Day 170: Friday Market Success and Homemade Sushi

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Found a good deal on fabric for our California Surfing Photo Op at the Friday Market in Amstelveen! Very happy.

Facebook’s Update Status Bar now asks:

“How are you feeling, Adriana?”

Is that like, “Hi, how are you? I’m fine. How are you?” How are you supposed to answer that? Maybe they should ask “What are you doing, Adriana?” or “What do you feel like sharing with the world today? Is it something about your kids, your food, your mood, or some place you’ve been lately? Maybe you have a nice quote to share or a political opinion to spread, although I never share those!! Facebook is sort of like Reality TV – we can get a glimpse of typically the positive side of our friends’ and family’s life story. I still find the news entertaining and enjoy reading the highlights, so thanks for sharing how you’re feeling. You inspire me and I feel happy for you.

Today I was feeling content. I had nothing I had to do and it’s Friday, so that feels good. I had 3 hours free after running errands without a schedule and I loved it. Of course I had things to do, but nothing that was urgent. I started with a cup of coffee to warm up from the chill outside. I had to scrape the ice off the windows this morning before taking the kids to school. I then sat down and began reading Facebook updates and email, and then working on the photo booth project and making lunch. I had bought an avocado and a cucumber, as well as other healthy veggies and decided to make a delicious lunch, homemade vegetarian sushi rolls. I wish someone was here to share them with me, but I hadn’t planned on making lunch – it just appeared after seeing someone share a similar recipe on their Facebook page.

Preparing to make sushi rolls – cucumber, avodado, carrots, cilantro, sushi rice, wasabi, toasted sesame seeds, sesame oil, salt.

Sushi roll all wrapped up and snug in the bamboo mat.

The final art piece – isn’t it pretty? It was delicious and easy too!

Hope you have a good weekend! – Adriana

10Jan2013

Day 169: Love and Frustration

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Morning view from my run this morning

Today started out beautifully with a nice run through the forest. That is one of my favorite parts of where we live. I run for about 7 minutes and then I am in the “wilderness.” It’s gorgeous and quiet and peaceful. I ran for 40 minutes today, mostly on a gravel trail. I still don’t know how people run marathons for hours. 40 minutes is pushing it for me! But I guess if you train and put your mind to it, then maybe it’s possible? I’m curious how to do that, not saying that I will ever do one, but am curious about the mind over matter and sore feet part of a much longer run!

My mama loves the cloudscapes – so when I see the clouds I think of her.

Love the clouds and sky reflecting in the water.

After my run, I cleaned up the house some and showered and went shopping for a toaster oven, a hand blender and some items to create a California Surfing Photo Booth for Global Village Day. That’s when my day wasn’t so fun. I wanted a simple hand blender to make soups and smoothes. They had a bunch on display, but take a look at the shelves! They had the cheapest model and the most expensive model and nothing in between. So frustrating. I decided to get one, but wasn’t happy with my limited choices.

empty shelves! UGH!!

Feeling unsuccessful, I walked over to look for the toaster oven. And guess what? Yep, same problem!! No inventory on the shelf. The one model they had on display of one that might work, had the display with a broken handle!! Why would you display a broken model? The problem with shopping in Holland is that I don’t know where to go to find what I need. So when I do find a place to go to get what I need and then the shelves are empty, it leaves me frustrated!!

Look – another empty shelf!! WTH?!

And of course, it’s really not that big of a deal, but I took the time to drive across town to go to the Makro (think kinda Costco like) and left empty handed without what I expected to find. I went over to Hanos because they have the same sort of supplies, and their shelves were empty too except for the display item and a super duper big one. *big sigh*

I need advice friends – please tell me where to buy appliances! And where your favorite places are to shop and to eat. I also need to know where to buy blue material, or shower curtains, or flat sheets, or paint drop canvas’ to make a backdrop for our surfing photo booth. Any tips? I need help!

I don’t want to end this post on a frustrating note, so I’ll share that I also loved playing tennis again today. I’m glad there are (expensive) indoor courts to play on near my house! I also loved that my mom and sister and husband called me from the states this evening. Technology can be really cool!

Life is good…

9Jan2013

Day 168: Oil Balls, I Mean Oliebollen

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Oliebollen sounds so much more festive and healthier than Oil Balls, the literal Dutch translation of oliebollen. Heck, even Donuts and Funnel Cake sound better than Deep- Fried-Bread-with-Sugar-On-Top. Isn’t it interesting what a name can do? Sometimes you might forget what you’re eating. My favorite deep fried snack is still a chocolate covered and chocolate chip filled donut from Fosters Donuts in Thousand Oaks. I don’t even know if they exist anymore, but this used to be a family tradition for us on weekends or holidays and we have so many fun memories around this food group! 🙂

Today I was asked to volunteer to serve oliebollen to all the students at our school. It’s a tradition at our kids’ school to serve these to all the children when they come back from the holiday break. Word spread so quickly that there were FREE OLIEBOLLEN and even the upper school kids came to fight for a position in line to get their fair share.

HERE I AM with Rachel, serving our friend Cami, after all the kids were done eating.

Oliebollen are Dutch pastries normally eaten during the Christmas Holidays and New Years Eve. They are sold at fairs and throughout winter time. Everyone here goes crazy over these and gets so excited to eat them, including my kids. Most kids prefer them plain with powdered sugar. However they also come with currants, and sometimes you can order a special one with apples inside, or sometimes even with a creamy custard filling.

Are you hungry or did you lose your appetite? For me, I skipped ’em today, but they are really good!

8Jan2013

Day 167: I AM Still Learning…

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I think it’s always important to learn something new, try something new, go somewhere new… keep adapting and changing, otherwise life gets boring and I don’t believe in that word.

Today I started my new Dutch class. I will be taking 24 lessons, 3 hours each for the next several months and practicing and speaking a little bit more each day. I’m counting on my Dutch friends and family to speak to me in Dutch and not laugh at me when I try to speak back to them in Dutch. I understand some but can’t really speak it or write it. Wish me luck!!

Today I decided to be Dutch too, and rode my bike to class. Luckily there wasn’t any rain – just gray skies and cold weather which actually isn’t “so” bad anymore compared to adding rain in the mix. I guess I’ve changed my expectations and am adapting, although I still don’t like this weather and find the dreary skies quite heavy. I long for sunshine but accept what is and will make the best of it, like riding my bike!

To reward myself for riding and not having to pay for parking (which also irks me) I spent the money instead on sushi for lunch and took it home, yet next time I’ll have to buy a little more as I’m still hungry!

It was nice to have a quiet afternoon before kid pickup, just me and my sushi and time to write about my day. I hope you have a wonderful day, learning something new and doing something nice for yourself and hopefully you’ll share your joy.

xo Adriana

7Jan2013

Day 166: Back in the FLOW

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Went to a new yoga class today – life is good.

It was the most, wonderful day of the YEAR!! Not really, but you get the gist… kids were back in school and I got a little break, so it must have been somewhat wonderful! It’s amazing how much I can get done when it’s just me around without any distractions or competing needs.

I went to try a new Yoga class today and really loved being there. I LOVE yoga and for some reason, I forget. Do you ever do that? Where you really love doing something or eating something and then you just don’t do it or eat it for a long time and then you remember how much you loved it?? Duh…like Magic Bars – have you ever had one of those? I just remembered how much I love those too, but I didn’t have one today.

When I’m doing yoga, I am so relaxed and then really enjoy the workout and stretching and breathing. Breathing is really important and you don’t usually think about your breathe, but it sure feels good when you do. When I’m there, I think of all my friends that also love yoga and who I’ve done yoga with before. It’s an individual practice, but sharing the practice creates connections that I think about when I’m on my own. Today’s class was taught in Dutch, in a small studio with candles and incense, soft lighting and soft music in a heated room with no mirrors and a few windows. It was very peaceful. The teacher would sometimes speak in English for me, but it was easy to follow along. It’s possible that I might even learn some Dutch along the way. Afterwards, she served everyone who wanted to stay a cup of warm tea. It was a nice way to end the practice and rehydrate.

I’m definitely going to go back again, as long as I don’t forget! 😉

How was your day, honey?

Namaste

6Jan2013

Day 165: Triple Threat

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Today was rough.

1. Woke up early to take Jeff to the airport. He didn’t sneak us in his luggage back to California!
2. Still sick, 3 days in a row… Ready for this to pass.
3. Charlie lost his new Christmas present from Santa – his iPod touch!

The thing that bothered me the most was the material thing, which is weird because I usually don’t care about stuff. I think being sick made me more emotional and that we’d have to tell Jeff made me even madder, and I already questioned myself whether or not he even needed/should have such a valuable item.

So there I was, lonely, sick and mad. And when I feel this way, I start cleaning! Isn’t that weird? In a sick way, I was hoping I’d find his device if I cleaned enough, but I really had a feeling he lost it while chasing the Dutch girls around the neighborhood, which also bugged me! I also went on icloud to track his device and it showed me that it was offline, which gave me a hint that it wasn’t in the house, otherwise it would have been connected to our wireless and shown us its location. I was able to turn on an alert on the phone to have the finder call me when it was found, but nothing was happening. So when I was done cleaning, and they were too… I wasn’t going to be the only one searching and scrubbing, the sun was out and we took the bikes out. We had to go back to the mall to recover the items he lost yesterday!! I called several stores and finally found the one that had his loot, so we were heading out to reclaim what was lost and to continue our search for the lost Apple.

On our search, we discovered where the Dutch girls lived and I rode up to them to apologize for my savages and to find out if they liked playing chase or not. One spoke English and the rest just Dutch. While we were chatting, a neighbor came out and helped translate. I explained our situation and introduced my beasts and hoped that the girls were having fun and didn’t feel threatened. All was well in the ‘hood and no worries. I then explained how my little monster lost his Apple while hunting and inquired if any of the beauties had perhaps picked it up. They had seen him tormenting them with it, taking their pictures like paparazzi, but did not see him drop it. I said my thanks and told them if they happened to find it while running around the village, that we would be most thankful for its return and well, if it didn’t show up again, hopefully next time he will listen to his mother and be nice to girls and leave his Apple at home!!

We went on our way, retracing his tracks and no luck. The one fenced off field where I would have to climb over a fence to go where they shouldn’t have been, I skipped since CJ said he’d already looked there 3 times and it was filled with weeds, sticks, overgrown bushes and detritus. Since the sun was out, I didn’t want to stop looking even though he swore he left it on my desk!! We kept searching and no luck. But the house is clean!!

I locked up our castle for the night, closed the curtains and was preparing dinner. We were still feeling quite upset over the loss and lessons learned the hard way and all that good stuff, when the doorbell rang. Two little angels were standing there with smiles on their faces and presented us with a shiny, dewy and cold gift. They had found the golden Apple in the fenced off field where they all had been playing, and they came by to rescue my little monster prince from his forlorn state of misery and sadness!

And all was good again. Charlie paid the beauties each 5 euros from his Christmas money to thank and reward them for his valuable lesson and for their kindness. They smiled and waved and ran off together excited by all the goodness!

Phew… Thank God they’re all going back to school tomorrow! It’s been a long 3 weeks off and we’re all ready to get back in a routine again!!

5Jan2013

Day 164: What We Like Best So Far

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We’re wrapping up winter vacation and have had a couple days close to home.
Today we were talking about what we like the most about living abroad.

We realized that there are several benefits and several costs, but we’re still ahead in terms of benefits.

I would have thought that what we liked most was having to do with travel and seeing Europe. But our responses were varied, and yes, that is a huge benefit but it wasn’t our top pick. What we like the most is the opportunity to be on this journey as a family and having more time together with less distractions. Jeff’s commute is shorter. The kids are all at one school with the same drop off and pick up times, so there is less time back and forth between locations. As for sports, they practice right at school, so there is no driving all over town at competing hours and there is no traffic between school and home. When one kid has practice and the others don’t, there is a comfortable building for the rest of us to stay in and chat with friends, buy a snack or coffee from the cafeteria, and/or go to the library to work on homework or read. Basically there is warmth and entertainment and ease. In the evenings, I am home more than I was back in California. I’m not out hosting Stella & Dot trunk shows, not attending PEO or PTA meetings, and our family is together for dinner most nights. The stores are all closed by 5 or 6, except for Thursday evenings, so there is never any errand to run at night. And even the grocery stores are closed by 7 or 8, so it forces you to be prepared. No late night Target runs!! All of this is HUGE, and I had no idea. I AM content.

Our living space feels larger here than in the US, probably because of the floor plan even though some rooms are smaller. Jeff has a dedicated office and each kid his own room. There are also three levels to the house which gives us room to spread out and not disrupt each other as easily. I think this makes a difference too, to our happiness quotient. Now if we only had a garage and bigger yard, it would be even better, but I guess we can’t have it all.

We are enjoying time together, and not just traveling, but the simple things like baking, cooking, eating, playing, riding bikes, exercising, and even doing chores together. We work together and play together and I’m really liking how this works, for now. I know it won’t last forever so I’m just soaking it all in and enjoying the moments the best I can (in between the tantrums, and bickering and loud noises that come with the territory!!). Again, it’s perfectly imperfect… And I like it. When does school start again?!?

Tonight the kids and I rode over to the mall on our bikes, in the dewy, wet, cold fog. We had to get a few things and Jeff needed the car to find a place to buy propane for our new hand-me-down grill!! Yay! We haven’t grilled in 5 months and boy have we missed it!! Thank you Kim and Jeff for sharing yours with us before you move off to Singapore!!

Our first night of grilling – now if I can learn what the cuts of meat are at the grocery store, we might even enjoy a Really good BBQ!

What do you like best so far? So far as what? That’s for you to ponder and decide…

4Jan2013

Day 163: Celebrating a Birth Week

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I think if you have a birthday on or near a holiday, that you should celebrate your birth week, heck maybe even your birth month instead of being gypped the one day to celebrate just you.

We were celebrating Juliana’s holiday birthday, but all the stores were closed on her day and all she wanted to do was go shopping on her special day. She wanted the waiter to sing happy birthday to her, but I don’t think they have that tradition in Portugal. She wanted to be with her friends, but they’re all on vacation too or living in another country.

So we’re just gonna help her to feel special by celebrating her all week and maybe throughout the rest of the month!

April helped the celebration last by sending her a birthday cake in a bag! Juliana has a tradition of baking with April for her birthday and Sydney’s birthday. So this year she sent us our favorite chocolate cake recipe, along with all the dry ingredients already measured out and all we had to do was add the wet stuff. Thanks, April! It tasted just like home!!

Tomorrow if I’m feeling better we’ll continue the party by shopping in Amsterdam.

Happy Birth Week, little miss sunshine!

4Jan2013

Day 162: Normal Life

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Coming home from vacation means work, especially laundry. I know its a good problem to have. The machine has been going all day as each load is half the size of a US machine and takes double the time to complete a cycle. You can do the math, but I just know I’m still not done!

Speaking of math, the boys also desperately needed haircuts and if you convert Euros to Dollars, it cost $75 for 2 boys haircuts!! WTH!!? But they sure look handsome!

We found a place to take our clothes in for dry cleaning today too, while at the mall. To launder a shirt in the States costs around $1.50. Here each shirt is 3.40€ which is about $4.50 each. And in the States, your cleaning is ready the next day. Jian told me it might be possible by Saturday, but most likely not until Monday. Hmm…

We sorted through our mail and discovered our road tax bill which is 300 euros for 3 months, which is equivalent to $395.55, which is double what we pay for the entire year for our old minivan in the States. I guess our taxes aren’t so bad after all.

We also got a note in the mail saying we had to go the post.nl office located in a store in our local mall to pick up a package that was attempted to be delivered while we were away. There aren’t typical post offices in the Netherlands like we have in the States, and the mail is delivered by people on bicycles. I guess they didn’t want to try and redeliver it again. The package was exciting to receive, and we disnt owe any money which made me happy!! It was a gift from Pat and Chuck, filled with homemade cookies, and our favorite snacks and treats. We were all excited to see American candy and chips! Thank you Pat and chuck for our gift from home.

Speaking of receiving packages, be sure to remove your name and address from any boxes you receive in case someone reuses your box and leaves it out as garbage near a garbage can when it’s not their trash day. We received a fine for 89 euros or $117 for littering when we didn’t litter!! WTH?!? We need to go in front of a (Dutch speaking) judge to fight it. How lucky are we?!?

One good thing in the mall is a convenient grocery store. We were able to restock and head home for dinner. The parking fee for parking in the garage was 6.50 euros for a couple hours, which is $8.50, which is quite pricey for a small town don’t you think? It’s not like Amsterdam, or San Francisco!! It’s like Sunnyvale or Thousand Oaks!!

Luckily I made a pot of turkey soup this morning from the turkey that we had in the freezer. I love soup – it’s such comfort food and made for an easy and healthy dinner when we came home. I needed some comforting after today!!

To relax tonight, Jeff and I rented and watched a movie on Apple TV, called Pitch Perfect, which was really well done and entertaining! It was sort of Glee like, which I enjoyed, just in case you’re looking for some entertainment too.

Goodnight!
– Adriana

2Jan2013

Day 161: Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig!

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It’s nice to be “home” again. I’m still wrapping my head around where home is. But today, home is in Amstelveen with my wee family. The kids were excited to receive free olliebollen at Schipol airport when we arrived tonight from these beautiful Dutch ladies.

It’s nice to have a place to come to with your own stuff, that’s familiar. But my home is also with my friends in Sunnyvale and with my family in Thousand Oaks, and really with my friends and family all around the world. I think home is where you feel loved and safe and cozy. It’s a sense of place and belonging. And it feels ok to be home in Amstelveen today.

We had a great, quick trip to Lisbon. The highlight for the kids was an indoor roller coaster at the Columbo shopping center today. Even though we’re interested in rushing around seeing the sites, trying new restaurants, and absorbing European culture and history, the kids were most interested in room service, the hotel pool and a cheesy roller coaster. Go figure. I was the same way though. My highlights as a kid included swimming and being in or near water wherever I could and hanging out with my cousins and friends and family. Not much has changed for me, I guess. Those are still my favorite ways to spend time. Along with exploring the Pride land!