Bring a little sunshine ...

... in a sick kid's life! Just go to this link and spread this initiative in your own country!

Last night I went to ......

... George Michael in Amsterdam Arena. It was awesome! It was a last minute decision to go there. An acquaintance bought 4 tickets but she still had 2 tickets left. So she asked me if I was interested to come with her and an 18 year old boy. We had to leave at 4 o'clock because of all the traffic jams in the direction of Utrecht and Amsterdam. Everything went well and we arrived around 6.45 at the Arena. The concert started at 7.30 (according to the ticket) but we had to wait a long time before George arrived on stage. It was worth waiting for! He sings like on his cd's. Great voice! Great show too! When we left the Arena it was 12 o'clock! It took us about 30 minutes to leave the parking. I was home around 2.30 and in bed at 2.39. This morning I couldn't sleep in because I had to go to my son's school to talk about how he is doing (just great). Zander had to come too. So I had to pick him up at my parents where he stayed for the night. And now I'm feeling really tired because of lack of sleep (only 4 hours and I need at least 8!). But it was great! Need to do this more often!

Daytrip to Schiermonnikoog

Yesterday I went for a daytrip to Schiermonnikoog with my friend Ina.
We left early in the morning because we had to bring Zander to Janke (one of his homeschool teachers) who lives in Aduard, a small village in the direction of Lauwersoog where the ferries leave for Schiermonnikoog.

Schiermonnikoog is a small island way up north in the Netherlands! For us it's the closest island with access to sea and wonderful beaches. This small island has the largest beaches of the Netherlands! You have to walk somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes from the dunes to reach the sea!

It takes about 45 minutes to reach the island with the ferry. It is always so funny to see so many people on the ferry that you start to think: oh no, it will be very crowded on the island today! But once you're on the island you really don't see them again (well maybe you might bump in to a couple of them) untill the evening on the ferry back to the mainland. And the people are always so cheerful!

The tide was low this time and there were a lot of sandbanks. On one of them we saw a seal. When we arrived on the island we went by bus to the village and sat down on a terrace for a cup of tea and coffee with homemade applepie. Than we saw Jochem Meijer sitting on the same terrace. Jochem is a talented Dutch entertainer with ADHD. I call him "stuiterballetje" (small rubber ball that bounces a lot) because he bounces up and down a lot on stage.

We also got visited by lots of little birds (sparrows). It was so funny, they saw our applepie and jumped all over our table and on the other chairs waiting for some crumbs. Some of them were very daring and tried to eat from our applepie before we had finished! I took some lovely photos of them.

After that we rented some bikes for the whole day. First I went to the bakery to buy us some "strandkoeken" (beach cake). And than we left for a tour over the island. Around one o'clock we went to the beach and we were so lucky that the sun was shining the whole time. Took some lovely photos of sea-gulls that got really close. Also took some photos of Ina and me.

After visiting the beach we left for another tour over the island but than it started to rain. We waited for a while under a tree but it looked as it wouldn't stop so we drove back to the village. In the village it stopped raining. We ate some fish and than returned our bicycles to the store. We had an hour left before we had to take the bus back to the ferry so we drank a glass of wine on the same terrace at arrival. Jochem was still there and when Ina went to pay for our drinks she had the chance to talk to him because he was also paying for his drinks.
Then we took the bus and went to the ferry. Before the ferry arrived I took a photo of a very dark sky above the island. Once on the ferry it started to rain again and we saw this beautiful rainbow.
We drove back home and picked up my son at Janke's. He went to the swimmingpool with Janke and her daughter Elianne (14). She has autism too and goes to the same school as Zander.
We were back home at 21.00 hours! Me feeling very tired, but also very content about this lovely day!

See my slide for some of the photos I took during this trip!

Ezra

This morning my charwoman Joke arrived with a little dog (size of a normal cat) in her arms. She told me she almost hit the dog with her car nearby her home. She saw that nobody was around and when she opened the door of her car the dog jumped right in. She's an animal lover (just like me) and she decided to take the dog with her and then phone to the animal ambulance (?). When I took the dog in my arms she started to lick me right away. She was so cute, really adorable. I went to my neighbour Esther for some food for the dog. After that I went to see the vet to see if the dog had a chip. That would make it a lot easier to find the owner. But she had no chip. So they phoned the animal ambulance with a description of the dog. I told Joke that I would like to keep the dog at our home. She agreed because she has an old dog and 2 dogs were a bit to much. At one o'clock Joke left and 15 minutes later Zander came home. He was surprised to see me with a dog. I told him that if nobody would come for the dog maybe we could keep him. At that moment the phone rang and somebody asked me if it was true that I had found a little white dog. She sounded as if she was crying (she did actually) and then she asked: is she still alive? When I told her the dog was still alive she handed over the phone to her sister (the real owner of the dog) and she told me about some specific marks of the dog (like no upper teeth) and when I looked and saw that she didn't have any upper teeth, she cried and said that it was her dog Ezra and that she would come and pick her up right away. So about 10 minutes later she arrived with her sister and her little girl. They were all so happy to see Ezra. Than she told me that at 8.30 this morning she brought her little girl to kinder and then went to work for a couple of hours. When she arrived back home with her girl the dog didn't came running to them like she normally did and she was afraid that she had died (the dog is suffering from seizures (?)). But than she discovered that the dog wasn't in the house and than she panicked and called her sister who was just planning on taking a bath. The sister fell down the stairs because she was in a hurry to get to her sister (she just had some bruises). She forgot to put her shoes on and drove the car barefooted! They also told me that in the last couple of months she lost 4 of her pets (2 dogs and 2 cats), 1 dog was hit by a car and the other one had cancer. I don't recall where the cats died of! She wasn't over the death of her pets and that's why she was so emotional. Besides that Ezra was her little cutie pie that she saved as a puppy from a bad owner. She had her for 8,5 years. Ezra lost her upper teeth because a big dog grabbed her. And than she discovered that Ezra had seizures and she has to take her medication every day. So she was really attached to this dog!

What a story! I'm glad that the dog has a good home but if nobody would have come to pick her up I really would have kept her because it was love at first sight! She followed me every where and when I picked her up she was licking my hands and my face!

I had the chance to take 2 photos of her just before Zander arrived home so here she is.

Latest news

Scotty's back home! It was nice having him around for a couple of days. I went to see him this evening and he was licking my hands and layed down at my feet with his head on top of them.

I'm feeling a bit tired lately. I think it's because of the weather. It has been raining a lot lately and when the air is very damp I'm always in more pain and feeling tired because of the fibromyalgia. Well, it's something I have to live with and accept. Not sure, if I can though! I talked to somebody today and he told me a story about a little boy of 6 years old who was treated in a clinic in Boston. It was the clinic of Deepak Chopra. The little boy had a tumor in his head and couldn't be operated. At the clinic they learned him how to meditate and to vizualise the white bloodcells to eat up the tumor (or something like that). They showed him a lot of photos of what was happening in his head and body for a better understanding, because he was so young. After a couple of years of meditating several hours a day his tumor was gone!
So I was thinking this afternoon maybe this can help me to overcome the fibromyalgia?!! Why not give it a try! I just have to meditate about healthy muscles!

I have just found out this evening that Zander's dad isn't feeling that well (too) and will not be able to take him for a couple of weeks. It's a bit of a bummer!
But it's going better now with Zander here at home. I have made some changes and they are working! So maybe everything will go just fine this Summer! I would love to go somewhere near the sea but I just can't afford to pay for a cabin. And because of the fibromyalgia camping is out of the question. To bad, I loved camping!

I hope my dad will do fine too. He recently found out about having cancer to the prostate (?). He is going to see a specialist on friday and than he will be told what they want to do about the cancer (injections, chemo, operation).

This afternoon my auntie Maaike of almost 101 years old had an operation. She broke her wrist and upper arm near the shoulder when she fell over a threshold. It happened a couple of weeks ago but she didn't tell her kids because she was afraid that they would put her in a nursing home. She phoned for a doctor but because it was on a Sunday it wasn't her regular doctor. He told her that it was only a contusion (?). A couple of days later her familydoctor came to visit her and he called the kids and send her to the hospital for x-rays. It was broken! So she had to stay in the hospital. She was in there for over a week without being operated. Because of her old age the doctors had to think through if it was really necessary to operate her, but they finally decided that they should do it because she was in a lot of pain. So I hope everything went fine. My mom didn't call me so I presume it went well!
My aunt lives in a house with no elevators and has to climb a very steep stairway every day. She fell down these stairs a couple of times but she never got badly injured. So it's a bit ironic that she broke her arm on 2 places by falling over a threshold!

A guest!

We have a guest over the weekend! His name is Scotty and it's a young Nova Scotia Ducktolling Retriever. His owners are away for the weekend (Paris!) and asked me if I could take care of him. We liked eachother from the very beginning so of course Scotty could stay with us! He arrived yesterday evening with his bench, toys, blanket, food and instructions. It's the first time he's away from home but he's doing really fine. He didn't even started to "cry" when I put him in his bench last night and went upstairs! Good for you, Scotty!

Little birdie

Completely forgot to tell you about the little birdie that our cat brought to me while I was sitting in the garden. It was so cute! She let me take the bird out of her mouth very gently. Normally she runs away with her prey, but this time she was so lovely!

Zander and I took some photos of the bird and looked around where the mother was. Then we discovered that she could already fly. Only she was not strong enough yet to fly over longer distances and she couldn't fly very high. Because we didn't have any food for the little one, we decided to put her on a branch in the tree in front of our house. We were hoping the mother would come over there to feed her. Once in the tree the little one jumped from branch to branch to the top of the tree. We looked for a while and than went inside. When we came back the bird was gone. We hope the mother found her and not some other cat. To be sure our cat didn't change her mind about being nice to the birdie we kept her inside for a long period of time!

Layout number 10 for Finding You

Finished my number 10 layout for Finding You earlier this morning. It's all about changes I need to make considering me and my son.

Supplies: pp (BG), velvet chipboardletters (?), flower (Zeeman), big butterfly (Xenos), butterfly stamp (K&Company by Brenda Walton), distress ink, Stazon, notebook paper (Action).

The latest news

I'm very busy at the moment. Sadly enough not with scrapping. I'm busy with all kind of things involving my son. Lots of phonecalls to make and meetings to attend to. Later this morning the last meeting here at home.
I have to make a lot of changes around here. Things aren't working out anymore and it's getting more difficult to live with a kid with autism. He's 13 now and his puberty has started. He has always been a kid that wanted to do the things in his way (because of his autism) but lately he just doesn't want to listen to me anymore and we have trouble every day. It is really tiresome!
My son was diagnosed with severe PDD-NOS with ODD at the age of 6, but lately I wonder if this is the right diagnosis. The people that are working with him are also wondering, they feel that his autism is much deeper. So I want to make an appointment with the Leo Kannerteam in Doorwerth for another examination. I have been told that they are the best autism specialists over here in the Netherlands!

I'm also not looking forward to the upcoming summervacation. My son will be home from school for 9 weeks! Luckily I have managed to book him for 2 x 1 week at the farm. And one of the people working with him is willing to take him for 4 days on a camping trip to Belgium (in the Ardennen). But than there are still 6 weeks to go. Maybe his dad can take him for a week or so? We'll see!

At the moment the weather is great over here. Lots of sunshine and a warm but pleasant temperature. I'm feeling happy about that!

Here's a link to the newest Basic Grey line.

Finding You layout 9

Finished layout number 9 for Finding You yesterday morning.

I used really old patterned papers because when I started this layout I was too tired to go to the scrapbookstore to buy paper to match the picture I previous made with Adobe Photoshop Elements. I liked the challenge to use old paper (read something about that in the newsletter from Ali E a couple of weeks ago) so I went for it. These were the only pp in my stack (or is it stock?) that matched the colors of the picture. There is hidden journaling underneath the purple paper.

The photo I took of the layout is horrible but the light was terrible at that particular moment. Maybe i'll try it again some other time. I have used some silver accents on this layout but because of the terrible light they turned out to be yellow.

Supplies: pp (Karen Foster), cardstock (Bazzill), thickers (American Crafts), butterfly (Xenos), silver photocorner and brads (OTC), lace and ribbon (market), white ribbon with follow your dreams (?), embroidering thread, black DVD pen, stamp (Rhonna Farrer), Stazon ink.

My son the painter!

Today, my son came home from school with this painting! I think it looks stunning! His teacher gave him a big 10 (A+) and he even made a black frame for his painting. Very cool!