December is...

well to be honest; december is kicking my butt!

I am suffering from fully developed december-panic.
My inner Miss Perfect is nagging at me about all sorts of things I should be doing. Or finish before the 31st.

December is always a very busy month for us. We have several birthdays, had a weekend at my mother in Rotterdam checking out my brothers new appartment, celebrating "Sinterklaas" and had a lovely company-dinner.
Still to come are our traditional "Gourmet-extravaganza" with both of our families on the first christmas day (wich means 11 people around the table)  and "Left-over Madness" on the day after that.
And then there is new years eve.... Still not quite shure how that will be..

Now don't get me wrong; I love every one of our parties  and get-togethers. I like having everyone over and seeing them enjoy themselves. Talk with people I haven't seen in a while and make shure they have a lovely time.

But Miss Perfect is freaking me out with every thing she thinks needs to be done.
And not just done but done to perfection. Instagram-perfection is what she demands...
So I'm buried in shopping-trips, endless grocerylists, christmas decorations are everywhere and my "projects I want to finish berore 2015"- list is getting longer every day.. ...
Also all sorts of plans for 2015 are starting to pop into my brain.. Things I want to do, sights I want to see and projects I want to do..

After a major Fybromyalgia flare-up this sunday evening ( fyrbo is stress-enhanced) I'm changing things up.
Putting into practise all of the things I've learned during these past few weeks in my psychosomatic physical therapy ( there is a special blogpost on that coming..) I'm changing things around here. And will try to make Miss Perfect shut up.
Starting with a major brain-dump in my bulletjournal.
To get all of those plans, need-to's and want-to's out of my brain.
 That way I don't have them floating around in my head constantly popping up. They are right there, parked on a piece of paper. I can't forget them but don't need to think about them constantly.

Next I decided to do most of my pre-christmas grocery shopping online. That means all I have to do is pick it up. Because the pre-christmas grocery store madness really messes me up.. So that's one less thing on my mind.

So my mantra for the rest of the month is : "Keep it simple"
* oh... and "don't freak out"

Ho are you all dealing with this december-thing?

Every dog needs a blanket..

a few weeks ago we where visiting my mom. Abby wanted to be as close to us as possible and setteled on a diningroom chair for a nap.. But without a pillow or blanket she just couldn't get comfortable. The end-result was a very annoying little dog because she didn't get enough sleep.
** yes dogs are really just like children..

So we made a mental note to bring a blanket for her next time.
Now we do have some blankets around. Fleece ones, woven ones.. but the are all quite big and cumbersome to take with us.
Offcourse I could have gone out and buy something for her.
But with a big stash of yarn .. why not make one?

After a bit of rummaging through my stash I found 5 colors in the same yarn that worked well together. ** I used cheap yarn from Action; 1 euro per ball. I had to buy an extra gray one because there was only a small amount left in my stash

I really didn't know how big the blanket would get so for the pattern I decided to do one big Granny Square. I was planning to use up all of the yarn and just see how big it would become. The whole blanket took me about 2 weeks to make. I am a slow crocheter and if you really put yourself into it you will probably finish it sooner.

Despite the fact that there were some not so pretty yarn-joins in the balls Abby loves her blanket. And I am quite happy with how it turned out. It is big enough for her to snuggle under and small enough for us to easily take with us. 

So everybody is happy! 

November is for...

.. accepting Fall is really here

... starting my 10 month study to beome an HR employee

... finishing up re-organising my study

... drinking lots of tea

... getting started with the preperations for our big christmas dinner.
    Starting with making and sending out the invitations

... the annual "all you can eat fish night" at the village where we used to live. My father-in-law
    organises it so we "have " to be there ;-)

... crocheting some wristwarmers and a scarf for myself

... and finishing up some crochet-projects I have been working on this year

... including my "mood blanket" that I am a bit behind on. I want to be all caught up before the busy       december

... a birthday party and sleep-over without Abby. She will be staying at a friends house

... getting better at the whole work and play balance

... learning to say "I want.." instead of  "I must.."

... thinking about my project life plans for 2015

Oh I can already tell this month will be so busy!
What are your plans for this month?

Sunday Adventure: Bully walk

Yesterday was the day.. the long awaited bully walk.
It took place in the beautifull "Loonse en Drunense Duinen". An area that is part forrest and part sandplains. With some dunes it makes for a fabulous place to walk your dog.. or family ;-)
And an opportunity to walk together with so many bull terriërs is to awesome to pass up.

Ever since our first dog Bachera we started joining these kinds of walks. Most of them are breed-specific but most of the time you are welcome to join with other dogs; as long as you are passionate about the breed that's walking.
We started out with Dogo Argentino walks ( Bachera was part Dogo and Keyser was pure bred).
And then when Abby came to live with us we also started going to Bully Walks.
If you are passionate about a specific breed, have a dog or are thinking about getting a cenrtain breed I can really reccomend these kinds of walks. You can usually find then on facebook, forums and sometimes your local breed club organises them.

The walk was about an hour and a half drive away but that is really not that bad. We started at 11.00 and had signed up for the 8 km. We expected to do that in about 2 hours. But we didn't realise part of the walk would be trough loose sand so it took us a bit longer..
But with all of the bullies that wasn't a problem.
There were bullies in all shapes and sizes and different colors. I think I hugged most of them.. ;-)
They were all so cute!!
Abby did awesome! She was friendly with all dogs and obviously enjoyed many hugs and lovings from experienced bully-huggers. Even the long walk and rough terrain wasn't a problem for her.

After the long and tiresome walk there was time for some drinks and more bully-hugging obviously!
I brought the big camera with me and took lots of pictures while Nico handled Abby.

Some tips if your are going on a groep-walk:
*check the weather and dress accordingly. But be prepared to get hot as you are walking. Layers work best.
* bring enough water for you and your dog. But don't let your dog drink to much at a time.
* make shure the collar and leash are up for some pulling. Your dog will probably be very excited and he/she may well forget their leash-manners.
* Don't be offended if your are asked to keep your distance form a certain dog. Not all dogs get along.
* walking with a group often means you don't walk as fast as you expected. Or maybe the group travels faster then your ususal pace ;-)

But most of all; have fun! And enjoy all of the dogs!

And now; on with the regular monday -things!