Prove It.

Ok, it's pretty common that people change over time. Well, physically..for the most part. You either lose weight, gain weight, change your hair color, cut your hair..ya know..things that you can physically control aside from naturally aging. In all honesty, I looked like a somewhat typical Californian with blonde hair and a tan, minus the Barbie doll figure and silicone implants. So, when we moved here and had to relinquish my California drivers license, it's understandable why the gal behind the counter had a hard time with my old pic verses how I currently look.

Keep in mind, there's almost a 10 year difference between when I first got my license and when I got my passport:

Aside from the hair color, I really haven't changed much. Especially when you take into consideration I was sixteen when my drivers license picture was taken..and I was...errrr...*counting on fingers* twenty five when my passport picture was done. No more blonde locks..and definitely not tan, lol

So, when I went over to the town hall today to switch out my Belgian license for my California one, she went over and got my ID out of their filing system..walked over and looked at me, then looked at the card, and once again looked at me. "Can I please see other proof that you are this person?"...lol, sure. Why not. My picture on my military Dependant card looks like total dog shit, and my Belgian ID card has me with a different hair style, but with black hair..

Despite showing her my other two forms of ID, she still wanted something stating who I was (SERIOUSLY?!) because I looked "nothing" like the person on the stateside license. Really? REALLY? In all honestly..just use a sharpie on the CA license for the black hair and bam..that's me! I just happened to have my KBC statement as well as my KBC card (I found it this morning! Yay!), Social Security card, passport AND my other two bank cards... then she finally agreed that it was, indeed, ME!

Christ allmighty. Is this what I'm gonna have to deal with once I come back to Belgium in order to get my Belgian license back??? Let's hope not considering the picture on my drivers license here is exactly the same as my Belgian ID! 

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Countin' Down!

Aghhh.. I have a lil over a week till I fly back to California! Aghh!! It doesn't feel like I have all that much to do in the mean time to get ready, but I'm starting to realize I really DO need to take care of some things before I leave!

1. I gotta find all the goodies I've picked up over the last several months I've been meaning to send out to people. It may not seem important to you, but it's stuff I keep forgetting to mail out..so might as well bring it with me to just give to people in person.

2. I've misplaced my KBC bank card. You're probably thinking, "Erika, you won't need your Belgian bank card while you're in the US."...actually, I will. Eric has grown accustomed to me doing all the banking stuff and taking care of the bills. In order for me to take care of them, I need my bank card (duh) as well as my Belgian bank coder (pictured below) to access the accounts which I have all of our billing beneficiaries saved on. It's convenient and inconvenient all at the same time. So, I need to find my card before I leave..otherwise, Eric's gonna be a very grumpy man since he doesn't know how to use the online banking system. He hates using their system because it can be rather difficult to pay a bill (yet, I'm able to figure out how to do it)...sooooo yeah..gotta find that card. Soon.

3. I need to camp out at the town hall to regain my California drivers license. Since I needed to register here, I had to relinquish my American license in order for me to obtain a Belgian drivers license. When the time comes for me to go home, I just switch 'em out..once I come back, I switch 'em out again. Nice, hunh? The only obstacle I gotta deal with is the funny hours and lack of available employees with my towns Gemeente house. Luckily, I have a weeks worth of attemps in my very near future.

4. My health insurance company needs to be informed that I'll be out of Europe (where I'm covered) and that I'll be on the West Coast for the next two months. Hopefully, they won't be their usual pain in the ass in terms of switching my coverage. * fingers crossed *

Honestly, those are the very large things I can think of right now. I'm sure I'll remember stuff as I'm sitting in the airport terminal...at Heathrow...in England...or better yet, LAX.

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Tick Tock

Since I've been in Europe, I've started to really like their old fashioned chime clocks. Ya know, the ones with the cool little mechanisms in the front that move around at the top of the hour. When we first got here, I was REALLY wanting to get a nice old fashioned German Cuckoo clock...butttt that never happened because they're outrageously priced. The type I want runs anywhere from three to five hundred dollars. .Yes, I understand that you're paying for the craftmanship and details, but...I'd feel kinda silly having something that expensive that I would see as a novelty item.  I obviously don't NEED one..it just comes down to "wanting" something cool.

When I was in Poland earlier this year, I found a pretty clock that is about as Polish as it gets...I mean, it's made out of Polish pottery..so, what more could you ask for, right? So, that's currently displayed in my kitchen. Honestly, I picked it up because the flowers reminded me of the German mountain flowers I always saw in my Grandma's house, which is Enzian as well as Alpenrose. All it's missing is Edelweiss, but it seems rather challenging to find anything around here that actually has all three of those flowers on it without looking insanely tacky / touristy.

So, the other day I went back over to Slegers (yes, again!) because a friend I was with wanted to see if they got any new goodies. It just so happened that the day before, I was looking through their site for a nice little antique clock...found one and asked 'em if they could hold it for me to check out. Well, sadly, it was sold before I managed to pop in, so no worries. As my buddy was checking out stuff, I trolled over to the area where they keep the majority of their wall clocks and ended up really falling inlove with one of 'em. Given, the majority of this particular wall clock all looks the same, but I liked this particular one because the clock weights weren't shaped like nuts ..see:

Seriously, I'm not being a pervert. They really look like massive balls.

Anyway, here's the clock that I found:

I was really diggin' the metal scroll work towards the top of it, especially since didn't have Atlas holding the world like the majority of the other clocks I had seen. Instead, there's a nice little acorn on the very top which works perfectly for me since the decor in our house revolves around forests:

The face itself was nice considering it had a windmill as well as a little sailing boat like you'd see going down the canals in Holland. So, this works for me in terms of something Dutch for my collection aside from the clogs and wooden tulips I've acquired over time:

Now I just gotta find a nice clock maker to take this to in order for the inner mechanisms to get cleaned up and overhauled. Odds are, that will have to wait till I get back from the States since I only have another week and a half left here. When I bought it, the chimes worked and everything, but you can tell the insides need some good old TLC and tuning. But, I wanna see if I can shorten up the weight chains since the ones that are currently on there are about four feet long! I realize they're long for a reason, but I wanna stream line the clock so it can go anywhere in the house...not just in a spot that has room to accomidate the chains!

So yeah, there ya go. I officially have my old fashioned clock for the house :)

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Ruh Roh.

This is bad. Very bad.

Tis' that time of year when Halloween candy becomes readily available.....in which my husband promptly picked up a few bags of our favorite candies and emptied them out into our kitchen table trog.

Like I said..this is bad.

Ok...all better...  :)

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My Eric :)

Today is my amazing husbands birthday!

He still knows how to drop it like it's hot!

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Big Money

I have insomnia. I mean, BAD. As of late, I've been getting up at 8a and going to bed around 2a or even 3a. It REALLY sucks, despite trying melatonin, Tylonal PM, Motrin PM and whatever else I can think of. Yes, I've tried tea (decaffinated, of course), I stop eating by 7pm and pretty much do whatever I can to try to get my brain to slow down enough so I can actually nod off.

So, I was trying to sleep in yesterday when it sounded like the world was coming to an end outside of our bedroom window. Given, the metal shades are down so I couldn't see what was going on (the shades are broken so I can't roll them up right now!!)...so, I walked over to my office and this is what I saw:

Oh, Hi Mr. Earthmover..

Our landlord has been taking babysteps over the last two months to really get into the swing of building a duplex next to our house. I'm kinda boggled as to why he didn't start this digging project during the week rather than starting it up nice and EARLY on a Saturday morning. Then it dawned on me... all of the contruction stuff belonged to our landlord. ALL of them. The guys running them were either his sons, or brothers! They were probably busy working their jobs during the week and Saturday was the day they could come over and work on the property.

I knew our landlord had money, but seriously..these machines are INSANELY expensive over here! Not only does he get double the regular rent from us (because we're Americans), but he also owns, in partnership, the TLF buildings the new incoming families use..so he gets a kickback from that, he owns another home in a different providence he gets rent from, the construction business as well as handyman services..and now he's building this duplex so he can rent to additional Americans. This dude is SMART! Get that money!

The furbabies DID NOT appreciate the construction noise! Whenever we let them out in the yard (don't worry, it's fenced in so they couldn't go in the massive hole), they ran along the side fence where they could see the machines..then they gave them a whole lot of hell and then ran back inside. Fearless beasts, I tells ya.  

They ended up finishing around 9:30 last night...so this is the aftermath:

I'm sad that my pretty green yard is gone, especially since I liked having a nice view from my office. Now it'll be construction, guys with butt cracks showing and loud things fairly often till it's completed. From what our landlord was telling us, it'll be finished after we move in 2013..then again, whose to say we won't end up staying here longer. If we DO end up getting American neighbors..hopefully they won't be annoying. Is that mean? Nah..I bet you don't want annoying neighbors, either.

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Wax on. Wax off.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been kinda scattered this week because I was running a ton of errands and I didn't really have a chance to sit down and write. So, here we go!

As stated in my last post, my favorite antique place opened back up after their month long hiatus! Ahhh!!! Happy Happy Joy Joy!! I think they giggled when they saw me walk in the door because it's like "Hey, the addict is back."...yuuup! I went about and did my usual stalking to see if I could find anything I couldn't live without. Given, there were quite a few things I fell inlove with, but Slegers definitely loved it more than me since I wasn't willing to shell out anywhere from 2,000-3,000 euros for a pretty hutch. I'm sure someone will come along that will REALLY love it and take it home. Once I was done trolling the vendor stalls, I started searching for my table since I needed to make arrangements for it's delivery. Ya know, I got this panicked feeling cause I couldn't find it ANYWHERE! It would've been my luck it was tagged wrong and sold to someone else on accident. After a good fifteen minutes of searching, I finally tracked down one of the employees to see if they knew where it was....they hid the table! I mean, REALLY hid it! They stuck it in a corner of the warehouse that was like a cubbyhole that you wouldn't find unless you were moving tarps around. I definitely had a sigh of relief since I've been eyeballing this table for a LONG time! The guy told me they moved it off the showroom floow because after I put the deposit down on it, several people came in after me and were wanting to buy it. SEE!! I had that tingling feeling that I needed to get it last month and I was right!! HA! So, I paid off the remaining balance and scheduled the delivery, in which they were able to drop it off the same day. Yippy!!!

 I was told it's carved oak (although it looks like walnut to me), dated around 1890 with Tudor style carving. After a little bit of research on my part, I ended up calling our insurance company to make sure this table received additional coverage when the time comes for us to move. I'll kill whoever wrecks this thing! Here's how the table looks in my kitchen :)

In the midst of talking to the employee's while I was still at the warehouse, I was asking them about potentially staining the table darker since the majority of our funiture is a darker walnut color. They gave me advice in terms of how to obtain the darker color I was seeking...and their method was surprising to me. I was told to use a towl and nylons when the time comes to take the stainer off of the wood. Really? I've never heard of that before. Then again, I never really took on the challenge of staining wood.

So, you take the towl, stick it in the nylon and use that to buff out the polish. When you first apply the polish, you paint in the same direction as the grain..they told me to leave it on anywhere from 2-3 days at a time to allow the color to really sink into the wood. Once you're ready to take it off, use the nylon to buff it out.

Now, as much as I wanted to immediately start working on the table...my brain told me to just test things out on the chair I had purchased. I mean, I got them for a very reasonable price and I'd rather use those as guinea pigs than my table. Let's face it..if I screwed that table up, I might as well shoot myself. I really liked these chairs since they're very sturdy and actually go with the table rather well..the only thing that's wrong with them is you can tell they've been sunbleached by their prior owner. So, I figured a little TLC and elbow grease can restore some color to 'em.

Tell ya what...staining furniture is for the birds! I didn't think it was THAT involved! I painted the stain on and let it soak in for a few days, then tried buffing it out. It's like trying to buff grease! It just kept smearing everywhere! I literally had to work on the chair for about 10 minutes, take a break, come back and start hammering away on it again..so on and so forth. I finally managed to get all the stainer off of it then sealed it up with a conditioner / polish. Now, let's see if you can tell which one went through the staining process:

Honestly, can you tell which one was worked on?? I'm interested in peoples feedback..cause to be blunt, if ya'll can't tell which one is which, then there's a part of me that doesn't wanna deal with staining the other three chairs, lol.

In addition to staining the chair, I worked on my trogs since some of them definitely needed some staining TLC. There was one I bought and when I washed it, ALL of the color washed out of it! Talk about a shocker! It went from a pretty walnut color, to gray. Sad! So, here's a pic of the color difference with the stainer on it now verses how it looked before:

So yeah...it's definitely time consuming when it comes to staining and polishing old furniture. I'll most likely finish the rest of the chairs, but I'll definitely be taking my time with them..at least for the next few days since I burned the crap out of my hand last night and it's now all red, angry, swollen and blistering. I was pouring out boiling water cause the noodles I was cooking were ready..lost my grip on the strainer and a good couple of quarts spilled all over my hand. Talk about misery!! Bleh!!

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Junky?

Is it sad that I'm excited that my favorite antique place is opening back up tomorrow?

Like the rest of Europe, Slegers went on vacation for three and a half weeks...that really doesn't seem that long compared to other businesses...but it was rather torturous for me considering they were STILL updating their website with cool goodies despite being closed. Isn't that cruel and unusual punishment? I think so.

By being the antique addict that I am, I'll be there bright and early tomorrow morning right when they open up so I can schedule the delivery of me coveted carved table in addition to seeking out more goodies I can't possibly live without.

Don't judge me!

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Let's test this out!

I've been meaning to set up a signature for my blog, but I kinda suck at doing fancy artwork. SO, I asked my friend Jessie to give it a whirl for me and she came up with two designs:

Which one do you like??

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The Office / Travel Room

Over the course of living in Belgium for the last two and a half years, I've posted on this lovely blog about what I've been up to, where I've traveled to and the various things I've collected along the way. Once in a while, I'll actually get an email from a random reader that asks "What do you do with all your travel trophies?". Well, they end up in my office. I think I've mentioned that on a variety of posts that my office seems to be the travel vortex since everything almost always ends up in there.

So, I figured I'd show you peeps what my office looks like since some people think it's some sort of fictional thing like Themyscira or Crystal Castle (let's see if you know what those are!):

 Looks pretty simple till you start looking along the top of my desk. THEN you get the stories behind everything rather than them being random knick knacks.

 Let's seeeeeee...I'll start from the right and pan to the left: There's a leather and wood carved goblet I picked up from Orford Castle in Orford, England. Next to that is my typewriter teapot I got from a tiny town called Debenham, England. Behind those is a puzzle globe I assembled that has Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" on it...nothing special about it other than I did it when we first PCS'd here, lol. On top of the globe is my University of Georgia (UGA) visor that Eric bought for me not too long after we started dating. Almost five years, I still have it! Go me! Next is a bottle of " Spitfire Ale" that I got from the Duxford Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum in Duxford, England. You might not be able to make it out unless you zoom on the picture once you click on it, but in front of that is a pewter piggy bank (yes, with wings) which I picked up in Dusseldorf, Germany. It's wearing a pretty mask I picked up from Venice, Italy. Then you'll see my rather flashy leopard print teapot purse that my Dad bought for me from the same shop I got my typewriter teapot. Behind that is my Magellan Scentsy warmer (I liked it because it looks like an old travel globe) that's holding up a leather and tarred stein I got from Framlingham Castle in Framlingham, England. Inside of the stein are woodcarved tulips I found in Lisse, Netherlands. In the front, you'll see the white and blue mini clogs I got from Amsterdam, Netherlands..and behind those is a jar of "wishes" that Eric filled out after we got married and it has an UGA garter on it.

 Next to the jar of wishes is a little hand carved and painted wood doll I picked up in Boleslawiec, Poland. Then there's my little pirate skull which is actually a magic eight ball a friend gave to me in addition to the "Hoops & Yoyo" nodding thing-a-majiggy. It says " I've found my happy place", lol. Behind those you'll see part of a ceramic bulldog..I actually made that for Eric for our first Valentines together; I had a custom UGA jersey made in addition to a leather collar and name tag for it and I did all the painting myself. It's in my office since it had suffered some damage during the course of our move here, so I gotta find some sort of ceramic "paste" to fix his little jowl which currently has a chunk missing. To the left of that is a hard carved wood stein I also picked up while checking out Boleslawiec, Poland.

 Lesse...the wine goblet next to the wood stein is one of my favorite pieces of "stemware" I've picked up. It's all stained glass and pieced together to make it look like an old school cathedral design..got that from..errrr...I believe Framlingham, England. Behind that is two bottles of Heineken I got from the Heineken factory in Amsterdam, Netherlands in which one bottle has my name on it while the other has Eric's. To the left of that you'll see a black jug that says "Nuts" on it, which is in reference to the Battle of the Bulge. I picked that up over in Bastogne, Belgium where there's a massive memorial for the American soldiers (wounded or killed) that were involved with that war...it's the Mardasson Memorial. In the very front is another mask I picked up while in Venice, Italy...and in front of that is a bracelet a friend got for me that says "Peace". To the left is a pink sapphire necklace my Mom had bought for me as a 21st birthday present, a mug I got from Poland and a tin from Bastogne.

On my desk top itself, I have a Scentsy charity warmer that's for breast cancer awareness, and two Snoopy things my Dad gave me as a gift. He got the Snoopy picture cause it said it was rather fitting for me (thanks? lol) and the Snoopy calendar was because I like to write a lot. Then there's my Winged Victory of Samothrace, which is my absolute FAVORITE statue, that Eric bought me when we were at the Louvre in Paris, France.

 The moon mask is from Venice, Italy (YES, I bought a lot of masks!), then there's a metal "poster" from the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, England. If you have any interest in aviation history, I highly suggest you check out any of the RAF Museums..mainly the one in Duxford. VERY VERY educational. I made the star bucket (yes, really) and all it holds is Eric's handy dandy back scratcher since he always comes in to ask me where it is..so, I leave it in the bucket so he knows where to find it, LOL.

 The masks, again, are from Venice, Italy. The hanging tiles are as well, but I bought them from a Bazaar in Spangdahlem, Germany. When we were in Venice, I actually saw a place that was selling the painted tiles, but those things weigh SO much..so I'm glad I bought them without having to deal with the airline weigh limits :) Yes, the organizer to the right has a lot of Scentsy waxes in it...don't judge me.

 Indeed, that's a weenie dog peeing on a hydrant. My Dad got the lil guy for me as a going away gift when we were leaving California to come here. Although, he gave it to me AFTER the movers already picked up our housing goods, so I had to ship this lil guy on his own to meet us here since I didn't wanna risk him getting smashed up in our luggage. Besides, I could've only imagined what the airport security people would've said if they saw these shapes show up in their xray screeners, LOL

 Indeed. I have pumpkins in my office. Why? Fall is my favorite season. Hey, it's better than Christmas lights all year long! Oh, I don't have a mini fridge in my office..that's a deep freezer. It's here because there isn't a plug for it out in the garage, lol. Ghettooooo!

 Now, if you're even considering snagging any of my beloved trinkets....BE WARNED. I have Spartans guarding my stuff. They may look small, but they're total bad asses. If they can deal with Covenant forces from Mombasa, you'll be a total cakewalk. See? One of my Spartans is guarding my mini Mardasson Memorial..so if you sit down at my desk, he'll take you out. 

Perfect sniping point:

 

 If they need to bring in the big guns, they have the support available. BIG guns! Word on the street is that this particular Spartan has an itchy trigger finger...really, you don't wanna risk messing with him.

If, by chance, you make it past those fellas...they also have ground support. 

Ferocious beasts! Don't underestimate them.The big one is "The Rhino"..he'll take your legs out with his ramming capabilities while the tweeky one is like a velociraptor...very smart with lethal bites. There's a third decimator, but she's patrolling the perimeter to make sure there aren't any unwanted visitors.

So, there you have it. That's my office. I've traveled throughout Belgium, The Netherlands, France, England, Germany, Poland,and Italy. As I'm looking at my list, I realized I left off Bavaria, but those trinkets are in the kitchen. Hopefully before we leave Belgium, we'll check out Switzerland, Greece, Spain and other parts of Italy. 

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