Being tagged again and a peek in our garden

Hi all!!

I have been tagged twice again. I love reading about you girls. But somehow it's less fun when I write these facts about myself. So to make it a bit more interesting while you are here I'll show some pictures of the garden.

Maria Elena has tagged me and she wants to know 7 strange and unfamiliar things about me.
Now the other day I was thinking about 7 weird things. I asked my husband and he said: only 7?
But I wrote seven weird things about me here already I told him, but he thinks those were 7 weird incidents.

Here we go:

1. I'm a night animal.
I can stay up very late and having no problems at all, no matter how early I have risen. I can sleep in daytime when ever I feel like it. Especially when watching Pokémon with my son I cannot keep my eyes open. There are times that I sleep less than 4 hours without interruption for nights and nights in a row. Now I have read that in that case you will overproduce a hormone that makes that you will eat too much. So I really cannot help :-). I like these kind of theories and that brings us to:

2. I have all kind of theories. Like how my whole life would have been different if I was born in time. My mother was expecting me September 26th. I was born October 8th. At that time you had to be 6 years old before October 1st, when you started primary school. So that first time (of many to come) of being late did cost me an extra year in Kindergarten (which is btw THE most useful education ever invented; learning how to copy, cut and paste is most helpful to a lot of working people nowadays while being able to recite Pythagoras' theory doesn't help you much further in most occasions). If I was born in time I would have had other classmates, other friends, probably never met my husband, having other children etc. etc.

3. When I cook I never taste but I only smell. And it works! I love to cook Italian, Indian, Indonesian, Moroccan, Turkish, Dutch whatever! When I read a recipe I'm always adding stuff and leaving stuff already when reading.

4. I like way too many things. I simply cannot choose. I like all kind of stuff in my interior. Antiques, vintage, Cath Kidstonlike, modern stuff (if it's inventive). I like to read and I like to write. I like history. I like to craft. I like to sew. I like to shop. I like to travel. I like to stay at home.
But I dislike house cleaning and nasty people.

We are having goldfish in our pond!

5. I have a memory for totally useless things. Like: I remember what I was wearing when hubby and I had our first date. On the other hand I cannot remember where I have left my credit card, the one that I have lend to my daughter. I remember her giving it back, me thinking I will not need this one on vacation, so let's put it away carefully and then...blank zero nothing!!

and tadpoles!

6. I love jokes and funny stories, (not the joke that everybody is telling but one that you invent yourself) and I laugh out loud even, or should I admit especially, when I tell them myself...:-}

7. I can work in my studio even when it looks like this:

And believe me the other side is the same or worse.
That's why I'm joining a challenge hosted by Michelle 'to have your working space organized by June 21st.' And of course I will make that.


Viola Molly Sanderson

I have been tagged by Nicky as well:

1. What was I 10 years ago?
I was married to Mr. M. already, having two kids (the same) and having a part time job as a personal assistant to several members of Parliament. Helping them making and preparing their speeches. I specialized in educational issues and issues concerning working conditions and working environments. I was a collector at that time too, my main interest then was vintage and mod Barbie.


2. Five things on my to do list today:
1. Ironing (but I didn't feel like it/forget it, I don't have a memory for these kind of things either, but the day isn't over yet.)
2. Mail lots and lots of people (haven't done that either)
3. I still have to call my nephew who is celebrating his 15th birthday today. Congrats to you Ian!
4. Make a blogpost and do something creative too.
5. try to find the forms of my sons next school, so I can register him for secondary school. Yep I have found the forms, but I haven't filled them all in yet.
(What on earth have I done today??)

3 snacks I enjoy:
Flemish fries with mayonaise
All kinds of french cheese, the more they stink the better!
My homemade pies.

We now have electricity in our garden too!

It shouldn't have to be that obvious concerning to me. Ooh men...you have to explain them everything....


4 things I would do if I was a millionaire.
I think this is a tough one. I really am a happy and lucky person already.
Should I write that I wouldn't care about the shipping costs of vintage wallpaper if I was a millionaire? My husband would probably stop working and poke all day around here mmmm....
Would I try to do a bit more about political issues like poverty and aids in the third world? Probably.

5 places where I lived
I started in Rotterdam, very near the railway. This was a house with no bathroom, no garden and no balcony. At that time there were not enough houses for everybody, so my parents occupied this house illegal. They were 'krakers' (dutch word for illegal inhabitants) avant la lettre.
From there we moved to the Hague,where we lived in an apartment with bathroom and garden so we were really doing well.
I rented a room in Leiden when I was 19. Living with a landlord and landlady, both very nice people, we still keep in touch. After that my boyfriend (now Mr. M) and I rented two rooms in a house at one of Leidens famous canals. But those rooms were at the back of the house, so no nice views for us.
After that we moved several times in Leiden and then we made this 'big move' to Dordrecht where I still live, though not in the same house as where we started.
These are all places in the Netherlands, even in one county 'South Holland'.

And now I have to tag 6 people...
These people can choose what they want to tell us:
7 weird things or Nicky's tag or nothing at all, if they don't feel like it.

Wil (casa nostra)

Jeanette and/or her daughter Emma
Linnea Maria
Sol
Marianne

and finally Mme
Vosgesparis who has told us a lot allready but I'm missing 7 (or more) WEIRD facts about her....
As a reward they may tag six other bloggers, wow!



Are you still here?
Have a nice day, hugs LiLi.

About birds and bonnets, books and specs

panels for Beth's and Karla's swap front or back whatever they decide...

Hi all!

A few girls asked me whether I had time for some thrifting while I was in the States. As we had only 12 days there, we were on a tight schedule. Perhaps I should mention now that visiting thrift shops is not a hobby of my husband nor our kids, on the contrary. But I managed to squeeze in a visit to an antique mall in Dania, while driving from Miami to Orlando. In Dania were quite a few stores which are dealing in European antiques, which is not interesting to me, naturally such goods are cheaper here. I experienced that the American dealers were very friendly though and offering good service. They friendly ask you whether you are looking for something special. In my opinion 'I collect everything' isn't a good answer if you don't buy anything, so I told them I was looking for specific American items. Unfortunately I didn't see any vintage wallpaper, no flower hats (I'm definitely no hat-whisperer like Sugarwings and Karla), no American bisque dolls, except for some kewpies, which were way too expensive to me. I did see a lot of rhinestone jewelry, but expensive too and nothing really special. And of course I told the dealers I was looking for the buttons on cards with images, like the ones over here and here. I have never seen them here in the Netherlands and a button card is safe to ask for while they couldn't be too expensive was my thought, that was before I was told that there are actually buttons of 400 dollars a piece....

I bought these sunglasses in art deco stores in Miami. They are new but I really like them. To me a real American souvenir. Of course I already have a collection of specs....

In the first shop they actually had buttons on cards, but not with the images. I guess from the 70-ties not interesting to me, too young! The second dealer told me that he used to pull of the buttons from the cards and throw the cards away....LOL but he was willing to check 'behind' whether there was something for me. I was following him into a little hall with a beautiful shabby chic cupboard filled with bits and bobs. The walls were covered with about 5000 plastic containers and in one of them THE card was laughing at me. A button card with a small child and all mother of pearl buttons still attached. 'That is exactly what I'm looking for!', I told the dealer but unfortunaltely he couldn't reach this container. By accident about 50 lids and 10 containers fell on the floor and then he quit his search. So I left the shop and Dania with no antiques not even the smallest rhinestone button at all.

My American 'souvenirs'
Yes I know that I'm a very lucky girl but I enjoy these books and magazines sooo much!

At Barnes and Nobles' I had less trouble spending my money, though they didn't have everything on my wish list. Of course we can order anything from Amazon.com too, but it's so nice to see a book live on stage first. I went to Michaels' too, but I really didn't have enough time there. While driving back to the airport we were (read I was) planning to visit another Michaels' store but then my daughter discovered that she had forgotten to take her brand new cellphone from under her pillow in the hotel. So we had to drive 30 miles up the road before we could turn, then turn, drive back and after collecting her phone ( I told you before Americans are honest people), we were back to were we started from about 2 hours later...better went to the airport straight away. Needless to say mummy wasn't happy....

Surprise!

Well, some day you win, some day you loose. Last post I showed you most of the presents Carol sent me. She sent me a magazine as well and as I started to read that last night a dresden was falling out and look what I found between the pages. What a surprise!! Thanks so much Carol!

It's time to craft now!

My last project were the panels for Beth's and Karla's birds and bonnets vintage workshop. If you are interested I have more pix in my Flick'r album. You can click this one as well as the one above my post, though the quality of the picture isn't that good while I was in a hurry to get them mailed...Btw there is a Flick'r group too!

panels for Beth's and Karla's swap front or back whatever they decide...

Where do I begin?

Hi guys!

Wanna guess where I have been???

I'm back from a wonderful vacation in Florida (USA).

When I got home last weekend, I wanted to read what everybody had been writing about in the past couple of days, but soon I felt like Lucy in the chocolate factory. No matter how much I read, you always manage to keep new posts coming! I even didn't have time to leave comments. I really didn't know where to start. And then there was a house that needed to be cleaned, the laundry of two weeks vacation, working in the garden or blogging? And of course I suffered severely from a jet lag....I'm always a week out of control when the clock is put one hour ahead, let alone six...

I have never been to the USA before, but our son desperately wanted to visit Disney World in the year of a million dreams. Such things are important, next year there will be another theme of course and we definitely are people of a million dreams.
So we went to Miami, Orlando, Sanibel Island and the Keys and we had a terrific time.

I think we have made about a 1000 pictures, but I'll give you 10 to give you an impression of my impression of the States:

Americans are honest people:

Americans like to hug.

What you see is what you get:

There are a lot of things that are larger in the States than they are in Europe.

The soda's are bigger, the Magic Kingdom is bigger than Disneyland in Paris. As a matter of fact Disney World is huge.

Plastic surgery is common in the USA, even so common that some window dummies have had a boob job as well:

Americans like to dress the same way:

You don't agree huh? Well what do you think of this???:




They even like to drive in the same cars:

(This was the first time ever I saw two stretched limo's in one shot that were there by chance, they didn't drive together!)

There are real sharks in Florida, our children were already asking when we were swimming in the Ocean; 'You don't think that there are sharks here, do you? And I told them; 'No of course not, why do you think that I'm swimming here too?' But once again Mummy was wrong...

On the other hand; I knew that there are crocodiles and alligators in Florida, but I only met them at Disney World;

Lucky me!

We had such a nice vacation!

When we came back the weather here in the Netherlands was so nice too, so the garden was growing as fast as possible and it was very dry too. The little pansies were like straw, so we had to replace most of them, but I'll keep my garden pictures for some other time.

The other day I received a huge package from Carol (Boxwood cottage). I told her not to hurry with her Junque in you trunk swap parcel and to send it after my vacation. So it arrived here this week: This picture was taken by Carol as well, as the German Post office was thinking it was better to hide her lovely label by sticking a very ugly white and yellow one over it, you just don't believe your eyes. Though I'm still happy with the delivery service (even Beth has received her package, after I threatened in my post about mailmen and -women), perhaps a course 'How to handle lovely packages' still would be useful.

Lovely huh? Still I was very anxious to open it! And this

was inside, in Carol's words; it felt like Christmas and my birthday at the same time to me too. Inside more boxes and more packages and inside those:

And:

Look at that!!!! Whoooweeeee!!! What a treat! OOoh it was all so wonderful, exactly my taste, so carefully wrapped, with gorgeous dresdens, ribbons, pins and flowers and do you see that welcome spring banner?

This was inside that lovely antique tin. Oooh even when I'm writing this I have to sigh.........

I was secretly hoping that Carol would send me one of her self made pendants. And YESSS she did! What a talented lady isn't she?

Another opened parcel:

Package before:

And after:

You will not believe this but there is still more:

And more:



The loot:


Don't forget to click the pictures to have a large photo so that you can see even the smallest parts, it's worth it!
Oh my, I was spoiled rotten by Carol. Look at all these lovely things, it's all so me!! I cannot wait to use some of these materials to craft with. Thanks so much Carol, it has been so much fun swapping with you. And of course thanks to Heather who has matched us so well.



I already told you that I was hoping for one of Carol's self made pendants, but I did receive three (3!!!)! Ooh I was so happy with this parcel and everything in it and every little piece. I'll keep every paper and every ribbon too!

I have been working on the panels for Beth and Karla's birds and bonnets swap too, hopefully they will be there in time, but I will save these pix for another time too.

Now that I have written this post it feels like I have really come home. I will soon visit you all! Take care and see you!

(A very short dutch translation this time:

We zijn in Florida op vakantie geweest en we hebben er een geweldige tijd gehad.
De tweede serie foto's zijn van het swap pakket dat ik van Carol van Boxwood Cottage kreeg.
Druk, druk, druk...ik denk altijd dat het volgende week rustiger wordt, jullie ook?
groetjes L.