this week i decided to leave the unwieldy camera back home and used my tiny pocket thing again. all of a sudden it feels a little bit ridiculous to hide behind that thing, when there is nothing to hide behind.

wondering a few things this week,

-will we do what we need to do in life?

-when will my accountant call me back?

-how do we know if we want children?

-would i be healthier if i stopped being a vegetarian?

-why do we watch all this crap they show on TV?

i say, if you didn’t throw out your TV yet, i would make that a project for the weekend. it will make you a happier person! since i don’t have one, i will need to find another project for this weekend. aside from answering above questions. kiss and bye.

before i did anything about it

…i looked like this. when will i be brave enough to shave it all of, that’s the question?

sweetest this week

  

are the three newborn baby goats. i felt like taking one with me to cuddle with in bed…

NATURE RULES!

happy birthday maarten/birthday instructions

i made an old school gym bag for sweetest maartens birthday. to be exact, it is a isquash bag, to fit his iphone. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOY! wish i could jump over to have a birthday beer with you.

p.s maarten, just before packing it, i managed to cut a little hole in the fabric, just in the middle of the ‘h’, i wanted to stitch it, but forgot to. so, you will need to do it yourself!

 

yesterday i woke up at 4.30 again. the sun is rising quicker these days, which pleases me especially on those early mornings. it amazes me how quickly we can get used to things though. waking up at 4.30 is not THAT hard anymore. and spending almost 6 hours travelling on one day doesn’t feel that long by now. yesterday i wrote letters, and then time flies. and tonight i did some catching up by sleeping from 10 to 7. recharged.

continuing on the theme of granny smells, we tried to make rosewater this weekend. the entire house smelled like a rose garden for a few hours. later we can flavor deserts and pastries with it.

this week there are so many birthdays of people i know and don’t know. april seem to be a baby boom month. and what does that say about july? extraordinary good time for intimate actions?

hm. with that thought in mind i wish you all a lovely week!

food feast

last weekend we made sushi with a big group of people. and today we are cooking indian. many years ago i did a course in ayuruvedic cooking. it always seemed so complicated but i learned it is mainly a matter of having all the right herbs and spices.and homemade ghee…

today i made malai kofta, which is small balls made of cheese, semolina, poppy seeds and potatoes which later will be served in a curry sauce. we also baked chapati, made banana lassi, chai and some other dishes. yum yum. and while cooking i listen to cheesy indian music. namaste!

a dream uninterpreted is like a letter unread

today i have a stomach ache. i am drinking many pots of jasmine tea. i took a footbath in the sun. with four kids hanging around me asking why, what, when and where? i do my best finding answers to all their questions.

i dream plenty. my father and i are serving black pudding to two muslims, and i realize with horror in the middle of the meal that they don’t eat pork(blood). my boss screaming at me in a bar,(seem to be a repeating theme, the boss one…) and woke up with tears in my eyes.

a few days ago a bus driver told me to never stop smiling when i smiled at him. it was a sweet moment somehow. i will do my best also with that one.

 

sea

   

premiere of the year, entering the sea. a few other brave ones joined. it wasn’t cold. the day had been extremely hot aswell.

i have had three days without internet. (sometimes i cheat by using scheduled posting) it is good to take a break at times.

so what have i been up to?, well, i almost got attacked by a wild boar. fortunately, he didn’t run me over, but i thought my heart would explode from beating so hard. and i treated a scorpion bite by catching the scorpion and frying it in some oil, thereby releasing the poison which works as a sedative. after that you smear the oil onto the bite. this is a trick used by bedouins. apparently they would also put it on nipples that are sore from breastfeeding. amazing, even just putting the tip of my finger into the oil, i could sense how strong it works.

summing it up: nature rules, as always.

 

miss pink

 

 ze is creatief en mooi, ik wil haar platsen in een kooi

en meenemen waar ook ik ga, tra la la la la

pictures of ingetje and nazarethland, where she lives. how happy i am to be your friend. do you remember this ingetje? hunink is the photographer!

els’s flapjes

els was the queen of flapjes, among other things. that’s why i made them for her funeral. they are so very tasty. especially with homemade chutney. yesterday i made another batch here. i thought i would share the recipe with you. for those who can read dutch, you can just click on the picture. and here comes the english version:

1.grate one big squash (variations can be made from leek, sweet potato or basically any veggie you’d like) and let it drain for a while. before starting to mix it with the rest of the ingredients, make sure to press out the left over liquids.

2. mix the squash with 2 eggs, 4-5 tablespoons of flour, grated goats cheese (or any leftover cheese you might have laying around), salt, pepper and fresh parsley. i also like to add sundried tomatoes. mix and stir for at least 3 minutes. do not add any liquid, the squash will give away enough on its own while mixing.

3. after the mixing, let the batter stand for at least half an hour. fry 3/4 of a tablespoon as one ‘flapje’, make sure to press them down on both sides while frying to flatten them.

i like to eat them the most when they are cold and to dip them in chutney or some sort of yoghurt dip. perfect to put in the freezer and defrost just before a dinner. and they taste even better the day after! smakelijk eten!

16-17th of april

 

i got a post-easter package from sweden. with plenty of goodies! like those old school little tr ays to put under your glass. while drinking three towns. ‘which feels good’…how nostalgic, my parents used to have those at home.

we are trying to make or own perfume from the leaves of those yellow flowers. again, i have no clue what they are called, but they have a great smell. and the plant is a nitrogen fixer, which is really good! i am not sure though if it would be nice as a perfume, unless you like that flowery granny smell. but DIY rocks.

and i watched ‘the reader’ this weekend. so romantic, so sad. i cried of course. what else can i do? to top it off i finished the day with ajami. left me very cheerful, these choices…

the confession of a sugar addict

one bag of jelly beans, one bag of panda licorice, one bag of dutch drop, one bag of mixed swedish candies, green&blacks mini chocolate eggs, one bar of milkas daim chocolate, one bar of raspberry chocolate, one bar of white&raspberry chocolate, three different kind of spanish fair trade chocolate, one bar of tonys chocolonely, one box of japanese caramel and one lindt bonbon.

that was more or less it.

thank you sweet ♥evelina♥ for this award! on evelinas site you can find her beautiful pictures and follow her process of renovating the house while pimping up the garden!

and then, as asked for, 7 things about me. well, there was this version and later also another one on the 15th of february. instead, i will write 7 things i am into at the moment…

1. bon iver. perfect music for sunday mornings. i imagine. here it would be saturday mornings.

2. whiskey. but only this very specific and expensive one….

3. my camera. this is not so momentarily though.

4. zoethout tea. which is a specific kind of licorice tea they drink a lot in the netherlands.

5. baking sourdough. and different kind of pastries.

6. fabrics and sewing with my bernette.

7.and many other things i hesitate to write here!

i will pass this award on to outi, trinsch, frkn l, fru a, juliasvardag, kom ketchup and toril (du får köra två flugor i en smäll!)

three favorite images of yesterday

1. in the stairways of an apartment building, somewhere in tel aviv. there she is hanging, looking down at me. good morning frida.

2. in bus nr 40. a woman in a cowboy hat and something very tight and white on her body. she is licking a bright red, heart shaped lollipop. for almost half an hour with repetitive long licks. the lollipop didn’t seem to get smaller. it is glittering in the sunlight. by the time i finally decided to sneak a picture of the woman with the lollipop, she stood up and left the bus.

3. in the northbound train. the typical looking business man is sitting in front of me. neatly, buttoned and somehow still ( the end of the day) ironed shirt, clean shaven except for a little, symmetrical goatee. he has a suitcase for his laptop, a newspaper, and his mobile phone keeps ringing. ‘meetings here, papers there, finding the solution, customers in italy’ and so on. at one point he takes out a squeezed sandwich from his laptop case. packed in kitchen paper, two slices from a loaf of bread, with purple jam in between. the jam has created pretty spots on the paper. something about this messy, yummy looking sandwich and the neat man really amazed me…

overexposed

i noticed today that when i am in the city, i am extremely prone to having mood swings. shifting drastically from feeling fine to feeling less fine. when trying to define why i feel like this, i came to these conclusions:

1. in the city, you are anonymous and exposed at the same time. there are so many people around you, but most of them are too busy rushing of to somewhere to really notice you. feeling lonely when you are not alone is so-so.

2. your main function in the city is being a consumer. my biggest challenge being here, is trying to avoid that.

3. there’s plenty of tasty sugar around. it seems logical that an overdose of sugars causes my energy to shoot sky high just to crash down the next second.

this week i am dreaming plenty about death. i guess that is one way to deal with the subject. this post is not meant to be heavy, i hope you can read between the lines..

today another day of working alone in the studio. sometimes it makes me think of the breakfast club, like this group of people, ‘locked up’ in the same room for a day doing crazy things, improvising, eating, playing the guitar and then trying to return to whatever assignment we had to begin with.

and then some ugly architecture from acre on the way home. it is almost that ugly, that it becomes pretty again! pay attention to the sky behind it. this was NOT a cold day, but simply air full of sand and extremely warm temperature. now, try to breathe…

little ones

 

so many of them, all around me. jumping on my couch, eating my cookies, waiting in line to dance with me, climbing on my back and hiding in my cupboards.   

such a burst of energy you could probably supply this whole village with electricity if you’d only know how to transform it….