My favorite: Stores in Hoorn

Today I'm taking you on a tour of my favorite stores right here in my home town: Hoorn.

Hoorn lies about 35 kilometres north of Amsterdam and has about 72.000 inhabitants.

We moved here 3 years ago from Oosthuizen ( wich is not far from here) 

 

Our home is about a 5-10 minute bikeride from the city centre ( It depends on the wind and trafficlights). With paid parking everywhere I always take my bike when I'm going into town. the city is filled with places to park your bike. But never forget to lock your bike up properly ;-)

First stop on the tour: Sissy-Boy homeland.  I always love the look and feel of this store. They sell a mixture of clothes, furniture and housewares. They also have toys and a small selection of paperwares. I have to admit I don't often buy something here as most of the time I find things are very expensive. But I love to have a look and be inspired. 

Right across the street is HEMA.  This is probably the store where I spend most of my money.

They have a great selection of paper goods, homewares and very well priced cosmetics. I buy most of my postcards here and when I'm in need of a small gift, this place is often where I end up. 

I just love their clean crip designs and happy colors. And most things are very nicely priced ;-)

Just around the corner is Xenos. They have a bit of everything but mostly home decorating things. 

They also have a very large seasonal section. When I was there yesterday they had all of their fall and halloween stuff out. Price-wise most things are very cheap. The quality is about what you would expect for the price you pay. But it's always a nice place to score some bargains.

( I broke my no spend and bought a drinking jar with a lid and a straw for..., 2 euro's)

 

It's also a good place to buy picture frames for a reasonable price and other home bits and pieces you might want to swap out regularly. They also have a large section filled with all sorts of exotic groceries. And sweets from al over the world..

A small street conectng the 2 main shopping streets...

When you pass underneath this cute little gateway you end up at the library and De spellenhoorn.

This tiny little store houses an enormous amout of games. No videogames to be seen; only boardgames, card games, dice games and everything you can imagine. they also sell Magic, Pokemon and those kind of cards. The staff is really knowlegeable and can reccomend you a new game if you tell them what games you like. They also organise tournaments in different games and once a month they have a game-night where you can play almost all of the games they sell. 

Next up ; De Tuinen. they sell all sorts of natural beautyproducts, vitamins and tea's. They staff is lovely and it's the only place I can find my Burt's Bees handsalve. 

On "het grote Noord" the main shopping street here in Hoorn you can find "schouten handwerken" The store is tiny but filled to the brim with all sorts of yarn in the most fabulous colors, And in the back they have  lager selection of knitting needles, crochetneedles and everything you might need for your yarn projects. I often just walk in to have a look at all of the beautifull yarns...  I also prefer to buy my yarn here in these kind of actual shops instead of big internet stores. Maily because I want to feel the yarn before buying it. But also because these stores always have a lot of knowledge they are more than willing to share with you. 

Now this is the only real tourist shop we have here in Hoorn. It's the place where I buy most of my "tourist- postcrossing-cards". they also have a very special "i love postcrossing" card they print themselves.

This not so pretty storefront belongs to the biggest organic store here in Hoorn. It's located right next to the trainstation. But when you get inside....

They sell just about everything and anything realted to healthy and organic living. They recently chaged the whole store around wich means I have to look for everything . But that also means I keep discovering new things. The staff is lovely and always knows where everything is. And if it's sold out they will always order it for you. This is also the place that got me hooked on Green & Black's Maya Gold chocolate... 

And that is the end of my tour. 

You might have noticed that there are no real clothing stores. That is because I really do not like shopping for clothes. Offcourse there are some stores where I usually buy my clothes. But I don't really count them as favorite stores... But maybe someday I will take you clothes shopping with me...

Vacation

Each year during the summer we pack up and go on vacation. Before our "dog-years" we went a bit further away. But with dogs camping is easier. We go to places that don't requier days of traveling. But still have lots to see and do.

This year we went to the south of Germany. We went there before a few years ago ( our first vacation with dog) and had so much fun.

             

                      

                             

    

We had a lovely time. Filled with icecream, sunshine, beautifull sights, more icecream, a boattour, typical German architecture, swimming in the Bodensee, a little bit of rain, doing some out-door drawing, playing Yatzee at night, drinking "Apfel Schorle" eating "curry würst" and "Spätzle" and reading.

We ended our vacation with a few day visit to my mom's. She and her boyfriend bought a house in Germany (he is German) a while back. They are totally restoring it. It's a massive job but she is having lots of fun.

We did a little bit of helping. Which for me consisted mostly of doing the dishes and cleaning up a bit. Nico helped put some glass in a window..

And now, I'm trying to get back into the "normal" routine..

Around here

As I am writing this I am sitting in my garden.  I’ve taken all of my blogging and drawing supplies (I’m planning on some art journaling after this) from my “office” upstairs and set up shop in my garden.

We had our pation put in almost 2 weeks ago. This means I am finally able tuo use the garden table without having to first make room or only have a quarter of the table to use.
I’m hoping for a long beautifull summer so I can do this very often.

After my art journaling workshop with Lou Niestadt, also almost 2 weeks ago (same day as we had the patio done) I have been drawing more. Still not everyday; I just have so much I want to do. And never mind my seemingly endless to-do list. I’m hoping I can keep this up. But time will tell...
You can read all about that workshop HERE.

With this warmer and dryer weather my fibormyalgia is finally becoming less of an problem. Less pain means more energy. So I’m filling my  to-do list with projects that have been waiting around to be finished or start new projects that have been lurking in my brain for a while. This includes some crochet-projects ( I have been bitten by he crochet-bug), drawing and other small bits and pieces. Some will end up in my little shop, some are presents ( thus I can’t share anything about them here..) and some are just for myself.

The warm spring weather also means the garden is coming to life. Our Japanese cherry tree has blossomed beautifully. The delicate pink flowers are now making place for fresh green leaves. Other plants are also strating to bloom and produce new leaves. Our lawn is recovering from all of the doggy-play last fall and turning into a lush green mat.
Weeds are also growing furiously so I’m spending quite a bit of time pulling them out. I try to divide the garden into 30 minute blocks and do one section a day. Or more when I feel like it.
Abby is not a very great help. She loves just walking around and taking a little nibble of every plant that’s in her reach.

I’m also very busy making stuff for my little shop. This Saturday is “Kingsday”. Traditionally we celebrate the bitrhday of our current monarch. This usually includes huge fleamarkets. This year I’m setting up shop right here in Hoorn. Besides the things I already have I’m also debuting some new items. They will appear in the shop next week. ( if I have any left, let's keep our fingers crossed)

So that’s whats going on around here.

How are you doing?