Monday Madness 22 November 2010

It's just another Monday in the van de Rest household with all that it entails. Things like getting up before dawn to take care of critters and Arjan and get us out the door by 7 so we can hit the road to the airport. Then home to get a few chores done, check emails, forums and galleries and catch up on SYTYCD Lage Landen version.

Today's travel was a bit more hectic and longer than usual with an 18km traffic jam but luckily we still got him there in time to catch his flight. For those of you that are unfamiliar with German autobahns let me tell you there is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, like driving at 190kph and having then all of a sudden some absolute moron decides he needs to jump over in the fast lane in front of you. The problem is that he's only moving along at a snail's pace of about 80-100kph. I'll let you do the math. Of course that is Arjan driving at 190kph, most definitely not me, but I found myself getting a bit more adventurous this morning on the way home. I was actually going 160kph instead of my normal 120kph. Arjan was so proud of me when he called. Go Wolfie!

Since Arjan came home a day later than usual due to a crash at Birmingham International on Friday that shut down the airport, (no deaths and the liver made it to the hopsital ready for transplant...way to go emergency crews!), I was able to get all of this weeks housework done on Saturday while I waited for him to get home. I can't begin to tell you how amazing it was to walk into the house and not have hardly any chores to do. Just a quick tidying up of the breakfast dishes and make the bed and I was done and that means I actually get some scrapping, crafting or sewing time in this afternoon. Yes!


Yesterday was the semi-final of SYTYCD for the Lage Landen (the Lowlands which consist of the Netherlands and Belgium), but have to wait to watch on Monday's because I'm a kind wife and let Arjan watch Wegmisbruikers on Sunday nights. Anyway, I'm a SYTYCD junkie really and it was a pretty good show though I must admit I really liked last weeks epsisode much better. I'm quite happy to see that Lorenzo has made it to the finals and I really hope he wins after everything he had to go through this past year after suffering a major injury in the first of last year's liveshows. I may be watching it a day later but I will definitely be casting my vote on Sunday night for Lorenzo.

Not much happening in my email inboxes or the forums I frequent but the galleries are hopping. I just wish I had more time to give comments, but hopefully in the new year I will have settled into married life and our new routines when Arjan will hopefully be done with the UK assignment.

That's about it for today...I'm off to do a little something creative.

Just a few wedding pics

I can't say that I am overly thrilled with our wedding photos, but at the same time I really don't care. Terrible thing for a scrapbooker and semi-pro photographer to say, I know, but we had the most amazing ceremony and Arjan's parents were able to be there so anything above that is just an added bonus.

Anyway, these are a few of my favorites.

TGIF

I'm glad today is Friday because that means that I got to pick Arjan up from the airport for his weekend at home.

My very late fabric order arrived this morning and I'm glad it's finally here. By the way, did you know that 20 meters of fabric is a LOT of fabric? It is, trust me on this one. The fabric is beautiful but the trim is absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait to get stuck in with all my sewing tomorrow.

My future MIL is going to be here on Wednesday to help me with some cutting and hopefully I'll be far enough along to do a fitting. I can't wait to spend some one on one time with her. We don't get to do that very often and after the cancer and subsequent chemo, radiation, surgery and complications due to the surgery I've not seen her near as much as I would like.

Speaking of my future MIL, she's doing very well health wise. She completed her chemo and radiation therapies mid April and had her surgery in May. After she was released from the hospital she had to be rushed back a couple of days later with a severe infection and a non-functioning kidney. She had to stay in hospital for 2 weeks with that but I'm happy to report that she is feeling much better now and has her kidney function back. The surgery was a huge success and I am just thrilled to say that she is cancer free. She does have a stoma, but it is temporary and she'll be having it removed sometime in October. She could have it removed sooner but she wants to wait so she can be in Sedona for our wedding.

That's it for now. I'm off to spend some time with Arjan and decide what we are doing the rest of the weekend.

Let the Countdown Begin

In exactly one month from today we head off on the first leg of wedding/honeymoon trip. How on earth did this sneak up on me so quickly? I'm going to try really hard to keep a daily blog from here on out until we leave. Wish me luck with that...I'm definitely going to need it. ;)

Luckily for me pretty much everything is done, airline tickets are bought and paid for, rental car is booked and paid for, wedding are in my hot little hands, hotel rooms are reserved and the wedding location and minister are booked.

The not so lucky thing is that I have had a really tough time getting my fabric order so I can make my dress. That's right, I STILL do not have my fabric!!! Supposedly it is on it's way to me but I'll believe that when I open the box and see it with my own two eyes.

Fortunately we have a back-up plan and I will be reverting to that plan this weekend. Arjan will be driving me, again, the fabric store I found last week to get the material for my dress. Extra cost, but at least I know it will be here.

I found a wonderful mens medieval pattern for Arjan, that he actually likes, and it arrived today so I can get started on it tomorrow. I was lucky enough to have found a copy of the backside of the pattern envelope online with the yardage needed so that I could purchase the fabric last weekend, so it's already here and waiting to be cut and sewn.

Today I'm going to finish up some cleaning chores I started earlier in the week and get the sewing machine and other necessary tools and items set up so I don't have to deal with that tomorrow.


Well, that's it for me today. Back tomorrow with an update.

OMG! I'm Getting MARRIED!!!!

We've always planned to get married it just hasn't been possible in the almost 9 years we've been together. This year we decided we'd definitely make it happen and all of a sudden, today, my heart and my head are on the same page...I'm getting married! I've been tearing up all afternoon for no apparent reason, I'm just totally overwhelmed with happiness today.

Our wedding rings arrived today and they are perfect for us and I'm so pleased with the service we got from the jewelry store in Dublin. Our rings arrived almost a week ahead of schedule so Arjan will actually get to see them tonight when he gets home.

On another happy note my dress plans have completely changed as of today. I originally wanted to make a new medieval dress for the wedding but the cost of the material was prohibitive, so I decided to rework a dress I made a few years ago. Today while I was searching online for some trim for the dress I found the material I originally wanted for only 2.29 euros per meter. It will be here in 7 to 10 days and then I'll be really busy working on it to make it perfect. Now I get the dress I really wanted and in the color I wanted. Wait, color, you ask...yes, color. medieval wedding dresses were not white so in true celtic tradition, my dress will not be white. I won't say what color it will be because I want it to be a surprise for Arjan on our special day.


I spoke to Arjan's mom this afternoon and found out that they have booked their flight and hotel for the wedding. I'm so glad that she is going to be able to attend the wedding. It would have broken all our hearts if she weren't there. I'm so thankful that she is cancer free and getting stronger every day.

TGIF and weekend plans

I LOVE Fridays! Arjan arrives home from the UK late Friday evenings, unpacks his suitcase, has a little dinner while I pack his suitcase for the next week, unless he's brough me a gift, then he has to show me what he got first, and then he waits for me to finish up the day taking care of all the critters. Tonight he will see our new windows for the first time. I hope he likes them as much as I do, but I'm pretty sure he will.

Tomorrow we have the pension advosor coming to explain how his new pension program works. They don't normally do this on a weekend but, with Arjan in the UK during the week, they were kind enough to make an exception for us. Once the advisor is gone then we are off to do some shopping for some paint, groceries and possibly some window treatments for the new bedroom windows. Tomorrow afternoon we may go to a music festival but with as hot as it is we may just opt for going to see Eclipse instead.

Sunday I'll probably be home alone since Arjan will be going to Westerlo, Belgium on an excursion with the volunteers of the Stein Castle ruins and I seriously doubt that I will feel like going in this heat. Sounds like a good scrapbooking day to me.

That's it for me. I've got a million and one things to get done today so I'd better get busy.

Dutch Only

Admittedly, I haven't done very well with learning the Dutch language since I arrived here almost 9 years ago, so I guess it's well past time to get busy with it. I can read, write and understand Dutch fairly well, but speaking Dutch is a whole other story. It doesn't help that the Dutch people are so willing to speak English, that I am home alone most of the time or that Arjan speaks English even his sleep. So last month Arjan and I made a deal, starting today, only Dutch is spoken in this household. Wish me luck!

Today is a GOOD day!

We finally got new windows installed in the upstairs bathroom, our bedroom and my scraproom and they are BEAUTIFUL! Ok, granted, the 3000 euros I have to pay out later this afternoon won't be my favorite thing to do today, but we finally have proper windows in the bedroom instead of the weird windows we had before. I love that I can now OPEN the scraproom window and let some fresh air and let a bit of a breeze flow through the ground floor of the house.

Here is what the old scraproom window looked like from outside. Just one big picture window.


Here is a shot of the new window going in.


The new window frame is in, waiting on glass and finishing touches.


And this is my new scraproom window featuring the open tilt function. We can also open the window fully, but my camera battery is dead at the moment so I'll grab some more shots later.

Spring Clean Retirement Sale

Click the image to go to Sya's shop!

Things are looking up!

I'm finally able to move like a normal person again! I'm now 3 weeks behind in my spring cleaning schedule, but it shouldn't be too hard to get caught up with a little bit of help from Arjan. :)

I have a lot things on my to do list for this week. I'm pretty sure i won't get it all done, but I should be able to make a pretty good dent in it. Scrapping and papercraft projects are on the top of the chain for this week since I'm working against deadlines at the moment.

Scrapping stuff-
Ct LO
10 things mini album
butterfly box
5 hybrid SSD Challenge projects
Feb 365 pages

household stuff-
dust
vacuum
steamclean hard floors
deep clean basement
deep clean bathroom
make sausage rolls for freezer
make quiche for freezer

LOM-
finish rating photos for highlight folders

Good plans laid to waste...

Here it is almost 6pm Wednesday evening and I'm in the same place I was in Sunday evening at about the same time...My wonderful recliner! The problem with that is that I've been here the whole entire time except for very long, painful and agonizing trips to the WC or to feed and water critters or let dogs out. Yep, my back is out, AGAIN, and it's one of the worst episodes I've ever had in the past 17 years. Thankfully it is finally starting to feel a bit better and not quite so painful to move. I just hope I'm all better when Arjan comes home on Friday or at the very least by Sunday...I really don't want to spend Valentine's Day hurting so much he can't even give me a hug or a kiss!

I had such good plans for the week too. I was going to spring clean our closet and our bedroom this week as well as a lot of scrapping that I wanted to get to, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be for this week.

In other news, Bertha, Arjan's mom, had her initial appointment with her oncologist today. They have scheduled another scan for the 15th and then her radiation therapy begins on March 1st. She will have 28 daily treatments monday-friday. Then she'll have chemotherapy but we don't have any details on that yet. The oncologist did say that her cancer is very treatable. No 100% guarantees, of course, but that does sound very encouraging.

Rethinking and weekend plans

We've been planning a trip to the US mid May to take of some immigration stuff for me and to get married, finally. But now we need to rethink our trip and possibly change the dates, since his parents were actually going to join us for the wedding. Now with my future MIL's cancer diagnosis and surgery being schedule for right about that same time.
Arjan says we shouldn't change our plans, but I don't think it's really hit him yet and we've agreed to discuss it this weekend while he is home.
As for our weekend plans, we'll be a bit busy and none of it all too much fun. The windshield washer fluid resevoir in the Tucson has sprung a major leak which is not a good thing in this nasty weather time of year, especially with Arjan driving at 180kmh in through Germany, so we have an appointment to get that fixed at 10.30 in the am. Then we are off to the DIY store to get the stuff we need to finally fix that leaky radiator problem and the insulation and underlayment for the attic. Then on Sunday we will be fixing the radiator and ripping up the flooring in that room.
While we're out and about I'm SERIOUSLY hoping I can talk him into letting me buy this for over our dining table. I really gotta have it...it's perfect for our living area.

I HATE the "C" word!

Absolutely hate it!

I just got a call from my fiancé to tell me that his mom met with the surgeon today and that they have determined that she has a 6mm cancerous tumor in her large intestine. The good news is that it has not spread any further. She will begin radiation treatment and chemotherapy this week and in 3 months they will operate to remove the tumor. 3 months? Ok, so I don't know anything about cancer but that seems like an awful long time to just leave that in there, but I guess they are trying to shrink it down to a smaller size before they operate.

Why does bad shit happen to such good people? This woman is the epitome of goodness. I love and cherish her more than any mere words can say and I'm not ready for her to be gone so I will keep up the positive thoughts and put on a brave face and be there for her while she fights this thing. Theo, Arjan's dad, will be there for her every step of the way and they both have a positive outlook on this so that will definitely help.

I'll never forget the first time I met Bertha and Theo. When Arjan came to the US to get me in September of 2001 his parents were in Burma on vacation. They had no idea that I even existed much less that I was going to become a permanent fixture in Arjan's therefore their lives.

The first weekend they were home from vacation Arjan called to see if he could come up for a visit and did they mind if he brought someone along. That someone being me of course not to mention he wanted to take Nikita, my wolf hybrid, too. Being the people they are they naturally said it was fine.

So off we went for the 1.5 hour drive from Chaam to Heerhugoward. When we arrived they were of course a bit surprised, but they were the warmest, most welcoming people I have ever met. They accepted and welcomed me to the family with arms open wide and none of us have ever looked back.

I have never heard one single negative word towards myself from either of them and they would do anything for me just as I would for them. I have never had that in my life before I met Arjan and his parents and I hope not to lose it for many, many years to come.

So, I'm off to put on that brave face now and call my future MIL to wish her strength and let her know just how much I love and cherish her.

Doin' a Happy Dance!

I finally received a new power supply for my beloved laptop! Mind you, it wasn't a huge deal since I had a spare laptop in house, but I really missed my PSCS4. PSE8 worked ok, but it just isn't the same and I couldn't do all the wonderul things in it that I can with PSCS4. I'll be spending the afternoon moving all my new files from the spare laptop to the T61 and then this evening I'll be scrapping my heart out.

Great timing too, since the LOM class starts in only 2 days and I have a lot of prework to do before it starts.

In other news, I had a wonderful weekend. Arjan's cousin, Eefje, took me to see the NT theatre production of Terry Pratchett's "Nation" in the cinema on Saturday. We really enjoyed it and afterwards Arjan decided that we should take Eefje and her husband, Peter, out for dinner. We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant and had the wok buffet. Great food, lots of talking and laughing and just an overall great time!

After Arjan left for the airport yesterday morning I did what I always do after the animals are fed and the dogs are walked, which is grab a cup of coffee and head over to SSD to see what's been happening overnight and to my great surprise I had a PM from Misty Cato. She told me that the card I made for my MIL was chosen to be the Spotlight Layout on her blog and that I had received a $10 GC to her shop at SSD! How cool is that? So needless to say I did a little shopping yesterday morning and with SSD's great birthday sale I was able to get quite a bit of stuff. I spent a little more than the $10 but I'm thrilled my purchases. Here's a look at what I bought.










That's it for now...I'm off to deep clean the basement and then call the water company so they can come and replace the water meter.

And the week begins...

It's Monday morning and Arjan is on a plane back to the UK for the week and along with him went my power cable for my beloved laptop. His cable had been bad for quite some time and finally just gave out. He ordered a new one but it hasn't arrived yet so I let him take mine. I sure hope the new one gets here in the next day or two because I'm a bit lost without my own laptop.

I really thought it was going to put a huge cramp in my scrapping for the week, but I've found a workable solution...I hope. We have his mom's old Dell laptop that we are supposed to reformat and refresh for her so I can at least get online and check forums and all that. I just downloaded the trial version of PSE 8.0 and hopefully I can figure that out fairly quickly since I am used to PSCS 4. So, yeah, that should work...I'll find out a bit later after I get the housework all finished.

We had the 2010 Kickoff party at his work Saturday night...1.5 hr drive there...pretty boring party and the food wasn't really what we were hoping for but I did get to meet several of his colleagues and now can put a face to the names of some of the people he is always talking about. We left the party 2 hours early because of a terrible snow storm. It was slow going on the way home but the snow eventually turned to rain and we made it home safe and sound and I was quite happy to get out of the SUV and into my own house.

I don't do well with icy roads since my car accident back in 1993 where my ex-husband was driving too fast and the tire caught a rut in the ice and flipped us off the road. Nothing like flying through the roof of a car and landing on your head a mere 2 inches from the edge of a cliff to make you not want to be in a car during ice and snow storms.

Not a lot planned for the week other than a cleanup of the house and to finish cleaning out the secretary and get the paper work all sorted again for the year. Other than that just a lot of scrapping on the schedule.

Scrap Happy!

The materials I ordered for Cathy Z's "Design Your Life" class that I ordered 2 weeks ago finally arrived today...so I've been busy scrapping. Here's what I got accomplished today!

What a week!

Arjan's first week back to work in the UK didn't go nearly as smoothly as we'd planned. We'd been having some issues with the combi-ketel (heating/hot water system) for several weeks, but we didn't worry too much about it since it was due to be serviced and we still had heat and hot water. Tuesday morning I needed to get something from our spare room, which at the moment is home to a billion boxes of books and office supplies while we work on remodeling/redecorating the office...I almost cried when I opened the door and saw what was waiting for me...the floor was waterlogged! The radiator had sprung a huge leak! Several boxes were wet, but thankfully several others were not. All of our books made it out and most everything else, but I did cry when I got to the worst of the boxes for it was all Arjan's university stuff and it was wet and moldy. He took it a million times better than I did and thinks he can probably just photocopy the majority of it once it is all dried out. We've got the leakage under control for the time being and will be replacing the radiator in the coming weekend.

This week is going much better so sunday evening we took down the Yule tree and yesterday I got all the rest of the decorations and packed them up. Today I'm just doing a bit of housework and then working on some paper scrap pages this afternoon. I did manage to get a digi page done this morning while having my morning coffee and chatting a little bit with Jacinda. :)




I just love this kit by Heather Roselli at Sweet Shoppe Designs Petshop - Crazy Cats and it was perfect for this photo I captured while getting dressed this morning.

Happy New Year!

What a whirlwind the last month of 2009 were for me and it appears that things are going to continue on through 2010.

First we had my birthday which was on the 8th. Arjan and I celebrated on the 4th when he came home for the weekend from the UK and he truly spoiled me rotten with many wonderful gifts; Three copper Egyptian statues for the living room, a new bone folder set, a beautiful wall clock, Cluedo and he made me the cutest wolf at build-a-bear complete with his own little wolfie bed. Way more than I ever would have expected.

Then his parents came on the 6th to celebrate with us and they spoiled me as well with some great gifts; Two books from the Cirque du Freak series, the Minutes to Midnight cd from Linkin' Park and both Bridget Jones DVDs. Then Arjan surprised me with an additional gift of an absolutely gorgeous 9ct white gold and diamond collier. Isn't he just the best? But he wasn't done quite yet, on my actually birthday the doorbell rang and there was the delivery man with a stunning couquet of 3 dozen roses with a card telling to go look in Arjan's office for another present. (he was back to work in the UK at point)

Arjan has been home since the the night of the 23rd and we've really enjoyed each other while he's been here. On the 24th we had to go do all of Christmas shopping for his parents and then opened our gifts that evening. I got him an iPod Touch, some iFrogz earbuds for the iPod, a book of letters that Jean-Philipe Augustine de Merode wrote to his lover, (has to do with the castle ruins that Arjan is a volunteer at), Dragon Age PC game and I made him an altered can for his tips and other money from the ruin tours that he saves up for more books on the castle and the surrounding area. He got me the "Pride and Prejudice" audio book, "Unseen Academicals"(the lastest in the Disc World series by Terry Pratchett, Blinky the snowman from Build-a-Bear, the cutest stuffed owl that he made for me at Build-a-bear, a bottle of CK One, a bottle of CK One Summer, a purse/pocket ashtray and the matching earrings to the collier that he gave for my birthday.

We had the most amazing Christmas both here at home and also with his parents in Heerhugowaard. I'm so blessed to have these amazing people in my life and can't wait to be able to truly call them my inlaws in June.

From his parents we each got a Bioscoop bon (movie GC), he got new fountain pen for left-handed people, some ink refills for the pen, a book relating to the castle ruins, and a tie and cufflink set. I also got "The Proposal" DVD, "The Open Door" cd from Evanescence and a jar of my favorite face cream. Then we had a wonderful dinner that his mom made for us, bell pepper soupf starter,deer steaks with homemade cranberry chutney, that his dad made, 2 kinds of potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and salad for the main course, and chocolate mousse with icecream and chocolate stars for dessert. YUMMY!

Second Christmas day we stayed home and had stone grill for dinner, which we both love but don't have too often, which was made even better since I got a new Christmas themed gourmet servies this year.

On the 28th we met up with some friends and their children for dinner at Etenstijd, a wonderful buffet restaurant, for 3 hours. We exchanged gifts, both for Christmas but also for Jeroen's, Floris's and my birthdays. We really enjoyed the evening and we plan on doing it again next year. We don't get to see them much now that Arjan is in the UK and I really miss them.

The rest of the week we just basically hung out at home and vegged other than a couple of trips to the grocery store.

Last we invited Anita, Michael and his brother Richard over to ring in the New Year and also to celebrate Anita's and my birthdays, since here's is today. Arjan got to light his fireworks and hopefullu I got a couple of good photos of them. They all left a little after 1am and we finally headed for bed around 3am.


I'm going to be really trying to get more productive with my scrapping and photography this year and I'm already signed up for a couple of courses that started yesterday over at BPS. I'm also going to do the project 365 this year. No trying, I'm doing, period! The new challenges at Sweet Shoppe Designs look amazing and I'm alo going to follow some paper challenges over at De Scrapheap this year.

Well I think this post is long enough for today. I'll be blogging more this year too. We're off to very good start to 2010!