Unfit...

...for moving around too much. At least, that's what it felt like this past weekend, specially in the mornings. Which is my other pet peeve. Mornings are for early birds, which I am not. Please, dear body, stop waking up at insanely early hours.

Until that time, I can't promise to blog the pics of last weekend (too few, silly me), or you'll just have to wait for the weekend.

In short, 'twas fun, with much beer and wine and horses and mountain bikers, and weird Germans on mountains bikes and hip jeans and non-outdoorsy shirts. Much enjoyed the camping and the company, and even got to read a lot. Now half-way through Book Club Book #2. It needs another round of serious editing, and then it would be a joy to read and possibly half the amount of pages.

Now I must peek at robins, tits and other birds of cuteness.

<3 Springwatch. The one show I will really miss whenever I actually get around to emigrating. If I'm (un-)lucky, I'll still be able to catch Autumnwatch. Silver linings, eh?

back soon

Shorts

Good news.

Three of the most annoying stingers out, scaled down to a Hansaplast now. Must remember to pack those in the morning before going to Germany. Pretty sure they don't sell'em there.

In even better news, for only 30 euro, the Turkish seamstress-man told me he would fix my handbag in a way I wouldn't be able to spot it. Had to hold back from hugging the man. He apologized for not being able to do so today. Must've been my crazy happy grin. Thursday, he said. My hero.

To top it all off, mom just told me she found her self-inflatable mattress, reminding I forgot to pack my own. Hers is sitting by the door now. I will not have to sleep on my yoga-mat. Huzzah!!!

Hello, my name is...

...Judith and I'm 3 years old and I'm pretending do be seriously hurt.

Really. Don't believe me?


Watch this







Remember yesterday when I blogged about the horrible day?
Seems like some of whatever I sat down on, is still stuck in my hand and I can't get it out. The hand was still red this morning, slightly burning, like nettles I suppose, or a little like it. So tonight, I'm drowning my palm in "trekzalf" after submerging it in soda and playing around with tweezers for a good hour or so. This (supposedly effective) "trekzalf" is real nasty stuff and you need to put it on real thick, so I've covered it up (thank mom) to stop it from getting everywhere.

It's making me feel like a 3yr old, asking for a band-aid on a non-existing profusely bleeding knee wound. D'you think I should go for a sling as well?

Bad day at the office...

...and everywhere else as well.

This week, we rotated into doing admin stuff at work, which was a new thing for our little group. I've since handed over a fair number of severely unfinished folders and some with tragically wrong data in them (just one of those, to be fair to myself). Good thing my coworkers can be alert if they choose to be so nothing happened that couldn't be easily fixed. Still, some big misses from me.

Finally, someone figured out what went wrong with one client, and it turned out to have nothing to do with me. Some error in an obscure registration system with the client's employer kept his payments from coming through. Hopefully, they can fix this as well, if not a lot of manual payments/calculations are to follow in the next 13 weeks (plus 26, plus another 26 weeks). Which is something we really don't want, so they had better fix it for us sometime soon.

During lunch break, I didn't feel like going outside, but hey, the weather was fine, and some oxygen can't hurt, can it? The oxygen didn't, but the chestnut-like spiky thing I sat down on hurt like hell, and you can actually tell from the redness of my hand where the spikes where sticking into my skin.



Somehow, I made it to the end of the day, so I jumped on my bike, severely damaging my handbag (birthday present from DH, wildly expensive, and, well, just my fav bag, a present from the hubby, that ought to do it) on my wretched old wreck of a bike.




I really hope shops will be open this Thursday so I can find the Turkish guy (hope he's open as well) who's supposed to be a miracle worker in mending broken clothes. And then keep my fingers crossed that he does leather as well.

Of course after getting home, I managed to damage my new top, that I worked so hard on, by brushing by a wall.



I really need today to be over. And soon. I get to go to work at 7.30 tomorrow morning, I just can't wait.

PS. Almost forgot to mention: Regular torturer Jody still ill yesterday, so Old torturer Frans took his spot. Shoulder doing bad today. I told him so. Next appointment tomorrow. Jody better be back.

Strike one...

...project off the list, because it's done!


Not too awful long ago, I posted a picture of some fabric I got on the cheap.
Here's a reminder.


Since then I've been working on various projects, like "The Jeans Skirt" and "The Black Shirt." The black shirt is still on hold, for reasons I don't quite understand. It'll be cute when it's done, I just have to sit down and do it. In the mean time, other, easier projects have appeared as if out of nowhere (read: a combination of more cheap fabric and 2 new editions of the magazine I sew from) and the shirt has been moved down the list of things to make. It'll get done, I'm sure, sometime, and before July comes by. I promise.

Anyway, one of those in-betweeny projects was a skirt to go camping with. As I left Texas mid-winter, I didn't really pack any summer clothes, (wrongly) hoping I'd be back before summer. Not. This means I often despair at the clothes I do have here, especially when they scream "It's winter, it's cold, wear us" at me when it's clearly not winter out there and I definitely don't want to wear them at all. I can work around this, combine, make new things to add to the collection, but now there's a teensy weensy little issue with next week.

The Girls Weekend Out is coming up, and for the first year ever, we're going camping. Hurray!

But all my camping hiking gear (except for the boots) are somewhere in a storage bin under my bed in Texas. Not very useful when Texas is in fact about 5000 miles away. So I've been thinking of what to pack, and I've got it pretty much figured out as far as clothes are concerned.

Imagine the unimaginable, and imagine it'll be warm next weekend? Therefore, I made me this:



It'll do me just fine, I should think.



Now. On to the next project.

Friday came around again...

... and we were out of work, got a load in, worked hard and were out of work again. We seem to be getting something wrong here, but not quite up to dealing with Co-worker A's fav colour/actor/movie/tv show/sport all day long, so working hard is a very good alternative.

I think I might take bets on how long it will take for me to pull off an intervention that wouldn't look bad in any classroom for the under 12's.

Co-worker B is still yanking A's chain(s) throughout the day, and A is getting riled up about it for about the same period of time. Seriously, it's like working with kids without being able to pull my usual tricks to get kids in line again. I'm really not sure how they will react to being sent to their respective corners "to think about what they did wrong". Mind you, the message would get across, but surely I shouldn't need to with these 25+ adults. Let me sketch you the scene of today.

I came in at my usual time this morning, while everyone else had apparently planned to come in early. This meant that A, B and eventually C were already at their desk when I got there. C seemed relieved, and after a few minutes (coffee in hand) I understood perfectly well. A and B had been at it for as long as she was there, and probably longer. It's like cats and dogs, I feel I should get me a whistle or something.

B is obviously playing with A, trying to find her breaking point, which really can't be all that far off. He publicly re-named her Chief Nitpicker, as she just can't stop herself from constantly correcting people's expression, grammar and even which syllable they stress. It's getting very hard not to just burst out laughing at him as he's subtly making her spew her (in-)correct little wisdoms for all to hear. I think this last re-naming got close to her breaking point, since she looked as if she didn't know if she should burst out laughing or run away crying. In the end she grinned and soon excused herself to the bathroom 'to collect herself.' It's getting a little painful to witness, but there's no stopping her. Or him, for that matter. Every once in a while some genuine irritation creeps into his voice.

The bubble will burst, but when? And how?

Guess the when and the how and you will receive a marvelous prize of something orange, yellow and cream. Easy to pin on and brighten up whatever you stick it on.


Enough!!!!!

It's Friday, and there's a fresh new weekend ahead. I started it off earlier, getting completely soaked on the way home. It was dry, and then it rained, and I cycled home. And then it dried up. Jeans aren't great for rain-stoppage, but we all know that. Neither is the leather jacked, nor the white booties. That was unexpected. So now I'm in my comfy black and blobs dress, made from this:



Unfortunately I didn't have therapy this week, as Jody is sick again (quite literally) so next appointment is on Monday evening. Both shoulders seem done with computers for the day, so here's to hoping sewing will be ok still. Working on a skirt for camping next week.

While on the subject of camping, we might be in car-packing-space luck next week, but more on that later. When we know where to go and what to take.

I feel creative. I must go and abuse the moment. Byeeeee!



PS. Will have some more yarn in 2 weeks. Can't wait.
PPS. Bookclub book #2 progressing slowly. Could've used another round of editing and be 1/3 shorter, surely. Story not bad, just the editing, mostly.

Dear Lord, I gone 'n dunnit agin...

... though not to worry, I didn't just buy more fabric, I did pretty things with some I got earlier.




I do apologize for the general crappiness of the images, but my old friend point-and-shoot camera now only takes 4 pictures on full batteries and refuses to turn on after that. And the charged batteries are 2 flights of stairs away from me, and I just can't be bothered to go get them. I already took my after-dinner-nap, you see?

Anyway, did you behold the pretty bad image of the pretty cute jeans skirt? It's very pretty, and it fits me as well! It took some hard work and some muttered swearing because the fabric is so tough, you can stand the skirt up without too much effort, just by itself. That makes me a little apprehensive for its first washing, but we'll see. It's about knee-length, before you ask, and that odd looking curve is the bottom of top-layer of the front skirt. It's one of my better projects so far, I really like how the fancy stitching worked out. Might wear it to work tomorrow, but then again, I might not, therapy late afternoon does not co-exist with skirts very well.

Now that there is a great gaping hole in my stash from the used jeans, I had a chance to go by market this morning, as we had to attend a meeting in the down-town building of UWV. I still don't quite get what we were supposed to take out of it, but I suppose being in the know about the numbers that mean very little to me is going to make me feel part of the UWV-Uitkeren family. Not really, not until they offer me a contract and take me away from the mean people at Randstad. Long story short, I had the chance to go by Grumpy Man on the market, and bought me some new stuffs. It's pretty too, but I worry about my pre-occupation with jersey these days. Bought some more black with pretty colours a few weeks back, as well as some leather for the hubby, who immediately planned to use it in the car. Not what I had planned, but there you go I suppose. Anyway, here they are.




I did already mention the "Therapy" word. It was going pretty well, or so I thought, and so he thought. Right up until the moment I finished Scriptfrenzy and decided to celebrate with wine rather than that cup of tea. It was a national holiday after all. I put back the cork and screwed everything up. Should've finished the bottle, but there you go. Moderation can be bad for you, don't you forget it. So now I'm thrown back a number of weeks, and getting pretty peed off with it. It hurt when I opened a closed door with my elbow. It hurt when I opened and opened door with my elbow. It hurt when I buttoned my pants this morning, and when I tried to close my belt. It hurt when I adjusted the panel of my jacket that got stuck behind the strap of my bag.

I must become a leftie for a number of weeks.

Which isn't working out very well so far. No coordination whatsoever, but I'm determined to move my computer mouse and try to relieve the arm that way. It's just not happy in general, feeling stiffer than before, and still doing that awkward and painful popping every once in a while. Mr. Torturer told me we have 6 months to work it out this way, which is absolutely doable, before we're going to take "different steps". Different Steps aren't any good. They're bad. Must practise more and more often. In fact, as soon as I'm done here, I will.

Last but not least a special message for Heidi and Nell.

Crunches hurt, but working hard. Belly sore, but will persist. Must not be chubby next week!

Bamboo Asia in blue...

...is finished and it looks a little like this...

I've been slacking, but...

... I happen to think I had a good reason for it.

You see, I WON! I WON! I WON!

*Another* Scriptfrenzy. Of course leaving the bulk of the work until the very last moment, but I did write/copy/pasted the last 50-odd pages yesterday, with almost 2 hours to spare. How's that for planning, I ask you?
Having made most of the drivel up myself, I was rather surprised at how well it all fit in with the "back story" of the Beckett Godot. Of course the story isn't quite finished, yet, but this one might actually make it to being edited. I still have some free proof print at a certain vanity press waiting somewhere in the depths of my email bucket, and this might be the one to get to print. Will make DH do some art for the cover.
Here's one Stacey made earlier and dare I say it, better written and marketed than my humble person could come up with. I'll take this moment to learn something: Ask!!!

Anyways, that project has been finished with mixed feelings of success, the job hunting has as well. Have I mentioned that? I can't remember, but I figure I must have. The sweater knitting has been done, and I'm currently writing so as not to have to put *the other sleeve* in before closing the sides. it's been waiting for this moment for 2 weeks now. Been slacking a lot.
For some reason, the job takes more brain effort from the constant discussions about nothing than from the actual work which hasn't really started being an effort yet.

So to sum things up, I'm full of ideas, but lethargy seems to be the buzz word over here, in this attic, in front of the TV.

I'd also like to tell you that alcohol is very bad for you. Yesterday I WON! the 3rd Scriptfrenzy in a row so I figured celebrations were in order. I debated with myself how this should be done. Herbal Tea-man was sitting on the left shoulder, competing with White Wino on the right. As the right shoulder was feeling more and more stable, White Wino won the competition hands down. I poured my glass, and started to put the cork back in WHICH IS A BAD PLAN WHEN YOU HAVE AN UNSTABLE SHOULDER. Apparently.

Alcohol maakt meer kapot dan je lief is, dat blijkt maar weer.

Tuned down training for now, hoping it'll be better in a few days.

Depending on where you were, you may or may not have heard about the news. It is possible for 1 man to ruin a party for 16.000.000 people, all in one go. As someone put it, 16.000.000 party goers, 6 dead, 1 idiot. I am of course talking about the idiot who rammed his car through a road block, a crowd of people and, ultimately, into a roadside monument. The tally is now at 7 people dead, 4 badly wounded and 7 hurt, amongst which 3 children. Cruel kind of comfort, but the child tumbling through the air and landing on a tarmac road who has been stuck in my mind is not amongst the deceased. The driver, a "38 yr old quiet man," is.
It's yet another national trauma for our small country to deal with. Let's hope it doesn't mean that we're all going to go nuts like we usually do. Hopefully, we'll have a quiet parade next Koninginnedag, after which we can all go back to being complete orange fruitcakes for one day of the year.
Of course we will be like we usually are and close down security on every single event in the future. "They" are going to have a party.

As this will be in the news for a while, I'd like to end on a slightly lighter note. Soon, very soon, I will be thinking about opening an Etsy shop online! How cool would that be, if I actually did do so, and... well, stuff? (See, I'm not committing to anything!)

Soon (not) to be found in several online shop spots, I leave you with a lazy goodbye.

Goodbye.