Clothing

City Stuff

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20151122_18024320151123_191302I’ve been colouring in my Animorphia book some more and last weekend finished this bird. The day after I made gorgeous burgers with cheddar, alfalfa, jalapeno, fried onion and American sauce. They were delicious.

Wednesday I hit the city with Mom to go shopping. We’d been talking about doing a day out like that for a while but never got around to it until now. We started at the market square and I showed her Sostrene Grene.

They’re one of my favourite stores with knick knacks and random things that change regularly. This time around I got some fabric, some stickers, some cards, a blank book, a bell jar, wood chips, some christmas puppets and a tote bag.

20151125_131550We also went to the Bristol and there I found a nice pair of ankle high shoes for only € 35,00. Since winter is coming and I need a new pair that is warmer than what I now usually wear, I snagged them up.

After the market square we made our way down the main shopping street. We took our sweet time for everything and when we got to the Hema we decided a break was in order. We had some food and I had a beautiful iced coffee.

Then, from the Hema, we stopped at Zara and I bought the sweater I left behind earlier this month when out with Gert. Except I got it in a darker colour now. When we were done there, it was time to go back home.

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The next day I had a double movie date with Gert, again. We saw The Good Dinosaur and Mockingjay, part 2.

The Good Dinosaur is a fairly standard Disney story. It takes place on a planet earth where the dinosaurs didn’t get wiped out. Main character is this dinosaur kid who’s clumsy and feels like he doesn’t fit in. His dad tries to help and sets him the task to protect their crops from vermin. The kid fails at that so he and his dad go out for some character building. Bad stuff happens, dad dies, kid feels guilty. He gets accidentally lost and needs to find his way back home. He then comes across the vermin, which is a little human boy. Except the humans aren’t very developed yet and the human kid basically acts like a dog. Together they set out to get dino kid back home.

The travel part where they try to get home is the best part of the movie. It’s funny and sometimes touching. The beginning of the movie where they give a peek into how dinosaurs run a farm is fun too. The emotional stuff is a bit heavy handed sometimes. The animation is very nice in some places, but okay in others.

Mockingjay was a very good film. As far as I can remember it’s still very close to the book. I liked how Katniss is really getting into her own and seeing through things now. I think I wanna see it again.

When I got home that night, a package was waiting for me. In it was this little statuette of Jonas. It is the final piece of my Kickstarter reward for the Wormworld Saga book 2.

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To the Sixties and Back

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Monday I saw Man from U.N.C.L.E. with Gert. It’s a fantastic movie, I love it 😀 It’s campy, and a glorious throwback to the sixties. In terms of plotting and general vibe it reminds me some of Kingsman, but then with Americans and in the past. It earned itself an immediate spot on my want-on-disc list.

After this we went straight on to The King’s Garden (aka A Little Chaos). This is a period film about the gardens of Versailles. It features Kate Winslet as a female landscape artist who gets hired to design and build a part of the gardens. She has to face her own insecurities, contempt and sabotage by other male landscapers and navigate the budding romance with the head landscape artist who happens to be married. It’s a cute film, with very good locations and a very nice Alan Rickman as King Louis.

Wednesday it was time to see The Fantastic Four with Nienke. It’s a fairly bland movie. I liked that the way they got their powers was different but other than that… I like the 2005 movie better and that one isn’t good either.

20150828_192052Today was market day in town so I took a gander with Mom. Bought some jeans on sale for €5, which was a steal. It’s a nice model with some flare around the ankles and a three-button close instead of a zipper. I also got this cute, light blue, stoneware pitcher. It’ll look nice with some flowers in the spring, or as a general decoration in the bathroom once I have adequate furnishings there.

At the end of the afternoon, Eva and Jarig came by with Feije. We briefly strolled around the market some more and then headed to La Sicilia for dinner.  We ended the day with a quick cup of tea at home before they left for The Farm.

This Sunday should be fun as well, it’s my cousin’s baby shower 🙂

Lord Erik and the Spartans in the Midwest

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march20-1Movie day with Gert yesterday. I had the whole day off, so I went to the city early in the morning to meet up with him. Did some shopping first at Xenos where I bought me two awesome tea boxes.

Afterwards we went to see 300: Rise of an Empire. It is exactly what you expect of it: lots of slaughter, lots of blood, lots of gore, lots of slow motion bits to emphasise the killing and blood, very little plot. There’s nothing in this movie that sticks with you, the characters are one dimensional made of cardboard, not even a flicker of personality to make you care even in the slightest if they might die or not.

The second movie of the day was August: Osage County. Now this is a movie I really loved. It’s a family drama themed movie where, after their father disappears and then dies, the three children come home to their family home in the midwest. This leads to secrets being unearthed, arguing and awkward moments.

march20-2Today I had a late shift so I went to the store in the morning. After getting to the register with my basket I realised I forgot my wallet at home :S Fortunately I could place my basket near the register while I biked back home to get it. So my quick shopping trip took a bit longer than expected 😀

Afterward I cleaned the litter boxes and put the dishes in the dishwasher to make room on the counter for me to cook. Then, on to work I went. Work itself was uneventful, but late in the afternoon one of my coworkers approached me with a picture. “Look!” he said. And when I did I spied a picture of him on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones! As it turned out, HBO NL was visiting us again with the Throne (I think this was the third time total since I’ve worked there). The previous times I missed the opportunity.

This time around, I dropped everything and almost ran for it. I got lucky as the dude manning it was about to start cleaning up the shoot but he agreed to take my picture. So I grabbed the sword that was also present and sat on the Throne. For a prop used solely for this kind of photo shoot it’s remarkably solid and lifelike 😀 I was giddy with excitement, but managed to pull a serious face for the photo. The dude shot, the dude printed and I left with my shiny, shiny photo. After I left, a couple of my teammates showed up and also got lucky, but then he really left.

And of course I have to show you the picture 😀

Behold! Lord Erik of Westeros!

march20

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:

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.

Weekly Four: week 42

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I’m grateful for having some book gift cards left so I can get me some good books tomorrow.

I’m happy my Glee dvd box is here.

I’m sad because some dreams just won’t happen, and while it’s great fun to indulge the fantasy, facing the reality can make me a bit saddish some times.

I learned I definitely need some new clothes, even the binder is getting too loose…

Teehee

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I’d ordered some new clothes a little while ago in one of my favourite online stores and they finally arrived last Tuesday afternoon. Everything was there, even the blouse I’d been informed would come a few weeks later…

That evening I went to Eva for her birthday and we had a very nice and happy, lots-of-laughs evening save for a bout of sorrow when my friend got reminded of her pet dog who would be put to sleep the next day. Lodewijk, as he was called, was really, really old and just couldn’t go on anymore so the vet came by at their place yesterday afternoon. Eva said it had been a difficult day (of course) but that he had gone peacefully and it was okay.

Today was my mother’s birthday, she turned 57. We didn’t really celebrate though, that’ll be Saturday. We went grocery shopping this morning which enabled me to hop into the bookstore and get her a present. I’d been unsuccessful at finding a nice book last week but now I succeeded in finding a very nice book with short stories in our provincial dialect which was priced so nicely I could add another book to it. This was also a short story collection in our dialect but of a different author.

After I’d bought the gifts and we had finished the rest of the shopping we drove home. Along the way, we stopped at a car dealer ship as my parents (who’ve been after a new (2nd hand) car for a while now) knew he had one they thought was nice. So we spent some time there and they took the car for a little spin around the neighbourhood and when they came back they’d decided to buy it. They’ll go in next week to pick it up and leave the old car there. I’m gonna miss the old lady we’ve got now, a Volvo V40, ’cause she’s a very pretty red and we’ve had her for years. The new one’s gonna take some getting used to, I’m not too fond of the colour or the model of the car but it’s my parent’s car so their choice. And this one, a Peugeot 306, was very nicely priced.

When we got home, we stored away the groceries and then I finally got to give mom my presents and she was very pleased with them so yay me 😀

Nieuwe Trui

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Gisteravond weer wezen sporten. Geen pilates deze keer want de instructrice was ziek. In plaats daarvan was er een Swiss Ball Workout en aangezien we er toch waren zijn we dat maar gaan doen. Een Swiss Ball bleek een soort uit de kluiten gewassen skippybal zonder handvat te zijn waarop we allerlei oefeningen deden. Het was wel erg leuk om te doen en ook meer spierintensief dan pilates. We (Claire, Veronika & ik) hadden het er nog even over om de maandag avond aerobics die we willen gaan doen te vervangen met dit maar dat is van 6 tot 7 aan Manor Road en dat komt voor mij niet uit omdat ik pas om half 5 klaar ben en het is vaak al wel tien a 15 minuten later dat ik weer op m’n kamer ben en dan nog eten maken en opeten en ook om tien over vijf ofzo klaar zijn om naar Claire te gaan is een beetje te gek. We gaan nu wel ipv de 8-9 uur aerobics op maandagavond de 6-7 doen, maar deze is in het Charles Wilson building dus dat is makkelijker te doen.
Gisteravond na Swiss Ball naar de Asda gegaan om boodschappen te doen. Was erg gezellig zo met z’n driëen. Ook nog een trui gekocht een hele leuke gebreide, voornamelijk zwart maar met een beetje wit erdoor, zo’n gevlekte zeg maar; met een grote losse col erop. Claire heeft net zo een gekocht maar dan in creme kleuren.

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Uiteindelijk waren Nika en ik rond kwart over tien ofzo terug nadat Claire ons even voor de deur afzette (wel nodig met onze boodschappen, ik had vier plastic tasjes en het was niet licht…). Daarna nog snel even allebei gedoucht en uiteindelijk zo rond 12 uur gaan slapen. Lekker geslapen voor de verandering en ik was rond een uur of elf wakker vanmorgen.
Daarna eten gemaakt; groentesoep (bij de Asda eindelijk goede groentesoep gevonden, helder en groen en met herkenbare groente erin!) met een mini-baby-pizza, qua oppervlakte niet groter dan een plakje brood maar wel lekker.
Vervolgens rond een uur of twaalf vertrokken richting Royal Infirmary Museum maar eenmaal bij het ziekenhuis kon ik geen museum vinden dus maar weer terug. Het geheel heeft me drie kwartier gekost maar ik heb wel de Morrisons op de foto gezet en het Nelson Mandela Park. Straks om drie uur ontmoet ik eindelijk Annabel, ben benieuwd hoe dat gaat.

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Dus Annabel onmoet, een uur zitten kletsen, gezellig. Volgende week woensdag ga ik bij haar en haar vriendje eten en daarna gaan we bezig met het Nederlands. We zien wel hoe dat gaat dan, ze heeft lesboeken van De Delftse Methode dus ik ben nu aan het uitzoeken wat dat ongeveer is en heo het werkt. Het klinkt in ieder geval als een methode die wel gaat werken, het is voornamelijk tekst lezen voor haar en dan als er ‘les’ is, praten over de tekst, in het Nederlands.

Oh enne, hier nog een foto van de Morrisons, dan kunnen jullie zien hoe groot het is.
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