Category: life lately

Good news and other stuff

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

Oh my, I’m so sorry to leave you all hanging for a week…
The good news is: we’ve got the house!

It took a whole lot of stress, headaches, emails and phonecalls, but things are finally falling into place.

We’re flighing to The Netherlands this weekend and we’ll stay there for two weeks. Closing day will be a few days before we go back to Curaçao, so we won’t be able to do much on the house, but we will be able to finally tour it, and make detailed plans for renovations and innovations (T.) or fantasize about painting the kitchen green and planting rosemary and lavender in the garden (me). So that’s great.

Meanwhile, I need to slow down for a while, which is going to prove difficult with an extra house to renovate. Prioritizing is always hard for me, but right now it’s more important than ever.

So my resolution to keep the blog going … yeah… well, not happening. Regular posting will resume someday, I’m sure, but not right now. Blogging should be fun, not another task on the list.

So my new plan is to step back from the internet for the coming weeks (because I really need to rest and we will be very busy anyway) and after that period to pop in (both here and on your blogs) whenever I feel like it, because I really like to “talk” to you all and share bits of my life.

Wishing you all the best and see you soon(ish)!

All over the place

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

This post is going to be a bit all over the place. I have been trying to find a topic to write about, but I’m just not capable of focusing on just one thing right now. Oh wait… I guess that’s the kind of post this is going to be…

Right now I am…

… feeling really tired. I’ve been trying to get myself moving, so this weekend I worked in the garden and yesterday I did some deep cleaning. Much needed and still not finished, but today I need to rest a bit, so I decided to spent a day at my desk. I have a lot of computer work to catch up on anyway.

… trying to hold on to the blogging. It’s slipping away again. Skipping one post, then another one and before I know it, months have past. I just don’t want that to happen.

… giving myself some slack. I was already trying to work through some mental issues, when my daughter told me she is on sick leave with burnout. At times like these the distance between us and our children is so hard and I was really upset about it. But if we’d fly back whenever I feel that way, we might as well move back. So we talked on the phone and I will call her again this week. I’m so grateful that we have that technology these days.

… looking out of my window and seeing a blue sky (so nice, after a rainy morning). And a tree that needs to be cut back. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

… feeling overwhelmed. Not only by the things I have to do, but also by the things I’d like to do. There are not enough hours in a day, but it’s hard to prioritize. And things may even get busier soon (see below), so I really do need to make choices.

… feeling restless and anxious, but also very hopeful. Remember the cute little ruin? Well… the realtor contacted us last week. I thought the other buyer lost their chain condition, but that was not the case. When we made the offer, they had just found a buyer for their current house. Or so they thought. That deal fell through and our offer was accepted. We signed the contract last week. Then we had to wait three days (our legal period to change our minds), before the other buyers are informed (today!) and then they have 48 hours to get the money and close on the house. So we still may lose it, if they can raise money that fast (after all, they knew already there was another buyer), but there is a big chance we have it. Please pray, cross your fingers, send good vibes, whatever you can do to help this happening. Or to help me accept that it wasn’t meant to be if it doesn’t…

The beauty of where I am right now

~ Maggie ~ 7 Comments

Last week we put in an offer on a house in The Netherlands. I know… I didn’t see that coming either. T. found this cute little ruin in the far North East of the country and when he hesitantly showed it to me (I’ve declared many times that I’m done buying fixer uppers) I instantly fell in love with it.

Sadly, they were already talking with other buyers, who lost their chain condition (thanks to our offer – sorry, guys!), but still want to buy it. So I have to let go of the dreams I already spun around it.

I try so hard to see Curaçao as my home. I am very careful not to call the Netherlands home or even my home country, because I am living here, by my own choice. And I used to love it. And yes, the island will always have a special place in my heart. I will never regret the years we spent here.

But something changed. I feel lost. I feel uprooted. And I want to move back. Back home to the Netherlands.

There. I said it. Not that it will change anything.

Moving back isn’t even a real option, unless we find another cute little ruin in the middle of nowhere within our very low budget. House prices in The Netherlands are insane (as they are in many parts of the world, but not on Curaçao). Average prices went from 287.000 in 2018 to 483.000 in 2024. We had some “what if” scenarios calculated and taken care of before we left, but we never expected prices to grow exponentially. We don’t have the money to buy a normal priced house there.

T. really doesn’t want to move back either, and it would be very bad for his health to live there permanently again. He just wanted to use that house the way we use the cabin (for visits), and to have the option to move back if it turns out it’s necessary (in case the “what ifs” happen). In his vision we would still live on Curaçao as much as possible, even if we made the official move back.

But me? I started thinking things like “I’m going home!” Not good. Not good at all.

So I have another resolution for this year. I’m going to make an active effort to figure this out and reconnect to this island, my home and the land.

The best way to do that? I don’t know. But I do know gardening always makes me feel better. So since today is a cold day (it’s only 25 degrees Celsius – 75 F), I decided to get some work done in the garden. My body needs to start moving again (after being sick for a while) and the garden needs some (ahem) attention.

Although moving my body and doing a bit of work in the garden did help lift my mood a bit (no afters yet, it’s still a mess, but I’m exhausted now), I think I also need to focus on the beauty. Because one of my problems (I realized this while working) is that lately the garden has been just another big task that will never get completed. It should be something that makes me happy. So here are some close ups of flowers. Because there is so much beauty where I am right now.

Keeping notes

~ Maggie ~ 5 Comments

One of the recurring items on my list of resolutions or goals is to start journaling or at least keeping notes more. But I never really do. I started often, but the perfectionist in me was always dissatisfied with how things looked and then I stopped writing and destroyed it all. I’ve done that as long as I can remember, even as a child. And that makes me sad. Not that I would have kept boxes and boxes of notebooks and diaries over the past 50 years (or would I?) but getting rid of (some of) them because it’s time to let go, is a whole different story than doing it out of self criticism.

A few days ago, I was cleaning out my knitting basket. I still had the leftovers of the grandson sweater in it, and wanted to make space for new projects. As I was laying out the contents of the basket, I realized I had to write a note about that sweater in my knitting notebook (the red notebook in the picture above). I found I hadn’t written anything in it in 2024, but that was a quick issue to resolve. Apart from two simple headbands (just some ribbing in the round), it was only that little sweater…

Oh well. That’s not what I wanted to talk about today. What I realized when I leaved through the notebook, was that I started writing in it in 2015 and scribbled notes about my knitting projects in it ever since. That’s almost ten years!
I have to admit, I don’t like the way it looks on the inside. It’s anything but consistent (ink colors, layout) and most of the pages look very messy. It’s nothin like the beautiful layouts I see on the internet. But I haven’t stopped using it and I didn’t destroy it. That’s a first for me.

I don’t really know why this little book was different than all the ones before, but I think it has something to do with already accepting that it would be messy when I started writing in it. It’s such a beautiful book that everything I would do with it would be wrong in my perfectionist mind. But the girls gave it to me for Christmas and I wanted to show appreciation by actually using it. So I popped it into my knitting basket, carefully wrote down the pattern for the Honey Cowl, messed up writing the last rows and stopped caring about perfection after that, because it would have been such a waste to destroy that book.

At first I thought: well, I guess buying expensive notebooks will be the cure to my problem. And I may use that as an excuse someday 😉

But I think the real reason is just accepting that it will be messy and ugly. So I dug up a notebook from my notebook drawer (yes, I have one and yes, they’re al empty) and popped it in my knitting basket too, to use as a reading notebook. (I usually have a book and/or my ereader in my knitting basket too, so that makes sense to me. )

It’s not going to be a reading journal, a commonplace book or something artsy. I’m just going to list the books I read, maybe write down some notes about it, or some quotes from it, but only if I feel like it. Much like the knitting notes. It’s going to be messy. It already is. I messed up the very first page. But the notebook is messy too (yellowed from the humid, salty air here), so that’s good.

Now my mind is racing with other notebooks and journals I’d like to have (herbal notes, garden notes, a nature journal, a grimoire…), but I think I’m sticking with these two for now. Start slowly…

Authentic

~ Maggie ~ 14 Comments

That’s my word for 2025. Authentic. As in “being my authentic self”.

As usual, I wasn’t too keen on accepting my word. It usually turns out to be just the thing that I struggle with most in that year. Last year it was “healing” and the year before “heal” (there is a difference between the two, though only in nuance and feel). Well… let’s just say those weren’t years of good health, neither mental nor physical.

So this year, it’s authentic. And yes, I do struggle with that.
I’ve been adjusting to other people’s expectations all my life. Failed at it, mostly, but I tried. I don’t want to do that anymore.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to change drastically. Maybe I’ll stop avoiding some topics (see below), but I don’t think I need to turn my life upside down to be authentic. I do believe I am who I am and I’m not going off on a goose chase to find a new me.

For me, being authentic is about the way I’ve been processing things and most of that is in my mind.

The worry I feel when I try to tell my truth, the fear of rejection when I’ve let things slip and have been fully me for a little while, the uneasiness of embracing my interests and talents (I really want to put quotes around that last word, to mock the idea of me having talents – and that’s a very good example of what I mean). And eventually the doubt about who I really am.

I’m ready to change that.

A little explanation before the last part of this post: this is one of those topics I never really talk about out of fear of rejection. I don’t want to offend anyone (I know a lot of my readers are Christans), but my interest in things like this is part of who I really am and I would love to be able to talk about it more freely, both on the blog and in real life. You know… being authentic. So here it goes.

Yesterday I decided to pull a tarot card to signify the theme of the year and I got the Empress.
I don’t know if you can read it on the photo, it says: “Be happy with the results of your actions.”” Keywords are fertilty, beauty, happiness, nature, pleasure, development and succes.
I’m still very much a beginner (hence the cards with explanations) and also still exploring if and how I really want to use tarot, but it seems fitting. Being happy with the results of ones actions is being authentic, I think.

Well… I’m going to hit publish before I decide to not be authentic and delete this post.

Wishing you all a wonderful 2025!

On the last day of the year

~ Maggie ~ 6 Comments

We’re home. So happy about that. Being with the children and the grandson was great, but my goodness, we’ve both been so sick most of our time there. Of course the jetlag isn’t helping, but we are feeling better now that we’re out of the cold.

I’ve been thinking about the past year and although I feel it leans a bit to being a hard, sad year, I can still list quite a few happy moments. So I guess it was just a normal year, with normal ups and downs. That’s life, after all. It’s just a matter of remembering the good things.

I want to remember seeing my youngest daughter getting married, admiring this beautiful grown up woman and realizing that’s my baby girl.

I want to remember how great it was to have my daughter, our son-in-law and our grandson here for two weeks.

I want to remember our grandson starting to recognize us and the way he says oma and opa.

I want to remember how powerful and capable I felt after cutting down several trees in our garden. All by myself. With a handsaw.

I want to remember Thursday phonecalls with my father. Every single Thursday since my mom died in 2020, until September 1st this year, when he left us too. And we usually talked for at least an hour.

I want to remember that my body was capable to restore itself back to health after being sick quite a lot. It can do that.

I want to remember that I stood up for myself when it was really important.

I want to remember how much I loved getting back to blogging (a few times 😉 ) and seeing people are still reading and commenting.

I want to remember all the things I did, tried, learned.

I want to remember the song of the birds, the fresh breeze, the vibrant blue skies, the soft rain, the twinkling stars.

I want to remember all the kind, friendly and caring people I encountered this year.

I want to remember how good it felt to come home to the island every single time (4 times this year! we’ve been away a lot). I still struggle with living so far away from our family, but this truly is home.

I also want to remember the shift I felt, deep down in my heart, while writing this post. Focusing on the good really helps.

Wishing you all a great new year’s eve and an very happy New Year

Merry Christmas!

~ Maggie ~ 4 Comments

I can’t find words for the posts I wanted to write this week, so that will have to wait (or I’ll just skip them all together).

But I do want to pop in and wish you all a very merry Christmas!

A good weekend, a cold, and dark days

~ Maggie ~ 2 Comments

I had it all planned out in my head. Leave on Wednesday, arrive on Thursday, shop and rest on Friday, birthday on Saturday, another birthday on Sunday, rest on Monday, but take some time on Monday to write a little blogpost about how great our weekend had been.

Well, it was. I loved seeing our family. My brother and his wife were at the Saturday birthday, so that was an added bonus. And of course seeing and interacting with our grandson on both days was so great. Sunday was his birthday. He didn’t really understand that he had a lot of gifts to unwrap, especially since the first package had a fire truck and he was very excited about that. But he was very happy that we had french fries for diner and quietly kept eating until he was stuffed.

A very good weekend indeed. But my throat started to feel a bit raspy on Saturday and it got worse on Sunday. On Monday I woke up with very sore throat, and everything else that goes with a severe cold. Slight fever, coughing, sneezing, the lot. I’m trying to be back on my feet by Christmas, but right now, I’m mostly on the couch, resting. I tried to do a little bit of grocery shopping yesterday morning (we were out of everything), but I was almost crying from exhaustion when I got home.

Anyway. The perfect time to try and move my blog back to wordpress, no? Ahem… I hope everything is back to normal now.

Oh, and that picture? That’s how things look around here in the middle of the day. Yes, dark and cloudy. Very cloudy. They say we’re in the longest stretch of sunless (as in extremely cloudy – the sun does rise around here) days since 1993 and it’s not over yet.

We’re only here for 18 days, but we do get the full Dutch winter experience 😉

Before we leave

~ Maggie ~ 2 Comments

(Actually, when you’re reading this, we have left Curaçao and even arrived in The Netherlands already. I’m writing this on Tuesday, because I wanted to prepare a post for jetlag day (Thursday).)

You’d think I’ve got this all figured out by now. We’ve been living here for almost six years and we’ve been travelling back and forth even longer. Well, I have figured it out, mostly.

But I still get caught by the growing to-do list syndrom. Ever heard of that? Me neither, I just made it up. But it is what happens every time we leave.

I have this very relaxed list of little things to do before we leave. Clean the toilet, empty trashcans, water the plants, things like that. Perfectly doable.

But the closer we get to actually leaving, the more I want to do. Deepclean the kitchen, treat the wooden furniture with oil, trim trees, mow the grass, finish paths, get rid of all plants and trees I don’t want to have in my garden, harvest and dry medicinal plants, clean the windows, organize the books, etc., etc.

Not good.

I’ve been here many, many times before. I know when to stop, breathe and toss the lists. So I just did that.

But only after I mowed the grass**. That is kind of necessary. It’s growing season. If I don’t mow it, it will be kneehigh when we return.

The rest of the things that are not on my initial list though… Nope. Not going to do it. Even going to stop thinking about it. Right now (wish me luck).

** no, it’s not a lawn, it’s just grass (partly) covering our sloping driveway. Keeps the soil from washing away during heavy rain.

Messing around (and making a mess)

~ Maggie ~ 4 Comments

I have moved my blog from wordpress.com to bluehost and have been trying to redirect both notastation.blog and notastation.wordpress.com to my new site. That kind of technical stuff is a bit above my paygrade, but I think I figured it out.

If you see this post (and the rest of this blog with a new layout) after clicking on the link in your usual list or reader: that’s great! That means it worked.

Things may look a bit weird, especially in my archives. I’m slowly working through my posts to add featured images and things like that, but it will take time. 18 years of blogging and over 1600 posts is a whole lot of work.

Edited to add: oh no! it looks like I lost all pictures in my older posts! I think I have most of them somewhere in backup, but this will take way longer than I hoped it would. I still have that sweater to finish too. Priorities…

Edited to add 10 days later: I went back to wordpress.com. Things should be back to normal…