Dogs, Cupcakes & Teacups http://joedid.nl As long as there is no hair in your pastry, it goes toghether fine posterous.com Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:20:22 -0700 My Birthday http://joedid.nl/my-birthday http://joedid.nl/my-birthday
Croisants for breakfast, Hello Kitty decoration at my desk, presents wrapped in pink paper, umistakenly it was my birthday today!! I know a lot of people do not like to celebrate their birthday after they have gotten over the excitement of getting presents and cake (around the age of 16 maybe?) but for me it still is a special occasion. That is why I made all my colleagues aware (I almost put in a meeting request for my boss in his calender so he would not forget) of this special happening. I have to say, they really made it happen, singing happy birthday as I walked in the office, hello kitty decoration and also presents on my desk!! Thank you so much :D

This birthday also got me thinking about the effect of social media on celebrations such as birthdays. Since I am not on facebook for that long, this was the first time people could 'write on my wall' for my birthday instead of sending me a nice sparkly postcard. This year, I had 30 birthday wishes on my wall. Awesome! But it also feels a bit like a competition, because everyone can see how many 'friends' I have that 'rememberred' my birthday (or were reminded by facebook...). It is all so public and in the open. And even though it is nice, it does not compare to the excitement of opening your mailbox, seeing all these colorfull envelopes and putting your pink sparkly cards somewhere where you can see them every day (on your fridge for example...). I already noticed this effect when mobile phones started to become normal and people sent texts instead of postcards. I do realise I sound really old right now, must be because I am now on the wrong side of the 20s....  Or maybe I am just oldfashion.

But what I like most about my birthday, suprisingly, is not that I get presents, or that I receive cute postcards, but impressing people with my treats. Some of my (non Dutch) colleagues are really confused about this Dutch habit, because since it is your birthday you should be getting treats instead of giving them away. Even though I can see their logic, I was brought up with making awesome treats from my first birthday, and I have always liked this a lot. Well OK, the first years my parents made them, but when I was 1 my parents made me this awesome candy house (see picture).

Looking at the title of my blog, it should not be surprising to you that I baked cupcakes this year. Even though I am just a beginner, I received many compliments. Also, one of my colleagues thought I bought them from a professional bakery, and when I told them I baked them myself he said ' they look better than the ones we had at my wedding...". So I guess I can be proud and all my hard work has been rewarded with happy family, friends and colleagues eating cute little cupcakes to celebrate that I am on this planet for another year!

-Sorry for the large amount of pictures, but you can probably imagine that after decorating cupcakes for 5 hours you want to make sure that you make enough pictures before they are all gone into the big black hole that we call stomach -

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1353093/0_imm017_15.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hckcWZbxE7bXI Judith Timan joedid Judith Timan Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:23:00 -0700 Awesome gardening for dummies http://joedid.nl/my-first-cake http://joedid.nl/my-first-cake

When I was a little girl, my parents had a little piece of land where we could grow vegetables, flowers and other things that did not fit in our back garden. I used to join my dad, not necessarily to do any hard work, but to look at how the plants and flowers grow, and to try how good the vegetables tasted. Now, having my own garden (not that big, about 30m2), every spring I get the same enthousiastic energy: I want to grow my own food.

Last year I started with cleaning out a small part of the front garden. You should know, we are a disgrace to our neighbourhood, our front garden is lacking structured design planting and also the gardengnomes are nowhere to be found. Our (non-working, sitting at home having all the time of the world to get the parking place free of weed) neighbours walk past our garden, shaking their head in pure disbelief and disapproval. However, I was brave enough to take a chance. A few days of hard work and some blisters later, I had a nice strip of clean, black sand. I started of with herbs, because they are easy and you can use them for anything from tea to stew. It worked out pretty well, providing rosemary, mint, chive to start with. 

This year I decided to professionalise my gardening a bit more by using some kind of planning. Also I bought some books, to keep my spririt up and to be insprired by the pictures. The cherry on the cake is 'my gardening book".

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Not only is this notebook especially made for gardening planning, also it has dogs on it, and of course that made not buying it not an option. After buying this, I read some books and made notes, as you are supposed to do when have a special made book for it. Also I sort of used the notebook as a diary, so that I can keep track of my actions, failures and mistakes, to learn from it every year. One day, when my dream comes true and I will have my own farm, I will know what to do. For now, we have been able to eat our own blueberries (just a few), potatoes, peas, lettuce, cucumber (funny shape, good taste), japanese berries, and strawberries. We have had a wet and cold summer so far, but still I am quite happy with how my plants are doing. For our tomatoes, melon, cucumber and courgette, a bit more sun would be appreciated. 

 

In the meantime, I just keep up the weeding and hope for some sunny summer days. We deserve it.

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1353093/0_imm017_15.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hckcWZbxE7bXI Judith Timan joedid Judith Timan Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:03:00 -0700 Our bordercollie Roos http://joedid.nl/our-bordercollie-roos http://joedid.nl/our-bordercollie-roos


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She sure looks cute, but she is a special case. Born on 03 June 2008, she is now almost an adult dog and a bit easier to handle, but as a tiny little puppy and as an annoying adolescent dog, she was afraid of everything. When she reached the age of 1, we got her a friend from the shelter named Sam. They really are like brother and sister now, so that really was meant to be!

Roos and I play a lot of dogfrisbee together, and we aim to win a lot of competitions when we grow up. For now we just play around, trying new things, hoping to learn the dogcatch and the back vault any time now, which is not easy with a dog that does not like being touched.

More to follow later....!

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1353093/0_imm017_15.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hckcWZbxE7bXI Judith Timan joedid Judith Timan