stoneshop just got me this.



Yes, it's a USB drive. A full 8 gb of cuteness. It looks like Tigger, and like Tigger, it has a hole in its left ear.
Beware of geeks bearing gifts, you'll end up giving them your heart in return before you know it.

This morning I finished the second chair. Then, I tackled the couch. Much harder in my opinion, as the shape isn't as defined as that of the chairs, I didn't want to take the legs off, and the armrests can be laid flat so it doesn't even always stay the same shape.
The result looks a lot more ... nonchalant. Still, I'm happy. I got rid of the dreaded orange and the chenille plaids I used to hide that (which weren't up to the task, and were starting to wear thin and to shed turquoise fluff all over the place).
And the new colours go well with the painting that's hanging above the couch.

Just two pics, shown at a moderate size, so I'll leave them uncut.



Click makes bigger


Click makes bigger

On Friday, I suddenly decided to re-upholster my chairs and couch. I'd bought really good (and not cheap) fabric especially for that purpose, over five years (and one couch) ago, but never got the necessary Round Tuits, mainly because I had planned to print a pattern on part of the fabric first.
I decided not to do that after all, and use the fabric as-is. Much less work, much less chance of messing up and wasting hundreds of euros' worth of pure wool fabric, and I can always do patterned cushions if I end up wanting the pattern after all.
( Click here for exciting pictures of a chair )

Look at what he got me yesterday... this gorgeous, vintage-as-anything, cute-as-can-be little electric heater from the '30s or '40s. He took a train for Amsterdam after work, just because I told him about this sweet little thingie I saw in a second hand store there last week... and didn't get. And it was still there.

Who needs flowers anyway? They're so overrated.


Click makes big

'Beertje' is my motorized tricycle. It's quite old: from 1956. I bought it back in 1990 when I was starting up my business and didn't have a driver's licence; it provided me with a practical and stylish way to get to my customers and bring all my equipment.
Plus, Beertje always attracted lots of attention, which is good if you're running a business.
( Read more and see pics! )

...but I've just ordered a SheWee.
It's a plastic device that allows women to pee standing up, while keeping their pants mostly on. Yes, I guess you could call it a substitute penis. Only for one of its functions, though, obviously  :-)
I thought it would come in handy while travelling. Especially when out on a bike ride: there's always so much clothing you need to take off before you can get to the bare essence, so to speak.


Being Dutch, frugal and not inclined to buy the first thing that comes along, I did a little research and found several similar products, all with really silly names:
the P-Mate is not reuseable, the Whiz Freedom (also known as Whizaway) and the Freshette were fairly expensive especially with postage, and the GoGirl, while cheap at a modest 5 dollars, isn't even available outside the North-American continent. [insert really smart pun on 'continent' and 'incontinent' here]
The SheWee, however, could be mine for a mere £11  (about  €12  or $16) which seemed fair.
So that's the one I ordered.
I can't wait for my newly bought freedom to arrive so I can, pardon the pun, give it a go.

I found another tea mug exactly like mine... after gummihuhn  took the trouble of going to a very good Chinese shop in Amsterdam and was told they were sold out, and not going to get any new ones in stock! That may well have been true, as I couldn't find any in the wholesale store of the same chain, either. Why yes, I do have a card for the wholesale instant noodle soup store...
The one I found was in a shop in Nijmegen, where I went yesterday because of a BookCrossing meeting... always a good reason.

This mug is slightly darker, the characters stand out a bit less.. on the other hand, the glazing is thicker (which may well cause the other two differences, yes) which results in a lovely craquelé pattern.
Anyway, I'm happy.  Bcuz tea r srs bsniz.
Here it is.

That's sad as it was a lovely mug. Very large, covered in dark blue Chinese squiggles on a soft, friendly green background. And it had a lid. Well, it still does, but it no longer has an ear.
I use this mug at least twice every day: first thing in the morning (big mug of very strong Pu Erh tea) and right after dinner (the same). If I'm spending the day at home, the mug is never far from where I am and often full.

This is not my mug but a very similar white one,
that I made green to give you an impression of what my mug looks like.

The good news: it's replacable. gummihuhn works fairly close to the excellent Chinese shop where I bought it, and is willing to get me another, one of these days.
It's good to have friends.

Look, here they are. My keys.



I've not known where they were for weeks and weeks. Not that I'd lost them; I was pretty sure they were in the house somewhere. But we have so much 'somewhere' here. So I used my spare key instead.

Today, I got tired of not knowing where my keys were; so, first of all, I decided to do a washload of several pairs of jeans. They might turn up while checking the pockets, right? But they didn't.
I put the jeans in the washing machine anyway, and decided to move on.
Next up: motorbike jackets. I have several, at least four of which are usable, and may well have been worn in the past three months.
The first jacket rewarded me with a small LED torch, a Euro coin and a piece of (wrapped) chocolate, so I knew I was onto a good thing. I kept going.
Alas, no keys in any of the bike jackets, either.
So I moved on to the jackets and coats on the coat rack, and behold, there they were in the pocket of a rain jacket! Only the second one I searched, too.

So now I'm eating the chocolate that I've earned, feeling rather pleased with myself, and taking a picture of my keys to show them to you, now that I've found them again. Finding stuff is great.

If you're reading this (and I know you are!) then please post a picture of your keys! Keys are so personal, we have them with us everyday. I'd like to see yours. Please?
I promise to comment and say what they tell me about you.

It's posted on amphibilove , right here. And it's better than a bunch of flowers.

What's not to love?
The picture is obviously 'shopped (badly). But yes, the water does glow blue or red depending on the temperature. And it's fun. The only downside is that it makes me want to run the tap needlessly.

What's not to love?
The picture is obviously 'shopped (badly). But yes, the water does glow blue or red depending on the temperature. And it's fun. The only downside is that it makes me want to run the tap needlessly.

[Error: unknown template 'qotd']Half of my furniture, and a room full of books.

So what am I supposed to be doing, traditionally-speaking? Ice-skating, of course.
In the real world, though, it's been at least twenty years since I've been on the ice. I don't even have my old skates anymore. Not that they were any good... or maybe I wasn't.
However, my friend konstanzerb  invited me to go skating with her tomorrow, and that sounds like fun. So I headed for the charity shop across the street to check out the stack of ice skates I remembered seeing there, about two weeks ago.
Oops! Not much left of that stack by now... after all, it's been freezing for a while. But I did find these:


Très vintage, aren't they? And I'm told that these should work better for me than my old skates. Those where the kind with a white leather boot attached, that never fit well and would give me blisters; also, the blades were short and the shoes high above the ice, which made them unstable. Suitable for ice dancing, if you knew how, but not for gliding along for longer distances.
Besides, I can wear these with my own hiking boots, which are nicely warm, waterproof and very comfortable.

I have no idea if I'll be able to ride these. I'm hoping my Dutchness will take over and tell me how.
If I live to tell the tale, I will be letting you know how it went soon!

They can't be serious about this... or can they?
Lenovo (that's pronounced IBM) has announced a new dual screen laptop. It's going to be a total brick at about 5 kilos. But the cool factor is at least equally large, I must say. And look, they've kept the good old trackpoint!


Click the pic to read about it on the Computerworld.com site.

Look what stoneshop bought me!
It's not a gift; it's purely practical having the same phone, so we can share changers and other peripherals. Sez he.
Well, I reserve the right to regard this as a gift, and a really neat one at that. Also, to jump up and down.
(I can jump up, but how does one jump down? I don't need to; so far, that part has always happened by itself. Never mind.)
This phone can do a lot of interesting stuff; it's also a 3.2 megapixel camera, and a radio, and a GPS receiver. But most of all, it's a sturdy and almost waterproof phone.

Happy icon. Because I am.

I bought a painting today.
It was just one of several more or less silly things we bought today, but by far the most unexpected. I mean, buying a christmas tree can hardly be called unexpected this time of year. I buy a christmas tree every year but I think this is the first painting I ever bought.
One of the reasons why I bought it was that I wanted to support the charity shop that had it on sale, because they're Good People who allow us (a small group of local BookCrossing members) to haul away six or more boxes of books every two weeks, rather than to have them recycled. The shop has recently been renovated, because the roof beams were rotting away, which has obviously cost a lot of money. So I was looking for something to buy.
Another reason was that it cheered me up when I looked at it. It's sort of a Mirò or Kandinsky imitation, done by an amateur (or so I think), quite gaudy and full (in fact, a bit crowded) of decorative elements, and I really like the colours.

So here it is. Click the pic for a bigger version.


It has a title, too; the title is Herstellende Dood, which means Healing (or Recovering) Death. It's signed with the name Benno and the year '86.

The frame is hideous and badly damaged, but I think I really like the painting. I'm going to paint the frame black with a narrow silver stripe and then hang it above the couch.
Buying art can be fun, especially if it costs only 10 euros, all of which go to a good cause!

Oh, and stoneshop  spent 2 euros on an electrical footwarmer. It's lovely.

...which is how I feel when I read aka_phoenix ' latest entry and then compare it to what I'm going to write about.
But still, here it is: stoneshop just got me some stuff we bought off Marktplaats, and I'm insanely happy about it. Because it's all really neat.

First, there is this delightfully tacky fake open fire, made in England and called Magicoal:


The picture doesn't do it justice. It has moving fake flames above the fake burning logs. They look very nice and actually fairly realistic.

And then, from the same seller I bought another item:


Pretty, aren't they? And not a chip or a crack to be found.
All of this cost just 25 euros (and it cost Stoneshop a couple of extra hours on the train to go and pick it up, but he said he didn't mind. I'm very glad he did it, though). What a lovely bargain.
It's strange that stuff can make me so happy. But it can. And it doesn't have to be expensive; in fact, knowing that it's not only makes me happier.
So I guess I am materialistic, but in a weird way!

...but in an old office building.
It means you have space enough for things that would have been difficult elsewhere. Like a sauna.
Not only we have a sauna, and it's actually in what passes for a bathroom around here (and which is bigger than most people's living rooms, and some people's houses), we now also have a place where you can sit and relax with a drink in between the various stages of a sauna bath.
Here it is: our Tropical Beach Style Relaxation Lounge.( Click to see. )

stoneshop  bought it used, we went to get it today and he put it together so we could use it right away.
Lovely.
No need to say more, I assume.