Day to Day Life

My brother in law mailed me this video and told me I absolutely MUST put it on my blog!   I have to agree with him, it’s hilarious and doesn’t really surprise me at all, it’s the Dutch humor. I know the video is all in Dutch but basically it’s at a store called Hema (which is sort of K-Mart or …

Yesterday Xander and I were driving home from town and as we were coming along towards the Erasmus Bridge I noticed this huge building… and for a second I thought, where the hell did that come from so quick!? That’s when I realized that it was a ship at the cruise terminal.   We get a lot of cruise ships coming …

One thing you can never say about the Dutch is that they aren’t patriotic.  Especially when it comes to football!   This past weekend Holland lost to Russia and are out of the semi finals. It sucks, but the Dutch milked the short ride for all it was worth.   Everywhere you looked was ORANJE (orange), which is the true color of …

The title means ‘I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU’,  and that is what I’ve been feeling a lot of lately.  Yeah, this is another language rant. I feel like a coma patient who woke up and suddenly has to learn their language all over again, err… only it’s not my language.    I regretfully spent so long living in here Holland and …

At the moment I am off work for a few weeks.  It sucks, and I feel like a total arsehole but I guess I need to accept my limitations. Going back to a 40 hour week after 9 years of being a housewife, ok… might have been able to manage if it wasn’t something too busy or stressful. Going back …

Why is it that whenever we can’t use something, that is when our body wants to.   When we are carrying an armload of something, we get an itchy nose.   When you have stuff in your hair you don’t want to touch, you get an itch on your scalp.   When you are standing in a crowd and can’t bend over you …

Apparently Dutch kids are the happiest in the western world.   From DutchNews.NL: Dutch children are the happiest in the western world, according to a new World Health Organisation survey of 41 European and North American countries, quoted in Wednesday’s Volkskrant. Last year, a Unicef report also found that Dutch teenagers were the happiest in the developed world. The WHO report …

On Correr Es Mi Destino, fellow expat Zhu wrote about Stuff Canadians Like.   She is sort of the opposite of me, having gone from Europe to Canada and having to get used to my country’s customs and weird ways.   I have to admit, I like pretty much everything she listed. It made me think of what would be on a …

Thuis means home in Dutch.  It’s been a while since I did some before and after shots of some of the renovations we’ve done so far.  So I thought I’d play catch up. Our most recent is the dining room, this is how it’s looked over the years: This photo was taken sometime in 2000, the year we moved in.  …

Last night I was devastated, this morning I was sad but had already started planning our new catless life.  It included curtains, new sofas, plants, fresh flowers, hair-free clothing and a multitude of other things. I was sitting at work at 10am wondering if I should have Xander phone and check on the cats to see how they are settling …

Today I am celebrating my 8 year anniversary with my husband.   When I say celebrating I really mean it.   Not in the partying sense but in the way that I truly recognize how lucky I am to have him in my life and can’t imagine my life without him. Our marriage hasn’t been perfect.  There have been strains along the …