Happy Monday my lovely readers! I’m feeling all the Monday feels today. Last week I had a lot of trouble focussing and doing the things I needed to do, which frustrated me. By Friday I decided to let it go, enjoy my weekend off, and start over with fresh energy today. It seems to have worked, because I feel super motivated again to tackle my well-structured to do list, haha! Let’s take a look at what I was up to last week.
Sweaters and black jeans have been my uniform all throughout winter. They’re so easy to put together and comfy to wear! Confession: I secretly kind of dread the moment when temperatures get too warm and I’ll have to start thinking about what to wear every morning again.
After I uploaded the wet set pin curl video, I got a bunch of tips on where to find a proper setting lotion, which is essential for succesful pin curls. The golden tip was to look for “haarversteviger”, which is apparently what setting lotion is called in Dutch. As soon as I knew that I went to my local drug store and found two options, yay! Hopefully this one works, it was super inexpensive so I don’t have to be afraid of wasting it. I can’t wait to experiment with this and try the wet set again!
My brother and I visited Rotterdam Zoo on Wednesday. It was really fun to go out on a day trip with my brother! We don’t see each other very often anymore now that I no longer spend the weekends at my parents’ house, so it was nice to spend some quality time together.
I don’t remember what these are called, but I dubbed them pixie pigs. Look at those pixie ears!
I have a terrible weakness for rodents. I had to seriously fight the urge to stuff a few prairie dogs in my bag and take them home, haha! They’re just so adorable…
As you may or may not know: I have a pretty bad fear of fish. It’s completely irrational and doesn’t affect me much as I can easily avoid contact with fish in daily life, but it’s there nonetheless. I discussed my fear of fish with my therapist briefly a while back and we talked about exposure being good for these types of fears. Since starting therapy I have felt much better equiped to tackle gentle exposure on my own as well (I have been doing a lot of that actually, you should see me making phone calls nowadays!). So when the opportunity presented itself, I decided to go into the aquarium building and stare the fish in their creepy, slow moving eyes. We started out slow by just standing a little distance away from some small fish, and by the end I was able to enter this overhead aquarium. This was quite hard and I admit I wanted to bolt a few times, but the whole point was not to do that and I didn’t. I even stood still long enough to have my brother take my picture so that I could prove I did this, haha! I’m not actually crying by the way, no worries. Out of all of my fears this is the one I just can’t take seriously because I find it absolutely ridiculous. I was very uncomfortable but not this much, haha :) I’m very proud of myself for doing this though!
Wednesday was also voting day, so of course Robbert and I went out and voted. Use your voice when you get the opportunity, guys!
Grocery shopping! I’m still sticking to my resolution of leaving the house every day. Walking to the grocery store is a good incentive for me to get some fresh air and move those muscles.
On Friday I headed into Amsterdam for a short meeting, to visit some stores and to see my network’s new office.
They got a new office at a great location and were having a housewarming party, so I popped over to say hi to everyone. And have one of these Amsterdam donuts, haha!
I have to admit, Amsterdam is quite beautiful. I’m making a conscious effort to appreciate the city and although I’m not nearly there yet, I do feel like it’s helping make me feel better about living here again.
On Saturday we had a meeting at the scouting around noon, and afterwards I set myself the task of cleaning the balcony. I’m pretty sure it hadn’t been cleaned for years when we moved in, so it felt really good to scrub all the dirt away and reveal a white wall and grey floor. Spring is finally here so we’re about to decorate the balcony and make it functional! I can’t wait to finally enjoy my private outside space. It’s been years since I’ve had my own.
On Sunday my dad kindly drove me to IKEA to buy all the furniture for the balcony. It’s always a relief when everything fits inside the car, haha!
We knew we wanted to cover the floor with something nicer than the grey concrete, as our balcony tends to look a bit like a bathtub and that’s not a very welcoming look for a place we intend to spend a lot of time in. These wooden tiles from IKEA are a dream, guys. We had the whole floor done in no time and it instantly makes the balcony look much warmer and more upscale.
We assembled the furniture as well and this is what it looks like now! I’m over the moon, guys. We’re going to buy all the plants and accessories this week and then the balcony should be all ready for us to relax on. I can’t wait to see what this will look like with a load of plants, throw pillows and comfy blankets.
Having a functional balcony means we have a need for a functional entry to the balcony as well. The door to the balcony is behind our wardrobes, and as that space is neatly hidden away it’s an area which collected some things that don’t have proper homes in the house yet. It’s about time to finally clear that out!
Even though it’s still a bit cold out, I can’t resist the urge to sit here and enjoy the fruits of our labour, haha! I had a little mid day snack outside, under the cover of my bathrobe, and it was absolutely lovely. Makes me even more excited for spring and summer :)
Have a wonderful week, everybody!
I also moved to a new apartment in late December, but it’s still winter here in the northeast U.S. I have a balcony similar to yours, so I’ll be watching for updates on your balcony with keen interest. So far it looks great. You and Robbert have such good taste!
Oh hi fellow fish fobic!
I have never seen anyone share my irrational fish fear, or I like to classify mine as extreme disgust and aversion towards fish. it’s nice to see there are others who have such problem.
I’d also like to say I very much enjoy reading your blog and watching your videosm keep up the good work!