This theme is awesome and I really must give a big shout out to Michael over at Solostream.com for helping me out along the way!  He did a fantastic job on creating this theme and is super quick getting back to you for support.

Now that I have everything fixed, the upkeep should be a lot easier.  My old theme was nice but it was getting a bit outdated and required me changing things in the code whenever I wanted to add something new.  This theme is new and fresh and has soooo many things integrated with it.

So now I can get back to blogging about regular crap again!

Today two of my favorite people in the world are celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary… my parents!

This photo was taken three years before I was born when my parents were almost 10 years younger than I am now.

I envy them because of all the people I know I’m one of the few who’s parents are still together.   Like mine, their marriage has not always been perfect but they stuck together and conquered everything that came their way.

I love them both more than I could ever explain here and

wish so much that I could be there with them today to celebrate.   I will have to take comfort in the fact that I will see them in less than 2 months!

I think no matter what age you are it’s always difficult to imagine your parents when they were younger.  I remember my father when he was 40, but I can’t imagine what he would have been like when he was 17.   I remember mother when she was 35, but I can’t imagine what she was like at 25 when she was a new mother.

I think if I could ever have a super power it would be time travel… and I’d go back in time to meet my parents before they knew me.

If things look weird around here at some point or my site isn’t working.  It’s just cuz I screwed something up!  No need to worry! :P

I was speaking with the lady who kept Salem yesterday and he is doing wonderfully on his own as well.   Who would have guessed it?   Here I was for over 10 years trying to keep the cats together thinking they were besties, when really they kind of hated each other I think.  I’m glad Salem is doing so well and from what she was telling me they are lavishing attention on him, which I’m sure he loves!

Anyhow, I took some photos of Spencer the other day and my friend Melissa left comments on Facebook of what she thought Spencer might be thinking in them.   It was pretty funny so I’m going to show you the pics and the commentary.   She may very well be right!

YOU STILL LOVE ME MORE THAN THE DOG, RIGHT?

YOU BETTER LOVE ME MORE THAN THE DOG.

OK… SHAKE ON IT… YOU LOVE ME MORE THAN THE DOG.

I think she has Spencer nailed, because in his mind he IS the center of the universe and should be loved above and beyond all others.

I don’t mind though.  Since having him back he is quiet and happy and leaves all my crap alone.   I think this is what other people talk about when they talk about how much they love having a cat… A CAT, not two, which is where I went wrong I think.

One thing we’ll never question again is if he loves us.  He’s proven that I think!

This is what the living room looked like when we moved in 8 years ago.   It doesn’t LOOK as bad as it actually was.   We had gotten the sofa and chairs from a 2nd hand shop for about 150 guilders and they were really not that nice.   All we had to put anything on was this massive Lundia unit my husband had with him at collage, that he had since he was a child.   Now, Lundia is great quality but it just looked messy and bleh to me, I hated it.

In early 2002 we invested in some new sofas.   We got them on the cheap at a local shop called Leen Bakker (kinda like K-Mart or Zellers-ish).   We got one even cheaper because it was a floor model and the color had faded on the back because of the store lighting.

I also talked hubby into cutting down on the amount of Lundia and used it just for a TV stand.

If only we’d invested in a better camera at the time!  That was taken with one of the first digital cameras we had.  I think it was 1 megapixel.

By 2004 we had banished most of the Lundia out of the living room and invested in a new TV cabinet and matching end table (later a matching coffee table followed when I got sick of this one and the junk that accumulated on the lower shelf).    We also put some cheap carpet in, which was a very bad idea with 2 cats and a dog.  After a few years, regardless of how much it was vacuumed, the carpet was stained and filthy.   It also molded to show the shape of the tiles below as we were new to the carpet thing and that put it in for us didn’t advise us to put something under it.

The pink trim on everything and the horrid pink zigzag border was driving me crazy at this point too.

By 2006 our sofas were permanently covered.   The fabric was one of those rough woven kinds of fabrics that the hair stuck in and refused to come out, and I’d washed the pillow covers so many times trying that they were starting to pill quite badly and were changing color.  The carpet was also removed.

The pink trim was gone by this point and the walls had been de-papered and repainted.  It’s hard to see in these photos though.  At this stage I was beginning to get really sick of the sofas (and the cats) and I hated the cheap, shiney, plastic vertical blinds we had in the window.  If you even touched them they’d break and fall off.

We’d also had a bigger flat screen TV that was given to us as a gift from my parents for x-mas the previous year.

The only time I would ever really be happy with our living room was at Christmas.  Especially this past x-mas (2007) when we got a lovely new fireplace.   Even though I was still hating on the sofas (which look pretty good in the photo actually, but weren’t so nice in person) and those blinds.   Everything looks better at Christmas though, doesn’t it?

So that brings us to present day, August 2008.   We’ve since gotten rid of the sofas.  We tried to sell them, tried to give them to a 2nd hand place and ended up giving them away to some random person.   Can you believe a 2nd hand shop turned down the sofas cuz of some minor cat scratching?!   Even the Salvation Army wouldn’t come for them.   Seriously, how fussy can all these poor people be?  Anyway, getting off track…

We bought a new sofa from Ikea, which was one of their showroom models.  It was in AWESOME shape, like new really, and we got over 200 euros off.  We then bought a new chair and footstool to match.

There was only one problem, once we got it all home, it just didn’t fit with the other things we had in the house.

The shape of the sofa was entirely different to what we had previously and when we got home our big coffee table just didn’t fit it properly.  Also, the sofa was much longer than the other ones we had, so it wasn’t as easy to negotiate it into our living room as the other ones had been.

We were also trying to create some more space in the house, which was starting to become crowded.   I guess this is natural after having lived here for 8 years and accumulating things, and I’m sure my big turtle tanks don’t help.

This is when we decided to just change the living room completely.  New furniture, new coffee table and a new plasma TV!  We decided on the new TV so that it could be flat against a wall and we could take away the large TV cabinet.   It was really big and took up more space than we wanted our TV to take up now.     So we are retiring our wooden living room set into our storage room in case we want it in the future if we get a bigger house.

This is what our living room looks like now…

Our plama is currently sitting on our fireplace until we are 100% sure exactly where it will sit on that wall, then we will have it mounted.  The DVD player will then go onto our fireplace and I can move that little wooden dresser (which is Xander’s ‘tool box’).  Our turtle hatchling tank fits in nicely as well.   I’ve not put up any thing on the walls yet, except the cross stitch that was already there.  No point when we may be moving things slightly once the TV is mounted.

We put up new blinds which can keep the peeping eyes out from the old folks high rise across the road and new curtains to to match the dining room and keep the sun out.  Not that that’s been needed much this summer.

So, overall we are pleased with how the room is coming along.   We’ll probably change a few things here and there (like maybe some kind of little rug for under the coffee table) but otherwise this will do us for quite some time.

This is my favorite bit.  The best part of the whole living room makeover.  My little corner.

A comfy chair with a place to put my feet up and work on my cross stitches or quilts.  My laptop right next to me so I can keep track of whatever I’m downloading, chat with friends and wait for my mom to come online while she’s at work.

It’s important I think, to have your own special place in your home where you are comfortable and can do the things you enjoy.   This is mine.

My husband has one too, in our spare room with his huge table and all of his robot stuff where he can be as messy as he wants!

Ok that’s a lie, I still harp on him to tidy it up every now and then.   I can’t help it, it’s the wife in me… it’s like asking the wind not to blow.

The problem isn’t just that I get bitten by them, it’s that I get bitten by them and have serious reactions.  Other people get these little white bumps, look what I get!

Yeah, SO not fun.  My arm isn’t totally misshapen by the way, I just had to twist it weird to show the bite.   There are more but I can’t be bothered to take pics of them all.  Plus, I’m sure this drives the point home.

My husband thinks something else is biting me but I refuse to consider it because the first thing that comes to mind is spiders in my bed, and that makes me freak right the hell out.

It’s mosquitoes, I know it is.  I see them flittering about my house.   The other night one landed on my book while I was reading in bed and I slammed the book shut so hard I startled the dog.  I killed the bastard though!

I had a look online to see if there was any information what the world would be like without them.  Surprisingly, there hasn’t been a lot of research into this topic, which I find ridiculous.  First they should study what happens if we wipe them off the planet, then… if it’s nothing bad, they should start hatching a plan to do so!

Anyhow, this is one of the answers I found to the question:

…  The situation with mosquitoes is less clear. Most people think only of the negative impact mosquitoes have through vectoring diseases of humans and animals - did you know that creatures as diverse as frogs, lizards, and birds have their own versions of mosquito-borne malaria? However, mosquitoes, both as larvae and adults, can serve as a food source for a variety of animals from birds and bats to other arthropods and birds, but none of these predators that I know of are dependent on mosquitoes as a food source. Also, both male and female (but mostly male) mosquitoes can pollinate some plants, but with the possible exception of some small bog orchids (see http://www.borealforest.org/herbs/herb28.htm), I am unaware of any plant species that are dependent on mosquitoes for pollination. A world without mosquitoes therefor would not appear much different than what we see today. In my opinion, the biggest likely difference would be an  increase in human and other mammal populations in areas currently ‘off limits’ because of mosquito-borne diseases.

AHA!  Written proof that the world would be a better place without mosquitoes.  Err… or maybe not.  I don’t know if a larger population would make for a better earth, but for the sake of proving my point, lets just say that it is.

Well I’ve been working on the quilt sampler cross stitch I mentioned a little while ago and I think it’s coming along pretty well.   The pattern called for it to be stitched across 2 stitches but I couldn’t be arsed, I just did it normally.   It’s still coming out nicely anyway.

I have to admit, it’s not as fun to do as other cross stitches I’ve done.  With previous ones it was fun to watch a picture come out of my work, with this it’s more just about shapes and figures.   It’s still an interesting change though.

There are 16 squares so it’s still going to take a little while to complete, but not nearly as long as I thought it would at first.

I’ll have to see it when it’s finished before I decide if I’m going to have it framed or try to do it myself.  It will depend on how much I like it.

If Rex is ever up for eviction in Big Brother UK, VOTE HIS ASS OUT!!!  OMG, I don’t remember the last time I ever saw someone on TV, fictional or reality, that I despise as much as this man.

Is anyone else watching this season?  I want to climb through my screen and poke his eyes out with my fingers.   I hate his face, I hate his voice, and most of all I hate his attitude.   I’ve never seen a man who is so unattractive that thinks he is drop dead gorgeous and all women on the planet should worship him.

He’s constantly letting other people in the house know his opinion of them, as if anyone really cares.   That is, when he’s not bragging about his money, girlfriend (who has just joined him in the house, that’s a whole other story) or his restaurants.

Check out his audition tape:

I really should have a video blog, because if I did, you’d see me wretching right now.

The thing that irritates me most about him is that he always targets the weak people in the house, especially Rachel who is a meek and mild kind of girl.

Here he is in action with Rachel:

There are much worse cases but I can’t seem to find videos of them.   He really ruins this season of BBUK, for me at least.

I do have to wonder what he thought when Rachel got her video from home and her boyfriend was twice as big and twice as HOT as him! haha  Talk about silent revenge!

Pleeeeaase vote him out, PLEASE!

I’ve always been chubby to some extent but I’ve always loved being out swimming, doing things with my friends and just generally being active.   I loved the sun, I would lay in it for hours, spend every day I possibly could at the beach.   Here in the Netherlands, what do I do?  Stay inside with the blinds down and the fan on.

Ok yes, I had gained some weight since moving here but could it have made that much of a difference??  I’ve always wondered why suddenly I couldn’t move in the summer without sweating buckets.   That the things I used to do and love in Canada now were a total misery because I had sweat trickling down my back.

Once I went to France and experienced the heat there, I realized what a dry heat actually is an that Holland is indeed just one big sweaty armpit of a country.  It wasn’t all about me and my fat afterall!

So now here we are and it’s almost 7am and still pretty much dark outside because the sun is nowhere to be seen.   It’s summer and I have to get up and turn my lights on.  I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about this because we have only a few weeks left of summer, but when it is hot it’s wet and I don’t like that either.

It has rained almost the entire month of July, and the days it was sunny there was like 88% humidity, who wants to go out and do anything in that.   Also, it was never consistently sunny.   The day may have started out sunny but ended in rain, or started in rain and ended up sunny.  Either way, we were never really able to make plans to go to the beach and keep them.

I really don’t think I’m going to see the beach this year, which sucks… because it’s the only time I’m happy in the summer in the Netherlands because there may be sun and sweat, but there’s also coooool refreshing water for me to dunk myself in.

Oh, and another little bitch about the rain.   We decided to get a puppy before my parents come in October because we didn’t want to be going out walking the dog 100 times a day in the winter.  We wanted time to get the pup and get her housebroken before my parents arrived.

Have you EVER tried to housebreak a puppy when it rains every day?   She tries to fold herself up origami-style in any dry spot she can find and the walks are more like drag and whines.  Not pleasant.   I can’t poop when I’m distressed either!

It’s definitely making an already difficult task much worse.

Screw you Dutch weather.  SKA-REW you!

I dreamed, yet again, that I was back in Canada.  I was in my hometown, driving around seeing and doing all the things I miss.   It’s all in bits and pieces now but some of the things I remember are:

A lot of dogs playing on the corner near my parents house and thinking to myself how there is no way I could let Bailey loose in that crowd.

Meeting up with some people who had a Dachshund that was sneezing it’s head off and them laughing about Teckel Syndrome which was a relief because sometimes Pixel sneezes a lot and I thought there was something wrong with her, but it turned out to be just the breed!

I stopped in front of a donut shop to wander around and see people.  It was across from a grocery store.  People I knew from high school were just randomly walking in the street and I’d be yelling ‘Hey!!’ and going up to them to catch up.  It felt great to chat with people in the street.

I saw my mother coming out of the grocery store so I ran over and we chatted for a minute and decided to go home.  I told her I’d meet her there because I had my car.   When I went back to my car, it was really low and the door was oddly shaped.  I couldn’t fit myself through it.   I was really embarrassed because I was twisting and turning myself trying to get in, like the door of the car and I were block puzzle pieces that I couldn’t fit together.   When I finally got in, I couldn’t get the car to move.   Then I realized the front left tire was gone… that ALL the tires were gone.

I stood in front of the donut shop and got out my mobile phone.   I started dialing my parents 001 – 902 – ***  etc and part way through a recording kept coming on telling me to try the number again.   I kept using the number I use from here in the Netherlands, which obviously wouldn’t work locally… but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to dial locally anymore.  So my phone was useless.

I started looking around for all my friends that were in the street just a minute ago, and there was nobody there.

I picked my phone up again to call Xander, then I thought… OMG, XANDER!!  Suddenly I couldn’t even remember the last time we spoke.   Had it been days, weeks?  Why hadn’t he called me during that time?  Had he forgotten about me?  I was there alone, without him and I was panicking.    For whatever reason I was unable to call him, unable to reach him at all and this sadness washed over me.

I woke up then and it took me a minute to realize where I was.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be in Holland… and when I heard him yell good morning from his office when I stepped out of the bedroom, I almost broke into tears.

I have dreams like this quite often.  Where I am in Canada enjoying myself and doing things and seeing people I’ve been missing, and then suddenly realizing it’s been days or weeks since Xander and I had spoken.   Then I get into a big panic, as though we’d split up and I just forgot about it was unaware of it, and I want nothing more on earth than to be near him again.

It freaks me out.