I had fun this week.....

 Currently, my mind is trying to tell my body that it can endure more pain. However, my muscles are pissed and telling my mind to fuck off.

Yes, I stole this from a book, just don't remember which one 😁 It just seems to fit the circumstances!

Tuesday, was a great day. I went with a friend to Intratuin in Geleen. Nope, not to buy plants, that would be silly, if there's a Christmas market going on, right?

We discovered a while a go, that we both enjoy KFC, and at the same time realised that there was an actual meal we could get, that was under 5bucks (by a penny😂) and it was tasty and just right, so, we took a detour home for dinner.

So far, so good, until we walked from the car to the restaurant, and the sidewalk decided to plant my ass on the tarmac 10 feet further down..... No clue what happened, just know, that my left knee is busted good, the backside of my knee is blacker than the front and both sides hurt like a bitch, right knee just lost some skin, and bruised a little, my left elbow took a beating, it's swollen, bloody, hot and hurts worse than my knees and I have cuts and scrapes on both hands..... Fun times!

So, I've been pretty much shackled to the couch, or hopping around the downstairs, because I cannot manage the stairs right now, but the upside is, that I had some of the Christmas stuff already downstairs and I'm playing Christmas music and movies hoping to get that Holiday Feeling I used to love so much. Christmas Cards are written, I'm working on the digital one, forgoing the "update letter" because my life is pretty much at a standstill, trying to cope with losing Mike, the attitude of people and the never ending paperwork coming down from all directions.  

I'm adding some pictures of the Christmas Market while trying to forget about the aftermath of having a nice day out. 

 

 

  There was also something to put me in the mood for my outing to "Dickens at the Castle" on the 29th... So curious as to how that is going to be. It's a fair drive, and doesn't start until after dark, but castle Limbricht is normally not open to the public, just the farmhouse, so just for that, I'ld go see. To have it set up as in Dickens' time, with food, drink, music and actors roaming the grounds is going to be epic. So when I saw the door to Marley's office, I couldn't resist..... 

 There were a lot of these little pieces set up, where everywhere you looked, you saw animals, and if you looked again, you would find more. Whomever set these up, was a genius. Right when you came in, there were woodland scened and one of the trees had a sign stating: THIS DISPLAY WAS MADE BY AI and below it, it read: Set designers Anja and Ilse..... Took me a while to connect the dots, but once I got it, it was hilarious. For some reason, I kept thinking AI came up with it and Anja and Ilse built it..... not my finest moment, there ROFL.

This picture I stole off Rogers FB page.

 The Christmas Market was nice, there were a lot of displays between the shelves with stuff to buy...... There's a couple of times, I just wanted to run away, because it reminded me of the times I went to these with Mike, and I would get these grand ideas of how to decorata, and he would talk me off the ledge, knowing me, the spare time, as well as the storage, we had, and we'd still have a good time. So yeah, it was good to do something, but at the same time, it made me miss him on a different level than the everyday, can't figure out what to do without him gutwrenching pain.... Never would have thought that agony would come in different levels.... Learning something new every day.

Thanksgiving

My niece asked if I would like to celebrate Thanksgiving at her house, since she knew Mike and I always celebrated, even after we got here. At first, I wasn't sure, because of that very reason, but I have learned these past months, that however much I want to be alone sometimes, if people show up, it DOES make the pain dissappear for a while, so I brought Thanksgiving, and they brought the love and hugs.... We all won.

We had a bit of a hussle because they don't know stone ground cornflour here... well, they have cornflour, but it is   F I N E  and doesn't really work to make cornbread, so we decided to take a chance and used Polenta, and it worked great! I don't do "old bread", but we do have "beschuitjes" here, that we normally use for breakfast, after an upset stomach, or crunched real fine as breading, so I used that for the stuffing, which turned out extremely good, with the Turkey in slices below it.... We had a breast, because, I didn't realise that even though they have a lot of Turkey farms here, they don't sell Turkeys, just mainly parts, so we were a bit late to find one, and scrambled around a bit to decide on what, how much, and how to adjust the othere recipes to accommodate.... it was actually a lot of fun, to plan a meal, start to finish, prep the different dishes and than cook.

Being in the middle of the week, and not a local holiday, they each had things to do, so I had the kitchen to myself for a bit in the morning. In the afternoon, after "little man" went down for his nap, my niece helped and I had forgotten how much fun it is to have a cooking buddy. Just chatting and cooking. It seems so ordinary, but we haven't had a kitchen that fit more than one butt at a time for more than 7 years, so this was unexpected, extra fun. 

 After dinner we watched Football. YUP!  Thanks to YT, we watched Mikes Giants play. This was also new to them, so we first had a little bit of explaining, followed by a "watch and pause" first quarter, but after that, they were pretty much in to it, as well. Although I have to admit, that I was glad the little guy was in bed, because there were times my inner sailor came out, hard and heavy.....  

Being able to actually cook more than one thing at a time, was AWESOME!!! Being able to share one of our favorite holidays and introduce some odd stuff.... was FUN. It was a little bit funky because of the different ingredients, but it turned out pretty good. They don't know Caro-syrup here, so I winged that, but it was good. The color was off on the Pecan Pie, but the flavor was there, so I took the win. The green bean casserole was a different animal, and I'm not sure what they ended up doing with it, to be honest. The term "condensed soup" doesn't occur in the vocabulary, nor on the supermarket shelves, so I tried regular cream of chicken soup and strained it a bit.... NAH, not the way to go. I'll have to experiment with that a bit for next time.... 

Friday we went to the biggest Christmas market in the country. from their house it's about an hour drive, from ours, it's about 3 and a bit.... so I was very happy. It was so good. I want to go again! But, I'll settle for next year, and I'll be there when the doors open, and probably will have to be escorted out at closing. It is THAT good. 

 

Traffic was nuts on the way home..... I left at 4 and made it home by 7.  KM wise, it should take about an hour and three quarters, so to say I was done by the time I hit the house, is an understatement.

All in all, a great Holiday Season starter, even when it was bittersweet. 

 As always, don't forget to hug that loved one!!!!!

 Love and hugs,

Pauli