Hi team. Sorry for the long silence. I've been on a journey of sorts. First I dipped into the snotty valley of the flu, after which I had to rally to gather physical and mental health to celebrate my birthday the way I like: with friends, food, presents and all the trimmings. We also indulged in a bit of cultural enlightenment during Melbourne Festival by seeing four different shows. Then I traveled to the land of written fiction where I do like to get lots and linger. Then I had an espresso disaster to deal with, which I am pleased to say has now been resolved.
I have also been very active around the house, as I had decided on a party at home, but our house in its perpetual state of renovation was not to my exacting standards (read: it was a very dusty building site with planks and tools in nearly every room of the house). I finished renovating a lovely wooden glass cabinet I was given, which was a hideous colour aqua in a textured paint and was an absolute nightmare to sand. I did said work on our verandah where most other outdoor building work took place during winter and most of spring.
But as the weather turned lovely, finally, I decided to reclaim my verandah and have my birthday party on it, and so had a lot of work to do to get it ready. I bought a whole lot of outdoor furniture from Ikea, which meant I spent a few days assembling said furniture. But the result is very pleasant.
I am on my verandah now, having just finished a coffee and breakfast , the wind gusty, the sun gaining strength on its way of heating us to the temperature of 34 degrees Celcius today. I have done the washing yesterday, and the hot, windy conditions are perfect for drying the washing in no time. I call this "tumble dryer weather".
Let me tell you, I am immensely happy right now. I love my 'new' verandah. I spend every moment I can here since it's been finished and if the weather is warm enough. Because a Melbourne spring is likely to leave you hot and bothered one day and shivering the next.
I am so happy with my life right now. I am enjoying my job, though a few more hours of work would be very welcome, I am indulging in the fact I have a lot of spare time to finish renovating cabinets, to do spring cleaning, to grow herbs, to read, to go to the gym, to cook and clean at leisure and be a perfect contented little house wife. I am not normally a contented house wife, in fact, the very words 'house' and 'wife' together make me think of being a slave to chores and picking up after messy husbands and children. But not right now. Right now I breeze through unpacking and packing the dishwasher, I sing while vacuuming and I have even taken on my husband's one chore in the house: emptying the rubbish bins. To be honest he doesn't quite do it to my high standards anyway, he nearly always forgets to put clean bin bags back in the bins, so when I have a handful of dirty something I want to get rid of, I open a bin and realise I cannot dispose of my rubbish before a bag has been put in the bin. Drives me nuts. I also like to clean the bins with a paper towel with eucalyptus oil before putting a new bag in, and then dropping the paper towel in the empty bag so the bins smell all fresh of eucalyptus.Yes, I know it's a bit much, but I hate stinky bins.
Anyway. I am just celebrating my freedom while I have it. I am savouring the days of unstructured jobs around the house, mixed with a bit of reading and work. I have time to put my life in perspective, to ponder the world, my choices, my dreams and hopes and to be honest, I don't have much more I would ask for.
I had a great birthday. I love birthdays. What's not to love? Being lavished with attention, eating cake, receiving presents, meeting with friends and enjoying food. Birthdays have been a great source of joy in my life for as long as I can remember. Birthdays in my native Netherlands are definitely bigger deals than here in Australia. I remember as a child that the house would be decorated with garlands and ribbons, my chair at the dining table too, and my mother would put flowers around my plate, choose what was for dinner and get spoiled in every way possible. And I got lots of presents.
I have friends here who are not 'into' birthdays and even dread theirs. That makes me sad. Why would you pass up on an opportunity to celebrate being alive? My in-laws are not so very big on birthdays either. My mother-in-law does not give me a present for my birthday, but she does take me out for lunch. Me, I would do both. Presents AND lunch. And I would add cake to the mix, too.
However, she doesn't get the idea of presents. My husband and I used to spoil her with nice things for the first few years we were together, until I noticed she did not use the lovely 1000 thread egyptian cotton sheets we bought her one birthday and preferred to use her poly blend sheets from Target because they were 'still good'. They were in her linnen cupboard, in their original packaging, for a good five years. So I reclaimed them earlier this year. We now enjoy those sheets on our own bed.
I enjoy my presents. I enjoy giving them, I adore receiving them. I have some good present givers around me. My husband has become a fantastic present giver. He makes a little show of it. Sometimes I have to go on a bit of a treasure hunt, or he makes it into a quirky scene involving some of the characters in our life. I love that. I enjoy remembering the person who bought me the gifts when I use/wear/see those items for the rest of my life. I have so many treasured objects in my house because they were gifts from treasured friends and family. My mother, in her wealthy days, was an indulgent present giver (she still wants to be, but she can't), and my life is peppered with items she got me, and I love them.
I love to celebrate. And in my opinion the Dutch are better at it in ways than the Aussies. The Dutch have a lot of celebratory traditions. The Queen's birthday, for example, is huge. The whole friggin' country turns orange, we get the day off, and everyone is out celebrating in orange outfits. There are orange cakes, drinks, beer, bread toppings, you name it, they turn it orange just for this one day. It is an event people prepare for and anticipate with excitement. In Australia the Queen's birthday is just a day off. Find below a small selection of photos we took at this year's Queen's Day celebrations in Amsterdam while we were in the Netherlands. I am the one in orange ; )
When a baby is born in the Netherlands, the house is decorated in pink or blue, a big plaque (or several) with the child's name is placed in the front garden or in the window and people go to visit and eat 'beschuit met muisjes' (toasted rusks with aniseeds coated in sugar, white and blue if it's a boy, white and pink if it's a girl).
Then there's Saint Nicholas Day. It's an awesome holiday, a version of Anglo Christmas of sorts, involving lots of presents. But I will write about that in December when it's celebrated. There's also Saint Martin's Day. There's a whole 11 days of carnival in February. Easter and Christmas each get two days of celebration involving lots of food. I'm sure I've forgotten a few other festivities.
I miss the Dutch celebrations. Maybe Aussies don't celebrate as much because Australia is such a melting pot of different cultures. We do get lots of days off here, but people don't necessarily use them to celebrate, just to relax and have a bbq.
I will never pass up an opportunity to celebrate. I love parties, I love being festive, dressing up, and being with friends. Life is one amazing journey and I believe it never hurts to take a moment to think of how far you've come, what you've learnt, how you've grown, and the challenges and fun still ahead. I try and instill this in the kids I look after, too. And they get as excited about birthdays as I do!
I intended to write a bit about my books and my espresso disaster as well, but to be honest, I feel I have written enough for now and want to get back to my book and drink another coffee. ^_^
I have also been very active around the house, as I had decided on a party at home, but our house in its perpetual state of renovation was not to my exacting standards (read: it was a very dusty building site with planks and tools in nearly every room of the house). I finished renovating a lovely wooden glass cabinet I was given, which was a hideous colour aqua in a textured paint and was an absolute nightmare to sand. I did said work on our verandah where most other outdoor building work took place during winter and most of spring.
But as the weather turned lovely, finally, I decided to reclaim my verandah and have my birthday party on it, and so had a lot of work to do to get it ready. I bought a whole lot of outdoor furniture from Ikea, which meant I spent a few days assembling said furniture. But the result is very pleasant.
I am on my verandah now, having just finished a coffee and breakfast , the wind gusty, the sun gaining strength on its way of heating us to the temperature of 34 degrees Celcius today. I have done the washing yesterday, and the hot, windy conditions are perfect for drying the washing in no time. I call this "tumble dryer weather".
Let me tell you, I am immensely happy right now. I love my 'new' verandah. I spend every moment I can here since it's been finished and if the weather is warm enough. Because a Melbourne spring is likely to leave you hot and bothered one day and shivering the next.
I am so happy with my life right now. I am enjoying my job, though a few more hours of work would be very welcome, I am indulging in the fact I have a lot of spare time to finish renovating cabinets, to do spring cleaning, to grow herbs, to read, to go to the gym, to cook and clean at leisure and be a perfect contented little house wife. I am not normally a contented house wife, in fact, the very words 'house' and 'wife' together make me think of being a slave to chores and picking up after messy husbands and children. But not right now. Right now I breeze through unpacking and packing the dishwasher, I sing while vacuuming and I have even taken on my husband's one chore in the house: emptying the rubbish bins. To be honest he doesn't quite do it to my high standards anyway, he nearly always forgets to put clean bin bags back in the bins, so when I have a handful of dirty something I want to get rid of, I open a bin and realise I cannot dispose of my rubbish before a bag has been put in the bin. Drives me nuts. I also like to clean the bins with a paper towel with eucalyptus oil before putting a new bag in, and then dropping the paper towel in the empty bag so the bins smell all fresh of eucalyptus.Yes, I know it's a bit much, but I hate stinky bins.
Anyway. I am just celebrating my freedom while I have it. I am savouring the days of unstructured jobs around the house, mixed with a bit of reading and work. I have time to put my life in perspective, to ponder the world, my choices, my dreams and hopes and to be honest, I don't have much more I would ask for.
I had a great birthday. I love birthdays. What's not to love? Being lavished with attention, eating cake, receiving presents, meeting with friends and enjoying food. Birthdays have been a great source of joy in my life for as long as I can remember. Birthdays in my native Netherlands are definitely bigger deals than here in Australia. I remember as a child that the house would be decorated with garlands and ribbons, my chair at the dining table too, and my mother would put flowers around my plate, choose what was for dinner and get spoiled in every way possible. And I got lots of presents.
I have friends here who are not 'into' birthdays and even dread theirs. That makes me sad. Why would you pass up on an opportunity to celebrate being alive? My in-laws are not so very big on birthdays either. My mother-in-law does not give me a present for my birthday, but she does take me out for lunch. Me, I would do both. Presents AND lunch. And I would add cake to the mix, too.
However, she doesn't get the idea of presents. My husband and I used to spoil her with nice things for the first few years we were together, until I noticed she did not use the lovely 1000 thread egyptian cotton sheets we bought her one birthday and preferred to use her poly blend sheets from Target because they were 'still good'. They were in her linnen cupboard, in their original packaging, for a good five years. So I reclaimed them earlier this year. We now enjoy those sheets on our own bed.
I enjoy my presents. I enjoy giving them, I adore receiving them. I have some good present givers around me. My husband has become a fantastic present giver. He makes a little show of it. Sometimes I have to go on a bit of a treasure hunt, or he makes it into a quirky scene involving some of the characters in our life. I love that. I enjoy remembering the person who bought me the gifts when I use/wear/see those items for the rest of my life. I have so many treasured objects in my house because they were gifts from treasured friends and family. My mother, in her wealthy days, was an indulgent present giver (she still wants to be, but she can't), and my life is peppered with items she got me, and I love them.
I love to celebrate. And in my opinion the Dutch are better at it in ways than the Aussies. The Dutch have a lot of celebratory traditions. The Queen's birthday, for example, is huge. The whole friggin' country turns orange, we get the day off, and everyone is out celebrating in orange outfits. There are orange cakes, drinks, beer, bread toppings, you name it, they turn it orange just for this one day. It is an event people prepare for and anticipate with excitement. In Australia the Queen's birthday is just a day off. Find below a small selection of photos we took at this year's Queen's Day celebrations in Amsterdam while we were in the Netherlands. I am the one in orange ; )
 |
| Orange bitters at midnight on Queen's night. |
 |
| Turns out I was the only one Dutch enough to wear orange amongst my sister & her friends.... |
 |
| The canals of Amsterdam are full of revelers in orange |
When a baby is born in the Netherlands, the house is decorated in pink or blue, a big plaque (or several) with the child's name is placed in the front garden or in the window and people go to visit and eat 'beschuit met muisjes' (toasted rusks with aniseeds coated in sugar, white and blue if it's a boy, white and pink if it's a girl).
Then there's Saint Nicholas Day. It's an awesome holiday, a version of Anglo Christmas of sorts, involving lots of presents. But I will write about that in December when it's celebrated. There's also Saint Martin's Day. There's a whole 11 days of carnival in February. Easter and Christmas each get two days of celebration involving lots of food. I'm sure I've forgotten a few other festivities.
I miss the Dutch celebrations. Maybe Aussies don't celebrate as much because Australia is such a melting pot of different cultures. We do get lots of days off here, but people don't necessarily use them to celebrate, just to relax and have a bbq.
I will never pass up an opportunity to celebrate. I love parties, I love being festive, dressing up, and being with friends. Life is one amazing journey and I believe it never hurts to take a moment to think of how far you've come, what you've learnt, how you've grown, and the challenges and fun still ahead. I try and instill this in the kids I look after, too. And they get as excited about birthdays as I do!
I intended to write a bit about my books and my espresso disaster as well, but to be honest, I feel I have written enough for now and want to get back to my book and drink another coffee. ^_^
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