Food

The Week(s) in Review: 2012-12 & 2012-13

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I’m grateful for quiet times at work that allow me to take some extra days off here and there. Not just because yay-freedom, but also because I have a lot of in-my-head things going, what with the genderprocess and all. Some extra days to deal with stuff are nice.

I’m happy because I finally have a new appointment date for my genderteam intake. It will take place April 23rd. This time they actually managed to refer me to the shrink so this really is it: the start of my road to fully being who I am. It’s going to be a long journey, and it’s not going to be easy, but I’m more than ready to finally get this show on the road.

I’m also happy because the Postcrossing is taking off quite nicely. All but one of my cards have been received. The only one still in transit is one to a school class in the USA. I got my first five cards, they came from the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Poland. The cards can be seen on my Postcrossing profile. I requested new addresses yesterday, which I will pick (and write) cards for tomorrow.

Last Friday we went out with (almost) the whole e-mail squad from work. Nico and I put the thing together, and since it was meant as a getting to know each other better thing after the team expansion from early this year, we settled on bowling and food. The evening was a grand success, a lot of fun was had.

I learned I need a lot of warm up time before I throw proper balls, and that if I want to throw a strike, I first need to drop the ball behind me so it rolls back to the people on my team.

I discovered that it is actually possible for naturally (somewhat) touchy people to be like this in a fun, non-obnoxious, non-threatening way. Normally when people, for example, hang over my shoulder to ask me something, or randomly grab my arms, I have this knee-jerk reaction to pull back and get this ‘get the fuck away from me’ vibe. I’m glad to say I did not have this then. Yay, progress!

6391 Words

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I love how something as little as a week, week-and-a-half, off from work can restore your balance. I’m not particularly motivated (yet) to get back to work on Monday, but I’m sure that’ll come once I arrive back in the pit 😀

In the meantime, I’ve had a relaxing week. Monday I hung out with Eva, did some shopping. Eva needed a radio for the baby’s room so I took the opportunity to buy a new SD card for my camera. Afterwards we stopped for some groceries and some browsing at the Wibra. I’m a sucker for cheap/discount stores so I ended up with a bag of easter/spring inspired items to decorate the house with while I wait for spring proper to arrive.

Using the new items with the stuff from last year led me to this:

Tuesday I hung out at the Parents’ place. It had been a week and a half or so since I’d seen them, and as I usually see them at least once a week, it was overdue. It was a quiet afternoon, which is nice.

Friday evening Eva, Ingrid and Mellien came over to see me and Nienke and we went out for pancakes at the pancake restaurant in town. It was gloriously delicious (I had a ham/cheese/pineapple pancake) and we had a lot of fun talking. Afterward we went back to Nienke’s place to play Just Dance 3 on the Wii. Even Eva, despite being 37 weeks along, did a dance. The rest of us all went twice, and then we decided to do a quick round of Glee Karaoke before the other three had to go again.

Today I had lunch at the Parents’ again before returning home and finding Nienke cutting up all the trees in her yard. I didn’t really have anything better to do, and I love playing with the tree cutter so I gladly assisted her with this. Nienke’s upper arms thanked me 😀

We cut huge amounts from the conifer near her bedroom window, so to make it all fit, we had to push down on the cuttings to create more space. And to allow the lid to close…

Today I also found my very first Postcrossing card on the doormat, it came from Poland. Earlier in the week I got a message from the website that my first sent card was received. Score is now 1 for 1 and there’s four more from me underway to far away places 🙂

 

The Week in Review: 2012-07

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I’m grateful for the 24Kitchen channel. I get so much inspiration from it, not just in recipes or more general foods or flavours that I wanna try, but also the places the chefs are or go to, the colours, the kitchens… I also learn a lot from it, both about cooking, and about the various cultures that the foods come from. It’s an awesome channel to just leave on as background.

I’m happy because I had roast chicken bits for dinner. I love chicken, and I love it even more when roasted, but as I mentioned last week, I’m not a very patient person in certain things. Cooking is one of those things. When I’m cooking, and especially meat, I want it to be done NOW! So I never really make roasted stuff because I don’t want to wait for it to cook gently, I tend to turn up the heat and burn parts of the meat. So, whenever Nienke announces she’s making roast chicken and would I like to join her? Hell to the yes!

I can’t really remember negative emotion this week. The patience that was troubling me last week is making way for a shaky sort of excitement. So I will just use this episode of NCIS that I was sort of watching as my annoyance. It doesn’t usually happen, but I switched channels. Hostage situations do this to me sometimes, I tend to be of the ‘just shoot the guy and get it over with’  kinda method. Especially when the bad guy is getting on my nerves…

I learned I some basic chess this week from Gert. We played two games and I even managed to beat him the second time around because he wasn’t paying (enough) attention allowing me to take his queen very early in the game and getting a head start this way.

 

Weekend Ramblings

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I love weekends, sleeping in, late nights, doing random stuff, it’s the best.

Today I slept in, and got rudely awakened by the postman ringing the bell. He had the t-shirts I ordered from Jinx before New Year’s. Bad news? Customs decided to charge me an extra twenty in additional taxes for them. And not having any loose change in the house, and the postman being one without a mobile debit machine, we agreed he would drop it off at the post office.

Then I went back to bed.

Got up an hour or so later and spent a relaxing early afternoon hanging around on the internet. Then I went to the post office and picked up the package. All three shirts fit well and are good so that’s that. The only thing I still need to get now is the Ukelele. I mailed the store for an update on when it’ll be back in stock, but so far no answer yet.

I also played around with Excel. Using it at work a lot lately has made want to play with it at home too, especially with some of more fancy features besides just making tables. So I decided to create a spreadsheet for my financial administration so it has lots of Sum functions in it. I also used three sheets within the workbook, one for the income and expenses spreadsheet and the second for a quick overview of the totals along with a small table that the graph on the third sheet is using as source data. I love messing about like that. Figuring out the right functions for the cells that needed to do something than just adding shit up was fun to do. As was making the graph.

Nienke had to work today, and as she was on her way home she suggested we order in pizza. I thought that was an excellent idea so while she was waiting for the bus I ordered. It was delivered promptly at the requested time and, as usual, it was good stuff. I love the tiramisu that Buonissimo has 😀

Watched some Supernatural during dinner and am now watching The Nine Lives of Chloe King. I hadn’t watched it before, but I was intrigued. And since it only has ten episodes it’s an easy show to just cram in. Third episode has just ended but it’s a little too late to see more. I’m gonna go sleep in a little bit, my eyes are starting to protest. More tomorrow, if I have time.

I need to sleep in first, obviously 😀 And at the end of the afternoon I’m going over to Eva’s to play games with her, Jarig and Ingrid.

Bed now, though. Definitely bed.

In closing, the shirts I got:

Photos June

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Walking @ Lauwersoog with Eva, Gregorius, Nienke and Tessa. From left to right: the tree that Nienke threw Gregorius’ toy into, Eva & Nienke trying to get it out, and continuing the walk.

  

Fabric Day at Verhildersum. Bags of coloured wool, an awesome! quilt, and a display of tin figurines in historical clothing. The guy who ran this table made these all himself, from photographing people in historical outfit to sculpting a mold, casting it in tin and painting it to match the photo.

  

Going out to eat @ Pappa Joe’s with Eva, Mellien, Nienke & Ingrid, with ice cream from Toscana across the street after.

  

Random stuff

Monkey in the sun, the day my parents had to get a new car… since dad put the coolant fluid in the oil tank…

  

Marshmallows indoor style, Monkey & Murphy sharing the window sill and Tessa taking it easy on my sofa.

  

Monkey and his weird ways of getting to water, and sitting behind plants. Plus awesome! thunderstorm.

  

Bored at work during lunch 😀 an angry egg, and an ‘eiphone’. Also, summer is very pretty. I miss it.

  

July

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Right, in July I bought a pool 😀 A 276×169 cm blow-up pool (with electric pump ’cause I’m not insane enough to blow it up myself or with a handpump).

Also, per July I got a regular contract at work (versus via a temp agency), so that’s a nice change.

I bought a new collage photo frame, ordered prints of a bunch of 2010 photos and used them to fill said frame, as well as the photo curtainy-thing I have on my loo door.

Picked the Sims 3 back up after almost two years. Brought on by Nienke and I building an imaginary mansion where we would live I decided to try and build it in the Sims. It’s 2/3 finished and looking pretty good. I’ve identified some problem areas so will probably rebuild in a while.

I Went out for pizza with Eva at Napoli. As per usual, the pizza was great, the seating rather cramped. We sat next to each other for most of the meal since there was no space to sit on the other side of the table. On itself not a problem, but it’s nice to be able to look at the person you’re talking to. After we had mostly finished our pizza the people on the table next to ours left, so I could switch places and we hung around for a while longer chatting eye-to-eye.

When we left, Eva suggested we go for ice cream, so went across the street to get a McFlurry at the McDonalds there. They still had their outside seating there, so we lounged on that while enjoying the icey-chocolatey-caramely goodness of McFlurry-with-mixed-in-candybar.

Talked some more about life, the universe and everything from small talk to future plans. When eventually the McD’s personnel started putting the tables and such back inside we stuck around until we were the only table left 😀

We then slowly made our way back to the train station, walking along the water and the pretty trees that look the best in evening light. Once back at the train station we were thirsty and hit the Burger King for a coke to finish in that last half hour before my train would leave. Some fifteen minutes later, mid-sentence, Eva spotted Mellien, so we called her over to wait for the train with us. After some more chatting, we parted ways: Eva returning home, and Mellien and I headed for the train to our respective homes.

On the 19th I went to the hair dresser. I walked in with the remnants of my Spike-blond hair, and came out with a purple mohawk.

The 24th saw me and Nienke go to a Derek Ogilvie show. Both of us have been wanting to for while now. We’re intrigued but sceptical, so going to a show gave us a chance to see beyond what he shows on camera. Fortunately, he’s quite like on TV during his shows. He’s quite hyper while he’s communicating, making jokes with the audience and such to bridge the moments where the spirits are talking to him and he has no message to give yet. There’s a very energetic and relaxed vibe coming from him. It’s obvious from watching him that he believes fully. I remain sceptic. I’d love to believe this is real, but there were just a tad too many things that can be attributed to cold reading techniques*. In the end, though, the five or so people that got a reading, I think it did help them. And I’d go again if he comes back to Groningen.

*I know it’s the primary cause of death, but it’s funny to notice how many spirits die of heart disease. And how many women have had miscarriages, even one the woman in question didn’t know about… And when he starts to call out the confirmation things it’s a lot of pains here, pains there. Most of these are pretty generic, back pain, pain in leg, stomach/bowelpain. The things he mentions, though, after he found the person the spirit wants to talk to… there’s really specific stuff in there.

Starbucks on Groningen Central Station is opening August 5th and they we’re doing a trial run last week to train the staff. You could go in and order whatever you wanted for free. I had a lovely White Mocha. I’ll be ordering from them more in the future (although not too often, that shit’s expensive).

I also got my first batch of GetGlue stickers. GetGlue is a website where you can check in to various things that you’re doing/watching/listening to/reading etc.. While mostly focused on Media, it also has topics so you can conceivably check in on anything.

By checking in, and liking things, you earn virtual stickers. Once you have enough stickers (minimum of 20), you can have them sent to you, via mail, for free. My first batch took about 5 or 6 weeks to arrive I think. So far I’m enjoying it a lot. I check in to what I actually watch (I check in to TV or movies mostly) and have that posted on Twitter and Facebook. And besides that I actively hunt stickers, checking into and liking things for the sake of getting a sticker, even if I’m not actually watching that at the moment. I think I’ve collected close to 300 stickers now. Too bad they only send 20 at a time, and you can only request a new batch once a month…

June

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June 2nd was my Dad’s birthday, he turned 68. The party was fun, a good time was had by all 🙂

Two days later I went for a walk at Lauwersoog with Eva, Nienke, Tessa (my dog) and Gregorius (Eva’s dog). It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze, we enjoyed ourselves, the dogs had fun. Then it got even better when Nienke tossed Gregorius’ fetching toy into a very, very tall tree… Eva and I watched her toss sticks at it for a while trying to get it to fall down. Eventually I joined in the throwing of sticks which led to success a couple minutes later when I hit the branch the toy was stuck on and it came down.

The day after that, I went to Verhildersum with Mom to go check out the Fabric Day. We saw awesome crafts, there was this huuuuge quilt in different purple fabrics, and a guy who makes little tin statuettes of people in historical dress. There was also a lot of felt work, both in felting things (making objects while one is felting the wool), as well as making things from felt fabric.

June 15 I went out for dinner at Pappa Joe’s with Eva, Nienke, Ingrid & Mellien. It was tasty, and nice to hang out with the full group. We crossed the street for awesome ice cream afterwards.

I joined Archive of Our Own, a fan fiction archive. So far I find it a more pleasurable interface compared to fanfiction.net, where I used to post. That has been a number of years though, and in the years between I’ve not spent a lot of time either reading or writing fan fiction. I’m slowly getting back into it. I reposted some of the works I wrote years ago of which I still think they’re good on A3O. The rest needs a rewrite. I’ll keep the originals up on ff.net, that way I’ll have a history and can later compare between versions and responses.

And in minor things, I rearranged my living room, baby-sat the dog for a day while the parents were off on the yearly Sibling Day (where mom and her siblings, plus partners, go out for a day) and we had an awesome! thunderstorm.

It’s Life, Jim, Just As We Know It

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When I got my iPhone last October, my old phone became my Mom’s new phone. However, I think I’ve dropped it a little too much over the two years I had it, since over the last week  the screen started shorting out. Mom figured this would be a nice time to get a new phone, so when I suggested we head to the phone shop together, she wanted to go the next day 😀

So, Saturday The Mom and I took the car to the transferium and from there the citybus to the centre. After a stroll across the market, I wanted to see if Jansen&Jansen had any new fun stuff, which they had. Before I’d left, Nienke asked me to see about finding her a new pair of slippers. I didn’t find any pretty ones at the market, but found awesome ones at Jansen&Jansen 😀 Fuzzy clog-shaped slippers, pink with red hearts on them 😀

Of course I had to bring these for Nienke. I also bought myself (and her) a duck for our collection. After this we headed for the T-Mobile shop to pick out a new phone for Mom. After discussing it with the sales guy, we decided on another Nokia, since she’s used to that in terms of control and looks.

Then we hit the main shopping street, bought some clothes (shirt, t-shirt, hat), shoes, had lunch at Hema and then made our way back up towards the market.

Some more looking around there was followed by a last stop at the craft store to get latex (to make a vampire forehead), some music-themed charms and a paper maché leaf for Florian the Flower Faerie to sit on. By then we were getting a bit tired so we decided to grab the next bus back to the Transferium and head home.

I hung around at the parents for the rest of the afternoon. When I got back home, Nienke was much pleased with her slippers 😀

After some hanging about and watching another episode of Stargate Atlantis, I decided to finally start sorting through my clothes, which I’d been wanting to do for a while now. Nienke took her laptop and accompanied me while I tried on everything to see what still fit, what I still liked and so on. Much fun was had, especially with all the typical female clothes (women tunics, dresses, female tops and so on). It felt like another step in my gender process from gender neutral towards masculine, as wearing these clothes made me feel like a drag queen. (It did give me an awesome idea for a dress-up though: dress up as a drag queen while wearing my binder, so sort of being a woman being a man being a woman again.)

After sorting, it was too late to fold everything, so I stuffed it all back in the closet just so my bed would be free and I could sleep. Nienke had sorted through her clothes a few weeks ago, but not yet put her stuff back either, so Sunday evening, after procrastinating all day we decided to fire up Skype, and both go about folding and putting our clothes back.  It was much fun, although the whole process took hours. Photo was about mid-sorting I think.

Monday I had a day off. I messed around in the house, did dishes and such. Made a cake, made a painting and painted the paper maché leaf I bought on Saturday.

Books, Food, Friends, Games

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Early February the author Sarah Monette held a memorial book sale for her cat to benefit the veterinary hospital he was treated at. Among the books offered were ten sets of her 4-book fantasy series Doctrine of Labyrinths. I had the first part already, but the second part is out of print, and, if I remember correctly, the fourth part too. So when I read she was gonna offer them, and for only 35 dollars, I knew I had to get one. So I set my alarm for the day of the sale so I would be online and ready when she would post the sale. And it worked, I got lucky and ended up being the fourth person to speak out for a set. Within ten, twenty minutes, all ten sets were gone, so I was damn lucky.

Anyway, long story short, yesterday when I got home there was a note from the postal service indicating they had twice tried to deliver me a package and found no one home. I could pick it up at the post office the next day.

Today, Nienke asked if I wanted to join her in making homemade pizza for lunch, to which there is really only one answer: yes! Except a quick stop at the store was needed fore some additional ingredients. Since the post office is in the store, this was an excellent way to kill two birds with one stone. So we picked up some meat for my pizza and some mozzarella and my package at the check out. As expected, it were the books.

So, I am now the proud owner of a complete set of Doctrine of Labyrinths, and I’ll finally be able to continue the adventures of Felix and Mildmay.

After I sufficiently drooled over my pretty new arrivals, and shared this through Twitter and Facebook :D, Nienke and I finally got around to making pizza. I went for a home made Hawai’i type thing with tomato paste, corn, regular cheese, lots of ham and pineapple, grated cheese and mozzarella. Nienke had similar, but replace ham and pineapple with tuna (ewwwwwww :D)

*unrelated sidenote, since I’m re-watching Atlantis, I <3 McKay*

Pizza turned out to be really tasty, so instead of eating half and saving the other half for breakfast, I ate it all. I felt rather stuffed, but it was delicious.

Eva called, in the morning, to see if I wanted to hang out, maybe play a game, and of course I agreed. Since I was planning on cooking for me and Nienke anyway, I invited Eva to join us. When Eva showed up, however, she surprised me by informing that Mellien was coming too. Fortunately, I made stir fry which is easy to expand when you get more people than planned. Nienke left us shortly after since she had a visitor of her own forthcoming. Eva, Mellien and I went to play Munchkin. It’s been quite a while since I last played, so I had to re-read the rules for a bit, but I quickly got back into it. Mellien had never played it before, and for Eva it was a long time too.

Within a round or two, three, they mostly figured it out, and it went very well for a first time. Eva won by gloriously defeating Level 4 Harpies. We were mostly really nice to each other during the game, not a lot of hindering and pestering took place. And, as the game master of the evening, Eva bribed me with a cookie (for a level) and I nagged myself (for a level) 😀

Mid-game

My cards at the end-game

Mellien’s final monster, it ate all her cards 😀

Eva’s final monster, Level 4 Harpies

The winner with her level markers