Moving

You can find "Books and Fiber" on this new adres.
"Books and Fiber" is verhuisd naar een nieuw adres.

Books and Fiber!

Finally..


News from the Books & Fiber front. I've been so busy with work, rearranging my furniture in my house, my BF and also fighting off a heavy cold. I'm still not completely well, but I will... eventually.

Anyways. News! Remember me telling you about putting my name in the hat for the Book Blogger Holiday Swap? Well I received my gift from my Secret Santa.



Look wat Cheryl sent me:

I love Terry Pratchett and these 2 are not in my collection yet. I'm very happy with these. You can find Cheryl's blog here.

I read that the package I sent all the way to Tokio, Japan has arrived too. Have a look on Nat's blog here.

Meanwhile am I knitting frantically on my Jacobean socks and I'm already over the heel part:

On my swift I have True love by Wollmeise:

I'm going to knit the Sleekitt Mitts from this yarn.

I've cut the picture from the pattern and paste it below:


Well thats about it. Tomorrow (Fiday) I have one more day at work and then two whole weeks off. We had a small X-mass gathering / -drink at work today and we all got our presents. A book about the history of the "Oudejaarsconferentie" or Old Years Conference. A dutch tradition on television on witch a well known cabaret performer is talking about the past year, usually this show takes untill a few minutes before midnight. The second gift was vouchers to buy pesents for ourselfs; value €50,-- I am thinking about getting me some DVD's

Dan_e (thats the BF yes) will come over tomorrow after work and we will spent those 2 weeks in my house.

I'll try to keep you posted more often :)

I know...

...its been to long. But I will post a new blogpost soon. As of next Friday I have holidays: 2 weeks no work, just fun.

For now:
Blessed be!

The Martini Tower

Here are some of the pictures I made from our climb to the top halfway all the way up of the Martini Tower:

Yes, thats the one....


The bats have left the bell tower.. Bela Lucosi is dead.. :)

See the market in the little window?

Yes, thats the one

Lets play the carillion shall we?

This is one of the "smaller" bells actually...

What goes up 251 steps, must go down 251 steps.

This was as high as we were allowed to go. 56 meters till the space behind the clock faces on the tower. It was a hell of a climb with an awsome view and well worth the calves abuse :)

(no) Sunday Salon november 15th 2009

I'm so sorry but I did not make it to the Sunday Salon yesterday. The trip home from Groningen was very tiring, I had absolutely no energy to blog.

I did not finish my book on my trip either. On my way to Groningen I was knitting joyously on my Jacobean socks and on my way back I was way too tired and I had to switch trains a lot and even a bus was involved so I only read about one chapter.

My weekend was however awsome and makes me wonder: when do you start call someone your partner? All I can say right now is that The Twitterguy is my Boyfriend now. We take it very slowly but for the first time in 5 years I can say I'm happy, in stead of I'm a happy single :)

I'll blog about the trip up the Martini Tower in another post. I made pictures :)

Jacobean socks

I'm going to visit my Twitterguy this weekend and I needed a new knitting travel project. The Jacobean is waiting for me for a very, very long time and yesterday evening I casted on the cuff-down version. I'll be spending 2,5 hours in the train tonight, and about 3 hours in train and bus when I come back, so there will be enough time to knit and read.

I also updated my Ravelry page. You do have to be a member to watch that page though. It has been ages since I was there. But now that I'm knitting again, I might update more often.

I'll be back on Sunday, so I'll be visiting the Sunday Salon a bit late but I do think I can tell about Rincewind and Twoflower. I'm planning of finishing the first book of the Discworld series.

Have a good weekend!

Sunday Salon novenber 8th, 2009

I so totally forgot the Sunday Salon last week. And I did not have time to read at all this day, but Gnoe asked me on Twitter how my Sunday Salon was going and I said it was going to be on somewhere today.


I read on her blog about the Book Blogger Holiday Swap and decided to drop my name in that hat too. If you want to drop your name in that hat too, hurry. Do so before the deadline: November 12, 2009

Now, on my reading list. My Twitterguy is spoiling me to the bones with BBC4 radio plays from books by Terry Pratchett and that made me wanting to re-read the first 6 books I own. I started with The Coulour of magic and it is still as hilarious as I remember.

The back says: On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly expedition sets out. There's an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet...

So far I've read about Rincewind (the avaricious but inept wizard) and Twoflower (the naive tourist who has four eyes) who have escaped the burning city of Ankh-Morpok. Oh and Luggage is trotting behind them as well, on its hundreds of little feet. Outside the city they meet Bravd the Barbarian and his partner in crime Weasel. Rincewind (too tired to be really afraid of the Barbarian with a Reputation) is telling the story of how he met Twoflower and the Luggage and how the fire started, in exchange for some food and wine.

Meanwhile the Creators, or disc Gods are staring at a gaming board, shaped like the disc world filled with little play figures, shaped like our heroes...

I think its time for me to cuddle up on my couch and plunge myself in the Disc World once again.

Sunday Salon october 25th 2009

Today I finished the Dutch translation of Sappho's Leap - Sappho's sprong - by Erica Jong. I had about 70 pages left to read and it took me about an hour. I started reading the book about 3 months ago, on and of, mostly in the tram on my way to work. I live in Amterdam, a very liberated city, but still people looked a bit awkward when they saw the cover of my book:

I must say i love this cover, its very pretty. According to the information inside the book its by Charles-August Mengin called Sappho and painted in 1877. Manchester Art Gallery, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library

I really enjoyed reading this book. I did not know much about Sappho before I started reading this, and I realize I still don't. Simply because there is not much known about this wonderful artist, singer and poet.

Wikipedia has some information on her, which starts with:

"Sappho [...] was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments. The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth (Sapphic and Lesbian) came to be associated with female homosexuality."

Based on the few fragments of her poetry that survided time and her immense reputation, Erica Jong manages to write a story about this woman which totally sucked me up. I dissapeared in this book, it was awsome. Usually I read with dizzying speed through books, reading about a 100 pages per hour in Dutch (and still be able to tell the story) but this one made me read slower, indulge the words, the sentences.

Sappho's life, loves (both with males and females0, travels, ups and downs.. its all written in a way you travel with her. I totally reccommend you read the book for your self, because its a journey I wished I could have made, have I lived in that time. If you like the ancient Greek period and want to read about a female perspective, read teh book. No bloody arena's, no male dictators. Ok there is one Pittacus, who bannes Sappho from Lesbos. But thats not bad, because of her being banned, she starts her journey.

The blurb on the back of the book says: "If odysseus was a woman, this would be the journey he had traveled." quoted by Susan Cheever And you know? I could not have said it any better.

I have this book on my reading pile for years, i bought it on febryary 2nd, 2004. Finally i made a start with reading the books on this pile, wel actually, on there seperate shelf in my 'library.' The Sunday Salon is a good way of making me read at least one day a week. I have a new job, which only takes me about 5 minutes to get there on my bycicle. Too short for even 1 chapter to listen to a book. So now, on Sundays, I make myself sit on the couch and read a book, at least for an hour.

I still have about 2 meters of books "to be read' but I think I'm going to re-read book one of The Discworld Novels, by Terry Pratchett: The colour of magic first, before I go to back to that shelf. A friend of mine is going to bring the DVD on our next meeting - witch is also our first, but thats a totally different story - so I'm going to read the book first, to refresh my memory.

Pie

Yesterday Cornette or @Zjannette on Twitter, posted a new recepe on her blog Cornette's Culinaire Weblog: zuurkooltaart or a pie filled with sauer white cabbage.

I decided to try it out. Her recepe's are simple, with wine suggestions, awfully simple and I like them very much. It is in Dutch though. So after work I went to the supermarket, got my groceries and started cooking. Well I started right after a phonecall from @dan_e, also a twitterfriend. He is coming to visit me soon, but thats another story.

This is what my pie looked like befour it went in the 180 C oven:


And 30 minutes I had this:

The picture is a bit blurry, I was excited and it was taken with my iPhone which has no real camera options yet. *lol* But, it was awsome, I ate half of this 22 cm pie :) Thats a lot for me.

Today its back to work, and at 16:00 hours my weekend starts. Tomorrow we have a class at Artis from Maarten Frankenhuis, one of the previous directors of the zoo. I'm very much looking forward to it.

I'm still alive!

Its been a month, no longer, since I posted here.
And this is also a short post, because I'm here:

This is my desk at TIN: the Theater Instituut Nederland (the Dutch theatre institute). And see that green cup? thats filled with café creme: delecious coffee :)

I'm just here to say I'm alive and doing very well indeed. Much better that a few months ago. I was at the zoo last Wednesday, giving a guided tour and doing 2 kids birthday-parties. Next Saterday I'm also giving a guided tour, so all is going well there als wel.

Time to get to work.
Bye for now.

PS that picture is made with my new and awsome iPhone, emailed to my webmail and uploaded to my blog from that same desk you see in the picture :) How geeky is that? *lol*

Spinnen

Todays Blogtitle is in Dutch because of these pictures:



'Spinnen' means spinning, the craft you do with the spinning wheel. It also means purring, the sound Ayla was making when the sun was shining on her while she was on her favorite pillow.

And it means spiders; and Ayla finally got one before I caught it with my glass to put it outside. It was the smaller one she was ogling at for days now, and she played a little before eating it. Leaving me one of the spiders leggs to clean up after "Your Highness."

Friends

I've lost some, those last few weeks. And today I've lost another one.
It made me deside to never let anyone come close again.. You only get hurt when you do.

I saw one of my ex-boyfriends the other day in the tram. He did not recocnise me. He looked awfull and I was wondering what it was I ever saw in him. He was skinny, had a beard - I hate facial hair- and he had big bags under his eyes. I know, he looked awsome when I met him: tall, blond curly hair, eyes with twinkles in it and a smile to die for. But the other day? Nah.. I almost felt sorry for him, but then I remembered how he left me for a girl with bigger boobs (he told me he had a new girlfriend with bigger tits then me, I never met his new Bimbo) and the sorry went away.

My ex-friends want the stuff back that has been in my house for some reason, and hey want to bring my stuff back too. Money owed, which was never a problem when to pay back, becomes an issue and needs to be payed back as soon as possible.

I want it to get over with too, as fast as possible, because a clean cut heals faster. And I am cutting too: deep and clean. So I can move on with my life. With enough friends to go out with, have fun with and be social with. But I will never ever let anyone come close again. I'm done getting hurt.

another blog

I've just made another blog. It will be in Dutch and it's about me and the WWW. Web 2.0, lifehacking, work at the Theater Institute and all things geeky.

Why? Well first of all, because I am a Geek.. Duh! *lol* but seriously. I found out Blogspot has less and less ways to add widgets I like and after being a tester for a new one yesterday, when I found out I could not insert that one here, I decided to get a new blog on Wordpress.com. I was flirting with the idea for a while now and so I made up my mind this morning.

I will be posting fiber and personal related items here, in English. But my geeky, web 2.0 and work related posts will move to here.

Dé-Ja-Spider

Today I saw another spider sitting on my left. Luckely this one was a bit smaller and I did catch him/her (?) inmediatly. Please tell me these spiders are native Dutch ones and not some exotic species that came with my 2 banana's....

The spider.

When I was about to turn off my PC, some fast movement on my left cought my eye and when I looked I saw this on the edge of my noticeboard:

Big, and fast! I've never seen a spider run that fast. I'm not afraid of spiders, but the speed of this one did make my heart beat as fast as this critter could run. So, after I took the picture I went to the kitchen to get a glass and when I got back, luckely it was still sitting there. But when I tried to catch it, it run and fell on the floor, and run off to some dark corner behind my printer.

Then Ayla came into action:

She almost went all the way onder the central heater, to get it. But the smart spider run the other way and then I saw it coming on my right. I got my glass and..

Gotcha! I still have some listening books on CD in an envelop lying around (I really need to get me some proper cd-covers) and used one to put under the glass and keep the spider in it. Then it was through the kitchen to my balcony, remove the CD, a quick shake and bye bye spider...

Ayla stayed on patrol for another 15 minutes: she still lays haunting the dark corner the spider dissappeared to:

Well I'm off to bed. Sweet dreams and untill I blog again :)

The Geek Atlas

If you're not one for sitting on the beach and have a penchant for technology then you'll love the new book The Geek Atlas.



If you want to get the geek in your life out from behind the computer, get them this! More info on: The Book Depository I put it on my wishlist :)

What cought my eye:

My friend Nicole sends out a weekly e-mail with beautiful pictures and she calls it "Things that cought my eye this week"

This picture made me think of her e-mails and I'm wondering if this has cought her eye as well :)

I saw the left picture on this website: http://tinyurl.com/kre5gr, Nicole sent me the right version

UPDATE:

Nicole was telling me she was looking at the same picture when I sent her mine in an e-mail. She did tell me it was not an accurate version, CocaCola did change its logo. She sent me the more accurate picture, see above.

Another month...

... has gone by and I did not blog.. Well not here I didn't, My Second Life person was rather active on her blog. :) I did post updates on Twitter though. If you consider following me there, my Twitter-name is tattoocats.

Anyway, a lot has happened this past month, but the best thing that happened is that I got myself a new job. Yes, I'm leaving the OBA. It turned out not to be the job I'm willing to take until my pension, so I was looking around. And my first attempt for finding a new employer turned out to be a 'bulls eye' :)

My new job will be that of information specialist at the Dutch Theater Institute. Here are the Dutch and English links. I am so happy, I'm dancing in my house all day, wearing a enourmous grin on my face.

So thats the update for now. I'll try to blog a bit more, meanwhile consider following me on twitter :)

Simones RR

I finished my part of Simone's Round Robin today and will sent it to her tomorrow.

This is what I stitched:

and this is her final RR:

I've decided to never ever do that again. Cross stitching with deadlines is not my cup of tea.

It wasn't me

You must have knocked it over when you went by it.. I did not do anything. I did not jump on it and it did not fell....

But it does make a nice tent huh? :)

Artis Dreamnight 2009

If you recognise yourself in one of these pictures and don't want it to be published here, please let me know and I'll remove the picture.

Als je jezelf op één van de foto's herkent en niet wil dat deze hier te zien is, laat het me weten en ik haal de foto weg.

email: rondarchief@gmail.com

Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday and I decided to not celebrate it. Not because I turned an awkward age - I mean 44 isn't THAT bad - but I just did not feel like it.

I was sooo wrong. First my best friend Katja invited herself very subtly over for tea and yummies. And flowers and presents. Then, when I decided to have fun in my second life in my trainers and with my glasses on my nose, kees arrived at my doorstep, and a few minutes later danny too. I was to get dressed to face the outside world. They 'kidnapped' me and took me to De Waaghals. A very good vegetarian restaurant in my neighborhood.

When I got home I found an embroidered birthday card made by my mother in my mailbox, with birthday money in it.

Finally, my collegues decided to do something they never did before. They decorated a chair today, just for me. The paper says: Dear Marion, happy birthday, dear Marion dear Marion.

Front


Back

Thank you Hannie for taking the pictures for me. I did not bring my camera and she made these for me with her phone.

So all and all, for not celebrating my birthday, I sure know I had it. Thank you my dearest friends for making this day a happy one :)

OMG!

Has it really been that long?? I'm afraid it has.
But I'm still very much alive, in Real Life and in Second Life.

I'm cross stitching my fingers into numbness to finish the Round Robin we started about a year ago with some women from the cross stich yahoo group "Het borduurhoekje" My own piece has returned safely, but between my first and second life occupations, Simone's RR is only half finished.

Between work, Artis, the RR and my second life, I'm also reading and trying out everything I can about Web 2.0 and the (new) Librarian 2.0. So you can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Bibliotheek 2.0, Netvibes oh and Hyves. :)

So.. that's it for now. CU on the web.

Animal pleasures / Reading pleasures

I spend 2,5 hours on Guppywood yesterday. Evacuating all the guppy's (unfortunately, one female jumped to her death during that event, but all the others made it savely to their teporarely location) removing 30 liters of water. and then the little rocks on the bottem to find this:

There is no soil in Guppywood. This is all kinds of yukkiness coming from the guppys processing their food. But like I said after 2,5 hours, al the guppys (but the one who jumped) could savely return to their fresh and clean Guppywood.

I will put some more plants in it, as soon as I can find the time to visit the pet shop.

This morning it was time for sun, cross stich and Nina Simone. Ayla loves to bask in the sun and she always find herself a sunny spot, anywhere.

I just had my lunch and now its time to dwell in the world of Carpathians, vampires and sultry seduction, along with some paranormal suspence and violent battles, created by Christine Feehan in her "Dark" Series. I am re-reading the entirely serie, after re-reeading the "Ghostwalker" series. I am a great fan of her books. :)

My new bedroom/studio is ready

The last few days I've been busy moving furniture and tossing away old stuff from my bedroom/studio. I love how it turned out and I have much more space now. Haver a look for yourself:

Doing the unthinkable

Remember this?

In the Summer of 2008, I got my magic Ball. A skein of yarn filled with goodies. On November 11th last year I casted on the Hedera form Cookie A. I frogged it and started it again 3 times. Then it dissappeared in my knittingbasket again.

Today I found it again. And then guilt kicked in. Someone made this ball with care and attention and it still hasn't been knit and unraveled. So I decided to do the unthinkable: I unraveled it and opened all the presents.

And now I feel even more guiltier. So many great presents, and I don't know who made this for me. I can only hope she reads my blog. Because I shout my big THANK YOU!! from here into the world. I left the group where it all began, so I can't shout it there anymore.

So, my magical ball maker: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and also a loud purred thank you from Ayla, she likes the ball and the candy very much :)

SP 13 final box & Rogue Hoody update

My postman always rings twice, and boy did he bring me a nice package :)

A box filled with goodies from my - no longer- Secret Pall Asuka from Italy. And OMGs did she spoil me:

Thank you soo much Asuka, i realy, realy loved the goodies. And next time I'm on the scales at my dietists, and it still shows no decrease in my weight, I blame your chocolate :)

I'm also still making slow progress on my Hoody:

The knitting in the round is done, the back is done and i have started on the front. I can actually wear it, and more amazing: it fits :))

So, that's it for today.. I'm off.. fondeling my new yarn.

Colombian Stuff

Nantko, a friend of Danny and me went to Colombia and brought us back some Colombian stuff yarn. When Danny visited me last night for some spinning, stitchin, bitching and Hackers along with some Chinese food she brought me my part of the Colombian stuff yarn.

Tonight when I went to my studio/bedroom to get something out of it, Ayla followed me in. Soon she started to sniff in the air like a real sniffer dog (it was an embarrasing sight, trust me) and then she discovered the Colombian stuff yarn.

Look for your self what happened next:

I think I have a little Colombian stuff yarn junkie in my home now. X)

knit knit. frog frog.. knit knit again

But it's growing bit by bit, stitch by stitch.
My Rogue Hoody and I got re-acquainted again and I fell in love all over again.

Is it 2009 already?

OMG! and I havent told you about our trip to Hamburg on december 21st, 2008. Or the New years party @ Mulligans.

Well lucky for me I have friends who are more faithfull bloggers then I am.
Look at kees' and Renates blog for details about our trip to Hamburg. I made pictures too, but most of them are a big blur.

I do have some pictures from the train model museum Danny and I went to and I uploaded them on MyFlickr. This is one of the pictures I took there:

As far as pictures from the N/Y-party at Mullies, again kees did a good job :)