It is 4:20AM, Dutch time. I have been up for the past hour and am now on my second cup of coffee. Oh, how I missed my Nespresso machine! Small, potent coffees that really hit the spot.

I woke up just before 3, I believe. I tried meditating, I tried cuddling with George and I tried listening to GG breathe to fall back asleep but it wasn’t happening. The brains started going, I started planning email responses so I got the hell up.

I slept on the flight back, partially by not buying WiFi access and partially by putting on the eyemask and turning the Delta radio on to some kind of meditative Indian music. While I woke up several times, I did sleep at least a third of the flight. Long enough to be really tired when we landed. The winds at Schiphol were high when we were due to land so we had to circle a while and it took a long time to get the luggage.

Unfortunately, one of the bottles of dog shampoo was opened and now my big suitcase smells like lavender & mint. It would appear that when the bags were being checked in the US because tortillas are suspicious, someone didn’t close the top of the bottle again. That would be a good idea, if suitcase liners were washable and you could just zip them out.

Today is the first day I will be at the data science school. There have been a flurry of emails, phone calls, Slack chats and so forth over the past week. I feel like this is where I am missing the boat. I don’t get wound up tightly over every single detail. At least, not in this case. I am much more “we know what we need to accomplish, let’s see how it develops.” I have noticed that I am the only one thinking this way in this project team 😉

Tomorrow is National Open House Day. GG is disappointed by the selection available. We are going to see this one in Purmerend, which is to the north of Amsterdam. It’s number one benefit is that Little C also lives in Purmerend. It was built in 1635. The house is  gorgeous. We drove by it after we picked up Lientje’s ashes. It’s quite ironic that it is directly across the street almost from one of the first historical buildings that we looked at when this search started. That one was a former soap making factory, similar age.

Yesterday, when I was hanging out at baggage claim, GG sent me another one, this one in Schiedam – where we would very much like to live. We are going to look at that one Wednesday morning. It’s almost too good to be true so I am not going to get very enthusiastic about it until I see it. You can see it here We have seen this house before since we often go to the cafe in that is pictured to have a stiff drink after looking at houses in the area. GG is super excited 😉

Funda is a daily check point as much as I try not to let it be. Speaking of that, the daily email just came in from them letting me know which houses have had a status change 😉

Okay, back to work. Wishing you a good weekend!