For ease of blogging, I am no longer going to mirror my posts on both livejournal and wordpress; my main blog will now be found here, so please change your bookmarks now to keep up with our adventures. Thanks!

Back from my "unplugging", I can tell you this: it was about as hard as I expected, and yet also not... since our lives over here are already not so TV-dependent as they were back home, and we hardly ever use our cellphones, the biggest challenge was in the habitual checking of e-mail and Facebook. Those being my main means of connection to all y' ( Read more... )

"Anna has left the building!" Ha ha... I always wanted to say that. I'm posting early today in preparation for the National Day of Unplugging. Sure, I've got about six hours before it's really sunset over here, but intentionally unplugging for a day means doing some "plugged" stuff today so we won't have to do it tomorrow. I just didn't want ( Read more... )

From what I understand, thanks to a link Wes posted on Facebook, tomorrow is the day to Unplug from Technology (is it a National Day, Wes?) - the idea being to spend a day not using modern technology (and I think they mainly mean electronics like TV, computer, cell phones, etc.) as much as possible. It's a drive to get folks to interact in person ( Read more... )

Charlotte came over this morning and the two of us got her first page done for the wedding album she's putting together! I had shown her some of my albums so she could get an idea of what's possible to do, then helped organize/plan the order for her photos, offered a variety of papers and stickers I thought may go well, and settled in to help her ( Read more... )

I have known for a while that Doug and some of the other Boeing folks were walking a circuit around the base on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and had it sort of in the back of my mind to join them "someday". Guess what? Today was "some"! We met near the building Doug (and the others) work in, then walked the route they're most familiar with - for me, ( Read more... )

Hats, that is, for the Warm Hats, Not Hot Heads campaign. I made my adjustments to the fit for the one intended for Norm Dicks - I added a separate sort of cuff/band of plain garter stitch, picking up the stitches along the cast-on edge then decreasing each row as I went along till it seemed to be about right. Very scientific and exact, I know. ( Read more... )

Achy heads and dull sinuses plus out-of-whack backs kept us home today, trying to remedy our ailments with non-pharmaceutical treatments. For myself, I have been trying not to rely on pain relievers at every turn, so when I woke with a stiff, crick-feeling neck, I heated up my little wheat-filled pillow thing and settled it on my shoulders and ( Read more... )

Throughout the day, most days anyway, I have little blurbs that cross my mind, considering them for possible journal-worthiness or as potential titles. But often they evaporate when it comes time to actually sit down and write, leaving me grasping for something or other to say that can be of any interest or reflect our day, beyond the mere "just ( Read more... )

On a swiftly running stream, Cédi and I sped along the highway from Brunssum to Sittard this afternoon, on our way to a pet food supply store in Sittard's west end. I was in search of more of Graysi's favorite salmon cat food, which I can only seem to buy on the Dutch side anymore. I was successful! So I bought 20 cans of it, along with a few ( Read more... )