Monday, May 30, 2011

Weather changes like a jojo!

Goodmornigng everybody!

These quick weather changes are no good to me. One day it's warm and nice and sunny, the other day temps fall down several degress and it's windy and grey, then next day temps go up again, like today, it  should be a rather sunny day, with temperature about 75 F, a bit windy, but still, good weather. Tomorrow temperature will fall down to about 65 F, greyish, may be even rain, then during the next days ttemperature will go up slowly again. It is driving me nuts! Your body has no time to get used to the change, and because my condition isn;t yet 100% again, I easily catch a cold, and I hate that! LOL.
Apart from the weather we had a quiet weekend. I did go out on Saturday to take a look at the fair, but it was no real fun to be outside with a earce wind blowing, so I left it alone, only took me some groceries home and was happy to be inside. I did some designing, yes that is coming back slowly too, thank God for that.
Life is going on rather boring at the moment, that's to say, we are not going out too much, I still have to work on my condition and energy, but it's recovering and coming back, slowly.
In July we will be pet-sitting again for the rabbit, the bird and goldfish from Heidi LOL! She phoned me last week about that, if we would do that. Of course we will. So we have somewhat longer then 1 month to prepare ouselves mentally to it, hahaaha.
Last satuday night there was the annual "detective night"at tv again. They broadcast all night till 6 in the morning detective series! Let's be thankful for video and dvd recorders! Jan registered them all and now we can pick one at an evening there isn't anything interesting at tv. The "low"season is starting again at tv, with summer at the corner a lot of series and shows etc. are going to have a holiday break, mostly till September, and most of the time the replacing programs aren't that good. But we still have lots of dvd's around that we didn;t watch yet, so that should be a good time for it. Just saw somewhere on a Discovery channel a cute thing! In Arkansas they have a news program with a special star in it. Joe, the "house-cat". Really! Some time ago they found him walking the grounds around the studio, I believe, he was astray, and slowly they gained his confidence. Now he is completely at home there and is sitting on the desk with the crew, even helping out with the weather forcast, LOL! He is ADORABLE!
Okay, enough bla-bla, I will post another part of the Flower Children for you and wish you all a fantastic day!
Download     part 4     HERE

Friday, May 27, 2011

Weather is changing

Goodmorning everybody!

It had to happen one day, a change of the weather. Yesterday I was out to do some shopping, and was still lucky to have a bit of sunshine. But there was a real strong wind blowing. Later at day it became more grey, also a few degrees colder and in the early evening there was some rain.
Also today looks to be a bit greyish, still lots of wind, but they said this afternoon there might be already some sun again. And during the next few days temperature will creep up again a bit and more and more sunshine.
Well, the little bit of rain was welcome to my garden, but for the farmers and their crops it was a way to small amount of water. The whole water level in The Netherlands is really very low, even to such point that some of the dikes have to be checked and even repaired, because some of them have large cracks in it.
So for one all the drought and sun is a blessing and for others it´s too much of the good thing. We could do with some nights of rain, would be so nice if it rained at night for a couple of hours and then during daytime it was dry and a bit sunny and temps around 75 F.
There are several fairs going on in The Hague this weekend, so for the people in their stands it´nice it will be dry at least and even temperature isn´t bad, only today they should tie their merchandise to the stands, because of the strong wind.
May be Jan and I will take a look at one of them tomorrow, though every year they pretty much have the same things, LOL, but there are always some nice reduction offers to find.
Wednesday we went to look for a parasol but didn+t succeed yet. Well, we will have to look for it again in some other stores, and one day we will probably have one( hopefully before the end of summer LOL)
No big news about me, every day a little step forward, sometimes a day a bit less, but in all I think their is progress in the good direction. So I am happy about that.
I worked on some quickpages for Minky´s blog and even on a kit! I don+t know when Minky will post the quickpages, so you will have to check the coming days, if you want to download them. Here are already the previews


The there is of course the 3rd part of the Flower Children.
Well, I will start another project this weekend, I think, and finish off the little kit. I hope we will be able to open the garden doors again and enjoy a bit of sunshine again.
Have all a terrific weekend!

Download    part 3     HERE

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Another beautiful day.

Goodmorning everybody!

Yesterday was quit a nice weather, although there was a bit too much wind. Still with a thick sweater and in the sun, it was nice. I went for a little visit to Heidi in the early afternoon. We first took the dog for a little walk and then back home we had a cup of coffee in the garden. As always we discussed the garden and it was real quiet. Séverine was still at school and Danny is away this week to Spain with his table tennis club. Heidi doesn;t mind that at all. There are people telling her that it is so sad for her, to be alone, and why didn;t she go with him etc.
But she loves that week alone once a year! She can do her things if she wants to, and whenever she wants to LOL. No, it's not a bad thing at all, to have some time alone from your partner, it's a good thing you both can do some things alone, or with friends, it's a kind of re-charging your batteries time.
I came back with a few cutlings from plants out of Heidi's garden LOL. We are always exchanging them, if one of us has a new plants, we alwas try to give the other a cutling. Two plants for the price of one!
May be next week we will go to a garden centre, then Danny is still home for a few days, so we will have all the time for us.

I've made a few pics in my garden as promised, here's my beautiful poppy:

Amd here a little rose-bush, when the flower is still a bud, it looks as if the rose is of a light pink color. Once opened, it is a white rose!

Here a little container I have on the garden table, with my newly bought petunia's
And these flowers we call: Ice-flowers. They only are opened in full sun, and have all kind of colours like lollipops. Other ones near this one have light pink to white, or more orange, you fell all happy just by looking at them.

And I have the second part of the Flower Children for you today. I hope Mediafire is behaving, cause some had trouble downloading.
Have a great day!
Download part 2   HERE

Monday, May 23, 2011

Veggie weekend LOL

Goodmorning everybody!

I can say I feel a wee bit better every day. Sometimes there's a day in between that is less good, but there is some prgress. Let's be already happy for that. My Jan is getting more and more interested in garden stuff, you know! He very much likes the sawing and watching it grow in the pots and then repotting the stuff in bigger pots etc. We are getting a serious vegetable garden slowly. Tomatoes, strawberries, radish, spring onions, dille, parsley, beans, it's fun to see. Now we are hoping they will produce some stuff LOL!
Friday afternoon we did go to the market, there we bought some bananas, grapes with NO stones in it, and strawberries, onions, new potatoes(those little ones), garlic and collieflower.
And I couldn't resist buying 5 strawberrie plants.
On Saturday I had to buy a large sac with soil, cause we needed to re-pot some of the seedlings.
And yesterday the first flower of my poppies bloomed! I didn;t make a picture yet, but I will do that later this week.
I fancy a bit more designing at the computer again. I am not making whole kits yet, but made a few quickpages for Minky's blog again. You can download them in the Creative Club blog, if you are not a "member"yet, just send an email to  faerienuffolk@gmail.com. Then you will be able to download all the gifts there.
Here are the previews of the quickpages:
And I have something more for you. I know I was posting the sets of quickpages/backgrounds, but the rest of it will be posted later, sorry for that. But I found something wonderful in the public domain and it's has become kind of a book, if you should print it out all. There are 7 parts to download, making together 84 pages ! and I've made a front cover for it too, and an extra download for some elements . We will start with the downloads today and every day I am posting there will be a new part. So it can take a little while before it's all completed, but it was such fun to make it. I did this already some weeks ago. The "kit" is named "Flower Children from A-Z. Here is part 1, letters A and part of the B. I really hope you can do something with it, I think it's already nice if you just print it out and bundle it.
Have a wonderful day!
Download    part 1     HERE

Friday, May 20, 2011

I see the sun again

Goodmorning everybody!

No really special news about me, so that's okay for now!
I see the sun already, so it could be a nice day today. Jan already said yesterday, that today we should go to the market, well, that's a good idea. We go for the veggies and fruit but underhand I hope the guy with the garden plants will be there too and with a nice assortment and who knows, I may come home home with a plant or two, LOL!

Last week I bought some seeds to grow radish, for Jan. He put them into some soil and they are already showing their first little leaves! He said he could almost see them grow as he sits at the table outside, grin-grin.
His tomatoe plants are growing very well, now it should be time they will produce some flowers, which will eventually become the tomatoes!
I looked around in the garden yesterday and lifted some stones I've piled up some time ago, and who did I see? Our toad family! They seem to like it in our garden. I've no problem with them so let them stay! I sometimes have more problems with the snails, cause they like fresh leaves from some of the plants and can eat them completely! Well, that belongs to having a garden. You can beat them, with some chemicals, or other things, but as long as they don;t eat all the garden(they just like certain plants, it seems) I leave them in peace.
I think I will do just a bit of designing, if inspiration will flow, and then get dressed and first have to go out to get my medication I got from the doctor. I think a Friday is a nice day to take the medicines, and an easy day to remember(have to take them once a week. Then we will go to the market and then I do nothing more.
Tomorrow I'll have to do a bit of hoovering and  such, and a load of laundry.
I have another little freebie for you, set 2 of the quickpage and background set.
Have a marvellous weekend!
Download       HERE

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Some good news

Goodmorning everybody!

I just got home from the doctor's appointment, after I had the blood test last week. I asked himif he had the results back and he had. So I asked him right away: "I am given up? No more hope for me? "He answered that with a big smile! Then he told me all the test were good, e.g. the white plasma was okay, the red one too, etc. So that was already reassuring. The only things that were a bit low was vitamine D and Folium acid. So he gave me a recipee for that, have to take that once a week for the coming month. Then he put me on the scales to see my weight. Well, after a week you cannot expect with me that I gained, which I didn;t, but also didn;t loose anymore. Oh, he also told me that out of the 3 results for liver function, 2 were normal and one a tiny bit higher. Could be caused by alcohol(but I don;t drink so that's not the reason) or it could be caused by my medication for the epilepsie. So he wants another lab test on the blood for the folium and vitamine D and some other things. Test has to be done next month and then after a few days I 'll have an appointment t his practise again. All together I am very relieved, as you can guess.
Last Monday I had not such a good day, very tired again so I slept a bit more, took it easy and yesterday I felt again much better. I suppose this will go on for a bit of time, some good days and sometimes a day not so good. Just hope the periods in between them will be longer and longer and then no "off"days anymore.
Now just have to take care of myself, the eating has to go still better, but I do my best and I am sure I will be okay again in some time. So far, so good, yippee!!!

To celebrate LOL I have a little freebie for you. It's a quickpage with a background paper, and I've made 4 sets, when you will have them all, you will have a small kit containing 4 quickpages and 4 backgrounds and even a few elements. Couldn't come up with a name for it so I've kept it simple, just named it Set 1.
May be this afternoon the sun will come through again, and if so, perhaps Jan and I could go to the market for some veggies and fruit. I hope they will have some Dutch strawberries, they are a bit smaller then the ones they are having mostly, which come from Spain. The Dutch ones taste much better, yummie, with fine sugar on it and even better also with some whipped cream!
That's it, folks, till next time. Have a lovely day!
Download      HERE

Monday, May 16, 2011

I've designed a little bit.

Goodmorning everybody!

In comparison with about a week ago I was rather busy on Friday! I first did some shopping. Had to go out twice, because in one supermarket they didn;t had all I needed. Then I also gave most of the house a hoovering. And I did turn the washing machine and hang the stuff outside in the sun. Well, it doesn;t sound for much, but about a week ago and certainly two weeks ago, I couldn;t have done that, really. I might be a bit on the way back, depends also a bit on the blood test results, let's hear first if they found something there.
Saturday Jan and I walked to the market, just for the walk, but perhaps to get us some fruit and veggies. Well, we came home with loads of fish LOL. It was soo crowded at the market, that we decided not to walk all over it and come back perhaps Wednesday for the fruit etc.
Today the weather isn;t looking very nice, it's a bit grey, windy, looks as if there might be a bit of rain and temperature fell down. Let's not complain about it, we already had so many wonderful almost summery days, but of course I hope it soon will settle itself again and that it will come to about 75 F with sunshine. Would be very nice.
Yesterday I even did spend a bit of time in the kitchen, to prepare us a "real"meal, LOL. And I even made us a dessert myself. Half a pear, poched in sugar water for a few minutes, with whipped cream and warm chocolate sauce. Yummie. And we even had some whipped cream as left over, so we had that on our cup of coffee, later in the evening.
And I did a little bit of designing in the weekend. Minky made some really nice gifts and with that I've made two quickpages, which you can download at the special creative blog.


Almost time for me to get me a sandwich, or whatever to eat, get dressed and see what we will do today.
Have a wonderful day!

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Some pictures again

Goodmorning everybody!


First a quick update. Went to the docotor yesterday, tried to explain all that was wrong with me, and oh whee, that is really hard! Well, today I will go to hospital to do a blood check, next Wednesday again appointment with the doctor to hear if they have found  perhaps something. For the coming time he will also keep an eye on my weight, I am eating a tiny bit better, although still small portions, specially at dinner time but it shows a bit improvement. Oh, I had to laugh a bit at the doctors. During our conversation he asked me if I felt depressed. Well, of course I am at times, or I better say I feel a bit sad and also very mad at myself. But he asked further, if I was REALLY feeling depressed, to the point of thinking that I had enough of life etc. etc. Okay, I told him firmly, that even if I may have moments that a tear is falling and I lay my head on Jan's shoulder for a bit of comfort(and that is for only a few minutes) I had no intention or thoughts of leaving this world. And that I just wanted to know if something physical was wrong with me, and that I want to get some weight back and if possible a bit better nights sleep. I understand he has to ask those things, but that was going way to far! LOL.

He wanted also to give me some light sleeping pills, but I rejected that. I don;t like them and I take already some medication, and I don;t think it will be a real solution. So thanks, doctor, but no thanks!


Got a phonecall from Heidi, if I liked to pay a visit and I did. That already is something, that I could get myself that far to walk to her house and have a nice chat, sounds ridiculous, but it is the truth! So it was nice to chat with her in her garden, in the sun, of course a lot about our gardens, you already could guess that!

Talking about the garden, I;ve made a few pictures or you.

Clematis on the other side of the rose bow, isn't it a beautiful flower?



And here the rose, Zepherin Drouhin









Here another species of an Aquilegia



Overview of the left border, with about in the middle, with the "feathered"leaves my big poppy with the flower buds. Can;t wait till they will bloom!!

Well, that's about it, have to get ready to go to hospital for the blood test(yak, I don;t like too much needles, hope I will have a good nurse, who can find right away the good bloodvain!)

Oh, I had message, that some of you had trouble downloading part 1 of the Animals Alphabet, I tried and could download without problem. So if you don;t mind, try please again, it sometimes seemes to be hard wioth Mediafire, but often another day there is no problem. Thanks.

In case I will not be posting tomorrow, I already wish you all a terrific weekend! And thanks for you sweet and lovely comments and encouragements.! To speak with Arnold Schwarzenegger(was it from the movie The Terminator?): "I'LL BE BACK!!!"    LOL!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Hi there!

Goodmorning everybody!


Is there any news to share? Not much really, only that I am feeling perhaps 4 % better than last time I posted LOL! That isn;t much hey? But it already makes a difference! I am talking about the "general body feeling", that is somewhat better. Appetite one step better, which is far too little, but it's a start. Tomorrow I will have my visit to the doctor, let's see what comes out of it.I will ask him to give me a general checkup for at least my blood, and perhaps he will think of more. It will be hard to explain how I feel and what the complaints are. Well, some of them I can easily tell, but other "symptoms"are a bit vague. And I don;t like sitting with a doctor as a moaning person, but I will have to be that this time.
You can imagine I am not doing very much, just little things in the house, very few, actually, and spending also very little time at the computer. I surely hope that will change very quick again!
Till now, the weather has been very nice, even got a little bit of rain, not really enough for the farmers or even for gardeners, but every drop counts.
They expect the temperature to go down again during this week, but still with quite an amount of sunshine.
So if there's not too much wind, it still can be very agreable in our garden. I should try to make a few pics, cause my climbing rose is blooming now and a clematis and I am excited about my salmon-coloured poppy! It has till now about 8 or 9 BIG flowerbuds in it, not yet flowering, that will take still may be a week or even two. But they will look specatacular!

I have a freebie for you! Already a few weeks ago I found some real old children books and this one looked sooo cute, I had to do something with it. I cleaned a bit the pictures and made a background for the pages, and I think you also can print them out to have a nice booklet for your little chilrdren or grandchildren. But you could use them also for scrapping a visit to the zoo e.g. Well, I hope someone will have some use for them. In the preview I showed just a few pages and I made also several frames for you, not shown in the preview. Oh, and I made a front cover for it. Have fun with it.
And have a wonderful day!
Download      part 1 HERE
                     part 2  HERE

Friday, May 06, 2011

A little update.

Goodmorning everybody!

At first THANKS everybody, who left me a message for speedy recovery, or some encouragging words, they all touched my heart and I will cherish them!!

Well, yesterday was a bit better day, the day before it really sucked! I was sooo down and felt so miserable, that finally Jan convinced me to call the doctor yesterday morning. With all the luck I have lately(LOL), I got the message on a voice mail that he was on a holiday till Monday!. Wow, I finally got so far to see the doctor and then he wasn;t there. Okay, we'll see how it goes the next few days and may be I will make an appointment somewhere next week.
The amount of food I take in is still far too small, but I did take every two hours something, could be a bowl with a kind of custard and half a banana in it, then later a few crackers with real butter, or whatever I felt like . I think it doesn;t matter that much what you eat, as long as you take something that keeps the stomach going and and all the system. And it will work best to eat during the whole day small bits, so I will try to keep that up for now. It;s awefull to feel that after just washing up some dishes you are feeling almost exhausted. But I am happy that I feel up to do something again! I even did a little bit of garden "work" yesterday, LOL, not really much, but for 10 minutes or so. I feel it's going to be a slow and long process, to get back to "normal"again, but I will get here, oh yeah.
Jan is such a sweetheart, he has taken over the "housekeeping", yesterday he gave the house a hoovering and cleaned the toilet/bathroom, even did some gardening! The day before yesterday he took a little walk and came home with two seed packages, planted them in the garden and only then told me ! Just to cheer me up. And he's making funny remarks about tv programmes or whatever, just to get a smile on my face. And he is not pushing me to do or eat anything, just sometimes giving me a little hint, but leaves me in peace. We are both a bit the same character, if we push too much it works opposite, so he is doing his best too.
Okay enough now about this.
One good thing to tell is that the weather is great, and seeing sunshine and having rather nice temperatures makes you feel already a bit better.
Almost time for me to get something to eat, so I leave you know, but not without a freebie. It's named "Romantic Evening". Have an aweful good weekend, don;t know if I will post every day next week, I think I will take it still a bit easy, just will be there if I really have something to tell, or doing just a little update.

Thanks again for all your good wishes and thoughts, you are super!
Download      HERE

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Still alive!!

Goodmorning everybody!

This is just a quick post  to let you know how I am, so that you won;t worry.
I wasn;t there yesterday cause the cold really hit me in front and back LOL. Saturday I felt not all to well, but that was to handle, although I didn;t went out to the fair or anything. Sunday I felt a bit more miserable, had a visit of Heidi in the afternoon, who also felt rather miserable, so we could change our complaints, feel a bit miserable together, hahahaha.
But in the evening I felt worse and worse, which is caused by different things. I think this cold was hanging there already for a longer time, I noticed I had not really much appetite, I lost some weight(I know, lots of people would be happy, but I have to gain some weight!!), so I felt a bit light in the head, the couching was worse, I don;t think I had a real temperature, but still from time to time water was running down my back, sweating probably the whole thing out. And yesterday was the worst day of all, I think. Stayed in my pyama's and fleece blanket all day, I managed to make the dinner, but asked Jan to do the dish washing afterwards. Went to bed rather early, slept for a few hours, woke up again, watched a bit tv and went back to sleep again for a couple of hours.  It is a tiny bit better today, I hope I can go out for a moment today, to do some shopping, I want to get some yoghurt, milk, cerials, banana's, fruit drink, all that kind of things that you can swallow rather easily, in smaller portions during the day, because I just have to eat more again, but if there is no real appetite it's hard to swallow anything. Don;t worry too much, it will all restore itself again, but I must do it slowly, yet regularly. And because you don;t eat enough, your resistance takes off too.
So it might be I skipp blogging now and then, it depends a bit on how I feel. We'll see how it will go, I think I can manage to restore a bit my weight, I am not the kind of person that runs to the doctor right away when not feeling 100%. First get rid of the sneezing and sometimes water-running nose, so that the cold is gone and the rest will follow slowly too.
So don;t you worry too much about me, I will be okay in some time again.
Forgive me, if I skip the freebie and freebielist for the time being, it can be just for some days or may be for a bit longer, but I won;t disappear!
That's about all. I will keep you posted, of course!
Have all a wonderful day, and till very soon!