Happiness vs Sadness – Take 1

I believe that life is all about balance. That is why there will always be sadness along with happiness. I am blessed to be happy most of the time, but today was one of my sad days and I really need to vent a bit. So here we go.

My day was one of those mean energy sucking bad days: I overslept way way too late losing my entire morning. I spend my afternoon at the computer and doing a ton of groceries and not doing all the other fun and useful things I planned to. Because I was late, the stores were supercrowded which is very annoying. Also, I forgot something so when I was making dinner I had to return so I could finish dinner. And they broke into my car again, which really pissed me off (I am still pissed off about that) because I don’t understand why people want to do that (there is nothing of any value in that car) and it causes a lot of damage that I have to get fixed. The boyfriend was home late and also played an online match for his favorite computer game. Therefore I only got to speak to him for 5 minutes when he got home. Because dinner took longer than expected he ate at the computer and I ate alone. After the match finished he stayed at the computer and then he wanted to go to bed and sleep. He was cranky he was very tired. I had hoped to talk and cuddle a bit, but since he was apparently having a bad day too it’s better not to, because we would only end up fighting. So here I am, I made myself a cup of tea and I am going to write to get it of my chest so I can sleep. When I write things down I am better able to analyze what is going wrong and do something about it. I guess it is the psychologist in me, lol. Now, let’s start.

I just feel so blah today! I didn’t have the energy to do anything fun. I tried watching a comedy but it wasn’t funny at all, really not my taste of humor so I just passed my time on the internet, feeling crappy. I guess everybody has those moods that you are just not feeling like doing anything even though you know that if you would just get up and do something, you would feel so much better! I know that if I would have started on the sewing project I have lying around here, things would have been better.

Tomorrow is Sunday, my last day of 5 days off and I feel like I did not enjoy them. They just passed, and I did too much stuff that needed to be done and too little fun things. And yesterday and today I didn’t really do much at all. I hate it when that happens.

So how am I going to deal with this? Ideas, anyone?… hahaha.

I know (don’t you love rational knowledge at times that your feelings are messing with you?) that you have to counter negative things with positive things so I’ll just do that and go from there. Let’s start with today: I overslept…which was good because I really really needed the sleep. It wasn’t even that I was too lazy to get up I was just in a deep deep sleep until lunchtime. I woke up without a hangover too, suprisingly because I drank more than enough wine yesterday. It was a good decision to not try and catch up with all the things I wanted to do today, period. Better to have a quiet day and only do the groceries which really had to be done today. The whole grocery store thing is just a confirmation that I am doing a good thing getting up early on most Saturdays. The car….well, the only good thing about that is that I have insurance so I can get all the damage fixed for a relatively small amount of money. The boyfriend being absent…I knew that he was going to play that match, too bad that I had to eat dinner all by my lonesome.  But I was already looking forward (yesterday, before the bad day mood came over me) to spend the evening alone anyway. Not sleeping…at least I get another blogpost up. I would love to blog more! Still have to find a way to actually do so..

Phew, that feels better already. I am starting to feel like my motto again ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’.

About the big stuff…the feeling that time is passing so quickly and that I am not enjoying it enough. Two things about that: one, I really should not be so hard on myself, you can’t enjoy every second of every day in your life, that is just impossible. Two, I should really make more effort to enjoy my life. I always have the tendency to say:  I have to do this and this and this and then I can do whatever I want and really enjoy it. Fact is, the todo list never ends.

Getting tired now, so I will finish my own therapeutic session up (lol) with how I am going to start with that right now and make the most out of my one day off left.

1. I will go to bed right after finishing this and enjoy curling up under the blankets with the cats at my feet.
2. Set my alarm so I won’t oversleep too much but still be rested.
3. Start doing my routines and then some internet time as reward
4. Work for 1 hour on the stuff I really wanted to get done this week. Not longer!
5. One hour of something fun, no internet ( I spend too much time there, I have other hobbies too)
6. Another hour of work
7. Polish nails: wanted to do that since forever so here you go. Can go on internet during this.
8. prep stuff for monday to prevent monda morning stress. 
9. Rest of the day for fun things only. Choose: baking reading, sewing, working out. Forbidden: work, todo list, house cleaning, computer.
10. Go to bed at a decent hour.
And no matter what, just relax and enjoy the present, not what may lie ahead.

Off to bed!

Hospital visit

Today we went to the hospital and it was hilarious! Just for the record, I don’t consider hospitals very funny, just how things are going when you need to go there for some tests. We went there because the Boyfriend has something with his hands and we want to find out what it is.

Expected course of events today:
Arrive at hospital. Wait in waitingroom of rheumatology for our turn. Talk to doctor about the problem. Doctor tells us what is going on and what can be done about it. Go home.

Real course of events:
Arrive at hospital. Wait for appointment at rheumatology. Talk to physician assistant about the problem. She asks many questions and then ‘could you please undress yourself?’. Physical examination to assess mobility in all his joints. Physician assistant feels every single bone boyfriend just said that hurts. Poor guy. Physician assistant consults with the doctor. Doctor comes to look at the boyfriend. Doctor is confused. Need to get x-rays and blood test. New appointment in 3 weeks when all test results are in and physician assistant returns from her holiday. Go to secretary for new appointment and forms for x-rays and tests. X-ray scheduled in 5 min. Go to radiology. Wrong form, form is for another hospital. Secretary from radiology cannot do anything. Go back to rheumatology and ask for right form. Back to radiology. Wait forever because all people that were in line behind us, are now first. Get X-rays. Get coffee. Go to blood test department. Realize form is missing. Search form. Back to rheumatology because the secretary accidently kept the form when we returned form radiology. Return to blood test department. Computer keeps giving errors. Secretary has to fill another form out by hand. Receive cup for the boyfriend to pee in. Boyfriend to toilet. Wait for turn. Get blood taken. Go home.

Phew! We were exhausted after that. And we still have to wait for 3 weeks to get the results and prey that they will know what it is.

Opera is not just for grannies!

Last weekend, the Boyfriend and I went on an overnight trip into the countryside to attend an opera. Bahahaha! That sounds really lame..but to be honest, it wasn’t, we actually had a great time! The Boyfriend has been meaning to take me to an opera forever. Last weekend we decided we wanted to do something fun on his weekend off (he works most weekends). After a little research we found that Les Pecheurs de Perles (Pearl Fishers) was playing in Almelo, a town in the east of the country. Since we did not feel like driving for over an hour to get home afterwards, we decided to stay overnight. So we did some planning and off we went! Here I am, driving through the country side.

We had a blast, we put Petootie Pie by Ella Fitzgerald on repeat and sang along with the cheesy lyrics, LOL. I drove there without using a map and skipping the highways. It took us forever to get there but it was fun driving around and seeing nice places (it is a crazy thing we have together, we both love driving and when we have the time we prefer taking the sightseeing route to our destination because highways are just boring). Our final destination: Almelo! (get your magnifying glass and look at the blue sign).

We were staying in the most awesome B&B ever! It’s a former prison, a really old one. The owners left part of it in it’s original state, but they did an amazing job redecorating the rooms! Here is the hotel from the outside.

The inside

Our room. As you can see, they left the original black cell doors. The stairs are also original. Behind the doors they made the doors to the rooms. Each room consists of two or three former cells.

The room itself. I am not sure if it shows allright in this picture, but the whole room was grey and white, really stylish.

We strolled around time for a while after we finally arrived. We had an early dinner and then got ready for the opera. Look at my handsome guy!

 

Because my dress was a bit cold I wore it with a shawl on top.

The opera was pretty amazing! I really enjoy the old fashioned romantic stuff, with the exagerated reactions etcetera. The singing was really really beautiful, especially by the main female singer, wow! Too bad we were in the last row, so we could not see their facial expressions very well. But we are planning to go again in a while and book in advance so we will have better seats.

Overall, the whole experience was pretty funny. We were the youngest people there who came on their own (there were a few that joined their grandparents), the mean age dropped 10 years as soon as we entered the door. When we came inside we only saw people with grey or white hair, lol! We even spotted some walking aids bahahaha. When we walked around during the break some of them were checking us out and you could see them thinking ‘what are they doing here?’. Well, just to make clear one thing: opera is really cool and if you actually see the play on stage while they sing it all makes sense. I never understood opera when I was listening to the radio, but it is like listening to a soundtrack of a movie, without having seen the movie. And I don’t like that either!

After the show we stayed for a drink and then went to check out Almelo’s night life.  It turned out to be nonexistent, lol. They had some nice bars but we were looking to dance. So in the end we decided to just go back to the hotel. But we picked up some mc donalds for the Boyfriend first, because he was hungry. How bad can it get… eating mcnuggets in bed on your romantic weekend break bahaha!

The next morning we went to a tiny village, Ootmarsum, close to Almelo. It is beautiful with lots of historical buildings, but also fun shops to look around.

 

we spend half the day there and then headed home, again using the touristic route with no map and no highways. The Boyfriend was surprised how well I was able to find the way home haha. I guess he thought we would end up at the other side of the country or something. We had a lot of rain on the way back, with really low visibility so it was quite challenging.

How do you spend your weekend getaways??

Project Snow

Count me in! Where do I sign up? Those were my first thoughts when I read Angela’s post today. She has started Project Snow, which basically means that we -people who are familiar with snow in their backyard- are going to support eachother to keep being active all fall/winter outside. How crazy/cool is that? And how crazy is it, that I am all excited about it?

I already committed myself about six weeks ago to try and find away to keep exercvising outside the entire winter, so Project Snow came exactly at the right moment!

So after reading about it I felt totally motivated to go outside, even though it was already dark outside and after dinner. I usually run before dinner- afterwards I just collapse on the couch unless I go to the gym. But I put on my running gear and loaded my mp3-player with lesson 20 of my couch-potato program and went for it!

I ran 4 x 8 min with 1 min walking intervals in between. And I walked a few min before and after to warm up/cool down. I think I should have warmed up better because my calves were hurting again. I am doing ok now though. Aside of that I felt great the whole run!! I was not tired at all and could just run and run and run! Maybe it was the cold, about 7C, that kept me from feeling hot and tired or maybe I am just in fantastic shape all of a sudden, or maybe I just run better after dinner because I have more fuel. I don’t know, but it was amazing!

I ran a total of 5.3k (according to mapmyrun), so I am happy with that! I did take some precautions because of the darkness: I did not go into the park, you never know what you encounter there. Instead I chose to run around the neighbourhood staying on the sidewalks and on illuminated roads with enough traffic. This girl prefers to run for fun and not for her life.
When I came back my throat was kind of irritated. It made me cough and it itched. Probably from the cold. Does anyone know what to do against that?

Anyway, this run made me realize three things:

- I will run that 5k at some point!
- I can be a runner, who would have thought!
- I can stay committed to exercising outside all winter!

Closet Makeover

Yesterday I went through my closet to see what the heck was in there, to clean it up and find out if I have enough stuff to get me through wintertime. Here is the almost before shot:

I was so eager to start that I already pulled out half of my clothes before I remembered that i was going to take a before-picture, lol!  But the lower two shelves give a good impression of what it looked like before. Oh, and of course there is Chinta again. She loves fabric so she is always trying to get into my closet. Generally, I can’t do anything around the house without having a cat or two ‘helping me out’. Except for vacuuming though…

Our closet consists of 3 parts with sliding doors, as you can probably see. the left part, where the mirror is, is the Boyfriends and also holds the extra set of bed sheets. The middle part is mine and the right part is for hanging clothes and shoes of the two of us.

Here is Chinta again, playing with my little clothes-refresher baggie, it has lavender leaves in it.

I purged some stuff, including several pairs of shoes. Maybe I will give away more clothes later, because most of what I have is old older oldest. But some of them I still love and for others I don’t have a replacement yet. I usually wear things untill they fall apart or don’t fit anymore. I have had the same size for quite some time, but somehow things shrink in the laundry and also my style has changed. I really hate it now, when shirts don’t cover my back when I sit or bend over. I am also going to give away a pair of boots and some other cute sandals. I still really like them, but I can’t walk in them, they hurt my feet and give me blisters, so out they go. I prefer making someone else happy instead of making myself miserable :)
By the way, I wrote am going to, because I always keep the stuff in a bag for a while and if I don’t miss it within a couple of weeks it can really go.

I ended up taking extra bar for hanging clothes that we were not using and put it in my part to hold my shorter clothes like vests and folded pants. I left dresses etc in the right part. I also got rid of half of the boxes (too many organizing boxed really do not help in the organizing part. I also rearranged the shelves, here is the end result:

That looks a lot better, huh? It certainly is more practical for me the way it is now. I am planning to hang more stuff too, it is so much easier finding your clothes that way! On the bottom in the center I put my stack of work out clothes, so I can just grab them and go!

So now I can happily go shopping (probably next weekend). I don’t need a lot: I do need new black boots and some accessories and a few tops for cold days would be nice. That is a good thing because it will save me money that I can use to buy my first pair of real running shoes!

Budget Groceries

This morning I went grocery shopping. I do that every saturday, I go to a place called Lidl which is a budget grocery store. They don’t have everything, but what they do offer is cheap! They often only have veggies in season and they have only one kind of PB instead of the zillion you find at the regular stores. You have to be a bit careful though, because even though most things taste surprisingly good, some don’t or are of not such good quality. I send the Boyfriend to a regular grocery store on Wednesdays so he can get the rest. Today I needed a lot of veggies and for some reason I ended up with this HUGE amount of groceries for only 37 euros. Look what I got:

 

The picture shows:
bananas (for green monsters and banana oatmeals, yummie!)
grapes
tomatoes
broccoli
cauliflower
peppers
sweet and sour sauce
eggs
cod filet
pizza (there are really 2 in that box, very convenient! they are for the Boyfriend. I am on a no-wheat diet for now, so I can’t :( eat pizza)
chicken schnitzel with a crunchy crust
mushrooms
sour cream
endive
liquid margarine for baking
red wine
leek
deodorant (the other two are in the 2nd picture, they were on sale. happy to have them though. I was using up deo from the Boyfriend, he did not like the smell and I did. but I am glad to be smelling all girly again, lol)

This picture also shows: our stained kitchentable (can’t remove the stain); the dryer, oven and microwavce, the wall I am going to refinish tomorrow; part of a shopping cart the boyfriend still did not return (yes, since Wednesday and yes we live very close to the supermarket so we just take the cart home); a crate I used to carry the groceries in; a cat who wanted to see if there was anything for her; and my teapot.

Chickie was too tired to come check it out. I found her on the couch:

But I got more groceries! This was my second trip back to the car to get the rest of it

I also bought:
potatoes
white bread for the Boyfriend
peanut butter!
pears
apples
look, more deodorant!
carrot
dishwasher tablets
instant vanilla cappucino mix. This is one of the most chemical tasting things I have ever had, but me likes it a lot!
more broccoli (they were on sale…and i miscalculated. but that’s ok.)
waffles
some sort of cake thing, typical dutch. It is a healthy snack.
7-up
bottled water
tortilla chips.

Wow, that was a lot of food…and a lot of carrying!

Chickie is checking the bag too see if I did not forget anything

I was all Mrs Housewife today! I did groceries, washed my car..okay that is more of a male things but whatever, I cleaned the house, cooked dinner and baked a speltbread so I get to eat some bread too every now and then (no picture yet, because it is still baking.

Old news

Let’s start off with some old news. Last weekend I went for a bike ride with a friend. We had a great time and I wrote a post about it. However, I still don’t have the picture that was taken from me that afternoon. So, I decided that I will do it without the picture. I really should start taking more pictures!

Here is the thing I wrote last week…

Yesterday was a great sunday! We slept late (10 am is late for me!) and spent the rest of the morning relaxing a bit. Then I headed for my friend’s house. She lives about 4k away from me, which isn’t so bad, except that from here it is all uphill, and some pretty nasty ones. The good thing is that I got to fly down all those hills on my way home!

I was a sweaty mess by the time I got to her place! I had some water to cool down, while I admired the place. She hasn’t been living there for very long yet. I helped her painting etc a couple of times, but I had not see it finished yet, it turned out really nice! Also, it is a lovely neighbourhood (except for the hills), quiet and with a lot of trees.

Then we left for a little bike ride together. We did over 40k in total, so I ended up doing 50k! I used to cycle a lot, but for the last couple of years not anymore. Even though I plan to, something always comes up. And I also love a lot of other activities. It was a perfect day to cycle, warm autumn wheather, sunny, not too much wind. It was so lovely outside!

When I came home I was extremely hungy! We had home made big macs for dinner, lol! They taste so good!

After dinner I settled on the couch to watch my favorite program at the moment: So you think you can dance. It was good! I love dancing and I really enjoy seeing skilled people do their thing.

So there you go. Now, we can continue with some more up to date info.

Yesterday I went for what turned out to be a great run! I did 32 min and made it almost 3 miles! Now that is not really amazing, but I felt great afterwards! I am still in the ‘from couchpotato to whatever’ program. I don’t remember the name very well, and I find it quite insulting. I am no couch potato! I just can’t run! Therefore I am happy that here in Holland we call it Start to Run, lol. I think the lessons are really amusing. First of all because the program was made in Belgium and therefore the coach cheers on me in this really funny/cute Flemish voice. And second because the course really seems to be working. I have made it until lesson 17 without too many problems now. Sometimes I even think that they are going reallly slow. I has me convinced that I can be a runner! My ultimate goal is to run a 5k race at some point.

Okay, I really have to now. I have a large to do list today, which includes a cruise through my closet to make it winter-ready. Hmm..I might even blog about it! Stay tuned.