Thankful Thursday 1

Claire over at Fashion + Feathers has started this Thankful Thursday "tradition" for november and because I want to get better at posting regularly I thought I'd join her. There's always loads to be thankful for!

I'm really thankful to be in my home.

New laminate, it's much lighter and reminds me more of scandinavia,
I LOVE it!

I had to leave my flat because of a thunderstorm in the end of july. I live in the basement and got flooded. Immediatly I was crazy thankful, because the water was only 1 cm high. But in that moment, when the water came seeping in, I couldn't know if it'd stop anytime soon. We mopped it up with towels. I didn't have to do it on my own, my brothers, my flatmate, a friend of hers and a neighbour came over to help. But I was in tears.

This is the side of my room
that is farthest away from the outer wall!
The water came all the way.
(Compare the color of the laminate
to the picture on top!)

And then we had mopped all the water up, everyone left, my brother told me to leave the windows open, so that there would be air circulation. Thing is: I went to bed that night, with open windows and the rain didn't stop! I had no way of knowing if I would wake up to more water! But there wasn't more and it seemed like the damage wasn't too big either. But some time after that my flatmate moved out and my father took the laminate flooring in her room out, then we could see how wet it was underneath. And her room wasn't as bad that night!

The other room.

It would probably be worse in my room. But I didn't want to move out and move in with my parents. I stayed until there was no denying the smell... Then I moved in with my parents who live in the same town. And my stay there was better than expected, usually I'll take a week, or two, but now I had to stay for more than a month. And we did pretty great I'd say! I didn't want to leave again.

I moved back on a monday and Roomie moved in on wednesday, that was very good, because I shouldn't have been alone for too long at that time.
Everything worked out.

• only 1 cm (others in basements had more than 1m)
• friends and family coming to my rescue
• only the laminate flooring needed to get renewed, all my furniture survived.
• my flatmate moved out so we could see the damage
• my parents live in the same town
• I had my own room there (not my old room, but like a guest room)
• I didn't even want to move out again.
• Roomie came only 2 days after me

Sometimes we grow used to all we have, we take it for granted. Experiences like this remind you of the fragility of life and all you own.

High five for friday

I've been meaning to post for quite some time now, but never came around actually doing it. I wanted to give you all a little update what's been up, because it's some things. So I decided the High Five for friday link-up over at The Lauren Elizabeth would be the best way to put it together in a short way (well it's gotten LOOOONG, bear with me - it's a lot of pictures in the second half!).

1. I've had a really hard time lately, with my depression coming back and being worse than ever. But with a new medication I'm back on track. It's not actually making me do things (who would expect that?? I'd love it though ;) ), but it's like: before life was like a mountain, a massive one piece. Now I start to see that there's smaller stones that are moveable. Last saturday night I even thought: I could go for a run before church tomorrow. Well, I didn't do it, BUT the fact that I THOUGHT it, is a big thing atm.

2.I've got a new room-mate, from now on only called: Roomie. We've been in the gospel choir together and been friends for some time now. She's quickly becoming a big part of my life, as you'll find out soon. She's been getting me out for running, has people come over, watching movies with me (currently going through Jane Austen, I'm reading first and then we're watching the movie together), she's cooking and cleaning a lot and we eat together most of the time.

3. I've been playing around with polymer clay. It started off as a project to get rid of old polymer clay, which I had bought in Norway a long time ago. I just wanted to be done with it (trying to get rid of clutter). I love buttons, so I decided to make buttons:

And a friend that stayed with Roomie and I said that she liked one of the green "peace" ones, so I decided to make her a bracelet using this layered button bracelet as an inspiration and some of the "real" buttons I had in my stash.

She's quite creative herself, so she decided to wear it as a necklace with some thick thread which I usually use in the garden (yes, it't turning on one side, but I kinda like it):

4. After this making buttons, which was great fun, I was like: man, I could make more and sell them. The first round was only partially nice, some of them are not so great, maybe also because of the colour-combination... So I went to a artists shop here and looked for books about polymer clay, and they had one for jewelery-making and I found one pattern I liked a lot, I read how to do it, then bought more polymer clay in white and black and several shades of green. It took me some days to actually start, because I then started to watch youtube-videos, also about the baking and was getting hesitant, because of the fumes (I've had bad experiences). In some videos the ladies had a spare oven only for the clay!! Later I found another solution: aluminium-foil and an additional (small) pan, so the fumes don't get into the oven. It went awesome, this is the result:

You can see: the holes are not button-like. The reason is that I wanted to make earrings and a necklace. The earring-ones got one hole and the necklace ones several different holes. Look (this is Roomie, the first pair was for her):

Now I want to make more of these in many different colors! Hooked.

5.Yesterday Roomie had a pumpkin-carving party. I wasn't carving my own (my arms!), but I helped a little with swirls. I just need to share this picture of a friend of mine and his interpretation of carving:

The one from Roomie outside in the garden:

Clouds.... again?!?!

I have to tell you about today. I've had a hard time lately, my arms hurt like crazy and my motivation is almost gone again. So this morning I decided not to go to church because my throat hurt from singing too much and my bowels did bug me. My gospel choir has visitors from Cameroon and we're singing all the time. I was smiling all the time at rehearsals, the choir leader even commented on that. I took a break from choir for half a year and it was great to be back again. I was singing the new songs the whole time at home, on the bike: every day - so now my throat hurts and today I'm only allowed to sing inside...
So back to today, I didn't make it to church, but I deliberately lay this day down before God, because usually I would berate myself for not making it and make myself miserable with my selftalk. I'm quite good at that... So after breakfast with my parents I checked facebook and came to one of these homepages with inspirational videos, the rest is history, as it happens every time. You loose track of time. But behind my laptop is a window:

... and I felt like God put His beauty on display for me to see.

Every time I looked up from the computer there was a new beautiful arrangement of clouds in the sky. And if you've followed my last posts, you'll now that I really LOVE clouds. There were dark rainclouds but the sky cleared up, with different shades of blue, white and grey. I feel so blessed today.
I know this is a cloud overkill, a picture overkill, but I wanted to share the array. This is the progression throughout the day until now 15:35

Have a lovely sunday and count your blessings!

Clouds

Friends,
I've started to go crazy over clouds! I take all of the pictures of them from my room and I'm constantly running to my room saying: "I need to go. Be right back!" In the middle of dinners!
I wanted to share some with you.

 

Have a great week!

One thousand gifts challenge

Last night I started to read this:

I've followed Ann Voskamp on facebook and reading some posts on her blog for what feels a long time. I have her graphics as background on my desktop (this at the moment).
Now a friend of mine and future flatmate in october gave me her book and it had me crying in the beginning. I know this shutting off of the heart, this shutting God out.

I've read three chapters so far and have decided to take the challenge of listing 1000 gifts/blessings, it's about thankfulness. The miracles come after the thankfulness. And because I'm in a rough spot (again), of not wanting to do anything, I thought it would be nice to try something new. Ann says that pictures can hold thankfulness. So after listing some stuff (like 8. a BROWN dove!! or 11. the old babytoys from back then when we were little), I took the camera and took some pictures around the house. I want to share some of them with you!


14. clouds. Man I LOVE to look at clouds. Especially if there's blue sky inbetween ;)

 15. This is a flower I got to pick from a bouquet my father gave my mom.

16. My nightstand at my parents house.

 17. Sun behind a patterned curtain.

18. Gift bags from last christmas. I am the biggest fan of polkadots. Love how the dots in the biggest bag shine through in the light.

 20. One of my favorite flowers: Poppies. They are so fragile and yet so strong.

21. Notes we left in the entrance area
(Saying: A: I am fond of you!
B: I am fond of you, too!
C:I am fond of you (two)!
A: We are fond of you, too!
D:And I am, too (Really hard to translate)!
B: I am fond of you all! )

23. A bouquet from our "garden" in the front. Which isn't supposed to be a garden full of flowers, but i LOVE the wild craziness of that area.

This is actually Nr. 1: Our little fawn in the garden.

Have a great week everyone!