Illegal Visitors

I had repeatedly found the cat food container topsy-turvy. The other day I found out why. We've been having illegal visitors! Apparently two hedgehogs live underneath my trailer. They're kind of cute but very prickly!

New Life

Today four chicks hatched!

Lovely things

- Today was the first day in 2008 that I did not wear socks. I did wear flipflops and sunscreen, however;
- sleeping in;
- having coffee outside in the sun, while reading the paper;
- watching my husband do the same (and not DIY-ing for a change!);
- jumping on the trampoline with the girls nextdoor;
- having dinner with my parents on their patio;
- dinner being a salad with smoked chicken and ciabatta mmmmmm;
- going to bed after having changed the sheets (which had dried outside and smell wonderful).
And the best part is: all these things happened in one day!

One of those questions that will never be answered...

The sun shone today, so I decided to do a lot of laundry. Weekends are horrible for laundry since I can't hang it up (it'll be in the way of the workers) and I can't use my dryer because the power is off a lot of times.

While the first load was in the machine, we went to a bathroom showroom. Then we went out to lunch. Then we went to the second bathroom showroom. We got home just in time for dinner.

So much for my laundry plans. I threw in a load after we got home, and managed to get another load done right before I went to bed. The only problem was: the dryer was still full with the first load, and I couldn't use my indoor clothes line because it's in the shed where the construction workers have coffee and eat their lunch. They don't need to see my socks and undies while they eat their lunch. That is not necessary.

So, as I unfolded my laundry rack at 23:00 (11 pm) and hung up my laundry in the evening air, I pondered one of those questions that will never be answered...

How is it possible that when I take the sheets off our bed, one of the pillow cases is always inside out while the other one is inside in?

Cold frame

The early beginnings of lettuce and lavatera in my cold frame. It's spring again and even though my vegetable garden is now a brick dump, my cold frame is still in function!

International

69

It hit me like a ton of bricks...

... that we're not only demolishing, but building too. That seems to be good news. On the other hand, the cabin fever hit me too. All of a sudden I was annoyed by the lack of privacy, and mad at myself for those emotions. We are very grateful to all the people who help us with the remodeling. Without them, it would cost us a lot more money. But at the same time, it would be nice to not have people around the house (and trailer) all the time. It would be nice to be able to say "OK, it's 19:00 and I'm going to get into my pajamas and veg out on the couch. That is not possible. My M gets home from work, eats dinner, changes into his work clothes and gets to work. Around ten o'clock he walks in the house, drinks something and goes to bed. Lovely.

But it's all worth it. And I should not be complaining. It's only temporary, and it's all worth it. I just need to get over myself sometimes...

Intelligent Cat

While there were twelve people running around, working on the house, the cat decided to do the intelligent thing....

House renovation

For everybody who speaks Dutch, and is interested in the renovation of our house, check my new blog.
Don't worry, I'll still write here too!

Fiery Chicken

This week is Easter break and I'm a week off. So today I decided to cook a really nice dinner, because I love doing that. I still had a rooster in the freezer so I took that out and fixed it. But the minute my husband got home from work and I started to put everything on the table, he was paged by the fire department. That's why I ate by myself... But the dinner was good enough to share it with you. I thought it was about time for another recipe!

Nic's roast rooster with vegetables

You will need:

- 1 whole chicken
- 1 stem of leek, chopped
- stalk of celery, chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 onion, diced
- about 10 cherry tomatoes, halved (a few big tomatoes in chunks are ok too)

- 1 big carrot, diced
- 3 potatoes, peeled and diced
- rosemary
- paprika
- salt and pepper
- about a glass of red wine
- the same amount of bouillon (chicken or herb)
- margarine and olive oil

Dry the chicken and season generously with rosemary, paprika, salt and pepper. Melt the margarine and olive oil and heat in a large skillet. Brown the chicken on all sides (this may take a while). When the chicken looks crispy and brown, take it out of the skillet. In the hot grease, brown the onion, garlic, carrot and potatoes. Stir for a little bit, then add the celery and tomatoes. Pour in the wine and bouillon and stir gently. Put the chicken on top of the vegetables and cover the skillet. Let simmer for a good long while (I think it may have taken me two hours), turning the chicken every once in a while. When the meat is so tender it starts to fall off the bones, you can be sure that it is done.

I served this with homemade biscuits. It tasted really good!

This is why I've been offline

This is my home, right now. The internet connection took a while to work correctly. That's why I haven't posted anything in over a month. It works better now, though, so I expect to be online more.


My house looks like this. The big demolishing has begun!

Working hard

This is a "before-picture"... We're really busy moving all of our stuff to the trailer. Today we spent the whole day with the help of my brother, sister-in-law, M's brother and girlfriend, and M's parents. They helped us pack things up and move things. Boy, do we have a lot of stuff!

The plan is to move to the trailer within a few days. After that, the big demolishing can start. Fun, but very emotional for me!

Away

Tonight I'm leaving for Italy to ski for a week. Bye!

Teaching

Working with teenagers is what I like to do, and what I'm good at. Sometimes it totally frustrates me, though. Like last night.

There's this extracurricular activity that another teacher and I lead. We've done it for a few years now, and some of the girls involved in it have become friends. Well, I don't know if that is the right word, because there's a twelve year age difference between us and obviously we don't confide in them. They do confide in us, though. Last night one of the girls told my colleague something that broke my heart. She told her that she had a problem involving auto-mutilation, and even showed her arm.

I thought I knew this girl. I thought she was a happy, bouncy teenager whose only problems could be what time to get home after a party or what clothes to wear. But I was wrong.

There's nothing I can do for this girl. I don't even teach at her building. Thank goodness she told my colleague that she had been talking to the school's counselor, so she is getting help. But I feel slightly powerless. Sure, I can pray for her and be nice to her. But somehow that doesn't feel like it's enough.

Getting attached to your students is a good thing, but it also has its downside...

Roosters Goodbye

The four white chickens you see here are roosters. The two brown ones are hens. All of them were hatched October 29. The roosters eat a lot, poop a lot, fight and aren't very productive. That is why I gave three of them away to our uncle, who promised to return one (deep-frozen). One is allowed to stay and rule over the hen house (as long as he isn't too noisy, like Tandoori was). Some people say this is cruel, but I guess that's the way farm life can be...

Sew busy

When we bought our trailer I realised that it would take some effort to turn this little world of 1981 brown and green in a housey environment that I would feel comfortable in. And since I received a sewing machine as a wedding present, I decided to sew new covers for the cushions.

So I counted, measured, went to Ikea to buy many metres of fabric, washed and ironed that fabric and started to sew.


Lots of hours in the past six months were spent working with my new best friend. Today I achieved my goal: I finished the last one. That means that I covered sixteen cushions. I did feel very housewify! And this, my friends, was the very last one. Now all I have to do is use the scraps to make a tablecloth and maybe two pillow covers. But none of that will take as much time as those huge cushions, or even worse, the corner cushions (look closely in the first picture and you will see one).
M laid new carpet and vinyl in the trailer (I'll show you a picture later) so it's starting to look more and more like home. Which is good, because we'll probably have to live in it for at least a year. So it might as well be as comfortable as possible!

Lucky again!

Wow, I'm still so lucky! Lots of really good things are happening right now. I already bragged about my upcoming vacation, so I won't do that again. But now I'm lucky at work, too.
Our school has had a new concierge for a while now. This man is very attentive, and thinks along with everyone in the building. He saw me racing around with the tv/dvd-set a lot, and he also noticed that the distance between the room where the tv-set is located and my classroom is pretty far. Not only is it far, but I have to cross two thresholds with the cart, so it's slightly dangerous to move the set.
The other day he asked me to step into his office. He showed me a brand new tv/dvd-set with an awesomely big and flat tv, and asked me if I would like to have it for my classroom!
Well, of course I did...

So now I'll never have to worry if the tv is available anymore, and anytime I want to use the tv or dvd for highly educational purposes, I can!

To ski or not to ski

When there's a big remodeling planned, you need a lot of money. That's why we decided to skip our annual skiing trip this year. After all, when we move into the trailer, we'll feel like we're on vacation anyway (hopefully) and while we work on the house we will get just as much physical exercise. Besides, spring nights can be chilly, so we can feel just like we're in the mountains, while we sleep under our plastic roof....

Something changed, however.

My uncle called and told us that his daughter won't be going on the trip. And because it's already paid for, would I like to go? My M can't take any days off, but I'll have carnaval vacation so I'll be off school already, anyway. We talked about it, and now I'm going to go on the skiing trip, after all!
I never expected to be going to Italy twice within six weeks, but I am. I'm so lucky!! (And I have a wonderful uncle, for taking me, and a wonderful husband, for letting me go!)

When in Rome...

... there was no opportunity to blog. But it was beautiful!
We spent 4 days in Rome, between Christmas and New Year's. We saw all the sights (well, all the major sights, anyway) and had lots of fun with two of our best friends. It was really cool. This was our third city trip with them (Barcelona and Copenhagen were previous) but it just keeps getting more fun, it seems like.

I don't feel like writing much, but I did want to share one of the best pictures with you.
And of course, wish all of you a wonderful 2008!

Elf

So what do you do when the stomach bug decides to kick in and stick around?
You Elf yourself!
Look at me as an elf:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1495629238