Another year over...

Well the year is nearly over, the oliebollen have been brought and we are preparing for a quiet evening in just Mrs Stace and I.

At midnight the neighbourhood will go nuts as hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of fireworks will be let off.  Last year it continued until 2 am(ish), and I suspect it will be the same this year.  The only problem is our cat.  Firework safety is something that has yet to reach the Netherlands, and very young kids will be walking the streets today with a rucksack full of fireworks and a smouldering lighter.  They randomly throw fireworks at whatever is on the street, whether they be cars, people or animals.

Today will not be my favourite day to be out and about – or a day for our cat to be out.  So instead he’s sulking in the attic :)

One of my Christmas presents has turned a little expensive…  My parents got me Jamie Oliver’s 30 mine meals.  Taking a look through the book there seems to be some nice recipes.  But, the advice in the book is to use a mixer to save time.  Now, I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a mixer for a while.  I love cooking, but don’t have the time or energy recently to start.  So we went to the shops and looked at a food processor.  This then turned into a planetary mixer; which tuned into a Kenwood mixer with liquidizer and mincer attachments (and a wish list of other attachments for the future…)

But…  It’s started making itself useful already.  I ran out of time before Christmas to finish my mince pies – using them mixer I had 20 made in less time than it took to make the pastry normally.  And the pastry recipe in the mixer seems fool proof.  And the kitchen was not left looking like a flour bag had exploded.  Happy, happy, joy, joy as they say :)  Let’s see if it’s as useful for the recipes.

Yesterday I went to a clinic to discuss having my face zapped.  Something that I have been discussing with my therapist for a few months… Whether I transition or not I want my beard gone -

It’s the thing that tips my mood when I catch my reflection most of the time; I’m fed up with making my face bleed, even with an electric razor, trying to get rid of as much shadow as possible.

I had a consultation, was warned about the pain, time and quite a few times I was told that it’s permanent – are you sure you realise this. After the discussion there was a test patch done.  ‘Some people say it feels like an elastic band, others say it’s worse’ I was told again.  The system they use is eLaser a zap of laser light followed by a blast of EMF.

Zap

Not too bad actually, the elastic band thing this about right.  Not pleasant by any means but OK…

Zap

Hmm, not the best, but doable

Zap

Starting to get a little more painful now…

Zap

I have to endure this for 45 minutes!

Each zap is fine, nothing too major – as I said an elastic band is a realistic comparison.  Now imagine that someone is pinging your face over and over with the same elastic band!  Suddenly a little ping isn’t any more…

I have to call my insurance company, but am not hopeful of them covering the cost.  The clinic has had an offer on for the last month or so where I won’t have to pay the VAT, bringing the cost down nearly 20% if I pay today (last day of the offer…)

This has taken quite some mental effort.  This is (as was pointed out to me, a lot) permanent.  There is no going back to shaving everyday should I ever change my mind.  It’s not cheap.  And Mrs Stace is not quite happy with me doing it as she likes the stubble (though she isn’t stopping me).

But if it stops me having some mental anguish about my face then it should be worth it…

2011 is going to be interesting…

Happy 2011 all, I wish you the best for you and yours.

Stace

Christmas Presents

Just a quick post-Christmas post...

Mrs Stace and I have a wonderful Christmas day.  A late brunch, opening presents under the tree, and a Christmas lunch that started at 4 and ended at nearly 9 (we decided to leave a large gap between courses so that we wouldn’t feel stuffed).

I received some wonderful pressies from Mrs Stace and my parents.  As normal we went way over budget (my fault I just can’t pick presents for Mrs Stace and want to get her the lot…)

But some of the best were not the expensive ones, some were cheap but full of thought, others were free and just full of thought.  As I said Mrs Stace and I had a wonderful day together.  What more could you want for Christmas :)

Any my mum gave me a fantastic present on the phone.  She called to wish us Merry Christmas and to see what we had bought each other (but I couldn’t tell her as we had not opened the presents by then).  We chatted for a while and then she had to go as they had people coming for drinks.  Just before she went she went really quiet, into a whispter.

‘And babe, merry Christmas Stacy’

What more could you ask for from your parents…

Stace

Merry Christmas!

Whilst agonistic I do celebrate the (Victorian) spirit of Christmas - so here are my Christmas wishes to you all, and an e version of that card that we made for this year!

A feel good story...

I was just reading this and thought it a really great story to share at this time of year...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12043294

Stace

And it looked so pretty...

From inside the office.  Or even when we went for a walk during lunch.

The snow hit Hilversum yesterday.  As it hit the rest of the Randstad (the 5 major cities in the Netherlabnds).  Mrs Stace was shooed out of her office by her boss in case it turned into mayhem.  I sent the guys that work for me home and was planning on leaving myself and working from home for a while. I was supposed to be meeting with a few (ex)colleagues after work, but that was cancelled as people were worried about getting home.  Unfortunately I had to interview someone for the role of the other team lead and the guy was already on his way to the office so I had to stay.

I did the interview and checked the trains - 'rijd vandaag niet' was plastered all across the information that I could get to (which wasn't the official site as that had crashed with all the people looking at it).  In case you had not guessed that means 'isn't going today'.  Looking at the traffic site I was decided that I would have been no better off in the car - there was a sea of red on the ANWB (Dutch AA) travel site meaning all motorways were stationary.

I walked to the station to see what I could do.  There seemed to still be trains going to Amsterdam Central - but I would have been worse off there if I couldn't get further.  A bit of searching found an employee of the NS who was swamped with angry people.  Eventually she had time for me.  I managed to put a smile on her face by offering my sympathy for the stress she was having with angry people (it's not her fault it snowed is it).  She told me the best thing to do was to go home and try travelling another day.  I pointed out I was trying to get home, but did have the offer of a sofa should it be required.  Apparently there was a chance of getting out of Amsterdam - but it was not huge.  So I called my friend back and stayed at his place and took him up on his offer.  Had some nice french food (he's from France), played some Teken on the 360 - I haven't played that type of game for more than a decade but managed to do OK with some finger mashing and luck (his girlfriend probably came out on top, he lost and was not happy with it).  Played some Worms (again his girlfriend won one, and drew one with me) and had a race with him (one win each) and finished with some Guitar Hero (which I have never played before and, how can I put this...  Oh yes, I sucked.  Totally - I never realised it was so difficult!)

This morning I dragged myself out of bed (it wasn't an early night) had some coffee and croissants (the French really know where to find nice food!) and tried to get home. Most of the intercities had been cancelled, but the slow trains that stop everywhere were pretty much OK this moring.  I don't normally take them - they are not that comfortable and take an age - but I just wanted to get home!

So here I am, a total time of 21 hours to get home - but thanks to a good friend it was not anywhere near as bad as it could have been, and was for others.

The speed in which the snow fell was the cause I think.  At 11am there was no snow on the gound, by 2pm there was 5 inches of it, and it didn't stop there.

Be safe all,
Stace

Mushrooms

I had a very interesting journey to the office this morning.

About halfway here it sounded like we had hit something:  lot's of clatering, a bit of bouncing in the carraige.  About 2 minutes later it happened again and the train stopped.

A couple of minutes later we move, slowly, into a siding and the conductors got out of the train to take a look.  Then they came in, then went out again.  One of them came in and made an announcement 'Due to a small unknown technical issue we are stopped.  We don't know what's happened, but we should be moving again in 15 minutes'.

Then he went out again.

About 10 minutes later they came in again.  'We've solved the small issue, and will be stopping in Amersfoort for a techincal inspection'.

The train then moved, *very* slowly onwards to my stop.

When the people got off at my stop we all looked at the carraiges to see if we could spot something - but there was nothing obvious to the untrained eye.

Mushrooms because we were kept in the dark for a long time, and lied to (fed on ****) when they did :)  Small technical issue = something just fell off the train...  Problem fixed = Mechanics are going to take a look 20KM's further up the track...

Stace

Happy, happy, joy, joy

Just a quickie - cause I'm really happy...

I just got off of the phone with my cable provider (cold call whilst at work, but hohum).  It was one of the wonderful conversations where I was called Mrs from start to finish.  In Dutch as well.

I really have to figure out just how I speak on the phone and try it when out as Stacy...

(Shame the guy from the cable company was not so happy - I turned down his offer of premium sport and film channels before he even started his spiel)