Some quiet days!

Goodmorning everybody!
There isn;t much to tell today. The days past by rather quiet, which is a good thing, of course.
Monday jan and I both took a relax day, specially Jan needed that after a lot of shifts!
Yesterday he had an all day long shift, from morning till about 16.00 in the afternoon.
Well, I didn;t mind that too much, could do some things here, first went out shopping in the morning and when I was just ready with unpacking and had things ready to start preparing already our dinner for a part, Jan came home for a quick visit. He just had time to eat his sandwiched and drink a cup of coffee and off he went again.

I tried a recipee I saw on tv, because when it was made it seemed simple but looked good.I'll give you the recipee(as I don;t have much to talk about LOL)

This is for 4 persons, but easily can make it for less or more.

Ingredients:
6 big potatoes
3 onions
half a celery
some (preferably fresh) chives
4 well-filled spoons of sour cream
bit of butter
pepper and salt

Peel the potatoes, cut them in some big chunks and cook them in water with a bit of salt.
Put a stew pot or something like it on  medium fire and melt the butter.
Peel the onions, and cut them in not to fine chunks.
Braise the onions in the butter, Stir regularly (if you like you can braise also a little bit of garlic with it)
Take the celery stems apart, wash them, and then cut them in nice chunks, not too fine, not too big, and if there is some leaf on it, cut that too.
Put them with the onions and let it braise for about 10-15 minutes. Keep stirring regularly.
Onions may color a bit, celery should still have a "bite".
In the mean time potatoes should be ready, put away the water and mash them just a little bit. You should end up with still some potatoe parts, it shouldn;t end up in a fine potatoe mash!
Then add the sour cream, bit by bit, stir all, taste, add if necessary some salt and pepper.

In the recipee the cook made it with some salmon filet, cooked in the oven. But you easily can take something different with it. I had chicken liver with it.
It's a quick made meal, but it tasted real good and is a change now and then.

Today's kit is named "Forest Love". I think it's has nice colors for this time of year.
And you should see the clusters Arlene made with it. I really like the page border she made, fantastic!
Today Jan has evening shift, so I don;t think I will do much during the day(again LOL), but should try to get hold of the owners of the top appartment, to make an appointmetn with them so that we all can take a look at the gutter at the roof. I think the main problem comes from there. Sigh, boring but neceassary. Don;t want to talk much about it at the moment.
Oh my, Jan's mobile is beeping again, probably messages from the agency that they changed his working schedule. Well, no problem, we'll take a look and confirm. They are trying very hard to give him lots of shifts!
Now I am off, have a lovely day, lots of scrapping pleasure!

Download    HERE

Download     HERE

Rain, rain, stay away for a while!

Goodmorning everybody!

We definately arrived at raining season. I don;t mind that so much, as long as it isn;t raining days and days. But at the moment I don;t like it at all, because then we have raindrops inside too.
Yes, I know, boring story, our leak. But now Jan seems to have figured out from where it all comes.
So today we will try to get hold of the owner of the appartment above us, that's first thing todo.
Then fixing it, should be a joined project, but not all to difficult or long term.
But it might also be caused partly by the raingutter at the edge of the roof. I hope the owner of the appartment above us, can take a look there, we need help of the owners of the appartment at second floor for that. Hopefully it's just a case of cleaning it, of minor repair.
If not, we need to call a plummer for it and then it will ask some money from all of us.
But I truly hope that will not be necessary!
Well, enough of water talk LOL. It will be done with some day!

It was working weekend for Jan again, Saturday he had morning shift, and could relax the rest of the day, but yesterday he had double shift, one morning and one evening.
All together he was rather lucky with the rain, till yesterday evening. He came home a bit soaked, LOL.  Quick change of clothes solved that, and then some relaxing time at the couch.
I am glad he has his day off today!
Tomorrow he has to start with a double shift again, morning + afternoon, so he will be away all daytime. I am proud of him, he is working a lot, taking some double shifts if they are offered to him, I sometimes need to hold him back a bit. Yes I know, the money is welcome, but he has to look after himself too, so it's a good thing sometimes a days comed by, there is not work for him, which is an extra day off.

When Jan was at work yesterday, I did do some things myself. Changed the bedsheets, and did the ironing of the dry laundry. Good I did, cause today a new load should come out.
That will be all for today,  I think I will take the "day off"together with Jan and have all the time tomorrow to run around the house and go shopping etc.
I just came from my friend Snowy's blog and read she already has made a Christmas kit. Wow, she's quick! I know she has done that becauese in December she is going to the US again, but still it's real early. By the way, you should take a look at her blog, she has a great freebie for you!
Still, time is running fast, so may be I should at least think about a Christmaskit. Could be fun, and change a bit of the "regular"thing. Who knows, may be today is a good day for it.

Freebie for today is a kit named "Once Again", together with matching clusters from Arlene.
Wishing you a lovely day!

Dwonload   HERE

Download   HERE

Busy kitchen day, pfffff!

Goodmorning everybody!

Wednesday we did go to the market, as Heidi phoned me, that she couldn't make it, Jan and I went there in the afternoon.
It was nice weather and oh boy, we came back with some stuff!
And we also saw some trousers for Jan, very nice ones and very low priced, and I also saw a couple of fantastic sweaters for him.
So he might go there next week and buy himself the trousers and hopefully one or two warm sweaters, then he is "ready"for the winter and longer.

But we went there for the veggies and we did buy all kinds. We came home with a red cabbage, about 2 kilo's of brussels sprouts, two big portions of carrots, a couple of leak stems, about 5 red paprika's(the long one, they are sweeter), a kilo of apples, kilo of bananaa, kilo of onions.
All this for 1 euro each! Now thats a lot cheaper than in the supermarkets, believe me! and all fresh!
So yesterday I spent several hours in the kitchen, chopping it all and giving it a quick cook, just to boiling point, leveing it there for a minute and then out of the water.
While one was getting boiled, I was busy chopping the other etc.
In between I even found time to prepare dinner for the evening. Then it all had to cool down, then I made portions of it and somehow managed to get it all in the freezer.
We calculated that we have for about 3 weeks veggies now.
It is some work, preparing it all for the freezer, but it really pays off.

Leak isn;t showing the last couple of days, but........today it is raining(at least at the moment) so we will have to keep an eye on the spot, and as soon as it might start we will have to call our neighbour. It will be easier to determine from where it actually comes.

Jan is working this morning so that gives me opportunity to do a bit vacuum cleaning and may be I will do some ironing too. But after the busy day I had yesterday, I think I won;t do all too much LOL.

Before going to the freebies, I have to tell you that Linda has made two marvellous quickpages with the Autumn Brings beauty kit.

Now the freebies. I've made you another photo album, of which I hope you can really use it. It's made with a different page size, this time I've made them 8 x 6 inches.

The photoalbum is made with the "Calm Before the Storm"kit and also the clusters from Arlene.I have a preview of the whole album and a detailed preview of two pages and the fron - and back cover.

Dwonload Photoalbum  HERE

And from Arlene I have some marvellous wordart she made for Autumn! And there is a surprise
wordart in it for you too, it's not showing on the preview!
Have some fun with it.

Download      HERE

Still a bit gloomy outside, so I think I stick to the computer for a little while longer and then get busy.
Have a tremendous weekend!

Such nice autumn weather!

Goodmorning everybody!

With Jan at work this morning, it is quiet in the house, which I don;t mind so much, LOL!
Oh, I got up later this morning, all due to Jan. I think he woke up just before the alarm went off and he shut it down, so I slept through. Isn;t that nice of him?
But when he comes home I first will tell him, that he shouldn;t do it and then say it was nice of him ROFL.
Had a mail from Arlene, that she had a bloodtest result and it seems she is a diabetic and also suffers from a bit too high cholesteral. Hmm, not the best news, but it probably explains why she was feeling sick and terribly tired. Let's hope she soon can work out with her doctor a treatment for it and that all will go well again.

Our leak isn;t fixed yet, but for the moment it is dry again. It should be something caused at the balcomyies of our neighbours upstairs, but we can only see it when it is raining again I think.
Well, some day it will be fixed, hopefully without too mucht costs. We stay optimist!!

The last couple of days it's real nice autumn weather, good to be outside during the day.
So I went to town center yesterday morning, to check out a new shop there, with all kind of things for cheap prices, and yes, you can find a lot of nice stuff there. I stayed cool and didn;t buy anything there!!!
But I bought myself a new pair of trousers, I really needed them for the winter, and for a really cheap price too, together with a sweater. I was all happy about it.
O gosh, in between posting here, I got a phonecall from Heidi too. We planned to go to the market this morning, but she cannot. She has to deal with all kind of things concerning her parking licence(she has a special one), and municipal department for parking stuff is doing difficult, so she has to make new arrangements with them and the car insurance company and so on.
Oh, all those regulations and laws and so on are not easy to understand and deal with sometimes!

Now probably Jan and I will go this afternoon to the market, to buy us some new veggies and a bit of fruit, so it might be that tomorrow I am all busy in the kitchen again preparing the veggies for the freezer ROFL>

Okay, have to leave you know, I have things to do and  time is running.
It's a bit hard to choose from all the kits I have "in store"at the moment, really! But I've decided to give you another Autmnal kit, named "Enchanted Autumn Time" and I just ADORE the clusters Arlene made for it!!!
Oh, speaking of Autumn stuff, you should check out Mat's new clusters and also yesterday Edna posted a new part of her monthly freebie.
I give you a preview of my kit together with a preview of the papers.
I hope you can have a lot of fun and beautiful layouts with this kit and clusters!!
Have a great day.

Download  kit   HERE

Download clusters   HERE

Hopefully no more leaks soon LOL

Goodmorning everybody!

Gosh, it was a bit wet during the weekend. And then I mean outside and inside too LOL.
Outside I don;t mind too much, but inside isn;t so funny.
One good thing, yesterday it was dry and so it was in our kitchen.
And I was lucky to get hold of the owner of the appartment, and he came yesterday to see what was the matter . Now he promised us to come by today again, and then first pour a lot of water on the balconies, to see if the trouble is coming from there, and if not it has to come from another place. Still I am glad he is cooperative and hopefully it soon will be over. Then the part of the wall has to dry out first, before I can give it another coat of paint.

Apart from that it was a rather quiet weekend, with Jan working most of it. Yesterday he had a rather long day, leaving home at about 7.15 morning and coming home at 15.45 afternoon.
Had to figure out something for dinner, and wanted to have a bit different thing, so I decided to eat fish. Found a couple of recipees on internet and I prepared my fish filet with a mix of two recipees LOL.
But it was very tasteful. You should try this out.

Take two filets of pangasius(but you could take also some cod for it). If you have the filets deep fried, first let them them thaw.
Recipee is for two filets.
Take an onion and cut it in thing slices, take a tomatoe and cut it in half and then in slices or take whole cherry tomatoes. Cut one or two cloves of garlic, cut them real fine.
Then take the filets and put on pepper and salt and rub them in with some pesto.
Rub in a baking dish with some oil.
Put in the filets, cover them with the garlic, tomatoes and onion, put on some fresh basil leaves, (or take some dried herbs, as basil, rosemary, thyme, parsil). Cover the whole with a bit of grated parmesan( or another cheese that you have at hand).
Pre-heat the oven at 200 degrees C, and then put in the dish, covered with some aluminium foil.
Leave it in the oven for about 15 minutes and then take off the foil. Let the whole stay in the oven for another 5-8 minutes.  All together it should be in the oven for a 20-25 minutes, depending of the thickness of the filets, check if they are well-cooked.
Then take them out, on a plate, serve with some roasted potatoes, or masched potatoes, a bit of salad and voila, a tasty meal, easy to make.

If you could do with a couple of clusters more from my Autumn Brings Beauty kit, just go to
Miriams's blog, where Mat has posted them. I just came from there and was happy to read that Miriam is doing allright, she just is still having terrible inter problems ad becomes very frustrated by it, according to Mat's post!

Arlene has sent me another bunch of clusters, the sweetie and she made them while she wasn;t feeling all too good. She had been feeling sick for a couple of days, still not all gone and is also very tired. Let's hope it will pass soon again. Told her perhaps a checkup by her doctor could be a good idea.

It is looking not bad outside, temperatures are around 57 F at daytime, so a bit fresh, but the sun is coming out and there isn't much wind, so all together it could be a nice day. Perhaps I will go out this afternoon, have to go anyway to deposit a bill at the bank and post a card, but it's much nicer to do so with nice weather.
Well, freebie time now I guess.
Today a kit in my favourite color again, yeah, and it's named "A Smile Works Miracles".
And they are accompanied by matching clusters from Arlene.
Have all a very good Monday!

Download   kit   HERE

Download clusters   HERE

P.S. I noticed that the Shoutbox is not showing up at the moment,hopefully it will only be a temporarly issue!

New bloglayout, for the time of year

Goodmorning everybody!

As you can see I changed my bloglayout again. I thought it was up to a seasonal layout, so I used my kit Autumn brings Beauty and for the header a cluster by Arlene.
I had time for it yesterday evening as Jan was working evening shift. I also started making some pages for probably a photo album ( a "solo"project, but I want to do also a ohoto album together with Arlene some day). Then later I watched soccer matches, yes I like that, and also good they were on, because it was really hopeless on all the other tv channels. There are some days, that you almost cannot find a nice thing to watch, hoorray then for dvd and/or video!

Rejoice with me, ROFL, we have again some leak in the kitchen at the ceiling, it's the same we had before, and should be coming from our neighbours upstairs. For a while it was okay, but I know they were changing again some things and probably that causes the problem in a waterpipe line So Jan went up to them to tell them and ask if they could fix that finally. The tenants promised to wanr the owner of the appartment. I hope they will do so and that he comes over quickly, and that it will be fixed. It can happen at times, but if it lingers too long, it ruins my wall and paint and slowly even a bit my cupboard.
Well, may be he will come today, hopefully when Jan is still home, I like to have some support, hahaha.

Weather isn't looking too good today. I see a lot of wind and it will rain too. Not a good day to be outside, but I will have to, because we are lacking bread for one, and some other stuff. Hmmm, I hope that later this morning weather will brighten up a bit. Also not a good thing for Jan, who has to work this evening. With this kind of weather, he could use the moped from Heidi, it doesn;t prrotect him from the rain, but surely helps in moving around. On a bike with fierce wind isn;t the best thing you could wish for.

I am runing a bit late today, so enough rambling for today and let's skip to the freebie.
End of the month will be Halloween so I thought I post my Halloween kit "Creepy Evening "today. I hope you will like it, I tried to make a bit different than ordinairy. I'll give you also a preview from the papers, although you still have to look at them in your grapics programm to see them reallly good.
Arlene made some matching clusters for it.
Okay, I am off now, wishing you a terrific weekend!

Download  kit   HERE

Download Arlene's clusters   HERE

A real Autumn day outside

Goodmorning everybody!

It really is a bit gloomy outside at the moment. Rather fierce wind, cloudy, and there's expexted rian too. I pitty Jan, cause he had to go working this morning, he got this shift at the last moment.
Hope he can travel a bit trhough the rain showers.
Monday I went to visit Heidi, just for a talk and to tell her about Dikkie. And she told me that when she said it to Séverine, she was really touched by it.
But all together it was a nice time together, girls talk, you know.
Heidi told me she was looking for an electric bike, because her mped she is driving with now, is a bit heavy for her. So when I heard that I asked Jan if it wouldn;t be a good idea to take over the moped. It would make his work a lot easier, specially when the winds are blowing hard in this time of year. And he agreed it would be a great thing.
I told Heidi and she agreed( and also thought already about it) that Jan had first option for the moped. I have no idea what price she will ask for it, but I am sure it will be reasonable, and she even said that we could pay in parts. Isn;t that nice?

Then I got a not nice phonecall yesterday from a neighbour of hours. We didn;t have much contact, but we talked when we met at the door, and later we even got a key, in case she needed help(she is disabled, and we could help already once when she was in trouble). But last year she broke her wrist and was placed in a care home, and later she also got a new hip. But all lasted and lasted and yesterday she called me with the message she had cancer, leukemia. That was quite a shock, of course. She will go to another home next week I believe, specially for that kind of patients. I will hear a bit more about it when she is settled there, but it's possible, she will not be there for a very long time.
I hate those kind of messages, and it seems as if in this time of the year you hear more of them around you then in other parts of the year.

This week Jan is working almost every day an evening shift. Only today is a morning and Sunday a looong morning shift. I like it better when he works mornings, although it is early rising then, but then during daytime I can do things in the house( I am much more active with that when he's not home LOL), and it's coseir to watch tv together in the evenings. But it comes with the kind of work. I am already glad that he doesn;t work nights!
Oh, we have a new doorbell, Jan found one for a very nice price, so that's done too LOL.
Let's see how long this one will stay working.

I am still in a good designing mood, hoorray, have a lot in stock at the moment. Oh, have to tell you that Linda has made a wonderful quickpage with one of my kits, in sumptious dark pruple!
Take a look at her blog.
(Linda, I have trouble getting mail through to you, They keep it bouncing back. Left you also a message about it onyour blog)

Well, I am in doubt if I will go out today, it isn;t looking too good. Gives me opportunity to do a bit in the house and I can do some computering this afternoon. Tomorrow it wil be hopefully a little bit better outside. We'll see about that.
Now time for a freebie, I suppose.
This will be an Autumn kit, named "Autumn Brings Beauty"(and it sometimes does, when all the leaves are re-coloring and sometimes the sun is shining!), with matching clusters from Arlene.
Have a great day!

Download  kit HERE

Download clusters   HERE