Sense & Sensibility....

I know...
But I can explain.

We have a stack of old video's in our house, and yes, Sense & Sensibility is one of them. I once bought it for 5 euro's in a cheap store close to my work, but never watched it. It was more a nostalgia thing, I'd seen it once in the past on TV, knew it was a classic, liked the actors, so bought it. Many many many years later, we decided to ditch all our video's and buy back the good ones as DVD. To truely judge what is (still) good, we decided to watch them all.
Now I'm home, my little girl is in bed, I'm re-platting my hair and can only listen to music or.... continue with our video project.
I'd already been surprised by what was staying and what was going.
I parted with Bad Boys (till then in my top 5 films because of some really goodlooking scenes that unfortunately now adays doesn't so much as make my heart skip a beat) and found that The Rock truely is a classic and worth having on DVD.
The Golden Child was great to watch again but not nesseccerily to posses on DVD, and The Lion King has every right to join the DVD collection, but not for the price that you have to pay for it these days. (second hand about 60 euro's....)
So I truely didn't know what to expect. Well.... it's kind of a Golden Child story, in fact, Eddie and 'brother Numspa' are far more entertaining than Hugie in S&S. He's terrible! Unbearibly soft, and has none of the charm he has in Bridget Jones Diary, About a Boy or Music and Lyrics)Thank God for Alan Rickman, who I've been in love with ever since Robin Hood, right up to Harry Potter (including the video clip with the Texas-girl, not including him as Snape).

Anyway, I enjoyed it.... don't need to see it again.
I'm more of Clueless girl (that my sweet little-known-facts-expert girlfirend pointed out to me, is based on Emma).
That film has remained in my top 5 for about 13 years now. I've seen it a gazilion times, can almost quote every line and, it's linked to memories of hilarious sleepovers, and my vocabulary slash dresscode at 16. It even inspired me to put all my clothes in the computer and combine them to 'set outfits'.
I wish I could say I'm less neurottic these days...
At least my vocab improved...
Can't remember the last time I said 'whatever'...
Yet, everytime I use the word 'sporadically', I flash back to the movie...
Or everytime I hear 'All By Myself'
Or see Brittany Murphy in any film...
Or watch Legally Blond...
Or....
...

Dit moet eff in t nederlands

Ok,
Vandaag was een zware dag. D. had niet al te best geslapen, dus na t werk was ik kapot.
Toen moest ik m'n kleine nog bij oma halen, en t was voorbij d'r bed tijd, dus ze was erg overstuur toen ze m'n stem hoorde...
Was wel lief, zodra ze in d'r maxi zat (moest echt vechten om haar er in te krijgen) toen was ze ineens rustig... die wist meteen... ik ga naar huis!!
Thuis was ze dus ook weer relaxed. Ze is na haar ritueeltje rustig gaan slapen en heeft niet meer gejammert (de laatste tijd jammert ze nog even een poosje door voordat ze echt inslaap valt, en slaapt dan ook onrustig de rest van de nacht).
Toen ze in bed lag belde m'n mannetje even om te kijken hoe alles was gegaan, en lichte nog even uit dat America's Next Top Model op tv was.
Ik was net optijd voor t laatste stukje, en omdat de tv toch al aan was en ik nog moest eten besloot ik ook Project Runway te kijken.... en Janice Dick-nogwat- Agency, en pas bij Beauty And The Best realiseerde ik me dat ik geen tv hoefte te kijken (ik ben niet echt een Janice fan.... ik vind d'r een beetje eng), maar wilde wel wakker blijven tot m'n mannetje thuis zou komen.
Dus om 23:30 komt de lieverd binnen, we kletsen een beetje over de dag en nogwat, ik geef aan dat ik toch echt ga slapen want ik ben zo gaar als wat... er valt zo'n duffe stilte omdat we beide moe zijn en ineens zegt ie:

"Die blonde lag er bijna uit he?"..........


Oh! Hij revereerde naar America's Next Top Model, een programma die hij totaal niet boeiend vind! T klonk zo raar uit zijn mond, omdat ie echt geboeid had zitten kijken (op z'n werk)...
Hij had er ook echt een mening over.... Hij vond die blonde echt stom, maar begreep Tyra wel met haar keuze.....

*stilte*
En toen schoot ik kei hard in de lach....

Toch leuk als je mannetje zich zo verdiept in je favoriete maar onzinnige tv programmas.
Wat wil een chicka nog meer ;-)

Lunch with my little bro...

My little bro came by the store yesterday at lunchtime, so we grabbed a bite to eat at V&D.
It was great talking to him cause we don't see each other much. He's busy with school & recording his second album with F, and I've been busy with D. He gave me a compliment/ advise though, that left me giddy all day.He said I pull away too fast (in general) for fear of critisizm, and I needed to get over that cause it was my only flaw...... GRIN!!!!

Naturally, I focused on the word 'only' instead of 'flaw', and was, as I said, giddy for the longest.
But the message was clear....It gave me something to think about...

I've got a great brother.... :)

Blown away...

A friend of mine sent me a card with Christmas.
She is about 6 months older than my little brother, and I’ve known her since she was very young. She was part of a singing group I set up in my late teens, she was a member of the youth group in our church when I was leader, and when I left, we stayed in touch.

She’s a scatterbrain of sorts, with her own timing to life and always busy with her personal(ity) development. Once in a while we meet up, talk for hours and hours and then go about our own lives again. She has a beautiful, creative and unique personality, that she's 'growing into', and I love talking to her, cause she speaks as she thinks and that leaves no space for pretence or ego.

As I said, she sent me a card with Christmas, wishing me and my family the best for 2009 and then she added something along the lines of: “I hope I won’t blow you away with this, but I really see you as “A Master of Life Art” (een Levenskunst Meester)
At all the important moments in her life, I had been there to help her through them…

……

Needless to say she blew me away….

The compliment was so big, that it had me off balance for the longest.
How do you deal with such a beautiful statement.
In flashes I feared that she’d greatly misjudged me and expected something from me as a person that I could not live up to. I went down the mental lane of…. I Haven’t Done Anything! We’ve had great conversations about all kind of aspects of life, it felt good to know each other, but ‘Levenskunst Meester’…. Pfffff…. All we do is talk!!
In a way Ialmost feel ashamed to write about it, cause it meant so much to me…. but feels so BIG.
I’m all for complimenting people, but this….. was just a little too BIG to just gracefully accept and say: ‘Thank you darling, you’re too kind.’
You know?

On the other hand, I was very passionate about that youth group and their development when I was their leader. Even though the age difference was no bigger than a few years, they kinda felt like my kids, and I put a lot of energy into our time together.

So when you get that kind of feedback, I guess you really should just smile, give the darling a big hug and thank her…. If you’ve made such a difference in someone’s life, and they see you that way, It’s only beautiful, even if it is a bit overwhelming…

zo moeder, zo dochter....

Every once in a while at a family gathering, we go down memorylane...
A family member is chosen, usually due to a comment they make that serves as a trigger, and every crazy, stupid, cute and funny thing about them is called back to life.

Thanks to these 'get togethers' I remember that my first songs were based on the theme of "Mariannetje zo zwart als roet" ( I just googled that... it's "Moriaantje zo zwart als roet" it's a very short song, but my version had a gazillion verses... I could spend my sundays trotting through the house making up verse after verse after verse after verse and driving my sisters MAD) and the tune of the 'Bounty' advert that was on TV at that time...possibly in the days of 'Sky Channel.... (remember Sky Channel????) all I know is, it sterted with "When I look into your eyes, I can see Paradise...." after those 2 lines I was offf... making up al kinds of sentences that I felt fit with the song. And as with "Moriaantje" every time I sang it, the story would be different.

Round about those same years, my sisters and I would make up stories at night before going to bed. The eldest one would begin, and tell a really exciting one, then the second would follow, and then they'd brace themselves for my story.
They tried to listen for about 5 minutes max. then they'd be asleep. This wasn't because my sisters were extremily cruel and didn't want to hear my adventures, but because my stories (as my songs) went on FOREVER.... all glued together with the phrase "En Toen..." which I used very very often, hoping this would keep the story interesting..... it didn't...

Terribly sidetracked... the reason I brought this up, is because even before I could talk and make up songs, I was forever humming. All day, everyday I would hummmm....
And, last night, I heared my little girl hummmmm... for the first time.
*smile*

so how do you like being a mother, then? :-)

Easier to reply here as my answer was getting longer and longer....

It's life defining..., It's like the biggest project I've ever started, and every second is thrilling.
It's challenging, in many ways. Giving people space to take a part in her life for instance isn't easy at first. You have an opinion about, well... everything that happens around her.
The first few days I had to stay in the hospital, and was surrounded by nurses and other moms, and I had little privacy to settle into my new family.
Ed was only aloud to be there at visiting hours (we broke that rule almost immediately) and even though there were lots of people there, checking if you ate well or changing your baby's diper, not much was really explained, the nurses were always busy, so I felt very lost.
They did have time however to open my curtains ever so often, so I could 'mingle', and comment on how chubby & big our little girl was....
With all the eating disorder in our world, and the gazillion people with some form of a physical complex, the last thing I want is for people to go on about the chubbiness of our new born.
However, as it happened regularly, I had to get over it, so I did.
As I had to get over a nurse arguing with a mother in our room while holding my daughter.
As I had to get over the ever famous comment: "Let her cry a little, it's good for her".
People will always have advise, and I will always listen & even give things a try, cause I don't know everything, & people mean well, but it's not always easy.
Now that she spends lots of time with family and at the creche, you have to let go, and be less of a control freak. Trust that people know what they are doing, and that if something is done different to your own ideas, that it won't cause everlasting scars, and if it does, then that's ok.
As much as I want to protect our daughter from any form of unnesseccery discomfort, she's gonna experience a few, some by my own doing, even if unintentional... and that thougth (stupid as it may sound) is tough.
Thank goodness I seldom dwell on these thoughts, most of the time I am enjoying her smile (she smiles a lot) or her new sounds (she was hocked on "huuuuuurrrrrrrrrr" for a while, but now everything starts with a 'bff' or 'pff' accompanied by lots of drooling), or the changes in her face.
The hide and seek she likes to play with one parent, while in the arms of the other, her long conversations with 'whom ever will listen' in the dark while the rest of SweetLake is sleeping.
Or the warmth I feel when I simple hold her close...
She's beautiful....

I'm Back!!!!!!!!

I'm afraid I'll never be frequent, but....

It's a new dawn, It's a new day, It's a new year.....

So I'll try.

I HAVE THE COOLEST DAUGHTER ON EARTH....

Yes, I'm the typical mom, my daughter is the cutest, sweetest most adorable little angel ever...
Chances are, all I'll write about is her LOL.

But yes... I'm back at work, so in my break I have time to blog....
And so far I love being back... however, leaving the house for the first time after D was born was the weirdest. I truely felt like the world had changed. Everyone was odd. And manouvering among 'the living' with a buggy in front of me was scary! Certainly if she'd start to whine.

I'm over that now. I'd love to say that everything is back in balance, but it isn't.
Nothing is more comfronting to your character and life style than having a kid.
It starts when you're pregnant... you change!
I look back at my last blog & think... Who Was That???
The crunchy sound of sand makes you want to eat it????.............. Right......
So most of that is back to normal. I'm back to my old size (with a slightly bigger belly). I have no longings for sand, salt or Rennie for that matter, but one thing stuck....
I still speak my mind.... Frequently.... That little bit of subtleness I was hoping to get back after pregnance has evaporated. I'm not rude, in fact I'm still very polite, but, its more like 'when something buggs me, someone's going to hear about it'...
Life is too short to keep it all in, and some people just take too many liberties.
(b.t.w. this computer has no spelling check on it, so forgive me if you find a gazillion mistakes)

Funnily enough while I was being blunt and quarrelsome during my 9 months, lots of friends and family pointed out that they actually liked this version more.... It was more, well ballanced.
However, I still feel far from ballanced.
It's like you are forced to be 'more real' and closer to your feelings when you have a kid.
I had forgotten how riggid I could be, or how emotional ... I'd tucked al that away, but I'm so passionate about my kid that I've become more passionate about my life, myself & everybody else. You become very protective of your 'happy home', your kid, your man, & yourself.
I don't know to what degree that effects my surroundings, but another thing I've got is: It's ok.
No need to stress or worry about those things....
I guess some of my hubby's 'Leo'-ness is rubbing off... He worries very little about the thoughts of people around him, and yet he's the sweetest guy I know. So not worrying about those things doesn't nesseccerily make you 'less of a beautiful person' it just makes you more human & more real.

Oeh... breaks over, gotta go...