Tink … Up Close & Very Personal …

2010-05-07T01:58:00.001-07:00

It's been a while......
I could say that life got in the way, which would be partially true, a state of not living would be more accurate. Truth is my illness got in the way, and I try not to write about my illness in this blog but focus on 'normal' or a sense of normalcy. I have been really really ill. 'Bed ridden' ill. 'Being up for a few hours' ill. Screaming on the top of you lungs silently, in so much pain. So much pain I'd rather delivery 10 children naturally and scrape the wallpaper of the walls with my nails than having to live with this pain for another minute. 'Rocking back and forth in your bed' pain, 'with no more tears left to cry' pain.

Cognitive disfunction, forgetting words, writing words backwards, mixing up EN with NL(Dutch) total brain fog, worse than the fog on a fall day on London Heathrow, and lets not forget the vision problems. The days that I could not see my monitor, it was all one big blur. No matter which size glasses I tried from 2 up to 6 not one of them helped me se any better.

Than there was the sound, the high pitched tinnitus in my left ear, and the low frequency noise sensitivity that I suffer from and is mostly noticeable at night when the road workers start their compressors and the hummmmmmmm that goes on and on and drives me insane and up the walls. No earplugs will help here, in fact it made it even worse.

And than the vertigo started which makes you feel like you're on a ship on high sea. Vomiting, room spinning around you, pair that with Orthostatic Intolerance and you have a complete disability. With Orthostatic Intolerance there is a low blood volume and a sudden drop in blood pressure. The blood can't reach your brain in time and you pass out, faint, syncope. Goes well with the vertigo.

Last but not least the spinal cord. The spinal cord is possessed, occupied, a hostile take over by a great variety of intruders, bacterial infections, viruses, to name a view; Epstein Barr, HHV 1 and 2, HHV 6, CMV, viral and bacterial pneumonia, Lyme and the latest XMRV?
They like my spinal cord, I think the chew on it especially the lower part, right above the buttocks that is causing excruciating pain, spams and weakness. Whatever the do they are having a ball and I am not.

2 months ago the Pneumonia decided to go all out and caused havoc. I became very ill, with an actual fever! This for a person who's basal temp is 35C/95F. Insert here my physician who was on a month log vacation and we have a small disaster on our hands. I have to avoid going to ER at all cost. The most people die in hospitals so it's not a healthy place to be.
Try to explain all of the above to an ER nurse. You think she's going to believe you? Right... think again.
No ER's can do nothing for people with ME(Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), in fact they make it worse. i have never heard from one of my ME friends who said; hey you know what I went to ER last weekend and I came home energized and pain free! No, unfortunately not. Most people come home and decline ever further due to all stress in hospitals, the bright lights, the noise, the uncomfortable painful bed/table you have to lie on, the abuse you have to endure from resident dr.s etc.

So is had to handle this crisis on my own. The only other physician I had on my list as an appropriate replacement had a deadly accident that weekend and was off my list.
Luckily my physician trained me well and I knew vaguely what to do and I slowly came back to the land of non-living. I'm still not in the state I was before a couple of months before and I have a long way to go.

At least I found some energy to write today and hope I will find some again tomorrow.
We no longer ask 'how was your day' instead we ask if there were some good hours or minutes.

Cherish and pamper your health, if you got it in good shape. It's priceless.

This was the one exception where I write about my illness on this blog. Now you all know why she hasn’t been keeping it up.

PM me for my snail mail address boxes of milk and white chocolate are SO appreciated! ;-)

2010-03-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

2010-02-03T15:15:00.000-08:00

Wordless Wednesday

2009-12-25T03:52:00.004-08:00

It took me quite a while to think of this year's Holiday theme. I had no inspirtation whatsoever. My thoughts were with the Santa dog photos I was planning on using, photos I didn't have now because our Lotte died all of a sudden.

Than slowly the idea came to me to make a 'Lotte's life celebration card'. You see, Lotte loved all good things in life and living it to the fullest as comfortable as possible was her motto. This is our wish for you these Holidays. Live life to the fullest, enjoy all things good and most importanly love each other unconditionally and make lots of good memories!

2009-09-29T23:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life's a mess
But I'm having a good time

I've been loving and loving
And loving
I'm exhausted from loving so well
I should go to bed
But a voice in my head
Says "Ah, what the hell"

Paul Simon

Yes, another year has gone by. When I blinked with my eyes it was gone, no idea what happened with it, it just wooshed by.

Thanks to all who have send warm, sweet, funny, annoying, lovable b-day wishes ;-) I so appreciate it and feel very blessed to have so many friends who take the time to send me a card or a wish.

Of course there were presents and W. baked, as is tradition, a pie for my day. This time I wanted the Dutch Apple pie, and I directed him to her who has a wonderful apple pie blog. Thanks to Petra in NC for mentioning the site when she was baking her Dudoc Apple Pie. Sorry, Apple pie blog is only in Dutch available.

The pie was a wonderful as usual, he is a exceptional baker. Funny he inherited that from his dad who was a pastry baker before his death. W. has never known his dad, he died a few months before he was born, so he couldn't have discussed any baking with him. But apparently you can inherent talents like that ;-)

Below a few pix of the lovely pie, I just took a last bite of my slice for the evening ;-)

Can you smell the sweet apples and cinnamon?

and wait for it..... yes, a hint of nutmeg and kardamon!

and the sweet and crisp crust, that falls apart when it enters your mouth!

Needless to say it was fabulous, there's still half left, which is a wonder ;-)

Got wonderful presents, a book I wanted to read after Randy raved about it in her blog. The book is a cookbook and it's called Ratio. It claims that if you know the ratio's of an item you can bake/cook anything. Wonderful book!

Another book that was high on my wish list was about pet photography. I have this beautiful digital Sony camera and it's still so difficult to photograph pets properly so that it turns out nice. They’re always on the move, and especially black dogs are difficult. it's something I want to specialize in and I hope that in the future I will be able to go out and offer my photographing services to shelters so that a pet can have a better chance to be adopted. A wonderful picture says more that thousands words, shelters often don't have to funds to pay a photographer and volunteering to do that is something I could do.

Another wish was a Jamie Oliver shaker ;-) a cool nifty gadget for all my fresh herbs!

Than this morning I got a belated present but oh so welcome, a secret wish I had fpr a couple of years. I wanted a immersion blender. Not just an immersion blender no, I wanted the Swiss sturdy, professional Bamix Blender. And that is just what I got this morning. I'm over the moon with it, I'm obvious a gadget person if you couldn't tell by now ;-) It chops, it blends, it grates, purees, it even chops raw or cooked meat! It's stainless steel and I wanted that because plastic discolors pretty quick when making pasta sauce!

I can finally make my own mayonnaise and wonderful vinaigrettes!

Had a wonderful easy day, W. took the day off and we went out for breakfast and after that shopping for bathroom tiles for the renovation. Found some wonderful tiles the minute we walked into the store. Will post some pix tomorrow.
Had an easy take-out dinner in the evening, I was pooped because of all unusual activities.

Now I have another year in front of my, my biggest wish is of course improving my health and being able to fly to my daughter in the Netherlands. I miss her more than anything.

Will work again very hard this year to make it happen, please send good vibes, karma and healing thoughts that this time I will succeed and beat the odds!

# # #

2009-09-26T00:55:00.001-07:00

Today, 72F or 23C sunny, a nice fall day.

'See you all in a week' was my last entry. That was my intention and than life got in the way. We had a lovely vacation at the beach, I wrote it all down in my blog The PacificBeach 2009. Hop on over there if you haven't read it yet, photos are up too so there's proof we actually went. ;-)

Back at home I needed time to recover from the vacation, sounds weird I know but that's who we 'chronics' are. Other people come home rested and full of energy, we come home exhausted and drained because we did too much while on vacation.

And than we had a heat wave, not fun. I didn't move to Oregon to have yearly heat waves. If I wanted that I would have stayed in California. I wanted cool, nice mild summers with every now and than some nice showers. Did no happen. I'm going to ask my money back.

On that sunny Monday morning when mercury in our normal supposedly very mild temperature wise NorthWest Pacific town was rising to a ridiculous 102F and our heat pump decided to brake down.
I woke up that morning wondering if I had a bad dream because I was all sweaty, wet and nauseated, until I noticed the room was also very warm and humid. I jumped(*cough*, no really ;-)) out of bed and held my hand above one of the central air vents. Warm air was blowing out . This could have 2 causes,
1 - my husband had set the thermostat accidentally to 'heat' instead of cold or
2 - the pump just broke down and was blowing the warm hot air in.

After a check I decided it was number 2.

I panicked and mailed W. an upset email. 2 weeks before the maintenance company sent us a brochure claiming it would be a good idea before summer to have a air-conditioner tune up. I thought so too, after all I am home all day, the central air is on all day if it brakes down I'm not a happy puppy. It's like a car, you don't wait until you car brakes down but have regular check ups. But W. was sure it was a scam and just a brutal way to make some money over the backs of stupid consumers.
Well.... look who was stupid now hmm? It was me, who had to sit in the f*cking heat all day!
Funny how quickly a house heats up if you have no central air no matter how crappy it is. Within a couple of hours it was just as hot inside and it was out. Luckily after W.'s refusal to tune up the air I purchased a wind blower on Amazon thinking it somehow could be useful to have a powerful fan like unit on hand, just in case.

I turned on the fan, did a 'miss wet t-shirt contest' on my own and sat in front of the fan in my wet t-shirt. It really helped to cool down. Of course all companies I called to come out and have a look at the heat pump where busy for days. The first appointment I could get was Wednesday afternoon. That would mean 3 days in this scorching heat! And not just me but also my pets, Lotte our oldest dog is 14 really had problems breathing and staying cool. I hosed her of every hour to keep her cool. W. took mr. puppy-dog to doggy day care where is was cool and where they have a pool, lucky bastards! W. himself went to his employer in his air cooled building and I was left at home on my own. *boohoo*
I did pretty well the first 2 days but at the end of day 2 I was getting really ill feelings, my heart started beating irregular, I didn't sweat anymore, my skin felt cool but it was like I was burning up from the inside. I couldn't pee anymore no matter how much water with electrolytes I drank, my body decided to hold on to it. I couldn't sleep that night, the whole house was like an oven and we had clocked that day at 108F. My body was swollen like a pregnant whale and that's how I felt like too. I'm sure all you ladies know what I mean!

To make a long story short, after the guys came out and had one look at the heat pump he decided it was beyond repair and we needed a new one. That would take weeks. first we had to decide what we wanted, the heat pump needed to be replaced and also the furnace. Than it needed to be ordered and put into place.

Luckily we know not to make decisions when under stress or in emergency situations and we decided to move to a hotel where it would be cool and we could think things over. There were few hotels to be found as many other people had the same ide who were out of AC. I did find a nice hotel where the pups were welcome as well and we spend a few nice cool days there.

The estimate for a new heating/cooling system was about the price of a new car $16,000 - $20,000 That was a shocker. And that didn't even include the features I wanted like HEPA filtration and zone heating/cooling. To me it has always been ridiculous why I would need to cool/heat the whole house if I only use one room. So zone heating was high on my list. We thought about it over the weekend in the hotel, decided to hunt for a portable air conditioner so I could at least cool my office/room where I also have my hospital bed and I could sleep there.
And we decided to ask a second opinion from another company on fixing the heat pump. I didn't see the point in spending a 20,000 for a system that didn't include my features.

The company that came out took a peek and what happened? They repaired the heat pump for $400 within. All this stress, pain and waiting for nothing just because a company wanted to sell a new system over the back of people in stress. I should sue them! ;-)

All this stress and my body overheating had it's toll on my health and I now need a wheelchair indoors as well. We discovered that the doors are too small to let my chair through, the sink and counter tops too high, the bathroom too small and so we wil start a renovation. The doors will get wider, cooker will be lowered, and we will make from 2 small bathrooms 1 big one. It means going from a 3 bed/2 bathroom house to a 3 bed/1 bath house which will devalue the house probably but we see no other options.

It will be great shopping for tiles and fixtures and I'm looking forward being able to sit in the shower and shower on my own!

So that's my update for now. I'll try to keep up now that I'm a bit settled again and fall is around the corner. My favorite time of the year! Love the colors of the trees, the smell, the crisp air, burning fires and hot cocoa!

# # #

2009-07-11T13:28:00.002-07:00

We're off to spend a week on the Pacific Coast, the Washington State side. Hop over to my vacation blog at The Pacific Coast 2009 where I will keep a blog of the interesting stuff we come across at the Washington State coast but also the fun days we will spend at the Oregonian coast.

See you all in a week!

Be well, be healthy and most of all be good ;-)

# # #

2009-07-10T01:09:00.003-07:00

The Making of The Porch.

Ever since our first move to the US in 1999 to beautiful absolutely gorgeous and warm and friendly Point Reyes Station in CA, I wanted a house with a porch.

You know, we all have our dreams, and that was mine. Not only a porch but some acres with some sheep and a couple of Border Collies to go with them. ;-)

That was 9 years ago, life got in the way as so often happens but I kept the dream alive and kept hoping on one of those 'one day miracles'. But recently I came to the conclusion that dreams don't automagically come true, you have to make them happen. With the recent housing burst I didn't see us move to the boonies real soon to occupy some beautiful farm house with a porch and those acres and sheep and the Border Collies. Lord knows it's hard enough to _sell_ your home now-a-days let alone buy a new one with a new mortgage.
Our neighbor's home sold after being on the market for 2 1/2 years and 70.000 less than it was valued at.

So I kept thinking about that porch and thought well, if we can't get to that house with that porch why don't we build one ourselves? And that was what we did.
It took 5 days to dry(concrete) and build and now it's DONE! And we're ecstatic about it. It worked out so well! When I look at it I can't even remember what it used to look like. It has definitely increased the curb appeal of our home. Now all we need is some nice furniture, a rocking chair and some decorations and we will be the envy of the neighborhood. All the neighbors already have come by to look at it and all approved of it, wanting to have their morning coffee with us on the porch ;-)

We found a wonderful contractor, Scott, he's a real gem, knows his stuff and knows how to customize something to what you want. I'm so happy we choose him instead aof one of those porch and deck builder companies. Scott was really happy to work on it and was proud of what he made and how he was able to think outside the box with us to find solutions for some problems. I especially like the trellis he made, it's light and airy and at the same time provides shadow that is much needed in the afternoon.
In fact we are so happy with Scott that he's going to do another project for us, the installing of some light tubes. We have some very dark area's in the house and a light tube can instantly let light in.

Here is how it looked like before we installed the porch:

Please click the images to see a larger version!

And here is the after photo:

Doesn't it look stunning? can you see me sitting there with a nice espresso, the dogs and my daily newspaper? Watching the world go by?
I'm so happy with it!

Below is a slide show of the making of the porch as it happened.

Tomorrow we'll be off for a few days to the Washington coast, we rented a nice top floor condo right at the beach. The beach is leash free for dogs so they're going to have a blast and so will we. Some much needed relaxation, books, music and good food!
Will take my laptop with me so I can blog and upload photos, we will not have Internet in the condo but the general clubhouse has free wifi. We will have someone staying at the house watching the evil pixie catz and taking care of business.

We'll be at Westport Beach Escapes.(click)

Isn't it beautiful? ;-) Sleep with windows open to hear and smell the surf, aahhhhhh, wonderful!

# # #

2009-07-02T14:50:00.008-07:00

Today it is 90 F or 32 C. It's blazing hot for the Pacific NorthWest. Lets hope it cools down quickly to it's normal temperatures again.

I'm back! Yes I know it's been a while but I needed some time to regroup. My beautiful baby girl got married and I couldn't be there, that threw me off for a while. It's every mothers dream to see her daughter walking down in a beautiful wedding gown with the happiest smile ever on her face and I had to miss that. They had a videographer make video so we could watch it afterwards which is nice of course but still it hurts. Rotten illness, I was upset with myself for quite sometime like it was my fault for not healing quicker but alas, there was not much I could do. We now hope I will be well enough to witness the birth of my grandchild whenever that may be ;-)

At the day of the wedding we turned on our iChat(Apple's video chat, it was night for me of course and she had her laptop perched on the pillows on her bed so I could be part of the dressing ritual. She had friends helping her dress and we chatted along while they fastened the 80 small buttons on the back of her corset ;-) It was a strange and yet wonderful experience, strange because it felt like I was watching a reality show, like Big Brother or so. It felt like really really strange....... but I'm thankful that it was possible at all. I didn't want to miss it for anything.

She did her make up and hair herself of course, she's a licensed beautician, she knew exactly what and how she wanted it. She asked me to send her some kind of fluid that kept her make-up stay on the whole day and looking fresh. It wasn't available in the Netherlands so I send it to her, it worked really well, she looked stunning all through the day.

She looked absolutely gorgeous in her wedding gown, by far the prettiest bride I have ever seen, of course I might be a bit biased ;-)
She didn't know what her husband to be would look like, he kept his suit a secret and he went to his family home to get dressed and picked her up later. So that was a surprise, but he did very well buying a suit without her and look very handsome and modern. ;-)
They sent me 3 photo's yesterday that she got in advance from the photographer and here they are, don't they look wonderful together?

Please click the images to see a larger version!

Lydia and René in front of their American car

Walking through the beautiful town of Klundert in the province of North-Brabant in the Netherlands, where they got married in the beautiful old City Hall.

The wonderful old City Hall of the small Dutch town Klundert.

After the official part they had a small reception in the restaurant Bellevue in another small Dutch town, Willemstad.

Look at René doesn't he look handsome in his wonderful stylish suit? And what about the bride? Isn't she the most stunning bride you have ever seen? We think so!

We will have to wait for the other photo's and the video. When it arrives I will post more photo's because we both are mighty proud of course!

After a day of rest they went on their honeymoon to Aruba which was a wedding present from us and they had a wonderful exhilarating time, enjoyed the island, their beach and each other.
Hop over to their web site if you want to check out their honeymoon photo's and their blog, they have the most stunning photo's, makes you wish you could go there too!

Well now you're all up to date, next will be the report of the making of the porch in our mansion ;-)
# # #

2009-06-01T01:35:00.001-07:00

Art work by the wonderful Vlad.

Had a lovely breakfast on the deck in the back yard, pups playing cats outside, birds singing and we're having a nice shadowy place to sit and read the Sunday newspaper.

That's the thing I missed most when living in France, the Sunday newspaper. The nice thick, fat newspaper, with all kinds of interesting sections and loads and loads of inserts with ads from stores and coupons!

So had great coffee and the newspaper. because I have been so depressed about this whole isolation thing( read my other medical blog myalgicme, if you want to know the scoop.) W. suggested to go to the Powells bookstore so I could browse and browse and browse while he had coffee in the café and worked on a powerpoint presentation. Normally I shouldn't go out(the flu thing) but with the wonderful weather we guessed all people would be outdoors, and we were right. It was very quiet and the store was nice and cool. The new Powells in Beaverton has nice big aisles where I can easily drive through with my wheelchair. The old Powells has more ambiance but also small steps and stairs.

Powells Beaverton, OR

It was sooooooooooo good to be out of the house for a while! It lifted my spirits even more ;-) I bought some nice books, 3 cooking literature, a large herbal and natural healing book, an very expensive Digital Photography book by publisher DK and photographer Tom Ang and I love everything DK, it always has gorgeous lay-outs and beautiful pictures.

Anyway I stimulated the local economy and had a blast. I love to be surrounded by books! In the end it wore me out though, I wanted to go to the check-out and instead of using the backward handle I used the forward and collided with a book case that contained aluminum water bottles.

All went down in one horrible cacophony and I flushed like I was in menopause! Oh my gosh was that embarrassing! Luckily the store was nearly empty and the people were very nice reassuring me all was fine but still...... it was embarrassing!

I quickly went home and could laugh about myself, I had so much fun and it was the best afternoon I had in a long time! Wish all days could be like this! ;-)

# # #

2009-05-31T00:25:00.002-07:00

Today was 92 F or 33.3 C! Can you say Hot Hot Hot? Thank God for central air!

It has been a while since my last entry, Memorial Day was here and that always throws me off, it takes me days to recover from a long weekend like that. Before that, isolation got to me and instead of reaching out and writing about it I draw back into my own private world.

Anyway, I finally took the bull by the horns and accepted the fact that we will not be moving homes anytime soon(not with these house prices!) and that if I want a house with a porch I will have to build one myself! Not with my own hands of course ha ha! Although many many moons ago I wouldn't have to think twice about that, I just did it.
Our neighbor's house has been on the market for 2 years and it finally sold last week. I don't know the details but my guess it is was for way less than they would have liked.

So we considered our options and as things go in our household we considered and considered but no action was taken. Last Monday I decided that it was time and jumped to Angieslist to check out the best contractors for the job.

Luckily we have a large area in front of the house that is suitable to build a porch.

This pic, taken last December when we had a pack of snow, shows the small front porch we already have and the 2 front windows, the right one is W. 's office the left is my office. The new porcht is going to run the whole length of the house which is 21 feet and will be about 6 feet wide with a white railing and ..... a trellis! (for my Dutch readers a trellis is a 'pergola'). The roof sticks out from the house and attached to that will be the trellis.

It will look something like this:

But not with those columns ;-) and no stairs either. ;-) Just wanted to show the railing and the trellis.
We choose nice composed material, that needs no maintenance and is surprisingly in the color of the siding. A greenish/gray for the deck, for the railing and trellis we choose white that goes nicely with the front doors and the windows.
It's going to be great, I can already imagine sitting there with my morning espresso or afternoon cuppa, evening coffee, in my rocking chair and the nice porch furniture I will need to find. I'd love to have some nice Adirondack chairs I think they will look great.
We'll just sit there and watch the world go by and have more contact with neighbors. At the back it's nice but isolated, very private, which can be a good thing but every now and than you just want to sit and watch and have some human contact.

The price was very reasonable and with this economy they are all looking for work and had competitive pricing, they can start next week and it will be finished in 3 days!

Will keep you posted how things are going and post photo's.
Next project will be the installation of tube skylights, the hallway is very dark because there are no windows, a few of those tube skylights will open it up and let the light in.

The very thought of realizing a small part of my American dream(having a home with a porch) has perked me up and I'm so looking forward to it!

# # #

2009-05-18T23:34:00.005-07:00

75F or 24C, sunshine but raining at the moment, pouring to be exact at 23:38 or 11:38 PM

The weekend promises to be in the 80's again!

Last week I was on a roll and started my experiment of baking with Weetabix. Weetabix is my favorite breakfast cereal. it's better known in the UK but foodies at Trader Joes will know it also. it's a very healthy yummy crispy cruspy bar. It's got 95% of Organic Wholegrain Wheat, so it is very easy to bake with.

I searched for some recipes and decided to use 2 and adjusted them to our taste. They turned out pretty well and very tasty!

The first one is a recipe for Weetabix Muffins that I used to make Weetabix scones. I don't have a suitable muffin pan but do have a nice silicone scone pan for making small scones.

The taste was very nice I used espresso to flavor them with a hint of vanilla. I always wanted to bake some scones with espresso and these ones will definitely be on my regular list. Half of them had cinnamon bits in them and the other half brown sugar on top which made them sticky. I used milk and yogurt which also gave them an nice texture.

The second batch I made in the Weetabix experiment where crunchy bars. They had an interesting consistency, soft with crunchy bits in the inside and a nice choc taste.(made them with cocoa powder).

They were a bit crumbly after a day so I might need to adjust the moisture a bit. They were a hit with W. also and the dogs went after the crumbs like crazy, of course we shared one with them, what's the use of baking if you can't share hmm? Anyway, they were gone before I knew it and I definitely make a new batch soon.

Next I will bake the scones with ginger and try my hand again at the fruit loaf, the fruit loaf requires soaking the Weetabix and fruit overnight and has been one of my favorites.

Project for next week will be this recipe I found about making Blondies(instead of Brownies) with white beans and lemon bars with silky tofu!

# # #

If I Made a Commercial for Trader Joe's

2009-05-10T16:39:00.001-07:00

I came across this video of my favorite store and thought I would post it here as a tribute. ;-)

Have fun watching it!

2009-05-01T23:42:00.002-07:00

64 F or 18 C t the moment at 11:58 PM or 22:58.

What a hectic day today! Had a lovely visit from the mobile groomer guy, he's such a nice guy and always in for a chat. Real nice person, sometimes you just come across people like that, who are just real nice. Not nice because they have to but from the inside out. ;-) Of course our cat walk was the conversation starter that it is. He was amazed by it and quite frankly everyone is. We're already so used to it but I guess for people coming into the house for the first time it is a shock to see a cat walk high up in the air with cat condo's attached to the ceiling. We're already thinking of expanding to the kitchen and into the sun room.

In any case Lotte loved him and he did a great job with her. She looks a lot younger again. The cute little face is back instead of the old dog that she looked like.
Below is Lotte before her make-over.

Below Lotte after her make-over! ;-)

How cute is she? ;-)

What we discussed today was of course the horrible attack on the Queen of the Netherlands and the Royal family, where 5 people died and 8 are wounded.
It's sad to see this happening in the country we still call home, or home country.
However we do notice that we have become a bit resilient against this kind of violence, not a week goes by here in the US or some kind of lunatic feels he or she has to shoot a class full of students, shoot people outside a disco, kill his whole family, kills people attending a church. It's not that we consider this as normal behavior but still, it happens so often you build up a kind of tolerance against horrible news like that. If you don't you will become depressed and anxious.

It's horrible what happened in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, but not less horrible was the shooting of innocent teens in Portland here on an exchange program and celebrating their stay by going to a disco. A disturbed person went out and shot 2 girls to death and wounded 7 others.

Not far from us, horrible things happen on a daily base. What worries me is that it seems to happen so often, people seems to want to make themselves immortal by acting out like that. I can't imagine what must have gone through their mind before deciding that would be a good idea. Could they be stopped somewhere in the process if we were able to recognize disturbing signs earlier? Probably not, most are typed as being loners, quiet and not very social. I do recognize that though, I too am an introvert and more than often wonder about the fact that people are not able to read me better. Apparently are introverts masters at disguising that. Worrisome though.

I do hope people in the Netherlands realize that celebrating Queensday has nothing to do with the act of one disturbed person. As Dutch citizens you have a right to celebrate one day in the year that you're Dutch and proud of it, don't let one lunatic take that away from you! It's an unique festival of being a child again and play funny games, drink lots of beer and visit the flea markets! Not that Dutch children drink beer but you get the point. ;-)

Well, that's it for today, W. cooked us dinner of grilled salmon, grilled asparagus and gnocchi with spinach. YUM! Weekend forecast is rain rain and rain or as we say in Oregon, liquid sunshine. ;-)

Have a good one!

# # #

2009-05-01T00:03:00.002-07:00

52 F or 11 C at the moment which is 11:28 PM or 23:28 depending what system you use. My iMac screen says 23:28 because that's what I'm used to.

I call this blog my daily blog except is hasn't been too daily lately. If you follow my M.E blog you will know I have been down in the dumps again after a dr. visit. Where did the time go that dr.'s would make you better, cure you instead of making you even more ill after a visit ;-) Ah.. the good ol' days, when you also still believed in Santa Claus.;-)

Besides all this I have been up to not much so not much to share either. Days pass without anything noticeable happening. I'm still looking for that contractor to build my porch and haven't found the energy to go after it but maybe this weekend will be a good time. Today was busy with ordering stuff online, if you're chronically ill and have a non-functioning immune system you need to be very careful with any new virus that comes along and that might swipe you out. This H1N1 influenza is a nasty one for people with already bad immune systems and my physician has given me the advice to stay away from public places, which means house arrest for the time being but one can't be too careful. Tonight the Oregon University announced it will close it's Western campus due to the influenza being discovered there. If it's discovered at such a large institution with so many children attending it will spread rapidly.

I took a good look at my homeopathic box and saw I had to update it with the most necessary solutions, if push comes to shove I don't want to have to scramble for homeopathic meds I want to be able to grab something if needed. It makes me feel prepared for anything. I was so lucky to located a box of N99 and N95 masks also, I saw them sold out online at many places already.
Ordered cat and doggy food in bulk from Amazon and K9cuisine.com a wonderful company with healthy dog and cat food and free shipping with FedEx and pretty fast, they ship the same day! Excellent service. Tomorrow will order groceries etc. Unfortunately Alberstons stopped home delivery so we now have only Safeway and NewSeasonsMarket left, that's okay we're lucky to still have home delivery at all I think!

I have all my supplements and meds updated and in stock so I'm good to go ;-)

On other home related news Fynn puppy has been promoted to twice a week doggy day care because he was such a good social and well behaved boy! At the daycare they take photo's every day it's fun to see them play.
Here are some pics of Fynn in Doggy Day Care.

Our Lotte will have her spa day tomorrow, the mobile groomers will be here at 10:00 AM to give her her summer cut. Will post before and after pics!

# # #

2009-04-16T14:56:00.004-07:00

Today 57 F or 13 C. Cold wind feels like 37 F or 3 C ! But the sun is out so we can't complain too much!

It's been a while since I updated my blog, if you read my other blogs you'll know I have been busy with a litter of Border Collie pups we had in rescue and on my Myalgic blog I record and whine and sigh about my illness. i have been very ill the last few months and really couldn't do much, couldn't use my hand and arms as they were numb, so no hobbies and artwork or even crocheting which I so much looked forward to! I started a afghan a couple of months ago and than the side effects of my medication set in and the nerves in my arms and hands got pinched and they became numb.

It's really devastating and depressing if you have a chronic illness and art or hobbies are the only thing that give your life still meaning and you can't do that anymore. I became really depressed about the whole thing and even typing was a problem. I have acupuncture since 2 weeks and it feels like I can do a little bit here and there again. I redesigned some blogs, designed a blog for my daughter who is getting married in June, jaaaaaaayyyyy! And now it's time to start writing daily again so I can keep track on what is happening and how am I doing and also keep my friends and family informed.

Spring is slow here in Oregon this year, it's almost May and the trees start to show a bit of their blossom but it's so fragile a winter storm puts an end to the blossom very quickly. I desperately long for some sunnier days that we can sit outside and be entertained by our new pup. yes we kept a pup from the litter we rescued, he's adorable and his name is Fynn.

Here is a slide show of his photos, isn't he the cutest ever?

He has been a wonderful addition to our family and provides us with lots of laughter and joy. We have a reason to get out now again, to the doggy park and do other fun stuff. Him coming into our lives was meant to be. ;-)

We're planning to build a porch in front of the house, under the bedroom windows with a white fence so we can sit comfortably outside and have more contact with the neighborhood. I'm now on a quest to find a decent contractor, one who knows what he's doing! I'm very excited about the whole project and think it's going to lookm wonderful. I always wanted a home with an old fashioned porch and some comfy chairs, geraniums om the fence, and a nice cuppa tea and a good book on the side. What more can one want? ;-)

# # #

2009-03-30T14:46:00.002-07:00

Today 42 F or 5 C. Still cold, rainy and generally somber weather. The trees do start to show their pink blossoms and with that allergies arrive! Yesterday we have hail as big as jelly beans, strange strange weather, I hope our community farm is doing well and that we will have a good harvest this year despite the horrible spring.

I did a spring cleaning and redecorated my blog. Am very happy with, looks great and fun if I may say so.

2009-03-09T16:19:00.005-07:00

Today 32° F or 1° C.

Brrrrrrr Cold!

Snow and hail on this March day!
As you can see I have done a major overhaul of this blog, new design, new start. The past year I have been too ill to even consider writing other than my personal journal.

It was a for me very traumatic year, my dearly beloved, my heart and soul dog Gwen was diagnosed with Lymphoma cancer and died on May 8th in my arms.

2008-12-25T01:59:00.002-08:00

2007-07-13T15:10:00.001-07:00

Today 86° F or 30° C

Took me a few days to get used to these new and hot temperatures. The last few days were horrible. We reached a 102° F or 39° C. Not fun, thank god for airco. So no morning espresso under the tree for the first time in a year. The dogs were very confused with this new schedule and kept running to the door to the sun room aka 'thesauna' to go outside. But overnight we went from 102 to 86 again, my joints are killing me because of these temperature switches but the cooler temps are fine with me although 86 is not exactly cool of course ;-)

We had a fun weekend, we went to the Oregon Lavender Festival, a festival were participating farmers open up their farms and share their harvest, you can either u-pick or buy already cut. Of course u-pick is much more fun ;-)
We visited a couple of farms and than went to the town of Yamhill, the center of the festival, there were artisans, music, BBQ, food and drink, and of course a market where you could buy all things lavender. At the food stall we bought a lunch box for a picnic, it contained a sandwich of your choice, veggies, lavender cookies, a bottle of water and a bag of chips.

The drive from our home through the 'boonies' was spectacular, some roads were just dirt roads but the views were gorgeous. We often forget that we do live in a valley and just a few minutes from our home we are in farm and wine country in the hills.
Mt.Hood and Mt. Bachelor were clearly visible from our drive, majestic with their white snowy tops in the clear blue sky.

The first farm we visited was our CSA farm(Community Supported Agriculuture), the farm Gaining Ground Farm of Mike and Jill Paine who provide us each week with wonderful fresh veggies, goat cheese and eggs.

They were on our way so we thought we would stop by to say hello and see where our veggies actually come from. Unfortunately no-one was at home, of course they were all busy in the fields. We did meet the dogs though who were happy to see us ;-)

So off we went to the first Lavender farm a couple of farms up on the road, the Wayward Winds Lavender Farm. We had to park in the field were a lovely young girl provide us with a shuttle up the hill to the farm. There were lovely lavender fields, all different kinds, chairs and tables under the giant trees and we could buy lavender lemonade, lavender ice tea and lavender ice.

Different kinds of lavender

The bees were busy buzzing and doing their job to make lavender honey, the atmosphere was very zen-like and I bought some lavender ice-tea and sat under the tree while W. took it upon him to cut a bunch of lavender. They had tie-wraps and you could cut as much lavender as you could fit in a tie-wrap for $5.
I took a wonderful photo(below) of the result of W.'s hard labor. Click on the image to hop over to my Lavender Festival Album to see them all. Photo's were all taken with my lovely new iPhone. :-)

W. brought 2 lavender ice-cream sandwiches back with him, which tasted very good but not much like lavender. The ice-tea did very much taste like lavender and the combination with the mint was very successful.
After we were rested we took the shuttle downhill to the car and drove to Yamhill to pick up a lunch box and were than off to the next farm on our list the WillaKenzie Farm, which not only had lavender but also Alpacas.

The Willakenzie farm was huge with rows and rows of lavender, the smell combined with the warm weather took me straight back to France, the Provence.

The owners directed us to a shaded area with wooden benches where we ate our lunch. It was so nice to just sit out there and enjoy the beautiful view which did resembled France, we suspected to hear people speaking French and also unpacking their lunches at any moment. ;-)

It was idyllic!

The kind of 'sad' looking trees you see in the front are called Weeping Sequoia's! ;-)

For me this was enough fun, I was getting tired and was ready to go home, but before we went we had to se the Alpacas. They were so gorgeous and funny, they just had a haircut and all looked so happy. Funny things is with Alpacas that you really can see that they all have different personalities and all look different. Their wool is absolutely the softest you have ever felt. One of my big dreams was to have a few acres one day and raise Alpacas, I think they make wonderful farm animals and pets.

Aren't they cute?

We bravely got into the car, which was extremely hot and had a nice drive home. All in all we had been out till 4:00 PM, the dogs were happy to see us and I was happy to be home again and grateful that I was able to go out and enjoy that wonderful day. Unfortunately there are less and less days that I can go out for that long period of time but when I can I'm thankful. Of course I had to pay for it the next days with extreme exhaustion and brain fog and pain but it was worth it.

2007-06-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

72° F or 20° C at the moment.

Very exciting day yesterday, the day started out very depressed, or I was depressed not the day. Just fed up with being ill, feeling horrible and it pain 24/7.
But in the evening W. took me shopping and we went to the wonderful shopping center called Bridgeport, it's got nice small stores with lots of cafe's and terraces. We went to the AT&T store because as you all of course know yesterday was the launch of the long awaited iPhone and of course I have one. I heard horror stories about 13hour line ups and people camping for 2 days in front of the store. But we just could walk in, no line nothing and walked out 10 minutes later with an 8 Gig iPhone. Nothing lifts a girl's mood better than some retail therapy. My taste is a bit different, I don't shop for clothes or make-up, you can't make me any happier that take me shopping for a gadget. I looooove my gadgets.

Everything you've heard about the iPhone is true, it's gorgeous, it's absolutely stunning. Worked like a charm with my home wifi network, I can now browse the web, make calls, watch a video, read my email, wherever I am. I'm such a lucky girl!

Stunning piece of hard/software!

I can now sit on my bench in the yard, drinking my morning espresso, throw the dog's frisbee, read the newspaper and if want to, read some email or do some shopping.
Below is a pic of my bench where I drink my coffee every morning, it's under a giant pine tree that shelters me from the rain and sun. I sat there in the winter, fall, spring, year round. Every morning I will drink my coffee there. Unless it's raining cats and dogs, than Gwen, the dog, doesn't want to to outside ;-)

My Coffee 'Klatsch' bench, with the KittyPenthouse and Nyx in her hammock. ;-)
The dangerous item with the red handles you see lying on the bench is my 'gopher'. I use it to pick up the frisbee so I don't keel over and faint every time I bend over. Very handy item!

Bench from the other side, with a view of the Kittywalk and Kitty Penthouse.

2007-06-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

85° F or 30° C today. Tomorrow we expect 72° a drop of 13 degrees again. Did I already mention that a wacky barometric pressure drives me nuts? Guess I did. Makes me cranky, achy all over like you've been hit by a truck, and extremely tired, Not just tired from exercise or so but really wary bone exhausted. Like the whole world is pressing on your shoulders.

I've decided that to give more meaning to my life that it's necessary to focus my creativity on something else than creating drop dead gorgeous print work. Since I'm not allowed to do that anyway because of visa restrictions it's not good to obsess about that.

I've been busy designing metal jewelry, and for me that's the most important and exciting time. Planning what to make, gathering the materials, can you find the right stuff etc. It's also exciting because I will be firing metal for the first time, so I'm looking forward to that. Some people ask me who I will sell it to, I guess that doesn't matter much to me, I always have a problem of parting with something I designed, I guess I get too attached to it. So I'll just design a collection without selling it. It's the journey that counts ;-0

I'll also be making and designing Prayer Beads. Prayer Beads were known in the earlier days as rosaries with the Catholics and Malas with the Buddhist. Islam and other faiths still use them as prayer beads.
The ones I will be designing are more Spirit or Pagan beads, you can use them to focus your attention on when meditating or as remembrance object for a special episode or occasion in your life. You can wear them as a necklace or bracelet or hang them in your home on the wall or small remembrance altar. These beads always have some sort of symbolic presence, like numbers, colors or the form of the beads.
A wonderful example of spirit beads is this one from Susan Simon. Click here for her website.

Another kind are these Prayer Beads called the Evil Eye Rosary from Treasures By Tasci Click for the website.

I can vaguely see the direction I'm heading with this 'giving meaning' to a meaningful life ;-) Will keep you'll posted on the progress of the bead project.

2007-06-22T23:17:00.001-07:00

58°F or 15°C at the moment.
If you look at the US weather map you'll see that we're together with SF and Seattle are in the yellow, that is cooler area. Fine with me, the sun was out today and white fluffy clouds drifted by.
7 years ago we lived in Sacramento, CA, the desert of California, it is so hot there you have to drive with two fingers on your steering wheel otherwise you'll burn your hands. ;-) Living up here is a breath of fresh air, I really missed the seasons in Sacramento, there are only 2seasons there, summer and winter. Over here we have the beautiful red and yellow fall colors when the weather starts to change. Gorgeous!

Had my lovely espresso on the deck, I love my espresso machine. Nothing beats having a good strong espresso in the morning to wake you up. The cats played in their kitty condo in the yard. For those of you who do not know us so well, we have 2 cats, a special breed called Devon Rex. They have the most soft curly fur you will ever feel and they do not shed. Their faces look like little pixies and some think they look like gremlins. Some people hate them and think they're ugly, we think they're beautiful, unique and so loving. They're really 'in your face' cats, they like to 'help' with whatever you are doing. They're not so talkative as Siamese but they do chat. ;-) They're extremely agile and active. We have build a cat ramp through the house so they can run all over it high up in the air.

The black and white cat on the right is Nyx, she the female and left is Luke the male. Luke just arrived when this pic was taken(last year) and they're getting to know eachother ;-)

Where aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrreeeeeee you? Chicken huh?

Half an hour later, already best buddies, and never stopped being that, they love each other so much it's so cute ;-)

Luke 'helping' his dad. Whatyadoin'?

They're too cute for words, they enriched our lives so much. They give love unconditionally. Because they have no undercoat and thus catch a cold easily they can't be outside too much, but when the sun is out they love to sunbathe in their kittywalk. To see a larger version click on this photo. The others are as small as you see them.

My day was relatively peaceful and quiet, the grocery delivery person came. Yes we're so lucky that we live in an area where we can shop for groceries online at either the Safeway or Albertsons. Excellent for people like me who can't get out of the house and still need to do their weekly grocery shopping.

We shop at either store for staples like paper and pantry stuff but for real food we go to Trader Joes or the WholeFoods, plus that we have a share in a farm here close by that deliver ashare of the harvest all through the summer and fall. We already had some lovely strawberries, lettuce, kale, bokchoy, French radiches, sugar snaps, plus we have a weekly fresh goat cheese and eggs.
How much more healthier can you get huh?

#.#.#

2007-06-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

Bleh....
The exciting discussion I was gong to have with myself about the meaning of the the word 'meaningful' will have to wait. Today was a bleh day. Barometric changes affect my health and all of a sudden we went from 62 to 90 today. My legs are killing me, I was in so much pain last night I couldn't sleep even after 2 pain meds I woke up an hour later crying in pain. Lately when I get up in the night the soles of my feet are numb and I stumble so much, I have blue marks all of my body from bumping into things. I guess I will have to go see my dr. and get tested for MS. I have been putting it off because I'm scared to death even thinking about it, I really don't need this on top of everything else.

So a I wasn't in a very meaningful state today, tried to get on with my day as normal as possible, routine is essential. Had some lovely espresso outside on the bench in the yard while reading the paper and throwing Gwenny's frisbee. All the while biting my tongue not to cry from the pain in my legs. The poop-a-scoop girl came by today and we talked, she has MS as well and is doing well at the moment but expects a relapse every day. I did my exercise on the vibration plate with weights and everything but I don't think it helped. Finally at 2:00 I gave up and went to bed to have my siesta and medication.

Tonight went out with W. to the craft store and bought my supply of beads and tools. Had a wonderful simple dinner at Quiznos on the terrace. Now I'm getting ready for bed and hope tomorrow I will be in a more enlightened state of mind to amuse you all with my unique views and opinions. For now ta-da and have a good one.

PS: for those of you who suffer from grammar and style OCD and and seeing red because of my also unique use of grammar and style, please remember that English is not native language. Now take a deep breath and let it go.... see? That wasn't so hard was it?

2007-06-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

Today, seemed like a very good day to finally start this blog. Don’t know why, just an irrational thought. I have a lot of those :-)
I’ve been dragging starting to write for months, wanted to change the look, than the layout, the header, finally I just settled for the default.

There’s something scary about a blank page, the first word you write ruins practically the beauty of the white space. So it has to be something meaningful, I pondered, it has to make a statement.

But it didn’t come to me, so here it is, just a start.

And that how life is, isn't it? It starts somewhere and along the way it becomes meaningful. Sometimes. Not always though. Many times you have to work very hard to make it meaningful, so sometimes you succeed and many times you fail.

But as many books that you will read on how to create a meaningful and productive life will tell you its the journey that counts not the destination. I can already tell you now that some days that statement irritates the hell out of me, but when I'm in a more peaceful relaxing, meditative state of mind I will be the first to nod and to smile knowingly. Hypocrite that I am ;-)

As of lately my life has become less meaningful, I really didn't know what to do with it. I no longer have a professional life. There are 2 reasons for that 1. Some government people who are paying my disability allowance declared me a 100% disabled because I have a rotten illness and 2. visa limitations here in the US of A prohibited me from contributing to the US tax system and to our household income. In other words people on a non-immigrant visa in the USA, accompanying their spouses are not allowed to work. So in a way me being disabled is a good thing, I don't have to get annoyed with the US regulations that forbids, mostly women, to lead meaningful productive professional lives. Saving me a lot of stress and the need to argue with clueless bureaucratic nobodies.

In the beginning when they tell you your will receive a 100% disability pension you think, 'yeah, whatever'. Somehow you don't connect the dots of receiving a disability pension with being disabled yourself. You still wake up in the morning thinking that someone has played a big joke on you and everything is going to be fine, again, somehow, sometime, one day, any day now, really! But when years pass and you do not get any better and they still tell you you're really disabled, you start to ponder if they could possibly be right. And if they're right than what the heck are you going to do with the rest of your life? What's left of it anyway.

So I've come to the point that I had to decide that I will have to accept the inevitable fact that I'm not going to wake up one morning and be magically healed. I will have to invent some new ways to give my days and life meaning. I mean reading email all day and shopping online can be fun but it gets boring very quickly. It's my hope writing about this on this blog will somehow lead me to that road that's called 'meaningful'. I looked it up on Google maps but no such road it said. So my guess is I have to invent it myself. Maybe tomorrow I should ponder about the meaning of the word meaningful. Hmm... interesting.

#.#.#