Happy Thanksgiving

Just in case you have the time between family & friends, good food & giving thanks to check my blog today I would just like to say:

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Yesterday Today & Tomorrow

Yesterday

I rushed out the door & discovered when I got to the train station that I had forgotten to change into work shoes --> FAIL

I also forgot to my glasses so I spent all day squinting at my computer screen --> FAIL

Taking casual office wear just a little bit too far ...

Today

I've spent all day publishing updated market information only to discover that I have some how lost everything i/o publishing it --> FAIL

I pretty much also feel like crying out of frustration!

Tomorrow

Who the hell knows what I'm going to screw up tomorrow

2 On Tuesday: Thankful for Blogging

Ok so I'm not American & we don't celebrate Thanksgiving but I think that Thanksgiving should be an international holiday. Too often we concentrate on all the things that we want and need & not nearly enough time on being grateful for what we have.

Right I'll get off my soap box now and link up with Andrea for 2 On Tuesday and tell you:

Why I am thankful for blogging?

　

1. I am thankful for the laughs that blogging has brought to my life. You know those funny moments you blog about or read about which while it was happening seemed so embarrassing and worthy of the earth opening up and swallowing you whole. Those blogs in retrospect make you laugh and remind you not to take yourself so seriously all the time.

2. Letting me know that I'm normal. I'm not the only women who is having a hard time doing it all. Other women also 'screw up' some times or have an untidy house of feel like they need a drink or two. No-one has the perfect home situation, not SAHM's or WAHM's or Working moms. We all just do the best we can.

So Thank you to all of you for all your Blogs I love reading them!

A taste of the good life

New Blog alert:

Melissa over on Completely Eclipsed put a notice on her blog the other day about a new blogger. I checked her out & she looks lovely. So go on and say hi to her and check out her blog Good in my Feet.

While you at it why don't you check out this cool web site called awesomommy.

Now if you have ever read my profile you'll have know that I fantasize about a life of leisure.

On Thursday I had not been feeling too great and since I knew that I had nothing super urgent to do at work on Friday I decided to stay at home and play hooky recover. It's not often that I get to spend time with my man, all by myself.

After taking the kids to school and sorting out the dogs I hoped back into bed snuggled up and we watched a movie, Warrior. (not really a girls movie but it had a good message & my man loved it).

Then Jay called to say that he was finished with work for the day and did Himself want to do something (Jay is a para-trooper and has really great work hours). Jay's wife who is one of my best friends was also home sick from work (she really has been sick all week). Within about 15 min it was decided that we should go out for lunch.

Let me tell you I would love to have long leisurely lunches every day!

We sat outside under the space heater with blankets over our legs. Just as a side note I think all restaurants should provide you with blankets. Kay & I had gotten there first since the boys had to go find parking. We had just gotten settled when this young waiter walks past us with a tray and 2 glasses of white wine. 'Two white wines' he asked, 'no but we'll have them' Then he asked us 'would you like some money?' Kay & I just looked at each other 'yes please' we replied still a little confused but if the boy was handing out money, who are we to stop him.

But no, we only got a menu each.

Money / Menu .... it's a French accent thing.

Lunch was de-vine!

If ever you find yourself in Waterloo, Belgium you should stop by and have lunch or dinner at Six Colonnes. It was our first time there but we will be going back there soon.

Just to give you an idea between us we had:

For Starters:

• Foie Gras with Brioché
• Cheese croquettes (sounds so much nicer in French: Les petits fondus au fromage)
• Fresh fish soup

and for the Main course:

• Sole with a butter glaze and mash potatoes (le Duo de solettes meunières, bintjes écrasées)
• Tomato and shrimp salad, served with french fries (did you know that french fries are not really french at all but actually Belgian?)
• Pheasant Vol au vent
• Sea food risotto

Nothing like a good glass or 2 3 of wine, and great friends, and my man to share a truly leisurely lunch with, especially when you know you could should be sitting in the office.

Himself had better start making some big bucks now cause I would like to do that again and often.

The rest of the weekend was rather quiet.

Cat was off at scout's camp and Himself was in Poland on business to launch Stack-Cup Poland.They both came home saying that they had a great time and didn't miss Tiger & I much.

Tiger & I went couch hunting, he picked a huge white leather couch. It would be good since our lounge is really dark and putting a dark couch in there would not be the best for making the room seem bigger or lighter but honestly I can't imagine how long that couch would stay nice. I'm leaning more towards maybe a butter coloured couch, but we'll have to wait & see. All I know is that we'll have to order one soon or our guest will have to sit on the floor come Christmas.

and the winner is.........

Apparently we've got a who's the better spouse competition running in our house. Yeah I was informed of it last night and told that I'm loosing the race spectacularly.

The reasons why I'm losing (according to Himself):

1. He's cooked dinner 2 nights in a row this week.

2. He's replaced the 'door' that was stopping the dogs from going upstairs and we now have a nice looking gate there.

3. He's bought me my own, electric sander, jig-saw and glue-gun.

Now I'm not sure but me thinks it doesn't quite work like that.

What do you think?

2-on Tuesday : Pet-peeves

I know it's Wednesday and I'm a day late, sorry! But when I saw the topic I just had to take part.

So for Andrea's  2-on Tuesday here are my pet-peeves:

Without even having to think about it I can tell you that my number 1 pet-peeve of all time is PEOPLE WHO LITTER!!!

Honestly it makes me totally irrationally angry!

How hard is it to keep a piece of paper or plastic or whatever it may be in your pocket or in your car until you can find a dustbin??

I'm getting annoyed just thinking about it!

I've managed to teach my kids to have the same pet-peeve. Every time they see someone litter they comment on how rude & disgusting it is.

Number 2 is harder to determine cause I have quite a few pet peeves (I might have quite a few but I'm pretty good at keeping my mouth shut). 

I would have to say it is inconsiderate people. Inconsideration can be expressed in so many way, not waiting for people to step of the train before pushing your way onto the the train, saying you'll do something and then don't. Making people go to a specific restaurant so they can accommodate your 'special' food whims and then on the day decide that you didn't feel like going after all.

Tuesday night dinner

I admire and yes, I'll admit envy women who manages to work full time and then have a healthy dinner on the table every night.

I know that it takes planning and organizing and self-discipline. (I seem to lack all of these when it comes to cooking dinner).

In our house dinner is very much a last minute event all depending on what time I or all of us got home. What can be found in the fridge and who will be having dinner. When it's just the kids & I have a hard time convincing myself to cook an entire meal.

Last night Himself & the kids were waiting for me at the train station. As usual I asked 'so what do you feel like doing for dinner tonight?'

I'll cook dinner he said and then mentioned that our friends Jay & Kay would we popping round for dinner.

Let me tell you he might not cook very often but when he does its good!

The menu:

Olives and fetta cheese

An assortment of cold cuts

Fresh warm bread

Starter:

Fresh carbonara made with handmade pasta

Salad

Main: Lamb chops, grilled potatos and a red oinion in red wine reduction on the side

Wine: a most lovely Raka Quinary 2006 from South Africa
Dessert: Fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream

Mmmh it was GOOD!

The most wonderful time of the year

There is only one Starbucks in Brussels and it's at the central station. There is one at the airport as well but that doesn't really count as being in Brussels.

Once in a while I'll get off the train at Central station and indulge my craving and then hop on a train to North station to go to work.

I did that this morning. Got myself a Cranberry White Chocolate Mocha (Grande). While listening to Christmas carols. Man it just put me in the mood for Christmas.



I still have to try the other 2 flavours



Then as usual on a Tuesday I met up with my mom for lunch only we didn't really feel like eating to we strolled in and out of a couple of stores in the 'mall' close to my office. I wasn't planning on getting anything but I just could not resist getting a couple of Christmas decorations like these:

Love these little laterns

Are they not just too cute?

Aah I'm so glad it's this time of the year!

It's true, I do!

In mourning

I should have expected it, when I was unable to load photo's last week. My laptop died. I can not explain to you how upset/frustrated I am by this but then I'm pretty sure you can imagine. Our desktop is dead & to get my hands on the other laptop in the house would mean I would have to steal away from Himself in the middle of the night. I don't know how long I'm going to last without it. This is why I'm in mourning.

I'm thinking of getting a Ipad, however I'm still a little unsure so if any of you have an opinion on it let me know.

Not quite what my laptop looks like, but it's just as dead so it might as well

On more general weekend news, Tiger lost his 1st tooth on Friday night. He just walked into the room & told his dad that he'd had enough and could he just pull it out. That was it. No fuss nothing.

Of course the tooth fairy made a visit. In fact, according to Tiger there were more than one fairy. He both heard & saw them. Now he's begging to be take to the shop so he can spend his money. He does not believe in saving (so he is his father child after all).

Busy week here at work but on the upside I just realized  that Friday is another public holiday so yeah to a 4 day working week!

Hope you have a good week!

Mid-term break

I'm so annoyed I wrote an entire post about our weekend and then when it came to down loading my photo's last night my memory card would not work !!

I had a couple of choice words to say (under my breath) to my camera

And without the photo's the post would just be too blah for words.

　

Soooooo what now I have to come up with a new post.

Our kids are on their mid-term break this week. Himself had a couple of things to do in town yesterday so he left the kids at home. Ok ok before you all reply and comment on how could we ever leave our kids home alone let me just say this:

We live on a 'farm'

We own 3 big boxers

Said dogs are scary if you don't know them or they don't know you.

There is no crime in our village

It was only for 3 hours & they have a phone to call us if anything happens

Right, so when he got home he found them working in the garden. Yip you read that right, my kids had decided on their own to rake up the leaves in the drive.

When Himself asked Cat what they were up to she said:

'Well you know dad, it's good to get dirty some times'

They have gone to Eftling today. Efteling is the Dutch take on Disney. It's great! The kids love going and we don't mind going either. It's better than Disney land Paris in our opinion because it's spread out more, the cues are shorter and Tiger can go on nearly all the rides.

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Because someone has to work I could not go with.

When putting the kids to bed last night Cat tells me that she thinks I should call my boss & tell him that I'm sick. Maybe say something like I'm vomiting.

Mmmh she was off school last Friday because she was sick & vomiting.... makes me wonder.

PS. My opinions about Disney Land Paris & Efteling are my own. I was not asked to promote and/or comment on either.