Lilac Colored Glasses

These aren’t exactly the winners of the week, so much as the winners of the day. They’re pictures we took today when we went to try the food at Hof ten bosse, the Belgian wedding reception venue. CB and I both really love the place and the way it combines modern with rustic to create a really unique, cottage-chic atmosphere. So cool.

Reception hall/ Dance floor

Not quite sure what it is but it’s kind of steam punk meets Little Women, no?

This is the coffee buffet. The actual coffee is off to the left in a big urn but see that bowl? Homemade whipped cream. Swoon!

Nekked baby violinist – every wedding has to have one

This is the sort of thing that I really love about this place. It has so much character. Some of the corners of this place are like visiting an old homestead in the countryside.

Prior to my tumble down the stairs, I was planning to come back to my blog with a little song I heard recently. It’s an easy going, simple little tune and while CB and I do get a chuckle over it’s schlageriness (made that one up myself), it’s been stuck in my head ever since I decided it’d be a good “end of hiatus” tune.

However, I thought it best to tell you about what happened Monday and I couldn’t see a good place to segue into a Dutch schlageresque song. It’s kind of hard to stay upbeat when you feel so beat up.  Much of my physical pain is subsiding (though my wrist is hurting more) and the longer I’m able to sit in one place, the more I’ve made the mistake of reading the news.

I usually avoid the news because it depresses me and considering the month I’ve had, I don’t need to be more depressed, but this week I found myself clicking around the headlines and reading about things like the Maori protest in Auckland, the court’s decision to uphold Prop.8, the GOP trying to find ways to deny the first ever Hispanic woman from a place in the Supreme Court, and Israel’s Knesset trying to pass a law to imprison anyone who denies Israel is a Jewish state.

What most of it boils down to is discrimination, for one reason or another and it really makes me feel sick to read the comments of the “Joe the Plumbers” out there who find any reason they can to put down those who are different than them. I can’t say I know much about council seats in New Zealand, but the disgusting amount of racism in the comments blew me away.  And I won’t even get started on Prop. 8 cause that’s just asking for trolls. But again, the comments I saw? I can’t understand how people justify some of their own heinous opinions. These people are minorities who protested peacefully for their rights to be represented as human beings and they were mocked for “pissing people off by wasting their time in traffic”.

Are you kidding me?

I doubt that the African Americans who no longer have to drink from separate water fountains feel as though the Million Man March was a waste of time.
I doubt that the women who vote on every election day think that the suffragettes were lazy or whiny for demanding to be treated as equals in society.

Point is, the world is really bumming me out today. So before I limp off to rest my rear (and back and arm and toes), I’m going to do my best to stay positive and upbeat, and in doing so, I’d like to offer you all a happy little song to be lodged in your heads (disclaimer: I never said the song is actually any good, but it is upbeat and chipper).

Heb je even voor mij (loose translation: do you have a minute for me) – Frans Bauer

If we go by the age that we estimated from the information given to us at the Poezenboot, Luna is just about a year old. She’s still sort of small and lean and she still has huge eyes so she looks more kitteny than cat but she’s all grown up now. She loves to play fetch (even in the middle of the night, which is not so fun) and cuddle and curl up on the bed with us every night. She thinks she’s people now more than ever, eating her soft food piece by piece with her paw on occasions and trying to eat all the human food that I’ll allow. And while Rex does the typical leg rubbing that cats do, Luna much prefers to be on a face to face level. She even pushes her head towards you for a kiss when you greet her.
She’s a sweet, loving kitty with a great personality and she adds smiles to our home every day.

Luna, looking strangely stern.

She loves playing in the sun. She rolls around on her back and chases the sunlight reflecting from her name tag. You can see her tummy is still growing it’s fur back from when she was fixed a few months ago.

She just has such a beautiful, semetrical face and her eyes are the same green as her mother. Luna is probably one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever received.

More weekly winners can be found at Lotus’ place.

First the weigh in. I didn’t forget to weigh myself last week, I just forgot to put it here. Last week I was at 219.8 but this morning I weighed in at 221.5. I’m not sure why, as I’ve been eating within my caloric guidelines and keeping track of everything (except this past Friday because we were in France and I had no idea how many calories anything was that I ate but still, I didn’t overeat or eat a ton of unhealthy food). I’m hoping it’s just some bloating from the tail end of my period but still, it wasn’t a nice thing to wake up to.

Okay, now on to some Weekly Winners, more of which can be found on Lotus‘ blog.

Some Spring in Gent

Fun With Macro

A Daytrip to Lille, France

This one needs a quick explanation. There was some sort of language exhibition going on in Lille this weekend (which is rare in France) and we just found some irony in the typo above.

For more Weekly Winners just click on the banner.

What to do on the first really nice weekend of the year? Well, today we’re going to a baptism, but yesterday we had a little daytrip to Antwerp. Someone at work had mentioned a market that was held in antwerp centrum every Saturday so that’s where we went. Here’s some of what they had to offer. If you mouse over you’ll even get the Dutch words for some of these items. I figured I might as well make this blog educational on occasion.

Now, here’s the market:

Cheese, cheese and more cheese. So much cheese! But I’ll be damned if you can find any cheddar. We did see provolone though. Mmmm, provolone.

Cured hams, sausages, salamis, smoked meats

Mountains of fresh fruit, especially apples, although there were all sorts of pineapples, kiwis, plums, strawberries, etc.

Bowls and bowls of all sorts of stuffed and marinated olives, green, black, kalamata, spanish…

Dried and candied fruits…remember the beginning scene from Disney’s Aladdin where the street vendor is yelling “Dates! Sugared dates and figs! Sugared dates and pistachiooooos!” Well that’s what this reminded me of…and yes, there really are guys standing up on stools yelling at the crowd.

So many flowers, mostly fresh but some silk too. I’m pretty sure these are silk but they were too vibrant for me to pass up.

After the market we went to the shopping street and the performers were out and doing their thing.

For lunch we went to the Chinese street and had some fantastic dim sum as well as other yummy dishes.