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Showing posts from 2017

Down-to-Earth - the Dutch Culture

One of the things I find fascinating in mainstream Dutch culture is the way normalcy is prized. Calling a person  " n uchter " - down-to-earth - is  a compliment. (It's also the word for sober, and I was very confused when I read a medical document that called for blood taken on a ' nuchter ' stomach. In that context, it just means empty, not that for other blood tests it's fine to show up totally drunk.)  Doutzen Kroes, the famous supermodel, said in an interview that she considers herself  nuchter , and values her simple background in Friesland, one of the northern provinces. Googling ' nuchter ' and Doutzen Kroes brings up several hits, including a page that even calls her, translated, 'the Dutch downtoearther'. High praise for a globetrotting international beauty. But if she keeps fame and fortune from going to her head, shouldn't we all? A common phrase I've heard here, especially from parents, is " Doe normaal ." Act

The Newest Novel - Dutch-in-Law 2017

Maybe I'm totally crazy to even consider it, but I log into the familiar blue and white NANOWRIMO website anyway. National Novel Writing Month? Sure, I may be about twenty weeks pregnant, living in a fixer-upper house overseas, and spending my days as expat mother and wife, but why not start writing a new novel this November? I'm sure the first people who signed up for the NANOWRIMO challenge were crazy too. And the people who first had the idea to turn the international, vague dream of "Write a novel some day" into a website with definable numbers and a voracious writing community. I didn't know anything of the sort existed until a few years ago, and now I enthusiastically sign up for almost every new session or 'camp' throughout the year. But the big pull is, of course, the month of November, when people around the world look at the slogan on the site header, "The world needs your novel," and decide it's somehow true.  The site

Happy Messy Kitchen

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In our old house, the kitchen piled high with the mess, and in our new house, the kitchen piles wide with the mess. The two adults and the child who live here all have more interesting things to do throughout the day than clean, which means it's normally evening before anyone takes action. And by anyone, I mean D clearing off his part of the counter so there's space for the bread machine, and me clearing off my part of the counter so I can set out breakfast bowls and spoons. In the morning, the counter fills up again quickly, but I'm teaching Pippin to help unload the dishwasher so I can load it again. Sometimes the mess in my kitchen stresses me. On rainy cold days, when the world seems against me, even just clearing the counter can seem too much to handle. Other days it's much more manageable, fortunately. When guests come over, the kitchen gets cleaned quickly. If there's a good movie on Netflix, the kitchen gets cleaned thoroughly (like when I binge-watch

The Teacher

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I hesitate while filling in the website form. Me, a teacher? I was looking for a free download, not a psychological cross-examination. I'm browsing a resources website while Pippin naps. By entering simple information like my email address and a little about myself, I get access to free downloads like coloring pages and preschool 'printables'.   It only takes a few seconds to fill in my info, down to the last question or two. A few simple clicks will get me to the downloads page I'm looking for. The part that's making me pause is the dropdown box with, "I teach___ " and then a drop-down menu. The choices range from pre-K to homeschool to adult education. There's also a simple "I don't teach" option. 

The Scrubbing

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Tonight I was so bored of painting my nails and reading adoring fan mail that I decided to clean my dusty-from-unuse stove. Wait. No, that's how it happened in the alternate reality where I'm a famous but and reclusive writer, living in a seaside loft by my lonely self, writing best-selling songs and poetry and subsisting on organic salads and fruit smoothies. In this reality, I took a break from all my other to-do lists to scrub the stove that we use every single day. The stove that has five glorious burners so I can cook Christmas dinners for nine people or just spread out fresh pans of chocolate bark. The same stove where a gleeful Pippin helps me mix pancake batter and fill muffin molds.  The same stove that was filthy and sticky from a concoction of dust, grease, and miscellaneous spatters and practically screaming for a bath.