Doesn't this picture look like one of those standard desktop wallpaper backgrounds? It's not, M took it with his phone. The Dolomites are beautiful...

Dolomites

A few skiing statistics.... (sorry, no photos yet. We only took 8 on the digital camera and they didn't turn out very well. We'll have to check some of the other's photos and have them send them to us).Thanks to the amazing people at http://www.dolomitisuperski.com/ who keep track of everything you do with your skipass...
- I skied 179 km in 8 days. That's 111 miles for all you Americans.

- I took 97 skilifts.
- I covered a total of 29369 m of height difference. That would be 32118 yards.
- I lost my clip-on sunglasses twice while getting in a chairlift, but got them back both times.
- I gained 2 kg, or 4.4 lbs. But muscle is heavier than fat, right?

So much for the statistics. We had an awesome week. Both the busrides went fantastic, the skiing was great (good snow and lots of sunshine, which did turn the snow rather soft in the afternoons). I didn't fall too many times and I was able to ski until about 13:30 every day, after which I would eat lunch and slowly ski back to the hotel. Then I'd take a shower and a good long nap. I felt really good and people at work told me yesterday that I look a lot better than two weeks ago. But that's probably the tan, too.We were with a group of 21 people, so we had lots of fun at dinner and playing games at nights.That's the short version. I really need to iron and do some school stuff now. But I didn't want to keep you guys waiting for too long...

Bye bye

I'm gone skiing. I'll be back in a week or so!

Work, study and vacation

You may have noticed that my blogging frequency has gone down. That's a good sign: it means that I am spending more time on work and study.

I went back to teaching Dutch to a group of eigth graders of the lowest level (vmbo). It definitely costs a lot of energy, because it's a really noisy group. But they're nice kids and we'll get used to each other quickly I'm sure.Next week we have our spring break and M and I are going skiing in the Italian Dolomites (Southern part of the Alps), together with lots of family members. We're really looking forward to that! I'm sure that some outdoor exercise, combined with amazing Italian food will do me good. I hope to look better than I did last year. But if it snows like it did last year, I'll look just like this again! :)

I've also picked up my studying again. I'm working on my thesis. The main question I'm trying to answer is: "What extra skills does a music teacher in vmbo need, as opposed to a music teacher in havo/vwo?". (click here for an explanation of vmbo/havo/vwo) The reason for that is that I seem to be the only person who enjoys to work with the lowest level kids. Most graduated music teachers start in job like that, but move up to higher levels as soon as they get the chance. I think that is because they weren't properly prepared in college. That's why I will be teaching a group of third year college students, as a part of the practical part of my thesis. And the dean has so much faith in me that the students that take my class will actually be awarded credits, how cool is that?

All in all, I'm back to a busy life. Although I must say that the study discipline I used to have, isn't really back yet. Take now, for instance. I went to the computer to start typing on my thesis (I already have 2 pages) and now I'm blogging again...

Foo Yong Hai again

One of the results of having four chickens, is that I have three eggs a day. I assume the ladies take turns in taking a day off and that's fine by me. They're small eggs, but, nevetheless, very edable. We eat lots of quiches, fried eggs and omelettes now (which reminds me that I should start giving eggs away, if I don't want our cholestorol levels to run through the roof). In my quest for the ultimate foo yong hai recipe, I had already decided that Conimex Foo Yong Hai from the box isn't anywhere close to what I have in mind. That's why I did a little searching on the internet.

I checked out my favorite supermarket's web site. It's in Dutch, sorry. Part of their site is a recipe search. You can search all the recipes that they have posted in their monthly magazine over the past ten years or so, but you can also make your own personal recipe book, and browse through other people's recipe books. In Suzanne Heijligers' personal recipe book I found this recipe for Foo Yong Hai. I tried it and it was very close to my friend Sheila's recipe. I'll keep searching though, because I'm not satisfied yet. I know I used the wrong ingredients (I didn't have the vegetables Sheila usually uses so I substituted them) so I'll have to try again. This is getting exciting! I've never really tried to exactly copy a dish I've eaten somewhere else before. Usually I just ask for recipes or make something that kind of seems like it but isn't exactly.

Anyway, here's what I fixed today. We had strawberry cobbler for desert, and that tasted good too!
Suzanne Heijliger's Foo Yong Hai
- 4 eggs
- about 100 gr. of chopped leek, carrot, onion
- 250 ml (a little over a cup) tomato ketchup
- little bit of vinegar
- tbsp brown sugar
- 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce (ketjap manis)
- 1 clove of garlic, pressed

Whip eggs, mix with chopped vegetables. Add pepper and salt to taste. Melt a little butter (I used vegetable oil) in a frying pan, and spoon in 1/4th of the egg/veggie mix. Keep warm in oven dish (I put a little tea light under it) and bake the other omelettes.Meanwhile, heat ketchup in pan. Add vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and garlic. Stir well, but make sure it doesn't boil. Pour the sauce over the omelettes. Serve with rice.

I used deep fried Asian stir fry vegetable mix, and I had chicken out of the freezer so I put that in as well. Next time I'm going to leave the vinegar out because we thought the sauce was a little too sour.

A really cool egg

Look what I just found in the hen house! It must be the smallest egg ever...

Back to work

Slowly but surely I'm going back to work. I went to my college yesterday (first time in ten weeks, and of course the trains had a delay...) and presented the book that I had read for my literature class. It went fine, and I passed the class, yay! It took a lot of energy but that was totally ok.
Today I had a household day. I ironed and cleaned like as if my life depended on it, while watching my new box set of Sissi dvd's. LOVE those movies! Then I went to the market to buy some fresh tulips and narcissus so now everything is clean and looks really good. I'm going back to work tomorrow, I'll be teaching Dutch to one class. I'm anxious to see how it will go, but I am looking forward to it. I can't wait to be myself again!

A little

Yes, I'm feeling a little better. I have more energy in the day time now, so I do way more than a few weeks ago. My body isn't used to that yet though, so I'm in bed before 21:30 most nights. But that's ok. It's worth it. I went to work today to talk to my assistant principal about returning to school. We agreed that I'll come back slowly, building it up step by step. Next week I'll return to my Dutch class (3 times a week, one class period) and after doing that for two weeks we're going to see how many hours of music I'll add to that.

I also started to study again. I received an e-mail from a professor that a make-up presentation moment was scheduled for Monday, and if I wanted to do my literature presentation that I could still make the credit. Of course I want that! It's a nice way to pick up studying again. I set my kitchen timer for 45 minutes and make myself concentrate on my book. Then I allow myself to do something else before returning to the book again. It's not easy, but I can do it.
I'm slowly climbing out of the pit that is mononucleosis... Yay!

Decisions

M and I are going through a time with lots of decisions. Planning a wedding and buying a house are both pretty expensive, important things. I think it's hard, because they both cost a lot of money. And, especially the mortgage, is an expensive commitment for a long time.

Where do we have our wedding, and what choices do we make? Do we have a reception? What kind of dinner would we like? How many people will we invite? And who do we not invite?.
And then the house... What kind of mortgage do we want? How much money do we want to invest in the remodeling? How much money do we want to spend on our house every month? Which bank do we choose, and for how long do we want to set the interest?
Deep sigh.
I have trouble making choices. Sometimes I find it hard to decide which pair of socks to wear today. And now there's all this.. Thank goodness I have my M to share this with. I know I want to marry him and I know we want to buy the house. So even though it requires a lot of thinking and a lot of time, we'll figure everything else out!

And, totally off topic, here's a little music:

Just the way

Reading She's blog, I was inspired to post a little bit of music on my blog. I am, after all, a music teacher!
So here it is. "Just the way you look tonight", by Frank Sinatra. It's such a moving song, it always makes me a little teary-eyed. I love the lyrics, the arrangement and the way Mr.Sinatra sings it. So here it is...

Chicken pot pie

Yes! I've done it!!! I've created my very own recipe for chicken pot pie!!
When I lived with my first American host family Schwan's chicken casserole soon became one of my dishes. And when I moved to Those Crazy Jarboes, TheeGeneral's chicken pot pie soon took its place.
Since I've been back in the Netherlands, I've had these occasional cravings for this wonderful dish. But unsweetened pie crusts are not available here, unfortunately. So about 6 months ago I started to browse the internet for chicken pot pie recipes. And, using some of my own Dutch common sense, I came up with a good alternative for a pie crust: ready made deep frozen puff pastry dough (bladerdeeg). It tastes really good.
Want the recipe for the casserole? Here it is!

Dutchnic's chicken pot pie (serves 4)

You will need (these amounts are all relative and depend of what I have in my pantry and freezer):
- 500 gr. chicken breast
- about 2 cups of frozen peas
- 2 big carrots, sliced
- an onion, cut up
- 4 potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 herb bouillon tablets (but you can also use l. chicken bouillon)
- some dried sage (about 2 tablespoons)
- 50 gr. flour
- 50 gr. margarine
- dried garlic, salt and pepper and of course
- 4 slices of frozen pastry dough, taken out of the freezer

Start by dicing the chicken breast and seasoning it with some dried garlic, salt and pepper. Using a few table spoons of olive oil, fry it in a skillet until brown. Keep stirring and make sure it browns evenly. Add the onions and stir until those are nice and soft. Add the bouillon tablets, a liter of water, the frozen peas, carrots, potatoes and sage. Let simmer for a while (about half an hour or so) until all the flavors mix up nicely.

In the mean time, grease an oven dish. I always grease the outside edges too because that's where the dough will go.
When the 30 minutes are over, strain the chicken soup but make sure you keep the bouillon. So don't pour it down the sink!

Put the vegetable/meat mix in the oven dish. Melt the margarine in a small pan, adding the flour as soon as the margarine is melted. Stir until brown, then add 1/2 l. of the chicken bouillon and keep stirring until you have a nice thick sauce/gravy. Pour the gravy over the vegetable/meat mix and cover the oven dish with the pastry slices. I usually seal the slices together, rubbing over them with a wet finger and cutting it until it has the shape of the oven dish. Using a fork, make a few holes in the crust so the hot steam has a way out.
Bake in a 200 C (about 400 F) oven for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. Enjoy!

PS: No, don't worry, I haven't eaten my chickens. But since this is a chicken recipe, I thought they'd make a good illustration..

Stormy good things

My country is currently going through the worst SouthWest (which means rain and horrible 110 km/h (68 mph)) storm since 1990. It's lovely to sit in the house, drink tea and watch the news while I hear the wind going crazy around the house. I don't have to go anywhere (M drove to work today, instead of riding his bike, so he's getting some groceries that we do need) so I'm staying in!I feel a lot calmer than I did on Monday. It's been a good decision to cancel my exam. So now, instead of complaining, I'm making a list of good things that happened to me this week.

1. I went to the market Tuesday to buy myself some flowers. I figured, if I have to spend so much time in my house, I might as well make it look really pretty! I was tired of all the green plants in my house, nothing was in bloom except for some crocuses a friend had brought me over Christmas break. And I'm Dutch, so of course I bought some tulips!
   
2. My amaryllis is in bloom, and it's so pretty! I love to look at it.
   
3. On Wednesday I went to the garden center to buy some other plants, among which this orchid. It's small, but so pretty! The picture is a little blurry but I love it.
   
4. Last night I took the tv-IQ-test, and according to it my IQ is 128. I like that figure, it makes me feel smart :P.
   
5. And because I had nothing else to do today and was out of cookies, I decided to bake cookies. So now the kitchen and living room smell really good and we have something fresh to nibble on tonight.
   
6. Last but not least: after taking a few days vacation, both the chickens laid an egg today.

It's so much better to be able to list good things than to complain. But sometimes it's good to complain too (relieving anyway). I hope you're having a good week too!

Sad

Tonight I was sad and felt sorry for myself. It was because I made a decision. I feel I won't be able to do well on my practical music exam which was planned for 19 March. I had been worried and stressed over it, even losing sleep (which is weird, if you have mono).

That's why I decided that I am going to try and postpone it. Today was a bad day, all I could do was lie on the couch, basically. I did a few loads of laundry but didn't even feel like putting the clean clothes away. But I did make that decision (which was also a lot of work!).That's why I called my counselor and told him about my worries and how I felt like postponing. He totally understood and said he expected the committee to agree, because this was on medical grounds (and not lazy grounds, which tends to happen sometimes). But when I hung up the phone I was not a happy camper. I called my dad and cried, and then I called my best friend and cried. She immediately came over (even though she lives half an hour away). I was happy to have her company. M was away (Monday is his fireman-night) and I felt lonely. All I do is sit in this house, by myself, not being able to be my usual self. She told me all the sweet things I wanted to hear, and said I was totally entitled to complain. And that helped, so now I'm going to bed (once again)...

Pretty

After browsing and trying on 10 or so wedding dresses on Tuesday, I narrowed the choice down to two. But really, I knew which one I liked best.

Today mom, mom-in-law and sister-in-law went to the store with me and helped me confirm my initial decision. They all loved it too.I bought my wedding gown! It makes me feel so pretty.

Tag

Sheila tagged me a while ago. And after thinking for a week or so here it is. The assignment was: name and explain five things that we don't know about you yet. At first I wasn't too happy to be tagged, but then again, why not?

1. I'm a counter. I count how many people were at someone's birthday party, or how many buttons are on my new jacket. I weigh things when I cook, so I always know that everybody shares equally. I count the pages in the book that I'm reading, so I can keep track of how long it will take me (or has taken me) to read a certain amount of pages. I count the number of plants I plant in my garden, so I have equal rows. And so on...
   


2. I skipped a grade in elementary school. Apparently I learned how to read and do math really quickly. And because the 1st and 2nd grade (group 3 and 4) were taught by the same teacher, it was really easy to move up a grade. I took advantage of my extra year by going to the United States as an exchange student when I was 17. But most of you already knew that.
   


3. I can't stand repetitive noises and sounds. Don't click a ballpoint any more than necessary when I'm around. And please don't tap your nails on the table continuously while you talk. Don't chew your gum with your mouth open so I can hear the sound. And turn off that kitchen timer! All these things drive me crazy, I can't stand them, especially when I'm tired.
   


4. I get really attached to things. I have a hard time throwing out clothes or shoes (even when they're ripped or stained) because they all have a story. Remember this and that that happened while I wore those sandals? Remember the lovely aunt that gave me this otherwise really ugly teddy bear? It used to drive my mother crazy... I still have loads of keepsakes in a box in her attic.
   M really had to get used to my thing-attachment, but we found a way. The other day my alarm clock that I had had since I was 11 broke. I had already bought a new one, but the old one was still on my night stand, or so I thought. It wasn't though, because M had thrown it out. He knew that that would be hard for me. And now I could blame him... :)
   


5. I didn't get my first "real" kiss until I was a month away from my 18th birthday. I always wanted to save that for someone I was really in love with, and not some sweaty fellow eight grader that just thought it was time..
   But my first real kiss was like a Hollywood movie. You know what, I won't tell you about it yet. I'll write about it later...

And since this is a game of tag, Yoastie and Cltgrace, you're it!

Slow germs

It's been a while since I last posted anything about my health situation. Which is good, because I don't want to bore you all with daily updates on how I don't feel better..

Before Christmas I hoped to be able to partially go back to work after Christmas vacation. Well, forget that! I am so not better yet. I still need 12-14 hours of sleep a day and can't do without my daily nap(s). And with buying the house and planning the wedding on top of everything else I've had some difficulties falling asleep at nights. That's annoying, to be in bed, and know that your body is really tired but yet stay awake..

Today I made some decisions. I e-mailed some people and did some planning. I asked some questions to my guidance counselor and thesis person. I arranged a drummer, pianist and guitar player to play in my band at my practical music exam. I started to think that I can ask the committee if I can postpone this exam a month of so, because of my medical situation.

All in all: I physically don't feel any better yet, but my head feels a lot lighter than it did last night and the night before. I'm sure I'll be able to sleep much better tonight. I just need to give in to the mono (again or still?), and not start working on things that I know I'm not ready for yet. My doctor told me not to go back to work until I had had the feeling that I had just had a week off, with normal energy level. I'm not there yet... but then again, it's a little better than it was in November and December. So there is a little progress!

Chicken news

Tandoori the rooster was a very noisy animal. He turned out to be noisy at the most annoying times. He cried 27 times at 4:30 in the morning on Christmas day, for example. So when my uncle offered to adopt him I was only glad, because our neighbours had started to complain.

After I had given him away, I only had 2 chickens left: Kerrie and Miss Tok. I decided to give them a good start of the new year: I was going to clean their house. Their house is half of the chicken shed. Usually when I clean it, they walk around in the other half of the shed until everything is in order for them to go back. But that day they decided the world was bigger than the chicken shed and walked outside. When they were on the lawn I thought they looked so cute that I would let them be outside. After all, they couldn't do any harm.
But then the neighbour and his hunting dog came walking through our yard, on the way to his business which is on the other side of our house. The dog discovered the free roaming chickens and dove right in. I heard a lot of noise and saw the chickens fly away. We could easily catch Kerrie but Miss Tok was nowhere to be found. I was all worried, but at the end of the afternoon she was found by M's father and put back in the shed.

While she was away, I had found an internet ad for chickens for €2, only 10 km away from here. So I called the guy and M and I picked up 2 new additions to the hen house last night.
So now we have four young ladies in the hen house. From left to right: Ellen, Kerrie, Miss Tok. And the little girl on the left's name is Kuifje.

Spending money

We went to a city yesterday to do some shopping. Both M and I were in dire need of clothes and shoes. We succeeded, and I even managed to find a pair of blue jeans. What is up with all those low-rise pants that end mid-butt? I want hip blue jeans that do not show of the color of my underwear when I sit down. I ended up buying a men's pair. I don't care though, I like them and they're comfy.

But the hugest money spending of our life happened Wednesday night. We bought our house! We had been renting it for two years, but were offered the opportunity to buy it. After two appraisals and three nights of careful discussing (because our landlords are M's uncle and father) we agreed on a price that was acceptable to everybody. Now all we have to do is finalize the mortgage and visit the notary to get the paper work taken care of.
I believe I'm growing up. Within a week I'm an engaged woman who owns a house!

A game and an important question

On the first day of Christmas we had about an hour to spare before we were supposed to go to my parents. We decided to go play a game of Rummicub. So I got the things ready, and started to sort my Rummicub stones, when M stood behind me. I said "Hey, you're cheating, move away from here!".
He laughed and put a wrapped box before me. "I bought you something". I was a little surprised and opened the box, to find this watch, only purple instead of white. When I got up to thank him, he said "I also had a question". He smiled and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes! So we kissed and cuddled.
And then we played Rummicub....

Really simple

Nothing fancy, but straight from the heart.

I wish everybody a very merry Christmas!
I'll be celebrating with friends tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll be going to church with my parents and later go to their house for some old fashioned game fun and a good dinner. And the second day of Christmas we'll do exactly the same at M's parents.

Lots of blessings!