Different Worlds Apart

It seems that Wednesdays will be my D-Days. As in Düsseldorf-Days :)

As His Hubbiness™ has only three lessons to teach on Wednesday mornings, we will accompany him into the city where I make some much needed dog and the big city training (mainly walking on leashes again etc.) and then he will take the dogs to the River Rhine and I will have a whole afternoon in the big city for errands and stuff.

The house project is coming along nicely. The chest of drawers (a huge thing) is in the barn and the first coat of paint is drying atm. It has a new shiny coat of white with maroon accents. If the light is good enough tomorrow, I will install the new lamps and start on the ceiling (which is still bare and sports the glue of those idiotic ceiling panels) in the hall. But for now, the hall is finished (to the best of my abilities).

OMG! Found the almost perfect settee ... if that would come in dark blue or dark green velvet it would be perfect ... atm this is little_witch27 perfect :D


Three more pics of the hall .. the back hall is maroon coloured, the front all is white.





Marathoning Sungkyunkwan Scandal. All four main characters are adorable but I really love those little bickerings of Yeorim and Moon Jae shin. It is so funny to see those two dancing around each other and they so would make such a good OTP. And Yeorim has an uncanny similarity to G-Dragon of Big Bang ... the looks, the mannerisms ... WOAH! :)
I'm enjoying this dorama so much ... it is like the Joseon version of Hanakimi without the Japanese dorama's antics and a much more adorable Sano LOL
Even ppl who don't like wuxia (historical) check it out ... it is funny, sad, angsty and it shows a wonderful friendship of four very different characters :D Oh and it has cross-dressing to boot :)

My kitchen is finished .. well sort of. I still need to clean it, move my kitchen buffett to a different wall and find a small square table and two chairs, BUT!!! Me haz work topz!!!
Beautiful teak stained work tops which need one final glossy finish and several open shelves for cooking books, bric-a-brac and bowls and stuff.
Once the final finish is applied and all is moved in I will take photos.

The next project is ... a tiny one ... a dog fence for our front door.
Atm we are using the yard door to do business with a sign on our front door to go to our yard door. But with the weather getting colder I really don't want to put on my winter coat and my shoes to go out across the yard, to the door, keeping the dogs back when getting mail. So I decided to make a dog fence for the front door which I can hook into the entrance. This way I can open the door, the dogs can look out but don't run into the street - the pavement in front of the house is really small and we live on the stretch of the road which is straight hence a lot of idiots using that piece of road as if it were the Shizuka Formula 1 course. So tomorrow I'll make that and then there will be more painting in my sewing room and more shelves to be put on the walls :)

Oh and the back hall is now dark maroon :) I love

While the weather is far better than in September ... we actually had sunshine and nice temperatures over 20°C, apple harvesting drives me crazy .. we have far too many apples and much too little time. :s

And yesterday my external hdd did a vanishing act. The little LED light is still blue when I turn it on but otherwise it sits on my desk like a dead cat :s Tomorrow I will try to open it and put the HDD into my computer .. keep your fingers crossed that this will work ... on that particular HDD there are lots and lots (like ALL) HQ jpegs of the last FOUR years of our dogs as well as ALL my movies *whimpers*

Oh and I almost forgot ... for quite a week now, my dish washer is working ... I had to postpone using it as some thingamegig was missing from the plumbing and it could have caused flooding in my kitchen so I had to wait for two bloody weeks till IKEA send me a new plumbing system for my sink and dishwasher WITH the spare part in it. And now I have a dish washer ... YAY!!!! I love my mechaporn :D

After several days of heavy rain and hail, several electrical outages and a mini flood in my hall, today the sun actually peered out of a blue, blue sky and we were able to get out into the garden again.
Our apples and prunes are now ready and while a lot of beautiful apples are now on the ground smashed and yuck, there were several I could retrieve from the trees which will be made into apple crumble tomorrow. I also managed to pick a basket full of prunes which will make a wonderful cake :)



If my vegetable garden turns out this sumptuous next year we will be depending on it for veggies and greens entirely. No more trips to wholefood shops to buy eggs from happy free range living hens and pesticide-free vegetables. And I will be making preserves, so recipes of preserves for vegetables, fruits etc are very welcome :)

A week ago we were busy trying to sort out our apartment and putting everything into boxes for the movers to transport, today all my bones in my body are still crying out in pain and the whole barn is full of boxes and whatnots to be emptied and put away, but we are now officially moved! The living room is halfway ready .. all big furniture is standing where they are supposed to be and now only lamps and pictures are waiting to be set up. My kitchen is still a mess ... the old cupboard I chose is far too big for my kitchen and thus I have to make do with new smaller cupboards *sigh*
I feel so tired, I really want to lay down next to Careto and just cuddle up and doze for an hour or two ...



( the fat of the land and blue skies for Eileen )

Three days since we got the keys and everything is still fresh and young and new. I really need to write about how we got this house but somehow this whole thing is so big, so amazing, that words fail me right now.

Finding this house, this Home, has been a very long road for our family - many, many detours and almost dream house finds only to be disillusioned and later on glad that we didn't get the house in question. We had about four years in the searching, wishing and trying, and even more months still on the completely up-and-down-on-and-off-and-on-again roller coaster that was the final stretch to this house. It has been and still is EPIC!

HOME is a one hundred year old farm house situated in one of the villages on the farthest western corner of MG. Ppl say if you just move another inch West you end up in the Netherlands (just kidding). But it is very far away. My home town, the city that I love is about 40 kilometers away and it takes an hour to go there by train. But what we trade in for convenience we gain in freedom, apples and the feeling that this really belongs to us.

We have been renovating the living room and the kitchen for starters and already our bodies feel as if we have lived up to a hundred years as well :) and the first wall in the hall has been painted :) A nice marron ... or as Hubby said: "Now I know what ppl think when they say PUCE."

We have very damp spots in the house and the techie still hasn't called if and what kind of mildew we have ... or if it dry rot. I looked at the stuff yesterday and does look like dry rot. And tomorrow is the signing of contract ... not.
Still waiting for the techie to call and then based on his facts I have to call the agent and the lawyer ... depending if it's good or bad.

Managed to strike three things off my to do list .. good thing little_witch27 comes tonight, so I can dust ... clean my desk AND do the kitchen (dishes, cleaning up in general). Bathroom etc is all done. Still need to get the trash downstairs ... with no lift as it is still out of order ARGH!!!!

The house needs renovating ... a lot. However, the structure and roof are sound and it needs some corrections on the inside. But hopefully I can get the major things out of the way within a month (electrical, plumbing, kitchen) starting in June and the other four rooms will be done little by little.
We are now in the last stages of signing the contract.

OMG! It's scary! :)

We will have enough space for husband and I as well as our three dogs, Cenour, Chandini and Chloe-Lulu. I cannot wait to put my hands on it and re-do the whole interior. :D
The house also has a name already ... Peony Farm House. For there are peonies everywhere in the flower beds and hopefully I can already pick peonies for this Whitsun.

I won't be having so much time in the future ... as we have found THE HOUSE!!!!
( our little farm not on the prairie )

As some of you know, His Hubbiness ™ and I are looking for a house. For the past year it has been put onto the backburner though, as His Hubbiness ™ was not sure whether or not he gets accepted at a school in a different state. However, there has been put a stop to new teachers in that state and now we are somewhat in limbo.

I told His Hubbiness ™ to make up his mind. It's either buying a house or staying put with a rent that gets higher and higher while nothing is done to the house and its maintenance anymore (yep the management company who bought the house is one of those locust investment companies that squeeze money out of sound companies and then leave the shell for bankruptcy).

And frankly speaking ... I want a house. I want a garden for me and the dogs, big enough to have both flowers as well as vegetables in it and where the Cs can laze around in the grass, in the sun or shade. Perhaps a few chickens as well and a haggle of geese for snail control. And I want a house ... a sewing room which can double up as a guest room, a room of my own, a kitchen big enough to actually cook comfortably in there and sit at the table and chat with the neighbours or friends. I want a hammock in said garden where His Hubbiness ™ can while away his summer days. All of this for less each month than staying here in this apartment.

As His Hubbiness ™ is still undecided whether or not persuing the out of state work option, I have decided that I don't want to move to some godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere Hessia. I want to stay here, in Nippon High Central where I have my eye candy (manga haired Japanese youths) and my friends.

So I found three possibilities all about 25 to 30 kms away from our home town. These houses are all well within our price range, even cheaper than we are willing to pay (which means either smaller rates per month or less years to pay those rates off).

House option #1 in Moenchengladbach (30 km West of D'Dorf)
139.000,00 EUR
four rooms, guest toilet, bathroom, 500 square meter of garden
German link




House option #2 in Solingen (20 km East of D'Dorf)
120.000,00 EUR
6 rooms, ca. 1.550 m² garden
German link


House option #3 in Haan (15 km East of D'Dorf)
150.000,00 EUR
5 rooms
German link



I really like #1 very much ... though the kitchen is tiny.