A Hectic, but all together reassuring day.

Goodmorning everybody!

Yeah, Jan did call his specialist yesterday morning! She was real busy, so couldn;t talk to him right away, but she phoned back at about 14.30 p.m. afternoon. She summoned him to the emergency ward, saying he better could take a few things with him in case she decided he had to stay for the night. Wow, that was some message. So he right away put on some other clothes and so on, in the mean time I was flying around to pack some clothes and such for him. Jan said I didn;t have to go with him, but I told him in fearce words, that he was talking nonsense, and of course I went with him. If not only to hear right away results from tests and being there at his side for extra support! We were in hospital within the hour, he already was announced by his specialist, and we were kind of lucky that at the moment it was very quiet at the emercency.
Right away he was undergoing all kinds of tests, like a thorax picture, blood sample, heart film, and his specialist came down too, to take a fluid punction in his belly.
Oh my God, it was going all very quick, marvellous. His doctor told us she wanted him in right away for some checkups, cause she feared a bit he could have an infection. If so, he should stay in hospital to be treated right away. But thank God, thorax was okay, blood sample was okay, heart film was okay,and punction was okay, meaning no infection or other frightning thing going on. Still she was wondering why suddenly he was retaining so much fluid, and now even in his underlegs.
I was glad to be at Jan's side when she did the punction in his belly, it isn;t a pleasant thing to undergo, can be quite painfull, but Jan can deal with pain, but he suddenly got into a kind of panic, in a split second he was in fear, but we got him out of it and all wnet well.
He certainly wouldn;t be pleased to know I tell you this, but why not being honest? I can understand it happened to him. And it is kind of wierd,he can stay very calm when something happens with another person, but as soon as it concerns his own body, he is reacting all different.
But okay, his doctor was already happy, that he didn;t have a weird kind of infection, so now she could raise his dosis of flurocimide( we call them "watering pills"LOL), she didn't want it to do just on ground of the phonecall, and see how that will work.
So for the moment Jan is home again, how reliefed we were yeaterday afternoon to go home again!, and still has to go to the MRI on Monday, and then he has an appointment with his doctor again on the 15th, if nothing spectacular shows up by the MRI scan of course.
So for the momentwe will see if in a few days his swelling will deminish, and I hope so. Then still have to wait for the result of the MRI, but whatever there is still to come, at the moment Jan is feeling (and so I am) much calmer after the hectic of last couple of days.

So that was the big news till now LOL. No, really, I am feeling much better too, had a little talk too with his doctor and if there was anything that really might have worried her I am convinced she would have told me for certain.
But she keeps him under very close control!
Jan will have a long sleep today, he already announced it yesterday evening, and I can understand it.
All the stress ( kept mostly inside himself, because he doesn;t want to worry me, sigh!) and then the hectic afternoon yesterday pooped him out a bit. Well, sleep only will do him well, so Ilet him sleep and probably I will tackle some household chores, to work off mine ROFL.
Jan and me too, of course hoping that soon the swelling in his feet will be gone and his belly too naturally, and that will make him feel a lot better already. He is hoping it will be soon, casue he wants to go back to work. Well, we could do with the money of course, because sick leave pay is very low for flexworkers and it takes a couple of weeks before first money of that will be tranferred.
But most important is that he will be healthy again, and we can manage for the moment financially, so let's be happy with what we have and worry later about other things.

Must thank everybody for their support, advice, prayers, everything in the last couple of days. It's not chaning the situation you are in to, but it helps to cope with it. You are awesome people!

What about something completely different now? Like a freebie?
 Today a kit that may be is not all season related, however, with some of you experiencing still a warm Indian summer, it might not be such a bad one.
It's called "Last Summer Days"and has nice, warm colors and some flowery papers to it, as well as some more background papers and some clusters from Arlene to make it complete.
Well, hoping we will have a real quiet weekend, we could do with that LOL, wishing you all a wonderful weekend and see you again on Monday.
Time also for a hug to all of you too!

Download    HERE

Download    HERE

Can we please have some quiet weeks?

Goodmorning everybody!

It isn;t a morning as others, cause I am feeling a bit worried about Jan.
I told you he caught a cold, well, that I think is a bit better, but I didn;t tell you all.
You know he has to go for an MRI scan on Monday, no problem with that.
But as my husband is a stubborn man and doesn;t tell me all about his health, finally yesterday evening he told me it wasn;t going 100% with him. He had a bit of inflated feet, caused probably by fluid. He already takes medication to avoid that, but lately I noticed his belly got bigger than usual and then you should think: "okay, he has gained a bit more weight, which can happen from time to time". But that wasn;t really the case, if you look at him and the rest of his body stays almost the same.
Hmmmmm, I don;t like that, so already told him he should call his doctor just for assurance but no, not necessary he says. 
But this morning he asked me to call his agency and tell them he is feeling sick, so he cannot come to work. Then he must be feeling really bad.
So I also said him, I want he calls his doctor too, today, and not wait till he goes for the MRI on Monday.
He didn;t say yes or no to it, so that will be a battle for me to fight today! But I don;t want to wait till Monday or even wait two more weeks till he goes to the result appointment.
May be I worry too much(I have that problem sometimes LOL), but I think it's better to talk to his specialist one time too often than wait and get nervous during a few days.
Men are really acting weird sometimes, and we have to cope with it!

Hard to explain what is the matter with him at the moment, but one thing is sure, he isn't feeling well, and I feel so sorry for him. He just got well on track with his work and was rather happy with it, and now this again. Damm................d!

We did see at the news a bit of the terrible damages storm Sandy has caused!
Every time again it is frightning to see, how powerful nature can be.


Bit talking like a headless chicken I am afraid, but that's because I am not feeling at ease at the moment. Hope you can forgive me.
Let's go to the freebie and I will finish this post, hoping soon I will have some better news.
Kit is named "Until Tomorrow"and matching clusters from Arlene.
Have a great day!

Download    HERE

Download    HERE

Today might be day of truth LOL!

Goodmorning everybody!

Today it is raining, at least at the moment, and it might continue all day, if we can believe the forecast. But......... in a way I am glad, because then we can check if the rain stays outside LOL.
Yeah, Saturday we had the plumber around and he fixed the stuff at the gutter at the roof. So now here is hoping he did it well and that we are having no more leak in the kitchen
Jan and nieghbour of 1st floor still have to replace a part of the waterpipe near to our appartments. It's partly also and old pipe, so better replace all now, to be sure.
I am not yet jumping around of joy, but it looks as if the plumber's repair is the thing!

Thats the biggest and most important news of the weekend, hahaha. Rather poor but yet important.
Jan had to work morning shifts this weekend, and I felt sorry for him, cause he had to cope with a cold, it seems. Not yet gone completely, but I am glad he has his day off today and I urged him to take tomorrow to as day off, so he will have two days to recover from the shifts and his cold. Hopefully that will help a bit, he is so aweful stubborn that guy! Hard to tell how he is feeling, almost never says a thing and when I ask him, he gets annoid and always answers: "Oh, all is going very well". ( he even would say that if he was crawling around with an injury or whatever that caused a lot of pain,).
I should know by now after 20 years, not to ask, but I am concerned, of course. Well, I coped with that all that time, so I will continue doing it LOL!

Yesterday I really had no idea what to cook for dinner. At times fantasy really lacks, you know!
But of course I came up with something. It was a great thing to get rid of all "left overs".
I had a bit of mushrooms, and paprika left, and they had to be used soon.
So I bought some ham and grated cheese and made an own style of pasta.
I used 'Penne"for the past and made it like this:
Cook the pasta and in the mean time cut the paprika rather fine as well as onions, the mushrooms, the ham. Stir fry the onions and paprika first in some oil, after a couple of minutes add the mushrooms. At the last moment add some pressed garlic(I like to be it a lot LOL). All has to have still a little bite.
Pasta should be ready, so let it drop off the water and put it back in the pan. Add a few drops of oil and a little cube of butter. Then add the mishmash of the veggies, and the fine cut ham too, bit of pepper and salt some basilicum, and a nice quantity of grated cheese. Stir it well together, put in an ovendish  and on top a nice coat of greated cheese. I made it already in the morning so had to warm it in the oven.
Oven on about 200-225 degrees, first the pasta covered for about 20 minutes and the last 10 minutes remove the cover, so that the cheese on top can melt well and takes a bit color.
We added a saucage to it and it tasted really well!
I made a rather large protion, so today I have an easy job, we eat the rest of the pasta, with perhaps an omelet or a hamburger, or whatever comes into mind.


This should be more a blog about a bit of my life and about scrapping and designing stuff for it but at times it looks more to be a cooking blog LOL! Not so strange, because I like to cook, normally. There are days that I don;t like it, then it is a necessary thing to do, and then I throw some quick things together and that's all.

It really is getting colder around here! Even saw on the hews, that in France and Germany there are parts with a lot of snowfall, which is still very early for those regions. And in the Eastern part of Holland there is already a bit of frost during the night. Yak, it's not my favourite kind of weather, but alas, we will have to cope with it. Just hope we won't have to much frost and snow, specially now that Jan is a lot on the road. He cannot have too much ice and snow on the road, which will make it almost impossible for him to do his job!

I always end up with a longer post than I wanted ROFL.  So better I finish up now, and get a few things done around here.
I have a kit for you in a one color palette today, with some awesome clusters from Arlene. Kit is named 'Royal Red"and I hope you can use it for some layouts. Not the easiest color, but I know you are inventive, so hopes are high, grin grin!
Have a wonderful day, and stay safe!

Download     HERE

Download    HERE

In full speed of designing LOL

Goodmorning everybody,

I think this will be a short post, not really too much to tell, apart of the leak trouble, that seems to reach a solution and fix. It needed and probably will need some more phonecalls by me, I seem to have become a sort of intermediaire. Hmmm, not my favourite job, but okay, it has to be done.
Hoping to make appointment with plumber this afternoon about the day he can come to repair it.

In between everything of the household and intermediairing, I seem to have still enough time for designing. And oh my God, Arlene and me we are in full speed!!! You should see what we have in store for you of Christmaskits already! Yeah, we are early, but its great. And everynow and then there also comes a general kit out of hand and brain LOL.

Yesterday we had fish for dinner and I think I already gave you a recipe for that, but I made it a bit different this time. I like to experiment a bit and sometimes combine two recipes to one, it often depends on what I have in the fridge you know.
Yesterday I made it like this:

Two filets of Pangasius fish (if you have them in the freezer, unthaw them first.)
Had a bit of celery left, so cut that up in real fine chinkies.
I had red paprika, so cut up two of them too in small chunkies.
Those together I fried in a bit of oil in a pan, just enough that they have still "a bite". Added some garlic to it and put apart.
Then made a bit of chicken broth, oiled in a baking dish, put on bottom the celery and paprika stuff, then the two fish filets, (salted and peppered a bit), then added also some basilicum(fresh is best, but dried one is ok too), and slices of tomatoe(you can also use little cherrie tomatoes cut in halves). Added a bit of chicken broth don't cover all the fish with it, just add a little bit!)and put that in the oven on about 225 degrees. Cover it for the first 25 minutes with a sheet of aluminium foil. Check after that time if fish is ready, when almost ready, cut some slices of brie or camembert(thin slices) and put that on top for about 10 minutes.
It was delicious! and you can also use another fish for it, as long as it has a bit sturdy flesh.
Give some potatoes, or mashed potatoes or even rice to it and tadaaa, dinner ready!

It seems I am again in a kind of cooking mood lately LOL. But I like to try out things, so you can have some great variation without too much trouble.
I think soon I will try out a recipe for a meat loaf with spinache, ham and something else(but I forgot now) and I have a couple of recipes more i found and will give a try. If it's any good and not too difficult to make, but with an enormous effect, I will write them down.

Well, time for me to get a few tedious things done here, yes, housekeeping and things linked to that, brrrrrrr, so let's put on a freebie or two for you.
What about some magical fairy stuff???
A great kit I think, well, I am pleased with it anyway, ROFL, and some fantastic clusters from Arlene!
Made you 2 preview of the kit, "Magical Forest Night", one of the whole an one of the papers and Arlene's clusters neede also two previews to do them a little bit justice. Hope you can have a "magical weekend"with it and see you again on Monday!

Download kit   HERE

Download clusters     HERE

I saw the sun yesterday LOL!

Goodmorning everybody!

It is waking up early all week, because Jan has all days morning shifts. It isn;t so bad to get up early, it is done easier when a whole week is at a same schedule. I hate those changing shifts, one day morning the other the evening, in that way you never come into a certain rythm.
But we are lucky this week.
And it's also nice, because you still have a big chunk free in the afternoon and the whole evening.

we have a date for his MRI finally, it will be on the 5th of November. Glad it is rather soon, I just hope the results will be without striking news, you never know with such a thing.
Then he has to go back to his doctor two weeks after to hear about the results.

You'll never gueass what is going to happen today! Yeah, I managed to get hold of 2nd floor neighbour, to make an appointment for today for roofgutter repair, and also got hold of 1st floor neighbour for it.Husband of the 2nd floor is home all afternoon, 1st floor guy wasn;t all too happy, but finally agreed to come late afternoon. Now here is hoping it will get fixed good enough, then only there is the rest of the pipe to replace down to the ground floor, but that's the easy part.
Oh my if it might be true, that all can dry and stay that way, how happy I will be!

It was real nice weather yesterday, morning a bit cloudy, even a few drops of rain, but later in the morning the sun peeped out. So I went out then to do some shopping, it was a great temperature.
I also managed to wash the new load of laundry, had a sweep with the vacuum cleaner and gave the wooden floor also a quick cleaning. And I also made for the first time fondant(or is it fudge???). It is very sweet, but you can make it a bit less if you want, but oh, I just LOVE that candy, which is usually made around our Sinterklaas holiday, on the 5th of December.
I still remember the one an auntie of mine made, lots and lots of years ago, she made it with dark chocolote taste, yummie!!!! And it turned out already not bad, Jan said he gave me 7 points for it, well???? Next time I will use even finer sugar for it, and some more chocolate in it.
It's made in little rounds, or bigger forms too like heartspaes. Here some examples:

Oh, before going on to freebies download, first I have some blogs for you to go to, for either some great layout or some real lovely freebies.
http://www.matsmemories.blogspot.nl/
http://linda-ohwhatfun.blogspot.nl/
http://missednasplace.blogspot.nl/
Scroll down a bit on Edna's blog!
http://suruha.com/
http://silversnowyraven.blogspot.nl/

Now my freebie, and Arlene's too!
We both are rather busy with some Christmaskits and matching clusters, but they will not be posted yet, of course. I think that will be at the start of December. But don;t worry, there are plenty of "general kits"in store LOL!
Today a soft pastel kit, named "Seems Like Yesterday".
Have to do a bit of ironing today, it's not too much, so plenty of time probably, to do some designing too!
Have a great day, take care!

Download    HERE

Download    HERE

Solution leak may be near!

Goodmorning everybody!

Right on to the thing that is occupying us the most lately, the leak!
I finally maganed to get hold of our neighbour 1st floor and also from the 2nd floor.
Yesterday afternoon Jan went to 2nd floo neighbour with the 1st floor one. They took a good look at the gutter and pipe on top of the roof and after some talking it is probably a small repair, that will be done by 2nd floor neighbour. Then Jan can fix the bad part of the pipe between our house and 1st floor neighbour, probably this nieghbour will give a hand too. We only have to wait for a coupe of days without rain, so it has time to dry up and then repair can be done. At the same time that Jan will change a part of the pipe near to us, he also will make some minor, but important repair to the wall, fill up some cracks and hopefully then all the misery will be finished.
Then our wall in the kitchen can dry up too, then I will first give it a good wash with a strong bleech solution, and then give it a new coat of paint.
So cross fingers that this all will be reality soon (first that it will stay dry for a day or two LOL)and that we don;t have to look up to the ceiling/window and part of the wall, where it was soooo watery lately! Yeah!!!!!!!!
Glad that neighbour 1st floor is handy enough(probably) to do it himself, that saves us a lot of money(all three of us) nothavning to hire a plummer for it. Now we will only have to share the costs for a bit of material, which isn;t really expensive.

It was a good thing Jan had a day off on Saturday, after again a double shift on Friday.
He really needed that and it was nice to be together in the evening. Then yesterday morning he had a shift to do, butthat wasn;t a very tiring one and he was home rather early.
Today is his usual free day, so he can gather some new energy for this week. Till now, he hasn;t much shifts scheduled, so I hope there will be coming a few more today and tomorrow.

They said on the weather forecast, that in the weekend and even a couple of days at the start of this week, weather would be rather nice with some higher temperatures, but I didn;t see too much of it. There wasn;t as much sun as told, although the temperatures wasn;t too bad, but not as good as predicted either. Perhaps we have more luck today. I do hope so cause I have to go our for some groceries stuff, and may be another trip to make to the bank(but may be Jan will be a good soul and will do that, grin...).

I don;t have a clou yet what to make for dinner today, but there are some new recipees I want to try out, so may be I pick one of them. If so, and it turns out to be good, I will write it down next time, okay?

The weekend I was rather creative, ROFL, and finished a second Christmaskit (!), and also a "general kit", and almost finished a 3rd Christmaskit too! Whoopee, I am happy about that. I always like to have several Christmaskits and preferably in different colorplattes, and I think I am on the right track.

Just read on teletekst that perhaps end of next week, the new coalition for government will be ready with their negociations and then come out with their new program. Hmmmm, as I wrote last week, some measurements already are known and they don;t bring a big smile to the face, and I suppose that it will not become any better when we will now of all their plans for the next years.
One thing is for sure, in general life will get more expensive(they give some tax reduces e.g. but take it away with the other hand and the taking seems always to be more than the reductions), people will have less money to spend, so it's about time Jan and I should win a nice prize in a lotery or something ROFL. But with our luck in such things, that probably won't happen. Oh well, let's hope that we stay healthy, because that is a great gift, and then all the other things will be dealt with in one way or another.

Enough chit chat done, time for another freebie, maybe that can brighten your day a tiny little wee bit. Today the kit is "Moments without Time"of course with lovely matching clusters from Arlene.
Oh, I saw that the shoutbox is doing weird again, appearing and disappearing, I get nuts about those things. Okay, will take a look at shoutbox, if it's not better soon, I may have to change to another one. Sigh, hate that kind of thing, why is it so difficult to let things as they were if they worked well? Yeah, progress has to be made, I know, but it's not always a greater good LOL!
Have a wonderful day, despite of my moaning !

Download    HERE

Download    HERE

Some beautiful days ahead.

Goodmorning everyody!

Oh yeah, after some rainy and gloomy days, it's  foracasted that the days to come temps will rise again to around 66 F and if the sun shines it might even rise to 71 F! Oh, if that should happen, whoopee!
Oh my, Jan had an evening shift on Wednesday. Okay, nothing strange, he has many, but this one wasn;t so well planned or organized. He had shift from 18.00 till 23.00 , but he was home only at 15 minutes past midnight!
Poor soul had a list of adresses that were very wide spread, when he went to one and then to the other, he had to cross all the quarter to the other far end and then back again for the next address and so forth. No, not a good planner, and you cannot change too much yourself in the route, cause there are scheduled times agreed with the customers.
I was glad he had no shift yesterday(although he could have, for the evening,but I turned it down, yeah! as he had to work double today) and could recover a bit.
Now today he has a double one, morning and evening, but they are normally not too difficult.
And tomorrow he is free again. Of course it's a good thing he can work lots of hours, but he also has to take care of himself. We aren't getting any younger!

As yesterday was a very lazy day(again), I have to do some things here. Washing machine is loaded, have to run the vacuum cleaner, and if there is time should get me some necessary things I only can get in town center. Hmmmm, we'll see if I can manage that, because have to give Jan something to eat before he goes to evening shift, and he has to leave home at about 16.15.
And I have to make a few telephone calls too, so even if it doesn;t sound a real busy day, it all takes it's time.

I already have made one Christmas kit, yes! And a second is almost ready too!
May be a little bit early start, but better that than throwing something together at the last moment.

We still  are without a proper government, you know. There is of course the Care taker Government(hope this is the right expression), but we are still waiting for the new one. The two parties that won the election, are still talking and negociating, and very little is coming out in the news till now. They have a kind of media silence, hahaha.
Whatever they decide to be the policy for the next 4 years(if they make it through!), it certainly will not be good for our wallet. Some things we know already that will be done. VAT for "luxury"goods has gone up from 19% to 21% and they are even thinking about 23%!! So for food e.g. it stays the same, but you aotice already prices have gone up. This has been effected from the 1st of October.
This is only one measurement I am talking of! Lots more to come, to "fight the crisis".
And then you get such nice news in the papers and on tv, like "Energy costs will go down next year, it will save averybody around € 80 a year on the bill."(this because suddenly the energy suppliers were able to buy energy cheaper, yeah yeah)  Okay, every euro saved is profit for us, but................in the last line of this awesome news there is said"it might however be a little less profit for the customer, because of course the VAT is going up. And as we say here in Holland, that is a case of making people happy with a dead mouse!
We just have to be prepared to it, that life will get more expensive next year, wages will stay mostly the same. Only the "big guys" seem to be out of the "danger area"how strange is that?

Before we all get too depressed, I better stop with this rambling, LOL, and go to the freebie for today.
I thought we could do with a kit in some light color pallette, so I offer you "Light of Dawn", with of course beautiful clusters from Arlene matching to it.
Now I just have to wait till it stops raining(yes, this morning it still is raining a little bit, but that should stop later this morning), and I can go out.
Have a lovely weekend, thanks for the visit.

P.S. Almost forgot to mention that a visitor of this blog, has started a new blog(she already has a few LOL), where she offers downloads of tags and other things, a lot made with my stuff, how cool! For download you will have to register, don;t get afraid, it is just an easy registration, without tricks, only done to prevent as much as possible the piracy. Take a look there and also visit her other blogs, you will be pleasantly surprised!
http://ukkistubenblog.blogspot.nl/

Download     HERE

Download     HERE