A few years ago, I started walking almost every single day. I started out doing it to regulate my mentrual cycle, but soon found out that there were lots of other benefits. When I walked in the morning, I had lots more energy and my days just flowed better.
After Sylvia was born, I fell out of the habit, and have not been able to get back into it. Over the last few months, at least I often have been doing aikido first thing in the morning, which helps some, but I felt that this didn't give me enough of a workout.
Today, after my aikido, the weather was so nice, crisp and sunny, and I decided to go for a walk. I took my mp3 player, so I could study Chinese while walking. It felt sooooooooooooo good to be out in the sun. I am definitely going to work on making it a habit again. Especially with the winter coming up.
When I came home, the kids had woken up, and Sylvia wanted to come on a walk with me. So I did a second walk with Kate and Sylvia, fun.
Today is go club day, will make myself some lunch and then head over to club. Last night, I was up till 4am (yes, playing go ^^), the morning walk helped me to wake up after that.
I have lots of pictures I want to post, but blogger is having problems, so I'll wait till it works better again.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Love Thursday
Love is carrying your babies and dolls around in the sling.
I would have posted more sling pictures, but blogger is being a big pain in theass butt, so I am off to go club instead.
Oh, and if you wonder about the dirty faces, I tried to clean Sylvia's 'What about we clean your face before taking pictures?' Sylvia's reply 'NO Clean face!' OK, it's a fight I am not fighting ^^ I guess it shows real life better than a clean face would do :)
We will hide a cache on the way to go club, woohoo! I haven't hidden any caches in a while, happy to get around to it again.
I would have posted more sling pictures, but blogger is being a big pain in the
Oh, and if you wonder about the dirty faces, I tried to clean Sylvia's 'What about we clean your face before taking pictures?' Sylvia's reply 'NO Clean face!' OK, it's a fight I am not fighting ^^ I guess it shows real life better than a clean face would do :)
We will hide a cache on the way to go club, woohoo! I haven't hidden any caches in a while, happy to get around to it again.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
My Brother
This year has not been a good year for my brother and his family. In May, my nephew suicided, and this week both my brother and his wife have been in accidents :( A few days ago, they were riding their bikes, and a car took a right turn without seeing them. They got hit, my brother was fine, just shaken up, his wife had some scraping and bruising. She got checked out in the hospital, and could go home to heal, nothing serious.
Yesterday, my brother was in another accident, this time with his motorcycle. He got hit by a car, hurt his shoulder very badly, and bruised a couple of ribs. He is in a lot of pain. They were supposed to go on vacation next week, don't know whether that still will happen.
Please send some good thoughts their way.
Yesterday, my brother was in another accident, this time with his motorcycle. He got hit by a car, hurt his shoulder very badly, and bruised a couple of ribs. He is in a lot of pain. They were supposed to go on vacation next week, don't know whether that still will happen.
Please send some good thoughts their way.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Declutter Fever
Argh!
Have to...
DECLUTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The clutter is just driving me crazy enough to actually DO something about it today. I am going to make a dump run at the end of the day, so I'd better fill up a bunch of trash bags. For now I went into the television room and did some pruning, resulting in three bags so far. I'll have a visitor next week, who will sleep in that room, and somehow that's a good incentive to start decluttering that room first. Not that he would care, but I do.
Kids are fighting like crazy today, not sure what's up with that. Maybe should take them out for a nice long hike later, but then I'd like to declutter too. Decisions, decisions!
Wish me luck digging myself through the television room!
Have to...
DECLUTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The clutter is just driving me crazy enough to actually DO something about it today. I am going to make a dump run at the end of the day, so I'd better fill up a bunch of trash bags. For now I went into the television room and did some pruning, resulting in three bags so far. I'll have a visitor next week, who will sleep in that room, and somehow that's a good incentive to start decluttering that room first. Not that he would care, but I do.
Kids are fighting like crazy today, not sure what's up with that. Maybe should take them out for a nice long hike later, but then I'd like to declutter too. Decisions, decisions!
Wish me luck digging myself through the television room!
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Quote of the Day
Kate to Erik: 'You used your SUPER UGLY BUTT BUTT POWERS!!!!'
The joy of siblings ^^
The joy of siblings ^^
Rain ,Rain!
We had wanted to do some more outside apple projects, but the rain is interfering. Looks like we will be stuck with rain and thunder storms for the rest of the day.
The good news is that I did some aikido outside before the rains even started, when there even still was some sun visible. For a while, I did aikido almost every morning, and felt really good. Life got in the way, and I almost never got around to it anymore, now I am trying to get back into the habit. I feel so happy I did it this morning.
It is a lot easier to be stuck inside if you have had some outside time and sunlight already.
Cleanup day today, so will have to work myself through 5,000 baskets of clean laundry. How can just a few kids generate soooooooooo much laundry?
Updated to add:Erik just came over to me with a glass 'Am I allowed to catch rain water to drink it????' Sure, I guess it will save on our water bill. And I just went to the kitchen to get some tea and saw Erik and Kate both happily playing outside in the rain. Makes me rethink rain as a thing to be annoyed about and forces me to try to find back the joy in it. Maybe later, I'll go out for a walk in the rain. Or maybe I am not that joyful about it yet ^^
The good news is that I did some aikido outside before the rains even started, when there even still was some sun visible. For a while, I did aikido almost every morning, and felt really good. Life got in the way, and I almost never got around to it anymore, now I am trying to get back into the habit. I feel so happy I did it this morning.
It is a lot easier to be stuck inside if you have had some outside time and sunlight already.
Cleanup day today, so will have to work myself through 5,000 baskets of clean laundry. How can just a few kids generate soooooooooo much laundry?
Updated to add:Erik just came over to me with a glass 'Am I allowed to catch rain water to drink it????' Sure, I guess it will save on our water bill. And I just went to the kitchen to get some tea and saw Erik and Kate both happily playing outside in the rain. Makes me rethink rain as a thing to be annoyed about and forces me to try to find back the joy in it. Maybe later, I'll go out for a walk in the rain. Or maybe I am not that joyful about it yet ^^
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Fun with Boxes
Half of the fun of getting packages is playing with the empty boxes.
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with toys. Maybe I should have kept the 5,000 empty boxes which were residing in the basement.
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with toys. Maybe I should have kept the 5,000 empty boxes which were residing in the basement.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Love Thursday
Last night and today, had some challengest hubby wise which I don't want to post about, so I was very happy to remember that today is Love Thursday. I am sending {{{ HUGS }}} to chookooloonks mommy after reading her post, she seems to be in a similar mood I am in.
I contemplated for a while which picture to post today, and decided to go with an older picture. This picture signifies my love for my family in the Netherlands, whom are so far away, and still very much loved. The internet sure has made it easier to keep into contact with them, but I wish it would be possible to just hop over and see them more often.
The timing of this picture is October 2001, just a few weeks after 9/11. My father was not doing well, and my mother-in-law flew over to our house, so that I could go visit him and say goodbye to him. We had arranged all that before 9/11, I had some thinking to do after it happened. My conclusion was that it was more important to me to see my father one last time, than it was to live in fear of something happening to me on the way. I was not going to let terrorists dictate me whether I would fly or not, I stepped on that plane willing to take any consequences of that decision.
It was a bitter-sweet time in the Netherlands, seeing old friends and family, spending time with my father, knowing it would be the very last time I would ever see him alive. Erik was the only one of my kids who was with me, he was almost 9 months old at the time. Holding on to him helped me to deal with some of the emotions around that trip, and I was happy that my father got to meet him. I am still sad that I never was able to introduce Sylvia to him, but I like to think that he does know anyway and watches me from wherever he is now.
The picture shows Erik and my brother-in-law with his horse. I love the way Henk was carrying around Erik in the sling and how he showered tons of love on Erik in the short time they were able to spend together. I really wish we were closer and could visit them more often. My life here is good, but there should be an easy, fast and cheap way to see my Dutch family more often.
I contemplated for a while which picture to post today, and decided to go with an older picture. This picture signifies my love for my family in the Netherlands, whom are so far away, and still very much loved. The internet sure has made it easier to keep into contact with them, but I wish it would be possible to just hop over and see them more often.
The timing of this picture is October 2001, just a few weeks after 9/11. My father was not doing well, and my mother-in-law flew over to our house, so that I could go visit him and say goodbye to him. We had arranged all that before 9/11, I had some thinking to do after it happened. My conclusion was that it was more important to me to see my father one last time, than it was to live in fear of something happening to me on the way. I was not going to let terrorists dictate me whether I would fly or not, I stepped on that plane willing to take any consequences of that decision.
It was a bitter-sweet time in the Netherlands, seeing old friends and family, spending time with my father, knowing it would be the very last time I would ever see him alive. Erik was the only one of my kids who was with me, he was almost 9 months old at the time. Holding on to him helped me to deal with some of the emotions around that trip, and I was happy that my father got to meet him. I am still sad that I never was able to introduce Sylvia to him, but I like to think that he does know anyway and watches me from wherever he is now.
The picture shows Erik and my brother-in-law with his horse. I love the way Henk was carrying around Erik in the sling and how he showered tons of love on Erik in the short time they were able to spend together. I really wish we were closer and could visit them more often. My life here is good, but there should be an easy, fast and cheap way to see my Dutch family more often.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Apples, Apples Everywhere!
This weekend, we spent half a day taking care of some apples we got during the apple picking.
Fried them with a little bit of butter, cinnamon and sugar, while my friend mosaica made pie dough.
Tara was working on getting more apples ready for other goodies.
Mini apple pies! Just a slice of apple with some pie dough around it. Those were a huge hit. Even Tim ate them!
We also made five loaves of apple bread and two large apple cakes. The directions for the apple cake said to 'arrange the slices artfully', which I translated into 'throw them on top and flatten them out'. Seemed to work just fine.
During all our work, the other kids entertained themselves with noodle fights...
Amazing how threatening one of those noodles can be in the right hands.
Now did we work through all our apples? Nope, still bags and bags full of apples left, sigh ^^
Fried them with a little bit of butter, cinnamon and sugar, while my friend mosaica made pie dough.
Tara was working on getting more apples ready for other goodies.
Mini apple pies! Just a slice of apple with some pie dough around it. Those were a huge hit. Even Tim ate them!
We also made five loaves of apple bread and two large apple cakes. The directions for the apple cake said to 'arrange the slices artfully', which I translated into 'throw them on top and flatten them out'. Seemed to work just fine.
During all our work, the other kids entertained themselves with noodle fights...
Amazing how threatening one of those noodles can be in the right hands.
Now did we work through all our apples? Nope, still bags and bags full of apples left, sigh ^^
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Clean Up Day!
Worked myself through eight baskets of clean laundry (with Tara's help) and all the downstairs floors are walkable again, amazing. Our big project for the day was the freezer on top of the fridge, which had not been working well, things tended to melt sometimes. I need to buy a thermometer and play with the settings and figure out what is going on.
I decided that last time I cleaned out this freezer must have been early 2004, since that's the date from which items seemed to start. So many sticky and unrecognizable things, I am glad we finally did this. Do you know what a gooey mess gets made if a lastic bag full of banana mush empties itself? We do!
This is a picture of one of Tara's projects, the cabinet was in desperate need of decluttering (aren't they all??? ^^) She managed to transform it into a cabinet in which you can actually find things.
She discovered we had two waffle irons in there, and has been making waffles quite a few times since then.
It is nice to have kids old enough to make waffles all by themselves. Everyone is enjoying Tara's new skill :)
I decided that last time I cleaned out this freezer must have been early 2004, since that's the date from which items seemed to start. So many sticky and unrecognizable things, I am glad we finally did this. Do you know what a gooey mess gets made if a lastic bag full of banana mush empties itself? We do!
This is a picture of one of Tara's projects, the cabinet was in desperate need of decluttering (aren't they all??? ^^) She managed to transform it into a cabinet in which you can actually find things.
She discovered we had two waffle irons in there, and has been making waffles quite a few times since then.
It is nice to have kids old enough to make waffles all by themselves. Everyone is enjoying Tara's new skill :)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
