Day to Day Life

Oh my god I can’t believe I’m finally saying this, but my parents will be here NEXT WEEK!!   We’ve been counting this down for months and it’s almost here.   Mom and Dad hugs, Canadian goodies, all my favorite people together again in one room!! I’m excited! I’m freaking out! I know most other expat women I know go through odd …

Well we are back in our bedroom again!  It’s all sort of make-shift at the moment but that’s how it goes when you are renovating. I took this photo last night before crawling into bed.  As you can see we have our bed together finally, and a nice big new mattress on top.  We had to get a new mattress …

When I say that our blood, sweat and tears have gone into our new bedroom, I’m not jokin’.   At the moment I have a finger and a heel bandaged due to renovation related accidents.   Xander has injured three of his fingers. No good renovation goes without a few casualties, and if I have to give up the use of a …

I finally finished painting the bedroom the other day.  God what a task.  As I mentioned in my previous post about it the texture of the wall made painting it an absolute hell. It’s done though!  The walls are finished and the molding has been painted and put up at the edge of the ceiling. Now that it’s all finished …

Did you ever get the feeling you are being watched? Can you tell it’s dinner time?  I was getting the stare down by the three of them wondering when they were getting fed.   Xander doesn’t usually do it but I think he figured if it works for the dogs… Pixel turned five months old today.  She’s growing like a weed, …

If you grew up in Canada, chances are you love Kraft Dinner, just like me. If you are an expat in the Netherlands, you know it’s not easy to find here and when you do find it it’s expensive (but always worth the buy). Recently, Albert Heijn has started carrying an assortment of imported items.  Among these items are Tesi …

The bedroom was completely cleared out and washed down.  Xander was a HUGE help with this part as he doesn’t really do painting. On Sunday my friend Penny came over to help give me a head start on the painting, which was great.   For the past 3 days I’ve been in and out of the bedroom painting.  I have until …

The second part to the great bathroom renovation was our little toilet closet.  Quite the norm by European standards but it freaked me out for the first while I was here.   It literally is a closet just big enough for me and my toilet. The weirdest thing for me in the beginning was the toilet shelf.  If you’ve never been …

Today the oldest inhabitant of the Netherlands is celebrating her 111th birthday. Grietje Jansen-Anken lived alone until she was 92 years of age, and has been living in a care home in Middleburg since.  Reports say that she is still in perfect mental health.   She apparently shuns the media at every turn, not wanting to take part in any of …

1. HDR Kinderdijk, 2. Winterdish-Boerenkoolstampot, 3. Heláás, 4. Famke Janssen, 5. Stroopwafel innards, 6. Marco Borsato Nachtmis, 7. Oliebollen in Rotterdam continued, 8. "I, Piórko, like Cheese!", 9. hard rain, 10. i can make stroopwafels, 11. St. Nicolas has arrived…, 12. Autumn Colors Ok I’ve seen these mosiac meme’s around but the gal over at A Touch of Dutch turned …

I was just thinking about some upcoming redecoration that is going to be taking place here and I got to thinking about the house and how it’s changed again.  I started wondering if I’d ever shared our bathroom renovations.   I searched the blog for toilet, bathroom renovation, bathroom before and after and a few other things and came up with …