Blue Flower Images number 4.

This morning I weigh almost a kilo less than I did yesterday, but still 5 ounces more than I did the day before. Isn’t that strange? It is one of those mysteries of the body that I will never understand. I weigh 89.9 kilos and I don’t know why, when I eat so little, but I suppose I should be happy, because at least I am below 90 kilos again. I must stay below 90 kilos, that’s sort of a psychological and physical limit for me.

Yesterday was an alright day. I had to wait for the black sweater to arrive that I had ordered on line. It got here at 2 pm and the woman who delivered it put it in the mailbox. Luckily, I saw her drive by and checked the mailbox or I would have been sitting there forever waiting for her to ring the doorbell and hand me the package. The sweater fits and looks really nice, so that was a good buy.

Then I shortened the tunic that was too long. I had to do it by hand, but it was an fairly easy job and I was done in an hour. It had been long to my knees and I always felt like I was wearing a monks habit when I wore it. Shorter it looks ever so much better and perkier.

Yesterday morning, after I walked the dog and before I did anything else, I took a long nap on the sofa. I guess that was just what I needed, because when I woke up I felt really good and to celebrate I had several cups of coffee to really wake up well with. Getting up early is nice, but sometimes I find out that I still need some more sleep and than it is very tempting to lay down on the sofa and sleep a little bit more.

Eduard sold a gold ring and a hanger for me yesterday and with the proceeds I am going to buy a necklace today. This is the last of the jewelry that I am going to be selling. I have some silver jewelry left now that I can’t wear because I am allergic to it, but I know that I can’t sell it and make any money on it. I am looking forward to going into town this morning to get the necklace. I will stop by Eduard’s work and have some capuchinos with him and some of those cookies that I like so much.

As you can see, I don’t have really anything important to write about. Everything here has settled down to a dull roar and I like that just fine. I am rating myself with sixes and sevens and that is fine with me. It is so much easier to be a six than it is to be an eight. It is less complicated.

Well, that is it for today then. Have yourself a wonderful day. I am planning on having a really nice one myself. If you are just about to go to bed, have a good sleep and sweet dreams. Ciao…

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Painted Hummingbird Images number 7.

Yesterday morning I didn’t wake up until 6 am, so I didn’t even bother turning on the computer, but just sat on the sofa and had my coffee and cigarettes, thinking it was too late to start writing a post anyway. It feels very liberating not to feel like I have to write one every day. It also feels very liberating to feel that I don’t have to turn the computer on every day.

In the end, the only reason I did turn it on, was later in the day to listen to some CD’s, because our CD player is not working, so I had to use the computer to listen to some music. They were CD’s that my daughter had given me last year and that I had not listened to in a long time. Glen Gould playing Bach, the Goldberg Variations, and Ella Fitzgerald singing all sorts of jazzy songs. Oh yes, and Paris Combo, singing in French, quite upbeat and happy. I always like the CD’s my daughter gives me as they are always quite cheerful music and not at all laden with all sorts of heavy emotions.

The last two days I have been quite active. On Wednesday I sold two gold rings for the value of the gold and with the money I got from them, I bought a new ring made from burnished precious steel, silver and gold colored, with a single zircon set in it. It is a quite attractive ring and looks like it is made of gold. It looks more expensive than it actually was, the band is quite wide and I am very happy with it.

I also sold some books at the second hand bookstore and with the money I got from them, I bought a new top and some new earrings and a necklace. When I got to the clothing store, they handed me a ticket with three stickers on them for 30, 20 and 10 percent off, that I could place on any price tags I wanted to. So the decision was easily made and I got quite a good deal on the items I bought. It was just my lucky day.

After that, I had capuchinos at Eduard’s work, even though Eduard didn’t have time to really sit and visit with me, but there were other people there to talk to and I didn’t stay long, lest they think I have become a fixture there.

Yesterday morning, I decided that what I needed was some nail polish to paint my nails with and I went to to the drugstore to get some. I bought what I thought was the right color, but when I came home and applied it to my nails, I realized that I didn’t quite like it as much as I was hoping to. Oh well, I thought, next time better, and proceeded to do jobs around the apartment, but later on I thought that I was not happy with the color and I took the bottle back to the store and exchanged it for a color I liked better. That was no problem, because I still had the receipt, of course, and I like the new color ever so much better.

Nowadays, nail polish dries quickly and you don’t have to sit around forever waiting for it to dry. I do realize that I have to let my nails grow a little bit longer to do justice to the nail polish. I usually keep them cut short, but now I will let them grow a little longer. It is so much fun to be a female and to get to fuss with yourself this way. It is like getting up in the morning and putting on your face. It is fun to apply all the various bits of make up and watch yourself transform. And then you do the hair thing and everything is perfect and you smile at yourself and all is well with the world.

Yesterday I looked for jobs to do around the place. There were all sorts of little cleaning jobs I could do. Things I had been neglecting and finally got around to doing. It was a lot of fun. I’ve got a really good cleaning product, that Eduard bought, that you spray on any surface and it gets magically clean, so that helps a lot. The computer desk is always a great gatherer of dust and dirt and you should see how clean I got it. It is white, so it really shows.

Needless to say, I am rating myself with an eight now and I suppose I don’t mind that too much, as long as I don’t get frantic, which is not the case now. I feel very happy and active and I very much feel like doing lots of positive things. As long as I don’t move up to a nine, I will be fine. I liked being a six, because I was so nice and mellow, but now that I am an eight, I like that too.

Eduard has put Christmas lights around the headboard of our bed. It looks very bright and cheerful and especially nice when all the other lights are off in the bedroom. We did have candles on our nightstands, but they were a little bit too dim to see by. The Christmas lights are much better. Isn’t he romantic? I wish for all of you to have such a romantic partner.

Last night we were talking about our time together when we first met again. Those first romantic days and Eduard wanted to know when I first knew that I thought he was going to be more than just a friend to me. I told him of the moment when I first got the idea that I was going to seduce him. It was when I was in Paris and talked to him on the phone and he asked me to come and stay with him in Annecy. There was just the tiniest idea of the possibility in my head then, although I wasn’t quite sure yet. But I thought the chance was there definitely. Eduard and I had such a history together. When we saw each other again, it was like old times and we just picked up where we left off and hit it off immediately. So, we both got the idea to seduce each other simultaneously. Some bottles of wine helped too.

Eduard became the love of my life.

His sister, who later became my best friend, was staying at a campsite at walking distance from his house and the next day, when we walked to her caravan, we were all innocent looking as if nothing had happened, although the air must have sizzled between us. She claimed later on not to have noticed anything, but I wonder if she didn’t? Were we that good at hiding something that obvious? We had a terrific couple of days. We ate good food and saw lots of good sights and spoke a mixture of French and Dutch and English.

Speaking of languages, I was listening to A Belgian French language radio station yesterday. They spoke very rapidly and I hardly understood anything they were saying. It went something like this: “Blah blah blah, Robbie Williams, blah blah blah, James Blunt, blah blah blah.” Then they would announce the title of the next song, “blah blah, You Are Always On My Mind, blah blah,” and play a song either in English or in French.

I like listening to foreign radio stations, as I like to pretend that I am in a foreign country. I don’t mind if I don’t understand most of it. We also receive a British radio station very well, bu
t they play pretty lame music from the seventies and do a lot of talking and there is a lot of hype, so I don’t enjoy listening to it. Which is really a shame, because it would be interesting to listen to a British radio station. Then there is Arrow Jazz FM, but their Jazz is very easy listening and very uncomplicated, so it poses no challenge at all and becomes boring after about three songs. I wish there was a radio station that played nothing but Baroque. I would listen to that all day long. There is a classical radio station, but they also play heavy emotional classical music for which I am not in the mood. I love the mathematical rationality of Baroque. To me it just sounds like good Jazz. There is rationality in good Jazz.

This morning my gastric band is going to be filled again. If I am not mistaken, I think this may be one of the last times, if not the last time. My weight has be slowly going down this week by ounces. At least it is going down. I have been living on wheat rolls with peanut butter and Cup of Soups. After today, I will only be able to eat half a wheat roll at one time. I hope I will still be able to have a whole Cup of Soup.

The wheat roll with peanut butter is a real treat and something I really look forward to eating. It is such a joy to bite into and taste the peanut butter. I know it is a nutritious food and that it is good for you. I am still taking vitamin B complex, Vitamin A & D and a multi vitamin. I think I am pretty healthy. My hair and nails are strong and my skin is soft and healthy looking. I use a Vitamin C moisturizer on my face and it really makes my skin feel soft there. I am using a really good face wash to get my make up off. You do these things when you get older. It’s all maintenance.

On an other subject. I have bought the cats Whiskas kibbles and they like it so much that they don’t ask for their other food. I must say that these kibbles look appetizing. They look like a cocktail snack and I am tempted to take a hand full. I am constantly filling up the bowl and they are constantly eating. We figured out that it is cheaper to feed them the more expensive Whiskas than to feed them the other kibbles that are cheaper and the wet food. We were spending 42 Euros a month on the wet food. That’s way too much money. We were also spending 30 Euros a month on buying the special cheese for me, so it is a good thing that I have stopped eating that. These are all sorts of expenses that you make that you don’t stop and think about, but they add up. We were spending 21 Euros a month on raisin bread and 9 Euros a month on little containers of potato salad. Eduard spends 45 Euros a month on wine. You see how you can cut your expenses down all across the board.

So, we save a 133 Euros if we don’t buy any of those things. Of course we spend a little of it buying other things such as Whiskas instead of the other cheaper kibbles and buying Cup of Soup, but it is a real lesson in economy and I think a jar of peanut butter doesn’t set you back that far financially.

Well, don’t I have much to tell you this morning. I am sitting here having one cup of coffee after another, typing with my nicely painted finger nails that look like little hard candies and make me want to eat them. I am so ready to have my gastric band filled, because I really want to shed those last ten kilos, at least the first five of them and I think I can do that in the coming month. I am at 90.7 kilos now and before December the 10th I would like to be at 85 kilos. You guys should all dare me to and I will accept the challenge.

I am going to end this epistle now and visit some blogs or read the BBC news, whichever comes first. I have a feeling I am not informed enough about what goes on in the world, although I watch the news religiously. I see the French president Sarkozy is being good buddies with Bush and I don’t like it at all. Something is rotten in Denmark.

Have a great day, everybody. May all your politics be dull and may the Belgians finally form a government. Ciao…

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Close enough

This morning I weigh 95.6 kilos and that is close enough to 95.4 kilos that I’ll be able to say on Sunday in Almelo that I have lost 30 kilos. By then I probably will have. I am surprised that I have lost 2 ounces since yesterday, because I did eat a big piece of salmon for dinner, but it is nice anyway. This is what I had yesterday: one small glass of juice, three bites of Bavarois cake, a cookie, some tomato salad with a hard boiled egg, one salmon steak, one piece of Maasdammer cheese and a tall glass of milk. It always seems that on the days that I think I eat more food, I also loose more weight. There must be a very logical explanation for this, having to do with metabolism and the amount of energy required to burn your food, etc.

Yesterday morning, we got an early start and hopped on our bikes to go downtown. We went across the more northern bridge, to the market square, which has a slow but steep climb and I hooked my hand around Eduard’s arm and together we made it to the top. That was fairly painless. My knees didn’t protest too much. Eduard is very strong and seems to pull me along effortlessly. Of course, I do peddle a bit myself. I don’t let him do the work all by himself, that would be cheating.

When we got to the open air market, we first bought the Maasdammer cheese and then the salmon steaks. The fish is being sold from stands in a separate area from the market itself. There are quite a number of stands that sell fish and you just go and find the one that has the best looking fish at the best price. The smells of the various fish, but especially the salted herring, brought me right back to my childhood, when the fish man would come by with his cart full of fresh fish on Friday’s. The cheese was bought at a stand that had all sorts of good looking cheese, and I could have easily picked out five of them. Some people buy their cheese by the kilo like we do, and others buy their cheese by the ounces and sliced. We have a special cheese slicer to slice the cheese for sandwiches, as do most Dutch people, but I eat mine piece by piece.

We walked around the market a bit and I wanted to look for a jeans jacket, but didn’t find one and I was a bit grouchy. I didn’t know why. Then I said to Eduard, let’s go and have a cup of coffee. So we went to our favorite café and had a coffee each and a slice of Bavarois cake together and after that I felt much better and I realized I had been grouchy because I hadn’t eaten anything before we left the house. Big mistake. I was so busy taking care of everything before I left, that I neglected to do that. So after three bites of the cake and one Café Noir cookie I felt better.

Then we went to the post office to mail a book that I was sending to my daughter and then to the chapel for me to light some candles and pray. I tried to pray to a universal God of indeterminate sex, who is part of the whole universe and all that exists in nature on this earth. Whatever He/She is and however He/She is. I wish I could get a clearer picture in my mind, but I think it will evolve over time. For a change, it wasn’t that awfully busy in the chapel, nor had it been awfully busy in town, but we were there early, so it may have looked differently the rest of the day. It certainly was hot and muggy!

We went to the CWI to see what kinds of jobs were on offer for me and I quickly found out that for almost any kind of job, I need some kind of diploma or some sort of certificate, so I am going to have to do a course. Right now, a bookkeeping course seems to be the most attractive and also a job that is offered a lot and a skill that will always be handy to have. I think it is the kind of work that I will enjoy doing, having been treasurer several years for the PTA with a budget of about 20,000.00 dollars a year and always enjoying that very much. Making monthly reports and making the final yearly report and having all the money accounted for. It’s a job you can do very much independently and you don’t have to interact very much with a larger team or be under any sort of pressure like making sales or making some sort of a percentage. Not that I am not a sociable person, but I do like to work on my own.

We made it home again by 10:30 and I was a bit hot and tired, but I called my sister and we decided to take the dogs to the pond right away. So at eleven o’clock we met at her house and walked to the pond from there. I enjoy the whole walk, because we chat about everything as we walk and we enjoy the scenery at the same time. Jesker enjoys being out at the pond with Quinto and he is much more adventurous when Quinto is there with him. Together they go off into the high grass and the bushes and walk along the water. Luckily, neither one of them has felt the urge to jump in it. We almost never meet anyone when we walk there. We have that bit of nature all to ourselves, although I know that in the weekends it is more busy. I think Erica enjoys meeting me more this way than just sitting around and having a cup of coffee, because Erica is such an active person and always needs to be doing something. She was tested not too long ago and found out that she actually has a slow metabolism, but that she keeps in shape because she is always so active and rarely sits still.

When we got home, Jesker and I were both hot and tired and Jesker just plopped down on the ground. He slept most of the afternoon. I did laundry and cleaned up the kitchen, which I hadn’t done before we left in the morning. I made the tomato salad with less garlic and less vinegar and it tasted better than it had the day before. I should have vacuumed, but by that time I wasn’t in the mood for it and I figured it could wait until today. It was hot and muggy all afternoon and in the evening suddenly there was thunder and lightening and it started to rain fiercely. It came straight down out of the sky. This morning when I got up, it happened again and it scared Jesker who started to bark. It scares the cats too and they hide under the bed.

Buy two large salmon steaks. Sprinkle them with salt, pepper and dill weed. Put them in an oven dish. Cover them with microwaveable plastic wrap. Microwave them at full power for about six minutes. Let them sit under the plastic wrap for about 5 minutes and they are done. They should be a nice pink color. Eat carefully because of the bones. Give your cats and dog a piece too. Everybody will be happy.

I talked to my daughter yesterday and this morning too. This morning I tried to talk not to loudly, so I would not wake Eduard, but I think I need not have worried about that, because he is out like a light. Sometimes I hear him snore.

What I like best about talking to my daughter is that she feels that she can be completely honest with me. So, she talks about her childhood, for instance, even when it is not always very flattering to me. But don’t we all have memories like that of our parents and aren’t they all legitimate and don’t we all rectify a lot of things by talking about them? I was never able to talk about things with my parents and had to deal with all of it on my own and it took me a long time to get it all straight in my head. I know that my daughter has issues with us, her parents, and I think it is good that she airs them. Besides, it can’t always have been easy having had a bipolar II mother and an alcoholic father, even when those thin
gs where not discussed then. Such ignorance we lived in then in our quiet suburban home! Such an average family we seemed to be! Skeletons in closets? You bet! As parents, we have to be brave enough to face up to them.

Today I’ll have to vauum the whole apartment and mop everywhere too, so I hope it isn’t going to be hot and muggy like it was yesterday. I think the rain cooled things down a bit. It is raining as I write this. I hope it won’t rain too much tomorrow when we will be on the road to Almelo. We stop along the way to let the dog out for a run, and we don’t want to get the car muddy with dog prints. An old blanket will help.

I have just a bit of a sore ear from one of my earrings, so I will have to put ointment on it today and not wear my earrings, which will make me feel naked and undressed. I have washed my new jeans and it looks like they shrank just a bit, which I wanted them to, because I want them to fit me tightly. I’ll wear those tomorrow. Nobody has seen me since I have lost all this weight and I want to make a good impression. Maybe I’ll wear the high heeled Esprit sandals that my sister gave me. That will be sexy and make me look tall.

Instead of washing my hair with the Head & Shoulders, I used a shower gel from the Hema and it has made my hair very soft and manageable. The Head & Shoulders wasn’t helping me anyway, so there is no sense in me using it. I still have the dermatitis on my head. I am not calling it eczema anymore, because I am not sure it is. I think it is allergic dermatitis and that I need something else to get rid of it. I won’t get rid of the cats and the dog and I won’t stop eating dairy products. I am already not eating so many foods. I was tested for a number of foods some twenty years ago and I have a slight allergy to dairy products and wheat also, but I am not giving up these things. Corn, chicken and peanuts, I can do without, but I like milk and cheese too much. I am a true Dutch woman from the dairy country after all.

The birds are singing in spite of the rain. They must have found a dry spot in the trees. The grass on the field will be very wet this morning, no hanging about there! Our white cat Nouri is curled up like a little ball on the yellow blanket in the rattan chair. It is her favorite spot to sleep. Remind me, someone, if I have told you the story of how she got her name, which is Nouri de Confiture.

Okay, that is all for now. I’ve got to read the news a bit. I do have to stay informed, after all. Stay a good citizen of the world. Have a wonderful day, ciao…

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Let’s try that again.

I got up at five o’clock this morning, after about eight hours of sleep, and I wrote a post, but now I have had to delete it, because real life has caught up with me and what I had written wasn’t quite up to the point anymore. Yes, life can be that way sometimes. It is lucky that there is the old delete button. Don’t you wish you could apply that to your real life and delete bad moments or bad days? I sure wish I walked around with a remote control to zap people sometimes. Get them to rewind or hurry up or pause or eject completely. I would like to have a little bottle of truth serum to go with that, strawberry flavored, and a cup and a straw to make it go down easy. I speak in mysteries right now, but that is as expletive as I can be at the moment. All will be revealed when the time is right, I promise.

I am feeling pretty feisty and I think it is a good way to start this day. It means I will get things done. I am ready to grab the bull by the proverbial balls. Or don’t you do that in English? It might also be a good day to go to the chapel to speak to God, but I don’t know how much he will like this over assertiveness on my part. I do know that I have to light some candles today and I can also do that at home, of course. The power of my prayer should be strong enough to reach heaven twice…

Okay, I have lit a candle by my favorite picture of my son and daughter and placed them where I can look at them directly and my thoughts are there as well as I type this and I know God also speaks English, because that is the language I am using right now. Every time I stop typing, I besiege God…

Today I weigh 96.8 kilos. I had a slice of bread with peanut butter again yesterday. I shared it with the dog and I have a sore throat from it, but it was good and worth it. The dog liked it also. Still, I lost one ounce, but I would like to loose 14 ounces before June the 10th. That is when we go to Almelo to see the family and I would like to be able to say that I have lost 30 kilos. I am not going to pray about that though, that is too trivial.

Outside our most outside front door, a thick layer of sand has been cast and they are getting ready to lay the bricks for the new pavement. We really will have the new street by the end of the day, I guess. Most of the street and all of the parking lots have been done already, but right now I don’t hear any activity out there. I suppose I could go out there and urge them on. That’s the kind of mood I am in. The dog and I trampled the sand when we went out for our walk this morning. We were the first to walk in it. It was like newly fallen snow.

I threw away the metal reading glasses that gave me the hives and yesterday Eduard came home with some plastic ones and I wore them last night. They ought to do the trick. Then last night, when I went to bed, I realized that one earring was missing, and I searched all over the apartment for it, but I couldn’t find it. Finally, resigned to the loss, I undressed and when I pulled off my tunic, the earring fell to the ground, so it had been hooked to my clothes all along. The hole in my left earlobe is just a little bit larger and sometimes an earring will slip out. That is why I always need to wear a backing on it, even when they are hangers.

By the way, if you ever want to know everything there is to know about a movie you want to watch or have watched, visit this site: http://www.imdb.com/ Eduard told me about it and it is really very helpful. I found some information on it about a movie I watched yesterday called: The Ballad of Jack and Rose. A movie I had never heard of, but which was very good. Since we have the film channels again, I watch a good film at least once a day, or have I already written that?

Anyway…yesterday I cleaned house, just the boring jobs that you have to do to make the place look cared for. You know, the never ending battle with the dog and cat hair. And the toilet cleaning and all that good stuff. It seems to me that I used to enjoy this more, but I like to do it better now than I did some months ago, when I was in a near coma when it came to house cleaning. It’s amazing how quickly and well I vacuum now. Without a backache to speak of. I have to wash the windows again because of the rain and the dust from the street, but it can wait for the worst of it to be over, when the street really is done and the worst of the rain has passed.

I really think that I need to go into town today and say a prayer for my daughter. I feel a very strong urge to do that. I have pretty much made up my mind about that now, I think this candle at home alone doesn’t satisfy my sense of security. It isn’t God I doubt, it is myself I doubt.

Okay people, off I go, have a good day, this woman is going to assert herself, ciao…

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That’s more like it!

Today I weigh 98.2 kilos. So now I have lost 27.2 kilos. I can tell you that I am real satisfied with that. Yup. That really makes my day. I am just smiling about that all over the place.

Yesterday was a real nice day. I grade it with a 7.5. In the morning it looked like it was going to be a rainy day, but the clouds disappeared soon and the sky turned blue and the sun shined all day long. It even became warm enough to go out without a jacket and the weatherman certainly hadn’t predicted that.

In the morning, Eduard and I went into town on our bikes. It had been such a long time since I rode my bike. Of course, I hadn’t forgotten how to ride it, but I did get sore and protesting muscles almost immediately. Never mind, I just kept going. Especially that part when we had to go into the bike tunnel that goes under the railroad tracks and where we had to go up again. That was a bit of a push, but I made it. Once we got into town, we parked our bikes by the bridge and went to the basilica first. I lit two candles there and said a very fervent prayer while Eduard sat beside me. The church is so beautiful inside, if God is out there, then surely He must be in that church. Anyway, I prayed as hard as I could, so now we will see what happens. I made a promise and I have every intention of keeping it.

After we left the basilica, we walked through town and found a really cute little shop that sells nothing but necklaces and bracelets and earrings, so Eduard and I picked out two pairs of earrings for me and they weren’t at all expensive, so it may be worth it to go back to that shop again in the future. After that we went to the teashop and picked up three kinds of tea: Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast and Rooibos, which is a South African tea. The Irish Breakfast is named Assam Superior. So now I will always know which kind of tea Irish Breakfast is. Then we went and had coffee on the terrace of the café behind the Dominican church that has been turned into a huge bookstore, and that was really nice, because we sat in the sunshine and out of the wind and people watched. After that we walked through town back to our bikes, but we did stop into the V&D department store, where Eduard bought my handbag and we looked at the other bags and I pointed another bag out to Eduard that I also liked.

When we got home, and I was unpacking my handbag, I noticed that one of the decorative leather strips, that were artfully wound around both ends of the strap, had come completely undone. That was a shame, because that made the handbag so special. There was no way that we could fix it, but Eduard still had the receipt, so he took it back to the department store. Before he left, I said that maybe it would not be a good idea to get the same bag again, because obviously it was a defect in the design and it would probably happen to the same bag again. Eduard agreed with that and said that he would see what he could do. Some time after he left he rang me up and said that the store was going to fix the bag and that they were also going to stitch the other decorative strip of leather into place, so it would not come lose. Well, we could not argue with that, so whatever…Then Eduard asked me if I wanted him to buy the other handbag that I had pointed out to him and I said, no, I didn’t want him to do that, that he should save his money for other things. He insisted that it was on sale and that he wanted to get it and I said, no, I really didn’t want him to. Then he said, okay, you have the weekend to think about it, it will still be here on Monday, and I said, Okay, that was fine. Then I went and made a pot of Earl Grey tea for him and when he got home, what do you think he had with him? Right, the other handbag! He is so terrible, but of course, I was happy with that, but I do worry about him spending the money. So now I will have two really nice handbags and a woman can’t have too many of those, of course, Plus I still have my old handbag, which I don’t like anymore, but never mind, that one is going to the recycle store.

Eduard says, that I went through all the trouble of having the surgery, and now I have to go through life eating such a little amount of food and never being able to eat a normal meal again, and that I make an effort to look nice every day, that I deserve all the little extras that he can give me, because every little bit helps. Well, I can’t argue with that logic, but I sure do appreciate it, although I don’t feel that I am making that many sacrifices. I consider myself lucky to get the chance to lose this weight and I am very happy that my depression is gone and that I feel like there is sunshine in my life again and the will to be happy and alive. So, I guess I already consider myself privileged, but especially so when Eduard goes out of his way to do such nice things for me. I will never take that for granted.

Anyway, we drank the Earl Grey tea and since we both take sugar in it, it gave us both a kick and we both got real active, which resulted in me cleaning house, which I still had to do anyway. It’s amazing what a small amount of sugar will do when you aren’t used to it.

In the evening we had company for dinner, Jaqueline and her friend Mark. My sister had told me how to fix the salmon in the microwave and it turned out really well. I had four pieces and microwaved them for six minutes under microwave wrap and left it sitting under the wrap for a couple of minutes to really get done. It was so good, it was mouth watering. We also had sauteed new potatoes and green beans, because Eduard had forgotten to buy more cauliflower, but that was okay. Eduard made a dille sauce to go with the fish and that was really good (I don’t know what dille is in English, I can’t find it in the Dutch-English dictionary that we have). Of course, I only had the fish and the smallest piece, but that was really satisfying and I was full for the rest of the evening. We had a fresh pineapple for dessert which Jaqueline had brought with her instead of the melon that Eduard had bought, so we will have the melon today.

I had last seen Jaqueline at Eduard’s birthday in February, when I was still depressed and looking back, I can’t believe what a difference there is between then and now. It is as if I am a completely new person. I am so much different now. Anyway, I talk about my depressions openly as if I am talking about a broken leg or a bad case of the flu, because I always want it to be a subject that can be openly discussed, and I don’t notice other people having a problem with that. They react very normal to that. That must be because I handle the subject as if it is a normal subject. And, one by one the cats came in and I told them about the hypo-manic cats and that was dealt with as if it was a normal subject too. Of course, we have known Jaqueline for quite awhile, so she isn’t a complete stranger. But I insist on making mental health a discussable subject.

Jaqueline also always discusses my son and the fact that he died so young, she always wants to talk about him and look at his picture. This doesn’t bother me, because I think we should talk about Brion too as if that is also a discussable subject. Eduard was wearing a shirt that used to belong to Brion. When Brion wore it a long time ago, it made his blue eyes very blue, and now it makes Eduard’s blue eyes very blue and it just makes me feel good to see him in that shirt. The fact that it used to belong to Brion only makes it more special.

We went to bed very late last night, at least for me it was very late. It was 11 pm, but we had a good time and it felt good to be staying up for all the right reasons. I was out li
ke a light once I laid down in bed, I sure didn’t read much. I woke up this morning at 7:30, which is really late for me.

So, this is what was on my menu yesterday: some Melba toast, one Café Noir cookie at the café, one pear and one piece of salmon. Oh yes, and one small glass of juice and a tall glass of milk. The salmon was very filling and I think I may do that again. It is the most satisfying thing that I have eaten in a long time. I was full without that uncomfortable feeling, but I did eat it very slowly to make it last for the whole meal. I am unsure about eating fish and the situation of the fish population and over fishing and all that, so I will have to look into that some more. But salmon certainly is a nice fish and has a wonderful taste. I don’t know where this salmon came from, probably Norway or Sweden. We’ll see.

I think the dog is waiting for me to take him for his walk. He is laying on his pillow, but every once in a while he gets up to come and look at me. It’s a good thing that he has an iron bladder, because I just poured myself another cup of coffee. Eduard has been out here a few times to get a cup of coffee. There is a whole stack of dishes to do in the kitchen, but I don’t mind that so much. I finally got to use some of the serving bowls that used to belong to my mother last night. They match our dishes very well, they have the same colors in them. I had borrowed a baking dish from my sister to fix the salmon in, but then ended up not using it, because all of the salmon wouldn’t fit in it and a bigger dish wouldn’t have worked, because of the size of the microwave. I ended up fixing them on a large plate, that worked too.

Alright, off I go to walk the dog and get the rest of the day started. I will say goodbye for now and hope you all have a wonderful day. Ciao…

P.S. Dille is dill weed, that was esay!

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More or less.

Well, today I weigh 99 kilos, so I lost only 1 ounce since yesterday, but then I really did eat a little more than I should have and I wasn’t expecting a lot of weight loss. I had a small glass of juice, 2 pears, Melba toast twice, one boiled potato (courtesy of Eduard), one piece of cheese and a tall glass of milk. When I went to bed, I felt full, as if I had eaten too much, and I worried about maybe having gained weight, so I said a little prayer before I went on the scales this morning. Much to my relief, I had lost that one ounce. Phew. I didn’t need to eat the potato or the extra Melba toast, that was just eating extra, because it was there. Opportunity eating as it were.

Now I am having my first coffee of the day. The birds are whistling and it is just getting light outside. I am still yawning and waking up, but that coffee should do the trick. Eduard and I both went to bed early last night. I for the usual reasons and Eduard because he has that breakfast showing this morning. He should be getting up any minute now.

I talked to my daughter yesterday and she said that it was a wonderful thing to be a graduate finally from law school. Her father and her aunt and her son were at the ceremony and they went out for a nice dinner afterwards. She has already sent me pictures of her in her cap and gown with her diploma in hand and flowers in her arms. She’s got a great big smile on her face. I noticed that my nine year old grandson is so tall that he already reaches up to her shoulders. He is built like is uncle Brion, tall and well proportioned. I speak with some grandmotherly pride and prejudice, of course. Well, now I am the mother of a future lawyer and I am proud of her.

I just poured my second cup of coffee and I am writing this very slowly, because I want to take my time waking up and thinking about things. Sometimes, I am in such a rush to write everything down, but this morning I realize that I have all the time in the world. There is no need to be in a hurry. And it is Sunday, after all.

I am thinking about those two pairs of pants that I wanted Eduard to take to the tailor. When I had them shorten the legs, it cost 19 Euros to have that done, and I am sure that making them smaller is going to be even more expensive, so Eduard and I decided that for the money, I should just go ahead and order another pair of smaller, similar pants online. So, I did that yesterday, and I am just going to tighten the elastic in the other pants until I run into someone who has a sewing machine I can borrow, to do the job properly myself. I think it is the best solution that I can come up with. Sometimes it is hard to decide what to do, especially when you have to make a money decision, but I ordered the pants in a small size, so they should last me a long time and I don’t feel guilty for having ordered them. The jeans that I have been wearing only for about a month now, are getting too big on me. I have washed them in hot water, but I think I will wash both pairs of jeans that I have and then dry them in my sister’s drier to see if they will shrink some more. Usually that will do the trick, as I have noticed this with other clothes I have dried in the drier.

I haven’t tried on the pretty red flowered dress again, but then again, the weather hasn’t been right for that kind of dress. When it improves, I will try it on again and see how much I have left to lose. Then I think that there are some more items in the closet that can go in the “get rid of it bag”.

When I chose for the gastric band, I wasn’t convinced that it would work for me. That is why I was seriously considering a gastric bypass first. I thought about it all for a long time, but then considered what a big operation a bypass operation was compared to a gastric band one, so then decided for the gastric band. Once I made that decision, things happened very quickly and in no time at all I was in the hospital in Belgium having the surgery done. Right after the surgery, I could eat very little, because your stomach swells up from having done the surgery. So I got a taste of things to come then. I drank a lot of liquids then, very little solid foods. But after a while you can eat again, because at first the gastric band is not tightened yet. Still, I lost 12 kilos during that first period, simply from changing my eating habits. I ate as if I couldn’t eat a lot of things already. It was purely psychological. After the first time it was filled, things became more serious and I found out what it was like to eat too much, so then I really had to start paying attention to what I ate. The second filling really made a difference. I can tell a lot of that when I eat my pear in the morning. Even when I chew it carefully, I become full very quickly and can’t finish the whole thing, but that is fine with me, because that lets me know that the band is working and it is good to have that full feeling after eating relatively little food. And I am constantly chewing my food very well and eating slowly, because it is a very uncomfortable feeling to have a chunk of food stuck down there. You end up having to upchuck it.

Eduard is up now having his first cup of coffee. The dog is laying on his pillow. It is too early in the morning for him to be up and about and active. Even the cats aren’t asking for anything yet. They are just sitting around, staring into space, thinking deep thoughts, I guess. It’s no wonder people think that cats are mysterious. They can sit for a long time, not doing anything but just staring ahead of them. Very deep! Bathroom pit stop, all that coffee…

Eduard has left the building. He is going on his motorcycle, that is always a special treat for him, usually he goes on his bike. He is taking the first 3 weeks of June off for his vacation. He will turn off his mobile phone and can only be reached in emergencies through me. It is going to be hard for them to do without Eduard for 3 weeks, but he is entitled to it and deserves it after working such long hours. Maybe then they will realize that they need a part time operator to help out when it gets really busy, as it does very often. I will enjoy having Eduard home and I am sure we will fill that time doing interesting things, maybe making day trips. We are not taking a real vacation, the vacation money has already been spent on other things like the new computer. But it is that way every year and we are just glad that we always get the extra money. Besides, we don’t want to lay on the beach in Spain along with thousands of other Dutch people. We are lucky that we live in a very pretty area of the country ourselves, with Belgium and Germany at our doorstep.

Lotje is telling me now that it is time for me to feed her. She is being very polite about it, she hasn’t sat on the mouse pad yet, so I think I will feed the cats now and pour myself another cup of coffee…

It’s good to see the cats eat so well and I wonder if, within the same brand of cat food, there sometimes is a difference of quality, because they always like it or dislike it all at once. It wouldn’t surprise me. Jesker is still sound asleep.

I found two pairs of dangly earrings in a small box in the drawer of my nightstand, and I have been wearing them. They are not made of silver, because I would not have been able to wear them, but I don’t know what they are made of instead. Anyway, I wear them and I put ointment on the ear that is still a little sensitive from the stud earrings that I wore. But so far these dangly earrings are causing me no problems, which gives me hope fo
r the future and maybe the opportunity to buy more earrings like that. I would really like it if I could, because I like dangly earrings the best. You see how much I like the decorating part of me. I think Eduard is fully aware of that now too and knows exactly the kinds of things that I like. I think that he understands my taste and can walk into a shop and know what I would pick out. For a man who doesn’t care much about clothes, he has good taste when it comes to clothing and accessories for me. He is also good at picking out perfumes for me and does that without any sort of input from me. He always goes to Douglass and has the sales ladies help him. He has bought Clinique and Jean Paul Gaultier for me and some others and I have liked them all. My sister always buys me something from Hugo Boss, which is also very nice. But I like Eduard’s taste and I am glad that he cares that much.

Anyway, so maybe now I can wear dangly earrings again, and that is fun, because now I can look around where ever I am and see if they have anything interesting. So, I’ll be looking for necklaces and earrings. Me? Expensive? No! Not at all! With the weather being this way, my allergies haven’t been too bad, but I have developed the occasional cough which is a bit chronic, but goes with the time of year. My head and my left ear are a lot better and don’t itch nearly as much as they have, so the medication is helping. Even so, it is a chronic problem and one that I will have to take care of constantly. Which reminds me that we still need to get mattress and pillow protectors against the dust mite, I keep forgetting that, although I don’t know how much difference that will make with the animals around. Lord only knows how much dander flies around the place when I vacuum.

When I was telling you yesterday about the illegal immigrants being in jail, I have to admit now that I am not sure if 40% of the inmates are illegal immigrants or if 40% of illegal immigrants are inmates. You see the difference. So that will need some clearing up. Anyway, a lot of illegal immigrants end up in jail where they don’t belong. That’s the point. And they stay there too long. There are even cases of mothers being locked up along with their small children, which is a complete outrage, no matter how humanely this supposedly is being done. What sort of a country are we anyway? Is there any outrage about this? Yes, politically I think something is cooking about this. Their ought to be a law…

Closer to home, the cats are done eating and are now laying in various places getting ready to sleep some more. Pieke is laying on my new handbag, which is laying on the sofa, where it is always within easy hand reach of me. So I can hold it and look at it. And smell it if I need to. You know that I have earlier talked about smells bringing back memories. The smell of leather is one of them and reminds me of my mother and her purses.

I have just had a good look around the living room and I think I can get away with not vacuuming today. Even the sofa looks halfway decent. I had to borrow a special attachment for the vacuum cleaner from my sister, one that she wasn’t using, and it does a good job on fabrics. It has two velvety strips that pick up the stray hairs and then the vacuum cleaner sucks them up. Good system. Yes, when you are a house wife, these things are important. Just like you men out there like your good power tools.

My father restored antique clocks and also built copies with old works in them himself. He also restored antique furniture and hand built copies of them. He never used power tools, except for a lathe to turn the wood. He did everything by hand and never used screws and very little nails. He said that, if it was built well, it would stay together well without all the nails and without any screws. He hand cut bronze gears if they needed replacement and also made the weights for the clocks and the pendulums. He also hand painted the faces on the clocks and added the scenery on them if they needed it. He was a much talented man. We had some beautiful clocks in our house when I grew up and I was used to hearing clocks tick and bells chime. Eduard and I have a very simple clock hanging on the living room wall now, it is from Ikea and if you listen very carefully, you can hear it tick. I wouldn’t have minded having an antique Frisian clock, as they are very ornate and colorful, but at the same time it may have been difficult to have such a clock hanging here. I think that my oldest sister has all of the clocks now, stored away, and one of these days I will have to ask her about them and find out if there was a Frisian clock there.

Well, the time has arrived for me to go and walk the dog, duty calls. After that, there is lots of spare time left to do other things. Like read yesterday’s newspaper. No, in the Netherlands there is no Sunday newspaper, so if you buy an extra paper on Saturday, you can save that one for Sunday…

The weather is so nice outside. There is a layer of clouds, but the sun is shining through it and there is hardly any wind. Still, that is supposed to change later in the day and we will have more stormy weather, unless the meteorologists got it completely wrong this time. I doubt it. Jesker and I hung out on the field for awhile and then walked home. At one point, he was being very obedient and was walking carefully beside me, looking at me very expectantly. I gave him a treat and then he crossed the street carefully to walk on the sidewalk instead of the grass. So, he had that all planned. I let him get away with it for this time, he just can’t make a habit out of it. Sometimes you have to let the dog win. It’s for his dignity.

I just made the second pot of coffee. In the meantime, so much time has passed, that Eduard will be home again before I know it. Which is good, because I forgot to change the bed yesterday and we can do that together when he gets here. I’ll strip it and we can make it up together. At least the duvets, those are always the hardest to do. I also have to trim his hair and beard today, because we keep forgetting about that.

Okay people, that’s it for today, ciao…

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Thank Goodness.

Well, this morning I weighed 100.3 kilos, so that is a bit better. That means I have lost the 2 ounces that I had gained over the last 2 days. Phew…what a relief. I was worried that I was going to keep gaining weight. I ate extra fruit yesterday when I felt hungry, so maybe that helped, but I did have a good chunk of cumin cheese in the evening after dinner. Eduard fixed pasta for himself, so I had my usual 3 egg omelet, and I always feel like having something else afterwards for dessert when I eat that. I enjoy making the omelet as I push up the sides to the middle as it cooks, so it gets very fluffy, but then the trick is to turn it without breaking it, because I don’t like the yellow to be soft. Usually it falls apart a bit, but this time it made it in one piece more or less, so I didn’t have to swear too much when I turned it. Besides, I usually only say something like: Oh shit, or something rather innocent like that. It’s amazing how often Dutch people say the word “shit” when something goes wrong. We’ve really adopted that word from the English, without it having the bad connotations that it does in English. Some people also say the word “fuck” a lot, without really stopping and thinking about what they are exactly saying, but I don’t hang out with them too much. A lot of English words have entered the Dutch language and we just Dutchefy them and make them part of our language. I could give you examples of this, but it wouldn’t make sense to you English speaking readers, so just take my word for it. I sometimes speak Dutchlish myself, but that is out of necessity, because I am temporarily bamboozled and I can’t think of the Dutch word, so that doesn’t count. I do this especially after I have just talked to my daughter in English and I have to switch back to Dutch to speak to Eduard. All this from making a 3 egg omelet.

As I write this, it is stormy and rainy outside, as it was yesterday. Sometimes the rain stops and Eduard can go to work or home again and I can walk the dog, but it is colder now. You need long sleeves and a jacket. First thing in the morning I wear my old sweater under my jacket to stay warm, as nobody can see it then and it does the job until I get dressed properly. I temporarily pulled it out of the “get rid of it bag” until my vest gets here.

Yesterday I had both my daughter and my ex on the phone, as he is staying with her this week for her graduation. I hadn’t talked to him in ages and it was good to hear his voice. He immediately started speaking the little Dutch he knew to me, and that isn’t much, so I just stuck to the English after a while. He thinks he will be in China for an other year and a half and that he will retire after that. Nicole wants him to come to Texas and live with her, because she feels that she really needs a parent close by, and I can completely sympathise with that. It would be very good for Damian to have a positive male role model in his life and Damian loves his grandpa. Lets hope that all works out. It would be nice if I could go over there more often myself, maybe we can find a solution to this in the future, we’ll see. I can see all sorts of reasons now why I am going to need to get a part time job in the near future. It has been too long since I was last there.

My sister called me yesterday, very excited, because she had found a solution to her dog’s eating problems. She had called the owners of the dog hotel and they had given her a tip on how to get her dog to eat the dog food that he wasn’t eating. They told her to mix the dried food with hot water to make sort of a gravy, and then to mix Bonzo canned food through it. Apparently this worked very well and the dog ate everything in his bowl. Now, to give her dog canned food at all, is a big step for my sister, so kudos to her, I can’t believe she’s done it and I made sure that she is going to keep doing this. She said absolutely yes, so I am going to give her back the bag of food that she had given me, that our dog isn’t eating, otherwise I would just have to toss it out. I am very happy for Quinto that he is eating now and that he likes what he is eating. So, that problem has been dealt with satisfactorily, thank goodness. Another thing I don’t have to worry about. At one point in the past Quinto was very skinny, you could see his ribs, and Erica thought he was just right. Fortunately, after he was castrated, he gained 4 kilos and now he looks just right. Strange woman!

I have rated yesterday with a seven, after having had two days with sixes. It wasn’t that much of a different day, but I was easier in my skin, as they say here in the Netherlands. I got dressed right and made up and actually did chores around here and then I watched a very good movie called “Mean Street”. One of the film channels definitely shows quality movies and, so far, I have watched at least one good one every day. I think taking two hours out of the day to watch a movie isn’t such a bad thing at all. It is very relaxing and takes my mind off all sorts of other things. Eduard had to work late in the evening and I stayed up until 10 pm to watch that program again, Without a Trace, which was only mildly interesting last night. Still, it prevented me from going to bed on time, but I think I didn’t need that much of an excuse. I enjoyed myself hanging out on the sofa, drinking decaf and petting Jesker, which can be very therapeutic. At one point, I saw his dog tag and his name tag, with the address and phone number on it, laying on the floor in the living room and saw that the little ring they had hung on had broken. Luckily, it happened inside. If it had happened outside, I would have lost the tags. So I found a new ring and fixed that.

The gold colored stud earrings that I have been wearing for a couple of days, have caused me problems with my ear. It has swollen up and there is some junk coming out of my ear, so they definitely were not gold. I don’t remember when I got them or where, the origins are obscured, but I won’t be wearing them anymore. Eduard did say that I could get some new gold earrings at the end of this month, when he gets his vacation money, and I have been checking prices online and they aren’t too bad at all. I am glad that Eduard appreciates my efforts at trying to be pretty and attractive. For example, for my birthday and Christmas presents, both Eduard and Erica always buy me perfumes, so I always have four perfumes to choose from every day, so I always smell good and Eduard really likes that. I have versions of Jean Paul Gaultier and Hugo Boss, and I like them all. I use a different one every day, so I don’t get used to the smell and I can still smell them on myself and on the clothes I wear. In the wintertime my scarf always smells of my perfume. My mother always wore Channel no. 5 and I also always liked that smell, but I can’t wear it myself. I’ve worn Oscar de la Rente in the past, but it is not a perfume that I can buy here, although I was complimented on it when I wore it. I love good smells. Eduard has a good cologne that he wears especia
lly for me when we get romantic. It gets me in the mood.

Have you ever noticed how certain smells take you right back in your memories to when you were a child? Like the smell of freshly mowed grass? Or the smell of mushrooms when you pick them out of the rich compost on the forest floor? Or the smell of glass curtains after they have been hanging in front of the windows for awhile? The smell of oil and turpentine always reminds me of my father and I like that smell. Or the smell of honeysuckle, that reminds me of when Eduard and I were young and he used to pick it for me and leave bunches of it for me at my front door. So romantic! When I cleaned out my mother’s closet after she died, I pushed my face into her clothes, because they smelled like her and I couldn’t get enough of that. It was a mixture of perfume and the detergent she used and I always smelled it when she came to visit me in the States and she opened her suitcases to hang up her dresses. Sometimes I smell a mildewy odor and that takes me back to the first house I lived in, that was eighty years old at the time and smelled a bit like that. Therefore all of my bronchitis, no doubt. If they could only bottle your memory smells like that. I have a biscuit tin that used to sit in my grandmother’s kitchen, and when I open it, it still smells like her kitchen. So I don’t open it too often to preserve the smell.

The wind is blowing the rain against the windows in gusts and it makes it sound as if it is really bad out there. I’ll have to wait until it stops properly before I walk the dog, but he has been out late because of Eduard coming home so late last night. All the cats are in the living room now, which is pretty sensible of them. The cats are definitely warm weather animals, causing them to hibernate a bit in the wintertime. I am more of a springtime and fall person, I find the summers just a bit too hot usually, especially lately with the climate change. And it gets so humid here. I am very curious to see the weather that this summer will bring us. It can be truly beautiful, when the countryside is just lush and gorgeous and it is fun to go for hikes along the little rivers. I have to lose just a little bit more weight to be able to go and do that.

By the way, the 25 kilos I lost is 55 lbs. I started off weighing 125 kilos which is 275 lbs. So now I am down to 220 lbs and I would like to weigh 70 kilos which is 154 lbs. So, I’ve got another 66 lbs to lose, if my calculations are right. I may have made a mistake there somewhere, but it is roughly right. Anyway, if I can actually make it to 70 kilos, that would be very nice, although that is not the original 65 kilos that I weighed, but I think I will be having about an extra 5 or 6 kilos in extra skin flab that will have to be removed. Even if I make it to 75 kilos, which is 165 lbs, I will be satisfied. Then there would be 13 lbs in skin flab. My neighbor got down to 80 kilos from 130 and she looks good, although she is a tall woman and a bit big boned. Actually, her gastric band is supposed to be filled some more, but I don’t know when she is having it done. The whole objective is to get down to a size 12 (42), if I can make that, I will be very happy. There are lots of nice clothes available in that size.

At some point I am going to have to do some sort of physical exercise. That could be just taking longer walks with the dog, which is sort of boring, I am sorry, but it is, unless you can go with someone else. I would like to join a gym and there is one around the corner that I could go to, but I don’t know how expensive it is. I’ll have to go and check that out. I used to go to the YMCA and did the treadmill and all the weight training and the rowing machine. It got me in great shape, but that was in my other life. And I drove the car there, worked out, and drove the car home again, how decadent can you get!

There is still no movement in the bedroom and I think Eduard is going to be sleeping a little late today after making such a late night. He had his rain gear with him last night, so I hope he didn’t get too soaked on his bike. The worst thing always is the puddles, you can’t always avoid them. Or cars driving through them as they pass you. Yes, that really happens in real life. There are always some drains that get plugged up and intersections that get flooded. You ride through them with your feet in the air. I haven’t been on my bike in a few years. I have been walking or taking the bus if I had to go anywhere and, basically, I wasn’t going anywhere. One day soon, I will start riding my bike again after I dust the cobwebs off. A few years ago, I was so depressed that I couldn’t make it to my psychiatrist, so he came to me instead. He’ll do that, make house calls for people who just can’t make it. How is that for service?

Well, enough chit chat, I’ve got to read a bit of news now, maybe I’ll write some more later…

I walked the dog while it was dry, but there is a cold wind blowing. I also brought the bag of dog food back to my sister. I asked her if her dog was still eating well and she very enthusiastically answered that he was, so I think she is really happy about that. She just needs to feel that she found the solution on her own. Of course I praised Quinto into high heaven and he stood there wagging his tail and looking proud. Jesker also stood there looking as if something important was going to happen, but it didn’t. Erica gave me a Tupperware container of vergetarian Nasi Goreng, which is an Indonesian rice dish that is very good, so I walked around the field with that under my arm.

Indonesian food is very much a part of the food culture of the Netherlands with Indonesia once having been a colony of the Netherlands and lots of Indonesian people living here. Their food is nice and spicy and I like it very much. If you ever get the chance to eat it, give it a try, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Saté with peanut sauce is very good for example. But you need to eat it in a genuine Indonesian restaurant and not at the Chinese who claims to make some of those dishes too. If you eat Nasi Goreng, which is a rice dish, scoop it up with your fork and some Kroepoek, with is a schrimp chip, that is delicious.

Well, now I am going to do some work around here, just the usual stuff I always do, and wait for my new vest to arrive, can’t wait for that…

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But not really, really?

I weighed my self this morning and I was 100.4 kilos, so one ounce more than I was yesterday. But then again, I have had this happen to me before, so I won’t really worry about it, because I know it will be gone again shortly. I think it was the large piece of cheese I had last night, a bigger piece that I normally have and I really ate until I was very full, so that may explain that, who knows…

I had a sad dream last night about David rejecting me all over again, and in my dream I cried and cried and I was inconsolable. When I woke up I realized immediately how much better my life is without David and with Eduard and I wonder why I had a dream like that. Am I still working through that old grief after all these years? I think it is the rejection part that hurts the most, as being rejected is such a devastating thing to have happen to you. It is as if you get tossed out like you are a bit of trash that no longer has any value. I would not go back to David for all the money in the world, but yet, every once in awhile, I have a dream like that in which I feel traumatized. It is all old hurt and I keep thinking I am done with it, but apparently not. David played a game with me. He rejected me and then pulled me back in again under his own terms, and if it hadn’t been for Eduard, this would have gone on endlessly at my cost. Well, thank goodness that the worst of all of that pain is behind me now, it really was a great traumatic event in my life. I used to think that David was the love of my life, but now I see that differently and I see that he was one of the traumas of my life, and that the true love of my life is Eduard. After nearly 14 years of marriage, I can still say that and I will keep saying that. Eduard is my true love. And I didn’t know that from the start, that knowledge grew over time.

Being in love is like a crazy illness. It makes you do irrational things. Things you would not do under normal circumstances. Being madly in love is indeed being mad. You make decisions that you regret later on. But you are not open to reason, you are struck by what you think is love. It is really an obsession that has taken a hold of you, and very often, it is not even pleasant, but very painful and full of sadness and frustration. Being madly in love is being mentally ill for the time being, until you slowly but surely get over it. The intensity of the obsession dictates the length of the recovery. In my case, no matter how badly David behaved, I wanted him to be mine at all cost, I didn’t care how none of it made sense, all I wanted was him, however screwed up he was. That shows you how screwed up I was. Afterwards, I felt as if I had been in a terrible accident and I was wounded all over and crippled as a result of it. It took a long time to heal, even when Eduard was already by my side and I loved him. I was mortally wounded and it hurt very much.

Now I am ready to become my original self again with Eduard by my side, with Eduard’s honest encouragement and Eduard’s unselfish love. I can be Irene who is free and brave and loved and who is not afraid to be a member of the world at large, because I have Eduard’s unconditional support. It has taken me some time to get there, but Eduard has been patient and I have gotten there in the end. Living well is the best revenge, after all. So, to all of you people who are struck by being madly in love and who are unhappy, please get out, no matter what the cost. Just save yourself and start the healing and find someone who is kind and loyal and loving and caring and you will heal. You’ll end up loving that person the most. They will be your true love.

Anyway…these were some words that are attempts at wisdom from someone who has lived a lot and who has experienced a lot. I suppose I want to save you from some of the pain I went through, but I don’t know if I can.

In the meantime, it is nearly 8 am. The dog and Eduard have both been up, but have both gone back to sleep. It is Sunday, after all. Last night, I started to watch The Memoirs of a Geisha Girl. It looked like a good movie, but nevertheless, I went to bed at 9:30 and I woke up at 7 this morning. I still go to bed on time with a great deal of reluctance, but once I am in bed, I fall asleep very quickly and nothing wakes me. I woke up a little incoherent this morning and it took me at least one cup of coffee to become alert and well awake. Some mornings are like that.

Remember how I said I wanted a black pullover with a deep V-neck? I had a black sweater with a V-neck that I had just about worn out and, of course, it is much too big on me now and when I wear it, I look like a bag lady, so I put it in the bag with “get rid of them clothes”. Yesterday, Eduard and I looked on the website of Wehkamp and found a really nice black vest, that is very fashionable and I think will look good over the clothes that I have now, so Eduard said to go ahead and order it. It will get here on Tuesday and I can’t wait. It is so nice to look good and to wear clothes that are fashionable and pretty. It makes it a joy to get dressed in the morning and to make up my face and fix my hair. I think that Eduard also really appreciates the effort, because he does look at me with appreciation sometimes.

Yesterday it was definitely colder outside and it will continue to be next week. Tomorrow it is supposed to start raining, so there will be no more hanging out on the field for the dog and me, which is kind of a shame, because it is so enjoyable. I am sure that the farmers will be very happy with the rain and rightly so. We do need to keep that in mind, and nature in general needs the rain too. I don’t mind the rain, as long as it isn’t pouring down when I need to walk the dog, who doesn’t like to get too wet. When I lived in California, it only rained in the rainy season and the children and I would go for walks in the first rain of the season, because it was such a novelty and, of course, it was never cold when it rained. Here you see people dressed in rain gear on their bicycles on their way to work. I don’t really have shoes specifically for wet weather and sometimes my socks do get wet, unless I wear my hiking boots.

As to my toe, I have managed to cut of some of the ingrown toenail off, so it is a little bit better, but I can see the part that is still in the skin and I can’t cut it off, so it will have to be done surgically in the end if I ever want to wear decent shoes. I keep putting the antibiotic creme on it, hoping that will soften it and today I will give that foot another good soaking in baking soda and water.

Our cat, Pieke, is sitting on the dining table miaowing for some food. She is seldom the cat that does that, so it must be urgent and I will feed her now…

Okay, fed the cats, haven’t walked the dog yet, but he is asleep on his pillow so there is no rush.

My wedding band is coming off easily now and one of these days it is just going to slide off by itself. In the end, it will have to be made smaller, but I will have to wait until all the weight is gone. It is a new wedding band, as the original one had to be cut off my finger when I couldn’t take it off anymore. I asked Eduard to have the name and date of Brion’s death engraved in this one, and he did. Maybe you think this is morbid, but I don’t and it makes the ring extra special to me. When I have lost all the weight, I will have the original one repaired and wear that one also, so I will have double bands on my finger. That is usually reserved for widows, but in my case it will stand for double the amount of love and commitment. I hope I will live up to that.

Yesterday Eduard came home from doing groceries and he had bought me a honeydew melon. That was sweet of him to remember. I had some of that for lunch and it was delicious. I’ve put the rest in a Tupperware container where it
can ripen further as some of it is still green. Eduard didn’t know the trick yet of squeezing the melon in the bottom end to see if it is ripe enough. He just knew about smelling it by the stem, which is less dependable. Eduard always remembers my special wishes that I sometimes casually mention in between other things that we talk about. He has a good memory and a good heart.

In the afternoon, I briefly fell asleep on the sofa and when I woke up, I felt as if I had been asleep for hours and for a while I didn’t know what day it was. Eduard had gone for a ride on his motorcycle after making some minor adjustments to the ignition, I think. Anyway, he does that on the weekends. He goes for motorcycle rides in the countryside and enjoys himself thoroughly. When I have lost enough weight, I am going to go with him again. We used to do that all the time, me on the back, all the way through Belgium to Luxembourg, or all the way into Germany. The countryside there is beautiful, with lots of hills and rocky outcrops and forests and villages and castles.

One time, we were on our way to the north of the country, when we got a flat tire, causing Eduard to lose control over the motorcycle. Fortunately, we weren’t going too fast, but I ended up in a ditch by the side of the road with a concussion. We were in Germany at the time, so I woke up in a German hospital, where I absolutely didn’t want to be, although the people there were very friendly. They wanted me to stay for a week, but Eduard contacted a friend of ours who came to pick us up and took us home, against the wishes of the doctors. I stayed in bed for a week and when I was better, I got right back onto the motorcycle again. That was during our first year in the Netherlands and I was still skinny then and a lightweight. I have never been afraid of getting on the motorcycle. Eduard rides very safely, but I have been cold on the back of it. You definitely don’t want to ride it in the wintertime. You can’t dress warmly enough. That is why I am so glad that Eduard has his driver’s license and that we can borrow my sister’s car.

One of these days, in the near future, we are going up north again to see Eduard’s oldest brother and his wife. They live in Almelo, which is in the province of Overijssel. They have immigrated there from South Africa where Eduard’s brother had lived since the early sixties. Eduard’s twin brother and his partner will be there and the son and daughter of his oldest sister, who are both grown up. We are going to celebrate some birthdays. It is always fun to go there and get together, and my sister in law always makes something special to eat, something that is typical of South Africa, but with the influence of the English kitchen. My sister in law is an English speaking South African, but she also speaks Afrikaans, which made it easier for her to learn to speak Dutch as they are almost alike. Eduard’s twin brother is just a heavier, slightly taller version of Eduard, but I very much prefer Eduard and Eduard’s personality, which is much different, although they do have similarities.

Well, I really do have to walk the dog now, so I am going to stop for now. If there is anything else worth mentioning, I’ll do so in a P.S….

P.S. It is 11:30 am now and of course I have walked the dog and done other things in the meantime. It was cloudy and cold outside and not much fun to hang out on the field for a long time. For some reason, the birds are whistling now, maybe because the sun is starting to come through a bit. I am going to have to vacuum even though it is Sunday, as there is cat hair all over the sofa from at least two cats that I can see. Oh well…ciao…

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What?

I just went on the scales and I weighed 100.4 kilos. I shook my head in disbelief and walked away to make a pot of coffee. Then I thought, I must have not looked at it right and went back on the scales, but it said the same thing: 100.4 kilos. I am totally discombobulated. That means I have lost 800 grams since yesterday and I have lost exactly 25 kilos. Yippee! Now, I didn’t eat that much yesterday for the simple reason that I wasn’t that hungry. I just sort of snacked when I wanted something to eat, but I didn’t have a real meal, whatever that is in my case. As a night time snack I had Melba toast and a tall glass of milk, but the Melba toast is hardly any sort of food at all, it just satisfies my craving for something chewy to eat. Well, I am happy, I am not complaining at all, because that leaves me with just 400 grams to lose until I hit 100 kilos, so wow!

I very reluctantly went to bed at 9 pm last night. I really wanted to stay up some more until ten, but I forced myself to go to bed at nine. The digital box came for the TV and Eduard installed it and now we have God only knows how many channels, and we have 3 really good movie channels and I got hooked watching those yesterday. It is a 2 month trial, if you don’t want all the channels you just get the basic package without the movie channels, but I can see how you may want to keep wanting to have those. I don’t know, they show good movies, so I guess it depends on how expensive it is. It is very tempting, of course. But then again, I don’t want to get hooked watching movies all the time, so I am very torn at the moment. We’ll see, I am glad it is a 2 month trial, that gives me some time to make up my mind.

Yesterday I went into town in the morning, so before I left I made sure I looked spiffy. I wore my new tunic and I was planning on walking there, so I had to decide which shoes to wear. I couldn’t wear my new shoes because of my toe and for the same reason I couldn’t wear my pointy ankle boots. I couldn’t wear my moccasins, because I only wear those with socks, and I also couldn’t wear my black sandals, because after awhile the left sandal goes whanky and I start to walk on the edge of it, which is a little uncomfortable. So I ended up wearing my expensive orthopedically correct sandals which squish my toe just a little bit but not too bad. Then, once I pulled the front door closed behind me, I made a split decision and instead of going right to walk into town, I turned left to go to the bus stop. Why walk for half an hour when you can get there by bus in less than ten minutes? Just as I got to the bus stop, a bus pulled up, so I was downtown in no time at all.

Then I went to the newly opened, brand spanking new city hall, which had only been in use for two days. I thought there were going to be lines, but I hardly had to wait at all and while I waited I was offered a cup of coffee and a bonbon. I accepted the coffee, but laughingly declined the bonbon. I thought there was some irony in that. The lady at the counter very carefully checked my passport picture, but luckily it was alright. Also luckily, all my information was in the system already too, so that made the whole process go even more quickly. The only thing we changed was my height. They had me down at a 170 cm and I am 171 cm. That one centimeter makes a difference when you are on the short side like me. The whole process is so efficiently done! I pick up my new passport next week, so that will be another nice trip into town which I don’t mind at all. The passports are made fraud proof, so it takes a bit to get them done.

After that, I walked to Eduard’s work and had coffee with him. I met his new office manager for the first time and, because I hear enough stories about her, I put on a big smile and was my most agreeable self. Eduard and I sat in the café part by ourselves and had coffee and watched the little children of the daycare center next door who were outside playing. We picked out a little girl we (I) would have liked to have had ourselves. She must have been about three years old and she was really cute, although Eduard claims that he is glad that I spared him having any children at all. Except for the ones I already had of course. We could have had a 13 year old by now and Eduard shakes in horror when he thinks about it. Eduard comes from a large family and never wanted any children himself and he thinks my daughter is just about the right age. He likes being a stepfather to a grown up. He is very fond of Nicole and just thinks the world of her.

After I left Eduard I went to Douglass where you can buy really good make up and perfumes. With the help of a lady there, I picked out a really good lipstick in the right color. I like that the sales personnel is so well informed and can really help you. We picked out a lipstick from L’Oreal called Kissproof in a nice shade and it was more expensive than my haircut, but I am worth it! I tried it right away when I got home and it really does stay on very well.

Then I window shopped and went into one store that I knew carried larger sizes. Of course, they had their summer collection on the racks and I saw at least five things that I would have wanted to buy, but never mind. I’ve bought enough for now. I am just clothes crazy! I also looked at their belts and necklaces, but luckily there was nothing there that I couldn’t live without, so that was a real relief. There was one belt that was nice, but I couldn’t figure out how to buckle it until I got home and then I dawned on me, so maybe it will still be there next week.

Then I took the bus home again, and when I got there, Jesker was very happy to see me, so I had a cup of coffee and spent 20 minutes petting him, which made him very happy and secure after being alone all morning. I still had to clean up the apartment, but first I took Jesker to the field and we hung out there for a while, sitting in the sun, meeting other dogs. There was a fox terrier that we had never seen before and he was very friendly and wanted to make friends with Jesker. Jesker was definitely interested, until the fox terrier started to tear around the field and Jesker thought: Yeah, whatever! It was nice sitting in the sun and Jesker laid down beside me and we enjoyed ourselves for a while like that until it was time to go home and drag out the vacuum cleaner.

Eduard got home at 2:30 pm and, as always, was full of stories about his work and I was full of stories about my morning, so we told each other everything taking turns talking back and forth. That’s what we always do, but we really listen! I am always glad when Eduard gets home, but I am also always okay when he leaves again, because I also like to be alone for a bit with my own thoughts and I know it is the same for Eduard. He does well on his own and amuses himself quite well when I am not around, as I sometimes am when I am gone to the States. That is a little extreme of course, because then I am really gone and all we can do is call each other and email. Eduard and I had a very passionate letter exchange before we were married and we saved all the letters, so one day we can read those
again. Anyway…we like to talk and we do and tell each other everything about what happens to us during the day. Eduard definitely needs to unload after work and needs a listening ear. I have a good listening ear, I think. So does Eduard. I let him know when it is really serious and he really needs to pay attention. Besides, not many men talk about what happens to them during the day. At least, that is my experience, so I think that is a good thing.

So, last night Eduard had to work and he didn’t get home until after twelve and I was sound asleep by that time. I didn’t want to go to bed, but once I made myself, I was asleep quickly. I woke up with the birds in the morning, but I like being up early and having all that time to myself before Eduard and the critters are up.

It looks like the street is going to be torn up for awhile. A truck hauled all the stones away and I guess we will be getting all new ones. I hope they will put in some speed bumps, because there are people who use this street as a short cut. Maybe that will end when the other street is opened up again. One thing we are hoping for is lots of parking spaces, as there is a shortage of them right now. At this moment our street is a giant sandbox. The neighborhood dogs want to pee on the little heaps of sand, so that isn’t very hygienic. I am sure that my cats are contributing something too, although they aren’t in the front of the building that often. The old couple next door is always complaining about whatever goes on in the street. Now they don’t like the new houses that have been built, and they are so nice. And they don’t like the street all broken up. Well, none of us do, but we get a nice new street in return. And it has certainly stopped the traffic! Old people! Grr…I never want to become one. They call the Moroccan couple upstairs, those dark ones. Last year, the Moroccan couple upstairs gave everybody in the building a bottle of wine for the holidays!

I am drinking a glass of fruit juice because my stomach was starting to growl. I am also always so thirsty from my medication and I love to drink a cold glass of juice. I totally withstood temptation yesterday and didn’t buy a soft ice cream when I walked by the stand selling them. And then I walked by the french fry place and I thought: That would be nice. A bag of french fries with a dollop of mayonnaise on top! But then I thought: Never again! I will never eat a bag of french fries again in my whole life. It is physically impossible. I am glad that this decision is taken away from me, because it certainly is tempting! But I will never have to decide about those things again, because it just isn’t possible for me to eat those things anymore, not even for my last meal. Of course, I could easily eat an ice cream, but that temptation I can withstand until I have lost the weight and then I will have one.

Yesterday, when I was out with the dog, I met my neighbor from a couple of houses down who also has a gastric band and who has lost 50 kilos. She looks really good, but she complimented me on the way I looked and said she could really see the difference. Especially around my hips and in my face. Yeah! If I ever get stuck or discouraged, I will go to her for support. She knows all about it.

A few days ago, there was an item on the supplementary news program about abdominal wall corrective surgery and about how insurance companies no longer pay for it. It said that the insurance companies will only pay to remove the excessive skin flab if it hangs halfway down your thighs! Can you believe that? Halfway down your thighs! This is so ridiculous it is beyond words to express my dismay. The surgery costs about 3,500 Euros and you can bet that I will get a part time job to pay for it myself if I need to. I will find a way to get the surgery done. Hopefully, somebody in the government will take up this cause and make the insurance companies see the errors of their ways. It makes me so darn mad. Grr…

I don’t want to think about it right now! I just poured myself a cup of coffee to soothe my mind. It is still very quiet here. Jesker came out to drink some water, but he didn’t even greet me and went straight back to the bedroom. I think he wasn’t quite awake yet. Eduard came out to drink a glass of juice, but he is gone again too. He has today off. That’s nice! Gandhi just barfed under the computer table, so let me clean that up…

Well, that was nice, but not really. I am going to read the news now, but I will add more if anything interesting happens. So, ciao for now…

Instead of reading the news, I have been sitting here reading some of my older posts. That’s another good way to pass the early morning. I basically check it to refresh my memory about what kept my interest over the past weeks and I also check the whole story to see how smoothly it has been written. English is my second language, and I have never had any grammar lessons in it or any literature lessons. A lot of things I have to guess at, or I only know because of reading so many books. Some things I can only guess at and I am sure that there are lots of things I get wrong, such as where to place the commas. They are used in English more often than they are used in Dutch and I am very unsure about them. Some rules apply in Dutch the same as they do in English and sometimes I just don’t want to care that much.

Jesker has been out to greet me properly but has gone back to his pillow. Of course he has been out very late last night when Eduard took him, so he probably doesn’t have to go yet. The cats are still asleep, except for Gandhi who has barfed twice now, but that is not unusual for her. She is just a barfer, but very healthy other than that.

I think, looking back, that yesterday was definitely an eight, and I wish there were more excuses to go into town. What a woman really needs is a large wallet with contents and a large closet. And a large bus pass. As I become older, I become more vain. I already noticed this happening to me when I was in my late thirties. I worked part time in a clothing store and boy, did I like that! I especially liked the lingerie section. Now I am slowly moving back to those kind of circumstances again and I am glad. All my bras right now are lacy. I adored buying clothes, the more feminine, the better and that is saying something for someone who used to be a tomboy.

Yesterday, I looked through all of my jewelry and I found a gold ring that used to belong to my mother. It has a red stone, but I don’t know what it is. It is a bit translucent. Anyway, it fits my ring finger, so now I am wearing it. I also found a ring with a diamond that had been cut from my finger when it got to fat to take the ring off. So, I should have that repaired. I forgot that I had all that stuff. There are lots of goodies in the box. Some of them used to belong to my mother. Unluckily for me, she wore a lot of silver jewelry, so I can’t wear that. I have little pillboxes that belonged to her that she kept her silver stud earrings in. I found some gold colored earrings that are larger than the ones I was wearing so I put those in. Slowly but surely I am decorating myself.

Well, I am really going to walk the dog now, so see you later…

Today there are clouds in the sky. What does it mean? Does it mean rain? The grass on the field is turning brown, so we need rain desperately. On the nature reserves extreme fire danger has been announced. There is a fire spotter flying over them regularly. The ground is as hard as a rock, it’s all clay, so no wonder, we are in the rive
r valley. I hope it will rain.

I just figured out something I absolute can’t live without and that is a black pullover with a deep V-neck. Yes, I absolutely have to have something like that. Now, how do I lay my hands on that? Mmmmm, I’ll have to give it some thought. Okay people, while I am thinking, I am going to get some work done around here. I’ll see you all later…

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