So quick came the last day of the year.

Goodmorning everybody!

Just one more day and then we will enter already into a new one. I say it every year, but it's unbelievable how quickly the year went by again.
Yesterday I first went out to do some shopping, just for a few things and came back home quickly.
Then I prepared all the ingredients for the traditional sweets and I was busy with them part of the afternoon. All went well and the result was fine. So now we have to plates on our table with the sweets and I already tasted one yesterday( had to check if they were good), and yeah they taste really good.

Today I think I will pop out for a moment to deliver some bills at the bank, and then I will make us a soup for dinner.
I must say it is rather quiet still with the fireworks in the nieghbourhood, but around midnight it will be much noisier of course. We always like to stay home on this evening, to keep an eye on our cat. Normally he is rather quiet during the firing of the fireworks, but sometimes there is such a hard BANG, that he startles and looks a bit frightened. Then it is good we are there, he feels safer that way.

Already soon we will have to transform our room again to "normal", meaning taking off the Christmas decorations. But we will wait till the day after the 6th of Janauary, because that is the holiday of the 3 kings, and their arrival at the manger. So we still have about one week to enjoy the cosy lights and all, but then it will be nice to have the the decorations removed again.

Hopefully we will see some great shows on tv this evening, if there aren;t any good ones, we still have some things recorded on dvd, so we will have a nice evening either way.
At midnoght we will be looking out of our window, to see some of the fireworks and then I am sure I will be happy to go to sleep again LOL.

Today I have a smaller freebie for you, containing two lovely clusters made by Florence, she used several kits of mine and I think she did awonderful job. Hope you can use them in a project.
Take care and be carefull if you light some fireworks. Happy New Year's Eve!

Download    HERE 

Snow almost all disappeared again.

Goodmorning everybody!

We took it very easy this weekend, mostly watching tv(speedskating, for one) and catching up some sleep. the two days of Christmas were kind of exhausting in the way, we went to bed rather late, because there were some nice detectives to watch, but they only started just after midnoght! What a time to broadcast it!
Of course we could have taped them on dvd, but it was so nice and cosy and why not watch them right away?
Saturday I went out for a moment, it then was snowing.rianing a bit, and the streets were covered with that aweful mix of melting snow. But it wasn;t still too bad, and the temperature was quite good.
Yesterday it was still there, but this morning almost all was gone already, only in the garden some of it is still there, but will be gone soon enough. with temperatures a few degrees higher.
I am glad it is almost gone again, for me this was winter enough LOL.

I should be nmore energetic today, doing some jobs in the house and probably tomorrow I will be in the kitchen for a while, baking our traditional "oliebollen"and "appelflappen", something like this:

Above is the  appelflap", obvious made with apple and cinnaomon.

And here the "oliebol"filled with raisins, but you can also put in whatever you want, small dices of apple, or banana, or dried fruit. But I like them best the "old"way, only lots of raisins in them.
And best of it is to eat them with LOADS of icing sugar LOL!

And then the year 2014 is almost done with already. Cannot believe it went by so quickly, lots of things happened in our life this year, and it wasn't always the bst but we hope next year will give us some more good things and it will be more "relaxed". For all that health is looking good upon us, that is a very important thing.

Not much more to tell, so better i give you the freebie for today, two clusters and a quickpage made by Arlene, so pretty, made with the Precious Winter Green kit.
Have a lovely day.

Download    HERE

First snow this morning!

Goodmorning everybody!

Oh, what a wonderful relaxed Christmas we had. And it was made ever so special with the gifts sent to us.
We managed to wait with opening them till Christmas day in the late afternoon!
and what fun we had, doing that. Santa was good to us this year again.
I've made you a picture of the gifts, but one was just the best for me, I will show you later in the post.
On Christmasday, I didn;t have to do much about the cooking, because we had a meat fondue and it was ever so yummie, and there was so much left, that we had it the second day too.
For desert, to squeeze into the last bit of space we had left in our belly, I;ve made two apples in the oven, filled with sugar, cinnamon and raisins, and a bunch of whipped cream. Next day I had stewed pears.
First will show you another part of our Christmasroom, I think I've made that on Christmas eve, so can still see the gifts under the tree, and if you look well at the left you see a little part of Jan, sitting on the couch and doing one of his crosswords.

Now here I've spread out a bit our gifts, with the stunning undress, all of soft fleece and it came at such a good time, cause my old one had become really old. On the right you see a blue sweater Jan got, and he even got two, all so comfy. Even Brodski got his little gift, oh yeah, Santa thought about all of us LOL!

And this was the best, this T-shirt, look at it, with the picture of my  blogprofilephoto! How amazing is that??????????? Oh golly, it really brought a big l;augh unto my face, and on Jan's too!

And of course I couldn;t resist taking some photos of Brodski in and on "his Christmaschair"

Then this morning I got a little shock. When I wake up, first direction is into the kitchen, to put on the coffee and  took a look into the garden and it was white!!! Over night or early in the morning it snowed. I must say it has a charm, but I like for an hour or so and then I want it to disappear again LOL.
But it will stay colder the next few days with even some frost during the nights, not much, but it demands a bit of adaption from us. We were so blessed with rather high temperatures even in this moth, so this is a sudden change.
We will survive, don;t worry, but I hope it will be done with in a few days again.
Can you believe we are almost at the end of the year again? Much has happened, not always the best things, but we keep hope that perhaps next year we will have a little change for the better. Despite of some more difficult times, we still can be thankful for all we have, there are a lot of people around this world who have real difficult times and poor circumstances, far away as well as in our own country. So we shouldn;t complain too much( but to do it sometimes, it relieves the soul LOL).

Now soon I will have to get dressed and be brave and get out for a few things, like some bread, newspaper, and such.Brrrrr, I will dress warm, and have warm boots on  and although it might be colder, it will do good to sniff some air again.
I have a little kit for you, named it Precious Winter Green.

Before leaving you, I want to thank all people, who left us such warm wishes here on the blog or by mail. They are really appreciated, and added to a really good Christmas feeling.Thank you, from all the heart.

Goodbye for now, till Monday again!

Download     HERE

One more day and it will be Christmas!

Goodmorning everybody!

Let me start first with a Christmaswish to you all, may Christmas be merry and blessed and full of love and light.

Yesterday I did the last bits of shopping for things I still needed and I am all settled now.
Gosh, what a good feeling is that. Now I only have to vacuum clean, to have the illusion all is cleared up and clean, and then we can have a quiet day and I am looking forward to some tv watching this evening and then tomorrow......................... yeah, Christmasday!!!
Oh, it will be wonderful, we then can open the presents Santa sent us and I am sooo curious. LOL.
and then in the afternoon I will prepare all for the fondue we will have for dinner, yummie.
And in the evening we will watch a show on German tv, the Helen Fisher show, I believe it lasts for about 3 hours, and we watched it for several years now and always is amazing.!
But I am sure I will start the day waking up rather early, all quiet and dark still, but i will light the Christmastree and then put up a cd with old-fashioned Christmassongs and then it will be really Christmas for me.
I just have to hear some Christmassongs, it makes the holiday the way it is. Yes, sometimes just little things can make you feel happy.

Just like yesterday when just by accident I looked into the garden and had a nice surprise. Jan has placed his bird feeder in the garden, but we couldn;t spot any birds yet. Untill yesterday, there was a blackbird(I think. I am not good in bird-recognizing), enjoying the food under the little roof and two Great Tits were waiting nearby on a branch of a bush. Because so many people pave their garden and don;t have many bushes and such, there aren't too many birds in our neighbourhood. But there are still some and I am glad we can give them a little spot where they feel safe and can live. Just as the frogs and toads we have in our garden.

That's about all for today, just remians to wish you again a wonderful Christmas, may be I will not post on Friday, I am not sure yet. For today I have a great add-on from Arlene made with the Wonderful Christmas kit. She has made you a cluster and a lovely quickpage. I would very much appreciate it if you took a moment to go to her blog HERE, and leave her a Christmas wish, as a kind of thank you for all her wonderful contributions throughout the year!!!

Download    HERE

Sleeping marathon this weekend LOL.

Goodmorning everybody!

Not much happened this weekend around here.
Only strange thing was that Jan did sleep a lot, and with "a lot"I mean hours and hours.
Normally i am the one to go to bed first, but Saturday during the day he had several naps already and in the evening around 21.00 a.m. he said he would go to bed, he couldn't keep his eyes open.
Okay, no problem, but i thought that after perhaps 3 hours he would be up again. No way! I think he slept till early morning.
Yesterday after he got finally awake, he took his coffee, had  a sandwich and early afternoon went to Heidi's to feed the fish.
Then he cleaned the floor in the hallway and after it was was dry, gave it a coat with special oil.
We had dinner and again at about 21.30 he said he would go to bed already. Gosh, that was strange.
And when I woke up this morning he was up already but he told me he woke up at about 6.30 p.m.
So you could say he had a sleep-maratho this weekend. Probably his body needed it( he didn;t sleep very well or long the last months already). But I surely hope this is over, it isn;t all too normal, he feels just so tired. But we aren;t worrying really, I will just keep an eye on it and if this happens too much, we should mention it to his doctor when we go there on the 8th of Janauary.

I wasn;t very active neither these days, did some things around the house, not much, did a bit of designing but that was all.
Oh got a ohonecall from heidi, telling us all was rather okay, only nasty thing was she had a cold and the rest of the family was starting with one too. Not nise, now that they have their holiday week in a little house in the south of Holland. But she told me they went to Antwerp in Belgium and it was a nicde trip. Very cosy in the town centre there, with all kind of little Christmas markets and all the shops decorated for Christmas. I hope they will get rid of their cold quickly.

Today it is the 21st of December and Jan pointed out to me that from now on the days will get longer daylight again, yeah! I can't wait till the day it will be light again in the morning when we wake up.

I promised you a Christmaskit today and so will be it. It is named "Wonderful Christmas", hope you will find use for it.
Have a happy day.

Download    HERE

Kind of crisis in government!!!

Goodmorning everybody!

The last couple of days were filled with watching tv a lot, but mainly the parliament channel or news items.
There is a crisis going on. Government has made a new law concerning the health security and it has to pass the parliament and then the senat. Well, it stopped in the senat, 3 senators of the government parties voted against it and that means trouble, there is no majority now for that law.
There was intenseive talk for about 3 days to find a slolution, and yesterday night there was a debat about it in parliament which didn;t went all too well I think, most becaused government announced that they would carry on anyway with that law, there misght be a "trick"to work around parliament and senat, That could be done by a "general administrative measure", which is less heavy than a law, but important things agreed about the law could be still cariied out. Only that isn;t very democratic and not the way it should be done. This "measurement"is supposed to be used only in emergencies of a special kind. I have an article of reuters here for you, about the situation, and it is a very important law, because it would give health insurances lots of power and patients less. Now they say in the changed foramt, patients still would be able to choose, but that isn;t all the way true. You can have two insurances, one of restitution and one of natura. But if you want to have free choice, you will have to pay extra, so lots of people will not be able to afford that. And there will be a bigger gap between rich and less fortunate people.

By Anthony Deutsch

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a letter to parliament late Thursday that his party would revise a health bill that was blocked in the senate, potentially staving off the collapse of his fragile center-right coalition government.

Earlier on Thursday Rutte was forced to pull out of an EU summit to deal with a mounting political crisis over the bill, which has highlighted a deep divide between his Liberal party and the left-of-center Labour, with which he shares power.

Emergency talks throughout the day in The Hague failed to resolve a deadlock triggered by the blocking by coalition allies of a health bill that was submitted by Rutte's party.

The bill, a core healthcare reform pushed by the Liberals to reduce government spending, was voted against on Tuesday by three senators in the Labour Party, the other coalition partner, leaving Rutte scrabbling to find a compromise.

A debate was scheduled to run into the early hours of Friday morning, but Rutte said in a letter his party would "alter and resubmit the legislation taking into consideration arguments and concerns" raised by the dissident Labour senators.
The bill was aimed at saving the government, midway through a four-year term, 1 billion euros ($1.23 billion) from 2016 by restricting where patients can seek medical treatment.
Patients can now go to hospitals or clinics of their own choice and the insurer reimburses the costs. Under the new law, patients would be limited to medical suppliers with which the insurer has negotiated contracts.
Rutte said in the revised bill would maintain the free choice of doctors and would seek to create a balance between 7patients and insurers.

Health Minister Edith Schippers, from the prime minister's Liberal VVD party, said the bill would create better, more affordable, healthcare. However, opponents say it will limit the freedom of patients to pick their own doctors.

Rutte's government has been in power for just over two years after winning snap elections triggered by failed talks with anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders about forming a minority government with his support.

(Editing by Alison Williams and Steve Orlofsky)

Last thing we know about the whole thing is, that on next Tuesday the government will present the slightly changed law again to parliament and then senat. We'll see how that will be received there.

It all has a time limit, because normally the government and all would go on a "Christmas Break", and all things should be dealt with before. and the new agreement with the health insurance companies and other parties is already signed and should go working in January. 

Do we have still some brighter news? Yes, we have.

yesterday evening, after dinner, the door bell rang and a package arrived. It was again all the way from America, containing a present for my birthday. Now that is still a few weeks away, but it doesn;t matter. I placed the gift, wrapped and all, under the tree, and I will wait with opening till my birthday, yes, I will!

What else did I, apart from following the debat and news on tv?  went for some shopping, trying to get me already all things for our Christmas dinner, to be ahead of any crowds. I think, I have about all now, yippee!

And Monday I still was a bit a busy bee, with in the afternoon first preparing a plate for dinner with some fish, making stew pears too for dessert, than attacked some dust bunnies, even gave the room a sweep with the vacuum cleaner. In the mean time Jan went out, and I asked him to take home some freezer bags, if he should be in a dollar shop(I try to buy them there, cheaper and even better than others LOL). Well, never send your husband for some shopping of that kind, hahahaha, oh he came back with bags, in fact quite good ones, they even a kind of zip, but it weren't the ordinary ones I wanted. Okay, I didn;t made too many problems about it, he did his best isn;t it? No big deal.

Weather here still hass good temperatures, around 52 F, which is extra ordinary for this time of year. Only thing is, that we have some more rain, and every now and then hard blowing winds. Still that we can handle, I like the temperatures, not looking forward to snow and freezing at all!

I have today tow sets of clusters from.....Florence. Yes, that sweet lady sent me more and I made two little files with them. I am sure you will like them. Next week I will have another Christmaskit for you.

This has been a long post, don;t you think, so it has become time to get a bit more active, it will be in the house, no special eed for me to go out today, hoorray, that is good sometimes too. I'll just "jump"into my jogging pants and a warm fleece sweater, and it will be good enough for now.

Hope you are not into too much stress these last days before Christmas, and wish you a wonderful weekend.

Download   HERE

Download   HERE

I'm still not quite good about myself, completely

Goodmorning everybody!

Perhaps a puzzling posttitle, but it is hard to explain. I am getting back slowly into usual behaviour and feeling and doing things, but still feeling kind of restless, as long as our situation is not settled yet. It is the uncertainty that bothers.
Oh, I try to put it into the back of my mind, as do the usual things and try to keep up a certain rythm in them, but as long as we don;t have a decision of the disability commision, we don;t really know what to do and when to do it. So it still are insecure times, somehow.
Never mind, time will come up with a solution for all things, well, we hope so.
Some day, all will be more clear and it will give us more peace of mind.

Enough of that now, let's see what I did the last couple of days. Really hard to remember all, probably because not all is so important, LOL, but it kept rather busy, that I still know.
Oh yes, Monday I did the bedsheets, and some cleaning in the house, and I felt good about it. Jan went out for a little walk in the afternoon, but was back quite soon, but the "why"I didn;t know till much later in the evening. That awesome husband of mine suddenly had trouble with his belly, it became hard and painful( and he must pay attention to that because of his umbilical hernia). So he took a long nap, and late evening told me what happened. He even felt so bad he said, he almost wanted to go to hospital, to his doctor.
But slowly it became better and "soft"again, but I always get so angry with him, when he is suffering from something and is not telling it to me. I know, he doesn;t want to do that, cause I would worry and such, but sometimes I really want to know sooner. I cannot change his character in that, but it is at times difficult to handle LOL.
Yesterday the weather looked a bit better, so I decided to do some shopping fro grocerie, perhaps even get me some things already for Christmas. Lots of things easily can be kept good in the fridge, and better to get some of it now, as long as there isn;t yet the big crowd in the shops.
Just made it back before some rain fell down, and first prepared some stew for dinner, which always takes more time than you think, most of all because the cutting of all ingredients takes time.
But I always have company with that, our Brodski, probably only because he hopes, something will fall down at the floor for him, hahahaha. Okay, i admit, sometimes a little piece of meat is cut for him, but just a scrap! It seems he is already happy with that.

Later I did a bit of this and that, and suddenly felt sooooooo sleepy I took a little nap(as Jan too). And I woke up a bit late early evening. Almost missed our soap we always watch , and I was glad I already had the stew ready, now I only had to cook a few potatoes and that was done quick enough.

Slowly the Christmas cards are coming in now, which makes a happy display on the mantlepiece near the tree. But the last years cards become less and less with the internet and email and such. In a way pity, but also understandable, because the prices of posting get higher and higher, even for a simple letter.

In the evenings I am still knitting on a new afghan/blanket for our bed. Perhaps not the best one, but for now I think it will look nice, and if not, we always can "dismantle"it and start again with the wool, LOL.
It's not so important, I just like to keep busy with my hands in the evening. And when it is an easy pattern, watching tv at the same time is no problem.

Oh, you know that cats every now and then change for sleeping/resting place? Our Brodski does. For some time he occupied one of the chairs at the dining table, before he occupied my chair at the computer, but now he has found another great place. On top of the chair near our couch. It's on a high spot, he can keep an eye on us and it is warm(because of the Christmas fleece blanket I have on it). Only disadvantage of this place is, that it isn't too wide, so every now and then, when he really is in cat's dreamland we hear a "BOING" and he fells off LOL! hen he sits for a while, looking a bit dazed, goes to the kitchen for a bite, comes back and jumps back on the top of the backrest of that chair.Lucky that cats almost always land on their paws!

Okay. that's all for today, except for the freebie, which are clusters from Arlene for the Country-like Christmas kit.
If you need more for Christmas scrapbooking try her Etsy shop, link at the side bar, under Bloglayout!
I often forget to mention her sites, but you should take a look. She also has a deviantart place.
Only thing to do now is to wish you a fantastic day!

Download    HERE

Room in Christmas atmosphere!

Goodmorning everybody!

Hopefully I will be able to continue this week in "normal"behaviour in posting.
Wow, our room is all in Christmas style. Yes, Jan and I did the trick Thursday afternoon, we were busy for several hours( much too long but once started, you want to have it done too), and the room looks so cozy now.
You can imagine that we were a bit pooped out on Friday, gosh i felt some muscles I didn;t know I still had them LOL! So we took it easy on Friday, which was a good thing to do.
And we had a great surprise too this weekend, the doorbell rang and there was a postman with a big box, all the way from America! Oh, so exciting to open it and see all those beautiful wrapped presents.
They are now under the Christmastree, and we will be good and will not open the gifts untill Christmasday.
But it sure looks pretty.
So I made one photo of the tree, without and one with the presents.
Always difficult to make a good photo of Christmasdecoration with all the little lights, my little camera hasn't too much possibilities, so I tried my best. Oh well, you get at least an impression.
Look at the BIG bear at the right side of the tree. It is the one i bought on a rummage sale a few years ago, just for  € 2,00!!! I am completely in love with him.

Saturday the weather was a lot better, at least it was almost dry) the other day we had quite some rain and stormy winds) and I decided to go to the market for some potatoes, and veggies. And home again I´ve made us a simple soup for the evening, but it still was tasty.

Sunday I was quite busy too, thinking back on it. In the afternoon we have a sportsprogramme, this time more interesting than other days, because there also was some speedskating.
Well, I took the ironing board into the room, so while ironing, I could watch the tv)and it is much warmer in the living room than in the other one). It didn´t take that much time, so after finished I went into the kitchen to make us a lasagna for dinner. That all prepared and ready to go into the oven, I thought it was enough.
So I sat down, watched some tv, even did some designing at the computer this weekend.
Have to do a few things here today, one of it is changing the bedsheets. Thought to do that also yesterday, but it could wait for a day more LOL.

Here first the two photos of our Christmastree corner. I will see if I can make some more photos of our room in `full Christmasglory`

You can see, Santa has been good to us!!

And now time for the freebie, another Christmaskit, named A Country like Christmas.

Have a wonderful day!

Download    HERE

Today might be a good one for decorating.

Goodmorning everybody!

I know, again I am a day late, but yesterday was a kind of exciting day, Jan had the "hearing" at the health security office, to see if perhaps his disability percentage could be given a bit higher.
I must say we had a nice doctor there, an older man, who really knew what he was atalking about and understood the medical situation of Jan.
I believe, thinking back of the conversation, I did most of the talking, LOL!
No idea if that was good or not, but I gave the doctor a kind of resumee of the things that happened over the year and the chronological review of appointments and such.
Jan said more about how he felt and how he was doing.
Great point was the remark, that the last doctor of the interview in September, didn;t apply for a new medical report of the doctors treating Jan. Specially not about the surgeon who did the operation on his vains!
So this doctor will ask the report, which might help.
Again we will have to wait a few weeks, I guess, before we have the decision.
I think, we did our best at the moment.

So I wasn;t really in the mood yesterday morning to do the blog, and I did still a bit of research on the net for the interview.

Coming home, there was the 1st Christmascard waiting for us in the mailbox, all from America!
It starts to feel already a bit Christmas time around here, and I hope this evening we will have even more "Christmas feeling"cause today I really want to set up the tree and manger.
Seems to be a good day for it, because we have almost stormy winds outside, and I think some rain will fall too. And when it isn;t necessary, why go out then??
Perhaps tomorrow the wind will lie down a bit, and then I can go to the bank, to deposite a bill to pay(bad things, always grin), and get a few things at the supermarket.

This morning, reading the teletexte at tv, there was such a nice item, and it is nice to know, that there are still caring people around the world.
I have the link for you, with the newspaper article, and it really gives a good Christmas feeling, yeah, Santa still lives!
http://wkrn.com/2014/12/10/missouri-waitress-gets-tip-of-a-lifetime/

Today I have the clusters for you from Arlene, that she made with the Santa wears Pink today kit.
Don;t know if i will be blogging already tomorrow again, depends on how much I might have to tell you, I guess.
Anyway, I wish you already a happy weekend.

Download    HERE

Second interview done

Goodafternoon everybody!

Yes. late today with posting, but this morning I had to prepare for the interview, take a shower, eat something and such and when I sit at the computer I forget time, so I thought it better to wait posting till now.
The interview went well, was rather relaxing, I must say.
Not that it brought something really new, but we talked a bit about volunteerwork and I showed the guy one I had printed out and thought would be great to do. He looked rather surprised, in a good way, and than I boosted a bit about myself, that I speak several languages and so and asked him if he could contact that organization, sort of clearing the path there. He agreed to do that, and now i will try to phone them or mail them this week and may beIi will be lucky to get the function. Although it isn't payed., it might lead to a payed job, who knows. There is a kind of tiny small volunteerfee though, I have no idea how much,but for now every euro extra is great.

Saturday I started with Christmas decoration, yeah! Jan went out for a moment, for a little walk and I took out all the Christmas fleece blankets and put them on the couches. Also on some furniture there are now Christmas doylies and that is as far as I got that day(well, I also did at the same time some vacuum cleaning of the couches and the room too, and we thought we might go on on Sunday, but we didn;t, LOL.
But during the time I had my interview Jan took out the manger, it's still the one my father made, and cleaned it and gave it a coat with oil. And it is looking all shiny again. Wonderful.
So may be we will continue tomorrow, putting up the tree and so on.
Will be a good distraction for us, not to think too much about the hearing on Wednesday.
This could be rather important, you know. If Jan gets a percentage of disability, he can try to find some work, but it will not be so straining, cause he can work less hours and then the income will be better too.
Then we get payed of course Jan's wages, and the amount that is short to reach the minimum wages will be payed by the WIA( that is the council for disability).
Hmmm, is there perhaps a new light at the end of the tunnel? I sure hope so.

Okay, enough of serious talk, just after I arrived home I had a phonecall from Heidi. so we talked a bit and are all up to date with eachother again, LOL. She will be away with Christmas for about a week and she asked me if we could take care of her fish. Of course we will. We only need to give them some food every other day, so no problem.
It was nice to talk to her after a couple of weeks, and we had a few good laughs too!
 
I have a new kit for you, and it's a Christmas one, of course.
This one is named "Santa wears Pink today". I thought it a rather intriguing title.
Now I think I will play for a little while in Photoshop and then it's time for dinner already. But I had made yesterday a meal for two days, smart hey? So I only have to warm it up in the oven.

Have a wonderful day!

Download   HERE

Cold days, but it will pass.

Goodmorning everybody!

I skipped a posting day on Wednesday, I know. Just not all too much inspiration for it, had to little sleep, but everything is okay again. We had some unpleasant cold days here, not that it was freezing so much, but somehow it felt as if it was frezzing hard, at night temperature was about 28F, and during daytime it was 39F, but it all felt like being in 28F!.
Yesterday was such a strange day, Jan and I just couldn't get warm, so in the evening we covered ourselves with big fleece blankets, and oh my, that helped! LOL.
I think we have to overcome a couple more days of that strange cold, but then temperatures will rise a bit again, and "winter"will be gone for a while.

Oh my, I am a little late in posting this surprise I got this week in my email. It's an award from Digiscrapcafe, the Fairy-award! Now isn;t that nice? I am ever so proud that people think so positive about my designing, that they give me an award.
I am supposed to place it here and at least give it on to one other designer.
Let's start first with the award.
=========================================================================

http://www.digiscrapcafe.net/portal
=========================================================================
Now I have to pick another blog, always difficult but I think I pass the award on to Random thoughts of 
Linda's place.
And I picked another blog, that deserves a little compliment too, that is Ukki's Tubenblog.

Okay, this is done, I am glad I finally took the time for it.

There isn;t really much to tell you at the moment, all quiet for a while here, although on Monday I have an other interview at social security office, but I think that will be more informative. I am already looking around for some volunteerwork to do. Not so difficult, because there are lots of them to find, but if possible I like to do something that suits me a bit. Yesterday I saw one that might be a nice thing to do, it is for an organization of Refugee help, and they ask a volunterr for reception and light administrative work. Well, as I speak several languages(one better than the other, but still not bad), it might be a good place for me.
I will tend to that after I had my interview on Monday.

I did went to the post office with a Christmasbox to send, and it is on it´s way. Yeah, bit early perhaps, but this way I avoided long rows, and chaos at the post, and the box will be on time.
Now I really have to do something at the house, I +eft it a bit aside the last couple of days, oops!
And perhaps we will start our Christmasdecorations this weekend. Tonight is the big day nd evening for all children. because it is the day of Sint Nicolaas! Little children are all nervous now, in full expectation of a doorbell rining, of hard knocking on the window, or something like it, that will be the sign that Sint Nicolaas has brought them presents!
I still remember this time when I was a real yongster)how many years ago is that ???????? LOL!!!), and it was a wonderful time.

Almost to the end of my post I offer you a kind of special freebie. I have a visitor of my blog, that I sometimes recieve an email and send one back too, and this lady, named Florence, is such a sweetie. I will not tell lots about her, because i think that is private, and not necessary either, but she loves to make wallpapers and clusters with scrapbookkits( and she uses a lot of mine grin) and she made some wonderful Christmasclusters that she agreed to share with you.
She first had Photoshop, but had a computercrash and now is working with Gimp, and she does it well.
So here some Christmasclusters by Florence, made of a combination of my Christmaskits. If you download, please leave a little message for her here, I will pass it on, it will make her happy.
Hope you will love them!
Have a happy weekend.

Download    HERE

Had a good interview and came home rather happy.

Goodmorning everybody!

Sorry for not posting long yesterday, but I was kind of exahusted.
In the night of Sunday to Monday I didn;t sleep much or well, guess all had to do with my interview on Monday.
I had all prepared in the file, took that with me and was nicely at time at the appointment.
And I had a agreable interview with the lady there. She was an "older"women, I think around 45 years old,
took the advice I got from somebody, to sit relaxed and leaning back on the chair LOL.
She asked me some general things, to complete a bit the file she had on me, was a good listener and let me do the talking. So I told her about my working past, what I have done, that I am out of the "working"process for about 10 years, that 10 years ago I already tried for 3 years to get another job(without success), she asked me about my hobbies, about my life in general. I told her about the past two-three years mainly about Jan's health problems and the consequences of that.
Topld her about the reason I left my last job( well, in mutual agreement with my boss), because I had to do there more commercial work, as he started to produce and sell fitness equipment and I should do the sale of it to people who came looking for e.g. a bike, or a treadmill or whatever, weather they just wanted to have one or were sent perhaps by a fysio or doctor.
And I told her I had problems with that. First it takes time to get really familiair with the euipment, also technically, and then I just couldn;t find it in my heart to persuade someone to buy it, because i thought it was no good for e.g. that older lady. The lady of social security started to smile at me and said"I guess you are just a too honest person".
well, I scored a point there LOL.
To keep this somewhat short, I was at her office for about 1 1 /4 of an hour, had an nice conversation with her and she agreed that it would be very difficult to find a job for me( the more because i had no working experience anymore for the last 10 years, hahaha) and she placed me in the "participation" sector, which means I should do some volunteer work, but it is no longer required I apply for jobs. Hoorray, I was sooo reliefed. Leaving her at the end, I shake hands, of course but also wished her already a Happy Christmas time. She looked nicely surprised to me, saying that I was the 1st who did that! Another scoring point at the end for me LOL!
Okay, the money we receive now from social security is really low, but for the moment we have income, now perhaps we will be with the health security hearing, that Jan will get a higher percentage of disabilty.
If so he should try to find some work, but for less hours, which he will be able to do still I think. And the rest of income will be payed by the disability insurance. And that would be some higher than we have now.
Also the lady I had the interview with was very surprised that Jan didn;t reach at least the needed 35% disability border.
Now yesterday had a control appointment with his doctor for his stomach and liver, rather good news, it seems that his liver got somewhat better again. About his umbilical hernia he is suffering from too, it still wasn;t alarming, so he will have to be carefull with lifting heavy stuff, but till now no operation for it probably needed. Then his doctor told him, that she had a request from helath security for a medical report, BUT that it hapened only last July 2013! So the doctor who gave Jan the low percentage of disability, didn;t had a lot of information and surely not the most important of this last year! Complete mystery on what she based her concolsion!!  And also no request lately was done(from doctor who will be doing the hearing on the 10th of December). That is something we can use in the interview there! So who knows, may the Gods will be looking favorable at us on that day too!

Oh my God, I did sleep well last night. I was kind of exhausted of all the tension and such.  
It was rather cold yesterday( and catched right away a cold because of it, LOL), and set in the evening at the couch with a kind of "running nose"hahaha. It is already better today, still a bit sniffing, but no longer a constant need of a tissue under my nose.
At day time we only have about 37-39 F, and at night just around the zero point. This will stay for another two or three days, but then temperatures will tise a bit to 45F and that is a big difference.!

That was my day yesterday, which at the end turned out to  be rather succesfull and reassuring.
I think I will reward myself now to some computertime, grin grin, doing some blogreading and perhaps some designing or first a little play. Then I will get busy around here for a bit, but will take it on low speed ROFL.
Thanks for your thinking about me and prayers and advice, it really helped as shown!

Have a fantastic day, till next time.

Blog train WWCS!!

Goodafternoon

Just a post to offer you the blogtrain freebie.
Tomorrow I will tell you about the interview and such. It is rather late in the afternoon and have to do some things.
So have fun with the blogtrain, you will find the link to the blog for it on the right sidebar on top, many more great contributions are waiting for you.
Till tomorrow.

Download HERE

Download clusters  HERE