Plak&Pimp

This is what you can do with an old toddlerchair!

Simone's amazing world of TEA part three

I like the different kind of wrapping...

Korean Tea!!!

A friend brought it home for a special moment. He wanted to try it.

Since I'm such a tea-fan, he let me try it. Strangely enough, I liked it... Can't describe the taste though. It was just odd... hahaha....

Help us sell our place!!house

Dear friends, family, readers in The Netherlands... can you help us out here?

The link bellow is a website we made about our house. If you read this and you know someone who wants to live in Rotterdam... please tell them about our website! Link us on your facebook, twitter etc. If you make this happen and someone you told about this will buy our house, you win a cake!!!

http://www.invader-stu.com/our_place_for_sale/

Thank you all so much!!

A great weekend in the countryside of Holland

My husband has a new hobby...

He discovered our camera and what you can do with it.

I'm afraid I will not see that camera again!

We were invited to the lovely home of Vally&Koos in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. We spent a great weekend with them. It was a relaxing, entertaining and fun musical weekend. We walked & talked, sailed, played music and took loads of photos

Vally&Koos thanks for a great weekend!

Here you can see some of the 350 photos we took :D

This is me... or at least my ear...

As i said, my husband has a new hobby...

Since I lost the camera to my husband,

Koos was so kind to let me use one of his camera's

We sailed on the Hennie H and had a real Hennie H experience...

Vally showed me how to play a mandoline, it was fun!

I played around with B&W photos and worked on grey scales..

Simone's amazing world of TEA part one

Tea in Berlin....
Tea on the train to Berlin...Tea makes me tick!!

There it is..

I promised you something...

But it's hard to keep a promise when the object you're going to take a photo of is not working!

I was finaly at the other platform, walking towards the 'thing' to make it work. What happened is hilarious... all these weeks of hoping, gone in a second.. it wasn't working. Which one was working? The one on the other platform!! It's starting to become a tradition I suppose! With only 2 minutes on the clock before my train arrived, I didn't have time enough to run to the other platform. This is as far as I got:

The weirdest things...

When you travel to work every day by train you come across the weirdest things. Also traveling by train is a big adventure in this country. But that's another story.... it's a story about how a trainjourney of normally an hour can turn into 3 hours when it's snowing. And then in the end it took you at least 6 hours to go to work and back home again in the evening.

Anyway... there's been said enough about trains and snow in Holland, let's hope it snows when I don't have to work...because I love snow!

Where was I...? Oh yeah, you come across the weirdest things on your travels to work, this is what I spotted the other day:

You might already have seen it, but it took me by surprise a little...

Any idea what it is?

I wasn't the only one wondering, I must say it was hilarious to see people walking past it en see them trying to figure it out. The thing that made this really funny was, that this one was actually not working. The one on the platform opposite was....

It made me laugh, because people at my platform were determinant to get it working. It must have something to do with jealousy i suppose...

Circling around it, pushing the button. It was a show, a nice show for me in the early mornings.

While the people at the other platform were happy and warm, the people at my platform started to get even more jealous and frustrated. Since i had to wait a while before my train was due to arrive I saw new people arriving and wondering what this weird object was.

Me...? I was sitting on a bench drinking my tea and enjoying the show !

So... any idea what this is??

New beginnings

Yes... I know it's been a while... And again with good reason!

We're so busy at the moment with stuff, that I didn't have time to write on my blog.

But... with a new design (thank you lovely boyfriend) and great big news, it's time for new beginnings!!

May I tell you the best great news ever.... Ladies & Gentleman....

Here it is:

We are getting married, and pretty soon! We are very busy with the preperations for it. And we can't wait till the day is finaly here. We are getting married on the 9th of november 2010!

Summer in Amsterdam

I know... it's been a couple of weeks, but with good reason.

We spend last couple of weeks in Amsterdam house-sitting for friends.

No time for blogging unfortunately.

So... a quick one now and hopefully a decent one soon!!

While we were in Amsterdam, we had to work as well.

But since work is in Amsterdam & Haarlem it was closer by and we had a lot of time to enjoy summer in Amsterdam.

Summer in Amsterdam is great!

Walks in the moonlight alongside the canals... a silly boattour trough the canals.

Visiting Tuschinsky and walk home after the movie.

Biking around and have lunch with your boyfriend!

Having dinner with friends and bike home instead of going home by train.

It was great...

Now back to normal life and normal blogging I supose!

Kiki wraps & Tuschinski theatre...

Beach Volleybal

Today I did something I swore I would never do....

I always told people that I was willing to do a lot, but there was one thing I would never do...

Go to the BEACH in the summer time!

Not that I dislike swimming in the sea, or relaxing and reading and doing absolutely nothing....

I would never say no to that! No unfortenately it's my really sensitive skin... and my head. I can't stand being in the heat for that long. I get a terrible headache.

But today was a historical moment... Simone went to the beach!

My brother and one of my best friends were playing Beach Volleybal in Hoek van Holland.

I love volleybal, I love them... so my boyfriend and I went to see them today.

So I've been putting on jeans, a t-shirt and a lot of sunblock hoping all of that would help me not to get sunburned. And luckily it did help. And even my head was ok at the end of the day.

We cheered we laughed, we had a lot of fun and the breeze was very welcome after a couple of hot days in Rotterdam. My boyfriend (being English) turned temporarily into a German... He started building a mountain of Doom around him until you could only guess where his legs were... kids!!

It was a great day. Coming home was not so great though... when my brother decided to go to the toilet, he forgot there was still a lot of sand inside his swimmingshorts!

So after they all left we could hoover the whole house again...

Oh yes, that was what I didn't like about the beach as well, SAND SAND SAND SAND everywhere!!!!

Sailing!!

Finaly!! We went sailing again.

We were planning it for ages, taking weekends off especially for sailing. But everytime there was something why we couldn't go. Boat needed repairing, or the weather was teribble!

But today was perfect! It was nice and warm, nice breeze, so the best place to be is on the water. Nice sun, great breeze...water...Simone Happy!

We took the boat out around 3.30pm. Which turned out to be a perfect moment, because the sailraces on the lake just ended. We sailed around a bit on the motor untill the lake was not as busy anymore, and then we pulled the sails up! Always a great moment. No motor, perfect silence... the only thing you'll hear is the sound of the wind playing with the sails. It's a magical moment...... it really is......

My boyfriend has started to enjoy sailing since he knows me and liking it more and more everytime he get's the chance to be on the boat. He is a great captain. He likes to steer the boat. He always liked it better when the motor was on, but since last year he starts liking sailing as well. Now he's figured out how it works with wind and sails and stuff, he actually likes it a lot. Since this was the first time this year, he had to get the feeling back a bit. After playing with the wind and watching the sails, I think he got it back again. Must be, because he had a wide grin on his face. These moments it's always difficult to persuade him to let some one else have a go as well. He loves it!

Hope there will be more great moments this summer, so we can take the boat out. Hopefully we can take loads of friends with us again as well. The traditional girls-day-out-on-the-boat is already planned!!!

Taking down decorations...

I'm having trouble taking my decorations down...

After a few weeks of birthdays in my family and a lot of baking, it feels weird to take it down. It's the same thing with Christmas decorations.

When I take it down, I'll have to wait a whole year again!

Springtime is a busy time in my family with birthday celebrations. So is December.

The rest of the year it's less busy.

Luckily my sister will make sure that will change if her baby will stick to plan and be there somewhere in September.

In December it's my fathers, Sinterklaas, brother and boyfriends birthday.

In March my sister and boyfriends dad celebrate their birthday.

In April it's my turn, my brother in law, boyfriends mum and my own mum. And I haven't even counted in all the uncle's, aunts, cousins, friends, colleagues....

Busy time a year it is! Especially since everybody discovered my cakes.

I don't mind baking, I love it! But I have to say it was a bit busy lately. My aunts and uncles all of a sudden invite me to their birthdays as well. Is it because of me or my cakes?

But what will I do with my spare time? I just cleaned the whole house, so... what am I going to do?

It sounds like I have a lot of spare time now... haha... that is not completely true.

As you probably know I started my new job 2 months ago. I used to be a trained teacher (still am of course) but after nine years working as a teacher I wanted something else. Since we want to move and life somewhere else, this was a good opportunity to switch careers. Of course I wanted to keep on working with kids, so nowadays I work with kids after school. We take care of the kids until their parents come to pick them up. Kids in the age of 4-12.

I really like my new job. The kids are really sweet and I have two great new colleagues. They made me feel 'at home' immediately. Last Monday I had an evaluation of my first two months. And they are really happy with me. So happy, that they want me to work with the youngest kids as well. They need someone for one day, so probably that will be me. I'm really looking forward to work with the youngest kids a.k.a. babies & toddlers. We'll see if I still like it after changing another diaper.

I'm also doing a course at the moment. I didn't end my trial months yet, and already taking part in a course !! It's about difficult kids. Not difficult because they where spoiled, or have a bad home situation, but kids who are difficult because it's something from within they can't help. It's mainly about kids with an autistic handicap. Very interesting.

So yes, I am keeping myself busy.

And next month I am going to work more as well! With babies!

These kind of things make me think I have enough to celebrate life for at the moment;

I have an amazing boyfriend, nice job, it's springtime, best friends pop by for tea & chat...

I think enough reasons to keep the decoration going for a while! It looks way to 'gezellig'!

So I decided; I'm not going to take it down yet!!

2 years ago today, I met the love of my life!

There was a train you could travel, by reading a book

there was a station

there where little houses and boats

a walk on the beach

nice food and music

....and a man!

And it turned out to be the love of my life!

Isn't life great???

Well....this is me!

And I'm very happy today :D

I already told you that I'm a trained teacher and that I'm looking for something else in life right now. That's still what's happening at the moment. And while I look everywhere, in every corner, for what's new in life... my boyfriend does the hard work and goes out of bed every morning, early, to go to work. Someone has to make sure there will be bread on the table right?? My boyfriend loves his work and he loves me even more... that's why he travels for hours every day to go to work. Simply because he loves me. Just because he wants to be with me. Isn't that great? Isn't that amazing?

Ah where was I?? Oh yes... well... me being at home at the moment, me not working, has a lot to do with my boyfriends daily commute. Since I love him, since I simply want to be with him... I decided to quit my job. That must sound a bit odd, maybe even a bit stalker-ish. No, the reason why I quit my job is, because we want to move. We want to move closer to where my boyfriends work is.

So now im busy trying to sell our house, in the meantime apply for jobs close to where we want to live... looking for a new house.... doing laundry, cleaning, hovering... Actually, Im surprised how busy you can be when you have no job at all! I must say... I absolutely do not dislike it :D

So now I have some job interviews lining up... I had a word with the real estate agent, I did some baking... and best of all... I said goodbye to my old colleagues.

And now im coming back to where I started...

Im happy today!

Because last night was a great night. I had my "Goodbye party" at work and we had FUN! Especially for me they hired two guys from "Pluk de dag" (a theatre group that gives workshops in improv). It was really funny. In the end we had to battle. It was great fun.

After some sweet words from my former colleagues I had to go... And it was good... it was the right thing to do...

Im so ready to do something else and take the next step. Being a teacher in the big city for 9 years was great... now it's time for something else!!

So now Im looking for a job... and baking...and cleaning...and relaxing...and selling a house...

WOW Im busy!!!!!!