Christmas almost there!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Update on Jan: slowly getting better, although it differs from day to day. But he did went out twice this week already for a little walk and that did go rather well. Okay, he has to walk in very slow pace, but he could walk a longer distance than he thought.
However he still is having the fluid in his underlegs and I am still not happy about it. Well, later this week he will see his doctor in hospital and then we will see what she can say about it.
His weight is still keeping about the same, which is already nice.
All together taken, I think we cannot complain, considering in what state he was just a few weeks ago!

Christmas is almost there and this morning i already prepared a bit for our dinner tomorrow evening. We are having rabbit from the oven. The rabbit joints are in a marinade with some olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, white wine, rosemary sprig and some salt and pepper. will have to stir it several times today and then tomorrow I can prepare it in the oven.
Added to that some roasted potatoes from the oven and some Brussel sprouts and a bit of cranberry sauce, desert some Tiramisu. Well, I think we will have a yummie meal tomorrow.
And it isn;t too much work to make it.
It is however a pity that the post is letting us down. I know, Santa has sent us a box with some presents, but it didn't arrive till now. And I don;t expect, that the post will deliver today. Well, just hoping it will arrive later this week, and you know what? Then we can have an extra Christmas day, which isn;t bad either. Sometimes it is hard to understand how the post works. On time it just takes a few days to deliver something from one end of the world to another, and at time is takes sooooo long! Strange.

Weather here is rather mild, around 8 C, but it is grey and at times a very light drizzle of rain is falling. Not nice weather.
later this week we may have a tiny bit of sunshine, but then also temperature will drop to around 3C and perhaps little frost at night again.
Hmmm, don;t know if I am really happy about that!

Looking forward to this evening's tv. There will be a Christmas program of André Rieu from London and I just love his music and shows! Perhaps you are not familiair with his name, well, just look it up on Google, or perhaps better, on You Tube. If you like classical music but in a more popular way, than you are in for a treat. He also has great musicians and often interesting guest. Just give it a try.

That is it for now again. Only thing to do now is wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and already all the best for the New Year.
Hoping here that next year will be much more quiet(I settle for a bit of boring even LOL) and for all: spent in good health. 

So far, so good with Jan.

Goodmorning everybody!

The week went rather well, speaking of Jan. He stays at abot the same weight, which is for now a good sign. He eats regularly and not bad , has his protein food too and still staying on about the same weight.
Meaning he looses fluid(which he still is retaining a bit in the belly and most in his legs/feet for now).
But we cannot be ungrateful till now. All the other times he was home again he had two or three good days and then gained quickly weight again, being the fluid in the belly.
For now it seems to go better. Let's hope now that slowly he will loose the fluid in his legs too, then he can start moving around and take little walks etc.
However, slowly healing can be good too at times.

Last weekend on Sunday it started to snow here and it kept on snowing all day and night and next day. Even here at the coast it gave trouble on the roads and the airport and train traffic.
Monday evening I was in the kitchen to wash our dishes from dinner and then heard a strange sound.  First looked around in the kitchen and hallway. Nothing. Then looked outside in the garden.
Ghee!!!!!!!!!! There was lying a BIG branche ( about 3 mtrs. long)in the garden, coming from a hugh tree in the neighbour's garden. It was still hanging a bit on the tree, but just. Probably it was caused by the serious amount of snow in short time.
Oh my, what a mess. Still lucky, that it feel into the garden towards the other fence and not on the extension or little shed.
Also the fence close to that tree wasn;t hit. It was already quite dark so I couldn't see too well. Did inspect the other day and all together it wasn;t great but could have been much worse. I went to that neighbour, he wasn;t home early morning so I left a little note to contact us.
He came later that day and saw what happened. He contacted his insurance and lucky the costs for removing would be payed by the insurance. Neighbour is 71, so couldn;t take care of the removal himswelf. But he was really concerned and helpfull and willing to solve this, and hopefully soon next week the branche will be cut off and removed by a company.
I think we will not have too much damage on the plants. Most annoying thing for now is that we cannot go to our little shed. Road is completely blocked by the treebranche LOL!

So every time when life seems to settle down a bit something else is happening and causing trouble. Well, at least it seems to have happened this year a lot. With little things, but also with serious events.
I think i will be glad when this year will be done with and let's hope the last few weeks of the year can pass quietly and rather happy and without any messing up-event!!

Anyway,  the snow is gone now, it just fell those two days. Then we had some days with around 2-4 C, and today the sun is shining and we even have some blue sky. Temperatures might go up the next days to 6-8C, may be a day even higher. Oh, how wonderful. I wonder if it can stay that way till Spring arrives??? We can always hope, but I think we might have some more winter perhaps in January/February.
Brrr, I don;t like the freezing and cold, I did more when I was really young, but that changed along the way ROFL.

That is the news of this week. I think it is enough, hey?
Now hoping that the branche will be removed soon, so that this problem will be gone.
Wishing you all a wonderful week,all in good Christmas spirit!

P.S Wanted to change bloglayout, didn;t work suddenly wsith HTML.
There is a long discription on how to make it work(has to do with http and https sites???). Anyway, couldn't chenge so just chose a Blogger theme and just changed header. Header has to be another size but that will be for next time.
Perhaps there is anybody who could help me step by step how may be change the bloglayout in HTML? I am a total dummy for that, long ago learned how to do it, swent well, till Blogger decided now to make it different. And I want to do it via Firefox and not another browser.
If I cannot change anymore, well, pity, at least i can change header, till now LOL.
may be some day I will figure it out all by myself, but don;t want to spent a lot of time on it, specially now.

Jan is home again

Goodmorning everybody!

Yes, Jan is home again. He came home last Tuesday. They kept him quite long after the operation, to keep a good eye om him. But then decided he was well enough to go home, seems the bypass starts to work. At least his kidneys work good again.
Now we just have to wait and see if he gets rid well enough of the fluid.
let's say I am careful optimistic. Not swaying the flag and shouting hoorray yet. All is still in tricky time I think.
But it is good to have him home.
He still is very tired, his mending will take a longer time than he things!
For now he cannot take a little walk out on the streets, because ihe still is retaining some fluid in his legs and feet. I hope that will disappear quickly.

Just before Jan came home I managed to put up the Christmas tree and also the little Christmasvillage. It looks so cosy now in the room.
When Jan was home on Thurstday he put up his tiny little Christmastree himself. Then he took a rest and later on we put up some smaller decorations and now we are about ready for Christmas.

The weather became more like winter. First only temperature dropped, we even had a bit of frost during the night. Today it started to snow. But it is more wet-snow so it will not stay on for long. May be tomorrow it will be the same kind of weather and then temperature will rise a few degrees again. Snow is so nice and beautiful, but not if you have to go out for shopping and such!
Every day we have the visit of a bunch of parakeets, they keep on coming and I keep on feeding them a bit LOL.

That's about all the news there is at the moment. It is quite good, let's cross fingers that it will stay so and get better. I still do some little prayers every now and then and ask his guardian angel to stay on his shoulder for some longer time!

Well, soon time to make something to eat for Jan and myself( just a little sandwich) then go into the kitchen to prepare a small stew with lamb and vegetables for dinner.
Not leaving before I say "thank you"to all of you for you not ending support. So much appreciated, you just don;t know how much good is does!
Well, till next time, have a wonderful week!

Some better news

Goodmorning everybody!

We had a few cold days here, with only 2 or 3C daytime, and just around zero here at the coast at night.
But..... today temperatures already will go up again a bit, and during the week they will reach around 7 or 8 Celsius which is not bad for now.
During the two days it was rather cold, I knew I wasn't ready for real winter, but..... you know me, I never really am. LOL.

Last Thursday Jan had his operation. Later in the morning I called to hear how it went and they said it went well and Jan was back on the ward(not on IC). So I felt rather relieved, of course.
On the day I burnt a little candle in front of my icon, thought Jan could have all help possible.
Went to see him in the afternoon, but he still was very tired and sleepy, so I left him sleeping, he obviously needed it.
Oh, they also at the same time drianed some of the fluid of his belly, but this time not so much, only around 5 ltr.
On friday i went to him and he was already much better. we even took a little walk and sat for a while in the little restaurant. That didn;t last very long, he got somewhat tired, so went went back to his room.(yes, wonderful, he has a room all for himself!!)
Then we noticed that the drainage wond was leaking a bit, so a nurse put on a new bandage. But this leaking was mainly some fluid, not full of blood like the last time!
Yesterday when I visited it looked as if the leaking already had stopped. He was feeling also better. It helps a lot that he hasn;t such a big and tensioned belly anymore. Still has to loose some more fluid but that should happen now through the bypass. Via that the fluid should come into the blood and has to leave the body in "natural way".
Till now it seems that the kedneys still do their work, so let's cross fingers this bypass will help in good way.
They still keep him in hospital under control for a few days. He told me that if all goes well, he might be coming home Wednesday.

So suddenly the next few days I will be very busy, I think. Have to clean a bit the house here and there, and if  can find enough energy for it( must dig that out from somewhere, hahaha), I want to try to at least put up the Christmastree and manger before he wil be home.
You would think that I have time enough for that, but my daytime is kind of limited. Nowadays I wake up around 8 p.m., then have to take time to really wake up, have a little breakfast etc. and then there is time for some housework of shopping, In the afternoon I go from home around 2.30 a.m. to the hospital. And I come home around 5.30 a.m.
Then make myself something to eat and then I am happy to sit down.So in the evenings I just do some knitting and watch tv.And in between there are the phonecalls, attending to bills, etc. etc. Time really flies as mad.
Anyhow, I will try to make the sitting room a bit Christmassy. Better to do it now, and not when Jan is home. Because I know what happens then. He wants to do his share, if even for a little bit,  I would be like a motherhen walking after him, afraid he does too much and so on.
Can you imagine it in front of your eyes????
Yeah, wouldn;t be an all too good thing,ROFL!

Good, we;ll see how far I will get.
First and most important thing will be that if Jan comes home it will be because he is on a good mend and that it will stay that way. No more of terrifying hospital visits. Okay, if it is for sharp control, but that's it!
Time to have some breakfast now and then get some work done!
But i am still crossing fingers and sending little prayers that all will go well and stay well. It is all still very fragile I think.

Thank you all for your continuous support and prayers.
Have a lovely day and week to come and stay safe!

Here is another little update.

Goodmorning everybody!

I just really ordered myself to sigt down at the computer and first read a few bblogs, cannot do them all because it takes too much time now.
And then I wanted to give you an update on Jan.
Jan still received till last Friday the 4 hours cyclus shots with the medicin for the kidneys. It helped really good, so now they want to see if they can do the job for themselves.
He also is off infusions, which is wonderful. It all started a bit to hurt.
Now he only still is on the catheter, so doctors can check on the amount of urine he is producing.
Looks to go well. But now there still is the other problem of the retaining so much fluid in the belly. And now he also has fluid in his underlegs and feet. As it is no option for Jan to do a liver transplant(he doesn;t want to undergo that), the doctors now perhaps found another solution that may work. Not a 100% garatee, of course, but is has been done with rather good results. It is an operation, where they will make a kind of bypass in the liver, so that the bloodvain that has to tranpost fluid in and out will be taken almost out of order so to say. They will make a little vain just beside it through the liver. it will be done through a bloodvain in the neck, passing close to his heart and going into the liver and out there again. That should solve the problem of not transporting the body fluids through the liver.
First they had to make an echo of the heart to see if that would be strong enough. His heart is in very good condition, no problem there.
Now probably Monday he will have a CT scan to see if vains are good enough.
I am not completely aware of how the whole surgery will be done, if I am lucky I will see the doctor again today, who will give a second explanation of it I guess. f I don;t see him, at least Jan will have the conversation.
So again exciting times next week,]
One thing is for sure: the doctors are doling all they can for Jan now and give him all the tests and options and everything and are keeping good control on him.
I have no idea if they will take off some of the fluid in Jan;s belly before the surgery first. If they will drain him, they already said that they will do it slowly and gradually, because they want to prevent that his kidneys will have another blow by it. They work now rather good again, and they want to keep it that way. They already had some severe blows the last month or so.!

I try to get some work done here in the house at the times I am home, but to be honest, not much is coming out of my hands now.
I get up in the morning, first do the feeding of the parakeets(LOL), then take a cup of tea, looks at the news on tv, then it is about time to have some breakfast, then most of the time I do some housework, like a vacuum clean. After that I take a cup of coffee and then go out to do some shopping. Not so much for myself, but there are always things Jan likes to have(or also that I think he could be happy with).
Then it is time to have a sandwich, then I can sit for a moment and then I go to hospital around 2.30 a.m. Most of the time I walk, it is just a 20 minutes walk and it is good for me. Then after my visit, I go home by tram around 5.30 am. Home i close the curtains, put on the lights, put on the oven if i have something to warm up, or I make myself a little supper. In between  change into my cosy lounge pyjama.
Dinner ready, I eat it watching some tv, then put the stuff away, and settle down on the couch with most of the time some knitting.
And often around 9.30 or so in the evening, when watching e.g. a detective, I notice that I missed a part of the story, LOL!
Then my eyes closed without me noticing it really. Okay, it is not a real problem, most of the time I take another hot drink, some tea, or even coffee, because I don;t want to go to sleep too early. But around 11.30 or so I give in and go to sleep. Some nights I sleep all the way through till may be 7.30 p.m. and other times I wake up once or twice.

I am glad the weather isn;t too bad most of the times. Of course temperatures are dropping by now,  they don;t reach more then may be 8 degrees C, still there is no frost yet at night. At least not here at the coast.
There is some sun, some days cloudy and grey with a bit of rain, all together not yet so very bad.
The worst thing is that it is still so dark in the mornings and that ir is dark so soon in the afternoon. I am much more a summer person, with long days in daylight.
If all goes well I can bring a Christmasbox to the postoffice next week, and it should arrive in time I hope.
And also soon time comes for decorating for Christmas, but I don´t know if I will do it this year. Yes, I will put on the tree and the little manger, but perhaps I will do not as much as other years. Depends a bit on how things will go with the surgery and so on.
Good,  will finish now, because I should take a little breakfast now, then dress and then go to town to see if I can find a pair of slippers for Jan. He has a pair, but they are at there end of use, so he can do with a good pair, specially with the problem of the fluid in his feet.
He can walk around when I visit him, )and it is good for him to walk a little bit) but he cannot put on his shoes now, so needs a good pair of slippers. And  notice that after a little walk in the hospital and perhaps sit for a little while at the hospital "restaurant", he gets tired very quickly.
That's no miracle, he has almost no condition, no fat reserves or whatever. That's another thing that will have to worked on, but let's take things one by one and day by day for now!

Big thanks to all of you again for your support and good wishes and prayers. Hopefully Jan will be home soon and with good prospects of healing and getting to his old himself again, or at least more or less.
Till next time.

You hardly will believe this

Goodmorning everybody!

Yes, I can say with some restriction, that is is kind of good morning.

I was here last Monday with  the news Jan was home again.
And it went kind of well for the first couple of days.
Till last Tuesday night.
The drain-wound started to leak. Okay, that could happen, but it didn;t stop. Jan first didn;t wake me up, because he wanted me to finally sleep a bit. I woke up at around 6.00 morning, was cross with him that he didn;t woke me up. It still was leaking, Jan already put on more bandage and then I too, but I wasn;t happy about it. it was too much.
So after  bit of struggle I first called the gastrointestinal liver departemenet of the hospital, there they adviced me to come to ER.
As it was impossible for Jan to go by tram, of course, and also taxi wasn´t optional I called ambulance.
At the hospital they looked after the wound, took some bloodsamples and such, and after a few hours we were sent home. They said that the wound could still leak a bit but that it was necessary to get rid of that fluid. Hmmmmmm, I wasn´t too happe about it, but okay, home again.
But we had to come back next day for a bloodsample!!!Home we bandagedthe wound several times)without removing the first bandage, I didn't dare to), finally Jan was soo tired he went to bed and could sleep a bit. During the night we both slept hardly as you can imagine.
Next morning I called a taxi to go to hospital at 9.00. We arrived there, I took a wheelchair for Jan, because he was to weak to walk and it would be good for the wound either.
Were helped quickly at the bloodsample departement.
I then went with Jan to the policlinic of the gastrointestinal liver departemenet, and I knew his specialist had consultation hour that day.
I explained to the assistant, she contacted the specialist, who came out her chamber right away. One look at Jan, she looked at me and said:
"Yesterday at the ER they checked all kind of things, but didn;t look or not well, at his kidneyfunction. And his kidneys aren;t doing well at all. So I sent you first to ER and then I am 99% sure he will be hospitalized again."
I even wasn;t surprised,  kind of expected it already.
Okay, Jan was checked upon all day long at ER and came to the ward around 5 a.m afternoon!! It was a long day.
I went home, and oh wonder, even slept for some hours!
Next day back to visit, Jan wasn;t at his room, he had a endoscopie.
Came back there after I waited half an hour. Still was asleep, because he had a light sedation. In mean time I saw some doctors, they told me it wasn;t going too well with him at the moment. The problem were his kidneys. They had to go working propoerly again. It wasn;t too good news, but too early to say anything about it.
I went to Heidi(who lived at a few steps of the hospital) and had a chat. Then I went back to hospital to see if Jan was already a bit awake.
He was, but still very drowsy. When I came to the room, there was another pair of doctors(this time a doctor of stomach and liver, who treated him before). I asked her about the situation. She wasn't very optimistic, it would be crucial Friday night and Saturday, to get his kidneys working again. They would try several medicins for that, plus a very wide range of antibiotics, because they didn;t really know what was the trigger of all this. if all that wouldn;t help, he would go to IC, and may be got a rather new mediciation, if his body (specially his heart and lungs)could take it. May be first they could try a kidney dialysis, but that was not a really good thing of course. It really puzzled them. I asked her to be straight with me and she said: if this will not bring his kidneys to work soon, I forsee he will die rather soon.!!!
Wow, that knocked me down. I knew it wasn;t going well with him, but this was real bad. still i was glad she was honest with me.
She was so nice to me, and assured me, that they would do all they could. But also I had the advice, to call some people who perhaps wanted to see Jan, and that perhaps in the next few days. Maybe it was  too premature, but better too soon than too late
I went home and was completely done. I phoned his brother, because he should know about Jan. He was ever so sweet, he came right away with his son to me, because he heard I was kind of broken.
I had a good cry in his arms and tried to get a bit of sleep at night.
Rob, (Jan's brother) would come next day to me, and we would go together to Jan.
So he did, and what did we see ??? Jan was standing next to his bed!
I couldn;t believe it! Okay, he was stuck to all kinds of infusions, but had permission to walk a bit.
So we went for a moment to the little restaurant, after about 15 minutes  saw he was getting very tired so we went back to his room.
Oh my, he walked sooo slowly and it took so much of his strength, it broke my heart to see him like that. It seemed that his kidneys started slowly to do their work again(I saw the fluid, wasn;t much yet, also not a real good colour, but there was some!)
We left him to rest and I went home, could even enjoy some tv. I had more peace of mind . 
Yesterday morning I called the department to hear how he was. The nurse told me, they helped him to wash, he partly did it himself, they changed his clothes and that was again good news.
In the afternoon I went to see him, and i was lucky, I saw the doctor.
She was all happy to be able to tell me some good news. The medication seemed to work and Jan reacted beyond expectations on it. She honestly said to me, she had hoped for it, but didn;t really believed in it the other day. She showed me his Keratine status. He had very high the other day, around 520, yesterday it dropped already to around 300 which was a good sign. They weren;t there at all yet, because normal values are around 80-100. But there was good progress. so first they will tackle the kidney function, that is the most important at the moment. All the medications and fluids did had an disavantage, that he retained some of the fluid still in his belly.But that was next thing they would tackle. Let's first see if kidneys will work by itself again and stay on working and then we will see about other things, she said.
I was soooo reliefed, you can imagine.
Oh the doctor also said to me, that probably Jan had one or two guiding angels on his shoulders and i answered her: "Maybe he had, I certainly had a little prayer at my house icon and asked fo them".

It still will be tricky days, the more because Jan has no resistance at all due to his weight loss and all the strain etc.etc. His condition is zero, but that's another thing to be worked on. If all will stay on going well, it will take a long time for him to recover a bit. Never mind, as long as I can have him around for much longer time!

I hope, I explained all a bit comprehensible to you. 
Now we will have to live by the day, and be happy with all bits of good news and such. 
As soon as there is anything to report,  will do an update.
Thanks all for your support and prayers. You are fantastic.
 

Difficult to come into a daily rythm

goodmorning everybody!

rather long time ago since my last post but it had a reason.
You know Jan came home again the 1st of November. Well, we had some hope all would go slowly better, but ..................
sunday a week ago I noticed again the same symptomes with Jan as before.
For one his belly was blown again and feeling kind of hard, meaning there was again too much fluid and he started to have the mind absences and dis coordination again.
We struggled through the Monday but by the evening and night it was nothing at all so Tuesday morning I called the doctor. He was so very busy he couldn;t come to our house early, he only came at about 16.00 a.m. Gosh, we had a difficult day waiting for the doctor.
It didn;t take long though before our doctor called for an ambulance.
It was a so called "care-ambulance", a bit less equiped than the hospital ambulance, but used for not life threatening cases. like this time for Jan.
t took however still two hours before an ambulance came(and it was a hospital ambulance). Gosh, then to ER, again the whole circus of blood taking, urine, photos etc. so before Jan was really taken in on a ward it was around 23.30 in the evening!
I was completely pooped out(and Jan too).
He stayed in hospital till Friday afternoon and is home again. They really don;t exactly know what to do with him. They know the probable cause, but it isn;t operable(or at the least very dangerous). so they try to fight the little tromoboses causing problems with bl;oodthinners.
They also drained him again, this time 11 liters of fluid!
He is now on a different sort of bloodthinner, this time he has to inject himself with the medication. And he is given a medicin that helps also fight the absence and bad coordination that is caused by the bad stuff that isn;t transported well enough out of the body.
Difficult to explain for me in English, already difficult to understand all in proper Dutch LOL.
Well, let us hope this time Jan will make it till his next control appointment, which will be next Monday.
It is all more or less a case of finding a good balance again of medication.  But very strange that for years all went really well and that in several weeks it has become so bad.
It is eating on the nerves for sure, at both of us as you may understand.
Jan also lost a lot of weight, so has no condition or strength whatso ever, he is given extra protein food in drinks to help to build up some muscle tissue and fat again.
Well, there are some minor of perhaps also important issues playing in his body, caused by the medication, but I will not bother you with it.
I pains my heart to see him sit on the couch, in that bad shape and knowing he is worrying too. still we have to make the best of it and hope for the bst, otherwise there is no point in going on.
I just hope that for now, the fluid will stay away from his belly, because that also is makes it more difficult for him to move around and stand up.
For now, the belly looks good, but if can change in a day.
We have to keep track of his weight, of course, he also is on a regime of fluid control, he can take in around 1,5 ltr a day. So we have a little notebook where we write all things down.

In between all that and all hospital visits in the afternoon and such, I find some time to do a little shopping dor the things that are really needed, and I even dug up my dahlia bulbs in the garden and placed them in the shed to wait for next year.
The weather is not really bad, but not all too good either, temps are low, just around 8-11 C with sometimes some rain, at times windy, so real autumn weather you could say.
Every day though we have visits of our parakeets!
So I am kept busy too by them, hanging up some food for them every day. They are so funny and less and less afraid.
well, this is about all news I have for you today, I have to get moving, time is passing by fast. Have to take care of Jan, making breakfast, lunch and dinner for him, keeping track of his medicins, that he takes them on time, etc. etc. So my days are filled enough.
That's why I am not much on the blog, the time that I can sit down for a while I like to spend on watching tv and knitting a little bit. it is good to keep the hands busy(and then my eyes don;t shut so easily during a detective LOL).
Let's hope next time I will have some good news, I for one hope Jan can stay out of hospital noow for a while. He has been there 5 times now in 2 1/2 months? That is  a bit much.
Wishing you all a good day and happy week ahead, stay healthy.

Update, trying to do it short.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Well, Jan is home again, he was sent hme yesterday afternoon.
They did all kind of researches, treid a lot of things, may be found for now more or less the reason and with some change in medicine hoping the fluid will not be reained in his belly.
I have my doubts, but we wil have to see.
For now, they did another drain of 10 ltrs!
In any case he must work on his condition. He lost a lot of weight (not in the belly so much LOL, but body mass). He also has extra protein drinks for a month. That surely will help, but gaining weight will take some time.
Next week he has already a control appointment with his specialist.
Let's say tyhat it is so far, so good.
Hopefully he can stay out of hospital now for a looooong time.

I also am making this post because I have two downloads for you. You still have to have the clusters from Arlene from the Young Ones kit.
And in between all consternation and hectis I managed to make a little Halloween kit. So that is just about in time for your photos .
Now I am going to sit down for a bit of time, already did a lot of things this morning. made a few necessary telephone calls, gave jan his breakfast, then did some grocerie shopping came home and prepared partly our dinner(marinade some stuff, and then I can finish it later and put it in the oven. Rather quick and easy)
And after all this I feel it is time to sit down for a moment (am a bit pooped out, hahaha, and perhaps do some knitting. Trying to make a little throw for Christmas, and just hoping it will be ready in time.
Till next time, have fun with the Halloween kit.

Download    HERE

Download    HERE

I am getting a little bit desparate.

Goodmorning everybody.

First to all of you a big thank you for your comments and prayers and good wishes. And taking your time to read my very depressing posts.
You are marvellous people.

I will try to do it kind of shorthand because I don't have too much time to linger at the computer.
Last Monday Jan came home of hospital. His trouble with retaining fluid in the belly might be a kind of tromoses somewhere in or just in the entrance or exit of his liver. That helds back the filtering of a certain substance and than the whole internal "household"gets upset. Seems to sit on a tricky spot to operate, is probably not an option. That's probably why they gave him another bloodthinner medication.
Last time he was there they drained him, it was about 14 ltrs!!!
First few days he was home he was doing rather well.
But starting around Friday already he got worse again, his weight gained and not because he ate so much. His belly became bigger again and he started to have somewhat the same issues as last time. Bad coordination, concentration, in short all misarable.
He should go to his specialist this week Thursday, but I decided it was no good and in fact real bad to wait till then. Couldn;t even think of how to get there.
so last Sunday night both of us where almost up and around all night, Jan having trouble with kind of vomitting, only clear slime, buit it exhausated him terribly. It already started one or two days ago, but the Sunday night it was the worst. Then in the morning Jan himself asked me to phone the hospital.
I first tried to get to the assisted gastrointestinal liver doctor(Jan had permission to do so in case things went bad), but wasn;t yet reachable. So  called 112 for an ambulance and they came quick and we went to hospital. After a few hours of research at Emergency( you know blood test, lung photo, urine test, question to answer, everything all over again, just like two weeks ago) and he was at the ward. I went home and tried to get some rest, Must say I did get some decent sleep, which was needed.
Now today I will hear what they will do, I guess there will be an echo and perhaps already another drainage. And then I hope they will not release him too soon, because he is exhausted and needs extra feeding for one and then I hope the doctors will come with a solution for the problem. Impossible for both of us to carry on this way, of course.
I wished I had happier news to tell, but at the moment it isn't there.

Now I will end this post, have to get dressed, eat something, then have to do some shopping, and perhaps if there is time left do something in the house or already prepare my dinner. Then to Jan, visiting hours are from 15.30 till 19.30, like to go early, and return home when there is still a bit of daylight.
Till next time.
Take care and stay healthy!

Hectic days around here

Goodafternoon everybody!

last week Jan was hospitalized as I still wrote and had a drain in his belly on Thursday and there came out around 14 litrs of ugly fluid.
They removed the drain Friday morning and they sent him home in the afternoon.
I wasn;t happy about that, thinking it was too soon.
But okay, he didn;t had this strain on his belly anymore which already was wonderful.
The hospital chainged a bit of his meddicins, also he had to beunder control of the thrombosis service. During the weekend I already noticed Jan wasn;t feeling all too good, he also started to have some coordination trouble, was wobbly on his feet, really distracted, talked not so good anymore. So I started to worry again(and I knew he was too).
But Monday came the thrombosis service and give him the scheme for the next few days.
But that Monday things got slowly worse and I already wanted to call for the doctor. He didn;t yet, so we struggled through the Monday and Monday night(I almost didn;t get any sleep, logical).
Then Tuesday morning Jan was up early and me too and I asked him what to do now.
He asked me to call our housedoctor, hoorray.
As he is just a few steps away from our house, I quickly got dressed and walked to the office. Explained to the assistant and she said the doctor would come over during lunchtime.
So he did and he decided Jan had to go to hospital again. As Jazn was in no condition to go by taxi or tram, doctor ordered ambulance.
It took hours again till Jan was actually in a room again, during the researches at ER  walked to the department of his specialist, explaining what was goping on and that Jan couldn;t come to the appointment on Thursday. and I urged the assistants there to inform his specialist and that we wanted to talk to her .
Well, she came yesterday to Jan in hospital and had a long talk with him. During her visit to him I came to visit too and was sooooo happy to see her sitting on Jan's bed there!
seems there were made some mistakes with his medication, also some miscommunication with us, so she wanted Jan to stay for a bit longer time in hospital to get everything back on track and do some good research and have a good control on him. Oh, I was so happy to hear that.
Normally it could have been he was sent home again on Friday, but now at least his is staying during all weekend. may be on Monday he can go home, but if you ask me, I rather would see him in hospital even a few days longer.
But Jan is getting better already. Okay, his condition is really zero, after a little walk he is exhausted, but the coordination is almost back again, speech is back again, his eyes look "good"again, so that already is a profit. Seems he had too much urine tablets, so he got dehydrated.
And he had too much bloodthinner meds too, so he is on a rather new schedule of meds and mg. of that.
All by all again a stressing period.
I really hope this time when he comes home again, all will slowly get better again and will "settle"itself again.
Now I really have to hurry a bit, to get ready for visit to hospital soon.
So till next time, and hoping it will be better news.

Not yet happy news to tell

Goodmorning everybody!

I wished I had some good news to tell about Jan but there isn´t.
Last week it didn´t improve with Jan´s belly, so last Friday he went to hospital for bloodcheck.
Monday his doctor called on him to ask how he was doing. Well, he said it wasn´t good. He explained hopw all went, that he didn´t loose enough fluid, the belly was still the same size, he almost didn+t eat)he really lost fat, or muscle on all parts of his body except the belly, specially his face.)
So his doctor said to him that she would try to get him hospitalized as soon as possible, but that unfortunately she wouldn;t see him this week, because she had to go to another congres.
Jan said that she sounded not as nice as always, but that it had to do with the acting of the replacing doctor, well, so it felt to him.
We got a phonecall Tuesday morning that he should come in the afternoon to hospital. so that was quick.
I went to him yesterday and he already had a lot of tests done and it seems his doctor left behind a whole protocol of the things the doctors had to do for research and such LOL!
After all the tests they will see what could be best to do.
Perhaps another raise of the urine pills for a while, or may be something else and if nothing helps they might be doing a drain. But they don;t like doing it, it can be complicated sometimes.
But if it is necessary, well, let them do it. Jan has to get rid of that fluid in his belly, which is giving a lot of tension to the belly.
Not great that he is in hospital again, but on the other hand i am happy, because they do all kind of research now and that is already something. I think, they also will keep him longer hospitalized this time. Let them, as long as it has a good result!
So in short that is the situation for now.

You understand that nothing great is coming out of my hands at the moment. Of course I do the necessary things, but also that(the ordinary housework) is left alone a bit. I will pick it up again in a day or two, of course.
Weather isn't great at the moment Today we have stormy weather, with sometimes some rain. They say the storm will lie down towards end of afternoon. Hope so.
Temperatures are around 15-16C, not fantastic either. But the birds don;t mind. I hang up some food for them every day and yesterday when I was home from hospital visit again there were about 13 or 14 parakeets!!!! And then some tits and others too. Very busy LOL.
In the two weeks Jan was home again I even managed to finish a kit I was wroking on for already so long.
So  have it ready for you.! Name is "The Young Ones"and is kind of Victorian style.
Have fun with it.
As soon as there is news to tell you will find me back here.

Download    HERE

Quick update, real short.

Goodafternoon everybody!
Jan's situation is about the same as it was when he came home of hospital.
Last week he called to hospital so perhaps get hold of the assistant of his doctor. He got the secretary, who asked him, after he did his talk, to come to hospital and give blood, so they could have a check and doctor would call him back on Friday.
Well, Jan went on his own to hospital(Iwasn;t home at the time), and I came back an found no one home! But Jan left a little note, so I knew what was going on.
Just 5 minutes aftermy arrival home, Jan came home too. He was completely exhausted from the little trip!
We waited next day for the doctor to call us, which he finally did at around 17.00 afternoon!
His talk was very disappointing, in fact we didn;t got any real answers or such.
Jan just had to continue with his medication and then wait till the call from his specialist(on 2nd of October).
The doctor who called him was quite vague with the answers etc.
I said that Jan perhaps should call his doctor on last Monday, she would be back from the congress. But, can you guess ?????
He didn;t. So now we will have to wait this whole week and perhaps next week there will be some action taken.
It worries me a bit, that there is no change in weight with him, and it should happen, with his aumentation of his urine pills.
He isn;t feeling okay, not really sich, but not good either and he is all the time very tired.
May be  can get him over the bridge to still call his doctor tomorrow ro on Thursday. Every day he will be in contact with her can only be for the good, I think.
I feel so sorry for him, and worst is that I cannot do anything to make him feel better.
We will just have to hold on some longer, till it will go better again.
No at the moment it isn;t a nice time, but one day it will change again, it just has to.
At least we have some quite nice weather, not really warm, but larger parts of the day the sun is shining and it is also great fun, to watch the birds in our garden. We have the parakeets, but now also loads of tits, and some others coming to have a bite.
Next time I will have probably a new kit for you. I takes ages to upload at the moment.
Thanks for your visit, hopefully next time I will have some more cheerful news.

Strange week with some hectic.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Planned to make a sooner post, but couldn;t find the right time for it.
You know Jan wasn;t feeling too well. Okay, finally he went to the doctor, who right away made an appointment with Jan;s internist in hospital. We went there last Thursday.
She saw us both and said: Oh, you are coming both, certainly there is something wrong!She took a look and sent us through too Emergency, to have some tests done but she already said that probably they would keep Jan in hospital for some days.
To make it short: after hours of being in the emergency, finally Jan was taken in at 17.30. First they were fearing he might have an infection of the belly fluid, but it wasn't. It seemed to be infection of urine ways, and that caused the liver not working as it should plus that made the spleen not working properly.
Well, the fluid contained in his belly made him look about pregnant for 8 or 9 months!
That all pushed on the lungs and diaphragm, all very unpleasant and by times painful.
Plus Jan suddenly had two immense bruises above and one under his belly.
He received antibiotics at first. he stayed in hospital till Monday afternoon, then could go home. Has to finish the antibiotics, received also an augmentation of his pills to urinate enough(for now by 3 times higher!). He first has to get lost of all the fluid.
In two weeks he will have an appointment with his doctor again.
Well, at least he is loosing again urine and or fluid, but till now it is hardly noticable on his belly. Perhaps we will have to be a bit more patient and give it some more time.
Because of all the tension Jan had on his belly that also played on his stomach, so he didn;t eat very much. He said to me it also was partly in his mind, all that goes in must go out, but as it didn;t, or not enough, there was less appetite.
So we have a hubby home at the moment who really needs quite some recovery. It can come again, first let's see if he can get back a smaller belly, that would be great. Because as it is now, it isn;t good yet. This in short what is his situation, I made a rough resume.
The days he was in hospital I tried to keep a bit busy, but I wasn;t feeling at ease, you know. Specially evenings and nights I was feeling kind of restless. and visitng hours were at 15.30-20.00 afternoon so mostly I went there at 15.30 till about 17.30 and then went home.

Before this all happened, I almost finished a kit but with all this going on, it stayed "almost finished".
On top of it I got a call from Heidi last week too that her Dad passed away. So I spoke to her by telephone for a moment when we were at the hospital last Thursday and Monday morning she came along and we had a good chat, and she could get off her chest a b it all that was going on around the passing away of her Dad.

Did we had some good weather at the least? Not so very. It is rather cold for the time of year, at times it rained a lot, but now it seemes to quiet down again and toward end of the week we might even reach again 18-20C again. Would be nice.

Well, you know now a bit about the situation here, I hope Jan will get better in short time as possible, and no complications will pop up.
No, this definately is a year I want to keep in mind. With all things happened till now, I couldn;t say it is a good year for us.
But who knows? May be next year will be better and healthier, OL.
When there will be something new to tell, I will try to make a post as soon as possible again.
Thanks for being around, stay safe, till next time!

We are having kind of autumn here.

Goodafternoon everybody!

In general it is going okay here. Only thing we worry about now is Jan´s health at the moment.
Finally  got him to go to the doctor last week. Well, doctor listend to his lungs)because of his caughing lately)but said his lungs were in pretty good order. So that already was a relief. But he is retaining lately quite some fluid in his belly, he has medication for it but at the moment thay don;t seem to work enough. that is causing the pressure on his diafragma(if I remember the word well).which causes the troubles.
All by all he has trouble because of it, so the doctor made an appointment for him with his specialist in hospital. Jan would go there somewhere in December, but that was too far away. Now Thursday morning he will go there. I think I will go with him.
And then I hope the specialist will have a solution and explanation.
I feel so terrible for him, you know and I can do nothing to make him feel better.
Let's hope he soon will feel better again and can do his walks and volunteering again and such.
And I always have to guess how he his feeling, because he is no complainer at all. Almost never says anything about how he feels or what is bothering him. And when I ask his answer is almost always:
" oh, I am okay, not feeling too bad". That's about all I get.

I just keep myself busy with normal housework and every now and then a bit of gardenwork, if the weather allows it. Slowly I have to prepare the garden for autumn and winter.
Last week or so we are having not very good weather. Temperatures don't come higher than around 17-18C, this week it will be even lower, some days something like 15C, which isn't great.
In the weekend we had quite some rain, and in between some moments of sunshine this week there will come more rain and also strong winds.
All over the world it seems that weather is acting crazier than ever.

We are getting used a bit to the fact that Brodski is no longer with us, but still there are moments  expect him to come in the kitchen, or greet me in the garden. It doesn;t matter, it will soften with time, and on the other hand, we don't want to forget him completely, don;t we?

Well, this was the little update. Thanks for all your sweet comments.
Take care of yourselves and be safe. Till next time!

Sorry for not being around more.

Goodafternoon everybody!

First a sooo big thank you to everybody for their sweet comment on Brodski's passing away. And you are all so understanding towards me for not being around on the blog so much lately due to all kind of things.
Well, it is now about 1 1/2 week ago that we brought Brodski to the vet and it is still very strange at times inm the house. There are so many little "habits" that we were used to, some of them occured almost thoughtless. In the morening looking around were he is sitting in the garden, walking in the kitchen and looking at the floor to see if he still has something to eat in his bowl. As jan said, I go into the garden and there always was Brodski greeting me, and now I am looking around to see why it takes so much time.
I assume it will take some more time to get all those little things out of our system. And this time it also is  bit different. When in the past a cat passed away there always was one or were even two to look after. Now there is no pet at all anymore. Very weird experience.
Last week I am worried also some about Jan, he isn;t feeling too well, but I don;t know what is bothering him exactly. Well, that is him, he doesn't want to tell me, because he know I will worry, but he forgets I am probably worrying more not knowing than otherwise.
I finally got him so far that he may call his doctor in the hospital to tell her what is bothering. Perhaps best thing to do, and hopefully he will do so tomorrow.
I really don't know what is wrong this year, one thing after another is happening, I really had quite enough of it and really wish that we could have at lest a few months of boring everyday life again.
As I read this post it isn;t the most exciting and happy one, I guess.
It will get better, I am sure of it. Just have to think so, after rain, and even after lots of it, there will be sunshine again, one day.
I am moaning about things and then I think of all people whoo have a really hard time in the Houston area, that is a lot worse.
and on the other side of the world, in Myanmar and bangladesh there also are terrible floods and a disaster is happening there again.
The world is getting crazy at times and the weather is joining this now.
So as you see, lots of people are struggling with life at moments, but mankind is in general strong and will survive one way or the other.

Before I close, once again I thank you all for staying around and sending me uplifting messages, it is heartwarming and I am very grateful for it.
Well, this was a little update, so you know I am still there, LOL.
Looking around in my files I found a kit I made already some time ago, so I will post that. It is named Summer Glory, so it is on about the right time. 
Till next time .

Download   HERE

Sad news to share

Goodafternoon everybody!

In general, we are doing allright, I think. For now we have better weather to enjoy, which is always nice,

But yesterday we had a sad day. we lost our cat Brodski, who is now playing on the rainbow with his brother Dikkie Dik.
Brodski wasn;t doing so well the last few weeks. Didn;t eat very much, got skinnier and skinnier. Now he often had periods in his life that he didn't eat too much and got a little bit more "streamlined.
But this time it was different.
Then I couldn;t support it anymore and said to Jan we had to go to the vet with him.
Brodski was around 17 years old, so I think the years got to him and I didn;t want him to get really ill and have pain so yesterday afternoon the vet gave him the injection so he could sleep forever.
It is always sad to say goodby to your pet, especially when you had him for so long. But he went quietly, on my lap, and he had a good life with us.
He will be missed, it was a presence in the house and we lost that.
So it is "Goobye Brodski".

Have to close now, typing is a bit hard with tears in my eyes. Can't help myself for it. Oh, it will pass and soon Jan and I will be able to talk again about him and his special character and moments that were full of laughter.

Just a short update

Goodafternoon everybody!

I planned more or less to make a post this weekend, but it didn;t happen.
I am so very lazy at the moment, concerning computering.
I just read at times some of the blogs of my blogging friends, it already is difficult for me to comment on all of them. Sounds aweful, isn;t it?
Well, good news is that my back is almost to normal again, and my hand is healing now, starting to have new skin and the "old"one is almost gone.
So in fact all is going rather well, I am just not in the mood for a lot of computertime, including designing.
I am sorry to let you down, I hope I can make it up to you at some time again.
No download today, should be there next time I'll make a post.
Take care of yourselves, and till soon.

Feel, as if I was on the "penalty"bench LOL!

Goodafternoon everybody!

It took long before I could move around a little bit and sit for a longer time, pffff! My back isn't all completely to normal, but I can do things again, just have to be careful with sudden moves.
But as if it wasn;t enough, just as my back got a bit better, last Sundaynight I had bel.y-trouble, you probably know the "fantastic"feeling of cramps? well, it took about all night before all left my body that had to leave it, hahaha.
And then , on top of it all, Monday late-morning, when I got up, I did put the waterkettle on to make a cup of tea, and how it happened I don;t know, but pouring the water in my mug, didn;t quite go as it should. Meaning I got some real hot water over my left hand! OUCH!
Quickly I cooled it with water for several time, but it kept burning, so I tried my luck at my doctor(who is just 2 minutes away from my house), to see if may be he still was there. I was lucky, he still was and did help me with my hand. First cooled it under water again, then he put on some cream and bandage and told me to come back next morning, so today.
After I came back yesterday from the doctor, some spots on my hand still hurt with burning pain, but after about an hour it calmed down and I didn;t have to take a painkiller.
This morning doctor looked and I didn;t have any blisters, hoorray!
Some fingers partly have  bit different color, have to put on some vaseline for a few days, have to be careful with warm water but it is all okay.
what do you think? Enough, is enough, isn;t it!!!!
I truly hope this second part of the year will be a lot better.

Jan was ever so nice during my backtrouble period. He couldn;t do much to make me feel better, but he tried his best in bringing me things to drink, handing me over all things I couldn;t reach, even did some grocerie shopping! Also did a laundry, some ironing, vacuum cleaning, oh my, even hung up food for the parakeets!

At the moment we have in our country the European championchips women soccer and our girls reached next round after 3 matches!
After this evening we know which team they have to play against, it could be Germany or Sweden. Not the easiest teams, but if they keep their head cool they may win next match. We all cross our finger, of course!

Okay, you are a bit up to date again, so I will finish now. It isn;t good yet to stay at the computer too long yet.
I have a little kit for you, I did make it already before the backtrouble.
I owe you still the clusters for the minikit May from Arlene, but i didn;t get to it, of course. So I give you now the minikit June to play with, and hopefully next time I will have made preview and uploaded Arlene's clusters.
It all is a bit chaotic at the mooment, sorry for that, but it will get better again(at least  hope so ROFL).
To all of you a big thank you for all the uplifting comments, you are just wonderful.
To my closest blog-and email friends:  have to read all your blogposts, will try to do so this week bit by bit and get in touch with you as soon as possible.
Please be a little more patient with me and all will come to normal order again.
Have a wonderful week, stay safe and healthy!

Download   HERE

I am still alive

Hello everybody!

just a short notice that from Friday i had serious backtrouble. couldn't almost move up or down or whatever, of course happened Friday afternoon, so couldn;t get to my doctor. I really had quite a lot of pain. Wasn't a happy weekend. Think I have the kind of arthritis or inflammation again. Today went to doctor got pills.
It already is a little bit better today.
so as soon as  can sit normally and for longer time again I will be back.
Don;t worry too much, it just happens every now and then.
Have a wonderful week.

Running behind on blogreading.

Goodmorning everybody!

It is happening every time again. I am so little time at the computer that I read my mail, answer it, perhaps do a few elements on a kit( also nt very often these days) and then go on with other things, as normal housework, spend some time in the garden as soon as it is nice enough weather, do some grocerie shopping, take time to cook dinner, in all taking it rather easy and then blogreading just isn;t done.
Then towards weekend I feel so guilty about it, that i sit down and do the reading to keep up with some of my friends, but it is tough work LOL!
I used to sit for a while at the computer every morning, so  followed the blogs by the day, but now  am spending much less time on the thing, but to be honest, I don;t miss it. Oh, i wouldn;t give it up completely, no way, but less time on it gives me some more time on other things. I even sometimes read again, most of the time when I sit in the garden, it is so quiet and peaceful then, with some singing of birds, sometimes the noise of children voices playing in the garden. It are the neighbours children and you just have to smile when you hear them. They sound so joyful, not crying or shouting out loud, just playing and having fun.

But today I ordered myself to update my blog a little bit. I really don;t have all too much to tell lately, in a way I am happy about it, It means no shocking things are distrubing our life. But sometimes it would be nice to be able to tell something exciting LOL!
I probably will post a bit irregular on the kits and the clusters. It has to do with me, not spending much time at the computr and Arlene has serious trouble with her computer. She would like to have a new one, but at the moment that is a bit difficult, so let us all cross fingers for her that her computer will hold on for a while longer!

This week we had one evening/night with aweful weather. Thunder and lightning, rain, even hailshowers, and it rained so much that the streets looked like little rivers! And at a moment we had coming water out of a pipe that is running in the kitchen over the floor. I just was in the kitchen for something and heard a strange noise. Went looking for it and saw the water blurbing out of the pipe! Quickly put a bucket under it, called for Jan, Jan could open the pipe and let some extra water out of it. It was a pipe coming from the roof, for the central heating. Sounds complicated, but okay, it went on for a moment(because of the storm that was together with the terrible rain), and then calmed down and after i think 20 minutes or so, it calmed down and was as usual.
Was however a bit scary at the moment.
Then next morning sun was shining again, streets were dry again, even the garden here didn;t suffer much from the rain, wind and hail.
Okay, a bit of rain would have been nice, but this was somewhat overdone, hahaha!
Weather will stay nice for today and tomorrow, then temperatures will drop again to just around 20 C, which is a bit low for now.
Weather still cannot stay really steady, we still have some days of high temperatures, then it drops down drastically again and after some days it goes up again to 28-30C. Strange summer behaviour.

Jan has poured me a cup of coffee now, so I will go and drink it as it still is warm and nice.
Here are the clusters from last week's kit, At Grandfather's house. The clusters for the May kit will follow later.
Have a safe and wonderful week!

Download HERE

I have new carpet tiles in my little hall!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Let's talk weather first. I am not all too happy about it. Beginning of the week it was great, but towards weekend temperatures suddenly dropped and we had some cloudy days, till today. We dropped from about 25-28C to just 19C with quite some wind. Only good thing was we had a bit of rain.
But today all looks already a bit brighter. we have still clouds, but also periods with sunshine and temperatures should go up this week to around 23-24C, with less wind and may be a shower of rain here and there.

Yes, Jan has laid some carpet floortiles in our little hall. You know from the ones we had for free. He had to cut some a bit, to make it fit.
The cutting did cause a little bit of problems, because he didn´t have a good knife for it. We had a stanley/knife, but the blade wasn´t sharp enough.Well, somehow he managed to do it anyhow and I am very happy with the new floor now. The carpet we had in it, was really old and used up, this looks fresh and clean again.
One of these days we may be do our little bedroom, and yes, Jan did buy some new blades for the knife, so I hope it will go much better.
Only problem is that we have to take our bed apart, room is too small to shift the bed to another place.
That´s often the trouble when you want to change something, you need to take things apart, or shift it to another place)like closets and so, and those you have to empty, before you can shift them.
It is always the èxtra work`that makes it take a longer time than you really want. Have to take courage in both hands and hope it will go rather smoothly. LOL.

Oh, I was for annual control at hte neurologist for my epilepsie, and I had a new one. Very nice lady, I must say.
As all is about the same, for long time, I am doing quite okay, she suggested that I stay under control with my doctor and if necessary he could always send me to her again.  was happy about it. It is only taking my time and the neurologist´s time, for just 5 minutes to say I am doing okay. They can use the time better for someone else.

My garden is looking great. I have lots of plants blossoming, so it is a happy place now. Once there came in a hollyhock, took ages to grow but this year  have flowers on it and they are in such a gorgeous color!

It is a deeper pink-red color, more towards bordeaux than the photo is showing.
And I always love my heuchera´s. There are many species from them, and great leaf plants, that as extra also have lovely flowering, very delicate.
This is, I think, the species Heuchera Caramel, but I am not completely sure. If you are interested to have one or more in your garden, just look on Google, lots to find about that plant.

You also have them with dark red and brown leaves, or green with little spots etc. etc.
We have now lots of visits of "our"parakeets, they come in every day, so every day I cut up one or two apples and hang the parts in little nets, and they are very happy with it. And sometimes they also get some seed, of course.

I didn;t do much of designing again this week, but still managed to have a kit ready, named At Grandfather's House.
The clusters you will have next week.

Now time for me to make me a sandwich and sit a bit in the sun now that it is shining!
Have a wonderful day and week, take care of yourselves!

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So busy with doing almost nothing!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Catchy post title, isn´t it?
But really, a week is flying by, and looking back on it I ask myself: "what did you actually do and achived, my dear?"
And I really don't know. f course there are the usual things that I have done, like the grocerie shopping and a bit of housework(hey, I gave the kitchen floor and hallway a really good cleaning, not just a quick strike with the mop, but really thourough and oh boy, you don;t know what the color of the water was in the bucket afterwards!!!!!)
I did several laundries and some ironing and putting those things in the closet, and I cooked and I went into city centre one afternoon. And some gardening, and a day or two being very quiet in movement because it was really very very warm!!!Then I am sure I did some more but cannot remember, so it wasn;t important, I guess. LOL!

I can handle warm or even hot weather, but it has to stay on for longer than two days. Here it is all the time kind of a rollercoaster. One or two days suddenly up to 30C, then dropping again to may be 24C, then one again to 30C and then (as we have now) not more than just 20C.
The body cannot adjust properly and that makes it difficult. Weather wasn;t bad, of course, but it still is acting a bit crazy and I think it will be going on like that for longer time.

Our garden is flourishing and is full with all kind of things blooming or starting to make buds, so you hardly see any soil anymore(which is a good thing by the way). I spotted some tiny little tomatoes on some of the plants, it will take some weeks before we really will have a "grwon-up tomatoe"on it, but  at least they are coming!

When I was in city centre I stayed rather brave and didn;t spend a lot of money, but I bought a polo t-shirt for Jan for very little and it is soft pink!
Looks like this:

 I just love it, it is something different from the always white or blue and it is a happy color!
Also found already another 2 Christmas presents! I know, Christmas seems far away, but I always start early, looking around for possible presents and you have time to find them for a nice price too.
What else interesting I did buy? A new mat for the shower room, it's such a very soft one, very agreable to the feet and it didn't cost much, really was cheap, so a good buy. It was also nice weather, not too warm, so I made a little tour through some streets I haven't been visiting for a long time and then it is nice to see the shops there again, popping in into some, just nosing around, having a good time.

Dear visitors, I think I wrote down about all that there was to tell.
I will soon make us a sandwich and later Jan will go to his volunteering.
I've made his dinner already yesterday afternoon, so it can be warmed up in the oven when he comes home.
And for myself I think I will make potatoe wedges in the oven, with lots of garlic on it and when they are ready i will sprinkle some freshly cut spring onions over them. I will fry a croquette(you know, with ragout in it) and I will have some strawberries with iced sugar and a bit of whipped cream as dessert. I will have a yummie meal hahaha!

Today I have a minikit for you, for the month of May. Yes, still a bit behind, but you know the saying: "better late than never"!
Stay safe, have some good times, remember, little things can also make you feel good for a moment or for a longer time. Just watching a nice program on tv, or listening to a song you really like, or look around you and see the beauty of nature and listen to the birds when they sing out loud. Sounds perhaps

like "heavy stuff", but life is hard and by times really difficult and to be able to handle it, those things can help somewhat to make you feel stronger.
Have a wonderful week.

 

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I was a bit of a busy bee this morniing

Goodafternoon everybody!

This morning I slept a bit later than usual, but never mind. Then after my morning tea(yes, since I have the stomach trouble, I drink less cofee and start the day with tea), I first took something to eat, than a shower and then started the washing machine. In the mean time I took a cup of coffee in the garden, because we have such lovely weather at the moment.
Then I prepared dinner for Jan this evening. Mine is already there, I will eat some left over from yesterday, which is spiced noodles with some chicken and I can take a fried egg with it if it will not be enough. And we both will have some strawberries with cream(and sugar for me too).
Dinner for Jan ready, then I made the bed. I changed the duvets for just a double sheet, because the duvets are too warm at the moment.
Then laundry was ready, so I could hang it out to dry.
Also washed the mugs and some more stuff, and by then I though I earned some computer time to update my blog.
So I was quite a busy bee till now.

Not very much happened actually this week. Oh yes, Jan had his control appointment with his doctor for his liver/stomach. All was well, so happy news. Next one will be in December again.
Gosh, yesterday  walked a lot around LOL. I was up rather early because I woke up by some strange noise. Appeared the neighbours from the appartment above us were having a rebuild or alteration again! There were some guys busy tossing stones and such into a big container from the window of appartment(and that made that noise that woke me up). Well, after I looked through the curtains, and looked to one of the guys that by chance was near the container for a moment) they stopped for a while with it and continued later in the morning. Okay, not best sound but didn;t take too long.
Then when Jan woke up and looked to the container he noticed that there were lots of good carpet floor tiles in there. I already was dressed, so went to the appartment and rang the doorbell. ne of the contractors opened and I asked him, if it would be okay to take some of the tiles out f the container. It was no problem, so Jan and I took out quite a large quantity(they were practically brandnew!) and now we can use them for the little hall and perhaps even for the bedroom! would be great, because the carpet there is really at it's end.
Wow, good deal, having fantastic carpet floortiles for nothing!

After this small adventure  I went for a bit of grocerie shopping, Then I couldn;t find good strawberries(and the ones in our supermarket were much too expensive, really). So after I first made dinner (the noodles, chicken with peanut sauce) so it would be ready when Jan came home I walked to the market. It was great weather, so it was good to be out. I found some strawberries and also bought us a kilo cherries for a really good price and they are yummie!
And I also found already a Christmaspresent for someone.
So all together I think I deserved some "free time"today LOL!

Now i feel i need to eat a little sandwich. So I will do that sitting in the garden, under the parasol(otherwise it will be much too warm in the sun at the moment.)
I have for you the clusters from the In Wonderland kit, made by arlene, of course.
This week we should have fabulous weather, days with temperatures around 26-27C(later in the week one day temps will drop for a day and the go up again to around 25C). so good for the garden, only thing a bit less good is that we will have no rain, so we will have to water the garden every day or two.
Never mind too much. Oh our tomatoe plants are starting to have some blssoms, so may be later we even will have some own grown tomatoes. We'll see how big the crop will be hahaha.
Have a wonderful day and week ahead.

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Another week passed by in a "woosh"

Goodafternoon everybody!

Today we started out really well with the weather. Full sunshine and temperature around 26-28C! At the moment it seems as if some clouds come over every now and then. Perhaps we might have some thunder and lightning this evening.
Last Tuesday and Wednesday were the minor days of the week, with sme lower temperatures, but then they got higher again to one really warm day today.
Tomorrow will be around 10 degrees lower(figure that!) then all will go up again to around 22C.
weather is behaving a bit strange lately. It might be so, because of the change of climat that is going on slowly. 

Not much happened here. We still have no government and I don;t think it will be there soon. The first 4 parties are talking to eachother again to perhaps form a coalition and then cabinet, but there are big differences between them, so I am not certain at all that it will succeed.

Our garden is getting more and more flowers and I have made a few photos. We also have our parakeets visiting us again, as I told before, but one day last week we had about 8-10 sitting on the two rosebows!
I know attach some food(mostly parts of apples)also on the neirest rosebow and if we sit still and quiet they come there too.
I made one photo but just as I clicked, a few flew off, so I only have two of them on the photo.

And have a photo of a pelargonium, which has a little story.
Two or three weeks ago  was coming home from shopping and there was a big container with all kind of rubbish like stones, wood and such(someone was stripping a house I guess). But on top I saw a pot with a pelargonium in it, the flowers gone or brown, but the leaves still looking quite good and fresh. So I took it home, gave it a little "haircut"(well, removed all the dead flower heads and so) and gave it into jan's care. He pampered the plant, watered it, and perhaps even talked to it, but it has result! It started to flower again and looks real healthy. We both had such fun and a big smile about it.

Then

the sweet peas are starting to flower.

And we have quite some strawberries. Well, we will not fill bowls full with them, but we have lots more than last year. We have two post and next year I hope the third pot will flower also.

Now i think I will end this post and take advantage of the sunshine while it is still there. Later in the afternoon the clouds and thunder may come near.
I have a kit for you, I am quite confident I didn;t post it before. It is named "In Wonderland" and is based on Alice in Wonderland. Hope you can use it.
Now Jan is leaving for his volunteerwork(he is leaving a bit earlier because he is going to walk to it and will come home by tram).
I already made dinner for this evening, so  can take it easy for now. Better too, because my back is not behaving well. Somehow i think I made a wrong move or so and then it takes a few days to get sound again. Oh well, age comes with some trouble, although not to everyone. I saw on tv a little film of a lady of 91 years, still doing an excersize on the bar, and she also does other forms of gymnastic if I heard well. Gosh, only watching her made me feel my back, all my other muscles and whatever more sour!!!LOL
I have a two links for you, just watch them!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o625rylh3bY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9mlj3D7zCA
If the links might not work, just make a search on youtune with her name Johanna Quaas, you should find it easily!!!!Amazing.

Good,  wish you all a lovely day and also great week ahead.

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Happy Sunday to all!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Just a few words about the terrible news of London. Just happened that awefulness of Manchester and now London again.Whenever will it stop?
Best we can do from a distance is to keep all victims and families in our thoughts and prayers and not give in into fear for going out.
We just cannot afford that fear will be the winner and therefore the ruthless people that commit those attacks.!

I had a pretty good week I can say. we had some good weather which always helps to feel much better. and this week my friend Heidi and I finally found a moment in her busy schedule so  could visit her in her new appartment. and it is a very pretty one with a lovely view over the city from her balcony. She is on the 10th floor so you can imagine the view.
She even has some greenery around and to look onto to. The appartment is very light and all rooms are pretty square, which is handy. She has a nice sized kitchen, not really big, but room enough in it to have a little table and chairs to have e.g. breakfast.
It is a bit further away then her former house, I think I can be there now within 25 minutes walking(to the other one just 10-2 minutes). But if I want to I can take the tram and then I just have to walk for another perhaps 4 minutes.

My garden is getting greener and more colorful by the week now.
I've made some photos of it this week.

Partly overview from the patio.

 Brodski finding some shade for a moment. Often he lies on the little table between the two chairs!

 Some lovely lillies

Our little pond and if you look well, you see one or may be two of its lodgers. I counted 5 frogs at the most.

Part of the potting table, on the left ou can see two of the tomatoeplants. I splitted them up, so I have 3 more pots!
On the right you see a strawberry, and Jan already had two strawberries of it, hahaha.

Here s species of perrenial geranium. I took last year a little cutting of it, with luckily some roots on it. And i am happy it found its place and blooms now. Still yet small, but never mind, it will grow.

I also did some designing. Slowly some inspiration is coming back. But with the nice weather, well,  like to sit in the garden if it is not too hot.
And when it is really nice, till even in the evening, like last Friday, I did sit a while there just before 19.00 o'clock, just to catch the last ray of sunlight and waiting for Jan to come home,  suddenly had about 8 parakeets on the rosebow near my chair. So I sat there very quiet and watched them eating their peanuts and parts of apple I hang out for them. I had such a good time!

Forecast says that in the middle of the week temperatures will suddenly drop again to around 17 C(big difference with last week, when we had days of 28C and today even 21 C), but there is good hope that by the end of the week temps will go up again to around 22C.
I hate that rolling coasting weather, wish it could stay steady for some months at nice temps, but that is only wishfull thinking. Oh well, let's be happy with what we had already and every day with sunshine and some rain at night and temps of 22-25C. That already is very good for our region!
Time to finish this post. I want to change the bedsheets and then I probably will keep it quiet for the rest of the day. May be a quick hoovering and that will be all  already was a busy bee on Friday, I even did the windows outside at the fron of the house. Pfffff, that is something LOL!
Oh, did i mention I have another tiny little garden started??
At our street we have every few meters a tree standing, and around it there is a round with only soil;sand with sometimes weeds growing there.
I thought we could make it look nicer, so I planted a few cutlings  still had there, I have there now a Nasturtium, some mint, another plants I don;t know the name of, and a groundcover plant. It is nothing at the moment, but I will try to make it look nicer and with more bloom and then see how long it will stay there. If I have result, it will certainly look nice under the tree. And perhaps some people will do the same at the tree standing in front of their house, who knows?? LOL.

Good, I think you should have the clusters of Arlene  from the There's a little smile kit.
Wishing you a terrible good week,  stay safe and healthy!

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