Merry Christmas Ho Ho Ho

Today we are preparing for Christmas .... making 'stoofpeertjes' and cranberry compote which makes the kitchen smell yummie! ........

Mister is enjoying everything (including X-mastree ho ho ho) as well as me typing on the laptop ... looking for the arrow going to left en right but does it really go to the back of the screen ...... hey were is it now ???? Right now he sits right in front of the screen so that leaves me no sight ha ha ha. He has been ill the last 3 weeks and there was poop allover the place ..... The vet gave him a injection and now he is doing allright so we are happy to hold him again!

Mister and we say: Merry christmas everybody!!!!

Tomorrow we will have company for X-mas dinner and we are looking forward to this special day! Tonight we will have a dinner for two ... a romantic time for ourselves!!!

Take care!

Mister is HAPPY and so are we!

Can YOU refuse this little face anything ?

We both are so happy with our litle 'guy', he shows his love to us every minute of the day...

He did NOT ruin anything ....yet .... keep fingers crossed :-)

He chases everything (his tail by choice)...






Do not leave a pencil waiting for the crosswordpuzzle on the newspaper .....

you will find it back under the couch ...







I am a little worried because he has a running eye, but that can be due to the shot he became at the vet's. So I am looking it closely for a couple of days.

Today I tried to make pics for our christmascards and it worked out very good (bless the one who developed cat treats !!!!!).

I am of to do some housework ... have to do it little by little because I have a very sore right shoulder. I fall down twice in the last 2 weeks (just being clumsy) and my weight was tooooo heavy for my shoulder muscles......

Have a great day and:
Take care!!!

Special day ....

Today is a special day for Peggy and Sebastiaan because they bought their OWN house. They still live apart so this is going to be a hugh turn in their lifes together! We congratulate our dear niece and her boyfriend with their HOME !

Mister is already totally 'at home' and remembers us at how it is with a cat ... jumps on everything ... so do NOT leave:
- scrapbookstuff (like flowers) on the table because that is simular to TOY !!!
- pillows on the couch or chair, they end up on the floor !!!
- empty bowl of yogurt on the table, has to be licked clean !!!
- your spot on the couch, it's warm and cats love warm spots !!!
- the door open, he'll jump up the stairs and hides underneath every little space !!!
- him with a NO because he doesn't (want to) understand ;-0

But he is tooooooo cute, can't refuse him a thing. We will enventualy I promise (hope???).

Have a great weekend y'all and ...

Take care!

Call me crazy ...... but I did it !

Last night I went to bed at 12 ... layed there turning and turning...

Finally I went down and layed myself on the couch acompanied by our little fellow. I felt so sorry for him to be all by himself in his first night in our house... He was so happy to see me and crowled all up in my neck and fell asleep and so did I !


At 3:30 I woke up, put him in his limegreen catbed and went upstairs to have a good sleep hahaha!


This morning he was sooooooooo playful, tried to eat: the newspaper, enveloppes that the postman brought, my fingers (!!!) but this was all nothing compared to the catfood I gave him a little later!


He usses him catlitter to play in and you can imagine how the wooden floor looks like ...... When I get the broom to clean it all, he chases the broom.... hahahaha. I am sooooooo happy that I am wearing the grin on my face again, which I thought had passed away...



Leave you with these pics:





Isn't he ADORABLE ????
















.......and so handsome!






Take care y'all !

HE arrived!

Today is one of the luckiest days of 2008 ! We got a new familymember:

His name is : MISTER
He is : a CAT
He is: 3 months young
He was fostered by: Karin
His color is: grey with a little beige
He loves: sleeping in a neck (not specific mine)
He adores: playing with anything
He eats: catfood :-)
He snoops: catsnoops
He pee's and poops: in the catlitter
He sleeps: in a LIME GREEN catbed


He is sooooooo CUTE and we already love him sooooooo much! Wish he would sit still for a few seconds so I can take proper pictures ... He already thinks that his 'mommy' has ONE BLACK EYE ...hihihi.
I am off to bed ..... give the little guy some rest and get ready for new plays tomorrow .... can't wait :-)

Take care and ........ if you want to come by and meet our funny one please let us know!

really .... I am still here!

Hello everyone.... Yezzz, I am still alive ...... It has been a wierd past half year.....


When we came back from Italy my MIL was ill. We saw it was really bad with her but the doctors did NOT... Finally in August a doctor agreed to check her into the hospital.... it was already too late.... she had cancer in the latest stadium. Her last 2 weeks she spend in a hospice and all her kids and grandkids were there with her. It was a very special time : I got to see a MIL that I never had seen during the past 30 years....... I treasure this time because I had to say goodbye to a very loving and caring MIL, which I wouldn't have had if she passed away a year ago... We had a good time with our hole family and we all gave her a beautiful funeral, just the way she wanted. Goodbye 'Ma' and again ........ thanks for a wonderful boy who is my husband for almost 30 years now!

During all the running back and forth between my PIL's home, hospitals etc. Our home was getting new windows and doors, so every day there were people in and around my house working, wanting coffee .... 'something nice' with lunch (like soup or croquettes :-).... After 2,5 weeks they were done and the next plow of working people came in to redo our bathroom and downstairs toilet. It would take them 3 weeks they said....... but now we are 9 weeks further and it is still not 'all done'.... It is going to be beautiful (we still keep our hopes up.....)

When I write this down in just a few lines I think: That is not much, but belief me: my house has been a desaster area for over 3 months now....

To top things off : We had to lay our beautiful siamese cat Lady to sleep last week at the age of 18 years and 7 months ........... She has been in our home for over 15 years and gave us sooooooo much joy and comforted us when we were sad, always happy when we got home !

So I hope you understand why I didn't think of blogging in the last couple of months......

We are looking at the future now and hoping it will bring us some good moments to add to our memories over 2008.

Thanks for stopping by and leave a comment if you wish, so I do know there are people who check me every once an a while .....

In the mean time : Take care!!!

Hello .... from Tuscany!

We found our way to Tuscany yesterday after being in Cinque Terre and Rome. We are in a beautiful silent resort and enjoying the sights of Chiusi/Sarteano. Although there is rain today we are relaxing every minute. After the walking we did in the northern part of Italy and walked (all of) Rome we so need this quiet time!

In Rome we joined the Pope on the St. Pieter square will he was having an 'audientie'. It was a surprise we actually got to see the Pope....

Right in the middle of the picture you see a man dressed in white.....

Offcourse we saw all the major sights like: Fontain the Trevi, Spanish stairs, National Monument and The Colosseum all worth while to see. Tell more about it in the future.

Now Tuscany is our 'thing to do'. Pray for good weather please....our plans need SUN !

Take care!!!

Gone home ...

Willis is home ... and left us with the great feeling of having a dog in the house (and sore muscles :-)

We had a great week walking, playing, chasing, loving a dog and ......... loosing 3 kilo's !!! DH chanced his mind about having a dog ... so in the future .... who knows!

Saturday we celebrated our 29th anniversary with family and friends. It is always so nice to have people around who want to celebrate with us! They (read: the younger generation) already are talking about next year ... 30 years has to be celebrated differently (as THEY think :-) You must know we had a big celebration when we were married for 25 years, we took 40 people for a weekend away in a small hotel and had great fun party-ing, eating, drinking etc. So know they think we should do 'something' next year ...

I am going to be buzy preparing a vacation . . . . . . .

Take care!!

This company is great FUN !!!

I like to introduce you to our company (for a week) : Willis, is the dog of our friends Ries and Anita.

He is such a lovely dog, behaves very well, listens very good, is playfull, doesn't bark (!!!) and gives a lot of cuddles. Yesterday we took him to the forest and he played with every branch he could find....and there were many, I tell you. We walked for 2 hours and he was happy to go for an other 2 hours but.......we were excausted hahaha!

For me it is a good training for all the walking we are planning to do in Italy... The musclepain I have right now will not appear during my holiday (I hope).

With Willis around there is not many time left to scrap but when he is home again there will be a lot of pics waiting to be glued down...

It is such nice weather today overhere, so I am going into the sun to get a pre-tan :-)

Tomorrow I'll be teaching a workshop at Creatief met Foto's in Heesch and in the evening we expect family to join us celebrating our 29th anniversary!

Talk later and take care!

expecting . . . company !

Woooooowwwieieee ..... tuesday we are getting company for 6 days ...... we are soooo excited!
Want to know what company we get ........ return wednesday and I'll show some pics of what we did with our guest!

Take care!

New blinds ...

Everybody who knows me, knows how much I love LIMEGREEN! So ... when we needed new blinds (the old ones were broke) I managed to order white, blue and LIME! My DH was really sceptic about my choice (can you imagine?) but (as always) he went allong :-)

Saturday the new verticle blinds arrived and we put them up. Guess what he said: "Dit is écht GAAF"(This is really COOL). Watch this:


I am SOOOO happy with it!

Talk soon, Take care!!!

Hooked on .... HAKEN (crochet)!

We had a great weekend with lots of sunshine. And ..... I am hooked!! Yeah right hooked...on 'haken' (crochet) flowers:





My dear friend Anita showed me how to crochet hearts last year and I started up crocheting flowers a few months ago, but I didn't think they were worth showing, but now everybody is making beautiful flowers ( Anita, Natasja, Monique, Norbiba, Petra). I looked on the internet to see if I could find some paterns and yes I did here.

It is so relaxing ... sitting in the sun in the backyard with my crochetwork. Guess were we are going in a couple of weeks:





Yezzzz ITALY!!!


I am off scrapping a photoswap and this afternoon you'll find me in the backyard, with my crochethook!!!

Have a great day and: TAKE CARE!

It was a great day!

Yesterday my FIL celebrated his 80st birthday. Not that he likes birthday's, he really enjoyed this one.

Happy 80st Pa !

My SIL and I 'managed' the catering during the day and we laughed a lot. Ofcourse there were only 'older' people but it was nice to meet aunts and uncles that we didn't see for a while. In the evening all (grand)children and inlaws came and that was for the first time in 8 years ! So great to see my PIL's happy !!! We surprised FIL with a digital SLR Sony A350. He was stunned.......

He is a amature photographer for over 60 years now, always worked with a analoge SLR and made millions of beautiful pictures at the 'Hoge Veluwe' (which is his biggest hobby').

This morning I called him and he is already into the instructionbook ...... Way you GO Pa ! Have fun with the birds in the backyard this afternoon.......

At the Stamping Show in Zeist this weekend I bought a few Magnolia's ...... yum yum ! Coloring with my Karisma's is the only thing I do these days....... only coloring the images......I am going to make cards with them later and I will show asap!

Going to make outdoor pictures this afternoon with Femke because it is such nice weather today!

Talk soon again to y'all ........ in the mean time:

Take care!

I have been told...

that I am a very BAD BLOGGER ... and that is SO TRUE. I am sorry for not keeping up my appearences :-). So for the tenth (or more) time I say I am sorry if you stopped by and didn't read any news about me.

I have been busy with preparing workshops and finding out there were not enough participants :-( It took my mojo away and I am still trying to find it....

I held myself busy with making cards the last week, nice 'working' with stamps of Magnolia and Hero Arts in combinations with Karisma colorpencils and 'doezelaars'. Wanna see some???

Here you go:

Today I found myself being sad... so I had a GOOD TALK to myself and started a layout about my dreams about our holiday to Toscane next month. Down that way I started feeling better and promissed myself to hold on to that feeling!!!

the picture has been taken by Matty Ringelberg.

Tomorrow is going to be a FUN day at Dolls and Decorations in Almere. The 'Dolls Good News Box' will be released and (ofcourse) Petra prepared free Make & Takes, so a lot of girls will be visiting and creating (and BUYING hihihi) all the yummy stuff she has in her beautiful store.

In the evening my dear friend Hannie will celebrate her birthday...so finally we have a change to catch up ....

Sunday morning I will be up EARLY ... to go to the Art Specially (stamping) event in Zeist ... lots of creativity will be there and I will have to hold on to my wallet (hihihi) wanting to buy all the gorgeous stamps I will see. In the afternoon Peggy will celebrate her birthday and we won't miss that PARTY!!!

I do want to finish with a positive note: I will be published (again) in June ...

Have a great weekend y'all and talk soon (don't promiss anything, but want to be a better blogger, can you help by placing a comment, please???)

Take care!!!

Yes, I am still alive....

Oh boy, I am such a bad blogger...., I know! But every day (for the last 6 weeks) I thought : I have to write my blog tonight ... You must know : normally I am a good listener (but not to myself ... hihihi).
Well to give you an update: I was alone at home for almost 3 weeks in februari because DH went to New Zealand, playing a Tattoo in Rotorua and some concerts around the northern island. In those weeks I planned my scedule completely, I knew I was going to miss him very much and that kept me busy! I worked during the KKD (with 7 Gypsies) and shared a room with Agitte, which was so much fun, old days happened again! We had dinner together on sundaynight, finally having time to catch up on eachothers lifes, and ofcourse a lot to laugh!!! One little story: I gave Agitte a bunch of flowers (that stood at the entrance) and said : "I luv' U", Agitte fell on her knees and asked me: "will U marrie me?"... Imagine how people looked at us ... we had a blast!!!! We went of to the hotelroom kicked out our shoes and dropped on the bed, still yapping around... at 1 o'clock we went asleep. The next day we had a great day again demonstrating for store-owners. Tim Holtz was there too, we didn't see much of him because his booth was crowded with women...and we only got to see their behinds ! Agitte and I had a wonderful time and I thank her for being my friend!
Also demonstrating in the 'scrapbooklane' were: Lydia Visser, Corinne Delis and Birgit Koopsen and they all made beautiful samples.

Last week I was busy making an article for a scrapbookmagazine.......can't show our tell more but as soon as it is published I'll show!!

Okay....hubby is home and wantto chat with me, so I am off. Try to post again tomorrow!
Take care!

Hooked ....

Birgit Koopsen hosted a Secret Santa Swap last year (2007). It was the first time I attended a swap like that. It was sooooo much fun!

My secret santa sister was Anja from Dresden. She did a great job by surprising me with a great Santa gift .... which I had to store under the X-mas tree for 18 (yes....eightteen !!!) days !!!! Can you imagine looking at a gift for soooo long and not getting to touch it ?!"#?$@But finally at christmas I got to open the present and this is what she packed for me:


THANKS Anja it was a great gift asspecial the mini book you made me !!!

Since a few weeks I am totally hooked on the hot chocolate of Chocomel. I bought the starterskit to make the drink with my senseo-coffeemachine, and now I am hooked!!! Getting the refills is really a problem but until now a manage to have 1 cup each day, which is the LIMIT for me (still 'Sonja'-ing but this is my treat for the day).
When I visited Anita last week, I bought the starterskit and refills for her as a gift, and now she is totally addicted as you can read here. Anita showed me how you really should drink hot chocolate..... with whipped cream and ......marshmellows on top! Because we couldn't find marshmellows, she bought a bag of little 'party-spekkies'. Cut 3 spekkies in small pieces and lay them on top of your chocolate with cream and wonder of to ............ cloud number ?

This is it for today, I am of to visit my friend Cora who is in the hospital with meningitis. Luckely she is doing better so she can have visitors now. We truely hope she will be alright with no consequences left.
So, if you have positive vibs left, sent them to Cora!

Take care!

I am BACK !

It was sooooooooooo necesary ... My eyes were half way closed, couldn't open them without raising my eyebrows. The last couple of years I had this 'dark look' and had often headaches which didn't make me a happy at all. There was no nead of puttinf eye make-up on, because nobody would notice that I was wearing it. Only a big smach of mascara so that would keep my a little more 'open'. It looked like this:

One of the last days of 2007 the eyesurgeon operated me on both eyelids and lifted them. He took 2 cm skin away and some fat ....... I said that I wanted to 'donate' some more fat (from different area's) but he wasn't certified for that, hmmmmmmmm too bat.

I looked like this for a couple of days:

Look what they made of me:

I am soooooo happy with the results, can you imagine? It is only 18 days ago and already I can show off my new me!

With Christmas DH gave me a certificate to buy some new eye make-up when the operation was done :

This morning I went to 'Parmuferie Douglas' and bought some new eye make-up. I had a good advice and they gave me a 'make over' as a treat!
And I felt treated!

Now I am all new and looking forward to the new year, which (I hope) brings me lots of work in the scrapbook business. I was already invited to work during the KKD (Knallende Kars Dagen) and I am going to work with 7 Gypsies (Yeeeeehaaaaaaaa). I love that brand and it is so ME to do heritage and vintage. They sent me two big boxes full of (old and) new supllies, every single minute is scrapping now!

I took a one-day-a-week job at Primera, which is a store that sells sigarettes, magazines, cards, books etc. It is fun to work with different people and have to go outdoors to do so.

I am one happy chick!

Talk later... and

TAKE CARE!!!

..... 2008

Hi everybody ! I am not going to appologize for being a bad blogger (you wouldn't believe me anymore), I am just going to tell what happened and make a new start in 2008, if that's OK with you :-) ........

We had a great december-2007 (allthough I suffered the flu):
* dinner at Cor & Henny's on 'Sinterklaasavond'
* being 'assistant' of a proffessional photographer when Peggy & Sebastiaan where 'shoot'
* was so happy putting up our X-mas tree with all the memorie-decorations we have
* start my new job
* went to the (Hour of Power) Christmascelebration at the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam with my Tante Pietertje and her 2 daughters
* made a 7 course christmas-dinner for 6 wonderful guests, together with DH
* had a family christmas day on the 26st at my Sis and Pajan and all their (grand-)kids
* had my eyes lifted ...

That is the end of my year in a nutshell....

Starting the new year of 2008 by :

WISHING YOU: ALL YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR YEAR BEAUTIFUL TO YOU ! ! !

Talk to you soon.
Take care !