Family

Weekly Four: week 32

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I’m grateful it didn’t rain yesterday. My parents had a great time at the Agricultural Day at Verhildersum Museum Estate, and Nienke’s Birthday BBQ approved of the dry weather as well 😀

I’m happy Monkey is so close lately. I think he missed me when I was away last weekend. He’s letting me pet and hold him much more, and is seeking my company (and lap) of his own accord more as well. He’s on my lap as I type this <3

I’m angry with my WordPress. After returning to this site, and updating WP to the newest version, updating pages stopped functioning. And later posting pages stopped working, and now I’m even having trouble posting blog posts. Didn’t find a lot of info on the net, but what there is, is pointing to security issues and .htaccess file edits. So I first had to scour through my hosting provider’s FAQ to figure out 1) if I already had one somewhere (I couldn’t find it in the directory structure) and/or 2) how to edit and where to put it (since hosting provider is not using the standard public_html folder for the site but has named it differently. I think I got it now, we’ll see if this posts, then I probably got it 😀

I learned that draping a string of fake ivy across the top of my window looks neat.

Water

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Went swimming yesterday morning with Mom. She has this group lesson every week where they do excercises and stuff in the water. That’s not really my thing, but since the rest of the pool is virtually empty then, it’s ideal for doing laps. Got my 40 laps done and spent the last 15 minutes or so just floating about. I LOVE that, I could do that all day.

After we went shopping. Grocery shopping was planned, but we took a trip into town as well ’cause I was looking for flipflops. Unfortunately I didn’t find any of them, but I did find a shoe rack on sale at the drug store, only 3 euros! I put it together last night and will place it today after I clean/clear out the back entrance area.

After we lunched at a bakery. Since I can’t really eat bread products (carbs, carbs, carbs!) I hopped to the next door butcher and bought metworst. We browsed the nearby clothing stores for a bit but nothing came of it (yay, says my wallet). Did buy a few discount dvd’s (seriously, 5 for 5 euros… how can you pass on that 😀 )

We then finally decided it was about time to hit the supermarkets. I didn’t need a lot myself, just refill the meat supply and get some more cheese. I also bought this huge plastic tub/bucket thing. It will store a shitload of crap, and has other useful uses 😀

Ma Pool! 😀
01 Mijn nieuwe zwembad

It took about 5 buckets or so to fill 😀
03 Voetenbad

And of course, after a while, Monkey had to come and see too 😀
08 Drinken

Happy Birthday, Dad!

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Wednesday was my Dad’s birthday. He turned 67. I got him a pretty birthday card and Wednesday morning Mom and I did a quick trip to the next town over to see about a present. Dad doesn’t have a lot of hobbies or something so finding him a present is usually tricky. It so often becomes the same thing over and over. Succeeded half this time. Mom bought him a shiny pair of pants, and I got him a very cute new coffee cup, together with some same-old-same-old puzzle books. He was pleased with the gifts though, and in the end that’s all that matters 🙂

My aunt who lives farther away was the first of the family to arrive. Mom and I picked her up from the train station after getting Dad’s presents. Rest of the family came in the afternoon and evening. It was a fun day. Nice weather so we could sit outside for a substantial portion of the afternoon. I took Tessa for a quick walk half way through, together with my 8 yo second cousin who wanted to come along. When we got back, the wind had picked up and everyone had moved inside.

Could tell it was a mid-week birthday though. We usually hold birthdays in the weekend, and then it’s often nearing midnight when the last ones leave, now we were with just the family again around eleven. Makes sense of course, there’s work and other such things the next day. Thursday was a work day for me too, but an easy one with just four hours from 15:15 to 19:15.

I’d just gotten there and settled in when I figured I ask if I could leave half an hour early so I could catch the 19:06 train and not have to wait until the 20:06 one. I got an e-mail back saying I could go right away if I wanted… And the weather was lovely and I wasn’t really in the mood to work anyway so I took it and left after having been working for all of 15 minutes 😀
So I was home fairly early, giving me time to sort various things on the laptop in its semi-regular maintenance/backup/update cycle.

Today another quiet work day, just 3 hours this time from 16:00 to 19:00, but followed immediately by the team outing. We’re going out to dinner so I’ll be home late after all. Tomorrow I’ll be spending most of my time working on pages for my uncle’s birthday. My cousin is making a book of sorts (he’s turning 75) and has asked all of us to create something with their memories of him. So mom wrote a big piece of text, and tomorrow we’re sorting some pictures to go with that and then I’ll be making scrapbook pages (I doubt I can fit it on one) of that to send of to my cousin. I’m thinking it will take me the whole afternoon at the very least, and probably a bit of the evening as well.

I’m hoping the weather will still be lovely on Sunday, I want to sit outside and read and do nothing then.

Now off to shower 😀

Spring in my Head

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Halfway done with the attic, yeehaw!

Emptied the Ikea shelf unit in the bedroom (no, not an expedit 😀 a magiker, they don’t sell it anymore), piled all the crap on the bed and then took the unit apart to be taken up. I first had to vacuum there some more, I hadn’t gotten round to doing half of the attic room previous time and it hasn’t been vacuumed in like a year…

Once that was done I could hoist the unit parts up and put it back together. Luckily for me, by now I’m a reasonable expert on putting together Ikea furniture 😀
After that half the crap that was on the bed, mostly my craft-related stuff, had to be dragged up stairs (and yes, by that time dragged was all I was capable of) and put in the magiker up there. The whole process took the whole afternoon, but the bedroom is a lot emptier (safe for the pile of stuff that did not go up stairs) and ready for the two Billy’s I’ll be getting end of the month; and the attic is a lot fuller, but also a lot neater. It still needs a lot of finishing touches, there’s still quite a lot of stuff that needs to be in cabinets and such. Plus the junk part of the attic also needs a tidying up. But that can wait until next week.

Today I have to work and tomorrow I’ll be at the parents for food and my aunt’s birthday. Sunday I have planned to paint the garden door to seal it. I’ve also figured out how many tiles I’m gonna need for the little terrace I’m planning. And Sunday will also be good to get some boundaries laid out for the other parts.

Other random life stuff:

Got fined in the train the other day 🙁 I couldn’t buy a new train/bus card that morning ’cause my salary hadn’t been deposited yet (it usually arrives after noon, which I forgot) and forgot to go get one in my lunch break. So when I got off work, I had 5 minutes to catch my train and no time to buy a ticket or a card. I decided to take my chances since half of the time they don’t check. And when they do, it’s 50/50 from what end they start. So I went to sit at the end farthest from the driver, gambling the controller would start from there if he showed. And then he a) showed, and b) started from my end 🙁 No way to escape him anymore so 37 euros down the drain.

Monkey managed to gash open his cheek earlier this week, he was covered in blood. Cleaned it up a little but then had to leave for work. When I came back, he was all clean again 😀 Good little washing machine. It’s healing nicely too, turned out to be a much smaller cut than the amount of blood would suggest.

Right, 10:30, time to get dressed, need to leave in 45 minutes.

Parties vs. Exams

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The summer, especially June, is party season in my family. Many aunts, uncles and cousins have their birthdays in this period so we (me and my parents; I don’t have a car so I ride with them most of the time) go from one to the other.
But this year, three of my cousins are getting married, too 😀 One of them, who’s getting married next month, is living rather far away and they’re having a small party so we’re not going there. The other got married yesterday and they had a very nice party yesterday evening. My personal highlight of the evening? Seeing my parents dance! I can’t remember ever seeing them dance before! So of course I had to document this momentous occasion and not only took pictures but shot some video too 😀 The third cousin is getting married in September and so far it looks like they’ll be having a larger family party too so that’s gonna be fun.

The summer, especially June, is also finals season… This is less fun but the unavoidable side-effect of studying 😀 So far, I think it went reasonable. Got two or three exams more and then a week or two i guess before all the results are in, am keeping my fingers crossed 😀 In light of this I sat out a few birthdays to study and babysit the family dog, which was kinda fun, I guess 😀 Especially that one day where I got sick of sitting around with the study book at my parents so I packed my stuff, grabbed the dog and a bicycle and went home 😀

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.