When I first started this blog, I had the intention to share the more mundane stories of my life. But somewhere along the way that never happened and I focused solely on the big things that were happening in my life. In hindsight it’s not so strange that things turned out that way. A lot was happening and I didn’t know how to communicate about it in person, so I turned to writing about it and sharing those stories here. But now everything has slowed down a bit, and I have a life that consists of more than dragging myself from my bed to the couch and watching tv, I thought it might be nice to start sharing those mundane stories. And what better way to do this than having a chat over a cup of tea once a month.
February was quite a good month to me. It started with a surprise vacation to Spain, something I had been cooking up since August, and which a managed to keep a surprise for Matthijs for five months. Of course, he did know something was going to happen, because I asked him to get a week off from his work. And there was this one time that I accidentally revealed that we were going to Spain. But he only found out our exact destination when we were already in Spain. As you might have noticed, I’m quite pleased with this accomplisment. We had a lovely time driving around Andalucia, but more about that in a later blog post.
As you might know, last December I was asked to come work a couple of hours in the residential care home I interned three years ago. I enjoyed that quite a lot, and I was happy to find out that is mutual, because since this month I work there for a couple of hours a week. Not yet as an official chaplain, since I have to finish my masters degree first, but I love to have the chance to bring what I’ve studied into practice.
Another sweet thing that happened this month was that I finally managed to build my photography portfolio. I had started this project back in December, but had to let it go for a while due to some health issues. But now I worked six long days and I’m truly pleased with the result. I’m sure there will be things I’d like to change in the future, but I’ll worry about that then. Now I’m just happy I have a live website.
Last Sunday I spent the day meeting new couples at a wedding fair. The feedback was heartwarming and quite a few couples expressed their interest in having me as their wedding photographer. I’m curious to find out if they will contact me in the near future. I sure hope so, because they were all lovely people I hope to work with.
Unfortunately, not everything can be shiny and bright. But this month has treated my quite well, so I’m not complaining. As was to be expected after the amount of work I tried to cram into two weeks, I crashed last Wednesday. Luckily I know how to deal with these crashes after a decade or two of experiencing them. I gave myself two days off and messed about the house a bit with many reruns of Orange Is The New Black in the background. And now I’m allright again.
As I already mentioned, I watched quite a bit Orange Is The New Black. This serie never bores me, and although it’s not the happiest of series it does help me calm the continuous stream of thoughts in my head. I know, this might sound a bit odd, but it works. Other series I enjoyed this month were Russian Doll, Cable Girls, and Sex Education. I remember when we first got Netflix I was quite sceptic, but I have to admit that I do enjoy their original series quite a bit.
In the reading department I don’t have much to share. I started The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Adwood. So far, I find it a bit confusing, however I’m intrigued enough to continue reading.
And then the food. During our stay in Andalucia everything went better than expected. Most restaurants had enough options for me to choose from. Only one night I had some intestinal issues, but the other days were great. Something I didn’t expect since Spanish food is famous for the amounts of garlic and onion. So that was I nice surprise. Back at home, cooking was not so exciting. We ate many simple, uninspired meals. So I definitely hope to improve on that over the next weeks.
That’s it from me for now. I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to, so don’t be shy and share your stories as well. Until our next catch up.
