E-bay vendor of the year!

I don't know if he is, but he gets my vote!

Hello dear e-bay buyer,

This is to let you know that a big limo stopped in front of my humble apartment"today with in it the director-general of my bank branch. He personally wanted to deliver me a notification that payment for your e-bay auction has reached him.

Therefor.........

Your CD has been gently taken from our shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

After the candle was lit, twenty white doves were released, lead by a grey dove ( the grey signalizing a leading and marking of a safe transcendence from heaven to earth), after all, with out them, "Who knows where that parcel may end up with the great postal services of this world..."

And finally, (it was a hard search to find them, but we managed to find) seven virgins blessing the package with rose water to make sure nothing can go wrong on it's journey

Festivities are underway to mark this occasion including the unveiling of a new postage stamp and a new coin. Finger sandwiches and brown ale will be served. Top hats will be optional.

The bells of nearby St. David's clock tower will peal, on the hour, for 4 days...and the world shall hear the triumphal news proclaimed through the positive feedback left for you.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Apeldoorn waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our own private jet.

(But please be aware that this private jet sometimes has a will of his own and has been caught before when he tried to disguised himself as a padded envelope)....

Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but we also can't wait for you to come back to another great e-bay deal.

Needless to say that a positive feedback for fast response and honesty has been left for you. This will linger around a bit in the ebay cyberspace and will pop up the moment you let me know you're satisfied with the product by leaving me a nice feedback too.. Finally there has even been a message send to e-Bay and to all eBay community sites to vote you as "greatest e-Bayer ever".

Thank you once again,
Hopefully you'll enjoy this auction as much as I have done

Regards.... Eduard
(abeldoorn)

Lights out!

Sympathieke actie om op donderdag 1 februari van
19.55 tot 20.00 alle lichten uit te doen voor de
bewustwording rondom de klimaatverandering.

A good sympathetic action on Thursday 1st February
from 19:55 to 20:00 hours. Everybody will turn of
their lights to make everybody become aware of
climate change.

Op 1 februari doen we ALLE LICHTEN UIT van 19u55
tot 20.00u !
DRINGEND : actie tegen de klimaatsverandering.

Neem op 1 februari 2007 deel aan de grootste
mobilisatie van de burgers tegen de
klimaatsverandering ! Laat ons alle lichten doven,
zodat de (politieke) besluitvormers beseffen dat
er iets mis is.

L'Alliance pour la Planète (groepering van
milieuverenigingen) doet een oproep tot al de
burgers ; "gun de planeet 5 minuten rust" :
iedereen wordt verzocht alle lichten te doven op 1
februari as, van 19.55 hr tot 20.00 hr.

Het gaat er niet om enkel die dag gedurende 5
minuten energie te besparen, maar wel om de
aandacht van de burgers, de media en tevens de
politieke besluitvormers te vestigen op de
energieverspilling en  de noodzaak om dringend
iets te ondernemen !

Gedurende 5 minuutjes zal de planeet kunnen
uitrusten : dat duurt echt niet lang en het kost
niets. En het zal de politici en kandidaten voor
de parlementaire verkiezingen van juni 2007
duidelijk maken dat de
klimaatverandering een onderwerp uitmaakt dat
weegt in het politieke debat.

En waarom op 1 februari 2007? Omdat die dag in
Parijs het nieuwe rapport van de klimatologische
experten van de Verenigde Naties uitkomt. En dat
gebeurt bij onze buren; wij kunnen dus onmogelijk
deze kans laten voorbijgaan en moeten bijgevolg de
schijnwerpers richten op de dringende aard van 's
werelds klimatologische situatie.

Als we allen deelnemen zal deze actie werkelijk
een mediatieke én politieke invloed hebben, en dit
enkele maanden vóór de verkiezingen ! Laat dit
bericht zoveel mogelijk circuleren, stuur het
zoveel mogelijk door, ook naar lokale politici;
vermeld het in Newsletters, op je site....

Nerd

Yesss! I managed to actually put a new DVD recorder into my pc! ;-) And it works too! Is-a-nerd rules!!!

Anybody need two screws?....

Snow!

We've had the warmest winter in decades so far, but as I am watching out of the window right now: it is snowing!!!

Significant progress

Elise had twins over this afternoon and it went really well! They are not particularly the most quiet boys either. Wouldn't have survived it half a year ago (probably not even considered the possibility), but we actually invited them back! I call that significant progress :-D

Soeperdepoep!

"Soep bestaat hoofdzakelijk uit water en groenten en doet het heel goed in de voedingspiramide. Eén portie soep (250 ml) levert al 1/6de van de dagelijkse hoeveelheid vocht die we volgens voedingsdeskundigen zouden moeten opnemen, en bijna twee porties (150g) van de aanbevolen vijf porties fruit en groenten." Toch goed dat wij dagelijks soep eten!

uit: e-gezondheid e-newsletter N°391

Found day care!

Elise and Vincent will be going to a guest home close to our home as of the end of February! We get subsidized by Rob's employer and the government, so we can actually afford it too :-)

In de strijd tegen het gewicht:

'Slow' eten tegen overgewicht

De snelheid waarmee we onze maaltijden innemen heeft wellicht invloed op ons gewicht. Vandaar de belangstelling voor een nieuw onderzoek, uitgevoerd door K. Melanson (U. of Rhode Island, Kingston). Aan dertig vrijwilligers werd gevraagd op twee verschillende tijdstippen, nadat ze 's morgens een standaardontbijt (400 kcal) hadden ingenomen, een maaltijd te komen gebruiken. Het enige verschil tussen de maaltijden was de wijze waarop ze werden gegeten. Gevraagd werd één maaltijd vlug te verorberen met een grote eetlepel. De andere moest rustig ingenomen worden, met een kleine eetlepel die na iedere hap even op het bord werd gelegd. De uiteindelijke calorieaanbreng van de 'snelle' maaltijd (9 minuten) bedroeg 646 kcal, terwijl die voor de 'trage' maaltijd (29 minuten) 579 kcal bedroeg. Daarenboven gaven de deelnemers de slow-maaltijd in termen van eetgenoegens een hogere score. Omgerekend naar drie maaltijden per dag zou dit op een dagelijks calorisch verschil van zowat 200 kcal komen of 9kg op jaarbasis...

ENGLISH: the gist: eat your food slowly, it does make a difference in calory-intake, it could make a difference of 18 lbs per year!


uit: " HEALTH & FOOD " nummer 80, December 2006

Running water

I am sure the male part of this readership is familiar with the almost automatic reaction of a certain body part upon watching running water. Well, Vincent certainly is and recently we have had to wash the bath mat quite frequently and explain to Elise what was going on. Yesterday we had to wash the bath mat again. Elise explained: 'When girls watch running water, they have to pee!'

Too much ice cream

Despite all the anguish, we had a very nice weekend. Sunday we went swimming and Vincent added another skill: he jumped off the pool sidewall (a wall about his height above the water)! We all had fun gliding down the waterslides and jumping in and out of the water. In the afternoon we met up with Elise's favorite friends Micha and Bastiaan for Micha's birthday. We were invited to eat pancakes on the Pannenkoekenboot (pancake boat). Memorable words from Elise: the kid's ice cream was too big, they should only have one boule of ice cream!

Not alone....

[english version below]
AMSTERDAM - 12-01-2007 -
Een 44-jarige man heeft vrijdagmiddag op de A10 bij Amsterdam zeker vijf kilometer op de motorkap van een auto meegereden. Ter hoogte van het VU Medisch Centrum zag de man een auto met daarin een medewerker van Bureau Jeugdzorg.

Omdat de man problemen heeft met Bureau Jeugdzorg over zijn kind, wilde hij de medewerker graag spreken. Daarop verliet de man zijn eigen auto met nog draaiende motor en sprong op de motorkap van de auto met de medewerker, aldus een woordvoerster van de politie.

Pas kilometers later, vlak voor de Coentunnel, werd de auto klemgereden door politieauto's en kon de man van de motorkap worden afgehaald. De motorkaprijder en de twee inzittenden zijn niet gewondgeraakt. Alle drie worden ze door de politie gehoord. Over de identiteit van de inzittenden van de auto is niets bekendgemaakt.

English:
Last Friday a man travelled on the hood of a car for about 5k. The man had recognised the car as belonging to an employee of Youth (Foster) Care. Because he was having problems with Youth care, he wanted to speak to this employee about his kid and jumped on the hood. After several kilometers, the car was cornered by several police cars and the man could be taken off the hood. Neither of the man got hurt. Identities were not released.

Busy finding day care

We have decided to ditch Foster Care and place our children with reliable day care. So I've been busy because as far as I am concerned our children will remain with the Semeijn family for only as long as absolutely necessary. If they are this inflexible with Elise, no wonder they have a problem with her...!

Fun?! NOT!

I was gonna post something fun and direct you to www.wiihaveaproblem.com, but time caught up with me and now I am heavily frustrated from the 'evaluation' we just had with Foster Care. Rob and I definitely need to stop being so naive to think these people actually want to help us. Where we thought we were going to evaluate the past period and talk about continuing it, we were confronted with the fact that a) they had the future allready planned out without consulting us on any aspect of it (once again...), b) we actually have no choice in the matter - it's basically take it or leave it (no matter we offered about seven different alternatives... they didn't even think about ONE of them... *^&%!#@#$@$%@@!!! )and c) they are convinced they are doing the best for our children while STILL not understanding the fact that the health and happiness of our children is directly related to the health and happiness at the home front. If things at home don't work well, the kids won't do well. So don't tell me the option you are presenting and which doesn;t work for us at all, is the best you can do for the kids. IDIOTS! And *please* don't listen to the advice of the pediatrician and family therapist who has actually studied children's well being and has had a flourishing practice during, oh, only for about the past fourty years or so, noohooo, let's theorize and listen to the woman who has actually never even seeeen our kids and is a former teacher *&&%^$#%*(@*()*!!!!!! Let's listen to the laymen's view of the foster parents! Yeah, let's do that! They know best! After all, they did such a nice job raising their own children! Yoohoo! We obviously have absolutely NO clue about what is best for our kids....God, give me a gun! Please let me bomb the hell out of all the idiots of this world, starting with foster care... If anyone knows who is in charge of these idiot institutes, please tell me, so I can file a complaint. But first, we'll take our kids to private day care.

Elise speaks her mind

Rob brought me home a bottle of wine tonight. He puts it on the table and tells Elise: "It's for Mom." Elise proceeds to read the lable: "Only women are allowed to drink wine!"

Depression: (inter)national disease nr. 4

Last Saturday, the Volkskrant featured an article on depression: it now is national disease nr. 4 (measured in loss of healthy years or early death) and will soon become nr. 1 or 2. In the Netherlands alone, each year 350.000 people develop a depression. Four to five out of every twenty persons deal with a depression or some type of anxiety. We're not talking about your average winter dip either, but of a fullblown psychological disorder. A disorder that costs our society 2,9 billion Euro per year. Needless to say, several different pairs of eyes are now finally focussing on this 'phenomenon'.

By the way: contrary to popular belief, the disease is not a ' luxury' or western disease growing as economical development is progressing. In non-western cultures, depression will have climbed up to nr. 2 national disease by the year 2020. Without aids, it would be number one.

I hope the article helps take away (some of) the taboo surrounding the disease. It's time to open up our eyes and realise not only 'losers' get depressed.

Clean itchy news

got up this morning, scratched my head and a flee fel out.... probably from the (stray) cat I petted yesterday. We thought at first it might be head lice, so I looked at Elise's hair and Rob looked at my hair and.... darn it, we both have head lice... So another day of fun cleaning. Rob thought he was gonna get a nice peaceful day as I had planned to visit my grandmother for her birthday (96!) as well as a friend for her birthday (not 96...). But no, we did another early spring cleaning. Yeah! NOT!

E-bay

I'm quite the e-Bayer these days. I recently started using it and I am fascinated by all the tools and tricks they apply to make you by more and more. Marketing-wise it really works well! It certainly works on me ;-D I mostly buy girl's clothes for Elise and educational toys (although Marktplaats is much better for the latter) . Found out I can get new clothes for as litte as €1! So that's basically what I bid on - the last 15 minutes are the most nerve-racking: will anyone else bid?? will I get it for the one euro?? Yesssss, got it!! The rush!! Yes, I know: 'Get a life!!'....

Survived a week!

Survived a week of having the kids around ...! In stead of staying with their foster family every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (1), Elise and Vincent spent a week at home due to a short holiday of their foster family. While Rob helped out whenever he could and spent a few days extra at home, I still had a couple of days with them alone and this stretch of a week was a first. I am tired, fell in somewhat of a coma yesterday afternoon, but I survived!! This is what I call progress ;-)

(1) foster care can be given in several ways: 24 hrs a day for a long period, 24 hrs for a short period (crisis), only weekends, only holidays, a weekend a month or, as in our case, only during the day for a few days a week during a certain period of time (long or short).

Would've been nice....

Just watched a report on TV about pregnancy and psychological problems. Apparently two out of every ten women (!) deals with psychological problems during and around the time of being pregnant. The St. Lucas Hospital in Amsterdam has started a program POP (doll) to help women with and prevent from depression. Apparently it is absolutely no problem taken certain medicines (such as lithium) while pregnant. It would've been nice to have know that when I was pregnant. Allthough I also have to wonder how anyone would've known about my depression. I certainly didn't look for any help. Anyway, please don't get the idea I am all depressed about this now! :-) I'm just saying: it wouldve been nice to have known that. Glad for all those women out there now!! (And just for the record: mine is not a postpartum.)

Mammmaaaaa!

Vincent is currently progressing really well in the department of new and/or correctly used words. Whereas previously basically everything was 'kijk!'(look!), he now knows the sounds of dogs, ducks, cows and tigers and a few nouns. And he actually calls us - I am not so sure I am happy about that..... Mammmmaaaaaa!

Of course...

A Happy New Year to all of you!!!

May it bring all you wish for.

Our neighbours were the only ones to receive X-mas cards this year. (Better a good neighbour than a far friend, right?!) Thanks to all who send us cards - we really do appreciate it. I feel bad immediately for not sending you a card when I receive yours. Hope this makes up for it (a little).

Voorspoed (prosperity)

Toasted to the new year with Voorspoed champaign - while it didn't make us win the lottery (but then again, it was the last number for the past year... hmmmm), we are taking it as our starting point for this coming year. Up, up we go!!!!

First Post of the rest of my posts

Ok, having blogged for a while in Hyves (somehow not convenient enough for me) and having 'noted' on Skype (very convenient but notes needed to be too short for comfort) and - and this is basically the main reason - realising I don't *have* to post every day, I have decided to start a blog. For whatever it's worth. Think it will be some kind of diary blog (like the Skype notes, but a tad longer. So enjoy. Won't guarantee all (or most) of this will be in English. Tough luck for those who care. So here it is: Is-a-blog!