Cynni's World

For sale!

2011-05-26T01:31:00.002+02:00

Moon

2011-04-15T01:42:00.001+02:00

Moon
Originally uploaded by SuperCynni

I was testing the nightshot settings of my new Nikon P500 camera. I used the pre-set settings, didn't change anything. And I used a simple tripod. Will test camera soon to write a more useful blog about it. It will be tested à la me, so not very professional. More for the "simple users". Not sure yet if I will post the blog about the camera here or on my other blog at http://supercynni.wordpress.com

Well, seeing I can work again tomorrow (yes, very happy about it), I guess I will go to bed now.

Thanks for checking in. Please also check out my other blog. Good night everyone!

Via Flickr:
Full tele, used tripod

Here I am again

2011-03-29T11:40:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone,

sorry it’s (again) been a while since my last post. There are times when I can’t seem to stop posting and there are times when I barely can find the time to sit down, relax and type…

And I have started a new blog as well. I wanted to write about my previous vacations and also about my passion for elephants. So I decided to create a new blog for that and it’s been keeping me busy for a while. If you are interested, please click this link and check it out! And of course, feel free to comment either here or there. But keep in mind I am checking the comments before posting them so spam will never get through.

The Kuukse Kroegetocht was a blast. I had a great time and the weather was just lovely. Joyce took her old digital camera and we made some pictures. I still have to upload them to my Flickr site. But, due to the faces of us and other people being on the pics, I won’t make them public. They can only be seen by my friends and family. So if you’re interested, contact me at Flickr :) But it might take a while though before I could upload them… I have uploaded many other pictures in the past and some of those are public. So if interested, just check it out!

In 28 days I am going to FedCon XX :D I am really looking forward to it. Joyce and I have gold tickets (which, unfortunately, we won’t be able to pay for next year :( ) and I think we have decent numbers. So hopefully we’ll have great seats and we can make loads of pictures. And hopefully I have bought the camera I have my eye on now, so I can make even better (hopefully) pictures…

And now I have to get ready for work again. I am still working where I started last year in July. Still no contract though, unfortunately, but one can keep hoping. I am enjoying it and it also helps me pay the bills.

Hoping you all have a great day!

Kuukse 11 Kroegetocht

2011-02-17T01:05:00.001+01:00

16-02-2011
Originally uploaded by SuperCynni

YEAH baby! It's almost March 8th, which means that it's almost time for the "Kuukse 11 Kroegetocht".

It's mainly drinking, music and much fun!

When I have more time, I will get back on this subject in my next post. I know I have promised that before but it's hard for me lately to put my @$$ down long enough to write something decent to share.

So I wanted to share this with you before turning in my bed. If you'd like to see more of my pictures, visit my Flickr site (I guess clicking the picture should work, this is my first blog post through Flickr). If you want to see ALL my pictures, you need to be a Flickr member and send me a friendship request. Without that, you can only see my non-private pictures,

*~*Sweet dreams everyone~*

Last day of the month - addicted to games...

2011-01-31T02:10:00.000+01:00

Howdy!

I know that in my previous post, I promised you a part two. I still want to write it, but I just haven't come around to sit and type. But I will post it, eventually...

I have been quite busy. Either with work or with friends and/or gaming. I am a terrible gamer, to be honest. I can start some game, play a while, get stuck and never get back to it. I know it is not good to give up. But my skills have always been lacking, keeping me back from really finishing many games that I've started. Although I am now playing the new Guitar Hero game, Warriors of Rock. And I am very determent to finish it, even if only in "easy" mode. I love to play games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I also love some other games as well. I currently play the last GH (Guitar Hero) game, so the Warriors of Rock. At times I also plat the Aerosmith and Metallica versions or the World Band version. *All can be found through the GH site I just linked* With RB (Rock Band) I have The Beatles, AC/DC, Green Day and the LEGO editions. I am currently waiting for the deliverance of GH Van Halen and GH 5. So MUCH songs to play. Together or alone... We have two guitars, the World Tour drum kit and a microphone.
Recently I started playing Heavy Rain after I bought it for Joyce (well, if we have it, I might as well play it myself as well). I played a bit and then I wanted to reply a part. The game informed me that I might have to replay some other stuff as well, due to changed game play. But now I Googled some of the trophies that can be earned with this game. My newly played parts should entitle me to at least 1 or 2 more trophies and I did not get them BUT I do have to play everything again... Starting to think I should just start over all together. Because maybe then the trophies will be reset and I have a chance to earn them. Sigh... It's kinda frustration because I just did some parts of the game and I thought I did good and now I have to remember what I did when I play it again. Ah well... Keeps me from feeling bored...

I am really eager to receive my CD and LP copies of "Charm School", the new album of Roxette I mentioned in an earlier post. There have been released many snippets and now the album has leaked onto the WWW and is available in several torrent sites. I so want to hold the vinyl and feel happy. Who would have thought that Roxette would ever record a new album, let alone go on tour?!? Marie made a great recovery than we could only wish for. And now Roxette is back! Please check out the snippets (just Google and you will find them) and buy the album! It will be released on February 11th. And I believe they now also have a date set for the UK somewhere in April. iTunes will, no doubt, be offering the songs as well. What I have heard so far, it is WICKED!

Charm School, February 11th!
Reserve your copy now!

It's past 2 am and I wanted to go to bed like well, half an hour ago or so... Thanks for checking in and I will do my best to write more posts than I did last year. Of course, my lack of posting in 2010 has it's own reasons which I have mentioned... But I am working on it, on myself, and I will give all I can!

2010 has come to an end – part 1

2011-01-03T01:28:00.001+01:00

Hello everyone and welcome to my first blog of 2011. This blog will be a summary of all good and bad that happened to me in 2010. Of course I won’t go into detail on everything. Some things I have blogged about, some things might be new. I really just want to type this as I go along and in the end, I’ll just press the right key to post this and it should be fine. So I guess this will be just another blog in my style :-)

In the end of 2009 I got fired from my new job. I had quit the job I’d been doing for 8 years to start something new. I had a two month training period with the new job. Unfortunately I got ill and it resulted into me getting fired.

So my 2010 started very badly. I was very depressed and I guess it wasn’t easy for other people to deal/live with me. I sought help and started an anonymous blog to make it more easily to write about all my problems freely. I don’t mind sharing stuff online, and I know my blog isn’t really popular, compared to others. But still, some things were and are too personal to write freely about.

I got money from welfare but it was hard to make ends meet. I fell down in a hole and I just couldn’t climb out all by myself. So I sought help and got some. It started well, but too late in my opinion. And now I still am waiting for a follow up, been on a waiting list ever since May 2010.

I felt horrible. It was nice at times to be home, to be able to do as I please. But I had to write many solicitation letters and to some I got a reply, but not to all. And most replies were negative. So I felt even worse. I have blogged a lot back then on my anonymous blog, wrote a lot in my paper journal. I tried to make the best of it.

I was glad I had some money saved up. And I was happy that I already had paid for my ticket to FedCon 19. My parents gave me money for the hotel and because of that all, I could do something positive: visit FedCon 19 in Bonn, Germany. This is a big convention that is held annually. In 2009 Joyce and I went to our first FedCon, number 18, and we got hooked straight away!

A small impression of our weekend at FedCon 19:

The first evening, Thursday April 29th. We met up with some German friends we met back in 2009. This picture is made by “Battlestar Galactica” star Aaron Douglas!!! We were right next to their (Aaron shared a table with some Battlestar Galactica friends) table. We wanted to have our group picture taken. So I went over to the neighbors’ table and asked Kandyse McClure if I might ask a weird question. You saw her face change to “OK, here we go again” but she answered politely that I was allowed to ask the question. Then I explained that we would like to have our group picture taken BY one of them (so not WITH) and Aaron jumped up while Kandyse was still surprised. We had to yell “Battlestar Galactica” (so everyone was checking us out) and then Aaron took this shot. So it’s a great story with some great memories as well.

The first photo shoot Joyce and I had on Friday, April 30th: Terry Farrell and Michael Dorn (a.k.a. Jadzia Dax and Worf from Star Trek Deep Space Nine).

And the thing FedCon is almost famous for: queuing! And the fun thing is, you keep on meeting the same people in your queue or in the queue next to you. This is a gall we met at FedCon and we are still calling a dear friend :-D I really met some great and awesome people at FedCon :-)

Our second photoshoot on Friday: Kandyse McClure. YES! The woman I asked to make a picture of our group the evening before. She still remembered us and we had a really nice chat with her. She is lovely and has a GREAT memory of faces and names, wow :-O

And this is Aaron Douglas. YES, the man who took our picture yesterday.

These were the photo shoots we took on Friday. I have made many pictures of the opening ceremonial. They are on my Flickr account, BUT you need to be my friend in order to see them. In the past I have shared my convention pictures in high quality with others freely and unfortunately people have taken advantage of me. So now I would still like to share pictures with friends/people who also love conventions and all, but only behind "closed gates" a.k.a. a Flickr account with a friendship bond on there. If you already have a Flickr account, please just look for me on there using the nickname SuperCynni. Send a request to befriend me. If you aren’t a Flickr member and you would still like to see the pictures, please sign up for Flickr on their main page (only takes a minute or so and it’s completely free) and then search for me to send the friendship request.

Our first photoshoot on Saturday, May 1st, was with Chase Masterson. She is known ofr her character "Leeta" in Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

A dear friend of ours, which we also met at FedCon 18, really wanted another photo shoot with Kandyse. But his funds had run out... So Joyce and I decided to buy him a ticket as a birthday present. We really love the outcome of this picture! So we are glad we decided on giving him this present.

I wanted another picture taken with Kandyse as well. This is a lovely "hugging picture", as I like to call them. While Kandyse and I were ready, the camera man wasn't. So he asked us to wait for a few seconds. I mumbled that he could take a whole minute if he wanted to...I was fine. This was heard by Kandyse who had to laugh hard and then the camera man had to wait for her to be ready again... Great memories! Great hugging ;-)

TAMOH!!! A lovely picture with Tamoh Penikett from Battlestar Galactica. I even got to offer him a chair on Thursday evening when he came up to join his BGS friends and got a thumbs up then! Lovely...

James Marsters. We had only met up with him during Hallowhedon in the end of October 2009 so it was nice to catch up with him again.

*while scrolling through all the pictures (over 500) of FedCon 19 I uploaded to Flickr, I really was glad to be there. After so many rejections while job searching, after all the time of not having the money to do anything fun while being unemployed, this was really something I needed badly.*

Sunday, May 2nd, our last photo shoot...

When we had our second photo with Martha Hackett, we asked for a hugging picture. This is what Martha made of it. I LOVE ♥ it!!!

This was the update on FedCon. As mentioned before, if you are interested in my talk pictures and/or the opening/closing ceremonial pictures…check out Flickr!

On May 31st, my mum’s birthday, we went to the Dutch amusement park: The Efteling.

A small impression of our day at the Efteling:

All pictures above are made at the "Droomvlucht" attraction.

This year, due to the lack of money, we decided to go on a cheaper kind of holiday: take the caravan and go to Austria. We went to the place we already visited a few times before: Hartberg in the Steiermark region. The vacation had it’s ups and downs. Partly because I was still not fully out of my depression yet. Partly due to, well, other reasons. But we did have some real good times and I would like to share some pictures of that as well. I guess I will post only the first week and in my follow up post (I will hopefully be able to write it a.s.a.p.) I will continue. It’s 1:18 am and I need to work again tomorrow (starting at 13) so I do need some sleep soon.

Small impression of our first week on vacation in Austria, starting Saturday July 31st.

A few KM before the Austrian border, so still in Germany (near Passau) one of our mobile home tired blew. And it blew hard! That evening I found rubber in bed. Not the safe kind of rubber though, but bits of the tire...

We found an Irisch pub near by, I was thrilled for sure!

A long, widing path through the "Teichalm Moor".

Chance had a great time as well :-)

Folks, I am getting really tired so I guess it's time to end the blog for now and shut my eyes and hopefully get some good rest/sleep. Thanks for your interest and hope to be able to "tell" you more about my 2010 soon!

TTFN! ☺

The new TV is in da house!

2010-12-31T00:26:00.000+01:00

Howdy all!

My last post was about our new TV, well, the ordering of our soon to be new TV. Today was the day: delivery day!

After work, even before grabbing a meal, the old TV was taken down. Some cleaning first, then unwrapping and then the installation. I bought a HDMI cable at work (nice price!) so we could immediately enjoy our PS3 HD quality.

And wow, absolutely wow! What an image compared to the old one... OK we upgraded from 68 cm to 107 cm today. And from 720 to 1920 dpi... And from 100Hz to 200Hz. So many upgrades for our well spend money. It's really gorgeous. We will really get used to it quite quickly, I'm afraid (ha ha). But the joy of watching our BD movies and PS3 games in real HD quality... Wow...

So well, this was my short update on our new TV. Now we need more BD movies to enjoy, haha!

This might be my last post of 2010. I want to thank all readers for following my posts here. And I'd like to thank the people who have taken the time to comment as well.

Have a safe new years eve and see you all in 2011!

FINALLY!!!

2010-12-25T14:18:00.000+01:00

YES! Finally, today it happened... What we wanted to buy ourselves for Xmas last year, we finally bought this year! Well, I spend most money, Joyce skipped in and George will (hopefully) buy us a nice surround set next year when his all his hard work gets paid for...

So yeah, finally we ordered a new TV. And not a simple one... Nope... OK it's not the most expensive, biggest one there is... But compared to the TV we use now, this one is MIGHTY!

This is our current TV... It still works fine, but I really want a HD TV... Especially combined with our PS3...

So hopefully the store where we bought the TV online will contact us on Monday to set the delivery date. We didn't chose for the installation option (it was € 69,- I believe) since I believe we will be capable enough to do that ourselves. Now we will check the stores/websites for a good hanging system. We want to hang the new TV on the wall behind the TV we have now. But we want to be able to rotate it left and right so we need to check for the available options. Costs and all. We'll await the arrival of our new TV first haha!

I will sign out providing you the (Dutch) link to the TV we ordered so you can all get an idea of the new beauty we'll have in our living room soon ☺Plattetvdiscounter.nl This link takes you to the right page.

Have a GREAT Xmas everyone!!!

Thank you Per Gessle!!!

2010-12-25T14:08:00.000+01:00

She’s got nothing on (but the radio)

What she got she got to give it to somebody
What she got she got to give it to someone
It’s not a case of growin’ up or lots of money
It’s just the fundamental twist of the sun

What she got she got to let somebody find it (- “Really?”)
What she got is not for her to keep alone (- “Oh!”)
Nobody’s got a clue if there is such a reason (- “Yea?”)
Why she wanna play it o-on her own

She’s got nothing on but the radio
She’s a passion play
And like the break of day
She takes my breath away

What she got she got to give to some contender
What she got is just like gold dust on a shelf
And no one’s got a clue what’s on her brave agenda
Why she wanna keep it keep it to herself

She’s got nothing on but the radio
It’s a passion play
And like the break of day
She takes my breath away

Who did the painting on my wall?
Who left a poem down the hall?
Oh I don’t understand at all, he-he-hey

© gessle / jimmy fun music / august 2009

New single out January 7th 2011!
Taken from the forthcoming album "Charm School".

Some info written by Per on 22-12-2010 atwww.roxette.se:

Is Santa Claus an Eskimo masochist? The q is relevant since it’s sooooo cold in Sweden right now we poor Swedes can hardly breathe. All guitars are out of tune, thank God for the blankets we found in a closet at the Tits & Ass Studio the other day.

Anyway, we just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. 2010 has certainly been a fab year for us. We managed to finish the Charm School-album. I finally got my favorite pasta-dish right. Marie learned how to ski. I cracked the Top 10 on the go-kart track. Marie found her Trash & Vaudeville-pants from 1989 at the dry-cleaners. We did seven super shows in Europe. And there is more to come next year you know that. Plenty.

The new single will officially hit Planet Earth January 7 but knowing you guys you’re probably already tired of it by then... Charm School begins Feb 10.

So... thanks for all your support, we need that from time to time. Yea, we do appreciate your unconditional love now and forever (sounds like a song…).

See y’all somewhere around the globe next year. We promise to do our best to bring a smile to your faces. Have a great X and a most charming new year. Don’t drink and drive.

Love from Per & Marie

YES!

2010-12-13T11:42:00.000+01:00

The new Buzz! game

Last weekend we were in Almere visiting a dear friend. Another friend also joined in. We were talking about Buzz! games and since our friend lives close to her city center...we went to Media Markt. And there I bought the game I was recently thinking about buying (and I mentioned it in my previous post as well).

So this weekend we've been playing the new Buzz! music quiz. Some questions were easy, for me. And some were really hard to me as well. So much to learn still...

But since our friend has a HD TV, we are amazed every time how frakking awesome it is! We still have a conventional old fashioned wide screen TV... So now we really want to get a HD one as well. We wanted to buy one last year already but then the money just wasn't there. Now I have been saving up a little. So now I am hoping to be able to buy a HD LED TV sooooon!!! With some help from Joyce. George is still busy with his company. But since he bought our previous TV, we don't really mind is he can't skip in. When he starts making a whole lot of money, he can buy us a 7.1 surround sound to add to the TV and PS3 haha! And of course he may buy us a nice dinner too!

So well, the new Buzz! game rocks! And so many new music info to be learned/taught! The layout is better, good improvements. Buzz, the game host, looks better as well. There are more name options to chose from. Also some new characters. But unfortunately some other characters have been deleted... Many game questions to chose from as well. Although Buzz seems to prefer certain performers/bands... I have heard many questions about Blur already... And some about the Cure too! But I have only played this game a few times so I guess there are still many questions to come!
More information about Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz can be found here.

I have made a video while my friends were playing. Here it is:

Of course we have the Dutch version of the game...

And hopefully soon a HD LED TV to play the games (and movies) on.... And I am also still interested in PS3 Move and also the guitar options for our SingStar games.... *sigh* I guess I need to work a lot so I can save a lot of money haha!!!

Have a good day everyone!

Party with PS3 and friends!

2010-12-11T01:27:00.005+01:00

I have written posts before, about having fun with games and friends. Well, I am really busy trying to plan two more game dates next year... Not sure if I can pull it all off, but I am sure going to try.
One time with friends and the next time with my co-worker friends. The first one will be in February and the second one a month later ☺

People have been asking me which songs we have for the SingStar games. I know that Sony has updates for SingStar to add a guitar (or two) as well. I am very interested in getting those through the SingStore, but I have no idea about the costs. So MAYBE the SingStar games will have guitar add-ons then as well...

OK we have the following games (at this moment):
SingStar Vol. 1
SingStar Vol. 2
SingStar Vol. 3
SingStar ABBA
SingStar Queen
and we have downloaded some additional songs through the SingStore. Here you can find the disc info.
The official website where you can find ALL SingStar info is here. We don't have the "PS3 MOVE" yet... But you never know what will happen in a few months...

We also have Guitar Hero with the guitar, drum kit and microphone. We have the following games:
Guitar Hero World Tour
Guitar Hero Aerosmith
Guitar Hero Metallica
Rockband The Beatles
Rochband AC/DC live

And if people still get bored... We have DJ Hero and 3 games of Buzz!
We have:
Buzz!: Quiz TV
Buzz!: de slimste van Nederland
Buzz!: Quiz World

I really want to get the Music version as well.... But well, we'll see, we'll see...

I hope this post gives out enough information regarding the available games. And if this isn't enough, we also have a Wii with MANY games... Maybe my next post will inform you all a bit more about that.

And even though I could play any time that I am home, I still prefer to play with friends and loved ones. Makes it all more fun!

So much, so little, so...

2010-11-28T21:09:00.003+01:00

Things I am looking forward to:
FedCon 20 (www.fedcon.de)
Hallowhedon 3 (http://massiveevents.co.uk/hallowhedon3)

Going to Oberhausen (Centro) next Saturday with my mum and lovers. I am very happy that Joyce got time off on Saturday to join us.
And on December 11th, we will see Harry Potter 7.1 again with lovely friends. Looking forward to that as well. Popcorn fight with Kim! Muwhahaha!
Maybe on December 18th we're going bowling with co-workers/friends... But it's still a plan in progress.

Things that I find hard to face:
Xmas. I am not sure what the plans will be. But I do want to share it with George and Joyce for sure. I am afraid that Joyce's "new found" family will pull on her for one of these days. And I am not sure how it will go. I would be happy to celebrate it just with my two loves. Maybe on the first day, invite my parents for a gourmet and on the second day: out for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants... Sounds good...

Things I would never want to face:
owwww I think it's not the time to think about that one. I would hate to lose a loved one! But I guess all have that fear...

Hmmm dunno why I wanted to write this but I guess I needed to vent it....

Time flies

2010-11-28T20:47:00.003+01:00

There are times when I can't stop blogging. And there are times I want to blog but just can't find the time to sit down, relax and type. And of course there are also times when I don't want to blog at all.

I love to write. I love to blog. I love to keep journals. But most of the time, it goes well for a few weeks and then I just don't get to it and in the end it's been months before I go on. But I am glad I always know where my journal is and I also have this site to blog on.

Maybe it's also because I am active on Twitter and Facebook that I don't have enough time to write decent blog posts. But now the winter is setting in a month too early (frakking ☃ freezing here!) and I keep myself warm inside. And then I can grab my laptop, sit down with a nice glass of white sweet wine and type.

So that is what I am doing now. Sitting down and writing.

Many things have happened. Some good, some bad. But I want to focus on the good things. Even though there is a song that goes about ♫ all good things come to an end ♫. But I want to think positive. That can be quite hard for someone like me but still... I am doing my best.

Last month we went to Hallowhedon 2. I had a great time, hanging 'round with my girl and meeting up with so many other dear friends there. I would love to post the group picture, but Joyce still has it so I need to grab it so I can scan it. I will try to show it to you all soon! The guests were awesome. I really enjoyed myself very much! So much, that I got up early and went to the main hall on Sunday morning to grab the first gold tickets. And I succeeded! But when I needed to pee and neither Joyce nor Yvonne was around, I was in trouble. If I would go to pee and someone else would be coming in, I would lose the first spot. And I wasn't about to let that happen...
But I succeeded and I got Gold 1, Joyce has Gold 2 and Yvonne got number 3.

Joyce and myself with Anthony Stewart Head.

Me and Stephanie Romanov. GOOD hugger!

Jewel Staite... Lovely...

Alan Tudyk... Crazy!

Robin Sachs... Delightful, witty and wicked!

So well, this is my first post in a while and I hope to come back more often. Hope you liked it ☺

Bruce's first time swimming!

2010-10-01T00:40:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone!

On September 5th, Chance took her friend Bruce for a swim. Bruce is 7 months (or maybe even 8 already) and never been swimming. Well, Chance has been swimming since she was 10 or 11 weeks, so she might be a good teacher, or so we thought. And we were right!

We, Joyce and myself, made some video's with Joyce's digital photo camera. I made a small movie of all these shots. I included a song which I have no copyrights on! These all belong to Ilse DeLange and her record company. I do hope they won't mind (well, they did on YouTube but now I put the original file up on FaceBook..) that I share this all with you. The song is called "Follow" and that is exactly what Bruce's doing: following Chance.

Enjoy this video! Feel free to comment ;-)

OK here I go

2010-08-24T23:17:00.003+02:00

I know it's been quite a while and there are, of course, many reasons and some excuses for me not blogging in such a long time. I have blogged though, but on another site under another (anonymous) name.
As I have mentioned, I have some issues that are hard. I needed a place to vent, to write whatever I felt like writing. But I thought this was not the place for such writing. So I went to another blog site and typed my fingers off (when my mood was like it). But even on that blog site, I have had periods of quiet, empty space. At times I had such big headaches that my eyes could not stand the light of my pc screen. And believe me, I always use dimmed screens, otherwise I would not be able to use the pc and/or laptop at all. My eyesight is very good but my eyes are in need on sunglasses very quickly.And at other times, my mood was like heavy thunder and lightning, so not in the writing/sharing mood at all.

But I am trying to make amends, I am trying to get back to my own blog. Of course I will also try to blog every now and then on my anonymous one. It keeps me busy *wink*.

So after several months of unemployment, I now am working again. Not (yet) full-time, but hopefully that will happen soon. It's something totally different from what I used to do. But it is very satisfying to be able to work again! I am working as an order picker and packer in a huge warehouse. Everything that is connected to pc's is handled there. I started out by picking orders, which was a whole LOT of walking and at times, quite heavy lifting. Now I am learning to pack up orders. It is a little less fun from the picking, because you have less social contact with your colleges, but it is said that when you are a god packer, you might be able to make more hours. And of course, that sounds very good to me! So well, I am doing the best I can and hope that it's enough for a full-time job.
The only bad, well not really bad though, thing is, that you start working in the afternoon and most of the time it's 22:00 or later before you get home. So no hot meals with loved ones during dinner time. No TV-shows that are aired during prime time (so happy most of the shows I follow will be released to DVD). Ah well, I am working, and that is the good part! think positive!

It's getting late and I am getting tired so I guess I will leave this post as it is now, grateful for finally posting again after such a long time.

Ta-ta for now dears!

Holiday time in Austria

2010-08-23T00:50:00.002+02:00

Howdy folks!

Yes I am still alive. I know it's been ages... That is why I am posting a video here about my recent holiday in the Steiermark, Austria. The video is linked through my Facebook account.

I will TRY to come back here more often, no promises can be made though...

Thanks for checking! Have a nice day y'all!

Busy

2010-04-28T13:04:00.002+02:00

Hellow folks,

I felt it was time to explain a few things, mainly, the biggest reason for my lack of posts here lately. things haven't been going all too well with me the last couple of months and I didn't feel like blogging about it on a site where people "know" me. I have found a place where I can talk about my troubles, anonymously, and I am also seeking professional help.

I am working on getting better, which I try to remain positive about.

Last night I enjoyed a GREAT K's Choice concert in Vredenburg, Utrecht. It was really awesome and amazing. We were standing front row, in between Sarah and Gert. The atmosphere was really good and I enjoyed every second of it!

Now I am packing because tomorrow, Joyce and I will travel to Bonn, Germany. There we will attend FedCon 19! Whoop whoop! If we have internet in our room, I will do my best to share some pictures and stories during the event.

Again, sorry for the lack of posts lately. I'd wish things would be different...

Thanks for your interest!

It's been a long, long time...

2010-02-26T15:43:00.000+01:00

Heya folks,

I know it's been a while. There are many reasons, which I am not going to share with all of you here online (if you know me and are interested, you know how to reach me). But (again) people pointed out that my blog had not been updated in ages. So here I am again and thinking about what to share today. I would like to apologize for stupid writing mistakes which may be in this text. My cellphone does not spellcheck and at times, it also misses letters that I have typed. Sometimes I catch the missing ones and other times...not. And seeing (unfortunately) English is not my main language, I will use some "easier" words more often since I can't always come up with the better, more suiting words. I hope you don't mind... Thanks!

A thing I have been thinking about a lot lately is jealousy. Everyone has some of it in them, for many and no reasons at all. And I have been thinking about me, myself and I. If I think I am jealous and if so, in what context am I jealous and how did I come to be jealous. And what goes on inside of me when I have these feelings. Jealousy makes me feel diferent emotions at the time I am experiencing it. It depends on the situation and people involved. But most of the time I feel anger and betrayal. Have I always been jealous or did something (or things) improve those feelings, these emotions?

My jealousy comes from my uncertainty. And that comes from my trouble in trusting people. And that all starts in my childhood, since I was used one time too many, or two. Now it really takes me a lot of time till I really know someone and when I feel more at ease with him/her, then I can work on trust and a deeper friendship. A friendship in which I can share my personal feelings and thoughts without having to worry that this will fall in the hands of "wrong" people. That is, people I don't know (or even don't want/need to know) or know too well. People who will judge on hearsay instead of the real "story" behind it all.

So, this all "said", I can easily say I have just a few friends who I really trust with all I am. I have many friends who do know me, but not all of me. And these friends I treasure because they are not easy to find and when you have such friends, you need to guard them with your life.
I know my "secrets" are safe with them and they won't judge me on small stuff but on the whole package.

And then there are the good friends which became even closer friends: my lovers. I know that in the heat of the moment, things can be said which are too harsh and aweful. But those things can be patched up, if both sides are willing to. But the stuff I experience with them, sexual or simple stuff that happens at home, I want to be private. As it happens in a private enviroment. Yes, my best friends will know stuff that had happened when I need to let it all out. But the ones I share it with all know my loved ones and won't use it against them (or me). The ones I share it with respect me and my lovers and know us.
I was wondering if it was silly of me to ask of them to keep our private stuff just as it is: private. And if they needed to unwind, I gave them some names of friends who I felt "safe" with.
But it all seems too hard, too difficult or too silly...

Ah well, this is all I am willing to share to give some insight into the whole jealousy thing.

I've never been too jealous till I got fooled by someone I love(d). I found out got lied to, and I found out what the real story was. It hurt. Cut deep. Tearjerker and all. Still can feel sh*t about it at times. And I guess that's my trigger for my jealousy. And it also gave a huge dent into the faith I had in the honesty of people, especially people who stand close to you.

So if I am lied to and I find out about it, I get angry and my jealousy will stick it's little head up once again. Since I want to know why I was being lied to. What made that person think I would be happier with lies instead of the truth? Why did that person think I wasn't "truth material"? And all these questions make me insecure about myself, about the relationships I have and about the person who lied to me.

I am really looking for people who'd like to discuss this all with me, here (for those who juust stumbled on this blogpost) or by e-mail (for those who know me). Since I'd like to know how others deal with stuff like this. How others would react in the same situation? What are your views on this?

Well, I am doing quite OK I just feel a it down every now and then due to "issues" like this.
Thanks for your time and maybe also thanks for your comments =)

Take care everyone, cherish the friends and people you love and care about!

I believe…

2010-01-05T00:06:00.001+01:00

You all know I am active on Facebook. Several great writers and actors as well as many good friends are on there too. Anne Rice, a very famous writer, is busy on research for her new books. Her old books dealt with vampires, the new ones deal with belief and religion. And she uses the internet a lot to check out people’s views on things. One of her questions got me thinking (ow ow Anne, what did you do???).

The following is what I know, how I experienced it. I haven’t done any research before writing this blog. I did put a lot of links in it to files at www.wikipedia.org. So if anyone wishes to know more about a topic, just click on the link.
I don’t mean anyone any harm! I know that religion can be a delicate thing for people and it is not my intention to look down on any religion. Everyone is in my opinion free to believe in what makes them happy. As long as no one pushes his/her religion to others. In many religions, as far as I know, is one of the main “rules” to harm no other living being. That’s what I believe in: believe what you wish but harm no one with it.

I have been raised as a Christian. I’ve been baptized, did the first communion and went to a Christian school. But after a while, more religious views were coming to the Netherlands. Of course, in the 70’s already many people from Turkey came to live in the Netherlands. And later on, many people from Morocco immigrated to the Netherlands. All the people that came to live in our country took their own religions with them. In the Netherlands, the main religions were Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. There were also people who survived World War 2 and stayed in the Netherlands after we were freed from the Nazi’s. These people were Jewish. So that was yet another religious believe that people in the Netherlands had. So the Catholics,Protestants and Jews followed the Bible in their own way, the Muslims followed the Qur’an.

As long as there has been religion, there have been religious wars. And that is one of the things I dislike about it. I know the Bible has a Golden Rule which works in two ways. It exists in both positive (generally structured in the form of "do to others what you would like to be done to you") and negative form (structured in the form of "do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you"). While similar, these forms are not strictly the same; they differ in what to do with what you would like to be done to you and the other party would not like to be done upon it. The negative form, known as the Silver Rule does directly not contain this while the positive form can exclude it indirectly with that you would like from others to check if you really like it, which is an example of using the golden rule in a context which makes it self-correcting, as argued in the criticisms section. This Golden Rule is also seen in other religions, though under another name and said with other words. In the Jewish Talmud this can be found: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.” This is a quote from Hillel. These are just some things I have found using the wikipedia site. Of course, if you believe in a religion, I guess you already know how the “Golden Rule” implies to your religion and faith.

And in my opinion everyone is entitled to their believe, faith and religion. But WHY do people still have to fight? There have been reports on-line and in newspapers and you can also hear it when you talk with friends: many times a fight/war is based on religion. But why can’t people see Jesus and Allah as one and the same person. When you read the Bible or the Qur’an, it comes down to people believing in one “leader” of their faith and their followers. I have no problems with people who believe in any of the believes and follow their “rules”. But how come that people sometimes claim their wrong behavior, often dealing with pain or even death inflicting incidents, to their faith? Since their faith tells them that they are not allowed to hurt themselves nor others… If people think they should fight for their believe, I don’t think the best way is to fight with their hands and weapons. Since the faith doesn’t allow any violence… Or did I misunderstand it?

I believe there must be someone or something that makes the world go round. But I don’t really believe in giving him/her/it a name. I hope that others will let me live my life as I am with my belief and I will let others live with their own chosen religion. Don’t try to force any religion on me and I won’t interfere with theirs. Seems like a simple but good plan, right?

Let me know what you think. And again, no offence to any religion at all! If your religion/belief makes you happy, I am happy for you!

Well, that’s it for now folks!

TV series… Follow up!

2010-01-04T12:27:00.001+01:00

I have been working a lot on the new “TV series to DVD” board!

BUT I am still looking for people who’d like to join me. I alone can’t make it work, I need your help!

Posting about series that have been aired on TV, maybe they are on DVD or maybe you are still waiting for them to get released.

Share information about the shows you loved!

Get a chance to “get in touch” with (older) shows you might have missed…

Come to TV series to DVD and sign up!

Hope to see you soon!

TV series I love…

2010-01-03T13:28:00.001+01:00

…and I wish to come out on DVD (in the Netherlands)

There are many shows that I loved to watch on TV while growing up. There are many shows that I love to watch now.
Some have come out on DVD, which I was and am very grateful for. But unfortunately, most of them have not been released on DVD nor can I find any plans on the net to have them released at any time. There are two shows that I have only the first season of. After that, they decided to not put out the other seasons. I’ve been waiting several years now, seeing it’s been a few since the release of season 1 of Cagney & Lacey and Strong Medicine.

Other series that I’m still waiting for include Hunter (I know it’s been released in the USA), Cold Case (still airing here in the Netherlands), Sisters and of course the rest of the seasons of Cagney & Lacey and Strong Medicine.

I am wondering why they air these shows for so many years, they get such a good response from the audience (they even cancelled Cagney & Lacy until the viewers all wrote to CBS and they got the show back for another 5 seasons!), get awarded and then they let them die. People who always tuned in at time, not to miss an episode, eager to see the next one after the one on the telly just ended… What would happen if we all would write to who knows who to get these seasons released! But to get something like that done, I guess it’s almost impossible to achieve.

Soooooo I’ve come up with an idea. It’s just a long shot, but who knows… I’ve created an account at proboard.com and made a forum :-) Hopefully, people will become members and maybe together we can get something accomplished. The forum can be accessed through this link. Registration is free and discussing on the topics is welcome :-)

Maybe together we can make a difference. And of course it’s always fun to discuss the TV shows that we loved and still love.

Thanks for your interest! Have a great year! Please join the board!

TTFN Cynni

SCHADE Radio WDR2!

2009-12-26T00:10:00.001+01:00

This is an e-mail I just wrote to the WDR2 (German) radio show (wdr2@wdr.de):

Dear sir, madame,

As a great Roxette fan I was delighted to hear that you’d be airing 3 of their NOTP songs. But did the commentator do any research AT ALL before saying these things about Marie Fredriksson?

OF COURSE she hasn’t recovered completely. She had a brain tumor and this is all there is for her. The doctors gave her a chance of 5% to survive it. So all in all, she’s 95% better than the doctors had given her!

OF COURSE she isn’t jumping around on stage like she used to. Her right eye only has a 5-10% vision due to the tumor and surgery. She can’t see in 3D like “normal” people with good eyesight can. THAT’s ONE of the reasons the stage had a BIG white star: so Marie could see it when the lights were going from dark to light and back again. Ever tried to tape off one of your eyes and get on a stage…?

OF COURSE she doesn’t sound like she used to. She survived this tumor but she also has passed the age of 50… She is born on May 30^th 1958, so 51 years young. As we age, your voice ages with you. But seeing that she had to learn how to write, read and speak again after the tumor surgery, I would say she did a fantastic job.

All in all: that reporter has hurt many of the Roxette fans who have stayed loyal to Per, Marie and their band while Marie was going though these hard times of recovery.

So I think it would be fair to say that she deserves FAR MORE credit than the commentator gave her.

It’s a shame he didn’t do his homework before placing his negative comments on a woman who has beaten the chances of surviving a tumor and he himself would have gotten more praise if only he had given it to the one who deserves it for 100%: Marie Fredriksson!

Thanks for the songs, next time, leave the dumb commentator out please…

With regards,

Cynthia de Ruiter

The Netherlands

I guess this says enough… If you have heard it (or after reading this) and you’d like to tell them that this is NOT done for all the fans AND Marie, EMAIL them! If they get many, many e-mails from all Magic Friends, we could make a difference for Marie… For Roxette!

Spread the word, flood the WDR2 email inbox!

Cause it all begins again where it ends… And we’re all MAGIC FRIENDS!

Merry X-mas to all!

Working on my story

2009-12-17T18:42:00.002+01:00

Hello everyone,

lately, I've been busy with my story again. Writing, changing some things, and thinking of things that should be part of this story. I did "publish" some parts online in the beginning. But I am not going to do so anymore. If this writing is really going well and if the story comes around the way I'd like to, hope to, it might be a nice idea to be able to send it out to some publisher (if ever!).

And if I go around putting my work online, I kinds lose my "claim" to it. Or so I feel...

But if you, my dear readers, are interested in how this story is progressing, please leave me a comment here! If I already have your e-mail I could send it to you. Otherwise, please send me your e-mail addy to my personal FaceBook inbox (so it will be kept private).

I AM curious to your comments, ideas and any mistakes you've encountered while reading it...

Drop me a line, or just leave me a comment ;-) Thanks!

TTFN, Cynni xx

More NOTP Oberhausen vids

2009-12-04T00:28:00.003+01:00

Jonas Isacsson with Alan Parsons, outtake of "Eye in the sky".
Wonderful solo by mister Isacsson!

The Katona Twins with a lovely medley of well known songs. See if you recognize them all!

Roxette with their third world wide number 1 hit: Joyride!

If you like my video's, check out my YouTube. Don't hesitate to comment ;-)

Have a nice day everyone!

A night at the proms in Oberhausen

2009-12-02T23:49:00.003+01:00

Yes we went to our third NOTP gig. Unfortunately, we couldn't have a meet and greet in the end (still crying deep inside about that) because all VIP stars were transported in one big bus and the driver didn't want to stop (message from Jonas on FaceBook). So that was really the only disappointment of the whole evening.

Marie went wrong with the lyrics during the second verse of "It must have been love" (she's been known to do that at times, even before the brain tumor that almost took her life). But the audience didn't care and just sang ahead so Marie could get in with us again. What a woman for not giving in! Many "outsiders" do not know that the chances Marie were given when diagnosed with the tumor were only a mere 5%. But she's a real fighter and kept hanging on for her loved ones (husband, daughter and son) and maybe even for her fans. But she's back, looking oh so fragile and vulnerable... The trouble now is, that due to the tumor, she's lost 90 to 95% of her eyesight in her right eye (please correct me if I'm wrong). That is why she's so shaky on stage: wit the darkness and flashing lights, it's hard for her to focus and see it all in "3-D". I once almost lost all my eyesight in one eye and I remember how difficult it all was back then. So that makes me even more proud to be a big fan of Marie for over half a lifetime (my lifetime that is).

One video, filmed by Joyce, is on YouTube now. Check it out!

Meeting Roxette

2009-11-15T20:22:00.001+01:00

Original video feeds shot by Per Gessle (1st one) and by Christopher Lundquist (other 3). It’s footage from our meeting with the band members from the Swedish group: Roxette! Even though it was very, very windy and getting quite cold, Marie, Pelle and Clarence got out of the van for us! THANKS!!!

Thank you all for making this a NIGHT to REMEMBER!

Once again, thanks for this wonderful event, for a splendid meeting and for the signing of my cat... (CAP!) ;-)

A Night at the Proms

2009-11-15T10:56:00.004+01:00

With ROXETTE :)

WOW what a night. Sitting at a crabby seat at the front row, barely being able to see Per and Marie perform "Wish I could fly" during the first part of the evening. But with the second part, we just stood and walked nearer to the stage (as did MANY others) and there was nothing security could do about it, except for keeping their walking route free of fans. WOW what a night! Marie was performing SO much better than she did a week before, 07-11 in Antwerp (Belgium). Per used the walkway, Marie sang a part of the famous Beatles "Hey Jude" during the Look. They extended some more and it was just fantastic to be there!
After the show, since we were parked far, far away and there was a traffic jam to get off the parking, we decided we should check where Roxette's van would depart from. With some small talk to some security guys, we were told we found the right spot to wait :)
There were only 5 of us, Eva, Joyce, myself and two German girls. Then, we saw the van and Marie was sitting in front. They came, slowly passed us by and drove on... I could not run but with Eva in the lead, the others quickly followed. The van stopped and was put in reverse! We were pumped with Roxette adrenaline and we were so high we felt we could fly... When the van came backwards, Eva had to jump aside... :)
The PA (personal assistant) opened the front door, which almost went with the wind! Marie came out to meet and greet with us for a while and we could take a picture with her. She was soooo sweet!!! When I told her that I thought her show was way better than the one last week, she rubbed my hand (since I was shaking hers to thank her) and asked if I really meant it. And yeah, she was feeling a bit better and was glad we noticed. After some hugs with Marie, she quickly went into the van (before the wind would take her far and away).
But they all gave out signatures, all but Chris who was too busy shooting YouTube viddeo's for Per and he also made some pictures of us (wonder if he could send them to me haha). So maybe we'll be on the wwwgyllenetidercom YouTube channel soon :) You never know... I'll keep checking it though, since I was standing right before Chris because I was asking Per if he had any spare guitar pics ;)
Oh I really got my new shot of Roxette drug again and I now realize HOW MUCH I missed it all these years... I am not able to attend any more shows (money and work wise). Sobs.... But I will go to Rotterdam with Joyce and meet up with Eva on Tuesday :) Let's relive the night to remember at the Proms...

WOW!

Thanks for a wonderful evening.
Thanks to: Per Gessle, Marie Fredriksson, Jonas Isacsson, Pelle Alsing, Clarence Öfwerman & Christopher Lundquist, A.K.A ROXETTE!

Party time in October

2009-11-14T13:39:00.002+01:00

Hallowhedon pictures!

2009-11-11T20:43:00.002+01:00

FINALLY!

2009-11-11T17:58:00.001+01:00

Yes, I am still alive… Even though it’s been ages since my last blog. I have been quite busy with my new job and other stuff, been ill with the Mex Flu and I just haven’t had the time or energy to blog. But, well, here I am again.

Much has happened since my last blog about dear, sweet and silly writer Anton Strout. And last I wrote before that was that we were getting ready to celebrate George’s birthday. It was Friday, October 9th, when we got together with some friends. We first hadn’t planned to celebrate George’s birthday, or only with some family. But when friends contact you and ask if they’re welcome to celebrate, we just can’t say no, can we?!? So it took some more arranging than we thought at first, but we managed. A dear friend of mine made us a very special cake for George. It was one with delicious boobs! And when George got it on Saturday morning, he was quite surprised. But he had to wait till there were more party people before he was allowed to cut the cake. It really tasted very, very good!
Since we had planned to go bowling with some friends prior to George’s birthday, but it got cancelled, we planned to go bowling with some family and friends. We also ate there. That way, I did not have to cook for everyone :)
The bowling was OK, the lanes a tad slow though, and the food was delicious. I still need to upload some pictures that were made during the evening and day. So I will try to share with you in a while. I am currently uploading some Hallowhedon pictures to my photobucket (though you might have seen them at my facebook profile…).

The weekend was a blast and a success. Thanks to all the friends and family who came and helped!

After that, I had to work and get further into it. I still had and have a lot to learn, but I will manage and I do believe I am getting better at several things (which should be so as well! otherwise, something would be wrong).

And then, Hallowhedon (you might have seen the countdown timer on my profile for a while, which is now set for Hallowhedon 2) came! Finally! I did have to work on Thursday evening, but then mum and Joyce came to pick me up from my work (I had all the bags ready before going to work) and we went to Nijmegen. We slept there and we had the first train to depart from Nijmegen towards Utrecht. There we had to skip the train and head for another one that would take us to Schiphol Airport. There we met with Yvonne and went to check in. Hallowhedon here we come!

We had to wait for a while, our plain left late… But we were in time to catch the bus that would take us to Heathrow where we had to skip to another bus that would take us to the Thistle Hotel where the event would take place.

We were very tired but all had gone well. The weekend really rocked and once I have some pictures online I will try to blog about the Hallowhedon weekend here.

There is one downside to the Hallowhedon weekend: I got the Mex flu. Got sick on Sunday afternoon and felt like shit, really bad and a fever that was almost melting me. Even when we entered Schiphol again, I got stopped and asked where I came from. Seems I had a big tomato red head. So the week after Hallowhedon, I was sick and ill and in bed.

Called on Friday that I would go to work again on Monday. Got called back on Satrurday, asked if I was sure… Yeah, I felt better so, why not? That Saturday evening, November 7th already, the three of us went to Antwerp. And when we finally got there, we almost departed a few minutes after arriving. George was pissed. And even though I understood him, I also got pissed because he was spoiling the evening. When we finally did find a parking spot, we went to get something to eat. Just across from where the “Night of the Proms” was being held. Even though it tasted good, it was a rip off! I had to pay almost double of what I usually need to pay when ordering the exact same thing in the Netherlands. I was quite pissed at the guy and called him a thief… He also tried to keep the change, which George “saved” in time. So I wasn’t all that wrong about the dude. I mean, when you can order pizza’s with 3 different toppings for 10 euros, you won’t expect a Margarita (just the tomato sauce, cheese and some herbs) to cost the exact same thing! A total grrrrr moment!

We were supposed to go with Eva and Iwan, friends of us. But they couldn’t make it and another person would take their place. Since Joyce had the tickets, Eva had given the stupid cow my number so she could contact me IN TIME so we could set a time for a meet-up so they could take over the tickets. But that stupid cow thought it OK just to let me know I needed to be at the entrance for her when she thought she would arrive. EXCUSE ME! I don’t need anything from you, you need something from me! So why should I be your gopher??? And then, we did wait for almost 25 minutes and still, no cow… So we went to our seats and we found out cow was almost 40 minutes later than she promised us. Nope, she did not let us know and we saw like 4000 people passing in the mean time (it was sold out with 15.000 tickets!!!). And when Joyce told her it was definitely not done not to contact us sooner, she blamed Eva for telling her it was best just to call me when she got there… YEAH SURE! Eva knows me since 1994 and knows I want things settled BEFORE and not just before… I was really pissed and she reminded me a lot of Miss Piggy though… Same looks and same attitude!

HAHAHA well, this one, but a bit different :)

But all who know Miss Piggy and her attitude can quite understand why I make this comparison.

But the evening was quite fun. The music was good and it was great to see Per and Marie on stage together again (though I was lucky enough to see them from the front row in Amsterdam, May 6th 2009). I made some vids but they are from far, faaar away. Hopefully I can make some new and better vids next Saturday evening. Then Eva IS coming with Joyce and me (since we got her the ticket for her birthday) to the NOPT show in Arnhem.

Peeps, I am getting hungry! Better call George to check when he’ll be back :)

TTFN and I’ll be back everyone!

Anton Strout: writer & Mafia Wars player with a wicked mind

2009-10-13T18:42:00.003+02:00

Hello y’all!

Today I have been chatting on FaceBook with the author of books from the Simon Canderous series: Dead to me & Deader still. The third book is still in the works and will come out February 23rd 2010: Dead Matter. I have already placed the pre-order and Anton promised to make my copy a signed one. For those of you who know me well, know that I’m really thrilled and ecstatic! I love books and especially signed ones. Makes me feel more connected when I am reading it all. I already have signed books by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden and this will be my first Anton Strout signed copy :) Whoohoo!

For more information about Anton and his books, I collected some websites for you all to check out and enjoy:

The official Anton Strout site
His official FaceBook site
His official Twitter site

I also have some links for his books on Amazon.com:

If you enjoy reading fantasy novels, if you loved watching series like “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” and if you like some good humor in your book: check these books out! They’re worth the read and I promise you’ll come back for more!

That’s all for now folks!

Luv,
Cynni xx

Busy weekend

2009-10-11T11:21:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

I'm back with a small update. Will try to write more asap but seeing the weekend's not over yet, I am still kinda busy... But I am taking a few minutes for my own now and will try to send a small update now.

Work went ok on Thursday and Friday. It were long days and they took a lot of energy from me. I had to work from 12:30 till 21 on Thursday and from 7 till 17 on Friday. After that I had to rush home and get some stuff prepped for that evening and the following weekend. Seeing some dear friends would come over for fun, games, bowling, drinks and also for cake seeing we would celebrate George's birthday. He didn't know it but Joyce, mum and I had been planning it for some weeks now. George mever really liked to organise anything for his birthday. Last year Joyce and I got some friends together to celebrate and now we invited some family as well. So on Friday, when the friends had arrived and George (very grumpy George) had finally gone to bed, we could start decorating. Blowing up the balloons (or releasing them before tying the knot haha) and hanging the flags. We were pretty busy for some time but in the end it was really worth it.

I had already spoken with a dear friend of mine who loves to make cakes. I had transferred her the money and she made a lovely titty cake for George.

Ow my battery is dying so I gotta send this off now. TTFN and I'll be back!

Luv, Cyn

First two days done

2009-10-06T18:19:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

It's me again. I'm home alone since Joyce is working and George is still busy at his Energy 2009 thingie. So it's only me and Chance now. And I'm watching DVD while typing this blog post on my phone.

The first two days at my new job are behind me now. It's so different from what I was used to do. But it's very interesting and I'm hoping that I will know all the names of the different sorts of bread soon. I did remember a few this morning so maybe some more again tomorrow morning. On Thursday I'l have to work the afternoon-evening shift so I can experience the closing and cleaning up of the departement. Tomorrow I'll have to get up at 6 again for another early start. But I know what I'll have to do. That is, if it's the same as it was this morning.

*Chance interruption: she puts one of her tow toys in front of me on the couch so I may throw it ahgain... So I threw it and now she almost knocks my cell phone out of my hands while returning her toy... OK back to writing again*

This morning I had to slice all the bread (with a machine) and bag and label them. I had to put bread in the big oven and also in the smaller one. And of course, I had to get the bread out and put new unbaked bread back in. I had never worked with such a big oven before so it was a bit awkward for me at first. But I got better at it after a few times. I had to put all the unbaked brwad out of the freezer and prep the carts for tomorrow. That way, everything is standing ready when we need to start tomorrow. I cleaned up after all the slicing was done, breadcrumbs everywhere. But not after I got finished. I cleaned some breadboxes which are used in the store so the customers can get their own bread as they please. Connie had already started cleaning before she went home so I finished it up. Then I had to go on reading in the information folders about the bread/cheese/meat for bread departements. When I was finished it was a quarter to three. Nathalie asked if I could help and do the 15 o'clock check for her. It was a bit difficult since I did not know where everything was but when she was finished we finished the checking together which put me a bit more at ease. Then it was time to go home again. My log card still isn't working. Hopefully it will work tomorrow.

Driving the scooter is, since I slay under it a few years ago, still a bit scary for me. When I rode this morning, there was a light rainfall and it was frakking dark. I could not use my wide beam since there were cars every now and then and I did not want to blind them. But I drove easy and it did go OK. The way back I almost had to kick a frakking stupid boy (around 14 years old I guess) of his bike. I honked that I wanted to pass him and his little buddy. And instead of giving me the space he just went on pretending it was too hard to just let me pass. Frakking schoolkids...

Ah well, since I drank about 2 liters of nice warm tea since I came bak home, I wil send of this blog post and head tor the toilet.

Sorry if some things weren't in correct English, I dunno all the correct names for the stuff I am working with. Hope I did discribe them well...

I'll keep you posted!

Ow and I am looking forward to this weekend: dining and bowling with some dear friends and family members. Wednesday the 14th I'll finally receive my new splint at the dentist. Hope this one'll work better than the NTI one... Just another week and then I'll know...

Really gotta run now so TTFN everyone!
Cynni xxx

Free week

2009-10-02T13:33:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

I am writing this while waiting for my mum to get back from her therapy at the hospital. It's been quite a busy week even though I did manage to relax every now and then.

Last weekend two dear friends came to visit. We decided it'd be fun to go bowling (and ever since long before my surgery I had to quit bowling and it would be my first time on the lane again). Allthough we did fool one of our friends she needed to bring her bathingsuit haha. We fooled around till we went to the bowling alley. But first I made everyone a nice dinner in my WOK. And I myself had a microwave meal haha... The next day I would make my "famous" pastasause to be served with pasta, of course...

Ah well, the girls played some Wii Mario Racing while I was in the kitchen preparing their meal. After dinner we walked with Chance before heading out to our lane. We had one lane for 1,5 hours. It was really fun and we all had a great time. After bowling we went home, got into our PJ's and played PS3 SingStar. Even George joined in! I think he loved that he was albe to sit anywhere he pleased now that we have our wireless microphones. It's so much easier than the old wired ones... We also played a whole lot of PS3 Buzz! Games. Joyce and I had bought new batteries since the old ones were slowly dying on us. And that is very frustrating when you're in the middle of a game and your controller gives up on you...

Owww thinking about playing games with my friends.... We really should get the dancemat and Raving Rabbids out more often! It was sooooo funny....

Ow and after dinner on Saturday, my friends filled in my new "Snowwhite and the 7 dwarfs" friendshipbook. It made one of them cry with tears of laugher. It was soooo funny... What do you like to become when you grow up? Haha... We are grown up... Well... Almost...

I have watched a lot of DVDs during the week. And yesterday I have been to the dentist, yes, once again. I had to bite in wax so they could make dental impressions for the new splint I am getting (since the professor kinda killed the old one and tried to get me insane as well...). I am very bad in giving those impressions. It's hard to explain in English since I am not sure on how all the stuff is called. But any of you who has had braces or other dental work done might know the drill. They have special "spoons" that fit around your upper and lower teeth. They make a special paste that goes into that spoon. The spoon goes inside your mouth and they press it hard upon your teeth. But my problem is the paste that's too much and goes to the back of your throat. That makes me want to vomit. A whole lot! And I am told my spit-production (dunno how else to call it) is running wild when needed. So they had to do a lot of suction there as well. I kept them busy... Anyway... All the impressions and stuff came out perfect. Now I have two dates which I need to discuss at my new job on Monday. On one of these two I need to go back to the dentist for the fitting of my new splint. So when I know that on Monday, I will e-mail my dentist and it'll get settled. I will not get a NTI splint like I had before. I will get another one that will fit over my complete upper teeth. Now I'll have to wait and see...

Ah well, mum should be ready in a few minutes so I will send off this blog now.

TTFN everyone!
Cynni xx

Second free day

2009-09-29T11:05:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone,

here’s another update from me. Yesterday I had my first free day. Officially I had to work till October 2nd at my ex-job, but since I had many vacation days left, I now have a week off before starting the new job. I still have to contact the new job to make some arrangements. But I am planning to do that near the end of this week. First I want to relax and let it all sink in a bit.

I am currently uploading some pictures to my FaceBook account. All convention related ones. Don’t know why I haven’t done that earlier…

And something a friend mentioned on our OMWF&friends board made me think last night. She asked if the reader of that post (it was in a game section) was missing his/her friends. When I gave my answer, it was no. And she reacted that she did miss her friends and could not understand why I did not miss mine. I already answered that question and thought about it some more. I don’t have to miss my friends because I know how to contact them in many ways. I can send a text message, chat, e-mail, make a phone call or arranging a meeting… So there’s no need to miss them in any way. Sure, some times it can be easier to talk to a friend face to face. But when your friends live all over the country (and some even all over the world) you just have to accept that it can’t always be easily done. And my friends know how they can reach me, should they need me. So when I thought about it some more, I realized that I really don’t miss my friends because I’m always connected to them in as many ways as possible.

Ah well…

Dentist appointment in the afternoon. They'll hopefully fix my splint behind my teeth. And I am also hopeful that it will help to stop the tooth aches I’ve been having ever since last week, Monday.

Well, I’m off now to tag some picca’s @ my FaceBook. Check the link on my blog to find me there if you’re interested.

TTFN, Cynni xxx

Two more days

2009-09-23T19:05:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

Here another update, made with my mobile phone, from the couch...
Today I spent at home, seeing I slept badly due to my tooth and jaw aches. I could not lay as I liked to and my head kept hurting. Ever since Monday evening I have a bad headache. I guess it's due to all the "stress" my head/jaw/teeth endured that day.
So Joyce called me in sick today. I could lay in bed a while longer which was quite comforting.
I took it easy today and in the afternoon I called my boss. I explained what had happened and he had to laugh about it. Of course this is something that could only happen to me so I understood his laughter. But I was disappointed that it had to happen to me... Stupid splint... And I gotta be back on Monday at 14.
But my boss also told me that I will only have to work two more days. Tomorrow and Friday will be my last day at the Super. So instead of 7 working days I only have 2 left. And then I have a week off. Which is very nice, so I can make some arangements with my new employer and just take it easy. Let it all sink in.

Ah well... Will watch some more DVD (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, season 7) and take it easy...some more *winks*.

I am looking forward to the upcoming weekend *big grin*.

TTFN everyone, I'll be back!
Cynni xx

Ouch!

2009-09-22T19:13:00.000+02:00

Hello boys 'n girls!

Here I am again with a mobile blog. I am all alone, excluding two sweet doggies, watching a DVD (Criminal Minds, season 2) on the couch.
Today I had a day off from work. Yesterday I had a dentist appointment which went a bit different from what I hoped and/or expected. The check-up took 1,5 hours and that was already a long time. Then they were going to fix my splint. I have one that I can use during the nights so I won't grind my teeth while sleeping. But I could shoot it off using my tongue and that's what kept happening during the night. I did not use it every night but it was nice to have it when needed. So since it was a bit too wide, it needed some fixing. The professor used some liqued wax and in the end, it became too hard and got stuck on my teeth and other splint. Since I have had braces in my mouth, I have two splints keeping my teeth secure in their place. So the external splint got stuck and wouldn't move... In the end they had to cut it in several pieces to get it off. I had plastic curls in my mouth from the cutting and it hurt my jaw and teeth. After half an hour, it was finally off. Now I feel like someone wacked me right into my face, hitting my lower teeth right on. It really hurts and now I have to get back next Monday so they can fix my splints, both of them.

Due to all that plastic I had to throw up during the evening. It also hurt when all those bits came up, caught in slime and dinner. When I wanted to get back into bed, my space had partly been taken. I was feeling hot and sick and just grabbed my pillow and went up to the attic. There I cleaned up the old sleeping couch, posted some on Facebook and played the "7 wonders" game on my PS2. After finishing level one I tried to get some sleep. I was still aggrivated and pissed at everone and myself.

I am mad about some things that may seem simple. But for me, they aren't. I do take some things too hard on myself at times, I know that. But it isn't easy for me to describe it, even if I wanted to. But I am very busy, really occupied, and I just can't seem to find some time for myself. And when ever I am home alone, like I am now, it's just too hard to use that time in the way I should.
I know I'm babbling or it seems like I'm babbling. But seeing it's my blog, I'd say I'm allowed to babble here...

Today I argued with Joyce about some stuff that had been and is still bothering me. Then we cooled off and went to my mum. Checked her laptop and then went out to buy their b-day prezzie for George. I finally knew something he'd wanted and did not buy it himself (yet). So now we have to keep him from buying it until his party. And we got Kim some prezzies, seeing she just had her b-day. I also worked on George's company website, adding some info about his new project.

I ate alone this evening, walked the doggies and fed them. I know the dishwasher needs to be emptied but I really don't feel like it. I feel tired and hurt and alone... It'll pass and fade but at this moment, it just sucks...

Ah well, will watch the DVD and maybe clean out the dishwasher ;-)

TTFN, Cyn xx

Disturbed - Stricken

2009-09-22T09:37:00.001+02:00

AH! AH! AH! OW!
You walk on like a woman in suffering
Won't even bother now to tell me why
You come alone, letting all of us savor the moment
Leaving me broken another time
You come on like a bloodstained hurricane
Leave me alone, let me be this time
You carry on like a holy man pushing redemption
I don't want to mention, the reason I know
That I am stricken and can't let you go
When the heart is cold, there's no hope, and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will I run

AH AH AH OW
You don’t know what your power has done to me
I wanna know if I'll heal inside
I cant go on with a holocaust about to happen
Seeing you laughing another time
You'll never know how your face has haunted me
My very soul has to bleed this time
Another hole in the wall of my inner defenses
Leaving me breathless the reason I know
That I am stricken and cant let you go
When the heart is cold there’s no hope and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will i run
Into the abyss will i run!
Oooooh!!!!

You walk on like a woman in suffering
Wont even bother now to tell me why
You come alone, letting all of us savor the moment
Leaving me broken another time
You come on like a bloodstained hurricane
Leave me alone let me be this time
You carry on like a holy man pushing redemption
Don’t wanna mention the reason I know
That I am stricken and cant let you go
When the heart is cold there’s no hope and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will i run
Into the abyss will i run!
I cant let you go!
Yes I am stricken and cant let you go!

4 more weeks

2009-09-07T21:52:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone!

As you all know, I gave my boss my 4 weeks notice last Friday. And today we had a short but definitive talk about it. All is getting settled and I will have my last working day at the Super on October 2nd. On October 5th I will start my internship at the Jan Linders in Boxmeer. I am very excited about it all, though I have to admit it’s a bit scary as well. Seeing they put so much confidence in me and I never ever did something like I will be doing now before. Though I only know the job from what I read about it, it seems like a big responsibility. Which is good seeing I love to do the things I do with great accuracy and pride. So being responsible for stuff is something which gives me some extra will power to do what I know I can. Maybe it sounds silly or strange, but that is who I am.

The job I am doing now, I know that I can do it and very well indeed, if I might add that. But knowing I can do it doesn’t provide me with any “pride” anymore. There is no challenge in succeeding because I can do it with my eyes closed and also when my hands are tied. It was all very exciting when I started but after a while I need something new to set my teeth in. I don’t want a job in which I can predict now what I will be doing in 5 weeks time. I know there are certain things that always need to be done. But some things are fun when they are not so predictable. And the stuff I was doing once gave me a good feeling over myself. But I got only compliments of my customers, not that much from my boss. And that made me wonder… Should I stay because of them of because I want to? And when this new job offer came by (thanks to Joyce for finding it), I just went out and gave it a try. I did not even have to try hard, but just be who I am and that was more than enough for them to hire me…

I do have many mixed feelings still. Happy for my new job, sad for losing some dear colleagues and close customers, a bit scared for the new job as well. I know I am a fast learner, but still it’s a bit scary to know that I will be getting such a big responsibility! It’s like I am going from 10% to 250% within one breath of air. Hope that makes any sense…

Well, I am now waiting for my contract to be send out so I can sign it. And hopefully the last 4 weeks on the job at the Super will go OK. I want to leave my “old” work in a decent and good feeling way.

To all my friend colleagues and close customers: I WILL MISS YOU!!! Please check my blog and leave me a message… I would love to keep in touch with many of you :)

That’s all for tonight. Much love and hugs,
Cynni xxx

Confused...

2009-09-06T22:24:00.000+02:00

I am confused... Quite confused...

As I have written here at the end of last week, I have my boss my 4 weeks (I believe it's 4 weeks) notice. I told him I was offered a new job and after much thinking and discussing it with friends and loved ones I accepted it. He was quite stunned, not that he showed it... But he only told me that he'd think about it and would come back to me about it. Since I told him that I wanted to quit just after noon, it was really a long wait when he only told me around 16:45 that he "rather not" have me quit and we'd talk about it on Monday. I was so stunned because I told him I was quitting and I accepted a new job already.

So WHY a need to think about it? Will he make me an "offer I can't refuse" now that I have told him I want out...? It's a bit too late for that I would think. So many things that have happened that counted up to me wanting to find another job. I never really felt appreciated there. I have been working till 9 days before I was scheduled to get my new hip. Yeah I worked shorter days, but I was there the best I could manage and doing my job. I was taking quite heavy medication and I was told that in that time I did not work hard enough... That I was too slow and all. And I also was told that I was a big cost to the company. Further more other (newer) collegues were offered better positions and some educational things... All things I longd for, told him that I wanted more and had the feeling I could mean more to the company. But it was always noted and never dealt with.

And now I got through 2 interviews and a test and passed them almost with glory and I accepted the job... And now he wants time to think. I guess in one way I would feel a bit honored if he offered me something in tomorrow's talk. But also offended that during the 8 years and 2 months, he dd not do anything and it could only happen because I want a new job.

So I am confused, sad and angry at the same time.
WHY am I bing told my work ain't good/fast enough and I cost too much?
WHY didn't I ever receive a promotion or something educational, which others may receive?
WHY can't he just accept that the way things are going now, I am not happy there anymore?

And last of all:
Why am I feeling almost guilty when all I am doing is thinking of my future and my best interest?

I have been sleeping very little ever since I knew they had offered me the position. I have nice co-workers, some very dear customers who surely mean a lot to me... But I don't feel appreciated and just taken for granted at times by my boss and his brother just hates me. So if I am that slow, expensive and not important enough to be offered an sort of promotion in all those years...WHY say that he'd rather not have me quitting and needing time to think about it??? Why not tell me when I have my last working day and how we will work out my standing vacation time and days and all???

*sighs*

So instead of having one stupid day, last Friday, in which I told him and then we could deal with it all...I have to wait till tomorrow and hopefully he will have it all sorted out by then.
Will write my notice tomorrow evening and hand it over to him on Tuesday. After many tears and talks and doubts I have made up my mind. I want that new job.. Not the old one with slight improvements after such a long time... IF he had offered ANYTHING previous to me working on getting a new job, I might not have gone for it. But now... It's too late...

And I will try to get some sleep... Hopefully... And hopefully tomorrow everything will be sorted out... In a nice and decent way, I also hope...

*sighs*

Sleep well my dear readers!

PS. Due to all the stress of the stuff mentioned above I had no time or energy to work on my story... Hopefully I'll be able to work on it asap.

Awake way too early…

2009-09-04T06:12:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone,

this is an early morning blogpost. Normally, my alarm allows me to sleep till 6:20 am. But I have been awake a big part of the night and when my tummy needed a toilet brake around 5:50, I decided to get up. I am feeling quite nervous, anxious and maybe a bit scared. I know it is a normal conversation to have and it’s a risk you carry when having a company, that people may one day quit. but I am not sure if he saw this coming and in a way, I’m afraid I will hurt his feelings. I think that is what my feelings are truly about and why I am sleeping to lousy. I am afraid to disappoint my boss. Getting the feeling that I am letting him down. While it’s actually him that let me down by giving others the means of exploring themselves by giving them more responsibilities. By not allowing me some more access and involvement in daily things that are happening in the store.

So see, it wasn’t all totally useless that I have been laying awake for such a long time. I finally figured myself and my feelings out. I am scared that I will disappoint him instead of being able to be happy for myself for starting a new and more responsible job soon. Maybe I’m a bit scared too that the new job might be too much to handle for me. But I also know that I’ve got a lot of potential that isn’t being “taken advantage of” at my current position.

It’s just such a double feeling, as we say in the Netherlands. It’s like I have this big, old fashioned two-way scale in front of me and even though I have made my decision about taking the new job, I am still measuring all the odds and evens. I guess that is my insecure part deep inside of me, that’s taking over.

Ah well, I will go get dressed and feed the dogs. And be nervous… I keep telling myself that it’ll be OK. But I guess I won’t be able to believe that for myself until the day is over…

*sighs*

Cynni

To think that you think that… Chapter 3

2009-09-03T21:49:00.001+02:00

the story continues… please feel free to comment, pa-leeze comment!!!
looking forward to your impressions and all…

THREE

Sandra woke up around 6 am. She slept only a few hours and it had not been very restful. But she saw it differently. She rushed to the toilet first, bat in hand, and then she rushed over to her laptop. She switched it on, waited for the software to load and typed in her password. She thought she heard some noise from her bedroom. So she grabbed the bat again and slowly walked towards the bedroom door. When she silently opened it, she thought she was losing her mind!
The window was open again, just slightly ajar, but open!
She could have sworn that she had locked and bolted it. How could anyone be able to open it up again without her noticing? How was this possible? And there it was again. That one answer that did not seem to be a real answer at all.

Magic? Magic!? There’s no such thing as magic… Is there? Is there!?

That might be the only thing that could start to explain whatever she thought she saw the previous night. And how anyone would have been able to open three locks without leaving a scratch. And also, how her window could have been opened without her noticing. She had been thinking about this all a lot during the night and she had not been able to make up any answer. There simply seemed to be no answer, not a believable one for all that counts, to the answers of how, who, why and what. What was going on here? Were the things she thought she saw and the things happening at her house connected in any way?

The thoughts came so fast that she rushed herself towards her laptop and started typing again. First, she opened a new document. To keep thoughts of yesterday and last night separated from the thoughts of this morning. Later she could cross refer them to see if some thoughts had come up more often than others. That way, she knew they had to be the most important ones that needed to be answered before they made her head go POP!

Instead of writing down more thoughts, she opened her Firefox web browser and went to the Google search site. Before proceeding any further, Sandra checked her firewall and LAN protection settings. She did not want anyone to be able to hack her and see what she was about to Google. It sounded a bit far stretched and ridiculous, even for Sandra herself, to be checking the settings. She had done so quite often, but she got the feeling, now more than ever, that someone or maybe something, was watching her. And the thing she was about to Google was also very un-Sandra. So she checked and double checked it before typing in her desired search words. But while she was rechecking, she also thought that it would not be worth a thing. She always checked her locks, also often double checked it, and they seemed to open on their own account as well when she wasn’t looking.

Still, she was going to Google it and if not now, she would never come around to do it. She typed “magic lock opening” and pressed the search button.

She found several sites that were trying to sell her special locks. Even a site where she could order lock picks in various special “key” sets. But nothing that had anything to do with real magic. As far as magic could be seen as real to anyone.

There had to be someone out there who believed enough in the magical forces that would be able to help her. To maybe answer a few questions from her impeccable long and almost unbelievable list.

So she turned back to the Google search engine for yet another search. But then she got a silly idea in her head. She switched to the Yellow Pages website and decided to try her luck there. She finally found a website that offered her some more information. Without thinking, she picked up her phone and started dialing the number that was blinking on her screen. On the third ring there came an answer. She made an appointment for the next day, Sunday afternoon. She did not want to meet the person in her apartment, so they agreed they would meet up at a local Starbucks restaurant.

After setting the date and time of the appointment in her cell phone, she went back to her thoughts file. It felt like it was only growing with many questions that would never be answered. How she hated that! She was desperate for some answers. Just a few to begin with. It would be a start. The start of something good or bad, she wasn’t quite sure about that yet. But nevertheless, it was a start of something…

She sat staring at her laptop screen for a few minutes, not even noticing that her thoughts wandered off to places she’d never been within her imagination. Normally Sandra was very much in touch with her thoughts. She was always carrying around her cell phone. Not to keep in touch with all the close friends she did not have. But this way, she always had a device with her to write down all the thoughts and sometimes ideas that would pop into her mind. And because she always could digitally write down everything she wanted, everything that had come to mind, she knew better than anyone what her usual train of thoughts was. And the last 24 hours, it really had been very off. It was like she was not herself anymore.

Normally she would at least find a couple of believable and acceptable answers to some of the questions on her display or screen. But now, she was lost at sea, trying to find a small drop of water. Looking for a needle in a haystack would be easier than finding any answers to the questions she had written down since her walk home last night. Sandra was really hoping that her appointment on Sunday would make her wiser. She would be happy if she could go home after it with one answer on her questions. She would be extremely happy with two answers. And three answers or more would blow her mind! But she did not want to get ahead of things. And with that thought, she came back to what she was doing before she started to stare at her screen.

She typed up some more things, some things she wanted to ask her appointment the next day and some more thoughts, before she encrypted the file and shut down her laptop. She did not want to go out, but inside she wasn’t sure she felt safe there either. The locks were opened after she closed them, again and again. And she still wasn’t sure if she was being followed the previous night or not. But she gathered all her strength and courage and got ready to leave the apartment. She had to get some groceries, whether she liked to get them or not. She was running out of food and drinks, and she did not want to dine out again before she found out more about what was happening to her. While Sandra was getting her groceries bag and her purse, she was doubting of locking her front door and windows would have any use. But since she had this neurotic habit, she had to do it. She could not leave the apartment knowing that the doors and windows weren’t locked. She knew there was someone, or rather something¸ that was able to open up anything anywhere if he, she or it pleased. But still, seeing not everyone was capable of doing such a thing, so it did feel safer to hold on to her habit of locking it all up.

After checking the locks once, twice and again she was sure she could leave the apartment safely to do her shopping. She almost wanted to bring along her baseball bat but she figured that was not going to be allowed when visiting stores. They would rather think that she was about to rob them instead of thinking it served as protection only. Protection against what? That, she did not know. Or know yet, she secretly hoped.

Since she did not own a car, it was too expensive for the use it would have and she preferred to do everything she could on foot. She loved to walk. Gave her the time she could use to clear her mind, or try to in a way, and it also gave her a daily dose of fresh air. As fresh as air could be in the city she lived in. But her work was close enough to work, as were the stores she used on a frequent base. She did own a bike, which was stalled in the basement of her apartment. She used it maybe once or twice a month. She also liked to ride it, seeing it gave her the exercise and fresh air which she loved. But driving a bike was a bit more dangerous than walking on the high curbs. Many drivers thought they were competing in the Indiana 500 when they would hurry to whatever place they had as destination. She almost got hit by a car the last time she was on the road. Her bike got hurt, she did not, luckily. The car hit her front wheel. Not hard, but hard enough for the wheel to have a huge dent and Sandra’s temper to raise. Fortunately, the driver was not a rude businessman with a huge hurry but a nice man who paid for a new wheel and even offered to ride her home. Since she was close to home, she declined the offer, gladly took the money and walked home afterwards.

It was three blocks to her local Delhaize store. She had a long list of stuff she needed to buy. Of course, this list was saved on her cell phone. She kept checking if anyone was following her but she felt like that was not the case. She was just glad that she did not have to go past the place where she saw it happen last night. Yes, yes, or she thought she had seen something happen. That idea and thought was still nagging in her mind.

She felt almost 100% sure that she wasn’t followed when she entered the store. She got a shopping kart and grabbed her cell phone. When she flipped it open, she saw that she had an incoming file being transferred in through her Bluetooth connection. That was weird! She didn’t have that connection open and if and when she used it, she always used an eight numbered code to protect the file transfer. She saw that the senders phone, or maybe PC, had no ID. No name, no number, nothing that could tell her who the mysterious sender was. She decided to let the transfer finish and she would check the file that was transferred when she got home again. That way she could check the file for any virus or Trojan horse or any other hacking and cracking device that could be embedded in the file she just received. When her phone told her the file was well received, she saw that the connection was disconnected and her Bluetooth immediately switched itself off. Sandra was now in doubt whether to switch of the phone or leave it on. She left it on, not giving the new file a chance to do anything weird with her phone while was booting. But she did put it away and just got her groceries from the top of her mind. Not using the applications was the safest options she could think of.

She believed the kart was full enough when she proceeded to check out. While she was waiting in the line, someone she knew came walking up to her. Or, as it turned out to be, walked up to stand behind her in line. The lady did not notice she was standing behind Sandra until Sandra had enough courage to turn around and say hello.

“Hello Lilly, how are you doing?”. Yes, it was Lilly from work, the woman she thought she might have feelings for. Lilly looked up, surprised at first, before responding to Sandra. “I’m doing quite OK Sandra. I did not know you did your shopping here.” “I’ve been coming here for almost two years, it’s only a three block’s walk from my apartment.” Lilly gave Sandra a puzzled look. “We’ve been working together for almost that same amount of time and you never told me you live so close to me?”

Sandra felt a blush coming up and couldn’t think of a fast answer. Not one she felt comfortable with anyway. But before she could respond, Lilly interrupted her thoughts.

“The line is moving Sandra. You wouldn’t want to stall it, would you?” Lilly giggled when she said that, and Sandra could feel her temperature rise. She moved forward, just three people in front of her now. She longed for some time with Lilly. It was nice to have someone to talk with and to get her mind of the frequent thoughts she’d been having. Maybe she could invite Lilly for a cup of tea at her place. Or would that be too much and too fast? What the heck! After all the strange things that had been happening she felt she deserved a change. A good change. So when the line moved up once again, Sandra turned around to invite Lilly. But Lilly had gone. She wasn’t standing behind Sandra anymore.

Sandra felt sad that she did not notice Lilly going away. And that she didn’t get the chance to invite her over. She moved up again, paid for her grocery items and she was still busy packing them into her bag when she heard a familiar voice.

Lilly stood beside her. “Sorry that I left like I did. I saw a shorter line and it was a good decision to change. But I should have told you before setting off.” “Oh it’s OK, I was just wondering where you were when I turned around. But, what I wanted to ask you, are you busy this afternoon?” Lilly looked like she was thinking it over before she answered. “Well, besides from getting my groceries home safely, I was planning on sitting on the couch with a good book. Why, got any better plans?” Sandra laughed nervously before finally getting to her point. “Well, if you are interested, I wanted to ask you over to my place for a nice cup of tea. It would be nice to get to know you a bit better.”

There, she had said it. Straight out and forward. Message delivered.

Lilly welcomed the invite. She asked for Sandra’s address, so she could go home first, put away her groceries and fresh up before visiting Sandra. On her way home, Sandra felt like she was flying instead of walking. All the troubles that she had seemed to fade away. Of course, they were still alive and kicking as well. But now, it didn’t seem so bad. Before the evening would be over, the troubles would be back. OK, they had never left but just seemed less present. Sandra didn’t care! Lilly was coming over…

to be continued…

The hardest thing...

2009-09-03T19:38:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone,

tomorrow will be the day when I have to go and talk to my boss. I have to tell him that I will be leaving his company after working there for 8 years ans 2 months. I've been offered a new job at another supermarket chain and I have accepted. I have talked a lot about it with friends and family and I do like the place I am working now. But it will get me no where. I am doing the same things I have been doing for over 6 years now and I think I can accomplish just a bit more than that.
On several occasions I have informed my boss about it. But nothing has been done with it.

I love to work with my co-workers. We have fun and we know we can count on each other. I have many good contacts with several customers and I will really, really miss that all. I will miss catching up with everyone, watching kids grow up and doing what I know I can. But I would like to see myself doing just a wee bit more than that when I look at myself in something like 10 years or so. That is why I took the offer. With this supermarket chain I can get more opportunities to grow and develop myself, sort to speak.

But it still freaks me out knowing I have to deliver my boss this news tomorrow. I feel like I am going to do something really, really bad. But all I am doing is choosing for myself and to start a new career. I know I am an @$$ complaining that I got offered a more advanced job... But I just wish I had gotten this chance at my present company. So I would not have to say goodbye to all of my co-workers and friends. It truly makes me sad to think about having to miss them all... And it freaks me out knowing I will be the newby at my new job. Doing something I have never done before and really hoping I will be able to do it all. Though it really feels good knowing that people think me capable of stuff that I have never been allowed to do before at my present job...

So all in all, it is hard in many ways. I hope my boss will understand and be nice/reasonable/good about it. I have not been able to sleep OK in the last week, laying awake thinking about all the scenarios and everything that can go wrong. I even picture me crying...

Ah well... Please everyone, keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow... I will be back about this topic for sure...

Nervous huggies,
Cynni xx

Another old poem

2009-09-02T20:53:00.002+02:00

Writing your life

Writing is, as writing goes
Just one of many artistic flows
One that almost everyone knows

It isn’t easy, it never is
To give your words some extra bliss
But a feeling is not hard to miss

Everyone feels, I am sure
Painful feelings search for a cure
It’s love we can always endure

Memories lead you, to many ways
You write a journal about your days
It’s nice to find a way through this maze

Words misguide, once in a while
Some chosen poorly, some make you smile
Words always exist even in denial

That makes it hard, writing and all
It leads to high ways or a fall
No matter what, I stand tall

Follow the words, your heart gives in
Dare to cry it isn't a sin
Be brave and just begin…

Following the words that will write your story in the end.

©ynni, November 28th 2008

To think that you think that…

2009-08-31T16:54:00.002+02:00

Cynni, the storyteller… continues!

If you liked my first chapter, please read this blog. It contains chapter number:

TWO

She always was a loner. For twenty-five years she’d always had so manage on her own. Her mum did the best she could, but she has died when her daughter was just five years old. The father tried to take care of his daughter, but in his own way. He was too bummed after his wife died to to anything besides getting drunk. He lost his wife and he felt like he lost his life instead. That he still had a daughter did not mean that much to him. After almost a year of drinking heavily he found out that life had to go on. But his way of going on, was checking himself out. He bought a shotgun and ended his life in a brutal way.

His daughter had been beaten a lot, every time he felt like it, and she did her best to cover up all the bruises. At age six, she was almost independent. She tried to take care of her dad the best she could, the best any five going on six year old could do. She never really had the time to grieve for her mother and she did not know how to do so. There were no other relatives that she could turn to. And at school the teachers knew that her dad was a drunk, but because she still got good grades, no one ever did anything to help her with her home situation. Until they got a call, informing the head principal that her dad has taken his own life, with her present in the room.

Sandra was taken in by a not too distant relative who cared enough for the troubled child to take her in. It was a great surprise to her, since she could not remember ever meeting this woman. She told Sandra that she was the widow of her dad’s brother. Maybe that was the reason why she felt just a little connection between her and the young girl. They both had lost someone they loved and cared about. Sandra would always call her auntie, never mum. Her aunt did not mind it and did her best to give Sandra some love and a lot of care. But due to all the distress that Sandra had experienced throughout her short time on earth, it was hard to connect with the little girl. She tried, they even followed some therapy sessions. These sessions helped a bit, but Sandra would never be truly able to trust anyone.

At the age of nineteen, Sandra also lost her aunt. She was driving home after work and got hit by a drunk truck driver. She died on the way to the hospital. Sandra was quite pleased when she heard that the truck driver would spend some years in jail, but it would and could not soften the grieve she was experiencing. Nineteen years young and already three people she had known and loved died in gruesome ways.

Sandra quit university, she could not concentrate anymore and at the time, it wasn’t interesting to her anymore as well. She found a job, got better at it and she rented an apartment. She was finally getting her life back, or her new life was finally shaping up. Anyway you wanted to see it, things were improving. She built up some trust in some of her co-workers and she got better at what she did. At the age of twenty-three she got a good promotion and was able to buy the apartment she was still living in.
She still did not have many friends, just one or two she thought she could trust enough to call it a friend. But they weren’t close enough for Sandra to talk with them about what she had seen. Or thought she had seen.

Romantic relationships were also very unknown to her. She thought that she did have a crush on someone, maybe she would even call it more if she dared herself to do so, but she could not really place the feelings she had. She loved to be around her, to hear her talk, to see her walk, just to be close to her. But she wasn’t really sure if it was love or a craving for a close friendship. And she also was very unsure about having feelings for a woman. Was she really gay or maybe bi-sexual? There have been one or two men that she thought she had feelings for in the past. But since her feelings were never answered and she never dared to take any risk by making contact with that person herself, she would never know what the feelings meant exactly.

Though all in all, Sandra wasn’t ugly. She had, what most people call, a nice figure and a lovely smile. She had, also what most people call, an average height and weight, so really she wasn’t bad on the eye. But because she wasn’t able to trust people, she was also very shy and withholding. One day, she promised herself, she would find out what having a relationship, friendly or even romantic, meant. But at the age of twenty-five, many days had passed since she made that promise.

At work there was that girl, or young woman rather, that she liked a whole lot. Even though the liking was only based on a daily hello and goodbye. That was all Sandra managed to say without going into a shy stutter or her face turning into a tomato colored feature. Maybe, after all that had happened the previous evening and night, she would step up to Lilly, that was her co-workers name, after the weekend. Seeing it now was Friday going on Saturday, she had a whole weekend to figure out what her next step might be. Maybe it would work out. But what was the definition of those works “work out”? So many questions that needed solid answers. So many things to make a young woman so insecure about herself.

All things considered, Sandra never had an easy life. Dealing with her mother’s death at a young age was already hard enough for her. She never really knew what had happened to cause her mother to die. This was also a question that she had asked both her father and her aunt but never got an honest answer to. She wanted to find out so badly, but also grew weary just thinking of what the answer might be, if she ever found it.
And then the abuse, neglect and seeing her father pop the gun against his head. She was in that room and saw it all. It was still haunting her during the nights. As said before, she did not believe in nightmares. But to others, they would really call those dreams freaking bad nightmares for sure. She never understood why her father saw no other way to live on and only the ugly way out. That was also a reason why it was so hard to find out what the reason could be of her mother’s death. For some years she truly believed her dad had something to do with it. Why else would her aunt, teachers and counselor never honestly answer that one simple question: “What caused my mother’s death?'”
Even though she loved her aunt a lot and really was grateful that she took her in after her father committed that “unnecessary” suicide, she had always missed her real mother and of course her father. Her aunt did show that she loved Sandra and also cared about her. But she could not help but feel that there was a great distance between the two of them. Sandra had known that this was partially her own fault, closing herself off to the rest of the world. Not being able to put trust in their relationship for such a long time. And again, she lost someone she cared about in a gruesome way.
No, Sandra never had it easy when you know all this.

But then, Sandra never told many people about her background. She felt ashamed to tell people that she was an orphan and that the closest thing she had to a parent had also died. Why she felt like this, I guess no one could understand. When you come to think about it, knowing this about Sandra makes it a lot easier to understand her. To appreciate her and to see who she really is. But no, Sandra wanted nothing like that. She felt like people only wanted to be friendly to her because they felt sorry for her. No, if people wanted to be friendly, it had to be because they cared for her and not her situation.

Sandra was a complicated young lady. But she had potential to grow. If only she dared to believe in herself.

TO BE CONTINUED…

This was the second chapter of "To think that you think that...". Please don't hesitate to point me to any errors you find. Suggestions and ideas are also welcome. Just place a comment if you like and be sure that I will read it!

TTFN, Cynni xx

Cynni, the storyteller…

2009-08-30T17:15:00.002+02:00

Every once in a while, I get the urge to just sit down and type. To write a story or poem. Or to get rid of some strange thoughts that just don’t seem willingly to leave my mind anything else but preoccupied. To write out some thoughts, feelings, things that bug or annoy me, things that I can’t seem to comprehend without writing them down. And well, at times I tend to write a story that also combines some thoughts or just what comes up in that silly head of mine. Why I am telling you this all? Because I just feel like writing something, it is my blog of course… But this is something that I normally don’t blog about. Normally I write more about how my day was, what I did and am planning to do. That kind of stuff. Not the stuff you may be reading, if you read on, in a few minutes. The thing is that I really do not know what I will be able to publish in the end. I just well, go with the flow as some would call it. So grab a cup of tea, coffee or anything else you prefer, sit back and read on. If you’re still interested. Or maybe I should write: read on, if you dare :)

To think that you think that...

ONE

It was a cold summer night. The air was so chilly, one would think it was half past autumn. She was walking so fast that it felt like the cold wind was making cuts across her cheeks. Maybe it was only the cold, maybe it got worse due to the tears running down from her eyes. She couldn’t really care, all she wanted to do was get home. Get away from what she saw, or what she thought she saw, what she believed she saw or maybe what she wanted to see. Wanted might have been the wrong word to use, but her mind was running almost faster than her legs and it all was very unreal. How could it be real? How could it be?
She almost was home when she heard footsteps behind her. Was someone following her? No it couldn’t be. She would have heard those footsteps earlier. Was it just a coincidence? After tonight, she would probably never believe in anything being a coincidence ever again. So that would have to be a second “No” to her own questions. But there were so many questions that were in search for answers. Though she wasn’t sure she’d be able to answer all those questions herself. While thinking of someone who’d be able to help her, she almost forgot those footsteps that she heard just before. When she got her focus back on it, the sound was gone. So maybe it was a coincidence after all. Maybe she was imagining stuff now. Though seeing what she saw this evening, even if she just thought seeing it, could and would drive anyone crazy. Or so she thought while finally reaching her flat building. She looked around her shoulders just one more time, to be absolutely sure that no one was following her, and she quickly unlocked the main front door. She made sure the door was locked again before she followed the stairs to her floor.
There were four floors in her building, she was on the top one. She believed it would be safer. Why, she never really was sure about that. She thought it would make burglars think twice before trying to empty her apartment. But at other times, when she was reading some news bulletin on a website about people getting killed in their own homes during fires, she wondered what she was more afraid of. Burning to death or being robbed. She’d like to think a lot. Think things over and over until she was satisfied. Or till she thought she was satisfied. She could be very sure about herself and convince just about anyone that she was in fact sure, but still be extremely in doubts in her mind.

But when she finally reached her flat, she saw the door was ajar. She had 3 locks on it, so someone really had done a swell job cracking all of those. But shouldn’t her neighbors have heard anything while that person, or maybe persons, was working that hard on opening her door? They were complaining often enough when she was listening to her music or watching a movie with the surround system on. So how could anyone miss the noise this must have made? Should she call the police or just move slowly towards her door and see what was going on? Thoughts were still racing through her mind of what had happened what seemed like a nano second ago. And now she had to work this out as well. Her mind was making over hours this way and she could not bill them to anyone but herself.
She decided to slowly move towards the entrance. She examined the locks to finally notice that they didn’t have a scratch on them. They were all open without her being able to find any marks on them. No sign of forced entry as they would call it in any cop show you’d see on TV. She stayed in the doorway while she called out. Once, twice, three times in total. If someone was inside, he or she was extremely good at keeping still.
Then she finally decided that she did not forget to lock the door, let along to forget all three of the locks, so she flipped out her cell phone from her pocket and started typing in the central alarm number. She told the operator what her situation was and they’d dispatched one patrol unit to come and check it out. She was told to stay where she was until the policemen were at the scene. While she waited, she felt like she was really going crazy. Those thoughts, all those ideas that kept screaming for any attention, all those questions that wanted to be answered asap.
Since she still had her phone in her hand, she decided to use it wisely once more. She opened up the QWERTY keypad and initiated the Word Mobile® software. She typed slowly, trying to give all her thoughts the best description so she’d be able to sort them out at a later time. And even though she rethought about each and every letter she typed, deep within her she wanted to race her fingers over that damn keyboard. Even if it helped just a little bit to comprehend it all, or just a teeny weenie winey bit, she’d be eternally grateful. Because there was just so much that she could take in one night. And that much was already achieved on the way home. This was getting too much, even for her, to handle within a few hours. It would be too much for anyone, she thought, though this was not one of the thoughts she noted down on her phone.

She was so busy arranging her thoughts that she did not even hear the cops climbing up the stairs towards her apartment. There were two of them and they gave her quite a startle. Not because the looked freaky or anything but more because of her preoccupation with her thoughts and cell phone.
“Excuse me, miss. We got a call that your apartment was burglarized.” She quickly saved the document before putting away her phone. Then she looked at the two cops, a male and female one, before answering them. “Good evening. Could you please show me some ID’s first before we proceed?”
The cops grabbed their wallets and flashed out their Metro Police identifications and nodded politely while doing so. After she had checked them, she knew that the female was called Janie Peterson and the male Jack Jones. For some reason she thought it important to remember their names. While she was mentally making a note of those names, making sure she’d remember them when they left so she could write them down, the male cop was talking to her.
”Miss? Could you please answer our previous question now? You reported a burglary?” She shook her head, also to clear some her thoughts, and then slowly answered the question. “No I only called because I have three locks on my door, which I am sure I locked before leaving. When I came home, the door was ajar without any scratch on the locks or doorframe. So I called it in before proceeding. I did not want to disturb anyone or maybe destroy any evidence if there is any inside of the house.” “Why would you think there’s any evidence, miss?” “Well, if someone went through all the trouble of opening three locks as quiet and clean as possible, I would not think it was just for the fun of it. Why go to the trouble if you don’t want to get inside?” The cops made some notes and exchanged some looks before putting on some gloves.
”Ha!”, she thought. If the cops were using gloves, they too think something could be wrong.Why else go to the trouble of putting on those latex gloves if you think nothing’s wrong? All the thoughts she just got rid of by writing them down were made complete again with all the new thoughts that came running into her mind while she was talking with those two cops. And in between it all, she kept repeating: Jack Jones and Janie Peterson, Jack Jones and Janie Peterson…

Mister Jones grabbed out his flashlight and Miss Peterson followed her partners lead. He slowly pushed the door open, while announcing himself to anyone that might be inside. With his flashlight he scanned the room. When he thought it was safe, he searched for the light switch which was near the entrance. The cops were still outside, scanning the room again now the lights were on. Jones took a small step inside while Peterson started to screen the locks and doorframe. Jones and Peterson made some notes without saying anything. This was quite confusing seeing she was wondering so much what was really going on. Was she allowed to follow inside or should she remain in the doorway?
At that moment, Jones turned around and came back to her. “If you could please follow me, miss. To see is anything is missing or put back in a wrong way.” Peterson signed for her partner to come closer to the locks. “Miss, are you sure that you locked the door?” “I just told you that I an very sure that I did indeed lock it, all three of them.” What was wrong with these people? Had they not been listening to her the first time?
“Sorry to ask you again miss, but it seems that these locks were unlocked when the door was opened. There is really no sign of forced entree, one way or another.” She started to get quite annoyed, because the way that Peterson told her this, the tone almost suggested she was talking to a freaking 4-year old. Not to an adult who certainly and surely knows how to lock a door. “Miss Peterson, I am absolutely sure that I did lock all three of the locks before leaving. I always check and double check, because I am far too attached to my possessions to leave them behind an unlocked door. Not because they are extremely valuable money’s worth, but they are valuable to me personally.”
“First of all, it’s Mrs. Peterson to be exactly.” The way she had said that, there had to be a second of all. Peterson exchanged a concerned look with her partner before proceeding. But instead of Peterson continuing it, it was Jones who came up with the second of all.
”Second of all, there seems to be nothing wrong with your apartment. Besides from being it one of the neatest crime scenes I’ve ever seen. That is, if it would be a crime scene. I am sorry to say miss, but it seems there is nothing wrong here. We will make a note of it all, but there is nothing more we can do here.”
She looked at the cops, thinking a whole lot of things, some not too nice, and then nodded in agreement. She did not agree though, but she just felt there was no way to make anything work between her and the two of them. So she thanked them, even though they did not really do anything to help, it did seem the polite thing to do. They nodded and wished her a pleasant night and went off.

She went inside and bolted the door from there. There were many more thoughts that needed to be sorted out. And quickly before her head would explode. It felt like it was all filled up with C4 explosives, ready to press the button that would make it go “KABOOM!”.
She turned on her laptop and transferred her Word document from her cell phone to the laptop using a Bluetooth connection. She had connected them using a secure code, so no one would be able to hack into it. She always had been cautious about many things. That’s how she was sure that she did not forget to lock the door.

She had many quirky habits that some would even describe as neurotic. As a kid, she felt so insecure about herself. She was always the laugh of the class, the joke of the day and the one who was being singled out. All those things made her so insecure about everything about her that she got some habits she could feel secure about. But there was always the nagging in the back of her head: her consciousness telling her to be careful. Be careful or someone might get to you. Might be able to touch you in a way that would make you feel uncomfortable. Maybe even hurt you. So always be cautious about many things, almost everything, if possible.
It was also the reason why she did not have many friends. She felt like she wasn’t made out of the right material to be able to form a equivalent friendship. And it was very hard for her to be able to trust someone, anyone. She had been pestered all her childhood life and that surely had left it’s marks and scars.

When she transferred the file, she opened it on her laptop. But she still did not feel safe within her own place. That cop Jones only looked around the living room. Which seemed strange, because in all the police shows she’d been watching on TV, they always check the entire apartment. Not a glance around the living room. But also a look inside the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and all other rooms that a house might have. It felt unnatural for a cop to leave a scene so quickly, for nor being thoroughly in their research. It also felt like they did not want to be there, like they felt awkward for even having to set foot in her place.
Before she felt secure enough to continue on her “thoughts file”, she wanted to check our her place by herself first. She grabbed a baseball bat. She had bought it because living alone for a woman in a big city can feel threatening at times. Especially when you are insecure about yourself to begin with. She kicked off her shoes under her laptop table before continuing her research. This way she could walk almost soundless around her apartment. She had it all carpeted so she just thought it best to continue bare footed.
She slowly walked towards her bedroom. She felt cold air when she slowly opened the door. Since she always locked the windows before leaving the house, it was strange to feel cold are rushing towards her. Her heart skipped a beat and the adrenaline rushed like a madman through her body. She quickly used the light switch and saw that the window was, like her front door, left ajar. So someone must have been in there and left through her bedroom window! Or someone wanted her to think that.
She felt like she should call the police again, but she also felt like it would be of no use, no use at all. They did not take her seriously the first time, so why should they if she called them in again? No, she had to figure this out by herself. She went inside the room, only to see that nothing was missing, misplaced or anything at all. It all was there just as she left it, besides from the window. She thought of fingerprints and how she would be able to check them. But what good would it do? The person, or maybe persons, did such a good job on opening three locks without any scratches. They would not be stupid enough to leave any prints. So she went to the window, closed it and bolted it, just to be sure, again.

After the check on her bedroom, she found all other rooms to be left just as she had earlier that day. So feeling a bit more secure than before, she went back to her laptop. It was already showing a nice screensaver with some lovely holiday pictures she had made. She kept the bat close to her as she sat down and started typing once again. She raced over those keys and the document grew rapidly. She never knew she could contain so many different thoughts inside of her head.
Before she knew it, it was almost 3 am. She did not feel tired, not at all. The adrenaline inside of her kept her going like a steam engine on fire and besides, she was too scared to go into her bedroom and close her eyes.
She slowly checked the list of thoughts, rearranging them into smaller lists. The important thoughts that needed to be answered asap and the less important ones. The thoughts that had anything to do with the break in and also with what she’d seen earlier that night. How could she ever describe what she had seen? Was there a way to put it to words? But how could she put something to words if she wasn’t even sure if it really happened. If she saw something real or if her imagination was playing games with her from the start. But even if she could put it to words, who would want to read or hear them? And if she could find someone willing to listen or read, what would that person do after it’s all been read or told? She already saw herself being shoved into a white straight jacket and shipped off, straight to the nearest mental hospital.
But maybe she would try to put it to words, just for herself. So she could read and reread what had happened. Or at least she thought what happened. How could you ever believe something that looked like magic when you don’t really believe in it? Magic hocus pocus always was like a myth to her, one she didn’t ever think possible. She had watched a lot of episodes at the Discovery Channel “Mythbusters” series on TV. She had seen many myths gone busted, so why not bust the myth of magic herself? She did not need Jamie and Adam with their myth busting team to convince her about this all.

Magic? Magic!?

Was there really such a thing? She thought it might be better to sleep for a while. On the couch though, with her bat ready when needed. After encrypting her word documents and shutting down the laptop and cell phone, she checked, double checked and again rechecked all the locks of the doors and windows. When she was absolutely sure that there was nothing unlocked, she got a small blanket and a pillow and lay herself down on the couch. Sleep caught her almost immediately. But instead of getting some well deserved rest she got some very weird dreams. Some would call it nightmares, but not her. She did not believe in nightmares. To her, everything that she dreamt about had a deeper meaning. And the more important it was, the better she would remember it when she woke up.

TO BE CONTINUED…

If you liked it, please let me know and write a comment! I am looking forward to your suggestions and ideas and also, of course, to your honest opinions! I am just going with the flow, writing this from scratch… But it will be continued, so keep checking my blog for any story updates!

An old poem

2009-08-30T15:54:00.001+02:00

I had posted this poem on my previous blog. I also have some poems posted on my website. Please follow these two links if you are interested in reading more of my poems:
Cynni’s poems, page 1
Cynni’s poems, page 2

But here is one poem that is not on my website.

Silence in my scream
I scream but it seems that I am alone
I cry and I get chilled to the bone
I scream again but I hear nothing
it’s like my voice isn’t working

The silence that surrounds me
The darkness that makes it impossible to see
The coldness that makes me feel so small
I want to get away from it all

So I scream again and there it is
Silence, it’s my voice that I miss
No one seems to hear me call
In the darkness I seem to fall

Then the silence embraces me
It shows me things I thought could never be
The screams I’ve made all fade away
But now, I think I’d like to stay

The silence that was in my scream
Was in the end only a bad dream
But it made me think again
That I am lucky with all my friends

© Cynni, November 13th 2008

Fun filled weekend

2009-08-23T13:50:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone!

While we're still at Yvonne's place and watching a BluRay Harry Potter movie, I am writing this small update.

Friday, after 8,5 hours of hard work I quickly went home to take a shower and change clothes. Then we had to go to Nijmegen. There we picked up my parents for a surprise dinner for mum. Since she's getting a new knee next Monday and will have to stay in hospital for several days... We'd thought it be nice to take her out for dinner. She didn't have to pay. We split the bill with my dad in the end. Dinner was lovely and we had a lot of fun.

Yesterday Joyce and I slept a bit longer yesterday, since we went grocery shopping in Cuijk that day. Then we had to get George ready to go to Nijmegen. We would drop off Chance and then head on to Yvonne. Steph and Kim would arrive around the same time as we planned to arrive. So we could all have lunch together. George was not in time today. He was in time on Friday and that was really surreal but so nice! Unfortunately it was on Friday evening alone...
Steph and Kim arrived a short half hour before we did (seeing George was half an hour late...). We had lunch, played a Buzz! Game on the PS3, George and Yvonne battled on Guitar Hero on their Nintendo DS lite systems and then we all watched the very first Harry Potter movie on BluRay. We sooooo need a HD tv at home! We have the BluRay player (since we also have a PS3 system)... So we're thinking about getting us a lovely big HD tv to hang it on the wall in our livingroom. Or maybe just put it on the cabinet our widescreen tv is on now. So instead of Christmas prezies we're hopefully getting a lovely HD tv instead. The PS3 games would be so much better on it compared with our tv now...

After the movie, well we put it on hold, we blew up the airbed and got ready for dinner. We first went to the ATM and then picked up our movie tickets. Then we went for dinner. The food tasted good but the service was f*cking lousy! Really slow and I mean too slow to even call it service... So after dinner and paying the check (with as little of a tip as possible!) we went to a cafe for a drink. The cafe was very nice and with fun and good service. After we finished our drinks we went to the theater for the movie. Seeing we brought drinks for everyone, we only bought some popcorn. We had a special ticket to buy one big box and get a second one for free. So we grabbed a salted and a sweet one and went to the register to pay. Then we went on to our seats. During the movie wen had a popcorn and m&m "fight" which ended outside on our way back to Yvonne's place. It ended with Kim's box on my head and wel, after that also the other way round.
When we were back we changed clothed and watched the resg of the movie. We also watched Buffy's "Hush" episode. But I did miss the end, because I fell asleep. It was so hot!

I did sleep a few hours but not quite enough to feel rested. We're not still watching the movie and I will publish this blog.

TTFN Cyn xxx

Finally, a new vacation update!

2009-08-22T08:39:00.001+02:00

Yes people, I am back with a new update on how our vacation in Bavaro was. It took me a while, I know. But hopefully the story I am about to write was worth the wait. Last time I blogged I left you after telling you about Saturday, June 20th. So I guess I will kick off from Sunday June 21st. Here I go!

Sunday, June 21st 2009

This day was an easy, lazy one. We spend some time at the Jacuzzi's, read our books and played our games. After a while, George wanted to take a swim. I did not feel very good so I went back to the room to take a nap. My stomach had been giving me some trouble, as in not willing to work with me the way it should be. Joyce went back to the room as well, but she stayed outside and read her book. She really wanted to finish the John Grisham book she borrowed from me, “The Testament”. I had read it the first time while on vacation in Isla Margarita and being in a country that is not too far from where the book takes place, it really helped me enjoy the book. So when Joyce asked me for English books to take along on our vacation, I told her to read the back sleeve of “The Testament” and she liked it enough to take it along.
Just after I woke, and already sat outside next to Joyce reading my book, our phone rang. Joyce answered. It was Wimpy, asking us if we were interested in taking the “Eco-tour” on Tuesday with him. Since we had no intentions in getting so very bummed out drunk again, we agreed to go along. We had to be ready at 7:30 on Tuesday morning. George was back and taking a shower and after that, he edited some stuff on the laptop while Joyce and I were reading. We took it easy, went to dinner at our usual time, made a small walk after dinner and then went back to the room to enjoy some games on the GameBoy/PSP and I enjoyed my book. Then we went to sleep after enjoying our lazy day. It was a Sunday after all *winks*.

Monday, June 22nd 2009

Another lazy day with a lot of reading. Joyce and I both read a whole book, but Joyce was a bit bummed that mine was about 200 pages longer as hers was. But still, we both read a whole book while sitting in front of our room. George was inside, playing with Windows® MediaPlayer™. He was putting some images and vids together. Unfortunately he has never finished the movie, so I will not be able to post it here. Ah well, back to the books. I read Sophie Kinsella’s “Remember Me?” while Joyce read Mary Janice Davidson’s “Undead and Unemployed”.
After a while, the weather was getting a bit darker, George yelled from the room that he wanted to take a swim. So I yelled back that he should go if he wanted to! But just after I said that, there was a loud bang of thunder. And then George yelled back that I wanted him to swim during a thunderstorm and that meant I wanted to kill him!!! It sounded so silly and funny. He can be such a wussy sometimes haha! But he can be a sweet dude as well, if he wants to be…

Near the end of the afternoon, we went to “Pikolo'” for some pizza, fries and chicken pieces. After that we took a nice stroll on the beach. George “found” a beach chair, and dragged it into the sea. Then he wrote: I “heart” C + J. But a wave came and took his text away.

George kept laying there…
till he got a wet @$$! Haha!

Joyce and I…
a very flattering picture…

Through the clouds, the sun came back…
only for a short while though, evening was setting in.

Some more sun on the way back to the hotel for dinner

After a while, we were getting really hungry. So we went back to the hotel to grab some dinner. I was hoping banana’s would help me get my stomach into active mode again. And that obviously lead to a silly picture.

After dinner we went back to the room to prepare our bags for the tour we'd be taking on the following day.

Tuesday, June 23rd 2009

We had to get up early so we’d be able to have breakfast at 7 am sharp. We were supposed to be ready at 7:30, so this gave us 30 minutes to eat, drink and visit the toilet again before setting off on our first real “adventure”, the “Eco-Tour”. But even though Joyce and I were ready in time, it was already 7 before we even left the room. And then we had to hold the truck, because it was ready to move but George wasn’t moving yet. He was still on the toilet. So I begged the driver to wait and Joyce even went to the men’s room to warn George that he really, really, had to hurry. When he finally was in the truck, we went on to pick up the rest of the group. And then, we also picked up Wimpy and we were on our way.

We had a group of 8 people, and then Wimpy and his driver.

The way the locals travel

The first stop was in a local market. A very small market but they sold a whole lot of different items. Some new, some already been used… Wimpy bought some items that he needed on our last stop.
He told us some more about how women are being treated/used on the island. How they were just “toys” to many men. And how the drunken men sometimes went on to the kids after doing their moms. We were really disgusted by the idea of it all. But it did and does explain why there are so many kids on the island, on why a human life doesn’t mean that much as it does here and it also explains why many kids do not know their real father. The women and men are raised this way, if you want to call it “raising” and the don’t know how to break the pattern. Only the rich people behave in a more dignified way, but not by much. I mean, the men still like to have more women, but they have more intension to keep them and pay for them, support them. It’s even said that when a man only has one wife (which is also not always really his wife, seeing marriage is not really a thing they do on the DR), he must be gay… And so it is that there are 14 years old carrying babies in their arms which are their own kids…
There have been more than one attempts to “help” the kids and women, to get them out of the use/rape/abuse cycle. But when they’re supported with money, they use it on themselves and then return to their normal lifestyle. When they are taken to a safe house, they go out and find men on their own instead of the men finding them. It’s really the DR way of life and they just seem reluctant to break that cycle. Kids often do not know their dads, they are raped at a young age and when they grow up, they start using young ones themselves. Kids are known to start drinking at the age of 4 and no one thinks that’s strange. It really proves what kind of Third World Country it is and that it is almost not possible to change their ways of life to a more “civilized” way. They can’t and won’t accept help, they gladly take your money and then it’s over and done with. Ah well, it’s not my place to be judgmental and also not in a position to make a change. So I’ll just leave it as it is. This is “just” what Wimpy showed us and told us.

Then we went to a small ranch, to do some horse riding! Me on a horse! But I quickly felt sorry for the horses. The way they were treated by the men there, made me want to smash the guy who kept whipping the horses… My horse was on the back of the line a lot and every time the guy just made a “warning” noise, she really felt uncomfortable and I felt it. And the guy even whipped my horse when she could not go any faster because there were like 7 horses in front of it. So sad. I had to hold myself not to get too aggravated with that stupid, uncaring man! Poor horsey… I just wanted to take it home, to a country where she would be more loved and less whipped over stuff she could do nothing about… Ah well, I guess that’s what you get in a Third World Country… Animals have lesser “rights” than they have here with us. But here are some pictures. Only George had a camera with him, I was too scared I would drop mine if anything would go wrong while riding that horse.

Riding on the sad horsies

After we left the poor, thin and whipped horses we went on to a family of women. The eldest woman had taking in a lot of kids in her care. She showed us how they live, the normal kitchen and the “expensive” kitchen, their bedrooms and so on. It was just a very small house and knowing how many people live in there, amazing. Though I must admit, that with the 2 next tours we took, when we also passed their property, I could not see a living soul there. Wimpy had told us of the expensive tours which you book with your operator, that they hire people to occupy a house when they visit. And that these were real people living there. Seeing they all had no jobs, one would think that you’d see at least a couple of people around in the shades when you pass them by. But nope… So I kept wondering if this “family” was real, or also just for show… Ah well, doesn’t really matter a whole lot so I will just share some of my and George’s pictures here with you.

After visiting here, we went on to a more remote village. We first picked up a female teacher and her son. We were going to visit a school. They had a day off, but seeing Wimpy built the school and pays for the teacher, the kids had no problem with coming to school. There wasn’t a lot else they could do. Besides being used to make money for their family.

I actually wanted to finish this day’s blog, but seeing there have been 3 days without me working on it (too busy unfortunately), I will post it now so it’ll give you something to read. I will try to update my blog more regularly, but the following week is quite a busy one for me. So I will do my best.

TTFN, Cynni xxx

A new "toy" for Joyce

2009-08-13T21:06:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone!

Today I had the day off. My parents came home from their vacation. I had already planned to go "shopping" with mum this afternoon. So when they were home, we emptied their car. And then mum and I were off to Arnhem, Media Markt. Joyce had absolutely NO idea what we were doing and what was going on.
So we arrived at the store, found what we (well I, mum did not really know) were looking for. After some irritated minutes (staff wasn't too helpfull at first) we finally got the papers we needed to head to check out.
We got Joyce a nice Acer Aspire 7735 series laptop (check the image or acer.com website), a laptop big back-pack and an USB mouse. So that she's got all she needs, laptop wise, for her new start at school. She still doesn't know too much about it but well, the laptop is good to go and ready for all the hard work she'll be doing on it.
I must admit I am kinda jealous... The laptop is bigger, better and of course newer than mine. But my laptop isn't bad at all (also an Acer Aspire, dunno the number though). Still, 17" screen is lovely to look at *winks*.
Joyce was quite surprised, tears in her eyes and all, when she got the prezzies. So hopefully she'll be able to use it a whole lot making loads and lots of good school stuff on it. And of course she may install a game or so on it. But only if she remembers to finish her homework first, hihi!

Will watch some more NCIS DVD with Joyce.
TTFN, Cynni xx

How Sony PS3 messed up…

2009-08-08T14:42:00.001+02:00

… 2 of the best songs in the world…

I was happy to read about Sony’s PlayStation 3 SingStar update would include the “Roxette Ballad Pack”. We downloaded it through Sony’s Playstation SingStar store and immediately started it after the installation was done.

What a bummer though… In 2 out of 5 songs, Sony made an error in the lyrics.

This is during the song that became famous because of the “Pretty Woman” movie with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere: “It must have been love”. Unfortunately, Marie doesn’t sing “a stare of silence” and ever since the song was written in 1988/1989 (with the original name: It must have been love (Christmas for the broken hearted)), there was always the line “there’s air of silence”. So that was the first bummer.

Then we played “Spending my time” (original from the 1991 “Joyride” album). And in the end, I found error number two. Now this error, many people were already wondering for ages what Marie really sang, since this line is NOT in the original lyrics which are featured in the Joyride CD cover. Some people thought Per was a very naughty writer and some didn’t have a clue. It’s about the following line.

A bit blurry picture, I admit, but you can see the line “it pains me being without you honey”. Because of the speculations (one very PG with: I masturbate without you honey), some fans did ask Per when they finally had the chance what Marie did sing. The answer: “the bed’s too big without you honey”. So that was/is mistake number two. All in all, I did enjoy the songs a lot and I’ll keep trying for that PERfect score… And of course, I am still eagerly waiting for an announcement of “Guitar Hero Roxette”. If only… If ever…

I already informed Per of these errors through his Twitter account: @PartyCrasher. He Twitted back that he wasn’t aware of these mistakes/errors. Hope he can make Sony change/edit their Rox ballad package errors…

I do hope Sony will correct these errors and will allow everyone who got the package including the faulty lines to download the right lines for free. Seeing we already paid for it…

That’s it for now. I’ll go and use my Wii fit again. It’s been too long and I could use the exercise. Yeah, that’s right. I have both the Wii and the PS3 (and also a PS2 and PSP and George’s got a DS).

TTFN,
Cynni xxx

Here I am...

2009-08-07T21:32:00.000+02:00

...this is me, there's no-where else on earth I'd rather be... © Bryan Adams, OST Spirit.

Here is yet another blog post made by me. It's a very mobile one, so send from my phone. That means it ain't very fancy with colors and all. But still, it's an update from the world of Cynni.

It's been quite a week since I last made a blogpost on Monday. Joyce and I did find the Roxette ballad pack for the Sony PS3 SingStar edition. But that also made me a bit sad, seeing Sony had screwed up two lines. One in the "It must have been love" song and one in "Spending my time". I don't believe I've blogged about this before, but well, if i did, just skip this part then. But when Joyce and I were playing the songs, Marie did not sing either "there's air of silence" nor "the bed's too big without you honey"... I did inform Per through Twitter (@PartyCrashr) about the lousy mistakes which were made by Sony. It seemed I was the first to mention this. So later on I even made two digital pictures while playing the game so (hopefully) the errors would be visible.

On Tuesday, the weather was lovely (as it was the whole week). Since it was not busy at work, I was allowed to go home at 1 pm. I texted Joyce about going to the Maas with the doggies so they could swim and play. So when I came home, I just had to change clothes and then we went to the Surfers' Corner in Linden. When we arrived, Chance was not listening and Joyce wanted to shut the lid of the trunk fast. She grabbed it with two hands and pushed it down. Only, it did not go all the way down, seeing there was my head... Luckily I was wearing a cap, otherwise I would not know what might have happened. But it really hurt and I felt kinda dizzy and my head began beating hard inside. I got very angry and was not at all amused.. In the end I ended up with a very small (but it IS there) dent in my head, just where the lid had smashed me in the head... Or on the top of my scull, near the hairline, I should say/write.

So up until today, my head still doesn't feel right and when I bend down too long, I get all dizzy when having to get up. Not to mention the way the world seems to start spinning when I lay myself down on bed.

Wednesday, Thursday and today all have been crazy hot days, in between 27 and 32 degrees Celcius. I was sweaty, icky and stinky at work and had to work whole days. I sometimes went crazy running around, being the second cashier and the one who needed to do 101 chores as well.

I did receive word about the chance of getting another job. I am still kinda in doubt but the new thing is quite a challenge and if it goes well, also a great experience for me. But since I don't have any big news yet, I won't post about it. Well, aside from this.

Joyce and I also got busy playing the Wii sports new pack, with the enhanced controllers. It's quite fun to do and the reaction of the remotes is indeed a lot better.

This is all for now folks. I'll be back, for sure ;-)

Much hugz,
Cynni xxx

Some random pictures

2009-08-02T20:40:00.001+02:00

Tuesday, July 21st 2009
First day of the 4 day marches, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Traditional fireworks, “De Waal in vlammen” (the Waal in flames)

Such a lovely weather,
we even got a rainbow…

A close-up

Getting busy at the Waalkade (the platform)

Brutus & Chance
Which basket is whose?

What’s wrong in this picture?

Lovely basket,
a bit too small though…

It just fits…

Wah-wah here is the sun…
… and there’s Brutus

Chance’s new basket
with a dachshund inside

*yay* the right dog in the right basket

They do know how it’s supposed to be!

Infosites

2009-08-02T17:20:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone,

you might have noticed some small changes on this blog site. I have added a new links part, where you can find information about several items I've discussed on this blog. It also includes links to posts that are related, as well as links to Joyce's blog posts which are related to it.
All the sites are small, self made, websites, which I hope will help stuff be more clear and organised. Please don't be shy to place a comment here about the sites so I know if it's any help and all...
Thanks!

TTFN everyone, keep checking this site and I'll be back!

Cynni xxx

December plans with Steph

2009-07-30T21:36:00.003+02:00

HAHAHA!

Sorry just thinking about it makes me laugh... Since, as I have posted before, we're going to see Rammstein live on December 6th. We = Joyce, Steph and me.

Another YouTube example of Rammstein for you all to enjoy:

And then only 12 days later, we're going to Lord of the Dance... We = George, Joyce, Steph and me. It was our birthday gift for Steph's birthday this year :)

It just made me laugh that the difference is HUGE between those two...

Ow, I will post the lyrics for the Rammstein song for you all as well :)

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier, Fünf, Sechs, Sieben, Acht, Neun, AUS!

Alle warten auf das Licht
Fürchtet euch fürchtet euch nicht
Die Sonne scheint mir aus den Augen
sie wird heut Nacht nicht untergehen
und die Welt zählt laut bis zehn

Hier kommt die Sonne
Hier kommt die Sonne
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Hier kommt die Sonne

Die Sonne scheint mir aus den Händen
kann verbrennen kann euch blenden
wenn sie aus den Fäusten bricht
legt sich heiss auf das Gesicht
sie wird heut Nacht nicht untergehen
und die Welt zählt laut bis zehn

Hier kommt die Sonne
Hier kommt die Sonne
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Hier kommt die Sonne

Die Sonne scheint mir aus den Händen
kann verbrennen kann dich blenden
wenn sie aus den Fäusten bricht
legt sich heiss auf dein Gesicht
legt sich schmerzend auf die Brust
das Gleichgewicht wird zum Verlust
lässt dich hart zu Boden gehen
und die Welt zählt laut bis zehn

Hier kommt die Sonne
Hier kommt die Sonne
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
und wird nie vom Himmel fallen

(The English translation to Sonne)

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, out

Everyone is waiting for the light
be afraid, don't be afraid
the sun is shining out of my eyes
it will not set tonight
and the world counts loudly to ten

One
Here comes the sun
Two
Here comes the sun
Three
It is the lightest star of all
Four
Here comes the sun

The sun is shining out of my hands
it can burn, it can blind you all
when it breaks out of the fists
it lays down hotly on the face
it will not set tonight
and the world counts loudly to ten

One
Here comes the sun
Two
Here comes the sun
Three
It is the lightest star of all
Four
Here comes the sun
Five
Here comes the sun
Six
Here comes the sun
Seven
It is the lightest star of all
Eight, nine
Here comes the sun

The sun is shining out of my hands
it can burn, it can blind you
when it breaks out of the fists
it lays down hotly on your face
it lays down painfully on your chest
balance is lost
it lets you go hard to the floor
and the world counts loudly to ten

One
Here comes the sun
Two
Here comes the sun
Three
It is the lightest star of all
Four
And it will never fall from the sky
Five
Here comes the sun
Six
Here comes the sun
Seven
It is the lightest star of all
Eight, nine
Here comes the sun

More about our vacation

2009-07-30T20:43:00.005+02:00

Friday June 19th…
… continued…

BUT first: some updates on the day before the 19th. Seeing I left some information out of my journal in the last post I wrote and uploaded about our holiday. And it’s not nice to leave out some (important ???) bits of information. So I will first fill you in about the Thursday. This all happened before the Mama Juana blackout Joyce and I experienced that day.

On Thursday morning, George went to the gym. We walked with him and then walked on towards the beach. While George was busy sweating in the gym, we made a long stroll on the shore near our hotel (and many other hotels). After a while, we returned and went back to the hotel. Mainly because the weather was not looking nice at all anymore.

So we went back to the gym where we picked up George. It slowly started to rain, so we headed to the eating hall for our breakfast first. Then, all hell brake loose and it really rained hard! Which kept things very cozy during breakfast, seeing almost no one went through the hard rain to have their breakfast that morning. They all took it easy, waiting for the rain to pass on. It was still raining when we returned to our room after we had finished our breakfast.

We waited for a small cart to take us to our room. And even though we were under one of George’s towels, we were still soaking wet when we entered our room. George went to take a shower and Joyce and I read a bit. Then, when it was finally a bit dryer again. Joyce and I went to the reception where we would meet up with our Neckermann dude. We wanted to buy an extra card to send, and write it there so we could all hand them in for sending to our families and friends. We had to wait for 20 minutes before it was finally our turn.

When we came back to our room, we decided we would first take a walk to the nearby shopping mall and see what all the fuss was about. It was an easy walk, about 15 minutes, tops, and the mall did look nice. Only the prices were the same as ours, and it was really a tourist made mall and not for the locals (unless they were very rich). We did get some shirts and caps at the Punta Cana Hard Rock Cafe before heading back to our hotel.

*note* this is NOT my picture

When we came back, it was around 11:15 am. We changed clothes and headed towards the biggest pool. And then, well, that’s when Joyce and I got drunk and all… I did write a bit about my drunken behavior already and Joyce’s next blog about our vacation will undoubtedly have her side of the story in it. So now, you are all up to date on what happened on Thursday the 18th, which I forgot to mention in my previous post… And now I can finally move on with my journal by telling you all what happened after the 18th as well (though I guess I won’t manage it all in one post).

Friday continues then:

After George and Joyce came back from their breakfast, George changed clothes and headed for the gym. Joyce lay herself down on bed and slept again for a while. Then when George came back, we decided we would go to the beach. While George was arranging some towels, Joyce went to the bar to check there if they had maybe found her glasses. Unfortunately for Joyce, only George got lucky and had 3 nice blue towels…

George went directly into the ocean, while Joyce and I took it easy on our beach chairs. Joyce got persuaded to play along a game of darts, but it wasn’t a really fair game, so after a while (near the end) she just went back to her seat. We ate a bit at the beach bar and enjoyed a nice non-alcoholic drink there as well. George had arranged for a small catamaran so we could all go sailing for one hour. But, seeing I am not that much into sailing, I did not want to participate. So when George took a lot of effort to stow away our bags in a safe place, which was not working, I happily offered to “baby sit” our stuff. So they went sailing, I would stay back on a nice chair in the shades with the stuff and my book.

I made these pictures and then went on reading my book. It was a really warm (or should I write: hot) day. So when my sailing stars came back, we headed towards the Jacuzzi's together. There we spend an hour with some drinks (only George had alcoholic ones) and then we went back to our room. Around 5:45 pm I awoke George. Seeing he and Joyce both were sleeping and I was getting hungry… So when George tried to wake Joyce, she was all grumpy and so she did not join us for dinner.

That meant that I was on my own with George. We heard a LOT of noise and were wondering what was going on. It seemed that there was a biker convention at our hotel. They brought many cool bikes! And made a lot of noise when entering the parking lot.

We first went to Pikalo, of course, before heading on towards the diner. In the distance we could still hear more bikers approaching our hotel. The waiters looked a bit puzzled because it was only George and me for the evening. After dinner, we went for a small walk. More and more cool motorbikes were arriving every hour…

Then we headed back to our room, where Joyce was still snoring in a very nice position (made a picture as proof, but did not upload it to my photobucket account, sorry, hihi). George took the laptop and added all the pictures and video’s we made so far on the hard drive. You never know what might happen to the memory stick. This way, we had a back-up. And it was easier to watch the video’s and pictures on a larger screen. I took out my PSP and played my Shrek game. I had already played it on my Wii and that’s why I bought it for the PSP as well. It’s a really cool and fun game to play.

After a while I really got tired, I guess also from the lack of decent sleep the previous night, and put away my PSP. I closed my eyes, after a toilet brake, and quickly dozed off. Until…

Saturday, June 20th 2009

…I woke up after a loud bang of thunder! Around 1 am it was really raining hard, accompanied with loud thunder and bright lightning.

*note* this is NOT my picture!
Please click on it to follow the link to the owners site *thanks*

I went out of bed, heading towards the window and I just enjoyed the view for a while. The thunder and rain on the room’s roof made such a noise it would not be possible for me to fall asleep anyway. After half an hour or so, the weather cleared a bit and I went back to bed, able to sleep again. Until around 6 am, when the whole thing started again… Within minutes, the water covered all the steps outside our room. When the weather cleared out, once again, I could sleep a bit, until it was around 7:30 and time to really get up and get ready for breakfast. I woke both George and Joyce and we got dressed (for success… © Roxette) for breakfast.

After that, we decided to hang out at the second pool today, the one with the bar above the pool. While George and I held on to some seats (there weren’t that many with 3 in a row), Joyce went back to the room for some towels and the hotel towel cards. When she came back, she and I headed to the other pool to get the hotel towels and also make a reservation for the Caribe a-la-carte restaurant. Our dinner reservation was made for 18:30. After all that was done, we went back to the room to get into our bathing suits and all. Seeing we had not changed after breakfast, we wanted to make a reservation on some chairs (haha) and dinner first. When Joyce and I were done, George went to change and grab his stuff.

Later on, we found out why those chairs hadn’t been taken yet. And it would be the last time we took them as well. The palm tree that was next to it had a parasite plant in it, which “rained” icky seeds all day long. So that’s one of the reasons why we lingered in the pool so much. Playing with the ball, enjoying the sun and an occasional (non-) alcoholic drink as well.

Then we went to enjoy lunch and after that, we enjoyed ourselves some more at the pool. Around 3 pm we headed back to the room, we had enough of those seeds and also wanted to enjoy a nice shower before going to dinner. And a nice siesta was not that bad either *winks*.

Around 6 pm we headed towards out dining place. Since we were a bit early, we first checked out some more of the motor cycles that had arrived during the day.

And then, it was time to go and enjoy our dinner. We enjoyed it even more because Joyce was not wearing a bra and the air conditioning did a good job *winks and smiles*.

I did my best to order my meal in Spanish, using the menu of course, which made our waitress smile. She did appreciate my effort, though I guess it must have sounded horrible to her!
After a while, 2 men came in and played a nice tune. Since we had forgotten to bring any dollars, we could not even give them a tip. Nor could we tip our waitress…

Because we really had enjoyed our meal, we went back to the room and brought along $ 5,- so we could tip the people that were so kind and nice, our waitresses and waiter. The waitress we had given the 5 dollars to was really, genuinely happy with it and thanked us a lot.

Then we went back to the room where we changed, ready for bedtime. Some of us read a bit, some played with the PSP or GameBoy and some listened to our iPods. All scenarios are possible. And then, after a while, we went to sleep.

That’s all for now folks!

But remember that I’ll be back with more updates about my vacation and more as soon as possible!

Frakkin' wasp!

2009-07-29T20:24:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone,

I am slowly typing this blogpost since my right hand is a bit thick. We were walking with Brutus and Chance. Chance was playing with her friend Dex (see some of Joyce's blog posts about him) when I wanted to go home because I was getting hungry. When we were finally on our way home, I felt something on my arm. I wanted to brush it aside when I saw it was a wasp. And before I knew it I was stung. I felt it twice and it really hurt. Joyce immediately sucked on my arm where I was stung. I felt my arm tingle and it got thick. We rushed home and Joyce called the house docs that were on call. I chatted with them and we had to go to the pharmacy to pick up pills. If I get worse with pain and breathing, we need to call again and I might need a shot. But now I just took my first blue pill (got 5, one a day). The pharmacist told me that it usually takes an hour for the first pill to take effect. So we'lll wait and feel. And see. Since my right hand is a bit swollen (barely got off my rings, just 15 minutes after I got stung) and I have a thick red swollen under arm where the frakking wasp got me... Lucky for me I have tomorrow off from work... So I can take it easy... My arm just really keeps tingling... If that is the right word...

George will (hopefully soon) bring home dinner (fries)... Getting hungry...

Ow and before I forget: Steph & family congratulations!!! Steph is now the proud aunt of baby Ryan! He was born with a C-section (hope that's the right word) this morning on 5:42am. Ryan is the son of Steph's brother and his wife. Sorry Steph did not mail me a picture yet so I can't share the little fellow with you just yet... Congrats new parents, aunt and of course grandparents!!!

TTFN everyone,
Cynni xxx

Chance's new basket & more news

2009-07-28T18:13:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone!

Today Chance got a new basket. She kept getting into Brutus' basket all of the time. So instead of the big doggy bed she had, she now has her own big basket. She still can't decide at times, as you can see in the pictures. Unfortunately my cellphone's camera is making stupid lines inside any pictures I make. So bare with me that the quality isn't what you're used to see in my blog posts.

Further more, George's business CVH-Klimaattechniek (add a .com for the site) is blooming! He's getting more e-mails and phonecalls of people that are interested in his services, which means more work possibilities and, if all goes well, more clients so more income! He'll still have to work hard for it, but it's more rewarding when you get a lot of positive feedback and more people that hear about your business and want info about it as well. So if it keeps up the way it goes now, I might be able to work for/with George as well. That would mean making my own hours, sometimes working at home and a raise in payment ;-) But let's not rush to any exciting stuff. First we'll have to wait and see.
Joyce's jobhunt is, unfortunately, still fruitless. She is really working at it, but the market is slow. Due to economical and holiday reasons.

Last weekend I've had much fun with Steph and Kim over. We had a gourmette with several kinds of meat and I made a salad with melon. I do believe everyone enjoyed their meals. And we also watched Saw V (5) together and after that: Disney's little mermaid! Hahaha! First Saw and then a kids movie. It was really fun.

This Saturday I'll have to work from 7:30 till at least 13:00. Maybe even longer if neccesary. That's why I had today off from work.

Well, I will continue watching Joyce while she plays Overlord Raising Hell now. She's just a bit further than I am and it might be smart to see what comes up next.

TTFN everyone!
Cynni xxx

Camouflage Chance

2009-07-27T20:55:00.001+02:00

Chance wants to be an Army Labrador I suppose...

Vacation Journal – the next part

2009-07-22T19:35:00.002+02:00

Wednesday, June 17th 2009

Today, our alarm went off way too early! At 5:40 am we were up and getting ready for our tour. It was a bit gray outside, but the weather here can change within 5 minutes so we did not think anything bad off it. We already had our bag ready, seeing we prepped it last night so we could sleep just a bit longer this morning. Around 6:30 the driver arrived and we were the first in. 10 minutes later, the second Dutch couple was picked up. We chatted along the way and all seemed to be going quite comfy and OK. Shortly thereafter, another (older) couple got in. Then we had to wait a while for Wimpy. But he, unfortunately, had some bad news. His captain had called him, informing him the weather was too bad to be going out on the boat. It would be of no use to us, seeing the water was too wild and the clouds and rain would spoil the rest. So we set another date, next Friday, and were all taken back to our hotels.
There, breakfast had just started so we headed towards the hall immediately. It really was bad weather seeing before we were in, the rain hit us hard! It was almost dark outside and the rain fell down like it had a bet on being the fastest rain ever! We were really glad we were inside at this time!

After breakfast, we went back to our room and cleaned up our stuff. Around 9, Laurent of Neckermann would be at our hotel. We decided to take a small, free, selling tour he was offering to a small cigar factory. It was owned by a German family. So we booked our trip there, so we could still see something this day, and keep dry seeing it was inside. We made our appointment and were being picked up around 11 the same day. Seeing the weather really was not nice, and we had some time to kill before heading out (again), we decided to go to the bar between the reception and the second pool. We had bought some postcards with Laurent, which we decided to write there while enjoying a (non alcoholic) drink.

Here you can see George writing a postcard! Yes his first in many, many years! If you click on the picture, you can see that he uses a very “female colored” pen *smile*. Steph was the proud receiver of the card, by the way.

When it was a bit dryer again, we went to the room to put some stuff away and get ready for our trip to the cigar factory.

We were picked up in time and the drive there took about 25 minutes. It was a small “factory” which was quite cozy and also very interesting.

You can see one of the workers with a large cigar. Smoking while working, some people would be very jealous here (seeing it is not allowed here anymore).

At the end of the informative talk only Joyce and I bought a small prezzie for some people at home. A souvenir one would call it *winks*. Then we were taken back with the small van.

After we came back from our little cigar tour, we went to “Pikalo” for some slices of pizza and chicken nuggets with fries. But it started to rain, again, so we hurried back to our room. There we put away the souvenirs and stuff we had ready for the tour.
Then we took the USB card reader and went to the internet center. It was a lot more expensive than our internet is and it is slower as well… But we already knew that beforehand and that’s why we decided to go online once a week. We’d check our mail, update my Photobucket, send some mails to friends with the link to the pictures. And George would also check nu.nl since he’s addicted to that site. George and I both took a PC each for one hour. Joyce and I would share. George was busy arguing with the website where he would be able to check his mail online. But since he’d never used it before, he did not know how to work it. So he got aggravated… When I was ready, I let Joyce use the PC and helped George out. Luckily I succeeded *winks*.

After the hour was up, we went back to the room to bring away the memory cards and all and took a PSP and books and went back to the bar where we wrote our vacation cards earlier that day. But the two irritating “gay guys” from the plane were there. And due to all the rain, it was very stuffy there. So we went to the bar above the pool and there we played our games and read our books while enjoying a nice drink. Because of all those drinks, Joyce had to go to the loo. But it was very difficult to open the lock and she got her finger stuck… So she came back with a thick and bloody finger. I urged her to ask a cup of ice and keep her finger cool. It would not make it all go away but it would help against the swelling and bleeding. So she did what I “told” her to and it did help a bit. But not enough so we went to the room for a bandage and we also took along the GameBoy for George.
We stuck around till a quarter past five and then went back to the room to get ready for dinner. Around six we were back at “Pikolo” We enjoyed another drink and then headed for the diner. But Joyce and I first wanted a toilet brake before dinner. But two toilets were really dirty and the third (and last) one had no toilet paper. So we decided to have dinner first and then head for another toilet after that.

We had another lovely meal and then visited the loo and headed on towards the beach.
I wanted to make some more lovely sun set pictures, but unfortunately I was a bit too late.

But we did have a nice walk, which is very good after a very good meal. And I took some very nice pictures after all, which could have been more, if George was not getting cranky for me stopping to make pictures every five steps or so I made…

After about an hour we headed back to our room. George ran to the toilet and Joyce and I smeared ourselves with “DEET”. Then I started to write about this day in the journal Joyce and I have been keeping so far. George and Joyce played with the PSP’s and after a while, we closed our eyes.

Thursday June 18th 2009

This day started out really well but ended kinda blurry and nauseated… But let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start, according to Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” movie *1965*).

Not everything is 100% clear in my memory and we really could not write a decent journal entry about it because it “happened” to both Joyce and myself. But I will so my best to be as accurate as I can. Here I go:
We got up and dressed and went to breakfast, as we usually do. After breakfast, we got into our bikini’s and grabbed our books and all and went to the first swimming pool. We had a lot of fun playing with our ball and enjoying the sun. We ate at “Pikalo”. And then Joyce and I met up with some Americans and enjoyed a few drinks with them. Seeing it was our friend Sabine’s birthday, we had promised her to toast a drink (or two) on her. So we did. After a few beers we had some Mama Juana shots. I will provide you with some extra Mama Juana information (in addition to the Wikipedia link that is in the previous sentence) before going on…

Mama Juana information

Mama Juana is the indigenous drink of the Dominican Republic. It is a brew of twigs and bark and herbs, with rum and red wine and honey. Some love it, some hate it! Some claim that it is an aphrodisiac for men, but also that it cures all of what ails you, purifying organs and acting as a medicinal supplement. As a medicinal supplement and as an item that you will be ingesting, bear in mind any allergies and go slowly the first time trying Mama Juana. There have been strong —and dangerous— reactions.
There are suggestions for how to make a recipe of Mama Juana, but no hard and fast rule.
Start by soaking the roots and twigs for 3 days to 2 weeks in rum or red wine or a combination of both. At the end of that period, throw out the liquid. Then refill with equal amounts of rum and red wine and honey. You may choose to leave out the red wine, but then it makes it a really strong drink if the only liquid is straight rum. The wine, with a lower alcohol level, lends flavor while watering it down a bit. Top it up with the same ingredients in the same general proportions.
The measurements are very loose and the recipe is forgiving.
It may take a couple of batches for you to decide how you like it best. You can pour it off once steeped to your taste and get the next batch going. The longer you leave it to steep, the stronger the flavor will be.
Opinions are mixed on whether you should leave the roots to dry out again. If you like the wine or like it sweet, you can leave it sitting in the wine or honey water to infuse. You would then have to throw out that soaking liquid if left for an excessive amount of time. You can drink it straight or with fruit juice or as you would use rum in a cocktail.

You can consume and refill the same bottle for 10 years. After that period, the bark and roots will have lost its potency.

So Joyce and I did not really know what Mama Juana was and we did find out today! Even though I must add that the drink they offer you at the hotels are really made quickly and, compared to the "real" Mama Juana, are lousy reproductions of the original. But there are many recipes and many people make it different ways. But one thing in all recipes is the same: wine – rum – honey. But the hotels use cheap (watered) wine and much rum and no honey (too expensive). So we already had some drinks and also drank some shots of this stuff. We had a lot of fun. The Americans called the bartender Brad Pitt. But I offered he should be called Obama! He had the same color and every time you asked for a drink, he could do it. So: YES he can! That made everyone laugh and got us another round of drinks.

While we were enjoying drinks, we were photographed by the hotel photographer. *we later tried to get hold of these pictures, but they were extremely expensive, so we did not buy any*.
Then there was a water polo game around 3 pm which turned into a Dominican versus American game. We were cheering for the Americans while getting another drink (and another and another…). At one moment I felt myself getting sick and sicker and I knew it was too late. I tried to get out of the pool, put on my slippers (gosh what a job!) and at the time I finally reached my chair, I vomited… I know it isn’t something I am proud of, but I just could not stop it anymore. I know that George then came up to me and he wanted to take me to our room. I wanted to find Joyce because I could not find her before and I was afraid I lost her. Silly me. George had to drag me along, or so he told me, because I only wanted to go back to find her. I can’t really remember. The only thing I know was that I woke up, I guess about 4 hours later, and felt nauseated. So I threw up, again and again, also not something I am proud of either. But I looked around and I saw Joyce laying beside me, George was not around (he was eating dinner) and I went to bed again. I felt so tired…

We were supposed to go with Wimpy on his tour the next day…

Friday June 19th 2009

…but that morning we let Wimpy know that it was not possible to go along. I did not go to breakfast, Joyce and George did, but I just kept in bed. I was still tired because, though I did sleep in between the going back and forth to the toilet. It was all too much. Too much alcohol running through my system. And believe me, I did not drink any alcohol for a whole week after this fiasco!

When George and Joyce came back from breakfast, Joyce was angry. She had lost her glasses and she could not find them anywhere. When she was awake around 6 am she had even gone to the front pool to search for it. And while she was there, she told Wimpy’s driver we would not be able to join. Though I did send a text message in time, Wimpy had not informed his driver yet… So it was all arranged. Except for the glasses… Joyce and George did bring me some breakfast, but it did not taste good and only made my stomach twist and turn again.

You know, I will post this blog now and will write more as soon as possible again. I hope you don’t mind. But if I keep on writing, I will never be able to put this post online… So I will send this and please keep checking for journal updates :)

TTFN Cyn xxx

Our neighbor…

2009-07-20T20:56:00.001+02:00

…plays his guitar….

He is practicing and he just played an awesome into to an awesome song!!! I don’t mind that his volume is up a bit, seeing he can really play!!!

He did tell Joyce he did not mind to teach us a bit. If we’d bring the beers, he’d show the moves… Like if I ever will be able to play this song (which he was just playing…):

Ta-ta for now!

Feuer Frei!

2009-07-20T20:06:00.001+02:00

Hey everyone!

I guess I’ve been so busy with the vacation preparations and all, that I totally forgot to let you all know that I will be at the only Rammstein gig in Arnhem, on December 6th this year! We di have seats, seeing it would really NOT be a good idea for me to get into the jumping and bumping crowd. But I do hope it will be f*cking great!!!

Here a video taken from their xXx soundtrack song “Feuer Frei!”

So well, now you know where I will be banging my head off, yelling German lyrics and going totally crazy on December 6th! :) Rock on!
Cynni xxx

Experiencing the Wii

2009-07-18T15:21:00.000+02:00

Heya everyone,

Joyce and I are currently at Sjak's place. She bought a Wii a few days ago and is now trying some of our games to see what can be bought in addition to the Wii Fit she got. She's now playing CSI Hard Evidence. We also bought her a Wii game, seeing she celebrated her birthday a few days ago. Damn! We're getting old! So now she's also got Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.
So far she's tried Disney Think Fast, Mercury Meltdown Revolution & Super Mario Galaxy.

This morning we went grocery shopping with mum. The last time for a few weeks, seeing they'll go on vacation soon. And a few days after they are back, she's getting a new knee. So then I'll have a new hip and she'll have a new knee. But I guess we'll take her shopping then, as she did with me when I could not go alone. In a few days we're going to collect Brutus, since he'll be sleeping at our place. That's his vacation this year. And when mum will have her surgery, we're taking him in again for a while. So he can't bump into her when she's home.

I don't know if I blogged about Steph coming over. First she would come this weekend. But seeing next weekend, Kim was avalible as well, we skipped our appointment so they could carpool next weekend. Which, according to Steph's typo, can be quite a hell! Hihi, just kidding Steph! So next Saturday, both Kim and Steph'll come over to rock! Since we now got Guitar Hero Metallica, we can really rock! Hihi... Of course we'll have a nice dinner, hopefully a good salad with a nice BBQ. But seeing how the weather behaves here lately, it might be a big pasta à-la-Cynni again, with a home made salad. If no one will mind eating my pasta again, seeing I make pasta most of the time when we have guests. Seeing it's easy to make and everyone enjoys it.

Today I bought a pc game for my mum. I installed it on her laptop, and it also got installed on dad's laptop. Seeing they'll both bring their laptop along on vacation. And they both love playing some games, but no WiFi at their hotel so... And seeing how I LOVE the PS3 Overlord II game, when Joyce found part One, I immediately bought it. And played it before heading to Sjak. Joyce got a shooting game for the Wii, which was on sale, and Overlord II for the PC. Which we still need to install. Which we'll probably do so this evening. I guess we'll install it first on my pc. It's newer than Joyce's, so can "play" the game with ease. And, if possible, she'll install it on her pc too. And what the heck, if it is possible, I guess my laptop may get "infected" with Overlord II too *winks*.

I'll better be good company now. So I'll update this blog and be off for a while again!

TTFN Cyn xxx

Getting into shape again…

2009-07-15T21:14:00.001+02:00

…trying to remember if I ever had a shape…

I know that ever since my surgery on October 15th 2008, I have not been to sportive. I did my therapy, walked a lot whenever the weather allowed it and also rode on my bike for several 100 kilometers already. But seeing my back kept hurting and bugging me, I kinda slowed down on the walking a lot, biking a lot and going to the gym like twice or three times a week.

It’s also been ages since I ran. It’s been ages since I’ve been able to so I guess I could blame it on that. So today I thought throughout my working hours that I should start running again. Building up my muscles and my condition. So about an hour after dinner I grabbed my almost new running shoes (had only used them in the gym during fitness) and searched for my shorts.
I put on my Polar waistband and watch and got Joyce and George to come along. I knew I would hold them back, so I also told them it was OK if they wanted to run in front of me. I tried the 1 minute running, 2 minutes walking in a bit higher speed than usual for a while. But in the two minutes that my pulse had to recover, my heart rate kept getting higher and higher. After 3 intervals, I urged Joyce and George to go on and I would follow them…in an even slower speed, but one I felt a bit more comfortable with. I almost went mad at myself for slowing them down and not being able to keep up with them. But I know that’s stupid. We all have different backgrounds and I just hope I’ll be able to build my muscles and condition up again so I can keep up! They ran again for a while and I followed with 30 seconds running (in which my heart rate accelerated like 40/50 beats per minute!) and then 1 or 1:30 minute of walking (in which my heart rate slowly crept back to around the 130/135 beats again). When they turned and came running to me again, I turned as well and went along. The last stretch, George ran alone and Joyce and I followed, using my heart rate as interface in between the runs.

Since we walked towards the street where we’d do the running, I started my Polar heart rate sensor. This way I could keep track of the running and walking time and also of my heart rate. I always keep a “record” of what I did and what my heart did according to the Polar wrist watch. This way I can monitor the improvements… If there are any *winks*.

Exe time	0:55:50 minutes
In zone	0:26:38 minutes
Average HR	145
Kcal	468
Fat %	40

The running/walking thing took about 45 minutes and then I spend 3x15 crunches on out ab thingie, which took 10 minutes (well, from getting home to getting to the ab trainer and doing the exercises).

So this is what my “training” looked like. My muscles will hate me, they are starting to already… So I will get into my PJ’s soon, so my muscles will not cool too fast. Then I’ll head for the couch, watch some TV while I enjoy some “7-up free Xtra Bite”.

I am still working on my vacation updates, so stay tuned for those. Tomorrow, my mum, Joyce and I will go to the new Harry Potter movie in the cinema, so no working on my blog then… Maybe Friday after dinner and my work out *smile*.

TTFN everyone!
Cynni xxx

How things are going & more vacation update

2009-07-13T22:11:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone, here is yet another update of our vacation time at Punta Cana, Dominic Republic. Last time I wrote here, I left you after our third day, the Monday. So now I’ll continue, starting Tuesday the 16th of June. That seems quite logical, doesn’t it?

*note to readers: I started this blog on Sunday July 12th and am finishing and posting it on Monday July 13th*

While I am typing, Joyce is playing my new PS3 game “Overlord II”. Here is the official site.

I played it for a while last night and it’s really a good and funny game. I bought it last Thursday at the Media Markt in Arnhem. They had special offers on videogames and accessories. Buy 2 and get the second (cheapest) for half price. Well, that sounded good for us. Seeing we have a PS3, a PS2 (I bought it second hand and am quite happy with it), PSP, Wii and since the same Thursday, we also have a DS lite. We got it for George’s birthday already, seeing he kept complaining about the bad screen of the GameBoy Advance. So we saw the DS lite, and it could play advance games as well. We bought it and ever since he’s been busy playing. Yesterday he bought himself a R4 chip and I’ve been busy getting some games on it for him to play. That should keep him quite busy… Unfortunately, that’ll also mean that stuff he intended to do may get done a bit later due to the distraction of his DS.

But, back to the vacation on-line diary I am writing here to share with you all.

Tuesday, June 16th 2009

This was yet another easy, relaxed day for us. We got up early and George went to the gym. Joyce and I took our books and sat in front of our room while reading. While we were reading, the phone went. It was Wimpy, informing us that the next day, we would be going on our “Caribbean Tour”. We would have to get up quite early, seeing we’d be picked up around 6:20…
When George came back he took a shower and then we grabbed our swimming pool bags and headed for breakfast. It was a bit busier, due to us being a bit later, and we had to wait a short while before we were seated.
After breakfast we went to the big pool, grabbed 3 chairs and went into the water. The bartender was the same as on Monday and he recognized us immediately. We threw around with the ball, the bartender even played along as it was not busy at his bar…yet.

George played with the GameBoy, Joyce and I read and around midday, we went to “Pikolo” for a slice of pizza and some fries. George had a big breakfast so he skipped this “lunch”.

After a while, we decided to get back to the Jacuzzi’s. We went through the bigger bar and then past the second pool. I had made some pictures earlier that morning, so I am using them to give you an idea. And if you have already seen the pictures, you now know what you were looking at before *winks*.

Walking through the bar, coming out at the second pool

And when we arrived at the Jacuzzi’s, we read some and relaxed in the shade.

After a while we went back to the room. The sun was kinda failing a bit and we wanted to take a shower, and George was taking a nap and playing with the PSP. While he was playing/napping, Joyce was working on our written diary, the one we now use to write these online ones…

Joyce busy writing

Grey clouds

When we dressed for dinner, around 18:00, we went to Pikalo. There we enjoyed a drink while we watched the clouds grow grey and darker. So when the Kolibri diner opened, we rushed in before the rain might start to fall down on us.

Seeing I don’t like a whole lot of different kinds of food (though I am trying some new things when I feel like it), I was really happy there was a pasta chef at the lunch and dinner times! He was always happy to see me as well and when I asked for a picture, I could even join him behind his stove!

Enjoying our meal and with one of our regular waiters

Joyce tried some sort of small crab thingie this evening, which looked rather wicked and (to me) uneatable. But it did give me some nice picture moments *winks*.

Since my shoulders caught a bit too much of the sun, we brought some cub cumber along after dinner to cover it up for a while. Of course, there was a picture taken... And another one...

That was our Tuesday! More coming up soon!
Am getting to bed now, need to get up early again tomorrow to work from 8 till 17.

TTFN xxx Cyn

It’s a bright June afternoon…

2009-07-10T22:34:00.002+02:00

…it never gets dark, wah-wah, here comes the sun.

Yes everyone, you have reached the second part (of how many, I don’t know yet) of my vacation diary. So far, I’ve only managed to tell you almost all there was to tell about Saturday, June 13th, the day of our departure from Amsterdam and our arrival in Punta Cana.
And I’d like to thank Gin for commenting on so many Photobucket pictures *smiles*. Thanks gall!

Here is a small “vid” I made (very quickly, I must add) of some vids and pictures. Enjoy!

Punta Cana, video 1

Sunday, June 14th 2009

Our room

Since we went to bed on Saturday around 9pm. we all were awake before 6am the following morning. I texted Wimpy, a Belgian Tour operator in Punta Cana, whom we contacted before we went on vacation. I informed him about our room number, since he already knew the hotel and duration of our stay. Around 6:50 the phone rang in our room. Joyce was our assistant and picked up the phone. It was Wimpy. If it would be possible for us to meet him around 7:15 in front of our hotel to plan the first tour. So we all got dressed and were there in time. While we were waiting, some people even thought that George was the “famous Belgian from the internet”. Hihi… when we met Wimpy, we made a deal that he’d call again on Wednesday, since we wanted to wait a few days before planning our first tour. We wanted to get adjusted to the time difference, the weather and above all, the sun.

Our beds

After meeting with Wimpy we quickly went to have breakfast. It was almost 13:30, Dutch time, so we were naturally quite hungry. There was a lot to chose from and we enjoyed every bite!

After that, we went around the park for a stroll. To check out what was where and above all: to find the beach!

The beach @ the IFA hotel

There Joyce and I checked out the water, by standing in it till knee height. The sand was not sharp and the water was really delightful. After a while we went back, took a quick peek in the fitness area at the spa. Then we went back to our room, changed into bathing clothing, grabbed towels, a ball, books and went towards the biggest pool. So that we were close by the reception, because of our welcome meeting with the Neckermann dude.

Joyce and me in the warm sea

We thought we had our welcome meeting at 10:30. But later, it turned out, it wasn’t until 10:45. After some info about the country, the sales talk started. We just nodded and checked out what we already were planning with Wimpy. We did not mention Wimpy’s name though. After that, we went to the guest service desk because our toilet refused to flush in a normal way. In the DR, the toilets are not designed to flush away the toilet paper as well. So we guess the people before us dumped their paper in there and when we did it too (since no one mentioned this fact to us until the next day)…it was getting quite stuck… We informed the people at the guest desk and later on we told our house keeper as well. At the end of the afternoon, it got fixed.

The rest of the afternoon was first spend at the big pool, where we ate some pizza slices and enjoyed some drinks. After a while we went closer to our room, to the Jacuzzi's. There we enjoyed the shade, some drinks and even a book.

Around 18:30 we went for our dinner. We believe the waiters and waitresses in the dining hall are allergic to (almost) empty glasses. Before you could finish the last drip, they were asking if you wanted a new drink already. After dinner we went to our room, where we read some, played some GameBoy/PSP and around 9pm we went to sleep.

Monday, June 15th 2009

George forgot to turn off the sounds of his cell phone, which made it go off between 2 and 3am. It was between 7 and 8 in the Netherlands, so quite a normal time… Luckily, George turned his cell off and after a while I fell asleep again. I woke around 6:30. It’s hard to get adjusted to the new time zone and the climate as well. Since we went to sleep quite early, it’s not strange that we woke quite early as well. We got dressed and grabbed all our beach stuff. Since we wanted to have some nice shady places, we were planning on heading straight to the beach after breakfast.

When we got all we needed, we went towards the dining hall. There was a cart passing along, which we went on towards the reception. George bumped his head again, just like the first night we arrived, to the metal frame that’s holding up the cart’s roof. After breakfast, Joyce and I went to the toilet and George used our towel cards to get us 3 hotel towels to take along to the beach.

We found 3 nice places on the beach, which we later traded for even better places. We made some pictures, some of which can be seen below this text *winks*.

George & Joyce enjoying the sea

George & Joyce with the palm trees

My feet in the sand, while sitting on my beach bed

We played with the ball in the lovely warm ocean and we grabbed some drinks at the “Club de Playa” beach bar / restaurant. Joyce and I read our books and George was busy playing Tetris while we were on our beach chairs.

Early afternoon we headed towards the pools. It was way too hot to stay in the sun at the beach all the time. Joyce, George and I tried to walk bare footed towards the pools, but after a while we definitely needed our slippers! It was so freaking hot that you could almost hear your feet sizzle when you stood still for half a second too long.

We found some decent shaded places at the big pool, placed our towels there and headed towards the diner for lunch. Seeing our egg-chef sometimes used a “bit too much salt”, I already used my Spanish small travel dictionary to see if I could find the correct words to tell our chef to use just a little bit of salt. This would be: “poco la sal”. And he did understand it *smile*.

When I was in the “pasta line” there was a German chick behind me. We had a small conversation and she seemed quite nice. Actually, she was quite nice, her girlfriend (or just friend, we aren’t sure) was just a big b*tch… Interested? Just keep reading, hihi…

After lunch, it was just too hot at the pool, so George said we should go back to the Jacuzzi's. They have a screen over them, which provides some shades in the Jacuzzi’s. So we grabbed our stuff and went back to bubbles.

George and me in one of the Jacuzzi's

Because I was not feeling all too well, I took the key to the room and went back there alone. I rushed to the toilet and felt sand everywhere… So I took a quick shower after that. And then, back to the bubbles. After some drinks, the sun was getting a bit lower again, and we went back to the big pool. There, George found his water shoes back, which he forgot when we left the big pool earlier that day.

Eating a pizza slice

After a slice of pizza, Joyce and I went in the pool and threw our ball and enjoyed a drink. The German gall I met earlier that day was at the pool bar with her female friend. They were getting quite drunk and it was quite funny. After a while, a lot of men were made quite happy. The galls were so drunk, they were kissing and flirting on the pool bar and after a while, they were even topless… George was a happy man *winks*.

The drinks @ IFA

After a while we left the pool to dry and enjoy some more drinks, while watching the girls getting quite an audience. And I made some pictures of George & Joyce near the big fountain.

George & Joyce @ the big fountain @ the big pool

After a while we went back to the room to get ready for dinner. Change clothes and all. Then we went to dinner. After dinner we saw the German girls again. The one I chatted with earlier was most sober and still quite nice. But that friend really got a hangover and was being a total b*tch! It was very bad German language she was using and I did have to refrain myself from not saying something nasty back in German. As I do know some not very nice German phrases… The nice gall kept apologizing and after a while we went back to our room.

George playing with my PSP

Joyce and I wrote in our vacation journal and George played some more on my PSP. Around 9:30pm we closed our eyes for another night in Punta Cana.

Home, sweet home…

2009-07-07T21:04:00.001+02:00

…but having to wok again tomorrow :( (while I was typing it; the day in question is Tuesday, July 7th)Me don’t wanna… Been feeling like crap at work lately and think that things haven’t changed a freaking thing, so after 3 weeks of no stress and relaxation: it’s back to stress again! which is really unnecessary, we know what needs to be done, but it’s the boss who’s stressed. I am doing my work the best I can and customers rarely complain, on the contrary, I get more compliments and all. But I’m still told that my work ain’t fast enough (behind the cash register) and I am too chatty to the customers. But the thing is, some customers prefer to stand in my line just because I am this chatty and interested in them as a person. But well, he seems more concerned about money than the customers and I think that is not too good. He’s changed and I truly feel like I just don’t fit there anymore. But I do believe I mentioned this before… I am just dreading tomorrow…

OK, back to my/our vacation. You might have seen all the pictures that I will be using in my more detailed blogs that are to follow/come now. But this time, you’ll actually will be able to read what exactly you’ve been looking at. This holiday report will come in more parts since it’s just not achievable to post it all in one post. And it would be way too biggie for the blog to be read and maybe to handle as well. So you are currently reading part 1 of many *winks*. For those who wish to check out all the pictures, here once again, the link: Bavaro Holiday Pictures 2009.

On our way in the train, packed and ready for a vacation!

We had to get up early on Saturday the 13th of June. Around 6 am we were all up and running already, seeing we had to catch the train that was leaving from Nijmegen at 7:50 (around that time, I believe). And so we would drive our van to Nijmegen, where we would pick up my mum. Then drive on to the train station and from there, my mum would drive the van back to their house and park it there. So she would ne able to use it, if it were needed. And it would not stand in front of our house, unguarded for 3 whole weeks. George was in full stress mode, as he always is before finally going to easy up when at the airport. Grr, it’s so irritating and I know he does behave like that every time and I keep getting frustrated with him every time as well. But all in all, we did arrive at my mum’s in time and we were in time at the station as well. We even could post a letter that George needed to post before he could go on vacation, so all went well.

Luckily, now a days the train to the Schiphol Airport is starting in Nijmegen and ends at Schiphol. So we’re first in, last out, which can be very easy when carrying along a whole lot of bags. Seeing they always put in a double train (seating up and down, easy with big bags…) which have not a whole lot of special storage room for big bags and all. But we found a good spot, easy to reach and were on our way to the Airport.

Breakfast/brunch/lunch at the McDonalds @ Schiphol Airport

After arriving at the airport, we gave away our train ticket to two very lucky (or so we thought) Americans. Seeing we had a 2 person day ticket, which could be used for train transportation ALL that day. We would not be using it anymore, so I asked a couple of people who were almost ready to buy tickets. The first couple did not really understand but the second ones did and so they received my and George’s ticket and they could travel by train for free for the remainder of that day.

When we were checking in, we got a trainee so it took a bit longer than usual. Then we went through customs, got our ID’s checked and we were ready to wait, until boarding time was there. We went to our normal waiting area, the McDonalds area, and got ourselves some seats. Joyce and I got some food and George got a snack roll and coffee. Then we went ok to the shops, and I bought a laptop set, including a card reader and mini-mouse. Since we forgot to bring a card reader and it would be easy to make a back-up of all our pictures while on vacation. We checked out some more shops until it was time to head for the second (and final) security check and boarding after the final check.

George grabbing our carry on bags after our toilet brake

At the last security check, there is a metal detector which you have to go through. Of course I went off and got checked inside and out. I had my hip card with me, so they could see that I have a prostatic hip and there for would buzz all the time. After 5 minutes of checking I was allowed to go through. Then there was the ticket check and after that, you were in the waiting room and finally within reach of the toilets again! Joyce and I went, while George was watching the bags.

Our Martinair plane that would take us to Puerto Plata & Punta Cana

This plane was the one we’d be in for a whole lot of hours, before we will finally get out at Punta Cana Airport. They were still pumping kerosene when we were waiting before we were allowed to board the plane. There weren’t enough seats so we set down on the ground near the entry towards the plane. This was not a too bright idea, because this way, we were in the plane early and (almost) all those people who were previously occupying all the seats had to pass us to get to their seats… So we planned to get in at the last time possible for our way back.

Grabbing our seats, aisle 6

We were allowed to board at 13:10. At 14:00 we were served our meal already, veggie pasta and (well, or, you had to chose one) chicken with mushrooms. I had the pasta, Joyce & George the chicken. Around 14:30 (Dutch time, which is in zone GMT +1, in case you were wondering) we were almost above London, UK.

Because we had “Comfort class” seats, we also got a DigEplayer, which had many movies and some TV-shows on it for us to enjoy. I watched the last “X-files” movie and both George and Joyce played “The curious case of Benjamin Button”, which I watched along as well (while watching my own movie). After the X-files, I watched “WallE”and then 3 different series episodes: Boston Legal, How I met your mother & Gilmore Girls.

At 20:07 (Dutch time) we were somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean. We had already passed about 4115 kilometers (around 2175 miles, I believe) and still needed to fly 2285 kilometers (around 1425 miles) before landing in Puerto Plata. Seeing we first would make a stop there and then load passengers that were on their way to Amsterdam. Then head for Punta Cana where we would depart and more people heading for Amsterdam would take our old seats. We flew around 910 kilometers per hour, which would roughly be 570 miles an hour. And at an altitude of 10.400 meters, where the temperature was minus 46 degrees Celsius.

Feels good to have such a kit on board, doesn’t it?

The “Ex-Mexico kit” was in one of our overhead storage lockers. I quickly made a picture before they closed it up again. It really gives you a warm feeling inside. Not too warm though, you never know if they might think that you’ve got it…

The Airport

Here we are, finally in Punta Cana. It's still light, even though for us, it was already around 23:00, Dutch time. But seeing the DR is in GMT -5 time zone, it was only around 17:00 there...

Waiting for our bags @ Punta Cana Airport

We took a small stroller, which we thought would come in handy for our suitcases and bags. But when we finally got them all and they were all on it, they told us after walking about 50 meters, that we were not allowed to take it any further along. And of course, there were already bag carriers trying to zoom in on our luggage to make a few bucks. But seeing we are Dutch, we quickly took our own bags and headed for the Neckermann check-in. There they told us we needed bus number 19. And that is was located somewhere near the back of the parking lot. Well, yeah, it was almost in the back alright! The first stop would be at our hotel, the IFA Villas Bávaro.

The cart that would bring us to our room, 1208

When we arrived, I went with the vouchers to the desk to check-in. George and Joyce were getting the bags and suitcases. We got our towel cards, our keycard for the room and then our stuff was loaded onto a small cart. When the carriage and cart were fully loaded, they noted all the room numbers and we were slowly on our way to our room. There the driver took my suitcase, tried to kill it on the pavement towards the room and Joyce even rewarded him $ 5,- for it… We were all dead tired! So we opened up our bags, took what we needed and got ready to call it a night!

So now, we’re finally in our room for our first night in the Dominic Republic.

I hope you enjoyed my “diary” so far. Today, by the way, I had my first day of work and all welt quite OK. Partly because the boss wasn’t around all the time, which kept the working floor easy going, non stressed and all the work got done in no time, no time at all *smile*.

I will start working on a follow op diary blog post about our vacation to the DR. I also made a small video already, which I will upload to my YouTube asap and then, of course, add in the following diary blog post!

TTFN, Cynni xxx

Back home again

2009-07-05T22:05:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone,

we're back home! The trip went OK, though not being able to sleep in a plane is not funny at all and when I start counting the hours, I've been up for almost 33 hours straight now, which also means that I'll be heading for my own bed soon! Luckily I have tomorrow off from work, seeing I'd be broken for sure if I would have been broken tomorrow morning at work otherwise...

I just uploaded all my pictures, and George's as well, to the external hard drive and I rotated all. I am currently uploading about 100 pictures that Wimpy made during our "Caribic Tour" that we took with him. Just follow the well known (by now) link to see the new additions!

Will be blogging soon (I hope) about all that we did during those 3 weeks. And I will need to catch up with my friend's blog posts as well for sure!

Off to brush my teeth now and getting ready for some well earned sleep!

TTFN, xxx Cynni

Last picture upload from the DR

2009-07-02T23:03:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone,

I am informing you, that I am currently uploading the last pictures of our holiday. The day after tomorrow we´ll be heading home again, so the next blog/upload will be from my own comfortable (and less expensive) PC again!

You already know the link to the pictures, but for those who are to "lazy" to click the link in a previous post, here it is again: Bavaro Pictures.

See ya all when we get back on Sunday!

Loads of love and huggies,
Cynni xxx

More pictures @ Photobucket

2009-06-24T19:34:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone,

at this moment I am uploading 109 new pictures to my Photobucket account!
If you'd like to check it, just follow this link: Bavaro holiday pictures

Thanks to the people who wrote a comment on my previous post :)

The weather has it's up's and downs here, and as we learned during our Eco tour yesterday, there are more things here that are more down than up besides the weather... But I will get to that when I am home again, and will be posting our vacation blogs. Then I will also use some of the pictures that are avalible at my Photobucket. So then you will know exaclty what you've been looking at before :) But as written before, I'll do that when we're home again and when I've got the time then to do so.

Today it's around 28 degrees Celcius, with clouds covering the sun every now and then, but no rain (yet). That's what you get in the rain season. But no complaints seeing we've got more good than bad days here. Even I am getting a slight tan... Or should I say a light tan, compared to some people around here who see the sun and are instantly part of the DR color wise???

Hasla la vista baby!
I am off now, so Joyce can use some of the time to edit her blog as well.

I'll be back before you know it!!!

Luv,
Cynni xxx

Dominic Republic

2009-06-17T19:49:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone,

I received some text messages saying that people were checking my blog and they were disappointed that there were no pictures online... Since we don´t have much time here, I will quickly post a link to the pictures that I have already uploaded to my Photobucket account.

DR - Bavaro, Villas Resort & Spa

Enjoy viewing! More details will come later people!

TTFN, Cynni xxx

Just a quick one

2009-06-10T21:15:00.000+02:00

Sorry, since I am posting this with my cellphone, I can't add a music video, so no "musical attachment" or title this time.

I did pack the biggest part of my suitcase. It's 18 kilo's now, am allowed 23. So I can even still use the small bits of spaces that are left, if needed. We did already pack a bag with old shirts and some pants, some pencils and paper stuff. Seeing many people in the DR lost all they had during the hurricane season last year, Wimpy (a Dutch touroperator on DR) asked if we could bring some old tshirts for the local population. And seeing we'll be doing a tour with him during which we'll visit a local school, he asked us to bring some pencils and all. Seeing we are all allowed two pieces of luggage, weighing 23 kilo's each (I've never been allowed to bring THAT much on a plain!), we'll take an extra suitcase with those clothes and all. I am thinking on buying some more pencils on Friday, seeing I have the day off then and we've only spend about 5 euro's so far... I guess if we're taking a trip like this, we could spend at least 5 euro's each to help out a poor children's school. So when we take Chance to my parents on Friday and visit the GWK (to get some dollars), I will drag Joyce along one more time to buy some stuff for the school!

My tummy's still not feeling OK and I've been typing this whole message while on the toilet (yeah you've always wanted to know that haha!), my legs start falling asleep and I should send this post and get off...

So just another small update. Will go to bed, watch some DVD and then hopefully (finally) sleep well for a change...

TTFN
Cynni xxx

Make every whisper turn into a scream…

2009-06-10T19:30:00.001+02:00

Today was another long day at work, from 7:30 till 17 (again!). Work went kind OK though, but the hours seemed to go way to slow. Around 15:30, I felt really hot and dizzy and not a bit nauseated. And because of this, I started to get a headache as well. But I held on till 17 and then quickly went home. I ate some dry bread (roasted) with bouillon and now I am here, posting.

I’d like to thank all my dear friends who have been supporting me the last few days! Thanks everyone, it really helps to know I got you to fall back on to when the going gets though.

I am a bit too tired to write a whole, long post. And I don’t have a lot of interesting stuff to tell. Only that, if Joyce succeeds this Friday morning in getting the tickets, she and Steph and I will see Rammstein live in Arnhem, on December 6th. I am really hoping she can log in in time to get 3 tickets. I just want seats though, no boots against my head! Haha!

Some good news though, before I go ahead and post this blog already: I will pack my suitcase in a few minutes…

Much love and many hugs, will keep you updated!
TTFN, Cynni xxx

Here it comes...

2009-06-09T22:17:00.003+02:00

...here comes the promised video! Enjoy!

Here it comes…

2009-06-09T21:27:00.001+02:00

*I wanted to post a video of the song by Roxette here, but there was no good quality on YouTube yet… Am ripping my MTV Unplugged DVD, will need to edit to get the song and then upload it… Am working on it now...*

Just 2 more days that will be spend at work and then, it’s weekend already! But for me, it can’t be weekend soon enough. Work was OK though today, seeing it was a not too busy day and my boss had a day off. So we had everything spick and spam in no time and we even had some fun doing it.

I have been getting some nice comments of some dear friends on my previous posts and I really appreciate it! Thanks galls! I know I would be a dumb @$$ if I would not go with George and Joyce on vacation. But I am scared that I might spoil the fun. That’s why it keeps me wondering if I would be a total egoistic person if I would join, just because otherwise I would be scared to miss anything. On the other hand, I am not egoistic if I have so many doubts about it just because I do not want to spoil their moods. It is not easy, that is for sure. But hopefully I will be able to discuss this with Joyce and George as well (though it’s a bit harder with George, due to him being more stubborn than I am at times) that I might have some mood swings if I join and there might be times that I really need to be left alone to figure things out. I guess I would blame myself for not going, when I am here all alone and feeling down. And I also guess I would hit myself in the head for not going when they return with a lovely tan and all these experiences… So I guess my best guess is as good as yours and I might join them after all… I will need to talk about the sometimes needed a bit of time just for me, myself and I. But I think that it will work out… Don’t you think so?

The flag of the Dominic Republic.

A site with some pictures taken all around the Dominic Republic.

And some Google Earth images, so people who have no idea where the DR is, hopefully they know after reading-viewing this blog.

Some more info about the country can be found on this Wikipedia site. And many people have asked me how long our flight will approximately take. The answer to that question is: ±9 hours. The time zone of the DR (DR = Dominic Republic) is GMT-5 hours. Seeing the Netherlands is GMT+1, there is a time difference of 6 hours.

I do hope that, especially for the ones who did not have a clue where the DR is, this blog post has made things a bit easier to understand. Otherwise, just download Google Earth™ and search for it!

I have been thinking a whole lot about myself, my situation and my feelings. Maybe because it was an easy day at work, I felt a bit more relaxed and allowed myself to do as I pleased. As I wrote before, all the work was done and in time, with fun. And that is what I have been missing so much. Fun at work. We’re supposed to work like we’re robots, and what’s the fun in that? if our work could be done by robots, we would have been replaced as soon as the market was ready for it. But I guess many people would hate to see robots running a store. No real people to interact with (or even nag at, at times!) and no feelings. Shopping, even grocery shopping, maybe especially grocery shopping, is done with feelings. You have to wonder what you like to eat, what you would like to “feed” the people you live with and how much time you’d like to spend cooking/preparing it. When you are in a hungry mood, you are bound to find your shopping basket fuller than you had intended.But the hunger makes you wish to buy more delicious things. And some people enjoy talking to us, talking with me, because some people know I will take an interest in them personally. Why else would I be able to call some customers by their first name? Some people even get mad if I use any polite forms (like madam or sir) when they have told me I need to just call them by their name? I have had some complaints in the almost 8 years but I have had many, many more compliments! And I think some people, if they wish to complain about anything they will, but making compliments is something that people normally don’t just do. I mean, when something is wrong on the register, they’ll complain immediately (well, some of them) but when things are OK, they usually take it for granted. So when people give you heart felt compliments, it does feel good. But when your boss tells you that you don’t work as he would like you to, you start to wonder if it is you who does anything wrong, or (seeing you get compliments) that your boss has a slightly weird idea or good and bad doing… And that is what makes me wonder so much, the good and bad perspective of things. It is important to keep your boss happy (is it?) but I believe it is even more important that the customers are happy! If you only do as your boss tells you and it creates a bad atmosphere in the store, a customer will not be eager to come back again. If the customer feels like his/her needs are filled and he/she is treated with respect, as a real guest of the store, he/she will be eager to come back and buy (maybe) even more the next time… Or is it just me who thinks like this?

I am now rendering the “Here comes the weekend” MTV unplugged video by Roxette. So when it is done, I can upload it to my YouTube™ and then finally add it to this blog post. It seems silly to tell you what I have been doing and am doing, when you don’t even notice it, because when you read this, it’s all ready and done.

I do hope that this blog will shed some more light on my current feelings, and even more, thoughts and perspective. I am always happy when you leave a comment, and I am even more grateful then, because I know some people read it, but by leaving me a comment, it shows a bit more how much you care.

I am starting to have some trouble writing now, I am getting quite tired, I guess. So I will post this blog now and promise you that as soon as I can post the video of today’s song, I will! Yeah, in case you haven’t noticed, I am trying to make a title based on a song, based on how I am feeling when I am writing the post. And, when ever possible, I will post the (YouTube™) video as well, so you are able to listen to the song, in case you don’t know it (yet).

TTFN everyone, thanks for caring!!!
Cynni xxx

Disney's Hollywood Tower of Terror

2009-06-08T21:10:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

I am back with a small update. Some people have been asking me about Disney's latest attraction (in their Studio park): the Hollywood Tower of Terror. So here is a small "tour" of the ride.

First you stand in line.
Then you are atmitted into the first "zone", waiting to enter the library.
There you watch an English (Frensh subtitled) "Twilight Zone" video (see my previous post and/or youtube account).
Then you move in into the next line.
When you are in front of your elevator, you will be assigned a number, which correspondents with your seat.
You enter your elevator, which is basically a big cage with seats and seatbelts.
The bellboy (or girl sometimes) tells you the guidelines in English and Frensh.
You check your belt and have to put your hands up in the air.
The door closes and your elevator moves backwards into the elevator shaft.
You go up one level, the door opens and you see a big mirror. It's time to wave goodbye, when you see your image changed into a ghostly one.
And again, up one level. You see the original hotel guests you saw in the library video. But then...
You go up and down several times, two times you are allowed to "enjoy the scenery" (as seen in the vid previously posted as well, otherwise on my youtube).
And then it's time to leave the elevator. It moved forward again and the bellboy (or girl) will greet you back with a big cheesy grin.
And then you look at your fastpass ticket, realising it's only one hour to go before your next Tower ride ;-)

Hope this explains it all well enough. For the real experience, visit Disney Resort, Paris, France.

TTFN,
Cyn xx

If we changed it back again…

2009-06-08T20:49:00.002+02:00

Things will never be the same

This is an un-official video, but the editing is just SO good that I wanted to share it with you on my blog.

First I’d like to thank my dear blog readers (& commenter's) on their sweet comments. I am still feeling unsure about what to do. And the silly thing is, that I really expected someone to comment like: you are insane if you are not going on vacation… But they is just the opposite off it all. And that makes me wonder… Even more than I already was wondering.I really do wish to go and I think I really deserve it (and yeah, I’ve paid for it already as well) but on the other hand, I am scared that my mood will f*ck up the holiday spirit for George and Joyce. I am afraid that because of my low self esteem lately, I will feel bad and because of that ruin there well earned days of sun, sea and delicious drinks. I am still in doubt and it feels weird. Even though I really wish to go, I also am afraid to go and mess things up. I know I am repeating myself but it is the thing that keeps my thoughts occupied these days, hours and minutes. I wish to have fun and relax and enjoy myself. I wish to feel better about myself again.

But the thing is: today I had my last physic therapy and I already told my boss (and wrote a note) in May. And soon I will have a day off before my vacation will start, to arrange everything and all. And today, he planned me the whole day and that extra day was planned in as well. I am not sure if he did it on purpose or not, but it did make me feel bad again. Like he’s teasing me, testing me how far I am willing to undergo and take it. As stated before, if he wants me off, he has to fire me… This is just one thing that makes me feel oh so insecure about myself. Makes me wonder if the work I do is appreciated and worthy. I know I do not earn as much as Joyce and I will never be able to earn as much as George. And I was used to the idea of him making more money and all, but the idea that someone 7 years younger with lesser experience earns the same (or even more) as I do now… It also adds to the wondering on how worthy I am. Seeing in the end of this month, I will work at my current location for 8 years already. And I know I have been absent for several whiles, but when I felt up to it, I always went to work. I even worked half days till about a week before my last surgery. And still I am told that I cost the company a lot of money… Other people would have called in sick 100% a long time before I have and I did my best. And I was also told that the last few weeks before that surgery, I was working “less fast” than was wanted. Yeah well, working on “tramadol” (painkillers) is still hard work, even if you don’t feel your pains and aches 100%… When I got that comment, I really had to hold back my tears, seeing I gave all I could when I could and still it clearly wasn’t enough.

So all that together, and with an extra added bad night’s rest (due to discomfort/muscle aches and nightmares) and a really low self image to begin with… Really made me feel like I did not matter. Like I just have to live to work and not work to be able to live. And when I had some time off from work, I would often spend it helping out George or Joyce (or both) with house chores. So no rest for my body as well. But if I would not help them, I would feel like I let them do all the hard work and I really want to do my part as well.

So now I am still in doubt about many things. Even though I have to admit I was really happy and excited when Steve opened up his prezzie during the voice chat with us and some dear other friends.

FINALLY I am able to post these pictures on my blog!!!

This surely made me very happy, but it also felt surreal. I am not sure if I can explain it, but I knew it would make Steve a very happy birthday boy *winks* and still I wished I would have been able to see his surprised expressions when he would pick the shirt out of the box and find out that it’s signed… And it was quite hard NOT to mention this “signing event” on my blog or board, because if he would real it anywhere, it would definitely spoil the surprise. Ah well, I am totally *yay* that it arrived safely and will now be framed as well *smiles*.

Usually, my working hours on Tuesday used to be from 8 till 17. Recently, as in the last 3 weeks, my boss has called me every Monday afternoon (at work or at home) to tell me that I have to start at 7:30.. *yay*… As said, I usually did not mind to work, but with all the real appreciation that has been shown, I really have to drag myself out of bed…

And now I am becoming so tired that I make errors in every 5 words I try to write, so I will upload this post and then get ready for a painful massage and then to go to bed.

TTFN,
Cynni

Going down, down, down…

2009-06-07T20:53:00.001+02:00

Even though I have had the privilege of doing many fun things lately, and you have read about it here, please do keep in mind that I am catching up from over a year of not being able to do those things.

Lately I still have been feeling like I’m on a one way train, going down, down, down…

I know I am not alone, but at times I do feel like it anyway. Or I feel like I want to be alone, or left alone even. Just want to rethink stuff that’s been happening in my life lately. Stuff that I could not avoid and had to go through and deal with. Stuff I could not turn my back to, even if I begged for it, and stuff that always had a painful side to it. I guess my friends and blog-readers kinda know what “stuff” I am and/or can be referring to. To others, maybe new to this blog, I would advise to sit back and just check out the previous posts I have made.

But lately work is shitty. I had a deal with my boss about building up hours to get me and my body adjusted to it. And also that if I was planned to work a whole day, but it would be possible to leave a bit earlier, that I would be the one to go. But well, instead of going from half days work to 3/4 days and then full days, he just put me in for full days within a week of making this “deal” about building up my hours. And, as I wrote about before, at times I have to work because “…” (a reason) and then there are always others that are allowed to go home, even though I am still around. And last Friday, he planned me for half a day. The roster said that after my appointment with the health inspector, I had the afternoon off. So, guess what…?! YEAH! I had to get back!!!! And not for a few hours, nope, for the whole rest of the day!!!
And during the talk with that health doc, who was 30 minutes late!!!, I got the feeling he already mailed the letter he wanted to write about this appointment. Seeing he did not listen to any of my complaints and/or body troubles. When I told him that I felt like I was living to work instead of working to have a life, he said that “if I could work all these hours, I was declared 100% OK to work full days again”. That was after I told him about my ankles and back aches, my headaches and the fact that it was all too much! That I even worked around 8,5 hours a day, 4 of the 5 days a week. And all he mentioned then was “that he would advise my boss not to let me work more than 40 hours, like my contract said I had to work”. Yeah, that will help.
So when I went back to work after that conversation, well, him babbling and not listening to anything I said, I was pissed and mad and I have been feeling down and depressed ever since. Even people at work think he’s playing me so I will quit working there. But nope, that isn’t happening. I want my full benefits when I quit work and the only way to get those, is to be fired. So well… I will do my best for the customers, seeing they do deserve it (well most of then anyway). But furthermore, I am taking things easy. Why should I feel like I am dead when I get home from work, only to work my @$$ off again next day and feel shitty again when coming home??? It’s a circle I do not want to stay in, that’s for sure.

And I’ve just had it with about anything. I am not even excited or looking forward to that planned vacation and I really meant it when I wrote earlier that I would not mind to stay home alone with Chance. I just feel like I need “me-time”. Time to spend alone, being able to think things over, think my life over.

I will send this “update” to my blog soon and then head over to the couch downstairs and hopefully be able to watch some telly or a DVD.

Take care everyone!
TTFN, Cynni xxx

Will stay home alone

2009-06-07T14:09:00.000+02:00

Since a lot of things have been going shitty and I feel like I'm a big pile of that stuff...I've decided it would be best for me to stay home. I feel cranky, upset, unappreciated and well, like that big pile. At work I feel like my boss is doing everything he can to make me feel uncomfortable. When I had that health inspector talk he did his talking and never listened to any of my complaints. When I come home from work I feel tired and angry and just want to go to bed. I wish I did not have a job. Here in the Netherlands you still get money when workless (I need to be fired first, so go ahead and make my day) and you even get holiday money added to it as well! Like being workless and at home all day makes you need a holiday as well. Well, it does sound good. Seeing when I get not enough sleep at night or just don't feel like it, I can stay in bed and get paid while doing so. Yeah all you need to do is solicitate every once in a while and that's it. I don't feel happy or like celebrating when being on holiday. My body can rest at home as well. Maybe even better seeing it's relaxed and easy.
So I will wave Joyce and George off and they can have a good time and I will watch the house, water the plants and pile the mail. No worries!

Just me and Chance having a relaxing time together. Yeah I did pay for that holiday, but who gives a f*ck anyway? It's only money...

So be warned that I will be able to blog when they are drinking pina colada's in the sun.

TTFN,
Me.

Disneyland Paris - slideshow & vids

2009-06-04T20:17:00.005+02:00

Here are 100 of the 134 pictures that I have uploaded to my Photobucket account. The direct link is here, if you wish to view them all and in a bigger screen. I will post a more detailed blog soon, using some of these pictures of course as well... But I did not want to keep you all waiting in vain for a glimpse at these pictures.

I have also uploaded the video's that I made to my YouTube account. Here are some of them:

Enjoy it *smile* I know I did *wink*

TTFN xxx Cynni

On our way home

2009-06-02T14:30:00.000+02:00

We're on our way back home again! With tired feet, sweaty bodyparts and two good days to look back at. We just filled the gas tank again and now are really on our way back. We're expected to be home around 17:30 and 18:00. So I informed Joyce, who will inform George, and they will pick me up together. They'll also bring Chance so that she can play with Jumper again.

Last night I "left" you, just after we entered the Disney Resort park. We directly headed for Space Mountain. Waiting line was aprox. 60 minutes. Well, the weather was nice, warm, sunny and lovely, so we took our chances and went in line. Boy was that a freaking hot line for sure! At times there was some wind, which made it a bit more pleasant. But once we came to the line inside, we were wishing we were outside again! The smell of many warm, hot and sweaty people was not too pleasant. Of course we weren't fresh as daisies ourselves but still, it was the smell of others that mattered. And there were two lovely gentlemen who loved to rub up against us or stand on my heels and then smile and say sorry. Were irritating. And one of them made sure that Eva frequently got showered (how she longed for a real one with shampoo!). When we were almost there (for the ones who know the line: we were in the last hall before the stairs that go down and lead you to the platform) when there was a technical problem. Lucky for us, some people in front of us left which made it possible for us to get a bit closer to the upper platform so we could get some fresh air. After about 25 minutes, they send out test trains again, and put all the carts on the track. When they were satisfied, everyone applauded and the line went moving in a rather rapid speed again. I never had been in "Mission 2" so it was nice to experience the change of the tracks.

After that, we went to the Buzz Lightyear restaurant where I bought some pizza's and drinks. We really needed that! And I must admit, it did taste well!

Due to the technical problems, we needed more time than "planned" and it was around 14:30 after the lunch and we decided to get the key to our room. We took the bus to our hotel, seeing Eva did not want to walk...
It was not too busy at the desk and we got out keycard quickly. I wanted to walk towards the room, Eva wanted to take the car and park near the room. So we got into a cooking car, drove around and found all the parking spots near our builing full. We were lucky that our old spot was still vacant when we came back of driving around the hotel buildings. I could not stop laughing and Eva threw me a nasty look. Then we did grab our bags and walked to our room. When we found it, it was pretty warm. We tried all the switches we could find till we found the one for the ventilator. Which did help a bit. I washed my feet, which were sore from bumping them and the guy behind me at Space Mountain. And they were a bit black on the bottom. I decided to swich from my Keen Sandals to my Columbia walking shoes, seeing my left ankle started to swell (due to fluid) and my right ankle started to hurt as well. Even though my sandals were less warm, I did swich to my walking shoes. And in the end, I guess it was a smart move. When we changed clothes and shoes and felt a bit more fresh and fruity, we went back to the Disney park. By foot, that is.

Back into the park, we headed for the "Big thunder mountain". When we went into the line, there was a girl who gave us two fastpasses, still valid for 4 minutes. So we ran back out of the normal line (with a 50 minute waiting time) and ran to the fastpass line. That was definitely a much shorter line and after 10 minutes we were getting into the train. Eva filmed the ride with my camera and the lady in front of us enjoyed it a whole lot (I believe the video will show as much)... After that we were going to the "Indiana Jones" roller coaster. Eva had never been in it, so that promised to be a lot of fun. But first, we filled our empty bottles at a water hole and we saw some geez with kiddos. I made a picture and then we were on our way again. The waiting line was really huge! We had to wait for a bit more than 5 minutes to get in! I made some more pictures and Eva was worried about some dark clouds that were coming our way. But lucky for us, they passed and Eva wanted to ride the Indiana Jones line again! So there we went, again, into the Indiana Jones. After that, we headed to the "Pirates of the Caribean". Eva's favorite. I tried to make some pictures and hopefully, some did work out. Seeing it was a bit too far away to be able to use an effective flash on your camera. After this boat ride we went to the "Star Tour", seeing Eva wanted to go in it. I did like it but not that much. But no worries, it would be over soon, haha! Then we saw that it was definitely NOT busy at Space Mountain. We sneaked through it, as did the two people in front us with the same idea, and we were inside soon again. This time, they rode with less carts but still only 5 minutes waiting time. And this time, they sped it up a notch. WOW this was good stuff!

It was 8:45 pm. The park would close at 9 pm. So we visited a toilet and went to the McDonalds, outside of the park. There we ate our dinner before we headed back to our hotelroom.

When we arrived, we were sweaty, beaten up and totally tired. Eva hit the shower first, and that's when I started typing my first Disney blog. Then I took a shower, which felt delightful and soooo good! Due to previous sun burns, my skin starts to peel of (just the upper layer) and that itches! After my shower, Eva rubbed some lotion on my back which made the itching go away! *yay*. Then she went to sleep and I finished my blog before going to sleep as well.

And now I will send this update, leaving you with the promise of all the Tuesday info and of course pictures and videos soon as well!

TTFN Cynni xxx

Breakfast at the park

2009-06-02T08:28:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

We're now currently at breakfast. We chose to have it in the park, and it is really delightful. It's a buffet, but so far, not too busy and with delicious stuff.

So now you all know what we're doing. After this: Space Mountain, mission 2 and then (hopefully) the tower, once again.

TTFN,
Cynni xxx

First Disney impressions

2009-06-01T22:45:00.000+02:00

Sitting on my bed, dear tired, icky from sweat and ankles with elephant sizes... I am ready to tell you a bit about our first day at Disneyland Resort, Paris (France).

Last night, Eva and I went to bed around 22:45. We had trouble falling asleep due to several reasons. The main reason was the lovely hubby watching telly with surround sound. At one point I thought people were cheering for me...but it was for Bruce Springsteen, live on TV at Pinkpop... It was very warm in the Pirate room, not something I am used to anymore... That's what you get when you are spoiled with aiconditioning in your main bedroom. Then I heard a lovely musquito, aiming for me, landing on me and trying to suck all the blood out of me. He kept buzzing around me, making it:
A) impossible to sleep due to the buzing sound
B) impossible to sleep on the cover due to being stung over and over by that small freaking animal
C) impossible for me to kill him due to the fact that the walls were just redone...in white! So red stains would be noticed.

In the end I slept badly. Around 2 I needed my usual toilet brake. I went down, only to be scared by a scared Jumper who did not expect me. So she started to bark. And they did not warn me for the rack that closed off the stairs to the livingroom. So I had to calm the dog while climbing in the dark and really needed to pee. And then, when I came back, Jumper felt the need to bark yet again! Silly spotted dog!

And back to a bedroom where I lay more awake than sleeping. And when the alarm clock went off in the other room, I was already awake and getting ready... Such a shame... But ready for Disney I was.

When Eva and I were downstairs, I heard the alarm go off again. I asked if hubby was supposed to wake as well... Nope but he did so anyway. I went up to get all my stuff ready when he came by, zombie like, wishing me a good morning. Yeah it was a good one for me, even with my lack of sleep. Hihi...

Around 4:45 the gas tank was full and we were on our way. We did not see any RoPaRunners, just their cars coming our direction. Which was a good thing seing we could easily drive on. The highways were scary because we'd never seen them so empty! We made a toiletbrake just after entering France and then: Tower of Terror here we come!

We arrived around 8:30, found a parking spot and registered. Well, Eva queued for it and I headed for a toilet again. When I came back she was just checking in so I was in time. When we got our tickets we headed, by foot, to the park. We were still a bit too early for the Studio park, where the tower is located. So we entered the first bit through the main gate and then queued for the Studio park. When they opened and we finally reached the tower, the queue was not too bad. I decided to get us a Rock 'n Roller coaster ride, with Aerosmith, fastpass. When I came back, they had opened the first gate already! Where was Eva? So I sneaked through the line till I found her again. The tower is SO wicked and cool! Really well done and thumbs up! After the tower we headed for the Rock 'n Roller coaster, where is was just 10 minutes waiting time. So we decided to go in, and go in again when our fastpass was valid. The ride was loud and cool. After that we tried to grab some food, which was harder than we thought it would be. So we ended up eating an ice cream instead. And me spilling some on my trousers (lucky they could be zipped off haha!) and bumping my ankle against the concrete we were sitting on.

When the ice creams were finished, it was almost fastpass time. That meant: going again! *yay*. When we came out, we decided to check the tower line... 90 minutes... And all the fastpasses were gone! Wow! We headed for the exit, and then I spotted a photoshoot with Scully from Monsters Inc. We went in line, got our photo's taken after a while and we also made some picca's as well, seeing we wanted free pictures... Then we hit some shops, while we were heading over to the other side of the park.

When we arrived at the gates there, many people were in a line, waiting to get in. We spotted an empty entry gate and were in quickly. WOW it was freaking busy here as well!

I would love to tell you all about my day. But seeing it is 10:45 pm now, I've been up and running since 4 am, I did not sleep much and have to get up at 7 am again.. I will try to catch some ZZZ's. Eva is already passed out, but I wanted to share some of my experiences with you before laying down. I hope you liked it so far. I do have some pictures, which I will add to my Photobucket asap! And into my next blog entries I guess as well *winks*.

TTFN (Ta-ta for now, as Tigger always says),
Cynni xxx