Monkey & Milo
Monkey today, and Milo a few days ago.
Monkey
Tick Boxes
Today I discovered sugar buns 😀 I already knew (and love!) Frisian sugarbread, but today I went with Kim to the supermarket during lunchbreak and there they had sugar buns instead of a whole loaf. The texture is the same as the bread, but it has the typical top layer of a bun. The sugar is mostly in the bottom part and along the edges. I bought some small packets of butter to go with it and had these, later on the day, for dinner. They are glorious!
Tomorrow I have my second actual appointment with LifeLines. After the original intake a little over four years ago (may 2010) I have done a couple questionnaires, but this is the first come back appointment where they will retake blood and measure things and so on. Tonight I realised I’d forgotten to fill in the digital questionnaire they included with the appointment e-mail. Since it has to be done before the appointment, I quickly wrestled through it. I usually hate them since they are often unclear in their questions, and I find many hard to answer. The typical questionnaire has sections for what you’ve eaten the past 4 weeks and their intervals are kinda sucky as they go from 2-3 days a month to 1-2 days a week which is a different kind of measurement to the similar 4-10 days a month.
My eating habits are fairly irregular, so for me an answer like 4-10 days a month is much more likely than 1-2 days a week. Take those vitamin yoghurt thingies. I buy them occasionally, in six-pack. And since I share that with Nienke, it means I get three. I then drink those on three consecutive days. Then I might not buy another for two or three weeks. Then, when I do buy another, it’s another three consecutive days. So all in all I’ve had them 6 days a month, but not 1-2 days a week.
I give that same feedback on the questionnaires every time, but I’ve never seen a change. Ah well, one can always hope.
And another thing that pissed me off: my gender. The first page is always double check info. So I re-enter my date of birth, my gender and my weight. However, when I chose Man, I got an error message saying it didn’t match the previous entry (from 2010) and I should check my answer. In itself a valid thing, if you make a typo or a misclick, it’s good they force you to recheck. However, I could not progress past this page of the questionnaire unless I changed that answer. Eventually I did, I do want to give them all the data they need, but they will be getting a talking to, tomorrow.
I had already asked them to change my initials and gender when I mailed them a few months ago to change my address. I got a nice mail back saying it was changed. And the e-mail I got was nicely addressed with the right initial. But it still sad Mrs. *sigh*
It’s almost August. It’s almost August.
And a bonus: the hardships I have to endure when I want to type things 😀
Traveler
The chain lock on my bike is going to hell on the fast track. I’ve already had a couple times I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get it to unlock. So this morning I borrowed Mom’s bike. I then, a little later in the morning, texted her to ask if she could go to the store for me and buy me a new one of the same type as my old one which I left in the shed as an example. She said ok.
This evening after work I headed over there to pick the new lock up. When I entered the courtyard at the back of their building, I found Monkey wandering there. He came running when he saw me, so I picked him up and took him inside. He was a bit squirmy so I figured I take the elevator instead of walking up. He didn’t like the elevator very much. Its a rather noisy one, so I ended up with some nailprints in my shoulders 😀
Upstairs I had to put him down for a bit while I unlocked my Parents’ door and he sniffed around a bit. Once inside, he meticulously explored every inch of the place, stopping every couple yards to meow loudly. Eventually, he settled down and decided the carpet was a good spot for a rest. Shortly after that, we left again. We managed to make him walk with me down the stairs, even though he wanted to sniff everything. I then carried him home.
I think the whole visit took maybe 20 minutes, but it was funny 😀
The Good Life
Good weekend 😀
Household stuff on Saturday while Nienke was away, dishes, litterbox, garbage, laundry and such. Watched Warm Bodies and ate popcorn.
Today I had breakfast outside and wanted to dry my laundry outside. But the shiny new laundry line turned out to be a crappy laundry line as it snapped and when I fixed that, it ended up being way too saggy to actually use. So had to put the drying racks out.
Read books: Chris Colfer’s The Land of Stories #1 The Wishing Spell (good book, fun treatment of fairy tales) and Justin Somper’s Vampirates #1 Demons of the Ocean (which is quite bad).
Watched movies on Netflix (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast) and played random games.
Monkey fought with Terror from next door, hair ALL over the kitchen… Silly monster
Fluxx
Sunday I did indeed do very little. One of the things I did was watch medieval castle documentaries with Monkey 🙂
Tuesday I ordered a game, called Fluxx. I’d seen it on TableTop before (they played Star Fluxx) and it seemed like fun then, but I forgot about it. Recenty, though, the iPad version was temporarily free so I grabbed it. Playing it I realised what fun it would be to play in real life so I ordered it, along with the newest Science of Discworld book. I didn’t look at the delivery date very closely so I was kinda surprised when they got here on Wednesday.
Unfortunately the Science of Discworld is in trade paperback format so doesn’t match at all with literally every other Discworld book I have. It apparently isn’t out in mass market yet, but I am strongly contemplating replacing it when it does. This just annoys the crap out of me and I can’t even place it on the Discworld shelf because it doesn’t fit.
Fluxx was as I expected it, and that night, Nienke and I played it, while watching the relevant TableTop episode.
Also yesterday was a quick trip to the city for a blood/vitals check up to see if hormone levels are all good and such. As usual I was done within ten minutes with the actual consult, and then another ten for the blood draw (including waiting).
Today was the first time I worked from home since transferring to Webcare. It was fun to be able to put Netflix on in the background and just go.
I also started watching 7th Heaven again this week. I used to watch that in my teens when the EO and such were showing it on TV. But they never got past the early 5th season. So at some point I acquired the rest and then it sat waiting for me to actually watch. Occasionally the mood strikes me and then I usually have a couple days where I watch a bunch of episodes. In this way I made it from starting back at epsiode one all the way to season 10. I still have a season and a half to go, so that’s my goal for the coming few weeks, to finish it.
Like a Baby
The new bed? It sleeps fantastically! 😀
Yesterday in the morning, after sleeping in and doing some laundry I put the closet back. That left the bed, and the sidetable I use as altar space.
In the afternoon, we celebrated Uncle Tammo’s birthday. Had a great time, nice to catch up with the cousins as I don’t see them as often. As expected Uncle Louw was also there, so I asked him if he would come home with me for a sec to help with the bed. I tried with Nienke earlier in the week, but that didn’t go very well. With Uncle Louw, it went much better and we got the thing upstairs in one piece 😀
In the evening, I put the bed together, and returned the Altar and rest of the things.
And! It started snowing! So this morning, I woke up gloriously on my new bed, and was greeted with a beautiful white world outside my window.
Was a bit tricky to get through to get to Pilates, but I made it. After coming home again, I dug a path from the front door to the road.
Spent most of the day playing WoW and watching stuff on Netflix, which I reactivated yesterday. Now with an iPad, and the improved offerings, the cost-benefit analysis was much more postive 😀
100 Things That Make Me Happy [1/10]
What with the dour weather today, here’s the first installment of my 100 Things blog thing.
1. Sitting at the edge of a body of water, with the sun on my shoulders and my feet dangling in the water.
I was thinking about recent years the other day and this one summer day popped into my head. I wasn’t sure when it was, but I remembered myself and Eva and Nienke, sitting along the canal, our feet in the water, enjoying the sun. I knew I had pictures of this, I remember them, too. Unfortunately, twenty minutes of going through my photo folders later, I still haven’t found those. I do have, however, unearthed a video of that day. Just a short 30 second clip of the three of us. I think we’re discussing summer clothes.
2. The smell of freshly mowed grass.
I love living around a big field of grass. Every time the county’s gardening people show up to mow it I detest them for it since they also come early and use a little tractor type mower that makes a lot of noise and wakes me up. But the smell afterwards more than makes up for it 🙂
3. My cats.
Monkey’s a cat with a definite attitude, but at the same time he can be such a love bug. Tonight he spent a few hours sleeping on my lap, clearly showing the trust he has in me. He was so far gone in sleep he even turned over and showed me his pretty belly, which he almost never does.
Milo makes me smile with with his playing (something Monkey never really does). I love how he enthusiastically plays soccer with various cat toys until he bats it under something where he can’t get at it so he sits down and looks at it with this puzzled expression until I grab the toy for him. Â And his high pitched squeeky voice always makes me chuckle. Miew!
4. Lying comfortably outside, in the grass, with my eyes closed, in the spring sun, with just a touch of lukewarm wind.
Related to the first point, there’s just something so relaxing, and safe, about lying there and letting spring invade my senses.
5. Books.
I can’t live without books. It’s that simple. They feed my mind, my imagination, my dreams, my ambitions. They are wings and an anchor, a window and a door, friend and family. They help me make sense of the world, and they allow me to escape; whether it’s a one off that I’ll read once and might have forgotten a year later or an instant classic to me that will stick with me forever.
6. Waking up and realising you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything, you can just lie there and BE.
I love being able to enjoy the quiet and avoid the world for a while in the morning. Especially when it’s early enough that the sun is still coming up. You can hear (and see) the world wake up.
7. Floating in water.
Best mediation style, ever. One of my dreams is to have a house with a small pool (or a giant ass bathtub) that I can float in. It just has to be big enough that I don’t touch the edges and I’ll be perfectly happy.
8. The smell of spiced meat cooking.
I love most foods during cooking, but there’s just something about the combination of meat and herbs/spices together as they cook (or better yet, roast). If they made air freshener in this smell, I’d buy it 😀
9. Cake.
I looooove cake. Of all the more sweet desserts and treats, cake is by far my favourite. Especially layer cakes with cream or whatnot in between. Some of my favourites are Schwarzwalder kirsch cake, nougatine meringue cake, lemon cheesecake or basic cheesecake with strawberry topping.
10. Being taken care of by my mom when I’m sick.
Obviously the being sick part itself does not make me happy, in fact in tends to piss me off. However, whenever I’m really sick, I prefer to hang out at the parent’s place because just being around Mom while she does her normal things and such takes me back to childhood and makes me feel better much faster.