Cool things about the new pad

It’s a brand-spankin’ new, completely clean, no bad juju from previous owners place, BUT built in the style of the old Amsterdam canal houses.

The house is part of a row of houses (think condo style) - very common here. Free-standing houses are super expensive as space is such a commodity in the Netherlands. Upside – less grass to mow.

However, we have a backyard! I can actually grow things. (And right now, my little dirt patch is growing a jungle of weeds.) They call it a “tuin” which translates to garden, which is about the size of it. Woohoo, we can finally have a dog! Albeit a small dog. Ok, maybe the fence should come first. Since there are a gazillion children running around.

There is a canal in front of our house. We can (someday) have our boat moored just across the street from our door. In the future our canal will be connected to the Ijsselmeer (the biggest lake in Holland).

I have a dishwasher. Wait, that didn’t quite capture how I feel about this. I HAVE A DISHWASHER!! An actual machine that doesn’t require me to do anything except push a button. Call me a lazy American. I don’t care. I’m ecstatic.

There is a family of swans that live in the canals in our neighborhoods. I’ve kept track of the ugly ducklings growing into really awkward teenagers. It’s strange. They are almost the size of their parents, but still have the grey fluff that looks like lint in the dryer.

The frogs in the canal sing at night (cool) and downside depending on which room you sleep in, the frogs sing at night.

We have an awesome kitchen with THREE ovens; a normal, large American style oven with range on top, a built-in combination microwave oven and a built-in steam oven. And we now have an American style two-door fridge with built-in ice maker (even makes crushed ice). See, if you can’t live there, bring a little America to you.

Did I mention I have a dishwasher?

I have a guest bathroom downstairs that you can actually sit, stand, turn around in and you don’t feel like you’re in a broom closet.

The rooms have colors! Colors! Ban the white walls!

Downstairs (open kitchen and living area) = light sand
Halls and stairwell = warm white
Our bedroom = warm white
Guest room = sage
Office = sky blue
Wellness room* = yellow
Bathrooms = black & white

Outside one bedroom window is a streetlamp. This draws a lot of flying things at night which has drawn 2 big, fat spiders (I named them Fred and Ethel) to take up residence outside my window. Luckily (for them) it’s a small window that doesn’t open, so I let them be. In fact (those who know me, know I suffer from serious arachnophobia – thanks to my mother and Steven**), I’m morbidly drawn to watching them weave their webs every night. It’s quite fascinating. And it’s ok – as long as there is a big, thick pane of immovable glass between me and them. It’s kind of like watching TV.

AND, drumroll please…after 4 years…I have a BATHTUB!

Ode to my Bathtub:

Large and white
Clean and bright
Every evening you greet me

Toes to Hair
Even two fit there
Soaking in you is a luxury!

Fact about me – there are two things I love in life (actually more, but these two are high on the list) and those are sleeping and bathtubs (which extends to bathing and my love of bath/shower products). When I was a teenager, I didn’t wake up very easily in the morning. Now I can wake up, but I am still a very grumpy morning person as P can attest to. My father would shout up the stairs “are you awake” and I would yell back “yes, I’m in the shower.” I had my own bathroom, so I would take my pillow and curl up in the bathtub and fall back asleep for those lovely morning time zzzz’s. I had a lock on the bathroom door and of course my father wouldn’t dare intrude. But, one fateful morning, I was sleeping so hard I didn’t hear several calls and I had forgotten to lock the bathroom door. My father came barging in thinking I had drowned. And I was found out. I don’t remember ever seeing him so mad. Needless to say, my little trick never worked again.

*There are several proposals out on this room. Right now, we are considering putting in gym equipment and having a meditation / yoga area.

**When I was 4 years old my mother let me watch this old black & white movie called The Incredible Shrinking Man. She and my father argued over this. But my mother said, “oh she’s too young, she won’t understand”. (Parents take note – my early memories of this movie and The Blob still haunt me to this day more than any scary/thriller/slasher movie I’ve seen since.)

In one of the final scenes of The Incredibly Shrinking Man, he is so small that he gets attacked by a common house spider, but of course to me it looks like the size of a house. So began my terror. Then, as an innocent (hah) teenager (wanting to fit in with the crowd) my friend Steven (or so I thought) decides to take me to see Arachnophobia. At the time, I didn’t even know there was a word that meant “terror of spiders.” Now the images are painfully seared into my brain for life. My skin still crawls.