Greetings to you, my lovely readers! I hope you’re all doing well. Last week Robbert was away on a business trip and I had the whole house to myself. I made use of the opportunity to do a little bit of re-decorating around the living room, see friends and eat all the food Robbert doesn’t like. Let’s take a look at what I’ve been up to!
Kicking it off with a grocery haul. This week I got cherries, soy milk, hummus, nectarines, carrots, courgette, aubergine, satay sauce, tempeh, veggie Turkish pizza, canned diced tomato, soy yogurt, stir fry vegetables, carrot dogs (more on that later), cassave crisps and whole wheat bread.
If you’re interested in seeing what I did with this, I suggest watching the food diary I filmed on Tuesday. I’ll also be doing a blogpost about all the dinners I eat in a week soon, so keep an eye out for that.
Also on Tuesday, I suddenly felt this really strong urge to fix some of the eyesores in the living room that had been bothering me since we moved in here. I hopped over to IKEA and got some decorative and storage pieces to use around the house. I absolutely love visiting IKEA, even if it’s just to walk around the showroom and get inspired.
Which I certainly did! Sometimes it’s good to look at lots of different decorating styles and pay attention to what it is you’re drawn to. Then figure out what specific elements you like and how you could incorporate those into your own home. I tackled our bookshelf in the living room after I got home, but it still needs a bit of work. Like I mentioned in my re-styling post last week, I’m looking for a way to display all of these books without them being so overwhelmingly colourful. So far making custom, neutral coloured sleeves for them still seems like the best option. I’m considering tracing the writing on the spine so that they retain their look, but in a calmer colour palette. It’s going to be a huge project but I think it might be quite fun as well. Will keep you updated on how that goes!
Here’s a nice example of something I saw in the showroom and decided I wanted to do on the spot. Apparently I’m really drawn to clusters of glass objects, so I got these three pieces which are beautiful and functional at the same time. The wooden magazine holder is also something I didn’t know they had until I saw it in the showroom, and I instantly fell in love with it. I used it to replace the bright green magazine holders I had on this shelf before, and I think it looks great.
The books that were in that shelf near the kitchen before, got moved to this cubbie in the office. They don’t exactly fit in here either, but at least they’re not in such a prominent place as they were :)
The green boxes that were previously on the bottom shelf of our bookshelf were put to use in organising the hallway closet, which is a rather difficult place to organise. This works really well now for holding our rain wear and house slippers.
The wooden drawer set that was in the storage closet where the green boxes are now, got moved to the office as well and given a much better purpose. I’m very happy with all these changes, and super excited to keep improving our interior even more!
In the evening I sat down with a bowl of salt & pepper crisps, and a few episodes of Prison Break. As Robbert’s away and we usually watch shows together, I had to find something to watch on my own while he was gone. He’s already seen Prison Break and that show has been on my to watch list for a while, so that’s what I went for.
Next day I went for a run again. I still don’t do this very regularly, as I’ve noticed I run a lot better and find it much more enjoyable when I’m actually in the mood. Still, I’m surprised by how often I do feel like going out for a run. Much more than the twice a year it used to be, in any case!
What a charming photo. I really need to get my hands on some sports earbuds and one of those armbands to hold my phone, as now I had to keep pushing my earbuds back into my ears about every three steps I took. But still, I ran the whole way and back again without stopping so I was very pleased with myself. I checked online and apparently the route I take is 2.5 km, which is quite good with no training if you ask me. In time I’d like to take this up to 5 km, and if I enjoy it I might even sign up for a run around the city.
The boys say hello!
On Thursday my brother came over for dinner, and afterwards we headed out for a skating trip.
We took a few turns down unknown roads and ended up in places we’d never been before. It was loads of fun!
The weather wasn’t too great and it was getting dark, but otherwise I think we might have stayed out even longer. We ended up riding about 7.5 km in total. Next time we’ll hopefully get some sunshine!
Next day the weather was much nicer and I used the opportunity to write my blog post on the balcony.
When I’m on my laptop outside I always wear a hat to shield the screen from the sun, so that I can actually see what’s going on on there.
At the supermarket I ran into this “carrot dog”, a carrot cooked and marinated to taste like a sausage to be used as a hot dog. I was very curious about it so I took it home and made some for lunch on Friday.
According to the suggestions, I served it with mustard, ketchup, pickles and crispy onion. OH MY GOOOOD this was good! If it didn’t look like straight up carrot I never would’ve guessed it was. It’s delicious and I’ll definitely be buying more of this.
I filmed the Beauty Beacons of Fiction episode for Lucy Honeychurch from A Room With a View. How amazing is this hair, guys? I would gladly wear my hair like this every day, if it was this texture and fullness naturally and it didn’t take me over an hour to get this way. Glorious, glorious Edwardian hair.
#ratselfie. Another very charming one indeed.
I’m on a roll this diary with the flattering photos, haha! Ah well, all about keeping it real here, as you know ;) Saturday morning I went over to help at the scouting. I did some face painting and braiding on the little girls, and they did my makeup in return. I think it looks rather fabulous, don’t you?
Later that day I went over to my friend’s for dinner, tea and chats. And delicious French pastries.
On Sunday, early in the morning, Robbert came back home! I was going to pick him up at the airport but they ended up landing 45 minutes early and I was still in bed when he texted me they’d landed already. I prepared a nice, big breakfast buffet for him instead for his welcome home. Robbert went to take a nap to battle his jet lag afterwards, and I had some leftovers from the breakfast for lunch. Afterwards my brother came over, we went to get a really nice cake for our dad for father’s day, and headed over to my parents’ house to celebrate.
And that’s the end of my week! I have to say I found it much easier to spend a week alone here than I did back when I lived in Utrecht. Probably because I’m not actually alone here, I have people around all the time which is wonderful. I actually had a really nice time! Although I’m definitely glad to have Robbert back, as well :) Talk to you soon!
