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It’s On!

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20150810_174854The past few days have been exhausting, but so worth it.

I got the keys to the new house five days ago. I had taken that day off work so right after that we got the show on the road. My Mom started cleaning, and then shortly after Joran arrived to help move. We’d borrowed a little handcart from Eva so we could go back-and-forth across the hundred or so yards between the old and the new house. Joran and I spent the day moving big cabinets and related stuff to the new house with the handcart. At the end of the day, we had another barbecue with the left over meat from Nienke’s birthday.

Over the next few days we just moved things whenever we could. Me around my work hours, Nienke throughout the day. It’s damned convenient she’s home right now 🙂

And whenever we’re not moving things over there, we’re moving things in the old house from upstairs to downstairs.

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Today, the 15th, was the big moving day. My aunt and uncle came to help, along with their big cart and toolbox. We moved even more big stuff, including the sofa’s and beds. Tonight is the first night we’re sleeping at the new place!

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We’re Moving

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20150725_101333We’ve been talking for a while now about living separately again. We’re both ready for, and in need of, more personal space. So we’ve been looking at the new available houses for rental on the housing cooperation’s website each week. We both need to move when we do this, as the current house is too expensive for either one of us to afford alone. So, we figured it might be a while before we could do this. We would need a week with two good houses, or to find a house for one of us that is still big enough so the other can temporarily move with.

This last option has now become reality. Earlier this month a house around the corner from our current house became available on the website. Nienke signed up for it and fought herself at the fifth or so spot. After some calculations to see if it was affordable, I also signed up. When Nienke asked me what spot I was in, I checked and found I was first. And I was still first when the sign-up closed after a week. This was quite a shock as we had not expected it to go this fast.

By now, we’ve sort of gotten used to the idea. Nienke will come along with me for now and look for her own place from the new house. The layout of the ground floor is different, more cosy than in the current house. The first floor layout, though, is similar to what we have here. So we can just move everything over and keep most things the same.

We’ve started packing. This week I also signed the purchase agreement with the previous tenant for the floors, curtains and so on. August ten I go to see the housing cooperation to sign the paperwork and get the keys.

Stuff is happening, and I’m excited 🙂

Threes

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20141218_223827Three cats keeping me company while reading the other day.

Decorated my winter tree (of of the two we’re putting up, Nienke does the other one) yesterday.

And today, Eva, Jarig and Julius came to drop off three cabinets. When they moved into their farm, the previous owners left a lot of stuff behind for them, including a bunch of cabinets, standing in one of the barns.

When I first saw these, I already liked them. At first, since not everything was in place yet, they were using some of them, but Eva mentioned not really liking them. So I asked, if neither Anneke nor Julius wanted them, if I could possibly have them.

A while later, it turned out that (fortunately for me) they didn’t want them either, so I could have them. I am, unfortunately, not in the possession of a driver’s licence or a car big enough to take them, so that was the end of it for a while.

Then Eva called this morning, would it be okay if they came by? Which they then did early afternoon. We carried the cabinets into the garage, where they are to be placed while we live here. They are made of massive wood, and metal shelf-bearers, so they were quite heavy.

I left them there for now, I’ll be cleaning and putting them in place over the weekend.

Another Level

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20141207_214522In the living room we have a number of base decorations that generally stay the same throughout the year. Plants/florals in the window sill, candles beside the TV, those things. Besides that, I make seasonal display things for on the coffeetable and a (fake) floral arrangement in a vase. As with the seasons, this changes roughly every three months.

I have several plates, trays, bowls, vases, jars etc.. I construct these in, but nothing a bit taller and enabling layering. So I’ve been wanting a tiered serving tray or something like it. But, picky as I am, I wanted a wooden one, or maybe a vintagey metal one, anything but one of those standard porcelain actual serving trays. And let those be the only ones I have been able to find lately…

So I was thinking what I was going to do for the winter piece without the tiered tray and not really getting any inspiration. I made my autumn piece in a long, white, wooden tray. It would be ideal for winter, but I couldn’t make it work 🙁

20140923_200728I’m just realising I never showed the autumn piece. Probably because I made it around the time Captain came, and I was kinda busy with that 🙂 So here it is.

Anyway, back on track. Last weekend I was at my cousin’s birthday and she had exactly what I had been looking for on her table: two tiers, unfinished wood, and about 50 cm or so high (including handle).

As luck would have it, she had been given it by another cousin. Which meant, it was current, and probably still available! I asked my other cousin where she got it, and made a mental note to check it out.

Wednesday, during grocery shopping, we made a stop at the store where it came from. At first I couldn’t find. I went through the whole store and was afraid they might be sold out when I suddenly spotted one last one on top of the shelves.

Once home, I pulled out my winter stuff and general decoratives and it just clicked. 🙂

I’m still looking for a, slightly smaller, vintagy metal one for variation, but this is an excellent start.

Turn Around

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We’d been talking recently about some re-arranging of the living room. We’ve lived here for a little over a year now, and we could do with a bit of change. So after bouncing ideas back and forth, we settled on a preliminary plan and yesterday we made it happen. I started by moving the bookcases across the room from one wall to another and then we moved the rest around. I’m really happy with the end result, it feels much more open and somehow more real.

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Cat Tree House

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Cat Tree came yesterday! I spent most of the evening building it, so I shall regale you with pictures 😀

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It has lots of parts…

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Halfway done, and done! Monkey and Milo approve. Captain was off elsewhere, sleeping.

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Daytime pics from today for good measure

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And a sleepy cat from two days ago to close 🙂

Living on the Edge of Non-Existence

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So, back in late January, we got a new sofa set. Which meant our old sofas were obsolete. We stuffed them in the garage, together with some other shit. Then in February, I arranged for the county trash/recycle service to pick it all up. It’s quite convenient, you just pile it up along the road, they drive by, load it up and take it away, and a little while later you get a bill.

Except, we never got a bill. At first I thought it was late, then later I thought ‘maybe it was an automated payment’. There were some other payments for the trash service or for the county so I figured it was included in that. After all, they are the county, they have all our data.

Fast forward to yesterday. I got a call at work. I didn’t recognise the number. Normally I don’t pick up if they call with the number hidden, but this was shown, and was a regular number. So I picked up. And to my surprise, it was a collection agency. He was calling to discuss a bill for a trash pickup that had been passed on to them…

I was quite surprised, since I never saw a bill, so how did it end up at a collection agency without getting any reminders or whatnot!? The guy did some checking, and there we found the root cause. The county sent the bill to a different street address. Same neighbourhood, but a few blocks away. Which is bloody ridiculous since the pick-up, at my home address, went without a hitch. So they knew where I lived. They also have my phone number, as I had to give that when making the appointment, so they could’ve just called me…

Collection dude and I agreed that he would send me the bill via e-mail, and then I had about two weeks to pay. I received the mail almost immediately. By then, I had calmed down, so I mailed him back that, since it was the county’s fault, I had no intention of paying the extra costs  above the direct amount for the pickup (€14) and what would be the best way to go about that. Then I found the county website and submitted a complaint.

And now, with all bases covered, I wait.

In and Out

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I’d asked Mom if she wanted to go to Bedum with me yesterday for groceries and Action. She said yes so we headed there yesterday morning. We decided on groceries first. When we got there I noticed that the shoe store in the same building was having a sale where, if you bought two sale items, the cheapest would be €1. We’re always in for sales, so we checked it out.

Mom didn’t find anything, either for her or for Dad, but I did. First I found a nice pair of black ankle-high sneakers. I had some trouble finding a second item to take advantage of the sale. Not that it was terribly necessary, the sneakers were cheap enough to buy as is, but I kept looking around for a wee bit longer. Which was just my luck as I found a nice pair of grey sporty looking loafers. I’d been wanting a new pair of those for when I just want to slip on something easy, plus these look nice enough to wear as dress shoes, too.

Only then did we go for the actual groceries. I didn’t need much, and neither did Mom, so we were done quite fast. Which brought us back to the car and on our way to the Action a few streets over.

My main reason for wanting to go there, this time, was Warcraft lego, again 😀 I needed only two more sets to have one of every set the Action had available. And Elune was with me, as the Night Elves say, for they had the sets I was missing. I’m now the proud owner of a Spectral Tiger and a Dragon Turtle to complete my Warcraft Lego shelf in the bookcase. I also bought a couple mandala colouring pads and a new mesh cup to hold pens.

Here, have a crappy iPad evening shot to show my WoW Lego shelf 😀

From left to right: a piece of Stormwind with a human warlock, a Worgen on a Gryffin, a Gnome in a helicopter, a Night Elf on the Spectral Tiger, a Pandaren on the Dragon Turtle, a Goblin on a trike, a Tauren on a Wyvern, and a demolisher with a Blood Elf wanting to break down the walls of Stormwind. Behind them is a row of solitary figurines: Gnome, Worgen, Human, Night Elf, Tauren, Pandaren, Orc.

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When we got back, I stayed over at the parents for lunch (nom, fries), built my new Lego sets, and left a while later to go home and put away the groceries and such. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing WoW, inspired and all 🙂

The evening was quickly designated movie night, although we ended up going back to memory lane by watching the first couple episodes of Charmed instead of a movie. All accompanied by copious amounts of popcorn and some cocktail shizzle 😀

This morning I slept in, played some iPad games and finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and didn’t get dressed and downstairs until near noon. Only then did I realise I was going to go to Pilates… Fail.

Had some lunch, then read some more, this time Tuf Voyaging. I had started it a while ago but then had to put it away after just a handful of pages so I just started over today. I really like it so far, although I wouldn’t so much classify it as a novel, but more as a collection of short stories/novellas as there is no over arching plot between the “chapters”. Each is a self contained, episode I’d say, in the saga of Tuf and his voyages. Tuf is a fun character, stoic, honest, and prone to taking things too literal. Plus he loves cats.

Around two I had enough of sitting around, and since Nienke went upstairs to study, I dove into the garage to tackle the mess there. It took me about four hours, but it looks so much better now. Just two or so garbage bin pick-ups to get rid of all the crap, a trip to the paper recycle container and the county recycle center to drop off a few boxes of old paper and an old TV.

That only leaves the old kitchen chairs, but they get to stay for now. I’m thinking of turning one into a flower bin with the left over planks from the garden privacy fence. And who knows what I can do with the rest 😀

Then I wokked some veggies in sweet chili sauce, hung out in front of the TV, played on the computer for a bit and put away the dry laundry. And now I’ve been spending the past hour or so typing this up. It would go faster on the computer, but the iPad is more convenient for typing in bed 😀

Night, night, folks!

Fencing

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Yesterday our friend and former colleague Harm (from Groen & Grond Muntendam) came to build a privacy fence around the back yard. I had to work first, so I did that from home. After working my half day I went to get my T. shot and then proceeded to assist Harm. We finished the fence between us and the attached neighbours, and the outside of the fence separating us from the other neighbours. And since I’d done this, I figured why the hell not and tortured myself at the gym with a steep ten minute stationary bike ride and a 5 km rowing course.

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Today was another day off for me which came in handy as Harm returned early in the morning to finish the job. We fairly quickly finished off the remaining fence and then built a door. We ended up having to hurry as Harm had places to be, but we got it done! Hurray! All it needs is a little slide lock on the door so we can keep it from being opened from the outside when we don’t want to. In the afternoon I joined the parents for Aunt Grietje’s birthday. She turned 85 🙂

In the evening, I watched Treasure Planet on Netflix, it’s a fun movie.

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Door