I was reading (or being read) Dennis’ blog and there was a comment posted by Arthur about asparagus and the cultural differences concerning those beauties. Being American I grew up with the one and only variety of Asparagus, green. The way I like them is sauteed in a little butter in a pan until they turn that bright vivid green. The nice thin ones so they stay nice and crunchy when you bite into them. I remember years ago at the supermarket in San Antonio they had a special, for the first time ever I saw a white and a purple asparagus, and my mother and I being lovers of the green devils we decided to get the white and purple as well as the green to have a taste test. So we went home with our little discovery and prepared the asparagus as we always did, sauteed with a a little butter, nice and crunchy…. I can still see us biting into the white “gold” and thinking to myself, “self, this asparagus is a little stringy and really not so good… not a repeater”.

Several years passed and I had fallen in love with a Dutch guy who tells me that Asparagus is such a specialty in the Netherlands and that his mom is making some for my visit since the first crop had come out when I had arrived. I thought, “this is going to be awesome”… I tell them that I love Asparagus, the lovely green crunchy kind and that I had tried the other kinds and found that the white just was not edible and I can’t stand mushy vegis. The looks on their faces should’ve given it away but I was so happy to have Asparagus I didn’t care. Ingrid (my mother-in-law) brings out her big white pot that looks like it could feed a small village (and she usually makes enough to do just that, the village being my husband) and takes off this lid. After the steam disappears from the top my face fell. I was greeted by a pot of white, mushy Asparagus in a creamy sauce. Being one to try new things (with a little hesitation) I took one (yes one) Asparagus on my plate and cut into it. I slowly took the fork to my mouth and started to chew. As I was chewing on this “white gold” I got to thinking that this doesn’t taste or have the texture of that white Asparagus I had oh so many years ago with my family and that this was really good. I then took a spoonful of white mush and happily finished my plate. I had then told the story of my mom and I’s attempt at white asparagus and soon learned that, unlike the green variety, the white needed to be peeled with a carrot peeler until the stalk feels silky and smooth. Ever since then I have learned different ways to cook and eat the white kind, but still I treasure the few times a year that I can get the green variety…. I also enjoy the look on the Dutch faces as I purchase them…

Well Dennis and I just got back from a trip up north. Despite exhaustion, a very sore back and painful hands and wrists it was AWESOME!!!!. We started out by driving to Eindhoven and going to the job center called the Undutchables, a job center for foreigners. They had this awesome shirt for Queen’s Day. It’s orange, has a big crown on the front and says on the back “I don’t know what is going on today, But I’ll drink to it anyway”. That was a small detour before we went to Noordwijk. We got to our hotel which was really cute and then headed off to the Keukenhof…. We passed a lot of tulip fields, tulips as far as the eye could see, or until the field stopped at some not so picturesque backdrops of modern houses. But it was still so beautiful. The Keukenhof was more than worth the trip. I”m sure Dennis will have the pictures up later today. But there, at the Keukenhof, we got out first cheese, not the food, but the souvenir, a fridge magnet. A delft blue shoe with tulips and it says the Keukenhof.

 The next day we headed out to Delft. Believe me when I say we went all out with the souvenirs. Since we have decided to move we have found that we want to get as much of the Dutch stuff as we can. I think we bought half of this one store in Delft. We have a delft blue Christmas ornament, mugs with tulips on them, a delft blue giraffe…. All of this very tasteful ofcourse … We will continue collecting this stuff, I”m sure, until we leave. And this year the Olympics are really going to help us go all out with pride from Oranje. It Ain’t Much If It Ain’t Dutch!!…. But Anyway Delft was beautiful, we got to see the tomb from William of Oranje, the bullet holes where he was killed and the old and new Churches of Delft. It is really a beautiful city. And the good thing is I have found inspiration for my personalised licence plate when we move to the states. Sjees…. This might seem a bit odd to any non-Dutch (those very few I’m sure) who are reading this so I shall explain. When I first moved here no one on the square where Dennis’ family lives could figure out how to say my name let alone spell it, so when we moved in together we got cards addressed to Dennis and Cheese, Dennis and Sjeen…. weird things like that…. the “ee” is like the “a” in Chase, so that was always a constant. So if you read “sjees” like that it makes sense, “shase” is what it would come down to. But Sjees is also a type of carriage from the horse and buggy times. So I figured it will be funny to those few Dutch who know me and give me a conversation topic with Americans when I am there.Oh and before you think I am all clever and actually knew what the heck a sjees was, it was a café that we went to in Delft and I jokingly said that it was named after me, he told me it was a carriage and then I said that will be my plate…. I think he is rubbing off on me after all these years hehe.

The next day we had Leiden and Gouda. Then the real cheese started (oh god, he has started to rub off on me, this might not be so good ) After walking around Leiden, during the Queen’s Day festivities (I was only allowed to wear my spiffy new orange shirt UNDER my long sleeve black shirt) we headed out to Gouda. Now if you are thinking, cool there will be places to buy cheese magnets and other funny cheese things, you will be sorely disappointed. There was nothing. We managed to buy ONE souvenir that whole day, well one that made it home anyway…. A Delft blue stroopwafel pot with windmills on it and full baggy of stroopwafels, which hasn’t been open and is sitting downstairs calling out to me…. The one thing that didn’t make it home from Gouda was , and this is something for Kim, fresh, hot, soft but crunchy, huge…. and I mean HUGE…. stroopwafels. The thing was the size of a dessert or bread plate…. she had just put the waffle dough on the thing and made them, she cut them open infront of our eyes and smothered it in gooey goodness…. I could’ve had another one, I wanted it… I knew I shouldn’t (like a lot of things, like that second piece of chocolate cake, but come on, it has milk so my dairy for the day, it has nuts so the protein of the day, it has chocolate so it stimulates that part of the brain that makes you feel inlove, and I know you are thinking I should just look at my husband to make me feel all in love and all that, but he’s not there… how else, do you think, I can have that second piece of chocolate cake? but I digress) so I didn’t…. We headed to the car and then drove back home, country blasting on the CD player and us singing…

That was such an awesome trip. I highly recommend that to anyone who wants to visit the Netherlands. Especially the stroopwafels

well I know it has been a very long time since I wrote one of these. I have had a lot of emotional stuff happen to me in the meantime that I don’t want to go through and don’t feel like spilling my guts about so I haven’t felt the need to write something on this. I have tried to get into this one clinic for fibro but have found out that I will not get into the clinic since I need more help than they offer. I know it is for the best and the program is only 3 months and I need more than that but it still feels like a little kick in the gut. But I am pulling myself up and moving on and hoping I will get into the next clinic which I am on the waiting list for an intake.

 But enough of that. I am going to a concert tonight, and I can not wait. it is for Nightwish and the opening act is Pain….. if that doesn’t really tell you what kind of music it is I don’t know what will LOL…. I have always had a love of hard rock and heavy metal that I go through phases where I must listen to it all the time. I think it is driving Dennis nuts but hey, I’m having a great time. I think he might be a little scared that I will go back to a little of my old self, the somewhat “goth” me. The somber clothes, the hard music, basically going off the deep end hehehe. I do get times where I just have to be like that, guess he is just not used to it. All I can say is, I am so happy at this moment, with the concert and hanging out with my friends listening to this music. getting lost in it. I just need a chance to be like this sometimes. The old me with a little new mixed in. We all need to be a little crazy sometimes… too bad I got rid of all the good clothes and would have to get some new stuff… maybe I will for those moments I am out by myself or with friends so Dennis doesn’t have a heart attack LOL…

Well it is time to get my clothes out of the laundry and get ready for a night of loud music and great times. At some point I need to just do what I want, no questions asked (don’t worry by myself) and CARPE DIEM!!

well first off I would like to say to those who have posted comments to my previous blogs thank you. I did not receive the email notifying me since Dennis set this up and accidentally forgot to click the box that would send the notifications to me.

I have been doing a lot of thinking and a little cleaning recently. Anyone who knows me knows I hate to clean so it is going very slowly. I have started to pack a few things in boxes just to get it out of the way and to make the house look cleaner. This has made me really sad knowing that I will have to leave friends behind. I am not going to start ranting and raving and getting all depressed on this thing. I talked to my friend and he has really helped me out and has made me laugh again. It’s hard to to think of it almost like an impending doom. And I do know that if we are not happy in America we can always move back.

The other thing I have been doing lately is Solitaire. I have been playing several different forms of it on the computer and can’t seem to stop. I have been doing the usual sessions of World of Warcraft but sometimes I just need a change from Azeroth. Which leads me to one question. Why in the world is it called Patience? You know, the standard solitaire that everyone has played at some point in their life. You play this game for a w bit and with every turn of the deck you become increasingly frustrated to the point that you have lost 3 hours of your life and are straining yourself not to throw the computer through the window. You have the mentality that you will only play one more hand, just one more and then I will get the house work done. And out of the 200 games you have played in those 3 hours you have won only 20 of the hands but yet, you feel oddly happy when you finally win one so you have to play one more hand. You think, well if I win I will stop and do something but when you win you have to play one more just o make sure, maybe it is a winning streak…..

Well I think I have ranted enough for one day, I am going to play just one more game…… just one more

well I’ve been putting it off and putting it off and next thing I know it has been a month since the last blog. I have a tendency to do that. There are so many things I want to do here that we have been putting off saying “I will do that next year” and now there is no next year. Every year we go to the Carnival parade in town and every year we have fun. This year was no exception. Every year I say that I am going to be more outgoing at it, wave my hands and shout Alaaf! and get more candy and stuff thrown at me. But ofcourse this year I was quiet and ended up with a few crap candies and “nuns butts”(donuts, don’t ask ). But indeed we had fun, and it was hard to think that this will be our last time for a while…. I won’t say forever since that is a long time and I know we will be back in the future. Now I know there was a point to this story but it seems to have left me at the moment.

I am looking around this room at the moment and thinking that we have a lot of work to do. We have a collection of about 400-500 little bottles of alcohol and I am trying to figure out how in the world we are going to get those over there. They still have alcohol in them since Dennis won’t let me drink them (the bastard) so this is going to be interesting. Then there is all the furniture, the little items we are not wanting to take, the old vases and things that haven’t made the list of things we can’t live with out. When should we start to sell this stuff? I have this vision of us in the end sleeping on ground surrounded by boxes and stacks of kitchen stuff.

About the kitchen stuff…. I can not stand to part with my kitchen things. If I had millions of dollars, or a shopping spree in any store, it would be kitchen, books, office supplies and groceries….. We have a pretty nice size kitchen with loads of storage space and surprise, surprise, it is all full….. I have to rearrange it everytime I get something new or I want to use a particular plate or bowl, but I can not live with out this stuff…. who knows when I might need to use a icecream maker (wedding present), a kitchen torch (which I have used a few times) and numerous cocktail plates and party dishes (we are so social, our circle of contacts is Dennis’ family and my few friends…. and none come over to our house since it is a mess). I think when we move we will have more of a social life and can use all this great stuff…. oh, by the way, we have a wonderful icecream maker for sale LOL. I am planning to use it though at some point. And this time I mean it .

well let’s see. where did I leave off? Today is a good day. I did wake up with pain and now I feel it in my knee of all places but I think it’s because I take Murphy out for 30 minutes every morning. Or atleast I have this whole week since the weather has been some what ok. When it rains he will probably get a once around the block and I will get on the little step master thing. I say this and wonder if I really will do it LOL.

Anyway I think Murphy is mad at me now. In the morning Dennis gets up and leaves for work, Murphy is allowed on the bed when Dennis gets up. So Murphy sleeps by or on me and when it is around 9 he can’t wait. I get up, get dressed and take him. He gets so filthy since there are the woods near the house. I gave him his bath this morning since you couldn’t see the bottom part of his body through all the mud and stuff LOL. So now I smell like dog shampoo, I”m sore and my dog will not get near me .

On the walk I got to thinking of all the areas to walk with him in Colorado. The fact that my parents will come with us on the walks. I just wonder if the healthy lifestyle I picture will be what we get. I know we have to make it happen if we want it and I do. I came here and gained 25 pounds from the yummy food and lack of exercise. I keep thinking of the variety of fruits and vegies in the US and the fact that you can tell the difference between the pork and beef by looking at it. Here they have these big restrictions on the slaughter and prep of meat that the beef is not aged, it is pale and has really no flavor. Also the fat is trimmed off it so there goes a lot of the flavor. You have to add a lot of butter to the pan so the meat doesn’t burn so you add a lot of fat that way. I just don’t get it but hey that’s just me.

But talking about the meat made me think of things I will miss. The whole reason I got fat in the first place, the friture…. the frietjes speciaal, the frinkandel… the curry ketchup that binds it with the mayo (not the Hellmans from the USA) and onions…. the sweet intoxication… the liquid meat leverworst, the filet Americaan (which you never see in America), the ripe cheeses and the Belgian beers. I will miss the Aachen Christmas market with Dennis’ parents and our rituals of potato pancakes, Glüwein, roasted chesnuts and garlic mushrooms in a cream sauce. The sampling of hot honey mead.

I know that there will be a change and great things will come from it. I am talking to my friend from Belgium on MSN and he is happy for us about moving but is also having a hard time with saying good-bye. I have had to uproot so many times and say good-bye to so many people that you would think it would get easier. Maybe it’s just because I am getting closer to my friends as I get older, but it is not easier to say good-bye. I will miss him and I know that it doesn’t have to be the end of the friendship. But it will be different. I will miss going to his house for the horror marathons and also just having him around to laugh. But atleast now it means he has to visit.

I have just reread the whole text and I really do believe this is the rantings of a crazy lady. I write how much I am going to miss and how much I am looking forward to it. I first just wanted to write a little something about nothing and now it turns out to be a whole lotta nothing. guess I am just crazy LOL

The first blog. I never know what to write in these things and tend to think that no one really cares, but here it goes. My name is Anna and I am originally from Texas. I am one of those Texans that takes pride in the place I come from and know boring facts about the city and it’s surroundings. I went to boarding school for the last two years in highschool thinking that I needed a change and wanted to get out of Texas. It wasn’t until my years in College in Maryland, the same state I ran off to for high school, that I came to love Texas. So it is strange, to me and others, that I ran off to the Netherlands in 2000 to be with the man I love. (queue the cheesy music ). I have been living here ever since and have bounced from one school to the next and one job to the next to stay in this country. I have managed to escape the Bush administration and seen first hand what the effect has been on Americans in a foreign country. I am pleased to say that after many trying, but fun, years we are going to move to America. I must admit that this decision thrills me to no end, but at the same time fills me with anxiety and remorse.

 I have had to leave Texas, my friends and my family, for a new adventure. I was fresh out of uni so I didn’t know what the world had installed for me. In the past 8 years I have not grown up as much as I thought I would, but I have become more worldly and it has opened my eyes to other cultures and has made me not the stereo-typical American. I do not mean that last comment in a harsh way but I still know a lot of people who think that Holland is in Amsterdam and that no matter where in the Netherlands you live you live in Amsterdam. That there are the same things here that there are in America, like, dare I say it, an American bank, and things they take for granted as everyday items and occurences. (Did I fail to mention some where that I can’t spell? the reason why I didn’t take French but stuck with Spanish and Latin in school LOL).  Now I can explain both the anxiety and remorse.

 Recently I found out that I have Fibromyalgia which sounds scary but just means a lot of pain and a lot of issues for the most part. I have the good days and just last week I had my first really bad day of staying in bed. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as people have described theirs but to me it was the pits. This puts a damper on the many interests I have in my life. I am a jack of all trades but a master of none. I have the attention span of a 2 year old when it comes to hobbies. Everything interests me but I find that I jump from one thing to the next. I have not really had a serious job over here in the Netherlands but that is mostly the language issue. I do speak Dutch but not enough for business. I know what I want and how to get it in a store and to tell people I am not interested in their offer to upgrade to such-and-such energy company that is going to screw us over cause they are not organised enough. Since Dennis and his family and friends all speak dialect I have picked up more of that than Dutch.

Did I mention I have the attention span of a 2 year old? Back to anxiety. I have always known what I wanted to be in my life but never really went through to get it done. When I go back I might be able to follow that path, the only thing is my interests have broadened since then. Making the choices of a career even harder. I want to slack off and work in a store and underachieve for the beginning but I have many people saying I can do better than that. But at the moment I don’t want to do better than that. I have spent years taking jobs that I didn’t like only because I could do it in English. My ideal job is not sitting behind a computer. It’s working with people, or animals, or pastries. I bake a lot for my friends over here and my brownies are enough to send anyone into diabetic shock. This is where the remorse lies.

I have friends here. They may not be the most popular of people but I don’t care. They are my friends. We sit in a basement and watch horror movies and eat brownies and drink red bull until the wee hours of the night. I will miss saying to people that I am going to Belgium to do just that, sit in the basement. I know that deep down I will see my friends again. One is threatening to come and visit. But it is the starting over again, I did it 8 years ago. The other thing is Dennis’ family. They live across the street and have been the greatest people. I love his parents with their Sunday dinners and his grandparents. His grandfather is 91 (until May) and can still kick my butt in Chess. I know that this may be the last time we see him. His grandmothers are in good health so I trust I will see them again. But Bompa is a funny man. He walks to the kitchen with his glass for his jonge and he pours one, drinks it, pours another and says that it is his first glass.

But I do know there are trade offs. When we move, I will get my family back. I can’t wait to be able to see my parents when ever I want. To go to my brother’s house and just talk or joke around. Murphy, our dog, will have a play mate so he will have a great time. I am just curious what the world has in store. This year is going to be an interesting one and I am ready to start. I want to see what happens from now until this summer when we start to set the real stuff in motion. And for those in the area, we have things to sell, but I’m afraid the fridge is taken