Around here // I'm Back!

 So I have been away from my blog for a while. For some reason I just couldn't get myself in gear and blog.
But I'm stille alive, don't worry! And I have been busy as well but just haven't gotten myself to share it with you. So here is a recap of what I have been up to lately.

Firstly, something I am really proud of: I have finished my very first crochet blanket! When a friend of mine announced she was pregnant, I instantly knew I wanted to try and make her a blanket. I didn't tell her anything about it. Just in case it would be rubbish. When it was finished I couldn't wait for the baby being born and gave it to her right away. She really loved it. And the colors where spot on! I am really proud of myself for finishing this. And have since...

started on a blanket for myself. It's the same stitch but totally different colors and bigger. It's not going as fast as the baby-size but it's nice to have something to do when I'm watching tv.

I found the pattern on the Attic24 blog. Its called "the granny stripe" and is really very easy. If you are thinking about crocheting a blanket I highly reccomend it.

We love taking trips. First of all we went on a small camping trip in May. We've never been this early in the season. And we did have some preperation-fails. First of all; we went in the coldest weekend in the whole month. So it was COLD!!! Think -2 degrees celsius at night. 

Secondly for some reason we forgot our gastank. Which meant we had to buy a new one; that is a very expensive fail. But overall we did have fun. I got to visit my favorite stamp store in Deventer and I discovered a small shop filled with postcards and notebooks. Awesome!

And with the woods right of the camping Abby got lots of walks and free running through the bushes.

Another trip was to the Zoo in Amersfoort. It's probably the only zoo in Holland where you can take your dog. We had lovely weather and it was really cool to see Abby interact with all of the different animals. She even got a kiss from a giraf. ** Sadly I wasn't quick enough with my camera to capture that..

We also had lots of fun at a family trip. My aunt goes to the Pasar Malam in The hague once a year. I went along a few times years ago before we had dogs. Even before I'd met Nico. But a friend of ours was kind enough to dog-sit so we got to go this year. It's a collection of tents filled with all kinds of exotic food, drinks, bits and pieces. My brothers, step-mom, sister-in-law and my nephew all went along also. We had a wonderfull day filled with real Indonesian food, I had chendol and bubble tea for the first time and we went home with a nice stack of "spekkoek"

Ever since my art-journaling workshop I have been really making an effort to draw more. And with the beautifull weather we have been having I'm spending a lot of time in the garden.. 

Thanks to Instagram I have found not 1 but 3 pen-pals. ** finding a pen-pal was on my 2014 intention-list. I really can not descibe the happiness of finding such beautifull things in your mailbox. I can reccomend it to everyone! Not ready for a ''commited realtionship" with a fellow-snailmailer? Try Postcrossing. I will do a post on snail-mailing soon.

I have been strugling with my body lately. I have gained a bit of weight over the past few years **if you are not carefull that's what living together does to you.. And it is starting to affect my health. So I have been trying to take better care of myself. Getting enough sleep and make better food-choices. Like taking a healthy snack with me to work. I am not on a diet because that never works for me. Just trying my best to make better choices. The added weigtht ( and poor food choices) also means my fybromyalgia and gout has been acting up lately. And pain always affects all other areas of your life. 

After 2 years it was, finally, time to upgrade my phone. So out with the old (HTC) and in with the new (samsung galaxy S4) Best part of the upgrade? The fact that there are so many cute covers available for my new phone!! Yes I know.. shallow.. but hey.. I'm a girl. I need cute stuff!

So that is what I have been up to lately.

I have every intention of keeping up with blogging but if I do get caught up with life you can still find me on Instagram!

Have a wonderfull evening and see you later!

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?

Around here

We have been having some ridiculously fabulous weather. Winter consisted this year of fall-like weather. We probably have had maybe 7 days of below zero in total and no snow whatsoever.

And as a bonus; spring came early this year. I have been spamming my Instagram account of pictures featuring the nice weather, sunshine and flowers. I've been spending lots of time in our garden and soaking up the sun. I even already have somewhat of a tan. Yay!

I am not a very organised person. I do try but after a few days/weeks I get overwhelmed by all the little notes and the system I thought would be perfect and little bits of paper start to pile up. A few weeks ago I read about the Bullet Journal method. It is insanely simple. 

So I decided to give it a try; I still had a notebook in my stash that was perfect for this. I have been using it for 3 weeks now and so far so good. I plan to do a blogpost about this method in a few weeks. I need some time to see if it works for me long-term.

The deadline of my market debut on the 23rd meant lots of last minute creating. I really wanted to make some of my own stationary and see if it would sell. In case you're wondering; it did not. I'm adding it to my etsy-store this week so you can decide for yourself. Because working upstairs in "my" room isn't really an option when I'm home lone with Abby (she gets very restless, starts being annoying and I can't focus) I brought all of my stuff downstaris and spread it out all over the diningtable. This is the mess I made.. 

I had everything all cleaned up by dinnertime and we ate at the table 

I have an enormous amount of nailpolish. At my last count I hade 12 bottles. I mostly tend to be attracted to pinks and reds. But with all the cute manicures I see coming by on Instagram I decided to try something different. I really liked the green. Also I'm trying to use all of the nailpolishes instead of just having them sit there. Most of them are really cheap brands so they only last for a day or 3. Wich means I have lots of room to try new combinations. When my no-spend-march is over no.1 on my shoppinglist is a sparkling topcoat.

I have sent my very first "Pay it Forward" package this week. I really had lots of fun putting it together. I finally got to use my typewriter and added a little letter to the package. It consisted of a box of watercolors, 2 brushes and I made a small notebook filled wih watercolor paper. My friend was really happy with it.

So 1 package down, 3 more to go.

Almost a year ago I finally got my drivers licence. But now, almost a year on, I still find driving scary. I do good with roads I have traveled often. So going to work is not a problem. But when I have to drive somewhere I haven't driven to before I get really nervous.

Last Monday I had to go to Heiloo, wich is about 35 minute drive. I've never driven there myself and was really nervous. But it went really well and I was super proud of myself. Especially because I was thinking up loads of excuses to take the train instead. But I did it and it went super!

One of my intentions for this year was to take better care of myself. Part of that is to stick my my diet (no dairy, no beef and no pork) and taking my (homeopathic) meds. So every monday, after walking Abby and having breakfast I make myself a nice cup of coffee and set upon the task of getting my pills ready for the whole week. It has become somewhat of a ritual.  I've noticed that my fybromyalgia has been getting better and I have less pain. So it's working.
Now comes the hard part; keeping this ritual up.

So that's life around here.

What's happening in your life?

Around here

Whats up around here?

 First up; the ratty-misters. They have been getting so big! In this bad quality picture ( excuse me but ratties are inmpossible to photograph) you can see Lightning (left) and Thunder (right) snacking on some dried seaweed. The other two (Rain and Drops) are probably somewhere on the lower level bouncing around. Only a few weeks ago they were tiny little babies and now they have grown into full size misters. These 4 are my first gentlemen. Before this I always had girls. And there are most cenrtain some big differences. Aside form the fact that they are eating me poor (4 rats eat so much more than 2 obviously) these little misters are much more cuddly. And more willing to sit with you and just be snuggled.
But, they can also bounce aroung the cage like mini-kangaroos. And they bounce through the cage at the speed of light.
I love just sitting with them and watch them play.

There has been lots of this lately. Snuggled on the couch with Abby. I've finally found some time to browse around on Netflix and find things I want to see. Most afternoons I combine snuggling with Abby with Netflix and crocheting..

My Fibromyalgia has really been acting up with the cold and damp weather and everything I do seems to cost me a 1000 times more effort. So I am all doped up on painkillers, still trying to to everything I want to do. Thankfully Nico has been helping out a lot around the house. He does the dishes and other houshold things that are painfull for me to do. I still have lots of trouble dealing with the fact that I just can't do some things. So somedays I still overdo it and I have to "pay" for that...

I am not a coffee-drinker. Although I love somesthing like an Macchiato occasionally, the rest of the time I drink tea. If I have to drink coffee I have it with lots of milk and sugar.
So our coffeemaker lives in the shed, only to be seen at parties and christmas. But a few weeks a year, when Nico is at home all day, there is coffee being made at home. He however doens't like  making a whole pot for 1 person......
After a long debate ( maily about where to put it) we bought a Nespresso machine.  They were on sale and you would get a voucher for 90,- (euro's) of coffee with it so this was the moment. (we bought almost every flavor)
I've made a small coffee-bar on the dresser; THE machine, little spoons, some glasses and sugar. So that way you have everything on hand to make your perfect cup of coffee. I love the fact there is a milkthing with it! So I have been drinking some coffe regularly lately. Most of the time still with lots of foam and milk, but I have also found some variaties I can drink without milk and even a few I like without sugar! 

 The whole Etsy thing. What can I say? I love making little bits and pieces. I love having my own little store. But I am a bit sad that nothing has sold yet....  (I am not a very patient person.. can you tell? )
 Last week I updated the store with a series of notebooks. Some bound with a plastic ring, some upcycled faux moleskines. The smaller ringbound notebook would be perfect for a round of 30 days of lists.
As they have exactly 30 pages. And consist of 200 gr. paper so you could paste to your hearts content.

I am taking my Etsy store into the real world and am planning to have a stall at several fairs this spring and summer. First one will be in Purmerend on the 23rd of March. But I will keep you updated on that.

 Meet my new to me friend: a canary yellow vintage typewriter. I'm just over the moon about it. I have wanted one for ages and kept an eye on the internet. But they all were just to expensive, far away or just not right. Until this one popped up. Just 20 kilometers from here and price-wise it was a steal!
So I picked it up right away. It belonged to an elderly lady who had probably bought it brand new.
She was really surprised that young people are still interested in these kinds of things.
So far I've only used it for one letter. Well, half a letter. Halfway through I ran out of typeribbon. I thought I would have to order new but my mom showed me how to rewind the ribbon. That way you can use it multiple times. Yay for mothers!

So that's life around here..
Hope you are having a great time!