We had an uneventful, but wonderful weekend.

Friday’s sunset. I’m still not tired of these.

On Saturday we spent the morning working in the garden. T. mowed the grass. Well, actually he mowed the weeds and the (wild) grass is slowly starting to fill in, but it looks good and it’s a lot easier to do than my constant weeding. I planted some seedlings and pulled some weeds where I don’t want him to mow. 

Oh, and I had to cut off that agave flower stem. So sad. But more flowers opened Friday night and the bats were getting out of hand. Also, we realized that T.’s excessive coughing could be related to all the pollen coming from it. (It was, he’s doing much better now.)

And then we decided to drive to the other side of the island to have lunch at our friends’ lunchroom.

I had the pulled chicken sandwich. So good! One of those friend joined us at our table and we had a nice chat.

After lunch, we drove to Goisco to get coals for the bbq. They finally stocked up on flowerpots, so I got a few of those too, and I picked up some crates to organize things around the house (still so messy!). Oh, and then we decided to buy an exercise bike. We know by now that “we’ll think about it and come back for it some other time” means that we’ll have to wait for months, so we just jumped in. We both could use the exercise. I keep thinking that I just need to go swimming each day, but that kind of takes the fun out of swimming. So maybe it will work to force myself on a bike each day.  I think I’ll make it a rule that watching YouTube is only allowed while cycling. Haven’t tried it yet though, T. still has to put it together.

Anyway, we had a nice bbq, just the two of us, and of course there was another great sunset.

On Sunday we finally got a picture one of our daily little visitors.

Then we got some wood for a big house project (we live so far from the city that things like that take a whole morning). In the afternoon T. worked on another big house project. I assisted a bit (holding stuff, finding tools) and had some fun with my herbs. I made “stropi di kalbas” (kalbas syrup) for the first time. I actually make coughing syrups often, and it was interesting to work with something that is very common locally. I’m going to test this first and then maybe mix it with my own recipes.

Of course the day ended with another beautiful sky.

How was your weekend?

Wishing you all a wonderful week. Bon Siman!

One of the agaves in our garden is blooming. You can’t really see it in the pictures, but it’s about 10 feet high. Which is actually not high compared to some other agaves I’ve seen.

It’s fascinating to watch this grow, even though it’s also bittersweet, since it means the mother plant is dying. Each separate flower will form a baby agave though, so there will be plenty new ones.
There’s one little thing I don’t really like about it: the bats love these flowers. They tend to take shortcuts through our porch to get there and do flybys over our heads at night, scaring me half to death each and every time. 

Well, they did when this first started, I’m actually getting used to it…

(p.s. not going to write a whole I’m-back-missed-blogging-where-I’ve-been post this time, done that too often already. Just trying to find my way back to sharing the good stuff in my life)

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to post something here again, but it felt like unfinished business not to post a Christmas wish. 

The last few months have been a blur and the last few weeks even more. We’re in The Netherlands right now, but it’s been a roller coaster. We picked a hell of a time to go visit family. The country is in lockdown, one of the girls has Covid-19, we tested negative two times, but we’re not feeling too well and the overall stress is killing me.

Anyway. We are going to try and have a merry little Christmas. It won’t be like other years (because of restrictions, but also because we’re missing my mom), but I intent to savor the good moments.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!

If I imagine how a perfect life would look for me… 

Okay, let’s just ignore that this would include being able to visit my family and not feeling so scared all the time. Just focus on the things that I can change. 

If I imagine how a perfect life would look for me, I’d be out in the garden a lot, take pride in keeping my house clean, organized and cozy, take a swim every day and spend the rest of my time sewing, knitting, crafting, cooking, baking, making herbal remedies, studying and reading. 

Um, so why don’t I? 

Okay, I have to spent some time working on my computer every day (or at least a few days a week), but why I can’t choose to do all those other things? Why do I keep coming up with excuses? Are those excuses (most important one: so tired all the time) valid and can I change something about it?

Three things I’m going to focus on this month, hoping that this will help me to live that life I’d like to have: 

 1. Mind my diet. I know what’s best for my body, but my emotional cravings are off the chart. I really need to be more intentional about the meals I eat, to be able to convince myself that I don’t need additional food. That’s what worked for me a few years ago – I lost 75 pounds back then, gained half of that again. And what’s more important than those numbers on the scale: I felt strong and had lots of energy and now I feel weak and tired. 

2. Limit screen time. It’s a downward spiral. I don’t feel well, so I spend way too much time online. And that wears me out even more. Blogs, Instagram and YouTube can be inspirational, educational or entertaining, but it’s also draining. Reading news is necessary, but the constant buzz is making me sick (both mentally and physically). I need to be more mindful about that, force myself to knit or read when I take a break, instead of opening that browser (I am succesful at not using my phone for these things, so not all is bad).

3. Make time, even claim time to do the things I love. It’s not that T. doesn’t want me to do those things, but I tend to drop and give up on everything I’d like to do if I even have the faintest impression that it would bother someone else, that someone else wouldn’t like me to do those things or if anyone has different ideas about it.I’d really like to stand up for what I want more.

So… let’s see if these plans will take root* in my life this month. It starts with a struggle already – I’ve been working in the garden and deepcleaning my kitchen yesterday and now my back hurts. But I will shut down the computer after I post this.

*hence the picture. Ha! sometimes I feel so clever 😉

(I hesitated posting this, but there’s nothing like knowing that you’ve posted things out in the open to keep going at them.)

linking up with Carole’s Three on Thursday

So, I made some cookies. And the great thing about these is that I can eat them too (I can’t eat sugar and I’d better stay away from gluten as much as possible). The original recipe (you can find that here) is just two ingredients, glutenfree oats and banana. I was feeling adventurous, so I did one cup of oats and 1 cup of glutenfree flower instead of 2 cups of oats. 

The result? Well, the good thing is that you don’t really taste the banana that much (I don’t like banana, I never eat them as a fruit). They are kind of chewy when they’re fresh and the next day the texture is actually close to real bread, but I like that. Taste wise they’ll need a little something extra, I think. The recipe does call for extras like raisins, nuts or chocolat chips and I think that will do the trick.

I’ll keep working on them and I’ll keep you posted until I find the perfect recipe. Meanwhile though, I can’t stop eating these. Ahem.

 

So what’s new?

Well, nothing much, actually. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging. Not much happened. 

I’ve been rather succesful at keeping T. and myself reasonably healthy, though we’ve been extremely tired for weeks (months? I don’t know). Covid is spreading here, but we keep our distance. No happy hours, no big beach bbbq’s.

My house is a mess and so is my garden. Thornbushes are on the winning side and papaya and moringa trees are eaten by iguana’s. Also, there’s a reason they celebrate Harvest Festival in april (the day after Easter) here. Summer is not growing season, it’s “work hard to keep stuff alive” season. I should have known, but I had to learn the hard way…

My herbs are doing reasonably well though. I have even been harvesting little bits. I’m also trying to study herbal medicine more seriously, but well… feeling overwhelmed and having a foggy brain doesn’t really help to get somewhere.

I have been telling myself I need to find a balance between computer work (part of that makes me a little bit of income and part of it just hobby) and home/garden/kitchen work and crafting (that I love) for a while now, but I had a lot of paid work these past few months. I hope to finish the last big project this week and then I’m going to find that balance. I am going to work in the blog though. At least that’s the plan.

You know, my problem is that I can’t really move from one project to another. I’m always thinking “let me finish this first, and then I’ll do better”. But there’s always something new to finish. And if there isn’t… well, wasting time watching youtube or browsing instagram isn’t beyond me (wish it was, actually). The moment I sit down with my computer, I seem to shut off all the rest and I have a really hard time to turn it on again.

Anyway… I need to go and make breakfast and then I’ll do some cleaning before I sit down at that computer again. 

Wishing you all a great start to your week!

 

I’ve been thinking about blogging almost every day. But I’m overthinking what pictures to post and what to say. Like, really, really overthinking it, so much that I don’t post.

So today I thought I’d just throw in a rainbow, a sunset and a sunrise and see where that takes me 😉

I’ve been missing you all! (I will try to catch up with your blogs too)

As most of you know, my word for the year 2020 is “accept”.

So, how’s that going?
Well, so far I’ve learned three things.

1. Accepting things you know will happen (like my mom’s death) may seem “easy” in advance (not really easy, but doable, because you already know it’s coming), but it’s still awful and hard to deal with when it really happens.

2. Acceptance goes beyond bare facts. Actually, I think my lesson for this year is to learn to accept my feelings about things. I thought acceptance would give me some enlightened, serene sense of peace, but sadness, hopelessness, anger, and guilt pierce right through the whole “I accept this” mantra.
I am still learning to not only accept that I wasn’t able to see my mother before she died, nor to attend her funeral, but also all the feelings that go with those facts. That part is a lot harder.

3. It’s also really hard to accept the unknown. These days, we have no idea what to expect for the future. There’s a lot going on here on the island and it may very well affect our safety here, so we could be forced to locate back to The Netherlands (that’s a worst-case scenario, but not unlikely). It could also very well blow over quickly.
And while we’re planning to (finally) visit our family in September, we may very well be in lockdown again by then. We were Covid-free, but we let tourists in… (had too, the island is broke).
We just don’t know what will happen. And I don’t do well with not knowing what to expect. Accepting that things are about to happen… as I said before, I can do that. Accepting that I’ll just have to live by the day and wait for whatever comes our way is a lot harder…but I’m trying.

linking up with Carole’s Three on Thursday

It’s not the most practical gift and not very affordable either (since we’re on a tropical island), but when my husband added these flowers to the shopping cart yesterday because he wanted me to have them, I didn’t object. I’m going to enjoy them as long (or short) as they last.