1. Living here, on a Caribbean island. It’s a dream come true.

2. The maybe house. Next week. Probably (it was already postponed this week). We’re so close! So ready to show this poor old neglected building some love.

3. Earning money (not a living, but it’s slowly growing) with work I enjoy doing. I write novels, edit manuscripts for other authors and I write press releases for my publisher. This week I’ll also hear if I can keep writing columns for an online magazine. We agreed on a six-week trial period. Last Tuesday the sixth column was published, so now I’ll wait and see what their stats tell them. Keeping my fingers crossed, but I am grateful that they gave me this chance to reach out to a bigger audience (it’s all in Dutch, that’s why I don’t link it here).

Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three Things

Knitting: still working on the sunset shawl. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have enough of that blue for one more stripe. I’d like to do one more round of stripes to make it a bit bigger, but that’s what you get for just starting and making things up from there. Should have done stripes from the beginning…

Reading: I just finished Homo Deus and I have mixed feelings about it. It was very interesting to read and what he says is all very scientific, but it made me hurry back to reading old-fashioned cozy books to stop thinking about the dark future he describes. I also like to believe there’s more to people than just biological algorithms and I really want to believe that in the end, we will choose to do the right thing.
Anyway, that’s why I turned to Agatha Christie for some light reading after that. Which is also quite interesting, because I usually read her books in Dutch and this one is in English. I know most of these stories already, but they feel different because of the language. Does that make any sense or am I the only one who ‘feels’ books?

linking up with Ginny’s Yarn Along, Nicole’s Crafting on and Kat’s Unraveled Wednesday

The things we shipped arrived last week! And we’re so happy about that. The past couple of days we’ve been going through the boxes, unpacking a few things here and there and just feeling a lot more at home than before. Oh, and making a huge mess of our tiny studio apartment. But it’s really good to have it all here.

When we had to empty out the Dutch house in March (we had seven days to do that!) we ended up throwing a lot of stuff away, because it just didn’t fit into the trailer we decided to pack everything in. We could have bought a sea container and have more than enough space, of course, but that’s just the thing. More than enough space. We just didn’t own enough to fill it up with.
Some of your belongings weren’t logical to take with us either. Leather couch and chair? So uncomfortable in this heat. Ikea Kallax bookcases? Will be destroyed by the humid air in just a few years. Our mattresses? We were thinking about buying new ones anyway. You get the drift. It would have cost us thousands of euro’s to ship stuff that we would throw away soon anyway.

So we just went through everything we owned and ended up with shipping our bed (sans mattresses), our dining room table, 16 boxes, my sewing machines, two computer screens, and T.’s telescopes. The rest of it had to go.
The last two days were hard. We had to make tough decisions and I had to keep telling myself ‘It’s just stuff!’.
And that’s true. There are so many things that are way more important to me. Happiness and health. Family. Love. Friendship.

I already packed our photos and my favorite books. T. already packed his record player and his music. Those were the most important to us. And then we were exhausted and stressed out because of the time pressure and we just threw some things in boxes and other things in the trash.
Last week I realized that I didn’t remember what was in those boxes. I thought we’d packed my favorite pans, but I wasn’t sure. And I vaguely remembered putting some very personal items (my childhood teddy bears for instance) in a box, but I also remembered dumping my wedding dress at the thrift store. So I wasn’t sure what made the cut in the end.

It’s just stuff. I know. But I was so happy to dig out those teddy bears. The little basket I bought in South Africa. My tortoise pincushion. A quilt a very dear friend made for me. The little rug we bought in Turkey. My grandmothers’ old tins. My wedding veil, gloves, and purse. The little box holding jewelry the kids made me when they were little. My collection of stones and shells that I picked up all over the world. The little jar with sand from Australia. Things like that. Most of it is back into the boxes because I don’t know where to put it, but now I know it’s there.

It’s just stuff. I’d happily hand everything over if I could buy health and happiness for my family with it. And if we ever move to another country again, I may not take all these items with me. But for now, I’m just so happy with those little keepsakes.

I emptied out the card of my camera after this weekend and I realized there were even more sunsets than usually. Ha! It apparently was the weekend of sunsets.
We started the weekend like we normally do. At the beach, eating some fries and having a few drinks. We don’t always get to watch the sunset, because sometimes we’re at the beach club and you can’t really see it from there. But this time we were later and still walking around. I actually prefer that time schedule…
On Saturday it was King’s Day in the Netherland and since Curaçao is part of the Kingdom, there was a lot of celebrating going on here too. The two of us walked around on the flea market. I was looking for a basket for my knitting and some other houseware, but all I bought was a Caribean cooking book. Oh well, I’ll keep looking.
In the afternoon we met up with some friend from Germany and the US. It was kind of funny because I was wondering what they wanted to do on King’s Day. They’re not really types to enjoy a flea market. Ha! Well, to them King’s Day is just one big happy hour. I’m not a drinker (just the occasional small glass of wine), so I never saw that one coming.
We just tagged along and went home before they got too drunk. And I took a little time-out to watch the sunset at one of the bars we visited. That (and a nice conversation with a Swiss woman who wasn’t drinking too much either) was exactly what I needed to find the courage to stay a few more hours. For some of them, it’s hard to accept that I don’t drink and that I don’t talk too much, but they are starting to accept me for who I am. I sometimes feel uncomfortable around extrovert (and slightly drunk) people, but I also kinda like who I am, so I don’t want to change just to fit in.
Anyway. Sunday was business as usual. Just the two of us, driving west to visit the maybe house. But this time we did a little breaking and entering. Or actually, we didn’t break anything, since one of the windows and the iron bars that should protect it were already missing. We just stepped inside.
We have been tempted to do that for weeks, but this time we were walking at the back of the house and we finally met the neighbor. So we just told him who we were, had a little talk, told him we were waiting for the tax office and then we would officially get the keys and then just casually mentioned we were stepping inside for a minute. He didn’t care, so we went in. So nice to see the inside again! We just saw it once, but my memory of how it was laid out was extremely accurate.
I took a lot of pictures, but they need some touching up and I’m running out of time, but look at the view from the room we want to use as a living room/ home office! Isn’t that incredible?
After that visit, we had our Sunday picknick (I was going to share the recipe for the salad I made, but it needs a bit of tweaking) and went home for a bit of knitting (well, that was just me) and napping (the both of us, and the cat).
And then we went out again to eat a little snack, have a little drink and watch another sunset at our favorite place.

It was a wonderful weekend.
How was yours?

And bon siman (a good week) to all of you!

(Too bad I was too late to take a picture of him running through those flowers. It was so funny to watch!)

We had the most wonderful Easter Weekend. Well, in fact, we’re still having a wonderful weekend, since it’s the Second Day of Easter (that’s a real thing in Holland and apparently also in the Dutch Caribean).
Good Friday is also a thing here on the island, but very different from Holland. Not only schools and offices are closed, but also shops and even supermarkets. So weird. They’re open on Easter Sunday, but not on Good Friday.
First, we thought we’d just keep working, but it was so silent and relaxed around us, that we just finished the most important things and then we went with the flow. T. helped our landlord to fix the remote opener of his gate and then we drove to the west to visit our maybe home (it’s still not ours, we’re waiting for the tax office to respond to a request by the notary now), We do that often, but this time we got out of the car and walked around, dreaming, talking.
Then we went to Mambo Beach for our Friday night tradition of eating fries at Aloha Beach bar and having a few drinks at Bonita.
On Saturday we had a very relaxed day. T. fixed something on our car (the break missed a few bolts) and I decided I wanted the apartment to be clean for Easter. That was a very last minute thought, but it took me only about four hours to deep clean it. That’s the good side of living in only 215 square feet (ha! that sounds so much bigger than 20 square meters!)
I even washed the curtains, which I guess none of the previous renters had ever done before.
Then we just relaxed for a while and read and knit, because we were going to a friend’s house at three o’clock. At least that was the plan, but he got stuck at work. So we delayed the appointment to the evening and just kept reading and knitting.
We had a good evening with that friend, admired his home and got some great ideas for ours.
On Sunday we had Easter breakfast like we traditionally did with the girls. Freshly baked rolls and croissants, eggs and some watermelon instead of orange juice (because forgot to buy juice) Then T. tried to help our landlord to fix a refrigerator, but it didn’t work out. He did have fun with it (can you tell we’re both really ready for a home and garden and stuff of our own to take care of?).
I packed our lunch and we went out for a drive west again, but apparently, everybody else on the island was. It was extremely crowded everywhere. Even on the quiet beach we usually eat our Sunday lunches. People were actually camping there.
We’ve never been on the island on days like this before, always spent holidays home, so this is a first for us. But we liked seeing how people spent their Easter Weekend.
We spent Sunday evening at our usual beach bar to enjoy the (rock/blues) music and the sunset.
Today the local people celebrate a harvest festival, Seu. There’s a big parade, but we’re not sure if we’re going to watch it. If you don’t have connections or money to be one of the lucky ones with a seat on the shaded chairs and benches waiting for the parade to pass by can be quite exhausting.
So we’ll just see where this day will take us. I am looking forward to knitting. Somehow my knitting mojo returned this weekend. So happy about that!
How was your weekend? Hope you had a great one too!

1.
Feeling a bit overwhelmed lately. Moving to another country involves a lot of paperwork and here on Curaçao that means you have to physically pick up and deliver forms all over town. That takes a lot of time. I also have someone else’s novel to edit and some writing of my own to do. I got a weekly column on a big online magazine – six of them to start with, but if their audience like me I will become part of the team. I’d also like to write another novel (my 11th came out last month) and I have a lot of bookkeeping and household tasks to catch up with.

2.
But I still can’t keep my mind of blogging. I miss it and the connections I’ve found through it. I like Instagram, but it just doesn’t feel the same way. I tend to think a while about comments before I actually post them and love when I get a reaction, but on Instagram I just press the heart and keep scrolling.
So I decided to try and post on my blog a bit more again. Get into the habit again, visit my list of favorite blogs and comment more often.

3.
I really have to stop myself from making too many plans for this blog though. See #1. For now I’ll just try to post once a week and I’ll take it from there.

How have you been? (I’m going to catch up on all your blogs soon, I promise!)

We didn’t get the house I was talking about last time… We made an offer and the seller reacted by taking it off the market.
I know…
We were shocked and so were both the realtors (ours and the seller’s). It was just an opening offer, but the owner stated she was tired of not getting what she wanted.
We tried to reach out to her and raised our offer, but she didn’t even respond to that.

Last Saturday we looked at another house. Same price, same area, better view, house in better condition, a lot twice the size and owned land instead of long lease. So we offered the asking price and it was accepted.

All is well that ends well, one might think. But while we were asked to send an e-mail to affirm our offer as soon as possible, we got nothing back to confirm that it was accepted and yesterday it looked like this was another one of those situations.
We’ve been trying to buy a house here for years and when we get close there’s always something going wrong.
But this morning we found out they had been sending e-mails after all. But to the wrong address (their own info@). So now we’re setting things in motion to get the mortgage and sign the contract.
I’m still not really convinced it’s going to be okay until we close and I’ve got that key in my hands. One time we already signed a contract and everything looked okay and then the seller sold it to someone else.
But then again… This really might be the one.
Yesterday I was depressed and just about to give up on everything, but now I’m feeling positive again. I even joked that since every time something goes wrong the next house is better, we might end up with a house in perfect condition on an even bigger lot with a private beach or something like that if this one doesn’t work out.
But I do hope this is it. The house is quirky and needs a lot of love, but I just know we can make it work. It won’t be too much work to make it livable (I hope) and we’ll take it slowly from there.

Anyway. That’s where we are right now. Next week we fly back to Holland for ten days to empty the Dutch house and close on the sale. We hope to be lucky and receive notice that we’ve got our licenses to stay on Curaçao this week so we can handle our official migration in those ten days too.
I’m really looking forward to quieter, less stressful times. It seems we’re really close now…

1. Organizing stuff. I told you I was going to buy things to organize our tiny cupboard. Couldn’t find the right stuff (will be looking again tomorrow), but did find this drawer set for our growing stack of papers. That will do for now. We needed the clipboards to hold papers when we’re working outside (which we usually do). Clipboards make me happy too. The green one is mine of course 😉

2. Bringing home books. There’s a bookcase at the supermarket where you can leave or take books from. I wasn’t feeling like reading digital so I went to see what they had. I wanted to bring home more, but I showed some restraint (the top one is a Dutch classic, a diary from a school teacher in the 1920s. Love that author’s writing style and insights.)

3. This view. The house that has this view. And the slight possibility that it will be our view soon. There will be a building inspection this week and if that’s okay we’ll make an offer. Keeping our fingers crossed! (also: we got a message that the buyers of our Dutch house got their mortgate approved, so it seems that’s also going to end well)

Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three Things