Today ....

.... I went skating on natural ice with my friend Ina. Finally the ice of our local Ice club, called AOL-Gloep (= old decoy), was thick enough! The ice was great, very smooth. I don't have great skates but it was fun to make a couple of rounds on normal skates and then try out my old figure skates. I think they need to be sharpened because I couldn't make the figures I normally can make. We took a warm cocoa inside the cantine and when our hands and feet were warmed up again we made some more rounds.

After that Ina wanted to go and watch the young and older people of our village shoot the carbid cans just outside the village. This is a tradition that exists for a very long time over here and in some other regions of our country. You need an old iron milk can (or is it tin?), a piece of carbid, some water and fire. You put the carbid in the milk can with some water. Then you have to close the can with the lid that has to be made a bit wider so that you need to use a hammer to slam it in the can. After that you warm the back of the can with fire. The lid will explode off the milk can and that makes a very loud bang.

I never went to see the carbid shooting because Zander doesn't like hard noises, but because he's still with his dad I could go and watch this year. It's not really my thing, but it was fun! I even went home to get my camera and went back on my own to take some photos.

As you can see there's a lot of fog. I took these photos around 5 p.m. It was like that all day and it's even getting worse. Like last year we won't be able to see much of the firework at midnight!!

On the last photo you can see the lid of the can flying in the air.

I won't be alone on New Years Eve after all!!! When Ina found out I would be alone this evening she invited me over to her place.

Long walk and good talk.

Today was yet another beautiful sunny day!!! It was really cold up here in the North of the Netherlands! At night it was minus 8 degrees Celsius.

After my heart chakra meditation, a late breakfast, some computer time, and finally was able to make an appointment for this evening with the guy I opened my heart for, I left the house around noon for my daily walk.

Today I took a complete other route. I even walked over several crop and grass fields to be able to walk in the sun most of the time and to cut short the very long walk. I stayed outside for more than 1 hour and a half!. I saw a huge buzzard in a tree and flying away when he saw me coming his way. I was able to make a photo while he was sitting in the tree with my 12x zoom, but it was too far away to make it a cool photo. You can see the buzzard in the middle of the first photo in this post. He's sitting on the lowest branch of the tree. Just click on it for a better view.

The light was great today: clear but also a bit hazy in the distance. I'm not sure if hazy is the right word but look at the photos I took and you'll understand what I mean.

On the last photo you can see some rayes of sun!

In the wood I felt the need to stand with my back against an oak. I later found out that standing with your back against an oak can give you strenght. And I just needed that for my appointment later this day!

Back at home my legs were all red because of the cold, but other than that I felt great and very calm. Those walks, being outside and connecting with nature are making me feel more alive but also less stressful! I'm so glad that the fibromyalgia and the chronic fatigue don't bother me anymore. A few months ago I wasn't able to make these long walks!

When I felt warm and comfortable again I went outside again to do some shopping for the days to come. I probably will be celebrating new years eve on my own and because I don't want to gain weight again after I've lost over 6 kilos the last couple of months (yeah, love can do that!!), I decided to only buy healthy foods. So no oil-dumplings for me this year!!

After a nice dinner (ratatouille with rice and a steak) I waited for my appointment reading in an Osho book about chakras and kundalini.

When he had arrived we soon started to talk about the things in our sudden break up, that were still confusing to me. It was a good and open talk. I now have all the answers and I feel that it's okay. It is time for me to let him go. I still love him though, so I will be feeling pain and sadness about the loss of a love relationship, but we can still be friends! End of a very short love story! But also the chance of a new beginning and new opportunities for me!

Another sunny day!!!

I just love the fact that the sun is shining so brightly the last couple of days!! I went for another long walk this morning. Almost took the same path to be sure I was outside for an hour. Took some other photos near the fen. Look how low the sun is!! It was exactly noon when I took that photo.

Other than that I'm having a very lazy day!

Well, before I went out for that walk I did the heart chakra meditation. I do this meditation every morning for the last couple of days. It's a nice way to start my day and I really do feel more peaceful throughout the entire day!! Look here for the cd you need.

Sunny day!!

It's a really sunny day today!!! I went for a long walk nearby my house this early afternoon. I stayed outside for more than an hour and keeping up a smart pace all the time! Took my camera with me just in case and was able to shoot some nice photos near a small fen (peat-moor?) in the woods.

Here's another thing I want to share with you.

Not so long ago I bought The Goddess Oracle from Amy Sophia Marashinsky. These are cards with all kinds of goddesses from myths, legends and sages that can bring you their wisdom.

One of the cards I picked not so long ago is Pachamama (Mother Earth) and this card asks me to connect more with the earth or nature. It will help me to heal. So this afternoon when I was all alone on a nice spot in the sun I made a prayer to Pachamama and asked her to help me heal.

Another card I picked is Brighid. To tell you the truth I already picked her twice! Brighid comes to inspire me. She asks me to live inspired because a life without inspiration is boring. That is soooo true!!! I already have been asking Brighid in a self-guided fantasy trip to inspire me. Not only in my daily life but also in scrapbooking. Because really, it has been way too long since I was able to sit down behind my scrapbooktable and be inspired to make something beautiful!!

I hope to be able to show you some scrapbook layouts soon!!!

Oh yes, I'm on Hyves now! So if you're a Hyver I invite you to be my friend. Just go here!!

Merry Christmas to you all!!

I hope you have a nice day with your family and/or the people you love!!!

Zander and I are in Utrecht with his dad. We arrived on Monday. Ad and I did most of our Christmas shopping on Tuesday. Yesterday I did some last shopping and then went to see some old friends I had lost contact with years ago (like 19 years ago). I met them 31 years ago in Paris when Elise and I both worked there as an au-pair. She met her husband Kiwi (nickname) in Paris in 1977 and they got married in 1981. I spend some nice couple of hours with them and their 2 children (19 and 16). Elise and I talked about making a trip to Paris together. We both haven't visited Paris for years and we both would love to go there! It would be nice to be able to go there soon!

I'm not feeling the X-mas spirit this year. I suppose it's because the guy I talked about in my previous post has pulled back and just wants to be good friends. It hurts and makes me feel a bit down, because I still feel in my heart that he's the one I could grow old with! Have to let him go though and accept the fact that he's not ready yet or never will be ready to commit himself to me.

Blooming at 51!!

There's a lot going on in my life right now. All very exciting stuff! I feel so much alive!

I'm not going to share every detail with you because some stuff is private and concerns others but lets say that there's love in the air!

Ever since I did the Biophoton therapy I feel great and I have so much more energy. Last week I went to see the therapist for the last time. Now I just have to go there maybe 3 or 4 times a year just for a check up. Because I have more energy I'm more interested in learning new stuff and going on an adventure or exploring the world. Isn't that just cool!!

Falling in love also has to do with the way I feel today and the last couple of weeks. I feel like a complete new woman. It's not just that I fell in love with this great guy but I also fell in love with myself and I'm finally in peace with the person that I am. For the record: I'm not having a relationship with this guy but there's something special between the two of us!

There's something you have to know about me to better understand where I'm coming from. I have been a victim of rape in the past, not once but 3 times! So my self esteem has been very low for a very long time. I was almost 20 when I was raped the first time. After I got raped the last time (11 years ago) I lost all interest in men or sexual intimicy. That changed when I fell in love and it changed even more about a month ago when I suddenly got through the message (it was more like a thought that suddenly popped out in my head from nowhere) that I had to look into Tantra. At that point I only knew of the existence of the word Tantra and that it had to do something with sex, but that was all. So, I bought this book about Tantra from Margot Anand: Tantra, a way to intimicy and ecstacy. There are a lot of exercises in this book that you can do on your own so that you learn to feel comfortable with your own body. I started dancing and looking in my eyes in front of the mirror every day. It was very strange in the beginning but after a couple of weeks I started to feel more and more comfortable and finally last Sunday I realised I have grown to really love myself and feeling comfortable with me and my body. Other people (friends and neighbours) have noticed it too.

So yesterday I went to the sauna for the first time in my life. A huge step for me to do this! My friend Ina and I decided some time ago to go to a Spa in Nieuweschans. A couple of weeks ago I told her I wasn't interested in going to the sauna but the new me decided she wanted to go there.

The Spa in Nieuweschans is about a 45 minutes drive from where we live. There's a source with salty water and we first stayed in this water (37 degrees Celsius) in an outdoor pool for about 30 minutes. It was very relaxing. After a stay in the lavender room and the restroom we had lunch and after that we went to the sauna.

Inside there were a steam sauna, a heat sauna and an infra red sauna, a lovely swimmingpool with a strong jet stream so you could swim up against it without moving forward. I thought that was cool.

There also was a place where you could warm your feet before you went into a sauna and a place where you could scrub your body. Upstairs there was a deck where you could rest in between the visits to the sauna. Outside in the garden there was another sauna. A really big one for 60 people or so! There were also cold showers and a plunge bath (?) with really cold water. The first time I just took a cold shower (in tiny steps) but after the second round I went into the plunge bath and after the plunge bath I even put ice shavings (?) all over my body. It felt great. There also was a hut tub outside and a cool place where you could sit next to an open fire. We didn't went there because there wasn't enough time. My friend had to be home at 4 o'clock so we had to leave after the second round.

What surprised me the most about this first visit to the sauna is, that it felt so normal to be around other naked people, men and women. In the past I felt really uncomfortable with the idea of other people looking at my naked body or me looking at their naked bodies.

So now I'm officially hooked on the sauna and almost can't wait to go there again!

Although it's not allowed to take photos inside the Spa I took a few just before we had to leave. I show you the only photo I dared to take from the outside pool.

A friendly German gentleman (Nieuweschans is very close to the German border so there are always a lot of Germans in the Spa) who arrived at the Spa when we left the building took a photo of Ina and me in front of the entrance of the Spa.

Another great thing that happened yesterday is that Ina and I decided to follow this course in Oriental dancing (Egyptian belly dancing). It'll start on the 9th of December in Groningen. The night before yesterday I tumbled accidently (or maybe not accidently but it just had to be this way) on this website. Because I have always had the desire to learn how to belly dance I was immediately interested. I told Ina about the belly dancing and she was also very interested. Lucky for us there was still room for new students. I hope I'll be able to make the moves!! If you click here you can watch Aina teach other women how to belly dance.

My Inner World

The last couple of weeks I have daily visited the website My Inner World. This has been such a great inspiration to me and lots of good things have happened to me since the first day I started the guided journeys. It's as if I'm only attracting the good stuff right now. Everything is becoming so much clearer to me and I can better focus on the NOW.
If you register to this website you can follow the guided journeys and keep all the information you gather in your private journal.

The photo has been taken at the Citadel at Mycenae in Greece in 1978. I love this photo because it has something mysterious.

Tagged

I was tagged the other day by Alice. I have to write down 7 facts about myself, either random or weird or both.

Than I have to pick 7 blogfriends and tag them too. But because all the people of the blogs I frequently visit have already been tagged, I just want you to ask to feel yourself tagged when you read this post.

These are the 7 facts about myself.

1. When I hang my wash I like to use only the same coloured clothes pegs on the same line and I always start with the blue ones.

2. I love to wear soft socks in bed.

3. After every scrapbook or other creative project I have to clear and clean my table.

4. I find it difficult to throw away things and that's why I have problems with storage in my small house. (I really need to work on that!!!)

5. I love buying books!!

6. My biggest wish is to live near the sea in a warm country.

7. I often loose stuff in my own house, especially paperwork! (Have to work on this one too!!)

(Picture: some paintings in my bedroom I have made a long time ago!)

Something to share with you

This is a You Tube video of a performance by Jeremy Larson. He's Elsie Flannigan's boyfriend. I was curious about his music and found this. I think it's a great performance! He's so in to his music! You can watch other videos of Jeremy after this one is finished. I also love Make believe!
Don't forget to turn off my music list first.

55th wedding anniversary

Today it was the 55th wedding anniversary of my parents. I made this canvas with their wedding photo as a present. They loved it!!