Where the "magic" happens..

but also where the bills are paid, paperwork is filed, ratties are loved and many more things take place..

Today I am taking you on a small tour of my craft room.
Which doubles as our home-office, book-room and rat-room.

In our old house my room literally was the boilerroom. It was a 1 bedroom appartment and the boilerroom was the only spare space for all on my crafty bits and pieces when I moved in with Nico.
When we bought this house I immediately claimed this room for my "junk" ** as Nico calles it.. lovingly... I think..

The bright mint color on the wall was a leftover from my apartment in Haarlem. I had my whole bathroom in this color. Almost all of the furniture also came with me from Haarlem.
The desk is made of 2 Ikea tables and gives me enough room for the laptop and printer.
As well as leaving me some room to work. And store some essentials on-hand.
The windowsil is covered with little knicknacks and rocks I've collected on our vacations.

Above the desk there are some narrow shevels ( again Ikea) to show of some prints, bits and pieces.
The cardrack (Hema) was a christmas gift 2 years ago. It mostly holds my most recent Postcrossing cards and some inspirational quotes.

On the opposite wall is the bookcase. Well 3 of them actually.
We both love reading and together have quite a number of books. However we both don't like how a stuffed bookcase looks in the livingroom. So the books ended up here.
I'm thinking about moving some books to the bookcase in the guestroom because it's getting very full in here. 

Aside from books there are my photoalbums, Nico's buisness paperwork, our pritavte paperwork, a collection of inks, my Project Life stuff and small bits and pieces.

The mint-colored trolley in front came from my parents house. They bought it ( at Ikea) when they first got married.. a long long time ago. My borther had it at his house for a while and when he moved it ended up in my mom's shed. So I claimed it and asked my father-in-law to paint it.
It houses my binding machine, some empty snailmail boxes, 2 boxes of stamps, the rat-carrier and other little rat-related bits and our printerpaper.

See? It is full of all sorts of stuff...

In the small nook behind the door we've put up some shelving
(which was quite a project and resulted in pieces falling out of the wall on the other side.. =( )
Stuffed on there is a wide varity of "stuff".
Mostly craft-related. Drawing and painting stuff, old journals, my sewing machine and typewriter, snail-mail stuff and a huge stack of "not-yet-used" notebooks. On the top shelf there is more paperwork and a pile of boxes from mobile phones and such.
Sometimes I get really overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I feel I need to keep. I've tried editing these shelves a few times but have not been succesful in getting rid of stuff...

Still working on that..

As said;this is also where the rats live. I bought this cage on Marktplaats ( a kind of Dutch Craigslist) when we moved here and I still love how practical it is. And the rats love all the space they have!
(I believe it's a "Critter Nation" and is also available as a 2-level cage). 

So this is my room.

It is the place whee I go to dabble a bit with this and that..

Rats!

Almost exactly 7 yeas ago I bought my very first 2 rats.
We where at a flea market and there was a boy selling baby-rats.
They where just too cute and in the end we took two little ladies home. They were named Lavender and Rosemary

After that there quickly came another pair of rat-ladies to live with us; I spotted Rock all by herelf in a cage at the petshop.
Rats are group animals so I instantly decided to take her home.. Then the petshop-owner said he had another rat all alone.. So I took that one as well.. And so Arrow and Rock came to live together in a big cage right next to the cage where Lavender and Rosemary lived..

After Lavender, Rosemary and Rock had died there was just Arrow left.
I felt sad for her that she was all alone and decided to get her some new friends.
I knew Arrow was alread an old rattylady so I decided on getting 3 little rattie friends so that when Arrow died her new rattie friends would not also be alone.

So after some searching on the internet Shiva, Buddah and Kali came to live with us.
Arrow enjoyed her new rattyfriends for at least half a year before she died.

When Shiva, buddah and Kali had all passed away I thought I was done with having rats.
We had moved houses and in our new house the ratcage was located in my study.
So they didn't get as much attention as when we lived in our old house. Where the ratcage stood in the livingroom.. And I felt really guilty about that.

But the empty cage made me feel so sad. I missed having rats!
So I searched the internet and found 4 lovely litttle ratty boys that needed a home.
At first I didn't intend on having 4. But I couldn't just leave one.
So Thunder , Lightning, Rain and Drops all came to live with us.

And now.. now I am amidst a rat-crisis.
I had to have Lightning put to sleep because it seemed he had had a stroke or tumor in his brain. He was desorientated, had trouble with his motorskills and was in extreme discomfort.
But now, Thunder, his brother, is showing the exact same symptoms.
I have consulted with my vet, who is very good with rats, and there are several options, Ranging from a severe brain infection to a congenital defect.
We are aslo considering enviromental factors such as food and bedding..

I have him on strong antibiotics and special food but all I can really do is keep my fingers crossed.
I don't think I could bear losing another ratty so soon....

I love rats. They have such enormous personalities and are so much fun!
But I hate the way they get sick. Often very sudden and very serious.
Aside from Lavender  (who died in a dog-related accident) all of them had some sort of illness (mostly tumors) and had to be put to sleep.
I think that after this my ratty-days are really over...

April 1st Update:
Thunder left for the Rainbow Birdge yesterday. He was really trying so hard but he was losing weight and overall just not a happy ratty anymore.
So now there are 2 ratty misters left...

Rosemary & Lavender

Arrow

Rock

Kali , Shiva and Budda

Budda & Shiva

Lightning and Thunder

Thunder and Rain

Banana Bread

I am not much of a baker.
I can follow instructions and it usually truns out ok but nothing spectacular.
Also I am just to lazy for it.
And all the bits and pieces you have to clean up afterwards.... *sigh*

a few weeks ago I noticed a recipe for Banana Bread in the Flow Weekly.
It looked so easy I wanted to give it a try.

It was fabulous!
Simple, not to many ingredients, I didn't have loads to wash up afterwards.
Perfect!

I put the loaf ( after having a few slices) in the freezer and have been eating it toasted with some peanutbutter all week.

So for all of you lazy bakers I'm sharing the recipe today =)

Lazy Banana Bread

Ingredients:
200 gr. of whole weat flour
3 ripe bananas (mushed up)
2 eggs
100 ml milk
50 gr. raisins
1 sachet baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees celcius
Combine all the ingredients.
Put the mix in a baking tin
Put it in the oven for 50 minutes.
And thats it!

Have it toasted with some peanutbutter, jam or whatever takes your fancy.
Enjoy!

Project Life 2015; January

After dipping my toe into the whole Project Life thing last summer ( you can read about that HERE)
I'm going for it and doing this whole year.

To save on processing costs I'm having my pictures printed in monthly batches so I'm always a month behind with my lay-outs.
Today I'm sharing my January pages.

My frontpage: not quite shure of it but i'm sticking with it...

On the left: a quote from my flow daily quote calender.
On the right: week 1: reading in  bed, a thursday 3 and shopping in Amsterdam

 A close up of week 1.

 Week 2:
On the left: my tarot year spread, walking with Abby and studying

 The right side of week 2:
Another thursday 3, an afternoon at The Beiaard and a currently card.

Week 3:
All of my different notebooks and planners for this year, my one-line-a-day journal bed time routine, visiting the camingfair; abby wasn't allowed to walk around. The store ave had some problems with dogs peeing on tents in the past..  But in a shoppingcart she was able to come in. 
And the cowl my mom made me. And sent me by mail from Germany.

Week 4: We went on a small vacation: to a bungalowpark in Drenthe ( about a 2 hours drive away) I finally rememberd to snap a selfie during the trip. We travel a lot by car together ( we have friends and family all around Holland) and I always love those roadtrips. 
Our vacation mostly consisted of Nico reading , Abby napping in the most awkward positions and me crocheting.. Oh and swimming in the huge pool inside a tropical dome. No pictures of that though ;-)
I also attached a map of the bungalowpark.

More of week 4: another thursday 3 and some pictures of our walk around the forest in Emmen. The pile of rocks is called a "hunnebed"; and ancient gravehill. It was the first snow of the year for us and it was lovely. And Abby had a ball bouncing around and racing at full speed. 

 More week 4: It was a week filled with so much fun that I needed more pages. I added the map from our walk. And documented the snow we had. We don't have a lot of snow here so it's always a bit special. On our last night we went out to dinner and I had to make my own Mojito. That was quite fun. We also played some pool. I'm really not that good but it's always fun.

 Week 5: Back Home. Our monday consisted of packing up and going home. Best bit of coming home: finally having a latte again! In the mug I bought in Emmen. I also documented a bit of food this week: Chilli Con Carne and Chicken with Black Bean sauce and rice. 

 Week 5 part 2: Another thursday 3, a very cold morning on my way to work and we had a doggy-date with friends and their bullterriër; a nice walk and lunch at grandcafe Turf.

So that was January.
As I'm quite new to this it's a very steep learning curve.
I already learned I need to take more pictures and have more of them printed.
And I've learned that I'm quite capable of making some cards myself.
Also: I have way to much of the wrong stuff. And not enough of the right bits and pieces.

It will be nice to see my pages evolve over the year!

2015; my plans

First of all I would like to wish you all a very happy 2015!
May you have the most fabulous year!

To make my own 2015 fabulous I'm keeping my intentions ( I prefer using "intentions" instead of "resolutions") simple. And the amout of "big projects" to a minimum.

On intentions;
Instead of having a huge list of thing I want to do I'm keeping my list short and do-able.
I find that the longer the list, the more items I will forget about. And that often leaves me bummed and frustrated about forgetting them.

On my list this year:

* finish my course in Human Resources.
I'm aiming to finsih it by July. The course itself is not really a difficult course. But I'm finding it hard to make enough time to study. I really need to make more of a effort...

* Find a job in HR
Because that's what I'm taking the course for!
My current contract as a domestic aid ends July 31st. And as I still need to pay my bills after that..
Also I am really in need of a job where I can use my brain.

* Stick to the budget
Money doesn't grow on trees ( at least; not to my knowledge).
I've been trying to live on a budget. I can tell you; it's hard!
But it is nescessary especially with my impending loss of work.

* keep the balance
I started a new-to-me kind of physical therapy in november and it is really working for me. I haven't been taking nearly as much painkillers lately (none at all actually) and I'm feeling full of energy. But this balance-thing is still hard for me. I've been falling off the wagon here and there, falling back into my old ways. Simply because when the pain and fatigue go you forget how bad it was..
I'm getting back into planning my day to keep me pain-free and full of energy!

Besides these main intentions I also have some "big projects" for 2015. I call them big projects because they will run troughout the year.

Big Project no1.  Finish a full year of Project life.
Besides documenting a full year of my life doing a project life for me also means I have to go and do something. I was reading this post by Caylee Grey about the lessons she learned in her second year of Project Life. She notes that it is very hard to document nothing. It seems so obvious but I never really thought about it.
And she is right. So I'm planning to make a real effort in undertaking things. Small trips, a workshop or 2, a day here and there. Not just for the sake of documenting. But because even though I love staying home and just be. I also love going out and see things.

I'm planning to have my photo's printed out once a month at HEMA to cut down on printing costs.
* Printing at home is not an option for me; it drives me crazy!
This does mean I'm almost a month behind at all times. But I'm keeping track of all my stories in my bullet-journal, regular journal and on Instagram so that won't be a problem.

Big Project no2. My One Line A Day journal
 I have always been a journaler but on a very irregualer basis. And thats okay with me.
But I find that I tend to focus of the special, positive or big events and skip daily things.
A while back I bought this one line a day journal and have had it on the shelves waiting for me to begin.
I kept putting it off. ..
But on January 1st I finally started. And so far ( 12 days..) have kept it up every day.
Hoping to keep it up for the next 5 years. Can't wait to see all of the entries..


And that's it for this year. Obviously I will do a lot of crocheting, snail-mailing, writing ,drawing and tons of things that catch my intrest.
But for now; these are my plans.

What are your plans, hopes and dreams for 2015?

still here..

hellooooo!!!
I'm still here!!

I've fallen off the blogging wagon a bit lately (again).
I have lots of stories in my brain and have lots to say about everything but I'm having a hard time putting it all into words.

Please bear with me while I find my rythem again.
 I'll be back!!!

December is...

well to be honest; december is kicking my butt!

I am suffering from fully developed december-panic.
My inner Miss Perfect is nagging at me about all sorts of things I should be doing. Or finish before the 31st.

December is always a very busy month for us. We have several birthdays, had a weekend at my mother in Rotterdam checking out my brothers new appartment, celebrating "Sinterklaas" and had a lovely company-dinner.
Still to come are our traditional "Gourmet-extravaganza" with both of our families on the first christmas day (wich means 11 people around the table)  and "Left-over Madness" on the day after that.
And then there is new years eve.... Still not quite shure how that will be..

Now don't get me wrong; I love every one of our parties  and get-togethers. I like having everyone over and seeing them enjoy themselves. Talk with people I haven't seen in a while and make shure they have a lovely time.

But Miss Perfect is freaking me out with every thing she thinks needs to be done.
And not just done but done to perfection. Instagram-perfection is what she demands...
So I'm buried in shopping-trips, endless grocerylists, christmas decorations are everywhere and my "projects I want to finish berore 2015"- list is getting longer every day.. ...
Also all sorts of plans for 2015 are starting to pop into my brain.. Things I want to do, sights I want to see and projects I want to do..

After a major Fybromyalgia flare-up this sunday evening ( fyrbo is stress-enhanced) I'm changing things up.
Putting into practise all of the things I've learned during these past few weeks in my psychosomatic physical therapy ( there is a special blogpost on that coming..) I'm changing things around here. And will try to make Miss Perfect shut up.
Starting with a major brain-dump in my bulletjournal.
To get all of those plans, need-to's and want-to's out of my brain.
 That way I don't have them floating around in my head constantly popping up. They are right there, parked on a piece of paper. I can't forget them but don't need to think about them constantly.

Next I decided to do most of my pre-christmas grocery shopping online. That means all I have to do is pick it up. Because the pre-christmas grocery store madness really messes me up.. So that's one less thing on my mind.

So my mantra for the rest of the month is : "Keep it simple"
* oh... and "don't freak out"

Ho are you all dealing with this december-thing?