What I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

Hi all!

It's been a while since we talked. And that's basically because for a bit I couldn't talk about what I really wanted to talk about and then I had zero motivation to blog and SO MUCH going on. The main reason that I haven't been around much is this:

I've been growing a tiny human :)  and that's taken up a lot of my energy and strangely also time, not the growing itself, but the planning and being tired and feeling UGH for the first three months. And reading about pregnancy and tiny humans and everything they need. Last Friday was my due date and now I'm impatiently waiting for the arrival of our little girl, so it might be some time before you hear from me again after this.

Other highlights over the last couple of months:

We went to the Maldives! Which was amazing and SO gorgeous and the boyfriend actually proposed there, which was totally romantic. We relaxed and drank all the mango juice and snorkeled with sea turtles and actually saw dolphins and Nemo and Dory and it was just a lovely time!

We got married! We wanted to get married before the baby's here, so we decided to have the ceremony with just family and my best friend and her boyfriend and we had a wonderful day! We're throwing a party to celebrate somewhere in the summer probably.

We bought a house :) (I know, it's crazy right?) We'd been talking about moving and buying a house instead of continuing to rent and the baby just moved it a little bit forward on the timeline. And we were really lucky to find the perfect house that we both fell in love with and we've already been living here for 2 months now. I wasn't able to contribute as much as I would have liked with the moving process, but we're mostly unpacked now and I have an amazing set of built in shelves in the attic (thanks to the previous owners and my lovely father-in-law who built me some more when I told him it wouldn't fit all my books) and I just love it. We had so much help from our friends and family and I feel really blessed to have them in our lives!

I finished my GP residency. The day my maternity leave started was also the last day of my residency, though officially I'll be done on July 1st, but it's all maternity leave and vacation up until then, to basically it's done. I was REALLY sad to leave the GP's office I was working at, because it's such an amazing place to work at and my colleagues are the best ever, but I do feel really proud that I'm done and I'll visit with the baby and hope that I'll get to work there every now and then.

I've also been reading, but not as much as I thought I would, especially since my maternity leave started. But I did buy a book seat so in theory I'll be able to read handsfree which'll come in handy when the baby gets here ;) Fingers crossed it won't take long now for her to get here!

I feel so out of touch with the blogopshere! Let me know what you've been up to!

Happy New Year!! Looking back on 2015 and Goals for 2016 and Such :)

So, I'll start with my usual of HI! It's been a while... I don't know why this keeps happening, but I also keep coming back to blogging, cause I do love it.
But it's a whole new year and I wish everyone lots of love, health and only good things and amazing reads for 2016!

Looking Back on 2015

Bloggingwise: Yep, I kinda totally failed again. I did REALLY well up until June, and then we went on vacation and my brain never went out of vacation mode and everything just sort of... stopped happening on the blog. My goal was to get the number of review I had to write back into the single digits and instead it's gone into the triple digits... Yeah... I suck.

I've done a teensy bit better on the requesting things on NetGalley and Edelweiss goal, but let's face it, I could still really do with some cutting back in that department. 

Reading: So I actually read 159 books this year (it sort of irks me that it's not a nice rounded number), which I'm pretty proud of! I've dipped my toes in the world of manga and graphic novels and I really like it so far, so I'm looking forward to read more of them in 2016! If it wasn't for book club, I probably wouldn't have read some of the books I read this year, including The Casual Vacancy and Anne of Green Gables. Some are bigger successes than others, but you can't have it all ;) I've been trying to get more backlist reading in, but the shiny new releases keep being shiny and distracting. 

TV wise: I've been watching a lot of series this year and I LOVE it, it's interfering with my reading time a bit, but hey, with 159 books read, I'm not all that worried. I've started watching Nashville, Downton Abbey, Awkward and White Collar. Sadly, one of my favourite series, Hart of Dixie, ended and I was filled with all the sads. And also due to some deaths on TV series. Can all the TV show writers just stop killing off my favourite male characters? KTHANXBAI.

Personal life: I haven't been sharing all that much on the blog about what's going on with me personally, but 2015 has mostly been a good year for me!

-I cut back on the hours I work and now work 80%, which means a full day off each week and it's heaven. I have a lot more energy to actually do stuff on the weekends and I get things done and it's just bliss. It also helps that we got someone to clean our house for us, I used to put a lot of energy into procrastinating about cleaning and now I don't have to anymore!

-I finished my ER rotation in August, I totally loved it! It was hard at times with all the night shift and I had some experiences there that I could honestly say that I could have done without because it was just horrible, but I learned a lot and the people were awesome. It's also made me more into the person that says yes to things, mostly work-related, but still. I'm more confident and I know I can hold my own in a tough situation, which is really worth a lot to me.

-I also did a psych rotation. Yeah. Let's just say that while I do appreciate the things I learned there, it wasn't really my thing and I'm glad it's over. I was so stressed from not enjoying my work there! I didn't even fully realise this until it was over and I started work somewhere else and I was just HAPPY.

-In December I started my final year of residency as a GP and it's AMAZING so far. I get real enjoyment out of working again, the people are lovely and it's just a good place for me. So I'm very thankful for that!

-The boyfriend and I went on vacation to Thailand and Berlin this year. Thailand is just this beautiful place with so much amazing nature and very friendly people and yummy food! We went on a group holiday and met some wonderful people on it. 

Berlin was fun as well, the Christmas markets had just opened and everything was decorated festively and there was gluhwein and chocolate covered strawberries and we also did some cultural stuff ;) Oh, and we stayed in an apartment that came with a cat, so that was awesome. I love visiting different places, but I'm always happy to go home again as well!

-Obviously book club keeps being awesome. They are my people, I love how we've done the 24 hour readathon together and I always look forward to our monthly meet-ups! I love how we manage to always pick the restaurants with the worst service ever (except for last time, that was a fancy nancy place and they were very friendly!) and we still have a good time and flail over books and generally spook the other customers. I regret nothing. <3 p="">

Goals for 2016

-Get back to blogging. I know this was my #1 goal last year, but I failed spectacularly in the second half of 2016 and I really want to fix this. I'm gonna try and crank out mini-reviews for all the books that are on my need-review shelf and hopefully get the number down a lot soonish.

-The requesting less on NetGalley and Edelweiss thing still stands. I'm SO bad at this! I've gotten a little better, but then there'll be a lot of shiny looking new additions to the catalog and I'll just be like YES NEED TO HAVE IT!! 

-Hand in hand with requesting less goes reading more of my own books. I've gotten a little better at this in 2015, but I still have a LOT of unread books on my shelves, so this needs to happen.

-Now that I don't need to clean my house anymore, I should really get a bit better about tidying it, more specifically: folding the laundry. I really, really, really do not like folding laundry and putting it in my closet and it piles up. Like a lot. Like it's on a chair in the attic and you can't see the chair anymore. 

-The last couple of months I haven't been buying as many books. The thing is, I've been buying a lot of clothes and such. And mugs. And while I don't really have a problem with this, it might be nice to save a bit more money, so I'm just gonna think my purchases through a bit more before buying something. 

-Continue working out. Starting in July, I decided I needed to start working out regularly again and since then I've been working out 2-3 times a week and I think it's really good for me. I'm generally trying to be a bit more healthy, trying to balance the not so healthy meals out with some healthier ones and basically trying new recipes and I really like it! So I'm gonna try to keep these new habits up :)

So those are my goals, I've actually started trying to be better about all those things over the last couple of months, so they may not really be new year's resolutions, but perhaps they'll be stronger for it? 

What do you hope to accomplish this year?

HI!

So I haven't blogged in over a month... EPIC FAIL I KNOW

June has been a mix of spending two weeks on vacation in Thailand (which was AMAZING), then night shift week of DOOM, then a heat wave entered Holland and I've had zero desire to do anything but sit outside underneath a parasol and read, sometimes sliding over into the little pool that we set up. SO. That's where I've been ;) I'll give a more extensive update soonish. Possibly with pictures :)

Anyway, today I felt the urge to blog again, so I'll probably be slowly getting back into this, I have a TON of books that I need to review cause of all the reading I've been doing and it's a bit overwhelming, but you gotta start somewhere right?

Hope you're all enjoying Summer!!

Off To Thailand!

So this year the boyfriend and I have made the good life decision to go on vacation to Thailand! :) So we'll be enjoying the good life, good food and beautiful scenery as pictured above.
It is pretty hard to leave the kitty behind (we already dropped her off at the boyfriend's brother's house, it's SO quiet here at the moment), but we'll be back and then we'll just cuddle extra. Hopefully.

So this is me saying that the blog will be quiet for the next two weeks, cause I was going to be a good blogger and get some posts typed up before I left, but alas, preparation for the journey took longer than I thought it would (as always) and then I got a cold and that's been messing with my blogging mojo.

I wish you a happy two weeks!

Daisy Update (59)

So a LOT has happened since my last update, but not all of it's interesting ;)

At the moment, I'm recovering from my night shift week of DOOM, I worked 5 nights in a row and while that may not sound like much, it adds up to over 50 hours and now I have a really tired and am slowly adjusting to being awake during the day instead of at night. I'd flipped my rhythm around so well that I wasn't even all that tired yesterday morning when the day shift people came, which is not really a good sign. But the kitty has been cuddly and I have a soft blanket, so I think it'll be ok :)

We had another book club meeting, we went out for sushi, which is YUM and talked about anything and everything and scared other visitors of the restaurant again. Which is always fun :D I love these girls, and book club night is one of my favourite things each month! I love how we can share our love of reading and fangirl over things together and also rant about other things, even if we don't always agree on everything.

Last week I went our for lunch and shopping with two of my friends, who I hadn't seen in a while and it was lovely to catch up with them! One of them is having a tough time and I'd been checking in on her by phone, but it's not the same as seeing how she's doing in person. Also, these two are the best shopping buddies! One of them is the same size as me, which can be unfortunate if there's only one size left, but our body types are different enough that it's not really a problem and it was especially fun when she handed me one of the dresses she had tried and didn't really like on her and I bought it and then we did the same thing in reverse at the next store.

We had a bit of a scare Friday evening, the kitty runs around the backyard when the weather is nice, but we thought we'd kitty-proved it so she couldn't get out, which as worked so far. But then she was suddenly nowhere to be found and it turns out she'd escaped and was gallivanting about with some of the other kitties that live on our street near some houses they are building right behind ours. Which wouldn't have been such a problem, if only she came back when we called and tried to bribe her with treats and such. But she hid in one of the houses and then we couldn't find her anymore and OMG I was so worried! In the end she came home, but she was all jumpy and just a scared little kitty-cat and now I'm in overprotective cat mom mode and saying she's not going out ever again. Maybe I'll change my mind, but this first experience with kitty out of the yard wasn't a good one.

This afternoon the boyfriend and I will probably head out to get some new flowers and other plants for the backyard. The weather has been getting better over the last week and we should start making our little garden look nice again. I love shopping at this kind of store, so I'm always good with plans like this :)

I hope you're all having a great week!

Daisy Update (58)

Hi guys!

So over the past couple of weeks, I've basically been pretty busy, working the night shift of doom last weekend, which wasn't all that bad in the end, but working 13 hours a day is not my idea of fun.

On Monday I headed over to my mom's, because she and the new man in her life (though maybe not as new anymore as they've been together for 1,5 years already) were having a registered partnership ceremony on Tuesday and it was REALLY early and I didn't feel like getting up at 5AM in order to be on time because it's a 2 hour drive from our home to theirs. So we had dinner together and after the boyfriend also came over and it was nice.
On Tuesday my brother and his girlfriend and some other family came and we spent the day together. The original plan had been to go for a walk, but because of icky weather, we decided to go to a gardening centre instead and the boyfriend and I bought a pretty flower vase set thingy and I've just been staring at it ever since, it's so pretty :) And I needed some more colour in our home, so the pink and purple is really making me happy. We went out to dinner that night and it was lovely, I always love spending time with my mom and my brother, my brother and I have the same sense of humour and usually end up annoying our significant others because they can't follow all of it.

Wednesday was filled with sitting on the couch, reading Grave Mercy and cuddling the kitty, who felt neglected cause we'd been gone a full day. She's never before been alone for that long, but it seemed like she managed ok, nothing was damaged, but she clearly felt we'd offended her by being gone a night and a whole day. I did make up for it by giving her a little extra attention Wednesday and Thursday, so we're good.

On Thursday the boyfriend had the brilliant idea to go out for dinner instead of eating leftovers and we went to the other restaurant in our town that we hadn't yet been to and it was wonderful! The owner is really friendly and the food was yummy. It has the added benefit of being only a 5 minute walk from our house, so the rain didn't much bother us.

Friday was book club day! :D I met up with Debby and Mel for dinner and we talked about everything and anything and also a bit about Grave Mercy, which we all enjoyed, yay! I had Korean food for the first time ever and it was good, but not really all that special to me. But Debby has had it before and said it might be the restaurant. I love spending time with these girls!

Yesterday I thought the neighbours were coming over to our place for dinner and they thought we were coming over to theirs, so in the end we decided to have dinner at their house and we brought the desert:

It's a pavlova with strawberries romanoff and raspberries and it was SO GOOD! I'd never made this before, but OMG, it was surprisingly easy and YUM! I love trying out new recipes :) We have some leftovers in the fridge, which will probably miraculously disappear sometime today.
Oh, and I decided to take up knitting again! I've been watching a lot of tv lately and I feel so inactive if the only thing I'm doing is just sitting there watching something, so I'm knitting. It's pretty relaxing, I'm just getting back into it at the moment, making a blanket for our kitty and then I'm gonna move on to bigger projects such as leg warmers and other things :)

I hope you're all having a great week!

Mini-Update

Hi guys!

I'm in the middle of nightshift weekend of DOOM, so I'm a bit of a zombie right now. I'm glad tonight will be my last nightshift for now and last night was really quiet, but that made the night last FOREVER, these 13 hour shifts are murder.

So I hope you're all having a better weekend than I am! Oh, and keep your fingers crossed for me that tonight will not be filled with drunken people getting hurt ;)

Off to celebrate carnaval!

I'm just popping in to say hi and have a great weekend! In Holland we have this thing called carnaval, it's basically people wearing costumes and really bad music and parades and everything and it's just a whole lot of fun, so that's what I'm doing this weekend :) I got an owl onesie, and it's SO comfy!

But I'm off, this is me today:

Hope you're all having a great weekend as well!

Daisy Update (57)

Hi guys!

I hope you're all having a nice and relaxing weekend filled with things you love!

So I surived my work-week from hell, I worked 6 days that week, including 3 night shifts and it added up to about 67 hours of work, which is a LOT, but in the end wasn't so bad. The people I shared my night shifts with are great and when we weren't treating a lot of (very) drunk people, we watched movies together, which is how I've seen most of The Godfather for the first time in my life and the first half of Goodfellas. I should mention that everyone else working the night shift was male and so I've been watching manly movies.

The ER continues to give me lots of crazy, but it's also REALLY interesting and I kinda love that it can be hectic and one evening I put 16 stitches in one guys head and then someone else came in with a crazy big headwound and I put 19 stitches in his head and just holy wow. It was pretty awesome. I also see a lot of really awful things, last Friday something particularly devastating happened and I had a hard time sleeping after that and I could feel the afereffects of it yesterday, so I just snuggled on the couch with the kitty and a blanket.

Yesterday the boyfriend and I went to visit two of our friends who had a baby last week and OMG, he was SO, SO cute! I love babies and he's extra adorable because he's the combination of two of our close friends and they made this beautiful baby boy and I'm just so happy for them! And also, they told us he basically doesn't open his eyes for visitors, but for us he did ;) I got to cuddle with him for a while and yeah, babies just make me happy. Funny thing is that we thought from the hints his parents had given us that he was going to be a girl, so my mom knitted a doll for him with a pink outfit. He's still getting that obviously.

I love cooking and trying new recipees and I've been watching a LOT of 24 Kitchen when I'm home, it's just relaxing to have it on in the background, but it seriously messes with my ability to focus on reading. BUT it has given me lots of inspiration and two weeks ago we made tapas for friends who came over for dinner and have already tried one or two recipees from the various chefs that are on. I'm trying two more this week, I hope they taste as good as they looked on tv!

We're going over to the boyfriend's grandparents in a couple of hours for his grandmother's birthday, we're going to a Chinese restaurant with the whole family this evening, so I'm already looking forward to yummy food tonight!

Daisy Update (56)

Wow, last time I did one of these was August 10... That's just a looooong time ago.

Anywho.

So I've been back to blogging these past two weeks and it's been GREAT! I love how I now have a blogging calendar and I'm actually scheduling posts in advance and not just typing everything up at the last minute. It feels really good!
I have been having some bad luck with books, I've DNF-ed 4 books in January so far and just UGH! But on the other hand, I did really enjoy most of the books that I did finish, so there's that. And I've been doing pretty well with my e-ARCs so far, sometimes I move towards that request button and then actually don't click it. Self-control, I has a little bit of it.

In other news, I'm now working in an ER and there's a LOT Of crazy going on there! I mean, it's not really like the action you see on TV shows, but it is a whole lot crazier than working in a general practice, and I'm actually really enjoying it! It's very interesting and we have a couple of interns, I love having interns, they always ask critical questions and just keep you on your toes and it's nice that I can also teach them something. That I feel confident enough that I can actually teach them something, it's a good feeling guys.
All these weird shifts in the ER leave me with a lot of free time at the moment (though there's a hellish week coming up, which will leave me like a zombie quite possibly) and I'm just enjoying spending time at home with the kitty and the boyfriend and all my pretty books! I'm pretty much in a happy place right now.

Last Monday, the boyfriend and I had dinner with the GP who I was training with last year and it was wonderful. I hadn't seen her since September and it felt really weird cause we'd worked closely together for a year and then that part of my residency ended and you just don't see each other anymore and it was lovely to catch up and see her home. And the food was really good! :)

I've been watching a LOT of TV lately, I'm very much addicted to 24 Kitchen, it's just so relaxing to see people cook and I've already tried one recipee from a show and it was SO GOOD! OMG, I'm totally making that again soon! It was a dip for chicken and nacho chips and whatever else you can think of to dip in it, with creme fraiche, spinach, sambal and cheese and just YUM!
I've also started watching Jane, the Virgin and I'm really enjoying it! It's just funny and quirky and at times a little ridiculous and just no-brain-necessary fun. Also, it sorta reminds me of Ugly Betty with all the drama and I have so much love for that show! I should start re-watching it...
And OMG, a friend of mine said Emily Owens MD was WAY better than Hart of Dixie, so I started watching that and then I found out it was cancelled after 13 episodes and I was like WTF??? That show was AWESOME (though not better than Hart of Dixie, TBH, WAAAAADDDDDEEEE) and Micah was SO cute and what the heck was going on with the ending of that last episode?? That was seriously not ok and now I will never know if Emily and Micah would have ended up together and I just have a sad over that series being cancelled, cause I loved it...

One of the guys in the same residency program as I am got married 2 months ago and yesterday night they threw a party to celebrate, so the boyfriend and I went and it was so much fun! We just had drinks and talked with my friends from residency and dancing, and the boyfriend basically doesn't dance normally, so I take advantage of it on the rare occasions that I CAN get him to dance with me :) So today we're both a little tired and lazy and aside from tidying up a bit because the lady who cleans our house is coming tomorrow (OMG someone else cleans my house, it is AWESOME), it's going to be a quiet day. We'll go over to the boyfriend's parents for dinner in a little while, so that means zero effort towards cooking today, yay ;)

I hope you're all having a great weekend as well!

A Belated Happy New Year and Goals for 2015 and Such

Hi guys! It's been a while. I guess that's kinda been my standard opening for about 6 months now, I've seriously been slacking on blogging.

But: HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know it's a bit late, but not any less heartfelt because of that. I hope all your dreams and goals will be realised this year and just lots of happiness for everyone!

Lookng Back on 2014

Bloggingwise: I completely failed. Especially during the last couple of months. And I would like to blame this on having zero time for blogging, but actually, I've had more time, but just every time I opened up a window to start a post, I was like 'meh' and drawing a blank and then I just got back to either watching one of my series on TV or reading or whatever I'd rather be doing at the moment. So I'm pretty behind on reviews, I have the impressive number of 78 books that still need a review that I've read in the last year. Go big or go home right? ;)
So I have been reading lots of review copies, but failing to post a review still doesn't really make it a success.
Also, I've been failing at commenting on other people's blogs.

Reading: I did pretty well as far as reading goes, I read 142 books in 2014, which is exactly the same number as in 2013 and considering I had 2 whole months off in 2013, I think I did pretty well this year. I've been trying to read more new-to-me authors and I've been looking into somewhat older fantasy books instead of the shiny new releases, because I want to know my favourite genre better and the books that have shaped it. Book club has forced me to step out of my comfort zone a bit at times, which was fun.

Personal Life: 2014 wasn't always an easy year for me, but it was full of good changes.
-We moved to a pretty new house which actually has room for my books and I am now the proud owner of a library, which is AMAZING and I can just sit on the floor of that room for hours and stare at my shelves. It also has a garden, which is just the best thing in the summer. And FLOOR HEATING, which is the best invention EVER as I'm not so cold all the time anymore. I'm just very thankful for my beautiful new home and while moving and selling the apartment we used to live in was pretty stressful, we're very happy with were we are now.

-I decided in February that I wanted to cut back on the hours I work, when it was time for the weekend, I was exhausted and didn't feel like doing stuff other than sit on the couch and I just felt like I didn't have time to do all the other things I love and would generally be a happier person if I worked a day less. And starting in September, I did just that and it's been wonderful. For 3 months, I had every Friday off and it just felt like a mini-vacation every week. I'm now working in the ER and my schedule is crazy, some weeks I work 8-16 hours and other weeks over 70 hours, with night shifts and weekend shifts and just no routine whatsoever in my schedule. But as I sometimes have 5 days in a row off now, I think I can figure it out.

-The boyfriend and I went to Morocco and Rome on vacation and both were amazing in their own way! It was also just nice to get away from everything for a while and just be together and enjoy life.

-I love how blogging has brought me my book club ladies and I'm so thankful to have Daphne, Debby and Mel in my life! These meet-ups once a month are one of my favourite nights of the month and they're just my kind of people. It's wonderful to have fellow book lovers in my life that I get to meet and geek out with and eat yummy food with and at times make a lot of noise with and scare the other restaurant patrons (a Secret Santa gift exchange will do this to you). Love you ladies!

-We got a cat! Our pretty kitty Zoë has been with us since August and she just makes our house a home. I love having her around and cuddling with her and just being a crazy cat mom taking ALL the pictures:

So while I was pretty stressed out a lot of times in 2014, mostly due to stuff related to my residency and the move and things with my family, a lot of good stuff happened and know I'm very blessed to have amazing people in my life and a wonderful home and a job that I love, sometimes it's just hard to actually feel all of that, but I'm getting to the point where I'm more relaxed and can just enjoy it.

Goals for 2015

-Get back to blogging. I've been slacking so much lately and this needs to change. I want to bring my need-review shelf back to below 10 books at all times, so I'll be trying to clear out the ones I still have on it with mini-reviews soon.

-Be a better blogger friend. I've also been failing at reading and commenting on other people's posts and I need to devote more time to being part of the blogosphere again!

-Request less on NetGalley and Edelweiss. I am so bad at control when it comes to hitting that request button on shiny books! But I really need to cut back on these, because of my next goal:

-Read the books I bought myself or received as gifts. I feel guilty when I take the time to read my own books because I have so many review copies and I really shouldn't, because I bought those with my own money or other people bought them for me and also I just want to read them because I was excited enough about them to shove money at a bookseller to get them and how else can I justify having them in my home and buying even more?

-Read some backlisted books besides all the shiny new releases. There's a reason there's so much love for some of those fantasy books that were published years ago and I want in on this.

-Continue/finish series. I'm so bad at actually sticking with a series once I've started it and I have an irrational fear of reading the last book in a series and I want to conquer this.

-Cut a teensy bit back on my book-hoarding tendencies. I have over 600 books that I haven't read that are sitting on my shelves, I think I need to cut back a little on buying them (completely is just not a realistic goal) and especially because I have 25 series that I haven't started the first book from, but I do own the whole series.

-Really live in the moment and not constantly worry about things I need to do or what could go wrong, but really just enjoy the good things while they're happening.

-Read a couple of books that have been turned into series/movies, so I can watch those and get in on the awesome. Also: start watching Downton Abbey. I think this will be a new addiction once I've started it.

For a girl who isn't really into making New Year's resolutions, I think this is a pretty big list ;) What are some of your goals for this year?

Daisy Update (55) Featuring a teeny tiny kitten!

Hi guys!

So it's been about 5 months since my last update... I've been sucking at blogging lately, but as I had exciting news to share, I'm back with this update.

Last Wednesday we adopted a teeny tiny kitten from the animal shelter and since then she's been busy exploring the living room, sleeping on my lap, playing with a feather on a string and a fake mouse, sleeping on the couch, testing the limits of where we allow her to climb on (which does not include the lamp or the table) and sleeping on chairs. Basically she's been one cute little creature and I love her! We named her Zoë :)
I love having a pet in our home again, it's just more of a home with one in it. The boyfriend was a bit hesitant about getting a pet, but Zoë is so adorable, you just can't help but love her.

The only one who doesn't much like it is our neighbours' cat, who used to just walk in and out and sit in my lap sometimes, she's not allowed in the house anymore at the moment and does not appreciate this. It's kinda hard to take a good picture of Zoë cause she's so dark, I need to get a camera with flash or something.

As for other things that have happened since I last did an update: we went to Marocco for 2 weeks, which was awesome, we had the four day walking event in Nijmegen that happens yearly and is always a lot of fun, and just so many things happen in 5 months! We had 4 book club meetings and went to see The Fault In Our Stars, which broke my heart. It was worse than the book somehow!

In 3 weeks I'll be saying goodbye to the practice I'm working at now, my first year is almost over, it's hard to believe the year has gone by so fast! Which is a little sad and exciting as well.

Now I'm gonna go back to cuddling Zoë :) Hope you're all having a great Sunday!

Vacation Time!

Starting tomorrow morning (REALLY early), I'll be on vacation in Morocco! I'll be seeing beautiful things, eating delicious food and just generally having a good time. At least, that's the plan. So all will be quiet on the blog until then (not that I've been around all that much lately anyway, but still).

See you in two weeks, I'm off to stuff more into my suitcase :)

Daisy Update (54)

I feel like I start with this every time lately, but it's been A WHILE. Seriously, it's been two months. I feel like I haven't sat down to blog in ages, and it's mostly due to this happening:

We got the key to our new home!!! I'm SO happy!! I can't take time off from work because of some silly rule, but the boyfriend has been painting and we had friends and family helping yesterday, so we've already painted all the walls and started on the floor downstairs and I'm SO EXCITED! We're planning on moving all our stuff there next weekend and the boyfriend and I spent today looking at couches and tables and all lovely new things and just YAYYYY! :D We'll have so much more space than we do now, even though I'll probably miss the apartment once we move out, because you know, I've lived here for 8 years and it'll be emotional saying goodbye.

So I've been busy planning and working and more planning and also fun things like a weekend away with friends last week and bookclub and many good things. But I've also been a bit exhausted and haven't really had much energy to spare to go into blogging.

I've also become addicted to Hart of Dixie, which you probably know, but for those of you who don't, it's about a GP in a small town and I just love it. And while I'm a GP in training, TV also sensationalizes everything. And also: it's not really deemed appropriate to wear short shorts or skirts while you're working as a doctor around here. But I do love it! It allows me to zone out and not stress over all the things I need to be doing for work/study/things around the house, other people's drama and all that :) It has drastically lessened the time I have to read though...

It'll probably be a while before everything calms down and I apologize in advance for lack of posts and lack of commenting on other people's posts, because I haven't checked my Bloglovin reader in weeks... Sorry! I'll get back to being a good blogging friend once we're settled in, promise!

Hope you're all having a great week!

Daisy Update (53)

Hi guys!

I feel like I keep saying this, but: it's been a while! At least since my last update here. This has a couple of reasons, but mainly it has to do with that 2014 has been kicking my ass these past couple of weeks and last Friday we got some REALLY good news that I'm excited to share with you, but we'll get to that!

So Christmas was ok, as much as it's my favourite holiday, this year it was just a bit weird because of my parental situation. My mom was away on vacation, so we spent the first day of Christmas with my dad, my brother and his girlfriend were there as well, so it was nice. Just weird having it be five of us instead of six. And my dad asked me to do the grocery shopping because he didn't know what to get, and man, do people go crazy shopping for their Christmas food! I mean, it felt like a jungle in the supermarket! I got out as fast as I could. Which wasn't very fast at all. But we had a nice dinner and played games and it was fun.
Second day of Christmas we spent with the boyfriend's family and ate a LOT of food again. They were two pretty uneventful days and that's ok by me.

We took my dad's dogs home with us, as he was going on vacation as well the day after Christmas, so the days in between Christmas and New Year's Eve were spent walking the dogs and cuddling with them and cleaning up after them ;)
We also had a Christmas dinner the Saturday after Christmas with some of my friends, we do this every year and everyone makes a course, it's always fun and yummy and I love spending time with these girls and they're partners!

We had another book club dinner, which was fun! We went out for tapas, discussed Howl's Moving Castle and a lot of other things. And we had a Secret Santa gift exchange, which was lovely! Debby got me Scarlet by Marissa Meyer and The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simons, they both sound amazing, thanks again Debby! I love hanging out with my book club ladies! :)

On New Year's Eve (well the day of New Year's Eve) we heard that there would be people coming to check out the apartment 2 days later, so the boyfriend and I scrambled to get everything in order and cleaned and tucked away, which was pretty stressful and made me not so much in the mood to go out and celebrate that evening. So we did go over to one of my friend's and counted down with them and watched the fireworks from her rooftop terrace and after went over to one of my best friend's house to say happy new year, but after that I didn't feel like going into the city anymore, so the boyfriend and I just went home instead of partying all night long. I can't say I regret this decision.
Especially cause the day after was filled with more cleaning. And after we went over to the boyfriend's grandparents', which was nice.

So I've been pretty stressed out because over the past two weeks we've had people coming to take a look at the apartment 4 times and every time we need to tidy everything up and clean and it just doesn't feel like my house anymore when it's all decluttered. It feels sterile and less like a home and it's been hard on me. And in between we've been trying to rent a house and due to some administrative nonsense we were too late and I was just SO disappointed and frustrated by the whole process and that didn't help. And then I got sick with food poisoning and I've been a bit of an insomniac the past week and just UGH! This is why 2014 has been kicking my ass.


BUT! Here comes the part where I tell you my good news!

WE DID GET A HOUSE AFTER ALL!!! :D
We got a call Friday morning saying that someone who'd already signed a contract saying they'd be renting one of the houses I wanted backed out and it was available again! So we have an apointment with the realtor tomorrow evening! I'm SO excited! Now I can start dreaming of our pretty new house that will have a dishwasher and floor heating and just ROOM! And a garden! And a bath! And I just want to start decorating! Also: once I have our new address I can start pre-ordering books again!

I just needed a bit of good news to get me out of this funk and I'm already sleeping better and just looking at the sunny side of things again and just excitement! :)

So how are you all doing? :)

Daisy Update (51)

Hi guys!

It's been a while! The last update was over 2 months ago... I haven't really been in my happy place this past couple of months and this is why there haven't been that many blog posts in general. I'm actually doing pretty well, but blogging is something that requires that part of my brain that hasn't really been working lately. But I'm hoping to fix this! Cause I love blogging :)

I'll highlight a couple of things that happened the last two months:

-I had a teeny tiny birthday celebration on September 23rd, went out to dinner with the boyfriend, one of my friends and her boyfriend and it was wonderful and relaxing and just all around what I needed that evening to be. The company of people who know me well and yummy food, I loved it!

-Later that week I went out to dinner with the boyfriend, my brother and his girlfriend for my brother's birthday. We went to a sushi restaurant and man, do I love sushi! It was fun to spend time together just the four of us :)

-I worked my first weekend shift (which is SO MUCH better than the ones I had last year! This one only lasted from 8AM to 2PM, I was so surprised!), which was pretty quiet, but did have me stitching up a huge gash in someone's chin at 8.30AM. It was pretty cool :)

-Some of the other residents and I went out for a high beer. This basically means that we got 4 special kinds of beers and some snacks and just had a blast! It was nice to sit down together and get to know each other outside of the university! However, I'm not drinking beer again anytime soon...

-I went to see Beth Hart in Tilburg and it was AWESOME! I didn't know many of her songs before going to see her play, but she's incredible live! And I love her LA Song! She's also really funny :)

-We had our first and second book club meeting! In October we read More Than This and I still don't know what to say about that book, so my review is still non-existant. For November we read The Bone Season and JUST GO READ IT EVERYONE! The beginning is slow and there's a lot of info-dump, but after that it's simply amazing and THE ROMANCE! ALL THE SWOONS! There'll probably be a review for that sometime in the next couple of weeks.
I love meeting up with these girls and discussing the book (for about 10 minutes) and everything else! It's just nice to see everyone in person and really get to know the person behind the blog and Twitter handle.

-The boyfriend and I are looking at new places to live, a real house instead of an apartment and it's both exciting and terrifying! And kinda frustrating that the only houses for rent in Nijmegen are old and ugly... So we're looking at other options as well, though it'd be perfect if a pretty house somewhere around here became available for a reasonable price..

-I had a conference in Maastricht, which was all about emergency-care and was really interesting! After the conference, we had a dinner and party at a castle near the Belgian border and when we got there I just couldn't believe that all that was for us! I mean, a lot of the people there were residents like me and I've never been to anything this fancy before! Also, I don't think I've ever had wine that was that expensive before, it tasted so good! We went with almost our whole resident-group and it was so much fun!

-I went to see Catching Fire with the boyfriend and two of our friends and it was OMG SO GOOD! ALL THE FEELINGS! For more of my thoughts on this incredible move, go here.

I guess that were some of the highlights. In between these I've been working and studying and running around trying to keep everything running smoothly and at times remember to sit on the couch for a bit and just enjoy a quiet evening with the boyfriend.

Today is filled with sitting on the couch with my dad's dogs, reading, blogging and going for a long walk later on. I love quiet Sundays like this!

So how are you all doing? For those of you in the US: did you have a nice holiday weekend? Spend Thanksgiving with your family? And for my fellow Dutch bloggers: have you finished shoppping and writing your verses for Sinterklaas?

Daisy Update (50)

Hi!!

So it's been over a month since I last did one of these... I'm slowly getting back to writing blog posts, most of the reviews that have gone up were ones that I'd already written before. If you haven't seen it before, I talked about why I've been a bit quiet lately in this post, my parents are getting divorced and every time I opened up Blogger, my mind would just draw a blank on what to say. But I do want to thank all of you for being wonderful and understanding and for really just being there!

I'm still trying to figure out how we'll go from here as a family, but I am really ok with the divorce itself. I want my parents to be happy and if they can't be happy together, then this is ok too. There will be a lot of changes, but not all of them are bad, and we'll see what happens.

I'm not entirely sure how to put about a month and a half worth of happenings into one blogpost, but to sum it up, here's what happened since my last update:

-I went to Mallorca with the boyfriend, which was amazing and relaxing and we had such a good time! The island is beautiful! We didn't have WiFi at the hotel, so we were blisfully disconnected from the world for a whole week and it was wonderful!

-Then two days after we got back it was time to go to Amsterdam, where I met Kat and Vicky and was infinitely sad that Karin was sick and couldn't make it after all :( So Kat, Vicky and I explored Amsterdam by ourselves and of course went book shopping and had the most dreadful waiters ever at the restaurant we went to. Which was both horrifying and hilarious.
On Saturday we had a Book Blogger Picnic and I got to meet Debby, Judith, Celine and Lauren, who are all awesome Dutch book bloggers! We had so much fun and of course we went book shopping again :)

Picture courtesy of Vicky
From left to right: Lauren, Judith, Debby, Kat, Me, Celine

-Right after I left Kat and Vicky on Sunday, I headed over to our annual family barbecue, where I had a lot of fun going along with whatever game my 4-year-old nephew had thought up (he has the biggest imagination ever, it's awesome) and later that night hearing that my parents were getting divorced and basically just being a mess the rest of the week.

-On September 2nd I started my residency, YAY! I'm getting used to working full-time again and also having to study and do assignments and just feeling useful again! And I'm loving it! I'm learning so much and the people I work with are great! Once a week the other residents and I have a day at the university where we get some extra classes and watch recording of consults and I love the group I'm in! I'm also loving the advantages of working close to where you live, cause now I get to leave and come home at a reasonable time!

-I met up with Debby, Judith, Mel, Daphne and Iris at the Boekenfestijn in Utrecht, which is basically book sale heaven! We all came home with a nice pile of books and have decided to start a book club! We start next month, the first book we'll be reading is More Than This by Patrick Ness and I'm so excited!! The book doesn't sound particularly exciting, but I love hanging out with these ladies :) It's nice to finally meet some of the people I've been talking to on Twitter :)

-I had the parents' puppies stay with me for 2 weeks because my dad was in the US for his job and I'm really missing them! It was so nice to cuddle with them and just look at how cute they are:

So that about sums up all the major things that happened in my life over the last 6 weeks.

How are you guys? Having a nice relaxing Sunday?
I'm pretty much lazing around the house this weekend and enjoying the last day of being 25... Tomorrow's my birthday and I feel so old already! I'm going out to dinner with the boyfriend, one of my best friends and her boyfriend, so that's nice :)

Very Personal Post about why I've been a bit quiet lately

So this is kinda hard for me to write. Let me start off by saying that I completely identified with one post that Jamie @ The Perpetual Page-Turner wrote about two weeks ago, you can read it here. About blogging when you aren't feel like yourself or when you're not in a happy place. And I do this thing where when something happens in my life, I retreat and regroup. I avoid social media and other social activities and just hole up until I feel a bit like myself again.

Which is exactly what I did 2,5 weeks ago when my parents told me they were getting a divorce. The first week I spent on the phone who both my parents and my brother and crying and having intense conversations with my family that left me emotionally exhausted. It hasn't been an easy time. I am essentially ok with it and I understand that in the end it will be good for both of them, but it still makes me sad and it's a bit of an adjustment.

But I'm incredibly lucky that I have a supportive, loving boyfriend and amazing friends who are there for me and who provide a shoulder to cry on and distraction, whichever I need at the moment. So I'm doing ok, though I foresee some tough moments. We're all slowly getting used to the idea and while I don't live with my parents, it's a weird idea that in a little while they won't live in the same house anymore or be together.

And I am very thankful that they are both healthy!

So while this blog is mostly my happy place in which I can blisfully discuss books with you guys, I couldn't not talk about this here. Know that I love all you guys and am trying to get back to writing posts and commenting more!

Amsterdam Book Blogger Meet!!

HIIII!!!

I'm really excited to announce that on Saturday August 24th we'll be having a Book Blogger Picnic! I'm meeting up with four fabulous ladies for the weekend and we got inspired by the BEA Blogger Picnic and decided to host our own, only in Amsterdam!

Basically, we'll be meeting at the Vondelpark in Amsterdam at 't Blauwe Theehuis at noon:

And we'd love it if you came too!! We'll basically be eating, talking, laughing and all of that good stuff and the more, the merrier! Wouldn't it be fun to take over Amsterdam and conquer one of the bookstores together? :)

If you're worried about not being able to find us, either @ me on Twitter (@DBetweenpages) or DM me and I'll give you my phone number just in case. I'm actually from Holland, so I'll have both internet and network access :)
Oh, and you can see my face in motion in this post. I am actually this awkward in person, so it's accurate ;)


I'm so, SO excited for the whole weekend! I'm finally gonna be meeting these lovely ladies that I only 'know' throught Twitter and it's mindboggling and just YAYYYYY! :D

Here are my partners in crime:

Celine from Nyx Book Reviews

Karin from My Life...

Kat from The Aussie Zombie

Vicky from Books, Biscuits and Tea

I'm Off To Mallorca!

Hi guys!

This is a mini-update so that I can tell you guys that I'm going to Mallorca for a week! The boyfriend and I are flying there tomorrow and we'll be back the Wednesday after.

So in the next week there'll be lots of quality time with the boyfriend, sunshine, beach, swimming, eating yummy Spanish food, drinking alcoholic beverages, exploring the island and generally relaxing. Oh, and of course I'm bringing books ;)

We'll have no internet connection, which means I will really not be around for a full week. It's probably been years since I went without internect access for this long, so we'll see how frantic I am when we get back. But this means that there will be posts going up on the blog, but I won't be able to comment on anything myself or answer emails or whatever, BUT I'll catch up when we get back!

I wish you all a wonderful week and I'll think of you while I'm soaking up the sun and having a cocktail :)

See you all next week!