Shadee’s Blog

Get off of my blog dammit!

-Dee.

I’m late posting about my own birthday!
It was sept 21 so that was last week Friday.

I didn’t do much on my birthday because I was feeling horrible lol.
Had a very nasty flu so I didn’t feel like partying, didn’t even feel like cake (you know it’s bad when Dee dun want cake :o) and all I really wanted to do was just hang on the couch with a mug of hot tea and stick several tissues up my nose lol. So that’s exactly what I did (well except for the sticking tissues up my nose part, I did use quite a few the normal way though).

I also got surprised by a gift from someone I wasn’t expecting one from, and that someone spent WAY too much on me! (you know who you are you silly git :P), so that definitely brightened up my day a lot, so thanks so much! You rock! (And we’ll get ya back!)

As for celebrating my birthday, I’ll find some other weekend to do that properly when I’m feeling better. I’m still not 100% but definitely getting there.

Ooh, on another note, we had an appointment to go house viewing with a Realtor last Saturday. I was feeling pretty crappy but the appointment was set and I figured wth, it’ll be some nice distraction.
And that it definitely was! She lined up about 11 homes for us to see that day which is a lot. And we actually found 3 that seemed quite interesting to us. We’re going back this weekend to view those 3 again. We’ll be dragging Mord’s mom along to have a look with us. We’re really excited about it

So yeah, who knows, we might be moving sooner than we thought!
Will be so nice to have our own yard, and not have to share the damn hot water with downstairs neighbors lol!

-Dee.

… lol wut?

No, just kidding.

What I want to post about is a funny thing I noticed about my blog.
During my green card adventures I saw an insanely huge rise in hits here. And I really do mean HUGE. And from all over the world. I’m not sure whether it was a coincidence, a huge peak in random web bot activity or whether it were actual people who might be going through the same process and came across my blog through a web search while looking for information.

If the last one is the case then I’d just like to say don’t be shy. If you have questions please feel free to contact me. Either here on my blog or via e-mail (Shadee@shadeewolf.com) if you’d like to keep it more private.
I’m no expert on the subject, not even close, but I did go through the entire process, so who knows, I might be able to answer at least some of your questions

-Dee(ported) hurhur…

Alright, I’ve somewhat recovered from my flight back. I think I caught a flu bug from someone at the airport though :/ But I’m definitely starting to get used to this timezone again. Ooh and my bag got delivered yesterday
So that’s good news because besides my clothes, camera and the various Dutch goodies that were in there (no not =those= kinds of “Dutch Goodies”, I mean typically Dutch candy and cookies :P), there were also some old school docs and various other irreplaceable items with lots of memories attached in there.
So I’m really glad they managed to find it and get it back to me in one piece.
They did open two candy bars, I guess it was customs to check if that was really what was in there. Kinda odd though, they left the opened candy bars in my bag. Could’ve made a real mess if it’d been warmer but ah well.

So.. my trip!

Sunday-Monday Flight went well except for a bit of turbulence which started when I was listening to The Bloodhound Gang - Fire water burn, which was funny, almost seemed like the plane was jumping around to the song. I’m glad it was such an amusing coincidence because otherwise I’d probably have been scared to death XD
Didn’t do much that Monday, I did force myself to stay up another day because it’d help me get over the time difference but man I was beat. Saw my family, talked a bit and that eve I slept like a log.

Tuesday Some friends of the family visited, brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, went shopping with my parents, ate some great food, and my bro, his gf and daughter dropped by that eve to say hi. So that was a fun low impact first few days

Wednesday I went to work with my bro, a day of trucking, which was a lotta fun but probably not the smartest thing to do that soon after a flight. Had to get up at 4.30 AM and I think we got home at around 7PM. Was still fun but definitely a tiring day.

Thursday Sorted out a lot of old stuff of mine at my parents’ place, some more friends came over and stayed for dinner. I also got to see my little nephew, which was cute, he wasn’t too sure at first because he was 3 when I left so he probably didn’t remember much (he’s 6 now) but it took about 10 mins and he already called me over to show me his video games so that was cool

Friday My other bro picked up his son (my other nephew) and he was a bit shy at first too but that passed as well. Wasn’t feeling too good, stomach flu or something I ate, I dunno what it was but it sucked.
Did have a good time though, did some clay sculpting and muffin baking with my little nephew.

Saturday Was going to visit an old College mate of mine but I still wasn’t feeling too hot so I let him know the day before that I probably wasn’t coming. He visited me instead though so that worked out
Did a lot of catching up and stuff so that was fun.

Sunday Went to my bro’s gf’s kids’ birthday party which was a lot of fun. Saw some more familiar faces there so that was cool. Also did some more sorting and watched some really odd movie called “Kung Fu Soccer”. It was funny but definitely also had quite a few wtf moments

Monday Weather sucked, nice and Dutch, so I felt right at home again
Did some more stuff sorting and such, also went shopping to get some goodies to bring home. I also went looking for an ink cartridge for my bro’s printer, I needed one to print my boarding pass for when I went back. Couldn’t find one for that model though but I did find a printer with cartridge for almost as cheap as just a new cartridge, so I thought wth and just got that instead Left it there for my parents. And another friend called to ask if I wanted to drop by for a bit that eve so I did. Was fun to catch up with him again too

Tuesday Went for a stroll in the woods with my parents and my bro’s little dog. My dad wanted to look for hazelnuts but we didn’t find anything, well, we found a lot of wet mud and a huge mosquito found me. Damn thing bit my hand and it hurt like hell when it did. That eve I met up with 2 old high school friends which was a lot of fun, caught up on a lot of things and had quite a few laughs, next time we’re meeting at my parents’ place to have a traditional pizza night

Wednesday My aunt and uncle stopped by and stayed for lunch which was fun they also brought me some beautiful flowers. My aunt and my mom are planning on visiting us somewhere around march After they left my mom and me went to a little souvenir shop which was hilarious. The dude behind the counter seemed a bit attention starved and he kept us talking for about an hour or so about everything and nothing, was hard to get out of the darn shop cause he really wouldn’t stop yapping lol. We also stopped by my brother’s place for a bit that eve.

Thursday-Friday Various random things, shopping, sorting, catching up with family, visiting people to say goodbye, packing that kinda stuff My bro picked up my lil nephew again that eve.

Saturday Had to leave for the airport in the morning, my mom, bro and nephew brought me and I was off. Had a decent flight although a bit long, unfortunately my baggage never arrived, but I wasn’t the only one, about 15 more people didn’t get their luggage. But apart from that everything went fine like I said at the beginning of my post the luggage’s been delivered already so all is well

Well that was about it, I’m sure I forgot a lot of stuff but that’s basically what I did those 2 weeks.
Mostly it was catching up with family and old friends. Definitely won’t wait another 3 years before I visit again.

________________

Ooh yeah, my new mp3 player! I used it a lot during my flights and long waits at the airport.
It’s the cutest thing, we saw it when we were shopping at sam’s club with Mord’s mom.
It’s a tiny little cube….

It has a little digital display, buttons on the side. and it stores 2G. Which might not be much these days but it’s amazing for something that small. The plug at the top is actually a standard mini jack set of earplugs so that should give you an idea of how tiny it is, I still don’t understand how they managed to put an mp3 player with 2G worth of storage a voice recorder (yes it does that too), and room for a jack plug all into a tiny little device like that. I had quite a few people look at it funny when they saw it lol. Battery is pretty decent too, I believe it lasts for about 8 hours. It didn’t run out during my flights so that was great. Bought some nice quality earplugs for it and it sounds awesome.
So yay for fun gadgets!

-Dee

Arrived back home safely yesterday afternoon. And I had a blast over there in NL
I was too wasted by jet lag to bother posting anything though, basically just collapsed on the couch and that was it.

They say the trip from here to there is a lot worse but I’m not too sure.
It did suck to leave in the evening after already having had an entire day, and then arrive in the morning again at the start of another one. The flight itself was only about 6 hours and well, it’s just hard to sleep for me on the plane. So basically I just made myself stay up the entire second day as well to get into the right schedule right away which worked pretty well.

On the way back it was a lot different, I left in the afternoon, and with the timezone difference I arrived only a few hours later the same day. The flight itself however was a lot longer, it was about 8.5 hours. It’s only a few hours more but those few hours definitely made it a lot more uncomfortable.
Add to that the fact that they messed up with the luggage. About 15 people on that flight didn’t get their luggage because it wasn’t loaded onto the plane So yeah, after standing around at the baggage claim for ages and asking around and getting annoyed I was not a happy camper.
Anyway, I filled out a form and they’re supposed to deliver my bag here on Monday.

I kept a little journal while I was there so I could put what I did and when I did it in my blog but of course that’s all in my missing bag And I know, it’s just two weeks, I should be able to remember everything but jet lag does weird things to a brain. It’s 6.30 AM right now, and I’ve been up for quite a while already because I just couldn’t sleep anymore, yet I’m not feeling entirely awake either. So ya, bleah, I need a few days to adjust and then I’ll give you guys a full report

It’s good to be back though, I missed yaz and I hope you’re all doing well.

-Dee.

Just about to head out to catch my flight.
See you guys in 2 weeks! I’ll miss yaz!
And for those in NL, tot gauw!

ooh, and remind me to tell you guys about the new mp3 player I have when I get back.
It’s awesome!

-Dee.