A Week's Mish-Mash

First of all, today is my turn at Vision and Verb again....

...and it's about coloring outside the lines.

This is my second time in 3 years to pick up the 12 books I brought with me

when I moved here to the Netherlands, collected from 10 years ago.

I feel like I have found a much-neglected friend!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Secondly, Astrid and I went to see Les Miserables yesterday, Sunday, at our nearby theater's 11a showing.  We were the only ones there!  It was our own private presentation...and meant I could cry unabashedly every time I wanted to.  OMG!  I don't care what anyone else says, it was W O N D E R F U L.  

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Thirdly, my laptop was in for its manual maintenance for 4 days last week.  OUCH!  I do NOT like being without my friend day in and day out.  Sure, I was able to use Astrid's and did, thanks to her gracious generosity.  But as you know, it's not the same.  For one thing, I didn't have access to PhotoShop and therefore did no processing of images.  HEAVENS!

BTW, I had never heard of an annual maintenance for a laptop, but I've faithfully done it now for 3 years...and it appears to be paying off.  And the reason why it took 4 days instead of one is because they found a virus that by-passed our Norman security.  That little bugger!

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Now, with what was left of the weekend, I was able to process images from a couple weekends ago when we drove out into the polder...after getting more snow.

 I suspect one day I will sing "I left my heart in the Polder!"

That's how much I love it.

 Astrid took a slight detour from the way we ususally drive home after the pannenkoeken restaurant. 

Lucky for us, we found a small stretch on one of the canals where skating actually was good.

Most of the canals this year have had slushy ice because the snow fell while it was freezing.

Astrid can give you the whole science behind it.  Trust me.

 But it was the sheep...always the sheep...that stole my heart.

How can you resist them!

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Did I ever mention that Astrid has a green thumb?  As second nature as it is for her to bike-ride and ice-skate, she thoroughly enjoys growing flowers and plants on our window sill.  So, I got out my macro lens while my laptop was gone.

 She bought 3 amaryllis bulbs...one pink...

 ... and two red.

Oh yes, I also got out my oculus, as you see.

Those plants totally blow my mind.  Have you ever watched them grow??!!

And seen how strong their stems are to grow so tall and hold so much weight!

 But THIS blows my mind even more!

Astrid buys hyacinths throughout the winter but this first one is, as you see...in water.

I had never seen this done in my life, with a vase made for it.

Not only did she never add water after the initial fill, it never turned cloudy or dirty.

You all know by now it doesn't take much to make me happy!  Which reminds me to remind you about my coloring post today at Vision and Verb! 

It's Just Money; Nobody Died

You could call this a Good News/Bad News post but in the end, "It's just money; nobody died." So that's the Good News.

It started last week when suddenly my laptop died dead in its tracks. Bottom line, it was the motherboard. Kaput. All my data from the internal hard drive was saved; all the programs were lost. But, good news, some of my most important programs, like PhotoShop, will be installed by the techies on my new laptop hopefully by the end of the week. The bad news is that everything costs more over here, especially when you do the dollar to euro conversion (1 Euro = 1.4503 U.S. dollars right now). Nor was it how I expected to use my money right now. BUT...nobody died!

So now I'm using Astrid's laptop, thanks to her undying generosity....and am figuring out how to process pics through Picasa for this post. So far so good....except for wrapping, which I forgot how to do....

OK. Now to the fun stuff....

THE TRUCKPACKS ARE HERE! We had them delivered to us instead of renting a van and driving to Rotterdam to pick them up. It didn't take long to calculate that we were better off to have someone else do the hard work for us. However, would you believe...the driver did not come with a hand forklift! So we had to empty the packs from the van while he waited for us. Actually, he helped us, thankfully. In the end, it took 50 minutes to get everything out of the van for him to leave (with a nice tip, I might add) and another 40 minutes to get everything up into our 1st floor apartment. By 11 a.m. on Friday, the deed was done, 5 weeks after my arrival in the Netherlands!

After all was said and done, it cost almost as much to receive the go0ds here (again, after the dollar to euro conversion) as it took to ship them over the Pond from the States. And that's without having to pay any tax. Something's not quite right about that picture! But it's just money...and nobody died!

How's that for a mess!


The good news is that Eva was with us for an hour's worth of help. She's the girlfriend of Astrid's son, and is totally worth her weight in gold. Thank you, Eva!

Now you know what I've been doing since last Friday! Astrid, too, as the chief builder of shelves and organizing space for me as I unpack boxes! Little by little, beetje bij beetje.

Once I get my new laptop and once the unpacking is done, I will feel like a new woman. All the birthing pangs will be forgotten. It all was just money. Nobody died. In fact, if anything, as we start the new year, all is NEW. All is being born!