Holidays

That Was The Year That Was: 2010

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January

  • I started Working at KPN
  • We had a very severe winter, which resulted in public transport being down frequently, which is very! annoying
  • Had a tea party with friends at Mellien’s place, it was very fun

February

I’ve got nothing for this month. For some reason I only took 3 pictures in the whole of February… And I didn’t blog that month either. Sadness. Here, have all three February pics to cheer you up from this huge, huge let down 😀

March

  • Spring was on its way! Not that enthusiastically yet, but I saw the first real flowers peeking their heads above ground
  • Finally found a good design starting point for my future tattoo
  • Chocolate fondue with Eva & Ingrid, yum!
  • Bought new plants for my back yard
  • Found an awesome stick to turn into a staff. So far it’s still standing unused in my mudroom, but this year I strive to actually make something out of it 🙂
  • Went balfolking for the first time (no, it’s probably not a proper verb, and yes, I’ll tell you what it is; it’s dancing old ball and folk dances on medieval-and-slightly-later type music)

April

  • With Eva, Ingrid and Nienke to Lauwersoog, which was hilarious since we got stuck in the parking lot for two hours due to no traffic regulators being present
  • This was also the month mom turned 60, Happy Birthday!
  • Nienke and I added a garden door to our shared backyard to keep the neighbourhood kids from using our space as a shortcut path

May

  • Went to see the Men’s Choir of Warffum (of which my uncle is a member) perform at the museum estate Verhildersum
  • Spent Liberation Day in Parentville, where the whole street came together to decorate it for the festivities, great sense of community then, it should be like that more often
  • Ingrid came by, time for scrabble in the sun. Eva & Mellien dropped by a little later, on horseback.
  • Saw a hedgehog in the yard, awesome little critters
  • Joined the LifeLines research project about long term health

June

  • Dad’s birthday, 67 for him. Happy Birthday!
  • With the summer in full swing, Nienke and I tried outdoor computing
  • It was also the time for the yearly full family visit to my aunt and uncle in Harderwijk
  • Went to visit Soestdijk Palace with Mom and a friend of hers, it was awesome! I’m very glad I got to see the place before they closed it down

July

  • Celtic Midsummer Fest! Need I say more? An awesome weekend in which I went re-enacting for the first time. Great friends, great environment, great things to see and do, in short, a great time!
  • Also, aforementioned festival will (for me) henceforth always be connected to ‘that time I banged my toes into oblivion on a tent peg’ 😀
  • It got so warm I regularly spent my free time lounging outside with my feet in water. At first in two buckets (one for each foot) and later in a giant tub-like thing. Monkey approved of this, always enough water to drink nearby
  • I bought my binder this month, which turned out to be a huge step on the road of self-discovery and gender identity

August

  • Castlefest! Again, need I say more! Another awesome weekend! I’d not been able to go to Castlefest for some years, so it felt great to be back here. I love the atmosphere at this particular fest, plus being able to see Omnia live again for the first time in a couple of years as well was great, too.
  • Nienke had a BBQ in honour of her birthday, it was tasty!
  • Mom started knitting socks, after a conversation about how the warm socks we had were not getting any better.
  • Went out for a sudden and unexpected pizza with Eva & Nienke
  • Dad, on request, cut off the hedge in my front yard
  • Monkey got weird spots on his back leg, he ended up with a salve treatment and antibiotics and return appointments at the vet three times in a row. Fortunately, they have cleared up completely
  • And finally, this was the month I decided to continue blogging here, instead of trying to maintain both this blog and a LifeJournal

September

  • I burned my arm a wee bit by splashing hot olive oil on it. Fortunately I washed it off right away, so it didn’t go much further than some light second degree burning one one spot and some intenser first degree burning on the others. The second degree spot left a scar, it’s pretty 🙂
  • Had Tessa over to dog-sit, and got both her and Monkey in the same room without Tessa trying to eat Monkey, and without Monkey trying his best to hide as far away as possible
  • Had my own birthday, turned 26. Happy Birthday me!
  • Got the flu right after the birthday parties, ended up having to stay home for about a week, and had noticeably less energy the weeks after that while I was recovering further, not fun 🙁

October

  • Became obsessed with Glee 😀
  • Got my iPhone
  • Mom started knitting gloves, nice and warm for the winter
  • Went out to wok with Eva & Ingrid, yum!
  • Attended Julius’ birthday, which was a sort of High Tea type thing with a whole bunch of cakes he and his mom made, it was awesome (and very, very tasty!)
  • Bought two awesome pumpkins for Halloween and carved them; one a face, the other a sort of cheese with holes kinda idea with mice in the holes

November

  • Was a bit down for a good part of this month, a combination of Daylight Savings Time ending, winter coming up and some other random shit. Took a while before I saw the colours of the world in full shine again, instead of dulled
  • Mom knit me a pretty hat to match the gloves she made, my mom rocks 🙂
  • Discovered the Instagram iPhone app (among many, many other apps; I <3 apps 😀 ) which is fun to play with

December

  • Had a St. Nicholasmas (a combination of St. Nicholas and Christmas) party with Nienke, Eva, Mellien and Ingrid. It was fun and very nice to have a group get together again.
  • CATACLYSM! W00t!
  • The snow really hit. It looks awesome, but just like last year, it’s wreaking havoc on the public transport system. Which is kinda ridiculous as they spent the whole year winterproofing their systems and all, and they were sure it would be better this year… And then the first few days we have heavy snowfall, everything falls apart, again.
  • December was good, even though in the beginning of the month I wasn’t sure about that (residual gloominess from November)

Weekly Four: week 51

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I’m grateful for how the world looks so pretty, all covered in snow.

I’m happy with the new books I bought today. One with the book money I got for Christmas, and the other two myself since they were parts two and three of the trilogy and I know how I am about epic fantasy books 😀

I’m sad-ish the year is almost over, there’s a few things I wanted to get done this year that I didn’t. I’m not letting myself see those things as failures, but still, it would’ve been nice to make it. More about that in the overview post(s) later this week.

I learned I stayed pretty constant, weight-wise, this month. Only gained 0,2 kilos since same time last month, nicely done.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Let Nothing You Dismay

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I’ve got a song stuck in my head since yesterday. Not that I care much for the lyrics, but the melody is quite catching. It started last night while Nienke and I were watching A Christmas Carol (1999 version with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge). Near the end of the movie, after Scrooge has had his change of heart, he goes to church, and they sing this hymn. I have this song in the version sung by the Glee Cast on my iPhone, so the moment I heard it in the movie it became an earworm, and I’ve not been able to get rid of it. Not that I mind terribly, but it gets tedious after a couple times, especially if you don’t know much more than half or two-thirds of a verse 😀

Other than that, Christmas was quite enjoyable yesterday. Slept in late, then finished the book I was reading. After that I decided it might be good to get out of bed. The rest of the afternoon I hung on the sofa, enjoying the winter sun peeking through the trees, brightening the snowy field in front of my house. Sent out my thanks to the Gods for the past year, looking forward to the next.

In the evening Nienke and I went fondueing at her place. The idea was some cheese fondue at first, and some chocolate to finish it off, however the cheese was rather mighty, and we didn’t like it the taste of it all that much. Different kind of cheese next time. We decided to forgo the chocolate, we were stuffed.

We watched A Christmas Carol during this, followed by other mushy Christmas time movies like Enchanted, and parts of  Ever After, Ella Enchanted and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (I really dislike that last one). We also exchanged a few fun gifts. I got two duck key chains, which I added to the duck key chain already attached to my WoW authenticator, and a cute pair of scissors. For Nienke I got her a new box for her tea and scented stuff to burn. The cats got a present as well, Murphy a toy, and Monkey cat candy.

Went home around 23:30 and ended up playing Warcraft in bed for an hour and a half or so. Had Asra drop by Greatfather Winter in Ironforge to open his presents. Mostly food stuffs, but also a Minizep Remote, and a Snowman Kit. Put that one up for auction since he already has all the Winter Veil pets, and at the moment I’d rather have the gold than give it to one of my alts; I’m stockpiling my gold.

It’s the second day of Christmas now, and I’m spending this day in Parentville. Don’t know yet what I’ll do, but there’s definitely some more WoW involved 😀

In the meantime:

Happy Yule!

Weekly Four: week 48

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I’m grateful for chocolate 🙂

I’m happy I got the book I wanted from St. Nicholas 😀

I’m slightly annoyed at the lack of free free-time. All my free days of late seem to be filled with obligations. Most of those obligations are fun ones I really enjoy ( like last night’s St. Nicholasmas party 😀 ) and on the whole it isn’t even always true, I think, I can’t remember :S But it does feel like I barely have any me-time left the last few weeks and it’s wearing me down since I need the me-time to regenerate my energy, being a major introvert. Yesterday I was exhausted by 21:30/22:00, and then had to get up at 6:30 this morning to be at work at 8:15, and I spent most of that time half asleep still. Next free day is Wednesday, and I have no plans for that day so I’m making that my relax day (even though I desperately need to vacuum too).

I learned listening to my body is probably a good idea. Tied in to above, the cold I’ve been having is still not gone. My voice is still messed up and I’m not done coughing either. I bought some cough medicine yesterday, and got some extra fruit for vitamins, I want to get rid of it! I finally wanna try out my Glee karaoke app 😀

Weekly Four: week 47 / voice

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I’ve a cold, and as a result I’ve been having some issues with my voice the past week or so. And somehow it also transferred over to having problems with my writing voice, hence the lack of posts lately. For now, the Weekly Four.

I’m grateful for being on the e-mail team which lets me work even if my voice doesn’t work instead of having to call in sick because of not being able to talk (which kinda sucks in a call centre 😀 )

I’m happy in general. I’ve started to actually enjoy the world around again, instead of moping around because of dark and greyness. I love the fresh wind that smells of snow, I love the start of the holiday decorating in my house. I even made a wreath, of which I will post a pretty picture later this week, I only have an evening shot on the phone and that doesn’t do it justice. I also love cake, and friends, and music, and books. Especially books. I’ve been rereading Eddings’ Belgariad books. I read them first when I was about 12, and while I had read some fantasy and sci-fi before, this series was THE one that pulled me in and made me a fantasy fan for life. And an epic fantasy fan specifically. Back then I read it in Dutch, I’m reading the original now, and it’s even better than I remembered, I’m falling right back into the story, just as I did then, and the characters walk with me in my day and night dreams.

I’m sad that my voice isn’t back yet 😀 I downloaded a Glee karaoke type app on my iPhone, and as long as my voice is still off, I don’t wanna play with it. So I’ve had to wait, and I don’t wanna wait anymore.

I learned cats can be worse hogs of bed and blanket space than humans 😀

Halloween Pumpkins

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Weekly Four: week 43

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I’m grateful for good health, a couple of my kin of my parent’s generation have had/still have some health scares going on recently, so I’m just really grateful that my parents are good.

I’m happy my Halloween pumpkins turned out good.

I’m sad/annoyed bordering on angry because daylight savings time is over again. I do NOT deal well with winter time.

I learned I really need more hours in a day 😀 Too many plans, not enough time. Let alone enough light.

Around the Internets I

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Neil Gaiman proposed a new Halloween tradition to give each other scary books on Halloween: All Hallow’s Read.

Stud Magazine. To quote their own blurb: An online based magazine aiming to redefine the term stud and introduce non gender conforming females into mainstream media. There’s some awesome photos to see on the site! See also their Facebook page. Their definition of Stud: Stud (std) noun. A person belonging to either female or intersex sex that blurs society’s understanding of gender. Often displays “masculine qualities”(strong, dominate, powerful, and independent ) and/or varying degrees of “masculine” appearance.

Jessica Joslin is a sculptor who makes awesome skeletal animals from bone and metal. Very steampunk, I like! See some images of her work here.

How to explain the internet to a 19th century British street urchin.

More flowchart! Evolution of the Geek!

When the Yogurt Took Over, by John Scalzi.

Are you awesome? Or maybe cute?

Since I just bought me a new tie (purple! yay!), this one’s mostly for me. I had dad tie my other tie and have never untied it because I can’t manage to properly re-tie it.  This site has instructions AND videos.

A helpful Venn Diagram.

And finally some inspiration for when I carve my pumpkins tomorrow. It’ll be hard to decide what to do. Probably more pumpkins next year 😀

Encore: Pumpkin soup and pie recipes. Plus a basic guide to carving pumpkins focusing on tools and preservation.

So, Thanksgiving eh?

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Hmm… I thought it might be time to put something up here again. Maybe one of those obligatory Thanksgiving posts? I’m not American so Thanksgiving isn’t really a holiday I celebrate, at least not specifically on this day or by that specific name. But, as I’m here anyway, I might as well jot down some things I’m thankful for.

I’m thankful for my parents and my other family and my friends, whom I all love and that love me too even if I don’t always deserve it.

I’m thankful for my cat who sleeps in my arms at night when I am hugely annoyed at the book I’m reading (FYI, that would be Twilight and its sequel New Moon).

I’m thankful for books, even if they are as bad as Twilight, for they stimulate my brain.

I’m thankful for science-fiction and fantasy in general for they provide me with the escape out of the mundane world I seek.

I’m thankful that I learned new things about myself this year that have helped me understand myself and the way I see the world and other people.