A sunny Sunday

Last Sunday was bliss. Klaas and I woke up early to take Flo to her first sheep herding class. We had her fixed a little over a month ago and we've noticed her putting on some weight. In addition, she's also started to dig holes in our backyard again, so we wanted to find something that would keep her busy and help her lose some of her energy. When we go on walks with her and let her off the leash, she never goes far and constantly (like every 5 seconds) turns her head around to see if we're still following her, so we already knew she might have good herding instincts. She also has "the eye", something that is typical for Border Collies (although we haven't noticed it in Juul yet) and means that she will go and stand in front of a cat, for example, and just stare at it to try to control it.

So anyway, we got to the class and she was immediately focused on the sheep. There were other dogs all around her and while she usually isn't very sociable and often tries to dominate other dogs by barking or growling at them, she didn't this time. All of her attention went to the sheep.

She was second in line to go into the sheep pen. At first she had to stay outside of the pen to see how she'd react to a flock of sheep, while Klaas was in there with the sheep and the trainer. She immediately ran around to get to the side of the sheep and just stared them down. The trainer quickly let her into the pen (without a leash even!) and she started swarming the sheep, running around them in circles. I tried to take some pictures of the action, but I was quite far away and the sun was very low and directly in front of me. So yeah, blurry pictures.

Several people told us our dog has good instincts and will definitely be good at sheep herding. We even had people come over to us and tell us that they'd heard others say that "the guy with the blue sweater has got himself a good dog"! Needless to say, we were insanely proud.

I hope I'll be able to take some better pictures next week, because we'll definitely be going back! We're also going to take Juul with us to see if he has any interest in it, but we're not too sure that will be the case. Maybe he'll just have a good time running around with other dogs and exploring the fields?

Afterwards we went out for lunch and when we got home we just lounged for the remainder of the day, both of us blogging. Sunday at its best.

A walk in the park

After dinner tonight, we figured it would be fun to go for a walk in the park. So we went and took Flo and Juul with us. They were such good dogs, even when we took off their leashes. They always came running back to us whenever we called their names.

I took these pictures while we were out. There's something about them that makes me feel all cozy and mushy and romantic.

Such a hot, hot man. Yowzah!

 

By the way. Exactly how much does it look like we're taking a Fall walk? I want green leaves and colorful flowers!

Lazy weekends are the best

I've had the laziest weekend ever. This was the first Friday night in 4 weeks that I've been home from work. I've had an info session for our fourth, fifth and sixth year students Friday last week and then parent-teacher meetings on the two Fridays before that. So anyway, last Friday I had the luxury of going home at 4:30pm and not coming back later in the evening. I totally embraced it and did absolutely nothing that night.

Before going home I bought some chocolate Easter eggs from Broederlijk Delen, which is a Belgian NGO that provides development aid. I had three euros to spare, so I contributed. I think God would be pleased with me.

Friday marked the start of the new Astrid In Wonderland season. It's (one of) my (many) guilty pleasure(s), but I don't care. I'm not even embarrassed to admit that I love Astrid and her pimped out, chromed out Kill Bill mobile aka the pussywagon. This show is sooo sooo funny I could watch it all day.

I went to a pet store with my mom on Saturday and got a new scratching post. They look content, no? However, we haven't moved the old one out yet, so of course they're still sleeping on that one. Who would want to chillax in a brand-new home when they've got a raggedy one?

 

Some other things I did this weekend: visited my grandma (it'd been a while), baked peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, had dinner at my parents', corrected tons of group works and tests and took a hot bath while reading Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood.

 

Two more weeks until spring break. Can't wait.

Bits and pieces

1. There's a new kitty on the block! We named him Sheldon and he sleeps a lot, which is kind of weird for a cat that goes by that name, but ah well. He doesn't seem too neurotic yet, though, so that's good! We were worried about that...

 

2. Juul is such a pretty, pretty boy. He always looks SO goofy. I think it's because his eyes appear to be so far apart because there's so much white in his face.

By the way, we had another triple date with Joke, Sofie and their men and we ended up playing Trivial Pursuit. Juul joined us.

3. Flo is making a habit out of using a pillow to rest comfortably.

4. This was a wedding present from Lien, who also did my nails and make-up. We only just got around to actually hanging it, but I think it looks really good there. The colors are neutral and balance out the green. This is one part of our house that looks extremely rustic. I've noticed recently that I need to keep this quote in mind. Life is a journey and love is what makes that journey worthwhile. It's so easy to get caught up in stupid little details and to lose track of what really matters.

5. Winter, be gone. Yes, your snow is pretty and all, but not in March. Spring, where are you?

Can you spot Flo?

 

I opened the door to get to work and this is what I found.

I spent over half an hour sloshing through the snow to get to the train station. I finally got there, jumped on my train and as I sat there, waiting for it to leave, I found out that school was cancelled and that I could go back home. So I went home, sloshing through the snow for another 40 minutes. I guess I'll at least have had some exercise... 

 

I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. I have no desire to arrive at school, only to find out that we can go home again. However, I guess having the day off is not the worst thing in the world - on the contrary!

Random is my middle name.

Here are some random pictures from the past week around the house:

The first strawberries of the year. They were good, but we could taste that it's actually still too soon for strawberries. Our taste buds didn't explode.

 Dyeing my hair. I am soooo sexy.

Speaking of sexy, how about this? Habba habba. 

O'Malley is ALWAYS inside. I think the only time he ever ventures outside is when he has to do his ermmm cat business.

It's the little things in life

Today was such a relaxed day. I watched Medium with our dogs and cats, got dressed at 12:30, watched some more Medium, did some laundry and met up with Klaas at the supermarket to buy everything we needed to make burritos and cookies.

 

It seems that Juul is having his cake and eating it, too... ˄ and ˅

 

I like my men in the kitchen. Love goes through the belly, you know.

(I love dutchisms like that.)

Rice and red pepper. Yum!

Ooohh aaahh, look at all those colors!

 

I didn't take pictures of the finished product, but I already blogged about our burritos here.

 

Tomorrow is cookie time! I'm not sure if I'll be trying out something new, though. We'll see!

Bits and pieces

1. I love our pets. They're my babies.

 

We spread out a blanket for Flo to lie down on. She, of course, finds pillows far more comfortable.

 

2. Seeing as I don't have to work this week, I was able to go to the market yesterday. I picked up some delicious spareribs (seriously, they had so much meat on them!) and called it a two month anniversary feast.

3. A few days ago, I pinned a picture on Pinterest that seemed really cool. I had been wanting to try it out ever since, so I finally "made" it last night. It's some sort of natural air freshener and although it's a tad too subtle for my taste, I really like it. All you need is a lemon, a few sprigs of rosemary and 2 tbsp of vanilla extract (I only used one). Put it all in some water and let it simmer, baby!

4. I took a bath while watching Medium this morning. Klaas does this all the time, but it was a first for me. The sad thing was that I was already at the last episode of the disk when I got in the tub. I might do this more often.

 

5. Klaas made his casserole again. It's potatoes, cabbage, minced meat and Béchamel sauce and it's the perfect comfort food. It's so good that I like to eat it at all times, even when I don't need comforting.

 

Lazy Sunday

I love days like today when there is nothing that absolutely needs to be done. I'm off from work next week (there's a weeklong vacation), so I didn't have classes that needed to be prepared or tests that needed to be corrected by Monday. It's been weeks since I've had a weekend that was just about what I wanted to do, instead of what I needed to do. I embrace days like these, because as long as I stay in this line of work, they won't come around very often. The most awful part is that whenever I do get a day that is just about relaxing, I spend the entire morning and part of the afternoon feeling weird, as if I'm forgetting something or wasting time by not being busy doing something.

Anyway, here's a short recap of what our lazy Sunday consisted of:

We woke up early, took a bath and went to get our hair cut at my cousin's. I love that she cuts our hair, because I feel that I can be a lot more honest with her. I get shy and don't feel comfortable telling regular hairdressers what I want, which results in me not being satisfied with my haircut.

Klaas and I returned home and watched Little Fockers. Afterwards, I snuggled up with Flo.

We went home to my parents and had dinner there. My mom made something called stoofvlees (Wikipedia tells me that it's called a carbonade flamande in English) with French fries and veggies. It was goo-hood. I forgot to take pictures, though.

 

We returned home and I watched an episode of Medium. I finished watching the entire series about two years ago, but I have started watching it all over in the past few weeks. I am completely in love with this show. It has such good storylines and the DuBois family is so much fun. It's one of the few fictional families on tv that I actually feel a connection with, if that makes sense. I feel like I know them, live with them and feel with them. Dedication, people. 

 

I'm hoping that I'll find a different job in a few months, because I think that when I do, every weekend will be like this one. Today was one of those days where I just sat on our couch and suddenly felt my heart burst with happiness and love because I realized how happy and content I am. We are leading such a wonderful life and I can feel that it will get even better as we go along.

Weekends that are busier than weekdays

Our weekends have been so busy these last few weeks. We drove out to the other side of the country again on Saturday morning to go pick up our car. Klaas had been whining about it for two weeks (ever since we bought it) and had started counting in sleeps since Wednesday. "3 more sleeps till we can pick up the car!"

Klaas was as giddy as a school girl at a One Direction concert. (I'm looking at you, Sofie!)

 

By the time we got home, it was already time to get ready to go to Klaas's mom's. She had invited us over to celebrate her birthday. She has a cute teeny-tiny house and with 8 people (my sister-in-law and her fiancé and my stepbrother-in-law and his girlfriend were also there) and 3 dogs, it was definitely a Full House.

 

My stepfather-in-law. Please excuse his craziness, he's Dutch. Haha!

 Posing. Cos I got it like that.

 

 My mother-in-law is an artist. She makes tons of ceramic objects.

I love this mirror. It's so rustic.

My sister-in-law's pug, Nala.

Look at her sleep. :-)

Those back legs!

 

My sister-in-law's other dog. Balou is an Alaskan Malamute and by far the most ginormous dog I have ever seen!

 

Today, we decided to pay Klaas's grandparents a visit, because we wanted them to pick out some pictures from our wedding. (More on that in a later post!) They were impressed by our car and grandpa told us again how good and reliable Toyotas are (he does this every time he sees us :-)) and how we'll enjoy driving it.

 

We only let them know we were coming about an hour before we actually got there, because otherwise grandma would've started cooking a three-course meal again. As you can see, it's impossible for her to just pour out some coffee and put some biscuits on the table. She's so adorable. :-)

 

Here's a random picture of "Me Julie" in the snow: