I had plans to go to Calle Ocho tonight, to have my mom near me in an environment that promises a Latin America focused kitchen and margaritas to match. It was my way to be closer to her. And I planned to do this on my own. And last night, came the kindest message my way, asking me how I wanted to celebrate my mom today. It was from Marianne. Now I will have company with which to toast my mom and someone who knew my mom. Some times that is the hardest thing, that out of all of the new people I have met, none of them ever had the chance to meet the force of nature that she was.

I’ll leave you with the request that if you haven’t already today, hug someone dear to you, HARD. And tell them that you love them.

P.S. – among the tears, the stories and the wisdom that comes from shared grief, the tequila was excellent and the food was very, very good. So, I have found another side of Mom in Amsterdam after all. It is the sort of place where she could have very easily danced to the music around the restaurant (tiny though it is) and people might very well have joined her.

the winter jacket. By that I mean my Columbia parka that I bought for the Yukon adventure that Mom and I went on. This morning, I had to take Astrid to the garage so she could pass her yearly inspection known as the APK. I could hear the rain coming down from my bedroom and it is also dark until 845AM right now. Oh yes, and it is cold. Still above freezing, which will change this weekend, but the real feel temperature is below freezing.

All told, powerful motivation for getting out the parka. Yet I feel like if I do that, I am really giving into the idea of winter 😉 I did dig out the boys winter coats, the ones with the fleece lining and the water proof exterior. Henry just looks at me like “Why bother with a jacket for me? I will just stay inside, thanks.” Who can blame them really? Especially since I feel the same way. I think this means that the new house finally is beginning to feel like home, since I don’t really want to leave it.

Turns out Astrid needs four new tires. Ugh. I can’t complain really since I can’t remember the last time she got new tires. I think it must have been sometime in 2011 or so. I guess she is overdue 🙂 And we have driven quite a bit since then. I think I am going to pick her up tomorrow, hoping that the weather might be better. She’s in good hands with the guys at 900 Classic in Haarlem. I think they find my literal translations of needs quite funny. I mean, I already struggle with Dutch. Automotive Dutch is a whole other language! Next week I have presentations in Groningen and Venlo. This means I will be going to the top of the Netherlands to the far east of it, border to border basically. Probably a good time for new tires…

I’ve been invited to a 50th birthday party on Saturday. However, since that is the day that marks 3 years without Mom, I am definitely not going to go. I won’t be able to channel enough Sparkle and Light energy to pull off a party with alot of strangers. Turning 50 is a major milestone here. I feel slightly guilty about not going but I know that I will not feel like having the conversations over and over again about “How did you come to the Netherlands?” While it is tempting to come up with a supremely outlandish story like I was hired to manage a troupe of rebellious circus acrobats and sword swallowers, I think it is probably wiser not to.

Okay, two more conference calls to go today.Benefit is that I don’t have to go back out in the chill 🙂

I haven’t fallen off the top of the Afsluitdijk and into the cold North Sea 🙂 It has been incredibly busy. I am deliberately taking a pause and listening to Leonard Cohen and writing to you. After so many days of not writing, I begin to miss it. Of course, I have had the habit of writing for a very long time. I remember (and still have) my Strawberry Shortcake diary from 3rd grade. My 8 year old self had just seen the movie “Grease”and had a tremendous crush on John Travolta. I felt the need to document this in my diary. My mom gave me the diary because as kids we moved alot and I didn’t have a lot of friends. She told me I could always write, regardless of where we lived. I am really glad she gave me that advice.

Yes, I still write in a diary – which is currently hiding somewhere in a moving box. After all, not everything can go on a blog 😉 Well, at least not my blog! I have made good progress over the past week, despite all the madness. I chopped my organizational efforts into one hour per day. There is definite progress to be seen and more importantly, I haven’t just said “To hell with it, I can live with boxes”.

Over the weekend, an old coworker of mine stopped in Amsterdam with his wife and stepson. I met them Friday night for dinner and then on Saturday afternoon, I took them on my version of a walking tour. We also took a canal cruise just before dark so we got to see all of the Amsterdam Light Festival – without paying the Light Festival premium. Now that is definitely Dutch blood coming to the forefront! After another really good dinner, they were off to Spain and I went home to get ready for the week ahead.

My new manager started Monday and we had our first meeting at 9am. I like her. I think she is motivational instead of fear-based, which will be an interesting change. She is also jumping right into the shitstorm that I am in and publicly declared that we were all committed to solving the problem. I have never had that kind of outright support at work before. Yesterday was the big review with the region and it went better than expected. I had practiced my presentation until the dogs could recite it. And I put lavender oil under my nose 15 minutes before I went in to the meeting. I had a coworker IM me when to stop talking – which was helpful. I think I am not direct enough yet for the Dutch. After it was over, I started getting wonky chest pains and my eyes were wobbly. Turns out it was letting go off all of the stress regarding this process and meeting that I have been under for the past month.

Now that the review is behind me, I can move forward with the fix-it plan. It is a relief to get to this point. I may not know 100% yet how I am going to make it all happen. I do know I have the aspiration to do so, which is important. I’ve realized living here how optimistic Americans are as part of their cultural identity. It doesn’t always go over well with other people. I don’t mean optimistic like Perky Patty from the Pep Squad but rather the belief that “Yes, we can do it, why not?” . Look at the current scope of would be presidential nominees 😉 I think it is more nuanced than only optimism. Whatever the components, I have recently become aware of it and I am pretty glad to have it in my sense of self.

There is a lot of push for me to find a coach and work on a few things. It seems to be part of Dutch culture that your coworkers feel free to suggest a list of things that you should work on. Not alot of boundaries between your work qualities and your personal qualities. This has taken some getting used to. The habit here is that if you need help, you go and ask for it. You can imagine how foreign that is to me 😉 You can also imagine that I would probably like to do anything but ask for help for me. I also have to let go that a coach is a signal that HR and the Legal Department are doing  a last ditch effort to CYA. The biggest problem I have with this idea is the requirement to be vulnerable. Kind of like how I struggled to depress the valve on my SCUBA gear that would let me sink to the bottom 🙂

I guess, like so many other things, it is a journey. Oh, wow, I never realized how irritating that phrase actually is! Striking it from my vocabularly now.

As you know, I have not exactly been the Princess of Sparkle and Light lately, with all of the things that I have been trying to make sense of and work through. In fact, you could say that I have been making definite progress to Queen of Darkness – which is only partly influenced by the short daylight and more of my innate character 😉

Yet last night, I had a date. Yes, a real one. Not a meetup, not a group activity, not a concert, not volunteer work but a date. As in I asked someone out and she said “Yes”. I had a great time. It was five hours of conversation – which by the way is way over the “Guidelines for a Successful First Date”. Anyway, I asked her if she would like to do it again and she said “Yes”so we’ll see.

I walked to there and home beccause I wanted to collect steps on my FitBit and because I knew I would be nervous and would need the time to get rid of my nerves. When you are walking, you don’t have to worry about fellow tram passengers looking at you like you have lost it while you are trying to do breathing exercises to prevent the nervous puking 😉

I talked to Rupert last night when I got home. We talked alot about Mom and where we were. My brother can make perfectly normal deadpan statements hilariously funny. I don’t think he even tries. It was the first time he had left the house in two days due to the weather in Chicago. I wish sometimes that we didn’t live so far apart, which is not something I would have said 10 years ago.

I talked to Cedric on Monday night too. Sometimes, I think we aren’t any further through our grief than those first days after she was gone.

I am going to have to find a way to kick my own ass the way my mom would when I would get discouraged. 🙂

into 2016, I have a list of good intentions which has been placed in a sealed envelope and marked to be opened on New Year’s Eve again. It was a really nice New Year’s Eve. I ended up with a few people here til 5am which was unexpected. We had some really good conversation, listened to alot of music and I tried to get them to eat as much as possible 😉 The pets did their very best to be charming and calm and I think that I might do it again. Not very large scale though, a handful of people is definitely enough.

I also met my neighbors that live across the way on the third floor. Apparently, they can see right into my house and do some watching. It was a slightly awkward moment as I tried to think back if I had done anything really scandalous in my living room! They did compliment me on how nice the buildout of my house was 😉

Last night, Marianne and I kicked off 2016 with dinner together at a restaurant that is going on my list of favorite places. We spent 4.5 hours catching up, planning campaigns and sparring with each other. It was such a great way to begin the year and I really feel that if we were ever to set our minds together, we could do some serious empire building. I feel challenged and inspired when we talk. And often, talking with her brings me insights into myself and my reactions, which I occasionally blunder blindly through.

Cycling home past the canals and being struck again by how beautiful Amsterdam is and wondering how exactly did I end up with the privilege of living here, I realized anew how good I have it 🙂

Which is nearly enough motivation to make me say that today, the unpacking will be finished. IKEA came again yesterday afternoon to finish the closets and the bookcases. In theory, now everything should have a place to go 😉  And it will be nice to be able to have my photos out again. After this, my next task will be finding the nerve to make holes in the wall to hang all my Jan paintings!

Oh, and the extra piece of closet ended up going in the guest room. The idea of getting back to IKEA was mind boggling and while I can hear my mom giving me a hard time about my measuring skills, it did turn out okay after all 🙂

I hope your 2016 is off to a lovely start!

Well, today is the big day! IKEA is coming somewhere between 12-3PM and after that I should be able to fast track myself to organizational and unpacked nirvana 😉 Getting in just under the wire of 2015.

The random firework has been going off since yesterday, so far nothing like the marathon that will come tonight. It is pretty slow on the work front so I spent an hour this morning moving all the boxes out of the way to give the IKEA people room to work.

I’ll be home tonight, doing my duty as pet protector. I have a friend coming by and we’ll have a pretty low key evening with an exceptionally fine Spanish cava and some good things to eat.

My mom really liked New Years Eve. With her love for fireworks, it was a time that we would gather in her apartment which had a view of the fireworks above the Space Needle and. We’d have a crazy selection of fingerfoods and champagne. Sometimes, it would just be us, other times we expanded the circle. It was always a good time. I think that is really the heart of any celebration, being with people you enjoy. I’d rather do that for a holiday than go to one of the wild parties that will be happening tonight.  Of course, having pets kind of impacts what sort of celebrating you do. The pets are fine with parties here. We’ve had 20 people in the house and they were perfectly well behaved.

I went to dinner last night in Alkmaar. I had missed it last week when I was under the influence of the dengue. We rescheduled and last night we had a build your own burrito dinner and lots of conversation. The burritos were still worse than Taco Bell. No fault of the hostess, simply the “Mexican” food ingredients here are really bad. This simply gave us more time to talk. It is funny to think sometimes that there are people who think that I have answers to questions that they wrestle with. I do the best I can with that, knowing that the answers that we all seek are hidden within ourselves. Next time, we will have dinner here and then go out late into the city. I still have alot to learn about living here 😉

I am listening to alot of Alison Krauss & Union Station these days. I remember watching the specials with my mom on PBS during their pledge drives. I find the music comforting and I am a big fan of the banjo work! And it suits my mood, as I find myself thinking about all of the things that I have learned about myself and the world around me this year. Some of those lessons were heart breakingly painful. And yet, I got out the crazy glue and put myself back together. The pieces that wouldn’t stay stuck in place, I had to trust other people to be there to hold their fingers over those places. Not sure I would have been able to accept that kind of care a few years ago. I can now.

I also faced some big fears this year and wow, do I have a little bit of a Wonder Woman attitude now about certain things. I also learned to place more importance on what is important to me and how do I want to cultivate those strengths and talents further? I’ve learned that I can take a two week vacation and I am ready to try for a three week one next year.

I went to three new countries for me this year. I think I need to try for four in 2016.

I’m wishing you a radiant 2016, full of dreams and hope! Thank you for inspiring me.

which will be no small thing here. I am not telling the boys that it is coming. Instead, I am looking for their homeopathic pet remedy and getting ready for an evening of closing as many curtains and doors as possible, piling blankets on the sofa for them to hide under and preparing myself for a good three hours of holding shaking and barking dogs. I can’t explain to the pets why the boom booms come so we just go through them.

Yesterday, I braved the masses at IKEA to find a solution for my lack of closets. I marched right through to the closet section, grabbed the nearest person wearing yellow and said “I have the measurements and I know exactly which system I want – how to we make this happen?” Because normally they like you to sit down and play with the closet planner app and then go from there. No way, I was not falling into that abyss. Within 15 minutes, I had a printout and a delivery date and all I needed to do was hike the kilometers through the rest of the store to get to the checkout.

I was really disappointed to learn that they have done away with their Dents and Dings section aka AS-IS. That’s always been my favorite part of IKEA. My mom and I would enter the store through the exit because Dents and Dings is near the cashiers. We would scope it out and then go through the rest of the store backwards and return for one last pass by Dents and Dings, since it was always changing.

Anyway, the closets will be delivered and assembled on the 31st. I plan to spend the rest of the day filling them up and finally unpacking the last of the moving boxes so that I can say I moved in 2015 😉 I think it will be a big relief and I will start to feel a little more like I live here. And there will be less boxes for the boys to leave their graffiti on. Yesterday, I caught George doing that bold as you please. He immediately had to go to Time Out. He was actually rather well behaved for the rest of the day. What can I say? I love him but sometimes I want to send him to live with his biological parents…

Most of my colleagues are out of the office this week so this morning has been very peaceful. I’m listening to 2Cellos and listening to Excel grind out power queries. The nice part is not having to compete for network resources!

It is Christmas Eve. How quickly the year has gone. It is only 1030am so this is still prime working time for me. In the Netherlands, 1st and 2nd Christmas days are the days you celebrate, Christmas Eve is still a work day. It is grey and rainy outside so I am not really distracted.

My canine coworkers are also “working” since yesterday evening I came home with their Christmas presents in the grocery bag – placed up on the chair. The presents were meant for under our tiny little living tree. I turned to put things in the refrigerator and heard a crash. Turning around, there’s my normally well behaved Henry emerging from the grocery bag with his Christmas package. I was in complete shock. He was making full eye contact and not ashamed at all. By the time I got to him, he had already run around the living room and was opening his package. Which then meant that his brother decided to get in on the action. So, the boys determined their own time line for Christmas.

I suddenly understood why all those years that I would find and figure out what the Christmas gifts were irritated my mom so much! It didn’t get better when I decided to showcase my sibling power and started telling my brothers what they were getting as well. As you can imagine, this shorted the lifetime of Santa Claus in our house and lead to one Christmas that I got nothing at all. While I was watching the boys, I thought my mom would be laughing and saying “well, now you know how it feels!”

I have plans to go to Marum tonight. The little church is open for Christmas Eve services. At least I know to expect a glass of wine and Christmas cake when you come in for the service. I will try not to fall apart this year.

Tomorrow I am going to a friend’s house to share in first Christmas day celebrations with her family. I had originally said no. She encouraged me to think about since it would be something very different. I told her I would think about it. Yesterday she called and I said yes to going which delighted her daughter, who is 6, to no end! And the boys are invited too, which means they get a bath tomorrow. Since no one there will have known my mom, I won’t have to deal with any memories of the last time we celebrated there together, which is what I struggled so hard with last year at my cousin’s. That everyone was there who had been there last time, except my mom.

I will go to my cousin’s for 2nd Christmas day which has less emotional weight since it is something that we didn’t celebrate in the US. I got Pieter an enormous magnum of wine that is called “Just Fucking Good Wine” . For the label alone, I would have bought it. However, I tried it at the little wine merchant and it definitely lived up to the label.

I am listening to Andre Rieu’s Home for the Holidays album. It fits, what can I say? Especially after having seen him this year in Maastricht.

I hope that as this year draws to a close, you have been able to cherish and be cherished by those you love. In the coming year, I hope you will be able to flourish based on the knowledge and purpose you have gained from the past. I hope you will be loved if you seek it, strengthened if you need it and fierce if you want to be 🙂 And thank you, for being part of all of those things in my life.

A quick checkin to let you know that since Sunday morning, I have been throwing up, fighting a fever, feeling like something was kicking my skull and stepping on the rest of my body. It got so terrifying that today I finally went to the doctor. She doesn’t think it is a BENDS related sickness, more like something mosquito borne. Either way, I have stopped panicking which helps.

It was really terrifying. The poor pets were practically hostage since I could barely make it to the bathroom to throw up, let alone get functional enough to feed and take care of them. I missed a dinner party, a date and Margaret Cho’s comedy performance. So weird because I was fine Friday and Saturday.

Anyway, I am hopeful that we have turned the corner and I will start getting better. I am grateful to be able to drink and hold liquids down. I am not eager to try food yet, which is okay because I can certainly miss a meal.

Lesson learned is that next time I go to a mosquito country where dengue and other fevers are endemic, I will use the DEET repellant, no matter how bad I know it is.