Let's talk about

all the good things and the bad things.. anyone?

OK, so at 5.26 this morning T. said happily; hi mom, can i go watch tv.

That's what you get when you turn back the clock.
Did i hear correctly that they are not doing that this year in the States?
Why?
Is it not attributing enough to make up for all those alarms, microwaves, cellphones and so on to be turned back today?

And there is ALWAYS a moment when you don't know wether you are living the right time or yesterday's time. Honey are you sure that clock has the right time?

Anyway, i went into town yesterday afternoon to get M. and C. some rain/autumnproof shoes.
M. has gotten a sporty type with laces (and showing off he can tie those himself). He thinks they are the coolest (vet-cool-lauw). When i said he had to walk a bit thru the store the grin on his face was almost too much.
Outside he sometimes made a funny jump or ran for 10 mtrs and then said
Wow, look what these shoes make me do.

When we got home, his brother said they were so-so

But only when he saw the McD.balloon and realized we visited his oldtime favorite restaurant without him.

Anyway the baddest thing:
R. has spoken to the director of the company he applied with (been there 6 times now, isn't life crazy, CRAZY) and apparently the guy he was supposed to hear from last week and whom he would go to Brussels to with (huh??), is also speaking to 2 other candidates now.
Shit.
This means they postponed everything till mid November.

Peer Pressure

Liberal and modern as I am (modest as well) i registered M. for ballet.

I was told lessons (to be given by the school) would start after the Autumn holiday and asked him several times this week if his teacher hadnot mentioned anything about it.
Last night he came out of bed having a pain here, and a this there, in short moaning and whining about nothing.
At least that's what i think at 4 in the morning.

At breakfast he handed me a note which said that those registered for ballet lessons were expected this afternoon in the gym.
Just on our way out he asked me what this ballet was all about and if he really had to go.
Why i said.
Well, tears breaking out of his eyes, yesterday the teacher had handed out the notes in class and apparantly mentioned it had to do with ballet and everyone had laughed at him.

Oh boy, here go my Billy Elliot aspirations.

Don't let it get to you i say. These boys don't know what it means. Ballet boys are very strong coz they have to lift these girls and your class mates don't know anything about this.
I see in his eyes that he wants to believe me but i feel rotten.

Later that morning R. goes over to school to delete the whole thing.
And gets the biggest hug of his thankfull son.

My voice test

Remember I spoke about the volunteer job couple of days ago for which I had to undergo severe tests?

I took those today.

After having spoken to a woman who would be my "tester" I was led to a small studio with a huge microphone (of the sort I see in videoclips) and her at the other side of the glass.
By the time I had stated my name, address and the date, my voice was too nervous to joke about and I spoke as if being hunted by a hurricane. What made things worse was that just before I went over, I looked at their website to find the way to get there. And then I read that several actors and newsreaders are among their volunteers.
Shit.
And here I was, secretly thinking I would be brilliant and was going to do commercials and Disney films.
Hahaha.

She said to slow down and when I realized I had nothing to lose, things went better. I paused at the comma's and even got so carried away I found myself lifting my hands to exclaim things and laughing about something I said myself.
OMG.
I made a total fool of myself.

Halfway the 2nd text the director came over to listen. She said afterwards they were having trouble with the equipment but when I asked if I had to do it again, she said they would manage.
Sure honey I get your message.

So I went along with Goethe (in German ofcourse) with a very small English txt and then ended up with a French poem.
She came back to me then with a text I couldn't have prepared (for the better probably coz it made me slow down even more) and that was it.

I am to hear from them in the next couple of weeks.
Want to bet on their answer?

M and T in the showers

Shitter de shit shit

For the past 10 days I have been shooting pictures like crazy or for the good cause of the photography course.
And what happens yesterday; i have 2 interview scheduled at a clients; 1 at 15.30 and 1 at 16.00. The guy that should be there at 4 shows up at 4.45 and we leave the clients'office at 17.30.
You're right.
That's usually the time i am at the course, but OK, if I just step on it, I may be there during the break and will be able to follow the last half.
But..
Autumn has broken into this little country and as if we have never witnessed this before, trains have massive delays because of some leaves on their rails and huge traffic jams arise coz it rains and storms.
Duh !!
These are the Netherlands !!
So at 19.00 I kick the candidate out of my car at the central station and head home.

This is one of the pictures I wanted to have judged. I took it some weeks ago when we were still traveling from Den Haag to Rotterdam every morning.

Speaking of The Hague. R. went over to my sisters house with the mother of my sister's husband (aka the mother of my brother-in-law, aka the grandmother of my niece and nephews/or cousins-> never can tell that one)-taking a deep breath here

to pick up some stuff and see if any damage was done because of the heavy rain. And ended up hanging outside the window at the attic with a stick to poke into all the leaves and M.'s mother holding him down and hanging at his waist. I almost wet myself imaging this. M.'s mother is almost 80, has had her arm and hip broken, in short is a very sweet but also fragile old lady and R. is a healthy, 80 kilo weighing man.

Something else I laughed about:

while R. was wiping T.'s bottom yesterday he looked up at him and asks; daddy what does a pensioengat mean? Sorry. Told you so. Have to learn some Dutch first.

The outcome

Well, today we had "another" final meeting with the expert.

Comes down to the fact that again, they cannot find an explanation other than the fire is lit.

I don´t know what to think of it. On the one hand i can understand they didn´t find anything and therefor are left with a blank. They seem to have tested everything and besides, it´s their job and not mine.
But to fill that blank with an accusation of one of us having set the house on fire is still too much.

He´s going to send his rapport to the insurance company next week (when i asked why it couldn´t be done this week, after all it´s only monday today, he came with some weary story about the report having to be checked by a technician, himself and someone from the office. I could only exchange what I hoped was a 'so what? look)
But this means we can only get an official answer by the end of next week from the insurance company.
Pff, i am so sick and tired of it.

On another level: after having updated my profile i get about a ton of indonesian and a couple of hundred of east~european and philippino girls applying for our aupair job.
We asked for an preferably native english speaking girl and apart from that, the Netherlands doesn´t issue visa for those countries, but that doesn´t seem to stop them. Bit annoying though when i get an email saying Jasmina has just added us to her hotlist and i find she´s a 37 yr old woman which simply doesn´t meet our wishes at all.
Luckily there are some girls that do.
I have to write something now about our beautiful angels here, haha, coz i gave them this webadress too.
I don´t know.
Whenever i see an add about precious and beautiful `angels´ the hairs on the back of my head begin to itch.

Yesterday afternoon i took the boys to the movies. Het Paard van Sinterklaas to be precise.
We bought a popcorn (which M. kicked over the minute he sat down, great) and a coke.
The funny thing is M. is much more scared than his `litte`brother. In between the commercials when the whole theater is absolutely dark, he squeezes my arm and there was even a moment (when Winky was to meet Sinterklaas) when he wanted to sit on my lap and hid his face on my shoulder.
And when Winky said `stomme rot Sinterklaas` even T. held his hand in front of his mouth with big eyes. How dare she say that!
It´s a great movie and especially because it deals with something so Dutch from the eyes of a little China girl.

Looking for a new au pair

A. told us yesterday she would like to follow Joel home after he leaves for the States in december.

Although we had been thinking about that ourselves a couple of weeks ago it did come as a surprise, and especially so now that R. seems to have a job opportunity. (he read an article in which the director of one of the firms he applied with in February announced a big outsourcing deal. When he called him to congratulate him on the deal, they made him an offer. Nothing is final yet, but like i said it looks promising and we hope to have more news the coming weeks!)

All in all i think i can understand her wish and well...all good things must come to an end.

So.. i have updated my profile and will start looking again for someone to fill the gap till June/July next year.

You can book me

Woah!!

A while ago I read an add where they asked volunteers to read books for disabled ppl.
As I always enjoy reading to the kids, I thought what the heck and enquired.

Turns out you have to be tested in a professional studio for stembereik, stemkleur en klank.
I have received a brochure in which i have to choose 1 informative text and 1 "popular" one.
Besides that i have to read small German, French and English texts!
And to make matters worse; in the accompanying letter they said not to worry if you failed; only 10-20% of the ppl made it.

For a volunteering job!
I have never been tested this hard in my life.

Anyway, next Thursday I am going over there.
I did hesitate, but R. said; it'll make a funny blog (how did it come to this point where i am doing things for the mere use of blogging about it?)

God, i am nervous already.

Sint Juttemus

My sister and especially her husband are true believers of Saint Something.
Leave a comment here T. and give us his real name coz i forgot.

Whenever you're in trouble, you tell Saint S. to make a donation of a certain amount and give that to a worthy goal (worthy according to yourself, so that's an easy one) and give that no matter the outcome. This Saint doesn't do no cure no pay.

With things going the way they are going I made a deal.
25 € for a job for R. and another 100 € for a quick and positive resolution of this whole insurance mess.

And for starters, he's got another interview tomorrow morning at 11.00
Needless to say, Saint S. has found himself another believer.
HA!

Although officially today is C.'s birthday

we celebrated it yesterday coz i have to work.
Kids all have holiday and R. is free ofcourse but yesterday was the day of the cakes (home made, mainly because of the dough!!) and presents.
C. made my grandpa's (91 yrs) day coz after dinner she wanted to sit on his lap.
He's shaking a lot and T. who sat beside him at the dinner table, suggested another way to hold his fork to prevent that!
They can wear you out sometimes, but in general they are really very very sweet.

Caroline

My little girl is turning 3 in a couple of days.

Our own little devils

Last night the kids had an exhibition at school which followed the theme of the childrens book week ; Magic

For the past 2 weeks, they had been drawing and making bats, spiders, witches, magical poisons and so on. A magician had come to school to do some tricks (T. had been allowed to help out and he was so very proud of that) and every day at a random time, the headmaster would ring the bell and the teachers had to drop whatever they were doing and read in the book they had chosen.

This theme did cause some stir on certain schools on the so-called Bible Belt cuz parents felt that children were drawn into a dark and mystical world that questioned the power/existence (i have no idea actually) of God.

And although i totally disagree with that i am using it as a bridge that proves we've got our own little devils at home.
The other night when the 3 of them were in the tub, they were making even more noise than usual and finally M. said he wanted to get out.
When i asked what all the rumour was about he laughed out loud and said T. had peed into a cup and thrown that over his sister!!!

C. was just wiping the wet hair out of her face when i asked; you mean like over her hair?
No just over her.
In her face?
No-oh, just over her body.
Hahaha.

The 3 of them looked broad-smiling up to me as if this was the best they had heard in a long time and T. really didn't understand why he had to think about what he had done in the hallway and was not allowed to see the Winx club

Update

After a couple of sleepless nights, where R. has been seriously thinking he may have gone crazy and set the place on fire, and i effectively have convinced him he had (gone crazy -lol-) we have asked the expert to re-open the investigation.
There are several things that have simply not been answered/looked into.

For instance, we had been smelling a strong petrol/gaz-like smell that whole evening and so had several of our neighbors and ppl we met in the cafe where we stayed after the fire.
What was that and how did it influence our situation?

R. had just finished painting our outdoor woodwork and couldn't those things have influenced anything (they were kept in the cellar too)?

The expert said although all of us declared we had heard a bang/explosion no evidence was found of this. But when R. went into the cellar the next morning he for instance saw the fridge totally out of place and simply blown away.

I hope the insurance company (who's paying for the investigation) is honoring our request and keep you posted.

Arson

I am too flabbergasted and down to really talk about it, but we've had a meeting with the fire-expert today.
As no cause for the fire can be found, their conclusion is the fire is set by someone in the house as the cellar can only be reached indoors.
As Joel was upstairs, the kids and i were (half) asleep, they suspect Robbert to have set the house on fire.

I know.
I laughed too.
At first.

But their minds are set.
It's just so shocking I am really blown away.

These past day i have taken my camera

with me almost everywhere i went.
Last Friday i had to be in Amersfoort at 9 to introduce a payroll administrator at DHL.
It had been very misty for days so along the way i couldn't take anything, but i was early and just went into some industry territory, got out of the car and did some shots of meadowy grass.
I have been practising with my diafragm (i hear about this in Dutch on the course, have German guidelines and now try to translate it into English, if there's somewhere out there who has a clue what i am trying to say; SPEAK UP) all week and i DO know now what putting the camera on the A program is doing for me, but i think it's more to do with speed than diafragm.

This is De Veerhaven in the mist and underneath are M. and R. today in the Zoo.

Can I have a blog too?

I've been to a seminar about e-recruitment today.
About the organisation as a brand, building a brand on and thru the web.
About jobsites and the importance of on- and offline recruitment.
About MSN and weblogging.

Today at the dinner table i say something about chatting and blogging and T. wants to know what chatting is.
You know, when you talk to someone on the computer and they write/talk back to you
Oh and what is blogging.
Then you write a little story on the computer.

Ok.
Can I have a blog too?

So, somewhere this weekend i think i am going to let him have his blog.

I really really wonder what he wants me to write but i am guessing most of it will be letters to his beloved Abel.
(this very morning he wanted to make sure i was going to get him a birthday party because he wanted to invite his best friend; Abel. And btw. when exactly were we going to Rumania again?
Sometimes it really sucks we don't have the money to go over there as much as i would like.
I'd love to see Sam for real and i know the kids would be delighted.
Nothing to be done though.
I am working my butt off to make sure we're getting some more clients and that will pay off in the end.
Won't it?

I'm getting the flu

I have been trying to fight it for a week, but it keeps getting back at me.

I want to sleep and have turned the heat up here at the office till 22 C so I guess in half an hr I will automatically.
But my hands are still frozen.
And my back hurts terribly.

T. said this morning he wanted to take a day off. Ha!
Actually as he is not 5 yet, he can, so next week we'll let him skip a day.
M. was not amused when he heard
"And i have to work ALL day from 8.45 till 3".

Oh if only i could be 6 again and someone would put my breakfast on the table, prepare my clothes, entertain me during a 6 hr workday, made me treats and lemonade, prepared my bath and read me a bedtime story.