I am SOOOOO going to pay for this....

But I had a blast today!

It started last weekend, when we drove past the sheepfarm and there were flags and cars out front. I went online after we got home, and found out that they had "lammetjes dag" which translates into "lambs day". It happens in the spring, when the lambs are born, obviously. You get to see the new arrivals up close. Being a sucker for anything animal, and baby animals especially, I wanted to go. Mike not so much, so when he had to work today, I had him drop me off. This was the last weekend they would have it this year, so I had to! LOL

It was different. And right up front, I have to say, I will not go back next year, but I WILL see if the sheepfarm in the village that my sister lives in, is doing this, and go there, to see if they are all the same, or if this was the exception. The farm is an old 4-square. Don't envision the american 4-square homes here, but 4 buildings, some built over the course of several generations, some all built at the same time, in a square, with a courtyard. 1 part is house, and in most farms, one part would be feed/hay/straw storage, one toolshed and one barn, or 2 would be barn, depending on the stock held.

Once thru the big double door, you walked right into the barn. It was huge. I LOVED the beams in it.
(Not sure about the christmas decorations though.)

The floor was divided with makeshift cage type pens. Little ones on one side with one yew and what looked like to me, new born lambs, the other side in 4 good size pens, with feeding ally's in between them where the older lambs were kept with their moms. The feeding ally seemed to be a perfect spot for the little ones to get out of traffic too. All of them were full of lambs. (Most drops this year were twins, no triplets, like last year, and only 9 single births.)

I also watched 2 lambs be born, almost. I started watching, but the pens the mom was in was on the small side, so every time she turn she would push the baby into the wire mesh. The farmer didn't seem to mind, neither did the sheep, or the little one, but I left and played fetch with the dogs :-) When I came back, the first one already started to stand, and the second one was still being cleaned by mom. (I don't think I was gone from the stable more than 20 minutes, if that.......)

When I was ready to leave I, very briefly, debated whether to go home (one way) or to the zoo (the other way) I'm sure it will surprise absolutely no one if I say that I went to the zoo! LOL

The walk was awesome! We've looked at the tree line, but weren't aware that there was a path that went all around the backside of the meadows. I still haven't figured out if it was all bike path, part road or what. All I know that it was a wonderful walk. 

1 is the sheepfarm, the red line is the walk I took, and 2 is the entrance to the zoo.

The zoo was great, as always. The weather was A LOT better than when my sister and I went for sisterday. It was downright HOT. After my hike, I decided I needed to cool down, rest up a bit and call Mike to pick me up at the zoo before he came home, so I had a cappucino with a piece of pie, while watching the giraffes.... bliss!

Around 4 I figured I'd sit down a bit again, and when I got up, I found out I really shouldn't have. LOL. I felt like an old bear getting up after a 4 month hibernation. When I tried to get out of the car when we got home, it was worse, so I had my dinner in the chair I'm sitting in right now, and I'm not going to move until I go to bed!  Don't want to think how I feel in the morning, but it was SOOOOO worth it!

I used 3 batteries, and when I got home, and looked at the pictures I'd taken, I was floored..... 234! It took me half way thru the zoo before I found the "sports" setting on the camera, so of those 234 there are A LOT of blurry ones, but there were a couple that will be worth using in upcoming scrappages :-)

Well, I think it's time to try and see if the bones/muscles and what have you are in a position to work, and go to bed. Depending on how I feel, and Mike, we'll be either starting spring cleaning, or go for a drive. I'm not hoping to feel bad, but given the choice between cleaning house and getting out of it for while....... we'll have to see what the morning brings.

Goodnight from Holland, and don't forget to hug that loved one!

Catching up with old friends

Hiya!

Well.... got some sleep, and coffee in bed with a kitty-hug chaser, so my day is off to a blooming start!

I must have slept pretty deep, because Mike told me at one point Perky shot up, looking at the bedroom door, and Mike told him there was a bear sleeping in there....... not sure what he meant by that, not sure I want to know either! ROFL.

We're having corned beef and cabbage today instead of yesterday... Had to get the corned beef from base, since it is not known here, and Mike brought it home at 5... so unless we wanted to eat dinner at 3 in the morning.....  we postponed St.Patrick Days dinner. I am going to make a second attempt on the scones recipe that Helen from RetroDesign sent me while ago. Not sure if it was the cook or the oven, but the last batch didn't fare too well. Only 2 came out the way they were intended. 2 were hockey pucks and could have easily been designated "lethal-weapons-when-thrown" one was soggy, and after we found out and put it back in the oven turned out indescribable, so looking at the evidence, I really lean towards blaming the oven :-)

I got confirmed yesterday, what I had been dreading for a while now... I have sorely neglected the blog. I will try and fix that, but I cannot promise anything. Life has had a way of interfering with plans lately........

Catching up from where I left off....

Mike is back to work for 4 hours a day since Monday. He's tired when he gets home, and frustrated. He can't sit still while others work, and it bugs the bejebees out of him to sit at the register, and see everybody else unload pallets. I'm glad he sticks with the plan (so far at least) but I wonder if the frustration won't be worse than the work....... In between customers he straightens shelves and stuff so he doesn't feel totally useless. Not sure if his boss is aware of that, but I won't tell on him :-)

Ann is working on a couple of projects, so StarSongStudio's has been a little quiet lately. I did play with a couple of kits, old and new, but I have to go thru the blog to see which ones I showed already before I post any of them. The page of Jesse from yesterday was from Anns kit APRIL PROMISE that comes out, I believe, next month, as well as this one....

this one, somehow doesn't feel "done" but everything I tried to add made it look messy....
Let me know if you have any idea's?

I did get my pages done for Ivy. At least 2 of them. I have to re-read, but I think we're supposed to do 3 a month now, and 2 challenges plus visit the gallery and post there. Have to check if it's my turn to do the Bingo page again..... So I'm kinda busy with that.
The new mega is spring/flower related. Very pretty colors, lots of different things. It's HUGE.

I also made the mistake to take a look at the 1930 census..... and found Mike's stepfathers' family. This sparked a frantic search for the rest of the tree information, still securely hiding in boxes, somewhere. Mind you, the house is not huge, it's not even big for that matter, but we have at least 20 boxes still packed, and stacked taller than me......  Now I can't wait for the 1940's census to come out next month to see if John had younger siblings! I also found out that his grandparents came from Wales.

We decided we are going to strip some walls and paint them, put the "computer room" together, so I have a stationary place to do the books, scrap, research and hide when Mike watches "Mikey movies" aka, Walking Dead, Underworld, House .... that kind of stuff. Sometimes I can take it, most times I cannot, so I put my headset on and mentally vanish. Sometimes though, it's like I can't tune it out, no matter how high I turn up the volume, so it will be nice to be able to shut a door or 2 in between.

My niece gave me an aquarium. She was cleaning out her room, since she bought the swimmingpool, and asked if I wanted to have one, otherwise she was going to put it on Marktplaats (the Dutch equivalent of Craigslist) I had been thinking about it, but always put it off as, what if it doesn't work out, you spent all that money on a tank, heater, pump, fish, plants and whatever else is needed (I learned a long time that just planning on the obvious expenses usually ends up in some kind of wake up call) and you're stuck with it, with really no where to store it..... so this was kind of the answer. I'm now the proud owner of an empty tank, and a stack of library books for the beginning aquarium owner. It's fun. My niece and my sister both are very well informed about all things fish, so if I have a brain bubble, and don't quite get what I'm reading, I email them with the question and get an answer I DO get. It was funny, because when I got the tank, she asked what kind of fish I wanted, and plants, what I wanted out of the tank.... You should have seen her face when I told her that all I really wanted was fun colors and movement! LOL.
I looked at different sites and decided that Guppies were the most colorful, and the most forgiving if I screw up. Their water values are a little less precarious, their temperature range a little bigger and their overall "keep" a lot simpler than most other warm water fish. Simply put, they're great to learn to take care of more than goldfish, without putting them in danger if you do it slightly wrong.  I also want an algae eater or 2, maybe a snail and a couple of shrimp (non edible!). Nicky has a Pleco and it looks like it belongs somewhere in the mesozoic era. SOOOOOO COOL! Still trying to decide on plants, groundcover, backdrop etc... but nothing will happen until the room is done, so we don't have to move a full tank around to keep the paint fumes away from it. It's going on my desk, so I can enjoy them while I'm working.

I am trying to figure out what the jobmarket is all about here. There only seem to be 2 kinds of jobs available..... Cleaning, construction, or high educated ones, and I can't do any of those. The in betweens do not seem to show up in any of the jobsites I've looked at. I'm going to get together with someone from the unemployment bureau, and see how exactly you apply, what your resume should look like and how come there's no jobs advertised besides the ones I've been seeing. Hopefully I get a better answer than when I first went there... I was told that the last 24 years didn't mean a thing, because it was work that wasn't done here, and besides... nobody uses data entry people because everybody types their own stuff. Now, the last part, I can see, the first part seems a little radical. One thing I don't like, I have seen a lot... The need to attach a passport photo to the resume. Maybe it's just me, but it kinda feels like if they literally don't like the looks of you.... you don't stand a chance to get a job. I'm not 20 anymore and easy-on-the- eyes....so that makes me a little paranoid, I guess.  (Never thought that I might need cover-shots to get a job that had nothing to do with modeling.....This could be a whole new way of using photoshop! LOL.)

I think Perky is finally settled. He actually instigates playing! He has never done that before and we though he didn't know how to play..... He got play mice for Christmas from my nephew and he LOVES them! He will walk by it a couple of times and than, all of a sudden he'll pounce on it, flip it, catch it and runs off with it. Even in the middle of the night, we can hear him sliding around the corners. He so reminds me of the cartoon chases, where all 4 paws are scrambling to get traction! It's good to see, although waking up to him galloping across the bed, out butts or heads in the wee hours, is a little disconcerting....

I'm going to post the pages I've done so far, and call you "updated". I think I have everything covered that happened over the last month or so.

Page made with "Song of the Heart" by StarSongStudio
It will go on sale on the 24th.

Both pages are made with the Ivy March Mega
PLANT A FLOWER

I can't help but think I forgot something, but nothing comes to mind. IF and when I remember.... I'll let you know :-)

Don't forget to hug a loved one!

Bye Jesse....

I'm a little out of sorts this week.

Last Monday, I went to bed with a weird feeling. Part aprehension, part sad. Well, Tuesday I found out why. Jesse, my sisters dog, was put to sleep Mondaynight. She had had her 3rd stroke on saturday, but this time she didn't bounce back, like she had the other two times.

Sis slept on the couch over the weekend, keeping watch, but by Monday morning it was obvious that the time had come for the hardest decision any pet owner has to make. So the family said their goodbye's, one last walk was taken, the last hugs were given. They were all there, and she went to sleep in her own home, on her own bed, with her humans around her. When I found out, I made a page with the rainbow bridge poem for them. But that night, I still couldn't sleep. We only had Whisper for 6 weeks and I still miss her after more than 10 years. I can't imagine sharing your pet for 16, and having to say goodbye. I have this really nice picture of my sister and Jesse, in their favorite walking spot, and I couldn't help wanting to use that somehow to make a memory page for Nicky. I hope she likes it when I give it to her, and since she doesn't know about my blog, I can safely post it here until I can. :-)

I'll be back later to catch you up on how Mike is doing, what's going on and so on, but for now.... I'm going to try and catch a couple of hours of sleep. Somehow, my mind doesn't believe in shutting down, so I'm either wide awake, or having nightmares.... Either way, I hardly ever find it interesting to go to bed, but my eyes are getting heavy, my mind is fuzzy, so maybe now is a good time to give it a shot. LOL.

Until next time..... don't forget to hug a loved-one, furry or human variety!