Today is officially the first day of our week long vacation, you know, the one that I decided would be best to spend at home, rather than abroad.

We decided to take the kids to McDonald’s for lunch. Big treat in this household. Well, it must have been a special day at the one we went to to, something like ‘let’s- train- the- hopeless’ day, for when The Father and The Girl joined the line, there were five people in front of them. 20 minutes later, there were three people in front of them. We decided to blow that joint and look for a Burger King.

We found one about 15 minutes away, on a major highway. The sound of all the cars reminded The Boy of driving to Italy and all three were charmed by the grecian themed murals painted on the underpass leading to lunch.

We had wandered a bit away from home, we were -in fact – above the river and since The Baby was holding her cookies, we drove through the polder for a while. It had been a long time ( re: holding the cookies issue) since we had taken an ambling drive through the countryside, and we all enjoyed seeing the young animals and thatched- roof farms.

One of the things that I hope to get done during this vacation is to recover at least one of the couches in the playroom – what can I say ? This is not A Think- Tank In Brabant is it ? I’m thinking that they will come out looking rather well, have even taken ‘before’ pictures. Which, if my efforts result in a piece of crap, you shall, never, ever see. I started on that today.

Tomorrow, The Father and I have to be in Brussels by 8.30 am, to help pick up Poffertje and her luggage. As we shall have to go through Antwerp during the morning rush- hour, I wonder if there is any point in going to sleep tonight ?

But The Father has promised to buy me a gallon cup of coffee at the border, so I’m convinced that this is do-able.

The children will spend the day at the Efteling with the Grandparents.

So far, this is working.

It’s that time of year again, the traditional white asparagus season. The Father’s parent’s always have us over during the season and The Father and I always make a run down to Belgium for the special white asparagus menu put together by a small place that we are very fond of.

After a night filled with nightmares of being unable to find any asparagus for the evening meal- Opa woke up this morning relieved- relieved that he had indeed woken up and could embark upon his mission of bringing home the white asparagus for tonight’s meal. There is a farmer in Udenhout, the next village over, which produces the best asparagus ever, and Opa was there early this morning to pick up 3 kilos of freshly harvested produce.

Oma served it in the manner traditional for this area : with sliced ham and hard boiled eggs, a melted butter sauce on the side. As I don’t care for the ’sandwich’ sortof ham and as I detest – as well as being allergic to- eggs, she also included some smoked salmon for the meal.

It was a lovely evening, although I found myself hearing the dialect that they use more clearly than before- a sure sign that we don’t see them often enough.

‘Fist’ instead of ‘feest’, if you know what I mean…

Interesting duet.

Once upon a time, a long time ago – in fact, about 7 computer crashes ago- Mel mentioned how much she just loved fresh salsa. Wow, I’m game, fresh salsa, let’s try it. I did a quick Google search, and- yowza- nice recipe.

I’ve never been able to find that recipe again.

Now, I live in Europe, don’t frequent Mexican places, so I haven’t a clue as to what a salsa should taste like. I just know that I liked that recipe, it worked with Doritios fine.

I’ve tried to find that recipe again, twice. I’ve gone through 34 pages of an intense Google search twice. It is lost and gone forever, dreadful sorrow, Clementine.

But after going through 34 pages of Google today, I did refresh my memory enough to actually make the salsa. And I do like like it fine. Our guests liked it fine. In fact, they asked me for the recipe.

Uh, I shall have to figure it out, make it more precise.

Ingredients :

A yellow bell pepper
One red onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
the juice from one lime
1 tsp of sea salt
one sachet of coriander from Ah ( yo, lets figure out the weight here- a handful ?)
a bakje of roma tomatoes from Ah ( 7 or 9- must pay more attention to Baby..)

Um, I think that is it. Mince the pepper, mince the onion , mince the garlic, scrape out the seeds and mince the tomatoes. Chop the coriander fine- stems and all- and that is it.

Now to take a note pad to the AH next time, to see how much coriander was in that packet, how much those tomatoes weighed.

And we all liked the salmon cakes fine. Although it was far too much for us- a fourth less would do. And perhaps a crispier coating- more contrast- but then, I fried it too slowly.

Nice dinner.

Today we are having the Mr.McMuffin Salmon Cakes which I read about at Jo’s. When I read the list of ingredients, it struck me as being something that everyone here would like. In fact, one nice thing about the recipe is that you can do it in steps, for instance, I just browned them ( note : next time,fry faster) in the frying pan, put them in a baking dish and back into the fridge.

But as I browned them, The Boy and The Girl wandered in and out of the kitchen, asking what that wonderful smell was. Surprised me. Usually Girl’s comments about dinner consist of her pulling a face after I tell her what is on the day’s menu, as though I had just announced that we were having sauteed worms served with a light, snot sauce for dinner.

I also decided to make a batch of salsa – the neighbors are coming over tonight for coffee ( a polite cup) and beer ( I ‘ve put a case of Grolsch in fridge), and it struck me as the thing to have on the table.

I have spent my day in a kitchen in…

As The Father and I and The Boy were making the rounds of the various grocery stores we go to weekly to keep hearth and home belching and content, The Father told me how his meeting went today ( remember : important meeting on Thursday). It went very well. One of the things The Father had to do was to supply the materials this woman would need for a presentation, which he did. As they were chit- chatting back and forth, he told her of an idea that came to him recently : he was thinking of filming the whole production process, sticking it on a CD ( or DVD), throwing in some music and titles and having it available for clients to view and use. She thought that it was a great idea.

As he was telling me about the chat , he turned to me and asked me if I could do it. Well, I said, I can put the film on a disc, if the film is on something that will fit into the movie camera. Music ? I dunno. But it sounds like a very neat thing to try to do.

I love it when he takes my latest hair- brained hobby and makes something useful out of it.

This afternoon, someone toodled all of the way over here, from the office, to pick up my camera. It was then that I realized that I don’t view my camera as our camera.

When The Father came home from work, he passed my camera over to me and asked me to send the pictures to the office. Tonight. That’s one of things that I actually get paid for : resizing photos.

Have a clever chimp in your house ?

This one was obviously taken by The Father, warming the camera up, so to say. I think V. bears a marked resemblance to the late Kaiser. But that could just be the mustache wax . Dontcha love those curls ?

This is the last of the series that I had to do. Exciting, no ? I hear that it has to do with some law suit. Oh well.

It’s slowing dawning on me that maybe- just maybe- I can’t do it all. I thought that once The Baby went to school, I would have all of this time and be able to do- finally- all of the things which are on my never ending list of things to do.

But it’s not working.

I can’t believe that it is already Wednesday.

I’ve set priorities upon my list of things to do : the children come first, then the animals, then my work, then housework and then ‘house projects’. I’m not making it as far as housework. Oh, I do the daily stuff, dishes, laundry, shopping, cooking, but I’m not finding the time to do the ‘big stuff’. I can’t keep up with the housework that needs to be done.

The last few weeks have shown me that I can take fine ( enough) care of the kids ( I’m sure that they will deny this in the future), tend to the pets, put in my 15 hours of work… but where is the time to wax the floors, wash the windows, all of those fun things ? Not to mention refinishing the stairs, that thing that Mr. Jo built in the bathroom ?

I can’t seem to find it. The Father has always insisted that we should get help in the house and I’ve always resisted, because I don’t really like having a stranger in the house.

But I don’t think I can do it all. At all.

I have this theory- have for a long time- which really prevents me from too much of being the perpetual martyr : given my rather key position within our little Waltonesque family, it is rather high on the must haves that I be in…well…cheerful spirits. ( This, by the way, is how I justify all of the high quality me time that I manage to find each and every single day. If I’m jolly, the family is jolly. If not- no chance in hell.)

What jollies me up is figuring out how to do something entirely beyond my capabilities.

Long story made sort ? After spending all of my private, quality time for the last three days trying to figure out why Nero Vision Express kept crashing when I was trying to convert an NTSC Avi into a PAL DVD ( give me a break- I don’t want to watch a movie on my computer-) , I solved it today : uh oh- didn’t have the right codecs.

Hallmark moment for Mummy Dearest, while it was a long and tedious battle, I did win.

Victory is mine.

Apparently, some truths are indeed self- evident . When A’s father stopped me in the school hallway, bustling with children leaving for the lunch break today, and asked me when we were going to have the bike repairman fix A’s bike, I gave my most pleasant , bewildered- foreigner look. I reacted so vaguely, so non- commitally that we passed it on over as being a man’s job : he and The Father would deal with it.

After all, what do I know- could be the way of the world here in the Netherlands. Personally, I found it to be the most anal thing that I had heard in…years.

Of course, at the dinner table, we went through our usual how- was- your- day routine. The Father has a very interesting meeting on Thursday, with the company- in fact- who sponsors the team- that- shall- not- be- named. Everybody just loves- loves- loves the new line that we are carrying . The chit chat moved around the table until it inevitably reached The Girl, and we related the details of the brief encounter with A’s father, and how The Father and he were now going to arrange this- man to man. The Father may actually- or merely spiritually- have rolled his blue tycoon of business eyes about a bit , and commented that this was the most anal thing that he ever heard. He may have groused just the tiniest bit about having to do it. I told him that at the time, I hadn’t a clue what I should do, but- no problem- I’ll tell the guy tomorrow to take the bike to the shop and send me the bill. There. I shall arrange it.

But no, he shall handle it. Good. The Father is very , very good at handling things.

In fact, that is what he does for a living.

He he he.