I couldn't

let the year end without letting you know that despite life hitting the fan in so many awkward, unexpected and miserable ways, we're still kicking :-)

To you, and all you hold dear.....

Don't forget to bear-hug those loved ones!!

Love and hugs,

Pauli

I thought I had seen a lot, but

this was a whole "new one" for me.....

How would you like to drive to a restaurant, find a parking spot, get in and sit down, look at the menu, decide what you want,  PULL OUT YOUR PHONE AND CALL A WAITER?

I kid you not! As soon as I saw the sign "Call and order" on the table this kid "packed up and left" LOL!

I took my aunt to the train this morning, and figured, to stave off the blues, I walk around town, have a cup of tea and pick up some creme for Perky's pads. His left foot pad has a cut in it, and the vet recommended Calendula oil..... NOT available here, so would have had to make a trip for it anyway, and figured might as well do it today :-)  So after that, I decided it was too friggin' hot to be walking around and before starting the train trip home, it was time for tea, maybe a sandwich because after all, it was closing in on 2 in the afternoon...... Never got the tea OR the train!. Turns out there hadn't been trains running between our town and Heerlen since 10.30. (We were supposed to take the train at 10.50 to catch the connector to Eindhoven....... Glad Mike had to go in later than we thought, and dropped us off. We would have never made it.) So I walked to the busstation, only to find out that the only bus left that goes to our town, didn't stop at the busstation at all....... But "down the road a bit"...
The good thing is, I did 5400 steps today! ROFL!

After I DID have my cup of tea once I got home, I checked the train Ann was on, and turned out, she had the last train out of Eindhoven that ran without a problem.....  With all the work they do on the stations (taking out comfort and convenience), maybe they ought to have checked the trains and tracks?

Oh well, water, bridge, I'm over it, except that I just lost the ONE little restaurant I really liked, and was introduced to in Singapore by my sister... Delifrance, where the bread was made fresh, and tasted very similar to the bread you get in Paris!

Stay cool, and don't forget to hug that (fuzzy) loved one?

Hugs,
Pauli

I'm so happy!

My dad just sent an email, saying my Aunt from Australia is coming to visit him. It's the sister just below him in age. His older sister died a couple of years ago, and his youngest sister, although living in The Netherlands, doesn't have contact with the family, so Anne is really his only sibling. I met her in the late seventies, but for my parents I was (although around 18 at the time, and able to vote) still in that stage of "seen but not heard"...... Looking back, that was sooooooo wrong, but at the time, we didn't know any better, but I digress.  I've talked to her on the phone a couple of times, not lately though, and I was just thinking of her Sunday.... small wonder :-)  We hit it off, and we're very comfortable talking on the phone, and in letters (she doesn't "do" internet. LOL) but it will be super cool to meet her as adult to adult. (Or old geezer to old geezer by now. ROFL)

Just in a sharing mood today :-)

Don't forget to hug a loved one?

Love and hugs,
Pauli

Canundrum.....

Hope I spelled that right, but too lazy for spellcheck right now LOL!

Soooooo how have you been?😇

I checked my facebook this morning, and kinda went thru "cleaning up", because, you know, when you are jobhunting, you don't want all your rants, raves and weird pictures out there........ And while doing that, I noticed a couple of my rants had drawn "WOW" as a reaction...... and I began to wonder about that..... Was that a happy "WOW, glad I'm not the only one thinking this", a "WOW, I'm glad that didn't happen to me" OR a "WOW, what a bitch!" WOW?

Not sure I wanted to answer to any of those questions, so I quietly moved on......

NO, I'm not off my rocker, just wanted to make you wonder as well.... It's a little lonely in my little corner right now :-)

Don't forget to hug a loved one!

Love and hugs,
Pauli

YIKES!

Hope you had a good Easter and Independence day, and all/any holidays in between. I had no idea it had been this long since I posted. It's not that I was having fun, but time obviously got away from me anyway :-)

Well, there is no big news from this end, so that may also be a reason I haven't been talking..... Mike is healing nicely and slowly catching up on what is "normal" in the healing time department.  He's getting better, but how good he will be at the end...... no one can tell.  He can reach, still throws like a girl (hi hi), but his aim is getting better and he has more control over what the muscles do, he's up to lifting 20LB and he is down to twice a week on his physio...... so before long, he'll be back on full duty. We still haven't heard what is going to happen with work, but in the last month 2 people have left, but there is a "we can't talk about it" rule in effect, so I'm thinking it doesn't have anything to do with the job cuts. It feels kinda strange, on the one hand, you feel bad for them because both were with the company 20 years, but at the same time, you're happy because that increases Mikes chances of still having a job when all this is over......

I'm trying to find a job, but it gets tiresome to be told you're "not in our demographics", or "we're a young team" if you know you have to work at least 17 more years before you can retire, and not have to apply for jobs anymore to keep getting financial help so you can pay the bills. Which, at the moment, isn't much help, since it was decided that we should be able to make the bills AND eat on €900 (The minimal minimum income for one person). I was told "it's doable" and when I asked if she had tried it before, I was told the interview was over, so I took that as a "Hell no!" Oh well, some things don't change.

Castle is going along swimmingly. The foundation is laid for the blacksmith shop, drawings are in the final stages for the gatehouse, I'm almost done with the animal selection for the petting zoo, and the plans are made for where the stables and such are going to be. We got confirmation that the foundation cannot be used for the gatehouse, so we're going to put poles alongside it, put a buffer on top of the poles, and build the building on top of this "pillow". The impression is that none of the rest of the foundations is in any better shape so this will be the norm for the farm buildings.

Our fuzzy roommate thought it would be fun to jump out of the front window a couple of weeks ago. We had the windows wide open, and normally he doesn't really pay much attention, but you can imagine my horror when I come walking into the living room, and all I see is a tail disappearing from view.  I don't think I've been downstairs in this short of a timespan EVER, but once I got there, the little shit was nibbling on the plants, as if he had planned it.  The lady downstairs told me a week or so ago, that she saw him come by her window, but she didn't have the heart to go look if he landed ok.  Oh, that boy! :-)  It did something to him, though and he hasn't been himself, it's like in one dive, his body decided that he was, indeed 14 years old. He's not jumping on the table (he'll jump off it, though) but finds a way to get there in stages (floor, chair, tabletop or floor, couch, bookcase, tabletop) but he runs and plays, eats in his normal picky way, and grooms himself, so he's going to be checked out by the vet this week to make sure it's just mental caution. Hopefully,  he's just sore and realizing he isn't a kitten anymore.

Well, this isn't much for the better half of 7 months of silence, but I think you're caught up on the highlights ;-)

Don't forget to hug a loved one?

Love and hugs,
Pauli

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I wish you and yours all the best in the coming years, and on the chance that I'm repeating myself....

May the best of your past, be the worst of the future!!

This pretty much sums up my wish, for everyone :-)

I think life has simmered down to a dull roar. Mikes surgery on his right eye was a perfect success! He completely freaked me out on the day after surgery, when we went in to get the bandage taken off. We're sitting in a waiting hall, about 10 feet from a door with writing on it, and all of a sudden he asks me "what does "kunden hilfe" mean? After telling him that it means customer service, I'm trying to figure out where he got it from, when I spot the grey door, with white writing on it........ I'm floored! He always made fun of himself, saying that if he takes off his glasses, he might as well close his eyes, because he can't see past 10 inches, and here he is, reading at 10 ft..... When we got home is when it really hit me what he's been going thru the last couple of years....... Miepje, the neighbors calico-cat that he's been feeding, because its owner kicks it outside 23 hours of the day in wind, rain, snow or heat, usually comes running when he comes home, or out the door. When we got out of the car, she did what she usually does... came out of nowhere, and circled his feet, rubbing his legs and purring. He does what HE usually does, bends over and rubs her and talks to her. Only this time, he stops with his hand on her back, gets real quiet en says...... Sweetie, you're beautiful! I just about cried. Turns out he hasn't seen colors in a couple of years! He told me later, that it got gradually darker, greyer and blurrier.... No wonder he hasn't been into going places!  So I made this sneaky plan, to take him to Amsterdam, to the national museum this summer. Not entirely sure how to pull that off yet, but it's going to happen! :-)

At his pre-op we got a little bit of a shock though..... We're getting information on what time to be there, what kind of lens they're going to put in, how long the healing will be and a date for when he'll have surgery on his left eye! WHAT!? We're looking first at each other, and than at the doc like he has 2 heads and horns when he tells us that. On our initial visit, he said that his left eye has a little bit of a problem, but it will keep, and not even 6 weeks later, it needs done as well?  Turns out, that Mikes eyes need such a high corrective lens that with one eye almost perfect and one with the strength he has, will give him headaches and balance problems. And after seeing that he hasn't wore his glasses since he got home from surgery......... We're ok with it. So, January 15th is pre-op for that, and January 31st is surgery, and the start of a new look on life for him. I AM SOOOOO HAPPY FOR HIM!!

Shoulder is progressing slowly, but progressing. Work agreed to pay the bills, but there was initially no indication when, and whether they will also pay the enormous late fees. I did get an ETA after I completely freaked out because the hospital was going to send a court appointed appraiser to our house, so they can see what we own that they can take to sell and pay our bills that way.... The appointed person taking care of his account looks at it every 45 days........ so if they look at it today, and we send them a bill tomorrow, it will be 6 weeks before they do anything with it..... (i.e send it to the translators, get it back, look at the charges, decide on payment, send it to accounting and cut a check, mail it out, and hope it goes priority mail and not by boat)  but at least I have something to tell the doctors offices when they call for payment 😕

Today I'm taking the day off. We have nothing planned, no "need to do's" so I'm not even getting out of my jammy's. LOL.  Tomorrow we have a check up for Mikes eye, Wednesday Physio, Thursday Physio, Doc and base and we're back to the races.... 

My appointment in Maastricht got rescheduled to the 8th of Januari and the 12th of January I'm spending the morning at City Hall........ Appointment with my caseworker, appointment with someone that may be able to help me actually work at being a webdesigner after all, and pick up the parking permit, so we can park in front of our own house on Saturdays........ 

Castle is open one more week, and than it closes until Carnaval vacation to open up for the season day after Easter.... Other plans than this......... I don't have at the moment :-)

I hope you have an awesome year, I will keep you posted on our goings on and plan on doing it a little bit more often, but mainly a little bit more upbeat. I was reading back a bit, to see where I left off, and noticed a trend of whining, complaining and grumbling....... NOT what I want to be! So my plan for the new year is, to notice something that amazed me and makes me happy at the end of every day.

Well, there's a bacon, eggs and waffle breakfast calling my name, so I'll take my leave. Don't forget to hug a loved one?

Love and hugs,

Pauli