A Bike Ride...

Summer!

Birthday Goodies...

All bath products from LUSH

Yum!  {smile}

Summer Is Here! (finally)

Yay, for this whole week, and even a few days after, they're expecting the temperatures to stay around 75F/ 24C, how wonderful is that?!  {smile} Finally I'm having some of that summer vacation feeling...

So late this afternoon my husband and I decided to walk to the local Farmer's Market. I took my camera with us and made lots of fun pictures of our walk, the market and the neighborhood, or so I thought. When I tried to download my pictures there was nothing in there! What the...?! It seems there was something wrong with my memory card...   {frown}

So, unfortunately I have nothing to show for our lovely walk and our purchases but I do still have a few pictures from our yard to share with you, taken a few days back...

Bee Balm growing like crazy: about 1.70 m tall!

Lots of pretty things in our yard!

Tomorrow I'll make some pictures of the finished mirror etc. It turned out a bit whiter than I had planned and it looks a little too formal to me but maybe you guys will have some suggestions? I was already thinking of a Modge Podge project...

Thrifting Goodness..

Hellooooo, I'm still here, just really busy with lots of little (and some bigger) projects. My biggest one being a giant mirror that Tif and I found at the Value Village on my birthday. It was only $40 so I couldn't leave it behind. It has solid hardware, is made of wood and therefore weighs a ton...

I started sanding it yesterday and it took me forever to get most of the dark brown off. I found white and gold underneath. After all the heavy duty sanding (with my nifty hand sander in the shape of of an iron) I applied two primer coats, just to be on the safe side. This morning I applied the first real coat of paint called 'Vermont Cream'. It's a plain off-white, but I wanted some more 'neutrality' in our room. I will show you the final product pictures as soon as I've made them...

Whilst spending time at the Value Village I also found the following items:

I already have three other tiles in that same theme so was tickled pink when I found this forth one and in Swedish also! (it says: food should be prepared with butter and love, or something like that)

The jug is from the Finnish brand 'Arabia' and I sighed audibly when I found it hidden behind some other items...

Tif bought tons of fabric as usual and we shared the sheet with the blue flowers above. I think I'll make some fancy pillow cases for the tv-room from it and I'll look for some fun pom-pom edging at Joann's this week when I'll be in the neighborhood...

Today my husband surprised us all by completely re-organising the shed! He hardly threw anything away but created a tons of space. I don't have any before pictures, but believe you me, it was not a place I wanted to enter voluntarily...

So, that was about it for now. I have more to show you but I haven't had time yet to take all the pictures etc. Tonight we're off to see a Swedish ABBA- band in an outdoor show: should be fun!

"Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to!"

Happy Birthday To Me! {smile}

Yay, it is only 8:30am and I already feel like a Birthday Queen!

Look what I received this morning:

A super zoom lens! I really missed this item on our trip and I can't wait to try it out...

From the kids I received (upon my own request) the Zumba Fitness DVD  for the Kinect! I already tried it out and my heart is still racing...  [wink] I took lessons last year but my ankle (which I broke the year before that) wasn't happy with all that movement. I did like the music though so now I'm giving it a second chance from the comfort of my own home...

And yes, I'm aiming to get the same bod as on the DVD case... (not!) Oh, and maybe the long hair too! (I just cut it all short again yesterday)

Several very yummie bath bombs from Lush were also received but I haven't had the chance to take fun pictures of them yet.

In a couple of hours I'll be meeting up with Tif again after quite a long hiatus (she was also away for a month) and hopefully we'll enjoy first some great thrifting and then a great Indian lunch: Yahoo!

Tour De France & Beer! (what a combo...)

Hello again! I was going to post these pictures tomorrow but tomorrow is my 45th (!) birthday!  {smile}

I'll first be celeberating this momentous occasion with a visit to Value Village (second hand store) and lunch with Tif and in the evening we will be celebrating my Dutch aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary so lots of celebrating all around!  {smile}

So, on July 24th we were in Paris to actually witness the final leg of the Tour De France! Now I am not a Tour fan at all and I don't think the rest of the family is either, but the final leg, in Paris??? So of we went to the 'Pont de Tolbiac' near the 'Parc de Bercy' to find ourselves a good viewing spot. We found one since we were ridiculously early and there was hardly anybody else there. We actually ended up standing on that same bridge for 4 hours (!) but the weather was gorgeous and it was just fun to live the moment.

We had heard that the caravan preceeding the actual Tour would hand out goodies but no such luck! (I think they kept all the goodies for the people on the Champs Elysees...) That was a bummer but Miss M. managed to get a signed photograph of Raymond  Poupilard (that was not his real name but something close to it) a famous retired Tour person and she bought a fun Tour umbrella and we got two t-shirts also...

The Caravan was crazy!!!! Just like an American parade or a Dutch carnival celebration. My personal highlight was a guy in a speedo (so French! [wink]) dancing around a stripper pole: hilarious!!! ('Dorothy, I don't think we're in America any more...')

Anyway, here are some impressions...

And the final arrival of the peleton...

The peleton wizzed by in a matter of seconds so I didn't actually see anything since I was right behind the camera of course (it was in sport's mode so it clicked and clicked and clicked).

Do you see Mister Cadel (the winner) in his yellow jersey in the middle? I'll add a close-up...

I'll leave you with some lovely beer pictures in celebration of my Birthday tomorrow: Cheers!  {smile}

Paris, Je T'aime... (but not really)

Well, here is my Paris post. I've been procrastinating posting on this one because, and I can only whisper this, I didn't really enjoy Paris...

I know, I know, everybody simply LOVES Paris but I just didn't get it. This was my second time visiting and I really tried but to me it was just a big and very crowded place with yes, very beautiful buildings but that was about it. Of course it didn't help that we reached Paris after already a lot of sightseeing and driving around first Holland and then Germany so I'll grant you that.

Anyway, enough negativity, we did see beautiful  buildings, the weather wasn't bad at all and we had quite a few good times as well so here it goes....

Le Marais, Place des Vosges, Notre Dame etc.

The Louvre

The Sacre Coeur

Montmartre area

And of course the Tour d'Eiffel:

And one more...

The pictures in these last two collages were made by Miss M. She and my husband went there for the evening and had a great time together. She makes great pics don't you think?  {smile}

I think the best time I had in Paris was the first day we were there and we visited Le Marais. Our friend Frederique, who had graciously lent her appartment to us (!), showed us around and we had lunch together before she took the high speed train down to Le Provence.

This must be the way to go for me the next time; with someone who knows where to find all the special little places, not all those tourisity ones. Within 5 minutes of her place we found this cute little embroidery shop with lots of specialty linens etc.

It really was tiny, but I bought three pieces of linen and some old 'De Fil en Aiguille' cross-stitch magazines for 1 Euro each! Lovely!  {smile}

Tomorrow some shots of the last leg of the Tour de France. Yes, we were there!

Cars, Castles, Ships and Old Dutch Tiles...

Whilst in Holland we kept on running into these cute little Fiats! So of course I had to take pictures of them too. Love the one in the middle especially!  [wink]

In Berlin we saw a few Trabants but not as many as we used to. I barely cought the lime green one racing around the corner near the Stasi Prison: it's a station wagon! And of course 'George' needs no additional words...

  

We also visited several castles in The Netherlands: the 'Muiderslot' in Muiden (in the same street where my dad lives!), 'Loevesteijn' near Woudrichem and a city castle in Zaltbommel. Aren't they just splendid?!

And of course we saw plenty of sailboats old and new and we particularly liked the old flat bottom ones that are so well known in my dad's area around the IJsselmeer...

On the bottom right you see the 'Batavia', a replica from the 17th century VOC era (East-Indian- Company in the colonial days) that lies in Lelystad.

And here some beautiful Old Dutch Tiles which always catch my eye when I come across them....

As always, for more details please click on the pictures to enlarge them ...

Meanwhile At Home...

The jet- lag seems to have finally disappeared and the creative forces have returned! Painting is in progress:

This bright red paint is for one of my mid- century tables which was due for a bit of a makeover. It is taking multiple coats so the final pictures will have to wait for a while...

I've also been painting the tv room. The painting in this house has never been satisfactory due to the fact that all the doors and trimming are wood color. (Yuk!) I think any color looks at its best with a nice bright white trim around it but no such luck here. I've been struggling with the colors in this house since day one and I don't think I'll ever be satisfied but one can always try. This is what it looks like right now...

The photo's show the blue color more as grey but is more duck- egg- blue-ish in reality. I wanted to be able to add more blue and red in this part of the house, but with all the orange tones this just didn't look right. Now I can though!  {smile}

I ran out of the blue paint so I still have to do a second coat on half the room but is is just about done. Time for...

Toodeloo!