New location !

Wooow it's been some time since I was on here now! A loot of things have happened since the last post :P Now I'm chilling on a different couch, a NEW one, from my new location, namely my lovely new home in the apartment in which I live with my baby :)

The summer flew by, with one short week spent in Sweden with my friends and family.. Had a lovely week at home, I just wish I could have done even more! But as always, I gained some very nice memories with my best girlfriends!

Then it was time to go back to Holland, to move into our new apartment that we were so lucky to get!

It's newly built, but let's just say there were some things we wanted to change - so as soon as we got the key, we were off to IKEA! 1 week later, there was a new floor in the place, newly painted walls and the furniture was literally being put together like on a production belt :P

Now it's been one month since we moved in, and it is aaaalmost done! :) I love it - now I finally have a TV, I have TV channels - a lot of them! :D I have a biiig fridge, I have a FREEZER (I've been living without one for years now!!) and I have a big beautiful and baking friendly oven :D And a spacious-enough kitchen. And an extendable dinner table :D I'm really really happy!

And, I started my placement as a Human Resources trainee at the hotel in Amsterdam! I totally love it, I get to do so many nice things! :)

Here are a few shots of the (intensive) summer!

Wonderful Sweden and it's beautiful nature :)

Cool mirror view in the black lake in the forest.. The lake is actually placed on the top of a hill :P Kinda cool.

Strawberry & Basil dessert :D YUM!

My beautiful friends from back home! <3

 The place: Before!

Under construction :P

Current! :D

 Spent some time with Theo's family as well! Was lovely! :D




Summer is absolutely the best time of the year! :D

Peace !

- Stef

New & better times are coming !! :D

 Everything has been very busy for me at the moment and my blogging time got to suffer a little :P A lot of travelling back and forth between The Hague and Amsterdam in the weekends and on the weekdays I've been busy with my final school project every day from early morning til late afternoon.. And whatever time is in between, I'm spending laying flat on the coach, eating or sleeping lol!

Today I went to the hotel (Crowne Plaza) where I'm going to start my human resources placement in August to try out a uniform :) It was very exciting since it was the first time I was going to the hotel after the interview and this time I was not so nervous! The hotel is absolutely beautiful, my future co-workers are totally friendly and my placement sounds very exciting! I found out some more details about it today, and I'm going to help out a lot with the opening of a new sister-hotel of the same chain in Amsterdam which sounds totally exciting! What an experience! :) And when I walked out of the hotel, which is located 2 minutes from central station in Amsterdam, I found myself right on the main shopping street and got a happy rush when I realized I will be walking there every weekday for the coming 6 months, and I imagined myself going out from work and just staying for some shopping and checking the stores whenever I want !! :D Oh my, Amsterdam brings me so much joy!

And last but not least, June will be my last month of living in The Hague.. On July 1st the moving firm is coming and out I go with all my stuff! Destination unknown so far :P I am very excited to find a new and BIGGER apartment to share together with the love of my life! Buy furniture together, paint, fix stuff around the house.. Totally cannot wait for that!

So, NEW times are coming and I'm POSITIVE that these new times will mean BETTER times! :D No more long travelling hours and long distances between my baby and myself, no more Hotelschool, but just a lot of laughs, good times and new experiences waiting ahead of me! CAN'T WAIT ! :D

Here are some pics from our BBQ in Zuiderpark where I took Theo for a surprise! :D 

Very beautiful park :) And of course, last but not least, some positive sunshine tunes that have been on the replay in my life lately :)

Vybz Kartel - My baby U --> lovely summer tunes! Really motivating lines too "Anything what you want you will get" gives a good feeling for the future!


Busy Signal - Swagg Tun Up ---> Heavy riddim to be played LOUDLY! :D


Don Omar - Taboo

--> This one is not only for the tune, which happens to be my childhood favorite tune, but CHECK THE VIDEOCLIP ! Beautiful scenes from Brazil and a beautiful girl! It's absolutely spacy :)


Enjoy and peace out til next time ! :P

- Stef

Time flew but brought a lot of wonderful moments :)

 It's been a while !! But now I'm back. Last time was before my Easter vacation in Poland, before Queen's Day and before a lot of things!






 I got to celebrate Easter the way it should be celebrated :)With lots of food and the family !!

I'm now a proud godmother of this little cutie, Hubert :)

 I've celebrated another awesome Queen's Day in Amsterdam! (I don't ever wanna miss it!) This is the spot where I met Theo 3 years ago :)











 I've spent a wonderful day in Amsterdam with Theo's little brother and sister :D













I've spent a wonderful time at a beautiful family party in Enkhuizen a bit more north in Holland :)

AND... last but not least - I passed all my exams in school! No more exams for me, ever again ! :D

And this was of course, celebrated with icecold Heineken!! :D

Now I'm looking forward to experiencing more wonderful things, even though times are busy, with my final project in school and with finding a new house to start a life together with the man of my dreams  oops, correction: life! :D

See ya later!

- Stef

Copycat post: A pic that makes me laugh

 I was inspired by a friend's blog to post a picture that makes me laugh. Funny pics are always cheerful to see :P

And since I once again managed to wake up WAY too early, here I am, sitting before my Spanish exam that starts at 8.30 AM (it's now 7.20 AM and I have already gone through everything for the exam lol!) and simply put, I'm bored.

So, let's have a smile at this early morning hour! :D (Couldn't pick one so here are 3)

 

Doing a funny dance with my "homegirls" ^^

Theo looking crazy while jumping into an illusion :P

 Camilla and I having a fight about who should win the board game...


Love cameras because they can catch you at a very funny-looking moment :P






Have a nice day everyone and enjoy the sun!! :D


- Stef

Looking forward to Easter :)

 It's going to be my first Easter spent together with my family since 2007... If there's something that really REALLY got to me during my years in Holland, it's seeing pictures from Easter of my own family and me myself am not there together with them. Ouch, that was really painful and always made my heart break a little and made me feel weak for a moment.

I tried to create an Easterly feeling the best I could during the past years, but it's just not the same without the family there and that huge table full of Easter food...

Living abroad has its benefits and is really nice in a lot of ways, the only sucky thing is moments of family get-togethers or when friends are having important moments in their lives. You wanna be there as well with them, and if you can't, it just sucks. It really really sucks.

So I'm really REALLY looking forward to this Easter, my first real Easter in 4 years... It's crazy how time flies. Family and lots of delicious food, the way it should be spent.

 In Poland, Easter Sunday is a fun day. There's a tradition of sprinkling/pouring water over one another.. And it's not just in your family, you don't really wanna go out on the street during the day or else some kids will pour a bucket of water over you. They were great times as a kid, running around the block with buckets, water guns and water balloons and make each other soaked the whole day.. Awesome :P

Living far from home is hardcore sometimes, when you miss out on important moments. It's not a nice feeling at all. That's why it's extra important to ENJOY the moments that you do get and make the most out of every single moment in your life.

When I'm in Sweden or Poland, I also miss Holland then.. So the key thing is to enjoy the good moments and hold on to them, let them provide you with strength of mind whenever you need it. Sometimes life punches you in the face, but you shouldn't let it make you fall down, but instead find something that keeps you strong and rise above the "punches of life" and regain your focus on what's really important. What is really important differs from person to person, but for me right now it's to create a good life for myself which includes a good job and lots of love and fun moments. And therefore, I might miss out on some other things but all I can do is to enjoy the opportunities I do get.

Life is like a plant with flowers, you have to make sure it blooms :)

 PS. This Stephanotis plant is about to bloom shortly and it has white flowers that smell totally heavenly and really intensively :) Really happy that it's re-blooming for the first time in my care :)  

Here's the lovely song of the day, which wasn't on youtube at the time of my last post :)

Here it is, some down-to-earth vibes: Jah Cure ft. MDMA & Keri Hilson - World Cry


- Stef

More reasons to smile ;)

 Maybe you think I'm going on too much about the whole smiling thing in all my posts, but smiling is the most important thing in life because we should all live in a way that makes us feel happy. A happy person has better health and will live longer and has more energy. So smiling is absolutely vital for our existence so here's another post that I hope will make you smile once again ;)

I was on a big shopping round this morning and I was going to buy a birthday card for Theo because it's his birthday on Tuesday :) So I always go to EXPO in The Hague when I need to by any kind of cards and so I'm always standing there for 15-20 minutes reading all the Sheepworld cards in order to pick out the best one for my occasion. As always, I come across soo many funny and awesomely and amazingly cute cards that I simply have to buy them for myself, just to keep. So today I came home with these cards:
(They're in Dutch but I'm translating!)

 

"Take-with-you-sunshine... So that the sun is always shining for you! Just to cut out and put in your pocket!" 



*hihi* Seriously supercute ! It's so simple, but so charming :)








"We are an awesome team! 

Couch-layers, 
spaghetti lovers, 
lip readers 
and 
excessive huggers"














"I'm never letting go of you! (Together we can face the world!)"

And.. Somebody's B-day card. Theo is never checking my blog, so I think it's ok :P

"Hey Birthday-boy/girl!
You could start playing hide and seek now...
Here, or here or here or here !"

And inside: "But you cannot get away from the +1 year!" 



 When I saw the last sheep hiding in the bottle, I couldn't contain myself anymore and the decision was made! This card it is :P That sheep in the bottle really cracks me up!! ^^





Seriously, I'm such a big fan of Sheepworld making these funny cards.. I really like out of the ordinary cards.. I think standard cards can be ok sometimes, if you don't know someone or so, but funny cards are so much more cooler !!

Before I go, here's the song of today: **actually this is yesterday's song, cause today I have another one! But it's not uploaded on youtube yet so probably it will be posted there soon ;) **

Fresh summer vibes, Akon singing in spanish --> Sexy !

Akon ft. Omega - El Product


Have a nice rest of the weekend ! :)

- Stef

Small gestures that create big smiles !

Sometimes, days can just fly by without anything special happening and this is why it is so important to make sure you SMILE each and every day to make it meaningful day ! Or you make others smile :) If you give smiles, you will get smiles !

Here's how I found my mirror one morning last week :P My baby had come home from work really late and experimented with my eyeliner :D Very cute to wake up to :)

And, this cake always makes people smile :) It has been present at several parties and other occasions and it's always as popular ! So here goes the recipe for those interested. It's a Swedish common cake, it's nice but in Holland it really creates a "wow-effect" lol! I like making people smile by the means of food lol as they say the way to a man's love goes through his stomach :P

Ingredients Silviacake:
2 eggs
2 dl sugar
2 dl flour
1 dl boiled water
2 teaspoons baking powder
Do: Mix eggs and sugar until it's white and fluffy. Add flour, water and baking powder, mix well ! Pour the batter into a greased smaller ovenform (~20x30 cm).
(The cake from the pic is bigger because I doubled the recipe!) Bake the cake in the oven in 200 C for 15-20 mins. In the meantime, make the glaze.

Glaze:
100 g margarine
1,5 dl sugar
1 eggyolk 
 Do: Add these ingredients in a cold saucepan, mix the sugar and the yolk a little bit. Put on very low heat and mix the glaze until all the margarine is melted. The key thing is that the glaze cannot boil, because then the eggyolk will be "fried" and your glaze ruined. Pour the glaze over the cake. Sprinkle grated coconut over the glaze. Let it cool down and cut into square pieces ! :D Good luck !


 There are many simple "recipes" for how to create smiles! Most of them cost nothing, so we can give as much as we just want! :) I hope you all had a good smile today, I know I did :)

Song of the day that's streaming through my mp3 player at the moment: 
Mr. Easy - Dynamite 



Enjoy :) Peace out!

- Stef

Good people exist :)

Today I was on the bus, just looking out the window and I saw a girl walking across the street, then she stopped and walked back one step, stopped and picked up a piece of garbage laying on the ground and walked a few extra steps to put it in the trashcan. I thought to myself "WOW!". I've never seen that happen before. And the piece of plastic or whatever it was, was not dropped by the girl or anything. She just picked it up and put it where it should have been in the first place.

So yeah, I was a little stunned and touched by this random action I saw today and it made me realize there is still hope for our future on this planet :) lol.



In addition, I proudly want to present my awesome slippers that my awesome neighbor got for me ! Love funny things like these :P






And my awesome Polish sheep calendar that I got from my lovely Auntie Iza :) The sheep in the calendar make me smile every day !

This one says "When I'm with you, I can feel the wildness of my heart!" lol ! Supercute :)




Have an awesome rest of the week everyone :) Remember, good people exist, I've seen proof. Now it's just up to ourselves to choose if we want to be one of them :)

And of course: A song of the day! "Rural Area ft. Big Beast - Call me"
A nice, relaxed feel-good melody :) Enjoy !

Peace out!

- Stef

Earth Hour :)

 It's quite cosy to put out candles everywhere, because if there is something that's a fact with me it's that I love to buy nice candles and such things, but I seldom really light many candles.. Around Xmas, sure, but on just a regular evening or so... Not that often.. I would say almost never. I think it's also because now when I don't have that much space in my apartment, the candles become more difficult as it needs to be safe when you light candles, and with stuff everywhere, I guess the risk of a fire breaking out is bigger. So I'll have to wait and see if I will light more candles more often when I live in a bigger place.

 Maybe I'm not doing the ideal thing when it comes to Earth Hour, because I'm not gonna switch off my laptop or internet. Sure, I'll take out the charger from the laptop and let it go on battery for an hour and I'll switch off all the lights and the heating (the candles will make it hot anyway) but not my laptop. I read an article about nice things to do during Earth Hour such as spending time with your loved one (Theo is working), meditate (not gonna happen), take a nice long bath (no bathtub), take a walk and gaze at the stars (uhm, how about no) or have a candlelit dinner (8.30 pm is too late for dinner IMO).. So that doesn't leave many options open for me, so the laptop stays :P

Earth Hour has become a pretty big event, and I think it's cool to participate. One activity that lots and lots of people on earth are doing. Really cool ! And whether you think it's nonsense or not, you should do it if you like to live on this planet. We (humans) have not been the nicest to our Mother Earth and Earth Hour is a gesture of our good will to be nice to our dear planet :)

Here's the song of the day:

Galante El Emperador Ft. Pipe Calderon - Como Olvidaste 

Enjoy ! I totally love it ! :D

- Stef

Spring and sunshine yaaay :D

Spring is all over the place ! Flowers are popping out with the speed of light almost :D I like that. Good times are beginning!

After spring comes summer, which means that I in these times (late-March-ish) need to start thinking about getting into a good shape ! :) --> Meaning healthy week is here lol

The best trick to avoid eating crap is not to have any at home. I've filled up with carrots, avocados and nuts for snacks and lots of salad ingredients, fruits and fresh smoothies.

I had another fun weekend with my baby :) We always have fun together, no matter where we are :) This time we stayed in our first hotel which we bought for cheap at the household convention a few weeks ago. 

We ate a big Suriname take-away dinner on the train :D Yummie !

The hotel was very nice and the day after we spent some time in the Deltapark called Neeltje Jans, which is located close to where the hotel was, Middelburg. It was very interesting and the weather was superb ! :D

- Stef