I just couldn't handle the non-existing storylines anymore).
Here's what I've been watching. Any recommendations I need to add?

Part 17: Fast forward 9 months

2011-10-26T17:11:00.001+02:00

And this is us, nine months later. Today Elias turns nine months. I cannot even begin the describe how fast the past months have flown by. We came home with a tiny bundle o' baby and look at him now. At his last check-up he was 72cm long and weighed 8200grams. He can sit, crawl, chatter, play quietly by himself, laugh (a lot!), make little jokes and give mushy snotty hugs. We've encountered a lot these past months, but I think we're on the right track.

He looks just like Msrijn when he was younger. He has big blue eyes, really long legs and fingers and short dark blonde fluffy hair. He's curious about every little thing and loves to be 'just part of it'. If we cook, he wants to be in the kitchen. When we do laundry, he wants to be up on the bed 'helping'. He likes sitting with us at the table. He wants to touch everything, feel textures, his fine motorskills are amazing. And he licks! He licks EVERYTHING. The floor, his toys, the couch, daddy's shoes, the diswasher...We actually have to clean stuff better, hee hee.

He likes playing with his toys, but also with random stuff like ladles and washcloths and whatnot. He loves going to daycare. His teachers are amazing and take such good care of him two days per week. He plays with the other children (and I'm pretty sure he licks them too, cause he's been snotty for four months straight). His face lights up when I arrive at daycare in the afternoon. He cuddles and reaches for you to pick him up. He'll try to stand up and gets frustrated when it's not working. He wants so much! He sleeps like a champ. Well, not during the day, but at night he'll roll over to his belly and sleep for 10 hours straight. He snores. You'll never find him in his bed the way you left him there, he's always on the move. He almost always smiles when he wakes up. He'll drink his bottles, eat his fruits and veggies and snack on breadsticks. He's not ready yet for more. But that's okay. We need to take things slow. He's made me more patient. I learn from him every day.

That's Elias in a nutshell. We love him so much! I cannot imagine our lives without him anymore. I'm so proud of my little boy. I can't wait to see him grow up. <3

Part 16: Being pregnant

2011-10-26T10:37:00.001+02:00

Let me tell you something about being pregnant first. I bought the book 'Taking Charge of your Fertility' and whoa did it teach me some stuff about how everything works on the inside. I mean, I knew the basics, but this book was baby-science-manual for dummies. I loved it. And on May 17, 2010, our time had finally come. I knew it when I went to work one day at the beginning of June. I felt weird. Different. I knew straight away. That night in bed I told Marijn how strange I felt and we decided to test. The Clearblue-test-thingie came back positive immediately. We looked at each other and said 'wow, that's cool. We're going to be parents. I guess.' There was no crying, no hysteria, just us being our realistic selves. I remember saying to Marijn that it was so early and that everything still could go wrong. And I remember going to sleep that night and secretly be scared of what kind of trouble we had gotten ourselves into.

The first trimester I was scared, like, all the time. Scared of going to the bathroom, scared of stress, scared that one day I had to start telling people, scared of what said people would say of think, scared of eating the wrong stuff, scared of not 'doing this right'. I was so scared of losing our little tiny baby, because, isn't that what happens? Once you dive in with all your heart and enjoy and just be happy and grateful, something is destined to go wrong? I was walking on eggshells.
We signed up at a local pregnancy center, but couldn't get an appointment until I was eight weeks along. The waiting was pure agony. And then, on June 29, we saw our little tiny peanut for the first time. He was still there. And he was doing brilliantly. This was real. It hadn't been real until I saw a little tiny heartbeat on a screen and had a midwife tell me that there indeed would be a baby on February 6th, 2011.

A few days later we told our parents. It was a lovely and warm day, we bbq-ed in the garden, we watched a soccer game (Netherlands won) and afterwards we gave my parents and Marijn's mum a frame with the first ultrasound in it. Marijn's mum didn't get it at all. My mum couldn't find her glasses. My dad was the only one who got the clue. It was super fun! Everyone was estatic! :)
After that we told our friends (although Jennie was the first to know *ever*...I had to tell her! She was -and is- my rock!) and people at work and everyone else who wanted to hear it.

At 14 weeks we decided that we wanted to have the baby tested for Down's. Just to know. And to be prepared. Fortunately, she passed with flying colors, leaving a chance of 1 in 2015 to actually have Down's. I'm saying 'she', because I was positive it would be a girl. I mean, my grandmother had five sisters, my mum has a sister, I have a sister....see a pattern? Yeah, *no* boys! So a girl it was going to be. We picked out a name and everything.
Six weeks later, they told me it was a boy. Uhm what? Hello? No way. I was so sure! Apparently not. I asked them to check again. Nope, still a boy. They even pointed his little plumbing gear out on the monitor. Yes, definitely a boy. Holy crap!
I remember there was crying and hysteria on my part when we got home from the hospital. I remember sobbing in the parking lot and saying 'it can't be a boy! I know NOTHING about boys!' and I also remember arguing that I 'only knew how to do pink' and 'I don't think I can be a fun boy-mom'. Just blame it on the hormones. I had to re-adjust my whole perspective that weekend. We went shopping for boy-stuff, I talked to Jennie (a lot) who convinced me that boys we're awesome and that no one loves their mom as much as a boy does and that if she had to choose, she'd have tons of baby-boys (all wearing little denim overalls). After a few days, I was determined to be the most awesome mom of boys you could imagine.

I remember being really weird! I craved all things dairy and my feet were always hot. I even put my shoes in the fridge at work one time, because I thought it would help. I read every book, site and blog to be prepared for everything that was going to happen. I soaked up other people's pregnancy- and baby stories up like a sponge. The nastier, grosser, scarier...the better! I wanted to know it all, and feel prepared. Me, a control freak? Who in the world told you that?!? :) I was looking forward to my maternity leave, I enjoyed feeling my belly expand, loved those tiny kicks and didn't even mind peeing every five freakin' minutes.

When I was finally able to let my guard down a teeny tiny bit and actually enjoy the whole thing, it went wrong. We already knew we had to leave the pregnancy-center and be monitored by the hospital's ob gyn, because of my weight. Not ideal, but as my pregnancy progressed, I could not have been happier with the care I got in the hospital. I was at high risk for GD and managed to fail 1/5th of my glucose tests by the time I was 22 weeks pregnant. And so weeks and weeks of testing, retesting, waiting at the hospital, more testing, more concerns followed. I felt so stressed and vulnerable and just plain crappy. And with every test result my confidence shattered a bit more. It was like getting a slap in the face. The whole universe was screaming 'see!?! I told you you were doing it wrong! you don't deserve this AT ALL!'. I tried so hard to do everything the right way, that it was eating me alive. I was on a strict diet (which made me quite grumpy...okay, I'll be honest, it made me quite mental), but every time I drew blood, the results would just be a teeeeeeeeny tiny bit higher than they were supposed to. I was on the brim of GD, and that scared the crap out of me. Well, at first it were the needles that scared the scrap out of me, but after being pricked for about 2385 times, I got kind of immune to it. Every week we would be in the hospital, and every week there were concerns. The baby would be too big, I would have to be induced, I had to draw blood (by myself!) 5 times a day to check my glucose levels). It felt like I was a bad mother already, and the baby wasn't even here yet.

By the time my maternity leave started, at 33 weeks, I was drained. I had worked so hard, trying to please everyone...the people at work, the doctors...Oh yes, I was all smiles and 'I feel so blessed and lucky' and crap like that. Truth was, I was miserable. I really tried to enjoy it. Laying on the couch and feeling his little feet on the upper left of my belly, and his head on the lower right. Laying in bed next to Marijn, with our tiny peanut squished in between us. Talking to him, singing to him, telling him how sorry I was and that everything was going to be okay.
When I was about 34 weeks, I was put on insulin to help regulate my glucose levels and I had to shoot myself up my leg daily. By that time, I was feeling indifferent. I was like 'ah well, I guess it's supposed to be tough'. I was done fighting it, and just dealt with it. High blood pressure? Sure why not. I spent many days in the hospital hooked onto monitors. Waiting, waiting, waiting. And taking the glum results without a fight. It was *nothing * like I thought it would be. At times I would get mad, asking where my freakin' pink cloud was? I was jealous of others, who seemed to be all fluttering happiness. I was angry, asking 'why me? do I deserve this kind of shit?'. But overall, I was feeling sad, alone and misunderstood.

We shopped our hearts out. Almost every day the postman would deliver packages, which I loved. We created a cute little bedroom for him, picked up a cast iron crib and a second hand vintage dresser that we filled with baby clothes and socks and hats and blankets and everything. With every package that arrived I started to feel a little more prepared. Plus it got my mind off thinking about actually giving birth ;) Because that also (surprise!) scared the bejeezus out of me :D
We picked out three names, which was hard! I had 16 (yes, that's true) girl names picked out and 0 (zero) boy names. Boys names are hard! But finally we agreed on three names and decided just to see what he would look like after he was born and pick on the spot. Easy peasy.
Then 37 weeks arrived and because the doctors were convinced that I was carrying some sort on ginormous monster-sized baby that would never be able to fit through my hooha if we would wait until 40 weeks, they decided to induce me at 38w1d. It was monday, January 24th 2011.
But that's a whole 'nother story.

Part 15: Am I really ready to do this again? Blogging, that is.

2011-10-26T08:07:00.001+02:00

I miss blogging! I miss writing down the randomness of our lives! But as you can see, I'm not really good at staying focussed and updating regularly. See, as life is zipping by, stuff happens....and I don't take the time to blog. Hence the 1.5 posts of last year and the 6.3 posts in the year before.

And stuff *has* happened! I got pregnant. Which was really tough. We had a baby. A little baby boy named Elias. Who is 9 months already and can crawl, sit, laugh really deep belly laughs, cuddle and so many things more. He's awesome. (we're keeping him ;) ). I never thought I could love a tiny human so, so much. He has completed me in so many ways. He has made us a family.

The past year has been hard. I've been a wreck, I've been scared and most of all I've felt really alone. But now he's nine months, and I'm starting to feel slightly human again. I can fit in my old pants again (yay me!), I think we have some sort of daily schedule (yay us!), Elias isn't crying anymore for 10-12 hours per day (yay Elias!), Marijn has a new job (yay Marijn!)....and I'm feeling like I need to 'get back to business'.

So here I am. I took the password off the blog and will try again. Open for business. Talk to you soon!

Part 14: Change

2010-01-01T09:48:00.004+01:00

So I decided that my word of 2010 will be 'Change'. Got my mantra (this year is going to be FABULOUS, this year is going to be FABULOUS), got my blog, got my camera.

Let's start off with some pictures of us in the snow. About ten days ago, we had some heavy snowfall in The Netherlands. Now you should know that I'm definitely *not* a fan of snow. Yeah, like for the first five minutes, it's like ooooh pretty and everything. But then four cars drive by and you're left with icy grey goo which isn't pretty at all. Plus I always seem to manage to fall and hurt myself. So no, definitely not a fan.
Anyway, there was snow. Lots of it. And I had things to do, like commute to work and such. But snow usually means that trains will be cancelled or delayed, and that's kind of hard when you rely on those when you need to get to work. First day: train drove right through a truck, no trains, 4 hours delay. Second day, it took me 3.5 hours to get to work, and another 3 to get home. Decided that this wasn't going to work. I couldn't just take the days before Christmas off, because there was just too much work to be done. But then....there was my awesome boss, who had an awesome idea. He arranged that our uni's chauffeur, the driver of the Board, could come pick me up in the morning and drive me to work, and at night he would bring me home. Can you say AWESOME!?! It felt kind of weird, but is was sooooo nice and hassle free. In my next life I'm definitely going to be someone important. With her own chauffeur. *sigh*

But where was I? Oh yes, snow pictures. Here are some:

And now it's Friday already, which means I only have three days left to do stuff that's been on my to-do-list for ages. Today I'm going to: do some scrapping for Fiesta, prepare some pictures so use for other scrap-projects, download some music for my iPhone, arrange my downloaded series, check out some things for our home-owner's insurance and clean out my boss's work-email-box. Oh and I see a nap in my near future.

2010 has started! What are you up to?

Part 13: 2010

2010-01-01T00:07:00.002+01:00

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it's already here! While I am typing this blog post, there's tons of fireworks going off all around me. Half of this neighbourhoof relies on welfare, but they always manage to buy truckloads of fireworks. Oh wait, that's cynical. And I wasn't going to do cynical in 2010. New year's resolutions and all that jazz.

So less cynical. And more thinking before speaking. Less judging. Less loud. And less daydreaming and more actually doing. And be even more focussed at work then I already was. Growing. Learning. And leaving the house more. And not be afraid. Of anything. Of becoming 30 in less than six months. Of not knowing if this job is the thing I'm supposed to be doing. Of failing. Of not being pregnant. Of everything the future has in store for me.

Be more me. A better person. A better wife. A better daughter. A better sister. A better friend. A better p.a. A better person to everyone around me. But most of all, a better person to myself. So here's to me. May 2010 be the best.

Part 12: Christmas

2009-12-27T09:05:00.015+01:00

I gave back a few days that I had originally off, so I could finish up some work at the office. It's been so busy! Working late almost every evening and commuting for hours and hours since public transport had been delayed and cancelled due to the snow. Last Wednesday, my coworkers and I finally called it quits and started our long awaitened Christmas break.

On the 24th, the only thing I did were the groceries and watching about 678 episodes of Greek on the computer. I also slept for 13 hours straight. :p
On Christmas Day, we had breakfast at home and then went to my parents for dinner. Mom cooked a traditional Christmas meal and we had a lovely evening. The best part of family celebrations is my 93-year-old grandmother who still loves everything that includes her children, grandchildren and food. We spent the night at my parents and drove back home the next morning.
Since Boxing Day is just as important in The Netherlands as Christmas Day, we decided to celebrate it with just the two of us. We went out for dinner at our favourite restaurant and watched Julie and Julia afterwards. Awesome movie!

And today we're going to Scheveningen where we'll see West Side Story (yay!!!) at the Circustheater (3rd row baby!!), we'll eat somewhere along the boulevard and afterwards we'll sleep at the Kurhaus. Life doesn't get any better than this, I think.

Here are some random iPhone pics I took last week. The rest of the photos are still on my camera and I haven't had time to look through them. Maybe later this week.

Part 11: Random stuff

2009-12-12T20:39:00.007+01:00

Five ramdon things from this week:

1. I worked 50 hours, and had to give up my Friday, which I originally had off. The reorganization at work is starting to take its toll. I slept for 12 hours straight last night and took a 2-hour nap today. Still tired.
2. We put up the Christmas tree. It's all silver, white and pink and I *love* it! :)
3. We bought tickets to see the most awesome musical in the world: West Side Story! We're going to Scheveningen on December 27 to see it (3rd row baby!!!) and afterwards we're going to spend the night at the Kurhaus!
4. I have tons of ideas for scrappies and decorative crap, but I haven't had the time to create this week. Hopefully tomorrow.
5. The house has never been messier!

Here's a wooden tree we made. Originally, it was a horrible Santa-red color, but there's nothing a pink spray paint can't fix! ;) Three layers and the red was completely gone. I love it!

Some other stuff I've been making, are these wooden clothes pins. I decorated them with the templates Jennie made for last Royal Fiesta. They turned out so cute! Especially the birds!

Part 10: Preparations for Sinterklaas

2009-12-06T13:06:00.006+01:00

Yesterday, we celebrated Sinterklaas in The Netherlands. You might as well know him as Santa Claus; you stuffed him, added some flying reindeer and somehow Coca Cola magically incorporated him in the Christmas-tradition. Sounds familiar? ;) Yeah, that guy.

The Sinterklaas-festivities are always on December 5th and you usually have two options: if there are kids in the family who still believe in him, you just deliver a truckload of wrapped goodies and tell them it's from him. If no one believes anymore, you can have surprise-night and have everyone make some sort of pinata-like monstrosity that contains several gifts. Our family just likes to unwrap stuff and not having to deal with homemade mod-podged laptops, horses and other crap that will be in the trash on December 6. Easy peasy, one might think.

So here's the deal; we go to my family and use the afternoon to exchange gifts between my parents, my sister and us two. After that we gather with the rest of the family (grandma, my godparents and my nephew) and we exchange gifts as well. It's always tons of fun, we laugh, we eat, we read silly poems about quirky family-facts and we unwrap, unwrap, unwrap.

I love shopping for Sinterklaas! I really like picking our the perfect gift for each family member and wrapping it up into something nice. This year we went all kraft-paper with white/green ties. Very ecofriendly, don't you think? To be honest, I just thought it looked cute. The Kraft paper came in massive rolls that only cost one euro at Ikea. The stringy stuff I bought on a large spool and the tiny gift tags I downloaded somewhere (can't remember exactly, but if you really want to know, I'll try my best and look it up).
So here's the pile we brought home yesterday. I was kind of proud of how adorable it all looked together :)

I'll be back tomorrow with more Sinterklaas-celebrations! For now, have a great Sunday! :)

Part 9: Trying again

2009-12-05T08:25:00.002+01:00

So you're probably wondering where I went? I was kind of sucked into the whole working-too-many-hours-and-being-tired-all-the-time-vortex. Then I decided to change the settings on my blog to private, because it looked so sad when my last post dated from August.
But I'm going to try it again! :) Marijn has made some small changes to my blog last night, and I like the overall look a whole lot better now :)

So what have I been up to:
- work. A LOT! The new job isn't so new anymore, I've been working there for over six months now. It's not as exciting I was hoping it to be, but I'm growing into it. I have two super nice bosses, they make it worth all the time I put in.
- redecorating at home. We've been living in this apartment for over 18 months now and we still had stuff to finish! So we made a list of things that really needed to be done and I can honestly say that we're almost finished now. Marijn installed a new bathroom-sink all by himself! We went to Ikea for more bookshelves. We bought and installed shades for two windows. And we re-did my scrapbook room. Since I was never sitting and scrapping in that room, we decided to get rid of the two tables and replace them with a large Expedit.
- Royal Lemon. Two ScrapCamps and two Fiestas and I can honestly say that I'm knackered. I'm also very inspired, but don't have the time to create much. But over the next few weeks I'll start showing some more things I've made on my blog.

Tomorrow I'll be back with a small recap of Sinterklaas, which we are celebrating today!! :) Yay, one of my favourite holidays!

Talk to you soon! And thanks for not giving up on me ;)

Part 8: Canvasses

2009-08-04T09:42:00.004+02:00

I cannot even begin to tell you how I love *LOVE* these canvasses I had made. Last year when we got married, my friend Dorien made a beautiful bouquet for me. I gave it a little finishing touch by hanging three little frame-shaped charms on it with little wedding pictures in it of my grandmother and grandfather, my parents and Marijn's parents.
I still had those pictures on my computer and I didn't know what to do with them. That's when I decided to add a picture of us two to make the set complete and have them made into letter-sized canvasses. I did some PSP-work on them, because the picture of my grandparents was very antique-ish and the pictures of our parents weren't the best quality. But I love how they turned out!

How fun and unconventional are our parents' pictures! :) See my mum and dad with their oldfashioned shoes! And Marijn's parents (Marijn's mum was 8 months pregnant with him at the time!) with their hippie-look! And my grandparents look absolutely stunning in their wedding-attire. They're all great examples of good and steady marriages. I hope that Marijn and I can use their knowledge, experiences, ups and downs as a guide through our own marriage. And these canvasses...they'll just be a daily reminder to do good, be good and strive for the best.

Part 7: Vacation!

2009-08-02T20:32:00.005+02:00

It's been a hectic few weeks, but here's a little update:
~ I've been at the new job for two months now. Feels like it's been forever. Long days and long weeks, I'd never thought that working five days in the office again (instead of four days at the office and one day from home) would be so hard.
~ I'm tired all the time. I'm glad I'll have the next seven days off! :)
~ We got a car! It's a Ford Focus and it's huuuuge. One could easily fit two children's birthday parties in it and still have room left. Marijn loves the new car and I love his driving skills.
~ Jennie has been in France for 2.5 weeks now and it's so quiet! Hope she'll be back soon.
~ I've started scrapping again. I'm working on the album for upcoming Camp (and a zillion kits for that project...we'll be selling the extra kits again!) and some stuff for Fiesta. It's going to be colorful!!!
~ I still need to set up some sort of new album here on Blogspot, so I can have my scrappies in one place.
~ I'm trying to save some money and declutter the house....stuff's gotta go! Typepad-account must go, the elliptical machine we're renting will be sent back and we're thinking about cancelling the digital tv-service and selling the Wii.
~ Purging my scrapstuff too, and taking it with me to sell @ ScrapCamp

I've been working on my New York pictures....here's a little series of faves of Marijn and me.

Part 6: Back from New York

2009-07-11T12:19:00.003+02:00

It's been a whirlwind the past four weeks! The day after my birthday we went to New York, where we stayed for fifteen days. We had an amazing time!

Good stuff:
Visiting The Met, finally taking that boat trip around Manhattan (how fun and touristy!), going to the movies (6 times!), visiting The Cloisters, meeting up with JJ and her family for brunch, going to Coney Island to see the Mermaid Parade (hilarious!), drinking gallons and galloons of diet raspberry Snapple, taking the train to Delaware to stay with Barb, Michelle and Tina, eating multiple times @ Max Brenner's, walking around Greenwich Village, visiting the Museum of National History, scrapshopping (!!), lounging in the park @Union Square, going back to Empanada Mama, taking a zillion pictures, breakfast @ Food Emporium, getting an upgrade on the plane, shopping in general (hee hee), going to a baseballgame and a wrestling event (Marijn) and just enjoying every single second in the City.

Here's a little video I made of Times Square, look how crowded it is! :) I shot this while standing on top of the TKTS-booth. Just a fun impression.

Part 5: 29

2009-06-16T09:13:00.003+02:00

Holy cow! I'm 29 today! :)

~ Marijn: made himself an Etsy-account and bought me the cutest passport-cover. I'll be travelling in style! His other gift, the superamazingubercute polaroid camera from Japan, arrived last week and is just too awesome!
~ Work: slowly getting better...even after making a huuuuuge mistake yesterday. Glad I didn't get fired. Tired all the time but finally getting the hang of it.
~ Vacay: leaving for New York tomorrow, yay! First stops: choc.frap @ starbucks, MJ trimmings for some retail therapy and dinner @ Max Brenners? Sounds like a plan.
~ Bunny: sad after his fave girl died, right now he's staying at Merel's since we'll be leaving for NYC tomorrow. She's the best bunny-aunt in like, forever.
~ Family: all came over for an early birthday-dinner on Saturday-night and we had a lovely eve. Mum made me some great tablecloths (brown, pink and white) and dad gave me a hot glue gun, which I *totally* needed.
~ Royal Lemon: everything good. Planning Camp in August and Fiesta in September. Both are going to rock. I'll post a sneak soon.

Have a great day, my friends! I know I will :)

Part 4: An early birthday present

2009-06-05T06:13:00.006+02:00

Thank you for your sweet comments about our little Saar. The week has flown by, and although I'm still very sad and miss her every day, I realize now that we've done everything in our power to give her a happy life.

I started my new job this week, so that's why haven't been at the computer much. I already have so many opinions on this new job, but I'll keep them to myself and try to be openminded and wait a while to see if my opinions will change. The only things I can say is: 1. it's nothing, NOTHING like I expected, and, 2. It's totally different than what I'm used to. I'll keep you posted ;)

The last thing I wanted to share today with you is the early birthday-present that Marijn got me! After Charlot, our wedding photographer, took some awesome polaroid-pics of us, I really wanted one myself. Last week there was some buzzing going around on the interwebs that you can get this funky polaroid camera in Japan that takes pics half the size of a regular polaroid. Awesome! After some digging we found a reasonable priced one on Ebay and right now it's on its way from Japan to me! :)
How fun is it to take a polaroid camera with us to New York?? Can't wait! I got the chocolate-colored one and it comes with 110 photos. In the pic next to the camera you can see the size of the pictures it makes. How fun is that? :)

Have a lovely day!

Part 3: A sad week

2009-05-31T17:33:00.007+02:00

This week has been all about saying goodbye. I think I've cried more in the past 72 hours than I did in the past 72 weeks.

My final week at work...wow, talking about sadness all around. I sent an e-mail to my coworkers about me leaving to work for the Board, and I received more than 80 replies! It's so nice to realize that I must have made a lasting impression on my colleagues. During the week tons of teachers came by my office to wish me good luck, which was awesome. Some even brought cards and presents! It's been so weird, cleaning out my desk, erasing my files and updating my mailboxes. Friday was even weirder, especially in the afternoon since I was the only secretary in the office! During the day I said goodbye to the majority of my closest coworkers and again I was showered with presents and even a selfmade scrapbook (which is just too cute!).

I was able to keep it all together until I received an e-mail from my new boss, which included a list of my new tasks and the announcement of the boardmembers I'll be working for. Since it came out of nowhere and I had hoped I'd have some kind of input on this all, I broke down. That's when the tears came and I went from quite normal to blubbering mess in 4.2 nanoseconds. I believe I cried for most of the afternoon. I'm not very good at change, I like to keep things the way they are. Why change something that's good to begin with? One of my mantra's is ' everything's gonna be okay', and this was the first time that I just couldn't convince myself.

And that was just the beginning. Earlier this week, on Monday, we found our little bunny Saar laying on her side in her cage. She didn't look like her normal self and a phonecall to the emergency-vet plus a very effective google-search later we had to rush her to the vet because she was suffering from a parasite that had affected her brain and left half of her body paralyzed. They gave her a vast dose of medicine and kept her to monitor her. Three days we spent without our little bun and every day the vet called to tell us about her progress. Our other bunny, Koosje, seemed so lonely without his girl! It was a 50-50 percent chance of recovery. On Thursday we picked her up because the vet thought that being in her own cage at home could be good for her, and he suggested to wait until Sunday to see if her recovery would progress. But she couldn't quite move herself, tumbling over when she tried to and overall she was very disoriented and scared. She would eat and drink when we helped her and she would also take her medication, but there wasn't any progress. This morning we decided that keeping her alive wouldn't do her any good, and we had the vet put her to sleep. It was heartbreaking... I loved that little bun so much. I held her when she was put to sleep and I just cannot imagine our Saar not being here with us! She was such a happy and sweet bunny, always taking care of Koosje, and enjoying her daily dose of laying in the sun, cuddles, carrots and apricots. I will her miss her so, so much.

So that's been the past week. I feel totally empty. All I want to do is cry and sleep and be alone. But there's work to do, a house to clean, e-mails to answer and a new job to prepare for.

If you have good thought and positive vibes to spare, I could definitely use them. :(

Part 2: A home office would be nice

2009-05-24T11:59:00.007+02:00

How nice of you to leave all such sweet comments! Thank you!
Right now I'm enjoying my *long* weekend and the weather has been cooperating very well. Yesterday we went to the city center for some shopping and breakfast, and it was sunny and warm, awesome! Besides the usual batch of fresh produce (fruit, veggies, cheese, nuts) we also managed to buy two new suitcases!

We were in serious need of new suitcases, because Marijn doesn't have one (only backpacks) and mine was ripping at the zipper. We were in luck: someone at V&D forgot to adjust the price tags on the suitcases, and last weeks promotion-tags were still on it. We managed to snag a pink and a lime green Carlton suitcase for 25% off! Whoot whoot! It's so pretty :)

Another thing to cross off the to-do-before-NYC-list.

Yesterday I've been scrapping for Royal Fiesta V, which will be held on September 13 (and registration starts June 1st!). I've made a card and plan to make a whole set of them, because they turned out pretty cute. Can't show it yet, but I'll post a sneak asap. I've been in love with all things Kraft lately, so you'll see Kraft-paper is most of my projects the upcoming months.

Something totally different is that we're in the market for buying a new desk. Our Ikea-table that we've been using to work at, is starting to fall apart. And to be honest, it looks kind of cheap and ridiculous in our living room. What I really want is a Pottery Barn style, white desk with drawers and everything, but we don't have PB here and everything that comes close to this style is highly overpriced, too ginormous or just not pretty enough. I'll keep looking. In the meantime, here are some examples of the workspace of my dreams. I keep a folder on the laptop and save all pictures that might be used as inspiration or for future reference. (click on the pic to make it bigger and less pixel-y!)

As you can see, lots of white and all kinds of helpful things to organize stuff. One day we'll have a big house and a home-office where we can both work.

A girl can dream, eh? ;)

So what's you favourite thing about your own workspace? Anything cute, handy, irreplaceble, awesome I should know about?

Have a great Sunday!

Part 1: Ready to move

2009-05-21T20:27:00.015+02:00

Oh my gosh, I'm still trying to find my way through Blogger! I decided to quit Typepad, because I just couldn't justify the monthly costs when I wasn't even posting regularly. So I moved over to here and I'm trying to make this place my new blog-home. I like new starts, clean slates and new beginnings. I'll try to post a bit more regular here!

I'll start by showing what I made for Mother's day. It's a set of two fabric frames [we made those as one of the workshops at Royal Fiesta!] with a pic of Merel/Marco in it and Marijn/Me in the other one. I'm loving these frames and have been making a bunch more. I really should start an Etsy shop with all my scrap-crap in it ;)

Five random things:
1. Four day weekend! Which means: sleeping, decluttering, shopping and relaxing!
2. I only have to work four more days before I start my new job....eek!
3. We'll be going back to NYC on June 17, for two (!) whole weeks. I wish I was already there! We're trying to narrow down a list of must-see/must-do/must-buy/must-meet. All advice appreciated!
4. Reading 'Fast Women' by Jennifer Crusie right now and my gosh, will it ever end? The story is okay, but it's dragging and dragging along!
5. Watched the season finales of both GA and DH. GA was awesome! DH, not so much.

Thanks for stopping by!