Cupcake crazy

Ever since the big celiac diagnosis, I've been really enjoying experimenting with gluten free baking. For Jason's birthday a little while ago, I went a bit nuts and tried to make chocolate, gluten-free, dairy-free cupcakes. The gluten-free part worked, but the dairy...whooboy. It's just not that great without the butter. For my birthday, I thought I'd give it another try, but this time make vanilla flavoured ones, with all the dairy added. And I do mean 'all' the dairy. This recipe was heavy on the butter-y goodness. Surprise! It worked. Well. I ended up with an absolutely delicious, light, sweet but not too sweet cupcake that was melt in your mouth good. Bonus, I've really been enjoying the process of learning to decorate. For a second try, I'm thinking that this isn't too bad :)

Love it/Hate it

I love the fact that I live in a country where every grocery store has, right along side the full-size grown-up carts, little carts for little people. Do other countries have these? I don't know, but I have trouble picturing my little busy body wandering around in one of the massive box grocery stores that I remember from home. It kills me to watch her put the coin into her little cart and then push it around the store, sometimes getting distracted and wandering off, but most of the time, dutifully and enthusiastically, helping find the bananas, or the tomatoes. She loves the feeling of independence it gives her and it makes life a lot easier than having her squirm in the cart for the entire trip.

What I hate is that the stores have figured out that little shoppers, along with helping put things into the cart, actually like to have a say in what ultimately goes into the cart. Certainly, I've known that what you're expected to buy is at eye level, but it had never occurred to me that this would apply to adults as well as toddlers. Since my eyes have rarely wandered down to those bottom rows unless I'm really searching for something special, I've finding that up until now, I've been oblivious to a whole range of products. I'm looking at you, Bob the Builder Luncheon Meat! And don't think I haven't got a bone to pick with you, too, Disney Princesses Cupcake Mix. Since I don't actually cave to the many, many, many items that somehow find their way into our cart each week, I suppose I should be grateful for the many, many, many 'teaching opportunities' that are presented to me, but mostly, I'm just annoyed.

A different perspective

Life abroad is a strange confluence of states of being. It is at once exotic, confusing, challenging, and mundane. The longer one is away, the more the balance tilts towards the mundane. This is at once good and bad. Trepidation is replaced by confidence, you've navigated most of the red tape and come out the other side stronger for it, the customs and culture are more familiar and so you're less likely to offend, or be offended, you know where to buy your favorite toothpaste, you've made a few friends. Life becomes easier. It's unfortunate, though, that the trade off is that daily life looses a bit of sparkle. Slowly, slowly, bit by bit, so subtly that you barely notice it, the newness of it all wears off and just becomes...life. The houses on your street are no longer quaint, they're just the place where you live (and why can't the city do something about that missing cobblestone, already?), a trip to the grocery store is no longer an adventure, instead it's simply a quick errand to pick up some milk. You try very hard to remember to appreciate what you have, but sometimes, when you're running late, you're trying to herd a cranky toddler, and you realize that you have cereal in your hair and the girl at the check-out is seemingly deliberately misunderstanding you, it's tough to do.

You never fully forget, though. Every once in a while, when you least expect it, the fates hand you a gift and say 'Here! Take a look at this!' and you remember that yes, you have a gift in this incredible foreign life. Such was it yesterday.

The Dutch have a word for their obsession for skating - schaatskoorts, or skating fever. Every year, as the temperature drops, the word is on everyone's lips as they collectively wait anxiously for the ice to thicken. This year was no exception, and was perhaps even more so as it had been unseasonably warm all year and hope was almost lost. When the thermometer finally fell, fast and hard, the conditions were perfect for ice formation.

Saturday afternoon, we were able to get out and enjoy it. Although the entire city seemed to have sold out of skates, we were still able to get down onto the canals and walk around the city, admiring the beautiful bridges, the old buildings and the houseboats. Along with the rest of the city, we slowly made our way around the star-shaped canals that ring Zwolle's centre, enjoying the festive atmosphere as we stopped to chat with neighbours and for a warm Chocomel from one of the impromptu cafes that had popped up on the ice. It was magical. As we walked, I had a feeling that I haven't experienced in quite a while, a feeling that seems to have swelled from my heart, a feeling that said 'Wow!!!! I can't believe how lucky I am to live here!'

Bad mommy?

My toddler is sick. For two days now, she's been vomiting and having diarrhea. Not a whole lot, mind you, but make no mistake, the girl is sick. And yet, a very teeny, very tiny part of me is loving it. Not the vomit part. Not the diarrhea part either. Certainly not the part where I have to watch my formerly vivacious, outgoing, funny, energetic child turn into a tired zombie. But, the part where all she really wants to do is sit on my lap and cuddle? I'm all in!

Put a bird on it, or, belated merry Christmas to me

The Dutch start the holiday season early*. As it's not really the point of this post, I won't go into detail (but if you'd like to know more, you can follow up at Wikipedia), but suffice to say, it all begins in late November. The overeating, the festive spirit, small children constantly bordering on expectant hysteria....and....the gift giving. We celebrate with the Man's family, and this year we went traditional. We set a maximum price and then everyone drew names, made a list and went away for a year.

I drew the Man's aunt, who has excellent and exacting taste, which made me both a little bit nervous and, oddly, also set me at ease. I could figure out, more or less, what she would like; I just wasn't sure that I would be able to find it for the price range we had set ourselves. Before leaving the house, I narrowed down her list to the two things that I thought that I could probably manage to find; namely a nicely decorated wooden kitchen paper towel holder, and a wind chime. I'll admit - the wind chime I got. The paper towel holder, though, notsomuch. Still, I looked, and I looked, and I looked and everywhere I found expensive wind chimes. And I found plain wooden holders. And nice metal holders. But no attractive, wooden, paper towel holders. Lord knows, I looked and looked.

In all of this searching, though, I also found buried at the back of a quirky little store, the paper towel holder of my dreams. When I first spied it, I thought it was lovely, but not quite what the Aunt would have wanted. It wasn't wood, it wasn't painted. Still, I'd keep going back to look at it. And then, finally, I found a nice wind chime. Thank goodness. Sinterklaas was saved! I stopped thinking about paper towel holders and moved on to Christmas gifts for the Man and the Toddler. Apparently, it stuck in my head though, because when I opened my gifts on Christmas morning, I was secretly a little bit sad that it wasn't one of my presents; this despite the fact that I hadn't really even hinted at it.

Today, when I was riding past the store, I noticed that they were having a post-Christmas sale and, as if some other force was controlling me, I found myself walking in and buying it.

We've been watching the Portlandia series (which I highly recommend) and the moment the Man saw it in the kitchen, the very first thing out of his mouth was "Put a bird on it".

Thing #1 that I love about living in the Netherlands

The husband has a thing against flowers. Not the flowers themselves, I should note, but the ultimate waste that they embody. Nevermind that they brighten up a room, your day, your soul... The fact that they take up a large area of arable land, a lot of water and die so quickly means that they are environmentally flora non grata in our household.

There's a loophole, though. It's absolutely the height of poor manners to go visiting in the Netherlands without a gift. This usually takes the form of wine, or cheese, or, if I'm lucky, flowers. Yesterday, I was lucky enough have a visitor who brought a bit of environmentally wasteful joy into my house and I thought I would share a picture...



(Apologies for the poor quality, it was taken with my Mac photo library since the husband was away and had the camera.) (Also, apologies for the abacus. Toys are unavoidable in my house.)

'Tis the season

I don't believe that it's Officially Christmas until I hear Do They Know it's Christmas by Band-Aid (it has to be the 80's version, thankyouverymuch). The catch, though, is that it has to be played independently. I can't play it for myself. Rather, I have to hear it on the radio, in a store, in someone's car... There are years when it comes down to the wire (the tinsel?) and I really think that there will be no Official Christmas, but the song has always come through at the last moment.

This year, though, I cheated. I was too excited to share it with the Dude. I've been playing all sorts of Christmas carols for her, by everyone from Nana Mouskouri to Boney M to random children's choirs in order to indoctrinate her. Sinterklaas just has such a following here; no one is really representing Santa and I've been working overtime to make sure that she gets in the spirit, or as much as a two year old can. She's been enjoying the carols to some degree, but nothing so far has really grabbed her the way that Sinterklaas songs had. Until. Until! Until....I played IT! We listened to it over and over and over this morning, and we were both in heaven. It makes me wonder if it is possible to pass an 80's gene on to your child?