Ravelry is an online knitting community where you can find all sorts of patterns (some for free!), a lot of tips and tricks about both knitting and crocheting, and many fellow knitters. It is where Charlotte and I met. Continue reading →

I am proud to say I am socially disabled. Even though I can be a chatterbox when someone calls or when emailing with people, I get allergic reactions to Facebook and Twitter. But I have to admit: 2012 was the year I gave in to Pinterest. Continue reading →

In these cold weeks before and after New Year presents and festivities – dinners because of Christmas, parties to celebrate the start of another year – seem to be the main thing in life.
An artist who is constantly rebelling against such abundance is Paul McCarthy (Salt Lake City, 1945). Would he go underground during this period? Or would he be a refugee in a country without Christmas, but with higher temperatures?
Personally I am not that big a fan of Christmas. If it wasn’t for being ill, I would certainly know where to spend this time of year. Continue reading →

Sometimes it can happen that you forget what day or date it is. It happens to me from time to time, but this last summer I really made a mess of things. Somehow shortly after the beginning of August I kept thinking it was still August 2nd. For over a week.
No worries, this didn’t mean that I kept on knitting without thinking about eating or sleeping. Continue reading →

Six months after I purchased this book, I finally started reading ‘Heldere Hemel’ (‘Clear Sky’) by Tom Lanoye of whom I told you about when it was the Week of Books. It starts with a pilot who used his ejection seat to avoid a crash with his plane.
Then I heard a bang behind me. A robin was on the ground after it evidently hit the window. Continue reading →

Once I knitted a small Christmas tree in 3D for my grandmother instead of a Christmas card. She was blind in the last years of her life and this way she could literally feel that I was thinking of her during these holidays. Continue reading →

Not long ago I have written about my 35th birthday. I can tell you that around this age a lot of people are having babies. Ever since I have been ill, in all these years, so many babies were born, that I need more than two hands to keep track of counting. It is of course the biological clock that makes so much noise. People get itchy by the tick tick ticking away of the time and before you know it a new pregnancy is announced.
But not mine. Something that will cause these fresh parents sleepless nights in about two decades from now is troubling me at the moment. It is having the empty nest syndrome. Continue reading →