Winter has finally arrived here! It seems we’ve got some very cold weeks ahead of us and some forecasts say we might have snow!

So Saturday was a very busy day. But a fun day. After an assignement for the newspaper that was supposed to be easy, but turned out rather difficult (to cramped to take good pictures), I headed for the kitchen with my birthday girl.
I baked brownies (using a recipe from this book, that I bought because I loved the images, but contains some great old-fashioned recipes) and a cake using a recipe I got from her comments by her. Here’s a translation:

Yoghurt cake

1 packet of vanilla sugar
1 packet baking powder
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup oil
1 cup yoghurt
3 eggs
3 cups flour

She said to bake it 30 minutes at 350 degrees, but it was still wet after half an hour, so I did it fifteen minutes extra and than another fifteen minutes with alu foil on top to prevent cracks or burning. It had great texture, but it sticked to the form. But maybe I didn’t butter it good enough. The taste is great, just a bit fresher than normal cake.

Meanwhile Miriam was busy making cheese straws and sausage rolls. Both very easy. The cheese straws are three sheets of puff pastry, layered with grated cheese and rolled flat, than cut into strips. The strips are brushed with a beat egg and sprinkled with some more cheese. Bake um… until golden brown (I’m not sure how hot and how long, I think 400 degrees and about 12 minutes).

The sausage rolls I made with cevapcici, little Polish (?) sausages that I usually have in the freezer. Just cut both the sausage and the puff pasty in half, roll and press the sides to close. Very yummy!

I also made a Huzaren salad. My favorite recipe. I made this first more than eighteen years ago and have made it many times since then. I think the original recipe maybe a little bit different, I usually just wing it. It’s basically very simple.
Even parts of potatoes and apples, mixed with pickles, eggs and some meat (I used ham this time), all minced in the foodprocessor, and mayonaise. The apples are the secret ingredient, it makes the salad nice and fresh.

The chickensoup was already half made and frozen. I make it from scratch with chicken thighs. About a month ago I wanted to eat chickensoup too and beause I knew that while preparing for the birthday lunch, I was going to be to busy to take time to get the bones out, I made a lot of extra broth. So now I just had to add a bit of water and bouillon powder. The vegetable soup was even easier, some bags of precut vegetables (I don’t know how that is in other countries but here those bags are much cheaper than buying the vegetables whole and cut it yourself. I think it’s made from vegetables that don’t look right – we have rules about form, color etc. – but it’s fresh and tastes the same), noodles and vegetable bouillon blocks.

I had a lot of fun, busying myself in the kitchen like that. I have a hard time remembering how long ago it has been since I actually enjoyed cooking like that. I think the last time was when the girls turned eighteen, in May (I cooked a similar lunch than, and an Italian diner for thirteen people too). I did get tired, but I also felt energized. I even finally got myself to wash the windows in between cooking and baking!

I was very tired afterwards, but it’s so good to feel tired because I actually did something. I really need to think about this.
I read an article last week that stated that people get depressed when they don’t work with their hands. My depression and exhaustion got worse when I stopped knitting, which was the only thing I really did with my hands, apart from the most urgent household tasks.
So maybe to fight that exhaustion I need to get away from the computer and start knitting (a bit) again, get myself up to that sewingroom more often, cook, bake, make, clean…
Do more instead of doing less and less because I’m feeling so awfully tired…

It is time…

time to toss the lists, time to let go of my perfectionism.

I have been struggling to get things done for a few months now, but this week it is worse than ever. Sunday we celebrate Miriam’s seventeenth birthday (oh my, time flies) and I have lists and lists of things to do.

But I am slowly realizing these lists are just over the top.

You want an example? Right. Well. This week I wanted to:

- clean the windows inside and out
- do the garden (hasn’t been done since late august)
- rearrange stuff in the back of the house (lots of tools and stuff, need to be put in the shed that also needs a lot of rearranging)
- clean up clutter in livingroom
- clean up mess I made upstairs last week
- vacuum and mop every room in the house
- clean every surface in the house, including the walls and the ceilings
- rearrange every closet
- thoroughly clean the toilet and the bathroom (meaning scrubbing with some aggressive cleaner)
- polish the wooden floor in the living room
- polish the wooden furniture
- go out for four interviews (two of them being special ones for the christmas issue of our paper) and two other assignments
- do laundry and ironing
- go shopping for coat, shoes and jeans with Miriam (much needed)
- find myself shoes and something nice to wear
- make stuff, lots of stuff. A skirt, some presents, a quilt
- start decorating for Christmas
- plan fancy meals and cook for Sunday (I think about 20 people will be staying for lunch)
- bake fancy cake
- do shopping
- loose at least some pounds (I need to loose a lot)
- … oh the list goes on and on

I did some of this. I did the interviews. That’s my job after all. I got Miriam her cloths and myself some shoes. And I did some cleaning. Upstairs is not as messy as it was last weekend.

But here I am, so tired today that I never made it off the couch. And if I do I feel dizzy and sick. So it is time to toss the lists. Think reasonable.

New list:
- today I’m going to finish the laundry (I already started that) and maybe do a little tidying if I feel up to it (just putting things away, no big rearrangements). Also I’m going to plan somes simple meals for the weekend and make a shopping list. I think the baking also will be simple, just a cake and some brownies. And I’m going to buy stroopwafels. SO common here, but still a treat for most of us.
- tomorrow I’m going to do the shopping and a little cleaning. Not of the thorough kind, just the good-enough-kind. One more interview and at night an assignment that is mostly photography. After that I will be beat, but I’ll try to get it ready to sent off so I can forget about it the rest of the weekend.
- on saturday I will have one more assignment, but an easy one and than I will ask Miriam to help me bake and cook. She likes to do that.
- Christmas decorating will start after the birthday, squeezing 20 people in will be hard enough without a tree
- the rest will have to wait

It will have to wait until I’m better. I finally give up; I just can’t do it all right now. I’m ill. I have been for weeks or maybe even months now. And I won’t get better if I keep stressing myself out like this.

Trying to keep things together, trying to keep myself together is enough for now.

As I was writing this I suddenly remembered.

Birthdays and Christmas were never meant to be stressfull events. They are supposed to be fun. Family is coming over to visit us, not to inspect the house and rate the food. No need to go into extremes cleaning and cooking, just do the things that are necessary and try to have fun. That really should be enough.

Aahhh. I really needed to remind myself of this…

Well, it was not the craftiness I planned on having this Sinterklaas. I was too busy and too tired to make a lot. And then last week, having some time and energy to actually make something, I decided to move our bedroom and my sewing room around, so now my sewing room is a very big mess. I want to start straightening out things today, as soon as I finish a dozen other things (2 interviews, some bookkeeping and lots of household chores, oh my, I’m running out of time).

Last Saturday though, I just pushed things aside and sat in the middle of the mess to make a few quick projects. After last year’s presents, my dad had asked me to make him a smaller zippered pouch to hold his inhalers (he has COPD, caused by a heritable decease), so I made him this one of gray linen.

I found these cotton napkins in the thrift store a while ago and had been planning to embroider something on them. But it seems embroidery isn’t my thing after all, I can’t really get the hang of it. So they are still simple and white. I did make the napkin rings.

And my parents have been crafty too. They made every member of the family (there are thirteen of us) a bag out of old newspapers to give us our presents in. I think that’s a brilliant idea!

It was a good weekend. Lots of connecting, laughter and love!

… for Pakjesavond. Or Pakjesweekend to be precise, because we start Saturday evening at my parents’ house, will visit my parents in law (and bring a few presents along) Sunday morning and than the five of us will have our own Sinterklaas celebration Sunday night.

It sounds like an expensive and commercial holiday. And it is, for some people.
But for us the fun is not in receiving expensive presents. There are presents that cost me only 50 cents in that big pile!
For us the fun is in the preparations of finding the right presents within our very tight budget and writing a little poem to go with it. Thinking about each and every person in the family to find just the right thing for them.
A strong connection can be felt when that kind of “caring for each other” takes place in a family.

I have a hard time explaining that, even in my own country with people who share the same childhood memories. But I love seeing how my children do get it. They have been preparing and shopping and making rhymes like crazy these last weeks. So much fun!

Now, I have to get back to my little rhymes, just a few more to go. And than maybe I will have some time to make some handmade presents after all… Keeping my fingers crossed!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

I’m constantly changing the things on the mantle. It’s such a satisfying little way to make things “new” in our home.
We don’t decorate for Sinterklaas and we also never decorate for Christmas before the 6th of December (so after Sinterklaas) and often not (completely) until after Miriam’s birthday (the 15th), so this me trying to keep things decluttered before I’m getting out the Christmas stuff.

My sister-in-law came over to cut Theo’s hair. One of the girls decided instantly that she wanted something new. She went from very long to much shorter and lots of layers.
For a moment I was thinking: ha, now my hair is the longest in the family! But then they decided I was long overdue for a cut myself. They were right, it had been over a year.
So now I have a new hairdo. I didn’t want the layers anymore, it’s now all as long as it was in the front (the back was at least fifteen centimeters longer). And I thought bangs (? is that the right word, we call it a pony, but I’m sure that’s not the right word in english) would be nice to try.
I got rid of them about eighteen years ago, because it made me look younger. But now that I’m nearing forty that’s not so much of a problem anymore…

Now all I need is a fresh paint dye job and I’m ready for the holidays! Well, at least my hair will be ready. I’m trying not to think about all the other things, like cleaning the house, making presents, decorating, planning where and how to celebrate and what to wear. But it’s all fun, isn’t it?

Oh my, November has not been a good blogging month for me.

Lots of work related stress, family trouble (just small things, don’t worry) and some flu-ish illness (I’m not sure what it was, but we’ve all been on and off it a few times).

But I am feeling better now. Still a bit tired, but I’m slowly starting to find joy in cleaning the house again (and boy, it was time too). I’m looking forward to celebrating Sinterklaas, a birthday and Christmas.

And I’m hoping to share a picture of our December with you every weekday. So, see you tomorrow!

Oh, the windmill? That’s the house of someone I interviewed last week.  Thought you might like it. Someday I’m going to ask him if I can take a look inside his home. It must be really special…