Haiku - II

Limited cleaning
Low housing expenses
Dream trailer

Haiku

Slanting floor, bad couch
Limited storage, cold nights
Dream trailer

Nasty

The other day I was getting ready to go to bed. As I turned the light in my bedroom on, I noticed this. A slug! On my bedroom wall! About ten cm away from my matrass! It was nasty and big. It must have crept up the trailer and in through the window that was cracked open about two cm.
My husband wasn't home. That's why I called my father-in-law, who lives down the street. This wonderful man rescued me from the evil slug-thing and released it outside. Yuck!

Motivational

A while ago I wrote about my weighty changes. At that time I had lost 3 kg (6.6 lbs) by changing my diet, keeping track of my calories and exercising more. I wondered how long I would be able to keep it up, because in the past I've never been the dieting kind of person. That's turned out to go really well, because as I write this I'm happy to be able to say that I lost 5.2 kg (11.4 lbs) so far. Since I wanted to lose 6.2, I only have one more kg to go.

One of the ways I exercise is "Start to Run". One of my friends told me about this. It's a podcast from a Belgian sports show. The anchor lady tells you when to run and when to walk, and plays music. In the meantime she sometimes says motivational things in an adorable Flemish accent. "Aren't you proud of yourself? I'm very proud of you!" and "Are you enjoying the surroundings?" and "Keep it up, only two more minutes to go!" are some of the things she says. It's really weird how something that a lady in a studio recorded two years ago motivates me as I'm running, but it really works for me. I haven't written about it sooner, because I wasn't sure if I'd like it or if I'd keep it up. But yesterday I ran the 20th session (out of 27!). At the end of the sessions you're supposed to be able to run 5 km in half an hour. The first time I went, I had to run for a minute, walk for a minute, and so on. Yesterday I was able to run for eight minutes, walk for a minute, and I repeated that three times. That means I ran thirty-two minutes in total yesterday! I don't want to brag but it makes me pretty proud of myself.

And you know what helps a lot too? I've gone down two dress sizes and my stomach is a lot flatter. Instead of asking me if I'm pregnant (which happened weekly this past spring), people comment on my weight loss and congratulate me. Now that is motivational!

Header

Once again it's been very quiet over here. Life is busy. Between school, the renovation and everything else that's going I just don't seem to be able to find the time to blog. But now my fall break has started so I'll write an update soon.

Sheila can't wait for that, though. She made a new header for my blog (isn't it cool? With a chicken!) and it's been up for two days now. She's home sick and probably checking my blog ten times a day, only to see that I still haven't thanked her. It's getting a little pushy so I'll thank her right now ;-). So head over to her blog soon and give her a compliment, that will give her something to read and hopefully she'll feel better soon.

Groceries - Dutch style

From the money I received for my birthday I decided to buy a sensible product: bicycle bags! This is the way Dutch women get groceries. Not the weekly ones, where you buy liters and liters of milk, but the odds and ends that you forget and have to run to the store for. Some people don't have a car; they use them for everything.



As you can see the bags have zippers. That way, when I have a lot of things to carry with me, I can enlarge the bags. The elastic bands across the bags also hold a box or purse in place.

Are these even available outside of Europe?

27

Ten years ago, I had spent the first two weeks of my exchange year in Indiana. Today I celebrate my birthday in a trailer in my backyard. My, how time flies!

Bathtub

Have you ever taken a bath in a bathroom showroom? We have! We found a tub that is big enough to fit my M, but has armrests so I'll fit in it as well. It's 190x90 cm (6 ft 3" by 3 ft). We had fun today, trying out the different tubs and looking at sinks/toilets/urinals.It was our third day in bathroom stores so we were getting a little silly... But now we have three different prices on our bathroom and toilet, so we can start comparing. That way we'll know where the best deal is.

Family portrait

Prairiecowboy had asked me how the baby chicks were doing. Time for an update!

Here's a before picture:

The little one that is face down didn't make it. But two other ones did, so four chicks survived. Three of these babies turned out to be roosters, one of them is a hen. She's lucky. Check out Prairiecowboy's site to see what will eventually happen to the roosters.
Let's start with a photo of Bjorn and Marloes. Bjorn is the white rooster, Marloes is one of his wives. Both these chickens were born here October last year.


If you wonder why Marloes's feathers are a little jagged on the side, well, let's just say Bjorn is to blame for that.

Here's a slightly scary picture of the four chicks in a row. The big ones are Marloes's boys (or her sister Piri Piri, it's hard to tell because they're identical).


Left to right: rooster, rooster, rooster, hen. They're all the same age, though different in size. The first rooster and the hen's mothers are a lot smaller than Marloes and Piri Piri. That's why their kids are smaller, too. Bjorn is the father to all of these kids.

This is Ellen and her son. You can tell they're alike. This little boy is the dark chick from the top photo.

The chickens were pretty freaked out by the camera's flash. That's why none of the pictures turned out to be World Press Photo candidates ;-). That's ok though, you get the idea!

Weighty changes

When you cook for people who build a house, you have to make sure you feed them plenty of calories. All that carrying bricks around and jumping up and down scaffolding makes them burn a lot of energy, and they need to eat well in order to replace that. That's why I had been buying, baking and cooking lots of cookies, carby soups and elaborate sandwiches. (I don't know if a sandwich can technically be elaborate, but you get my point).

My M has been faring well on this diet (and the exercise combined). He's lost 8 kg (17.6 lbs) and toned up a lot since we started remodeling. I have also fared well... but in the bad sense of the word. I gained a little weight and definitely didn't tone up at all. When you live in a trailer you don't walk any stairs. I don't have a vegetable garden this year (there goes that form of exercise, gardening) and while rounding up the schoolyear I found myself sitting on a bench with the laptop on my lap all too often.

That's why I decided to make some changes. Starting the first day of summer vacation (6 July) I changed my diet. I banned unhealthy snacks, started to eat more fruit and vegetables, bought healthier versions of products (I like the words "light" or "diet" on a label), started weighing my dinner ingredients so I wouldn't get too many calories, and started keeping track of my calorie intake. I also started exercising more regularly (I try to get at least 30 minutes of moving my butt a day). The result so far? I've lost 3 kgs (6.6 lbs). That doesn't seem much in five weeks, but I'm ok with it. It's progress, and I can keep it up without feeling too sorry for myself. I've read that the faster you lose weight, the more likely you are to start yo-yoing. And that's not the poing of this plan. The point is that the numbers on the scale are slowly moving downward. And in another 3 kgs I'll be really satisfied (and then the challenge is to keep it that way). That means I'm halfway now. I'll keep you posted how I do!

Easy pasta sauce

Every year I have a vegetable garden with all kinds of veggies and fruits. This year, however, my vegetable garden is non-existent, because that's where all the old bricks and roof tiles have been thrown. It's literally a junk yard!
People know that I like to grow vegetables, however, and sometimes they give me plants. I can't throw away a plant so when I received two tomato plants and a zucchini plant, I went ahead and planted them behind the trailer.
When we came back from our two-week vacation, three zucchinis and a bunch of tomatoes were ripe. It's hard to keep them well in the trailer, because it gets pretty hot in here. On a sunny day 32 C (90F) is not uncommon. That's why I decided to freeze them to have easy pasta sauce in the freezer.

Inspired by the Pioneer Woman, here's the cast of characters:

Olive oil, three bell peppers, three onions, three cloves of garlic, three zucchinis and a bunch of tomatoes. There's also wheat macaroni in the picture but I didn't need that until later, when I actually converted the veggies into pasta sauce.

First, I cut the onions and garlic in little pieces, and started sautéeing them in the olive oil. Because I'm not the Pioneer Woman, I don't have a picture of that.

When the onions were almost transparent, I added the cut up bell peppers. I like to use three different colors, because it makes my dish look happy.

After they were softened a little, I added the zucchini pieces.

The tomatoes were next. After I had added them, I turned the fire down and let everything simmer for a while, stirring it occasionally. After about ten minutes, everything was nice and softened and there was a little layer of juice in the pot. I then grabbed my handmixer and blended everything. Not so smoothly that it looked like baby food, but smooth enough so it was a sauce with still something to chew.

Depending on the zucchini:tomato ratio this sauce usually turns out anywhere between a green -orange - red color. Two kgs of vegetables made four 2-person servings. We ate one and froze three.
I added some ground beef and italian spices, and voila! Easy pasta!

House update

My summer has started and I've been too busy and lazy to write anything. As you can imagine, the remodeling is taking a lot of our time. But it's really starting to look like a house!

The back wall without the scaffolding.

The new roof with the Velux-windows. The first four are in the living room, the last three are bedroom windows.
A view from the front. The side wall has been re-grouted and looks as new!

The stable windows in the living room side wall. This part of the wall has been rebuilt, using the old bricks.

The patio doors in the living room.

Summer Kings

In Dutch, some people nickname strawberries "Summer Kings". This is my very first harvest of this year!

Wow!

I'm trying to win a 17 cd box via Rocks In My Dryer, which is a pretty cool blog that I often read.
Wow Hits 1 is the cd box that is to be won. I hope there's a chance I can get it!

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

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