Bloody Cat

And I mean that literally! This morning I was just getting ready to go to the gym when I noticed a few spots on the floor, they were blood… I checked my feet but it wasn’t me, nor cat#1 who was following me around as usual. So I went in search for cat #2 and found her shortly after hidden under the bed. One of the cushions under her paw had the skin partially ripped off, making a bloody mess. She didn’t seem to mind a lot because she was walking normally, not limping.

Too bad for me, because every step she’d take would leave a mark on our floor, which was already not so clean because of our reno in the laundry room + today being cleaning day. I locked her up in the kitchen for a while so she could sit and not stain things I can’t clean very well, like the couch and the sheep fur. And also because Chickie knew what was going on and took her chances: she jumped onto Chinta and slap her whenever possible. Poor cat!

I sat with Chinta in the kitchen for a while, with Chickie crying outside wanting to get in. After a while Chinta was not bleeding so much anymore so I let her out. Of course then she started walking around again, which made her paw bleed again, staining the whole house even more. Finally she went to sleep.

I went to get some groceries and her paw was better then, but as soon as she started walking again, it started bleeding again…pfff…moooore stains.

My floor really looked like I tried to slaughter the poor animal!

By the end of the afternoon Chinta was sleeping, so I hoped for the best and cleaned the floor. Of course, by the time I was finished she woke up and started walking around again… Her paw is much better now, but still leaving tiny stains. 

When the boyfriend is home we are going to take a look at it again and then we may need to clean and bandage it. I hope that’s not necessary because I don’t see how the combination cat + hurt paw + betadine + bandage is going to work out well.
But that would still be better than taking her to the vet: she would be going to the same thing (although done professionally) and I would be a poor woman (weekend fees + antibiotics = big donation for the vet’s new kitchen)
Now don’t get me wrong, if I see any sign of something going wrong with that paw, like inflammation or whatever, I’ll be the first to race down to the vet’s office after all. But I called the vet and it was her advice to first try ourselves.

Chickie knew I was not so happy with her behaviour, and she came sitting with me in the afternoon to make up. She even sat on my lap for a while and lay on the couch next to me being all cute and stuff hahaha, the little slimeball!

In conclusion, today was one of those days that shows the downsides of having cats…they get hurt and that tresses you out. On days like this I can almost imagine what it must be like to have kids…

Oh, and I forgot to add: when I woke up this morning, the first thing I saw was: cat vomit ON my bed….GROCE!!

To end this post, a few pictures of my cute little kitbits:

cat # 1 or Chick alias ‘mrs Slimeball Puppy’

cat# 2 or Chinta alias ‘mrs Arrogance Director’

Breaking news

Yesterday evening the Boyfriend and myself went to a body combat class! For me that is nothing new, because I go every week. But the Boyfriend has not been able to do any sporting activities for several years due to an injury. At first they made us believe that he was not going to recover, ever. But then they found the real source of the problem and it turned out to be fixable. So he worked very hard on that for the last two years and a few weeks ago they cleared him to go sporting as long as he is careful with what he does. He was a bit confused at first because it was totally different from what he has ever done. But he really enjoyed it, so…..next week we are going again!

I am sooooo happy!!! We have never been able to do a lot of active things together and whenever we did (we took a rock and roll class for example) it always ended in him being in a lot of pain and in quitting early most of the time. Of course he is still not able to anything he wants but this is such a major improvement! I haven’t spoken to him yet and I don’t know how he is feeling on ‘the day after’ so I hope he woke up ok too.

I can’t wait for next week to come so he gets to go again because I know how much he missed doing active things!

FlyLady- Last part

The last (I promise!) FlyLady thing that helps me so much in keeping my house organized so that I have more time for fun things is what she calls the Weekly Home Blessing Hour:

It involves doing 7 tasks for max 10 min. A few of them take less so in total in takes one hour to finish. I adapted the tasks a little to fit my homeThe tasks are:

• change bed sheets
• clean mess in house (like clothes on the chair in the bedroom and magazines I finished)
• empty all trashcans
• dust
• wipe stains and nose prints of doors, windows and mirrors and other glass objects like our coffee table using window cleaner
• vacuum
• mob

This one hour superspeed cleaning makes the house look a lot better. But the best part is that in combination with the routines it makes the house look good at any time and in combination with the daily 15 minute missions it makes sure that is actually clean and not just looks clean and that I don’t keep too much clutter.

So there you go! I know it may sound a bit complicated but in fact it is not at all, because it is all based on routines so I don’t even have to think about it.
An additional advantage is that it makes it fun. Any, really any task is do-able if you only have to do it for 15 minutes. And what is better than reducing your weekend cleaning to 1 hour?

So there you go. One of the reasons I posted all this is that it frees me up quite a lot, it makes cleaning much more time efficient and fun to do. It helps me with my perfectionism that made me clean most of my saturday. Another reason is that I want to show people what I am doing every day. I don’t want them to think, hey that’s nice seeing how she works out, eats, works and whatever, but does she never ever need to clean or do other things like that and how does that fit in? Well, now you know my secret hahaha.

So i am off now I have to do one of my sunday tasks and that involves: checking my administration. it sounds important but it really only is throwing out most of the mail we received, filing some letters and bills and paying the bills that need to be payed. A little extra that I have been doing lately because I want to make sure I know where my money is going is keeping a spreadsheet with expenses and income which is really easy to do because most of my spending is done with my debitcard and easy to track.

Talk to you later!

FlyLady time again

Lol, more FlyLady from me today. But I just feel like I need to have this off my chest.

Here is some stuff I wrote on thursday but still had not posted yet.

***

Sorry for being such a bad bad blogger. I really would like to be blogging a lot more than I actually do. But I have been extremely busy with just all the stuff I do everyday and also our moving plans.

Moving

We fell in love with a house last Sunday! It is totally what we want and we can also afford it! But we will have to sell hour own house first. So we are focusing on that now.
Tonight another broker will come and we are going to see what this one has to offer us. We also plan on asking a third one and then make up our mind.
In the mean time we started fixing the water damage in our laundry room/hallway/bathroom. Well, I must admit that I have not been doing a lot, but the boyfriend is working on it together with the neighbour (who caused the leaking and therefore the damage). Next up, is decluttering our home so it looks bigger.
At the same time I am planning appointments with banks about mortgage advices.

Sports

I managed to work out every day this week! (yes I know that we’re only half way, but I like to see things from the positive side). Monday I took a spinning class, which was exhausting first of all because it had been a couple of weeks since I last went. Second of all, it was hot in there, I was sweating so much that I actually had drops of sweat on the floor for the first time (groce, I know). Third, the instructor at some point sad that after this one song we were going to cool down, so I thought, ok fine I’ll give everything. And we ended up doing one more climbing and one more sprinting song before finally cooling down. Pfff!! But I felt good afterwards.
Tuesday was running day. My start-to-run course is finally making some progress. One last 2 min walk and from then on only 1 min walking intervals with 2 min running and from now one we are going to work on decreasing walking time and increasing running time.
Yesterday I went to a zumba class. I could not make up my mind whether to go to zumba or body pump. But in the end I felt more like dancing and I did not dance last week either! Again it was hot in there and I was sweating a LOT again! But it was a good class.
This afternoon when I get back from work I hope I can squeeze in another run.

Food
I really miss my bread and all the other flour-based things I like to eat like pancakes :P Tonight I have to bake a new bread, because I have no spelt bread left. I do continue to eat healthy most of the time so that is a good thing. It just makes me feel really good I guess. I don’t crave a lot of other stuff either, like cookies and deep fried stuff.

FlyLady
Next thing about FlyLady. I already wrote about my morning and evening routine. During the evening routine I do a daily mission every day. My daily missions include a variety of things. I have dedicated days for certain things. Most of them all take just a few minutes:
Mo: water plants
Tu: clean the parts of the fridge I can reach easily and make grocery list
We: errands. They boyfriend does the groceries but sometimes we need to buy or do other stuff too.
Th: polish shoes (usually I make the boyfriend polish shoes because he like to do that)
Fr: clean out purse (receipts and stuff I gathered during the week)
Sat: do groceries myself
Su: relax/beauty mission. This is the one I like most haha!

On Mo-Fr I also do a max 15 min cleaning mission. I literally set my timer and do a mission each day in the same zone of the house for a week. There are 5 zones that repeat each month.
This week is kitchen-week. Missions may be: clean windows, clean fridge well, clean appliances, detailed vacuuming, a few cupboards. But never more than 15 minutes!

This way I get to do some major cleaning in one part of the house. You would wonder what happens with that zone the rest of the month. Well, because of the routines in the morning and evening you pick up after yourself anyway. And there is the weekly home blessing hour. And that is for the last part of my FlyLady thing.
I know it may sound boring and much like a control freak but it really gives me so much more freedom because of the time restraints on it and not needing to do the whole house every week because this way that is not necessary.

It works for me, and maybe by writing about this I can help someone else to find the peace that comes with following this system.

***
So now you know what I have been up to these days. But now it is weekend so I will make some time for my blog again. After that it is only monday and tuesday at work and then I have vacation! I am so so ready for that!

Okay, I have to go now and do some groceries
Bye!

FlyLady - part 3

Hi guys!

Activities
I’m finally back again! It has been extremely hot here, but I loved it! Wednesday the boyfriend and I went to a nearby river/lake at spent the afternoon at the beach, sunbathing and relaxing. It was wonderful! My camera died on me (actually not really, but I forgot to put the battery back in after I charged it, so I only have one picture. I will upload all pictures of this post later, because I don’t have them with me right now.

Thursday we went for a picnic at night, it was such a lovely place and we brought really yummy food: wraps with different fillings. I sinned for once, by eating the wraps which are made of wheat flour, but that’s ok. I was the first time in over a week

Today is last working day, yay! After work we have an appointment with the bank to discuss some mortgage stuff. I hope they will have good news for us so we can put our home up for sale!

Food
Here are some pictures of our delicious picnic wraps.

I had 3 kinds of wraps:
- roast beef, sour cream, lettuce, tomato and Italian herbs
- baked grounded beef, lettuce, cucumber, tomato and mustard-honey dressing
- ham, tomato, lettuce, feta and oregano
YUMMY! The roast beef one was my favourite.

Sports
Wednesday even I dragged my butt home from the beach and then to the gym. I attended my body pump class for the first time in a month or so, so that was quite a challenge! But it went pretty much ok, and I was proud of myself for not having lost a lot of muscle strength in the mean time. I think those push ups, sit ups and running that I did in the mean time really helped me maintain it.
Thursday I was supposed to go on a run but I was home later than expected and it was 30C so I decided to skip it and do that today, that is, if I have the time because of the bank appointment.

FlyLady- Part 3
Next up in the how FlyLady saved me from insanity and gave me back my weekends: my evening routine. I assure you: before her I would spend way too much time cleaning my house every weekend and then end up feeling bad because so little leisure time was left to enjoy hobbies etc.

Next to the morning routine which I described in one of my prior posts you also need an evening routine, some routine you finish before going to bed. I makes sure everything (like the dirty dishes and stuff that was used during the day) is under control and that you are prepared for the next day. I start with this as soon as I get home from work and I finish it after dinner:

- laundry: in dryer/hang it or: fold it and put it away or: iron. I hardly iron anything but some things just need it. I save those for the days I don’t have any other laundry and then I iron, which is usually just 2 or 3 pieces.
- feed the cats
- cook dinner and eat
- do dishes and clean stove and countertop
- swiffer the floor and clean up spills
- water plants on balcony
- do my daily mission (15 min max). More on this in my next post on this subject
- put away stuff lying around to the places they belong, like bags, sunglasses, mail etc
- Make to do list next day and gather stuff I need to bring with me next day. It’s usually not much but I do remember to check every day so I don’t have to run around like a mad person in the morning trying to remember what I should bring and where I left it while I am still half asleep.
- Lay out clothes for tomorrow, including underwear and juwelry. I know it sounds stupid but it saves me a lot of time trying to figure out what to wear in the morning.
- wash face and brush teeth, set alarm
- relax

The whole routine takes me about 30- 40 minutes (excl cooking and eating) I am still working on doing it faster every day. And it really helps me in the morning: I love my clean counter to make breakfast on, not spend 10 minutes figuring out what to wear. Swiffering the floor every day also keeps the house from becoming a giant hairball within 3 days and it’s faster vacuuming once a week (also in another post coming up).

It all sounds so simple and straightforward but you just have to think of it. The hardest part however, is making it a routine. I can say that my morning routine is actually a routine, I just do it. My evening routine is partially a routine. I am still working on laying out my clothes every night. But I am doing those dishes virtually every day and putting away stuff.
Okay, that is it for now. Be sure to check back for more info on how I work with FlyLady’s program.

It's getting in hot in here!

Pfff...I wanted to post my next FlyLady story today and talk about some more stuff. But this room is getting so hot that I am going to get out of it as soon as I can! And that will be about now. I really need some coolness.

Oh and I checked the weather forcast and wonder, today is 26 degrees celcius! And it will get even warmer in the next couple of days. Friday eve, when the weekend starts...of course...it will get cooler and start to rain. Well, i'll see about that then.

Okay, I'm off to a cooler place!

Flylady part 2

Activities
Today was just a regular working day for me. I was feeling pretty motivated today and did quite a lot during the morning. In the afternoon it cost me more to stay motivated, but still in total I got a lot of work done today. Tomorrow I'm working from home! I had planned a spinning class today, but I don't think I will go. Really don't feel like sporting today so I might skip it.

Food
This morning I had some quark with oats and flax for my first breakfast. My second breakfast were crackers with cheese at work. Lunch as speltbread with cheese again and some tomato, lettuce and cucumber, yummie! As a snack I had rice crackers with peanut butter. And now the boyfriend is making french fries!!

FlyLady part 2
Ok, I promised to put my routines up here, so here's my morning routine first:
- shower and get dressed
- feed the cats and clean the litterbox
- Empty the dishwasher
- Swish and Swipe the bathroom. I just take a rag and some all purpose cleaner spray bottle and I quickly swipe down the bathroom sink. While I was in the shower I already cleaned the shower with an old sponge I have in there. Then I quicly swipe the toilet and swish it with the brush. This takes me less than 2 minutes
- load the washing machine
- put on make up, take medicines, fix hair
- check what's for dinner and get necessary food to thaw from the freezer
-make breakfast and lunch to go.

THat's it! But it makes sure I have a lot done already when I leave the house.
I will be back with my other routine. But dinner is ready!

FlyLady part 1

Good afternoon everyone!

Activities
Yesterday eve the boyfriend really wanted to spend the evening at the computer so I watched some tv. Usually I only watch tv during dinner (even though I would really like to have dinner at the table, somehow we usually end up in front of the tv) or some kind of crime series before I go to bed because the boyfriend says he needs to watch tv before falling asleep.
First I saw some really imo 'dumb' stuff like 'How do I become a Gooi lady?''followed by 'Gooi ladies' and a part of 'paradise hotel'. Btw, a Gooi lady is someone who lives in the Gooi area of the Netherlands, a part where all the rich people with an attitude go live. It comes with a whole lifestyle that mainly involves socializing and see and being seen. I was flabbergasted by most of the stuff that they experiences as being 'normal' like spending a weekend in St Tropez. It all seemed very superficial to me, and made for a good laugh every now and then. Paradise Hotel was another program i had never seen. It was about a bunch of people trying to make friends only to use them for their own purposes, and lying, betraying, fighting was a common thing there. It was crazy!
Then finally it was time for the thing i had been waiting for: a dutch comedian. He told great stories that made you think and he made me laugh out loud, something I don't do often with these kind of programs!

Happiness
Last night I also started working on revising my Happy Journal. I enrolled in an organize-your-house-and- life program over a year ago, led by a woman, Marla Cilley aka the FlyLady. I think of her as the Martha Stewart of modern age. She developed a plan on how to get/maintain your house clean, but it's also applicable to other things in your life. The three main rules in her system are: routines, you can do anything for 15 minutes, and make it fun. Her system is mainly for disorganized people who make a mess and have trouble doing household stuff. We joined because it might teach the boyfriend, who is exactly like that, something, but he dropped out pretty soon and instead it taught me a lot. I used to be sort of the opposite of the boyfriend: cleaning like crazy all saturday and sunday and feeling horrible after. Well, that's over! And despite Flylady being a bit...well, uncool I guess, I don't mind because it helps me and household is not something that is cool in the first place! Flylady had me make a control journal, which I renamed happy journal because it's about making me happy and letting go of things. control journal sounded too negative for me. In it, or at least in my journal, are:
- my morning routine : things I do each morning
- my evening routine: things I do eacht night after work
- daily missions: each day of the week is devoted to a certain thing, for example watering the plants.
- ideas for detailed cleaning of your house.

I know it sounds a bit vague, but I will be explaining how this system works for me in the posts during next week. If you can't wait and want to know more, go to FlyLady's website and learn all about it!

Food
So what did I eat? yesterday we had thai curry, it was pretty good. Around 10pm I got hungry again though, and had some strawberry quark.
This morning my breakfast was the same banana oatmeal I was raving about earlier this week! It tasted amazing again!
My lunch was speltbread with pizzasauce and chees, grilled in the oven, mmmm!!

Ok, I am going to continue finishing my cleaning chores for today and on with my To Do list, which as a lot of things on it like: administration, work, and continuing on the chair I want to refabric (is that a word?). Oh, and I also want to go on a run today, but then it has to stop raining first.

But before I leave, and also to spice up this post, a picture of the activity of Chinta today:

She slept late. After spending the whole night on the bed at our feet (we prefer that over her scratching the bedroom door all night) she woke up for breakfast when the boyfriend got up and then came back. she was still there at 1.30pm when I started bothering her because I wanted to change the bed sheets. Now, she's sleeping somewhere else, lol !

'Till next time!

Brown Monster

Good afternoon everybody!
Today it's finally weekend! Even though I will have to work a bit because of my lack of motivation this week.
Yesterday I went for a run in the park and it was good! I found this technique on the internet that makes you run better, faster and it's better for your muscles and joints!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbgSEG_Yx2k

I must say that I feel a bit awkward running like this, but it did made my knees and ankles feel more relaxed, so that is good thing I guess.
I also sorted to some more administration in our study room. The boyfriend promised me that he would finally start on the computer stuff (he has to now, because of our moving plans) and he did!! We have this agreement that he tries to do 15 minutes everyday (which he usually doesn't) and he spent over an hour sorting to computers and computer parts yesterday eve! even though the room looks like a bigger mess now I am very happy because a lot of stuff went straight to the container. I also ran into our neighbour who lives above us and next weekend he will come over and start fixing the damage that was caused by bad caulking in his bathroom. When that is finished we are prepared to sell the house! We are probably going to use next weekend to fill up some holes in the walls and paint over little scratches etc.

Also, last night I was searching for some reading material in my mom's magazine drawer and I found a guide that was called: create the-life-that-you-want plan. How funny is that? I will be posting more about that later, when I have read it. When I started thinking about it, it hit me that that is what I want to do with my life: I want to help other people find their way to happiness! That would mean that when I grow up (haha) I want to be some sort of lifestyle coach, lol! But not yet, first I want my PhD and I also want some more experience in counseling people.
I felt really good after drawing this conclusion! For now I am happy being a scientific researcher but something like that fits more with the image I have of myself for the future that is further away.

Okay, enough about that. Let's talk about today. Well, today was pretty much a typical Saturday for me. I slept later than usual, read a magazine, browsed on the internet while making my grocery list and eating this for breakfast

It was:

Yoghurt with oats, straberries and a little honey. So good!! And of course some tea.

I finished another paragraph of my article (go me!) and then I went grocery shopping. Most of the time I really like doing that. Today was one of the days I was looking for new products that I might try some day. I brought extra coconut milk and some santen that I will try in my Green monsters this week. It's supposed to be very good! I also found that our supermarket sells dry beans, chick peas and lentils to cook yourself. So that is a good thing! I would really like to have a place where you can buy seeds and nuts in large packages without them being extremely expensive. One of these days I am going to check on what our toko has to offer in that. When I came home I made a new Green Monster:

I started with 100ml milk and a banana. Then I added a lot of spinach (fresh), I think about 2-3 hands full ( I needed to finish it before it got bad) and about a quarter of a melon (another thing that I need to finish) and a scoop of linseed. It made a really GREEN drink. But since nothing frozen was in there and the melon and banana weren't even cooled, i wanted to do someting to make it cooler. So I put half of it in the fridge and the other half I added 4 frozen straberries to drink right away.
In this picture it looks green but in real life it was more army green/brownish because of the strawberries. but it tasted good!!

The other one that I left in the fridge didn't taste as good, it go bitter I don't know why, but that happens a lot with these monsters. I prefer drinking them right away!

Now I have to go, I really don't want to sit here anymore as it's hot and the sun is shining in my eyes. I also have to start on dinner soon.

What is the weirdest colour your Green Monster or smoothie ever had?