I Love Your Blog

I came by this award the easy way. All I did was visit Debs at The Lehners In France and she was giving it away to her first 14 commenters, so I took advantage of that. It's not every day that I come by such a pretty award that easily and I did seize the moment. You can't blame me, can you? But now I am going to stick to the rules again and hand it out to 7 deserving people who I hope don't have this one yet and will be happy with it. So, here we go. I am giving this award to the following blogs:

• Big Blue Barn West
• Crystal Jigsaw
• Missing You Already
• Nuts in May
• Swearingmother
• For the Long Run
• Fairymix.com

There, I've been a good girl and done my duty and I hope I've made some of you happy with this little token of my appreciation. I'd give all of you a chocolate cake and a bunch of roses if I could, but distance prevents me from doing so. You'd be surprised if I showed up at your doorstep with those things in my hands, wouldn't you?

Now I've got another problem on my hands. I got one letter from the Tax Office saying I'm getting 4 months worth of rent subsidy, and one letter saying I am getting nothing at all. Of course, I called about it right away and the woman I got on the phone could not explain it, but she promised me that someone would call me back with an answer within three days time, between 9 and 11 AM. Today is the last day. If nobody has called me by 11 AM, I suppose I will be calling them and in the meantime, I am down to my last 2.31 Euros. Yes, I like to live dangerously, but I had in fact counted on the subsidy money already being in the bank. God forbid anything should go smoothly when it comes to my finances.

I am trying to remember what I did yesterday, but my mind comes up with a great big blank. I know I was very cold every time I went outside. We had no rain, but there was a cold wind blowing that made you shiver in your shoes. I am constantly wearing a scarf now when I go out and I think I want to start wearing a double layer of clothing. Today I am wearing thick socks and when I walked the Überhund just a while ago, I made it a short walk, because I thought it was too cold.

Every year you have to get used to the cold again and learn to dress for it and remember to wear enough clothes. It's really not so much the low temperature, as the wind that makes you cold. I remember the first year I was back in the Netherlands and it was January and it was cold and I was so miserable and thought it was the most awful place to be. Well, I came from California. We would stand at the bus stop, waiting for the darn bus to get there, and just curse the wind that blew at us across the empty fields. The only person who wasn't miserable was my son, who moved to Alaska some years later.

It is true though, that the cold seasons make you appreciate the springtime very much and you really do stand full of awe when everything turns green again and all sorts of stuff pops up out of the ground. This summer went by quickly, though, and we didn't have much of one. One day it was springtime and then it was Autumn again. It was over and done with in no time at all. We certainly tried to be optimistic by wearing our summer clothes, but very often we deceived ourselves and were under dressed.

Now, of course, some people are hoping for a cold winter so that the Eleven City Skating Tour can be held. Thousands of people participate in it, but it can only be held if all the canals and lakes are frozen over with a thick layer of ice. The Tour is 200 kilometers long and the last one was in 1997. I, for one, don't wish for a winter that cold, but I do remember kids skating on the pond where my sister and I walk the dogs. We also had a lot of snow then and all over the place there were snowmen in the gardens.

My father and I had the tradition that we would go for a walk in the first new snow of the winter and as it usually started to snow in the evening, we would be the first people to make footsteps in it and we always liked that very much. My father was a sledding and skating father. That's what he did with us in the wintertime when there was always snow and ice, it seems. Isn't it great that nobody can take your memories away from you? All by yourself you can cherish those, no matter what.

Ah, I'm reminiscing, I'm in that sort of mood. That won't get the dishes done and the laundry clean. I've got to snap out of that instantly, but it was nice while it lasted. Now I am going to do some useful things around here, because I don't remember doing many useful things yesterday. It is a lost day.

Have a good day, you all.

Ciao...