Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

Right now, I'm sitting on my couch enjoying the sunlight shining in through the windows. There's a book on my knee because I interrupted my reading to look at my lounge in the afternoon sunlight. Normally I'm at work at this time of day, too busy to just sit and stare at sunbeams. It hits me. This amazing sense of freedom. For nine whole days, my life won't be ruled by a clock. No alarm clocks to wake me. No watches to tell me my break is over. No clock to dictate how fast I must eat my lunch or my dinner. It truly feels like I am just a bit lighter with this realisation of freedom from time. Of course it is not real freedom from time as time will simply go on and my holiday will come to an end. I'll rejoin the world of time a refreshed and more chilled out person and be better for it. Still - this feeling is good enough to want to write about. (Good thing Blogger has an app for my smartphone) Right now though, and for the next week and a bit, I am goin...

'Doctor Who' Christmas Special, 'The Snowmen': TV Recap - Speakeasy - WSJ I found this amazing review of Doctor Who's 2012 Christmas Special online. Instead of doing a review of my own, I will simply refer you to the one above. Read it, enjoy it and please accept my apologies for not writing a review of my own.

A picture is worth a thousand words I found this amazing photo on Facebook that I would like to share. The photo, as it is meant to, reminds me of the movie Cars with the big smiley faces on the cars. I'm sure I read somewhere that the smiley faces were actually done by police officers themselves, and on those grounds I wholly support this piece of amazing and inspiring "community art".   

It is December. Finally!!! As a huge Doctor Who fan, one of the things that I love about December (read about others in my previous post!) is that the wait to see the Doctor Who Christmas special is coming to an end! This year, the wait has been a long one! This year, the mid-season finale of the first half of season / series 7 left me crying my eyes out for Amy's heartbreaking decision and her strength of character and for the Doctor's immense loss. On the 29th of September 2012 we said goodbye to Amy and Rory for the very last time. One thing that made the two-month wait more bearable was the speculation about the Doctor's new companion. We met the actress in Asylum of the Daleks as human Oswin Oswald turned Dalek trapped in her own delusion. Or wait, perhaps we met an alternate version of her, or maybe a future version, or even a future child or grandchild... On the 25th of December 2012, we will move on, we will finally get to meet Jenna Louise Coleman's new C...

I'm redesigning my photography page on Facebook. Can't change a lot about a Facebook page, however the profile photo and cover photo can be changed in lots of fun and helpful (marketing-wise) ways! I want my cover photo to represent who I am as a person, however I want it to look professional as well. I love nature and take photos mostly of the natural world so scenes from nature would be my first choice. I enjoy sharing the beauty I see around me with others and want my page to be about sharing that beauty; about sharing the mundane and every-day that we walk past so easily instead of seeing it and appreciating it. I also want to encourage people to visit my page, to view my photos, to enjoy seeing the world through my eyes and my lens...   Here are some of the options I've come up with so far... Visit my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Nimavenl and let me know what you think!

Ice on a Table | Nimavenl Today is the second day of November which makes yesterday the first day of November. Yesterday was also the first time this autumn that it hailed. When it starts hailing it means it's cold enough outside to get my coat, gloves, beanie and scarf out. It means summer is gone, autumn is ON and winter really is on its way. Do I make a bad Game of Thrones joke now and add that yesterday's hail definitely shows that Winter is Coming ? Maybe not... Winter in The Netherlands is nowhere near as cold as in other parts of the world, however we do often get snow and ice. Not enough of it that we're snowed in or forced to stay home -- or able to hold the Elfstedentocht , most years -- however definitely enough to turn roads into slippery slides. Hail | Nimavenl Biking isn't always smart in winter, which means I get to look forward to the warmth of public transport and crunching through the snow on foot, enjoying the winter weather with my came...

Kattenleeftijd in mensenjaren | Huisdierenziekenhuis Duidelijke tabel waarin aangegeven wordt hoe oud een kat is in mensenjaren. Onze kat is al in de 70 in mensenjaren, toch best leuk om te weten!

Source: Beauty Geek Saw these A-MA-ZING nails online and simply had to share a pic! Click the link to Beauty Geek for step-by-step instructions on how to create these (yes, I'll say it again...) absolutely amazing The Silence themed nails. Some info for non-Whovians: Undeniably one of the scariest alien races ever introduced on top British TV show Doctor Who, The Silence are a race you see constantly... Only as soon as you're no longer looking at one of them you totally and completely forget seeing them. The Doctor and his companions remember having seen a member of this race by marking themselves. This way, even though they forget about having seen these scary looking men in black suits with very strange faces, they know that they are around...

Dear readers, trollers and spambots... All week I've gotten up early for work. Left home while it was still dark to work a full day. Every day after work I shop, cook, clean and try to relax before starting over again. Today, I slept in. Got up to enjoy a coffee and a cuddle with the cat. And now I'm sitting here, enjoying my weekend and the freedom from being "on the clock." This feeling of not "having to" do anything at all is pretty amazing and I simply wanted to share it with you all! Happy Weekend everyone! I hope you enjoy yours as much as I plan to enjoy mine!

Autumn is here! As the seasons change, the natural world changes with them. Leaves change colours and start falling off trees. The wind busily blows everything around. It rains almost daily and there's a definite chill in the air. Autumn is here and it is amazingly beautiful once again! Autumn is by far my favourite time of year as far as photography goes. The wind, the rain and the changing colours provide an amazing array of interesting subjects to photograph, each tree or dark cloud more beautiful than the next. As fond as I am of the amazing variety of photography subjects autumn provides, I really don't like having to go places in autumn. While the half hour daily bike ride to work is relaxing and fun in summer, it has become a real struggle these past few weeks. I've stopped brushing my hair in the morning simply because it's a messy disaster by the time I get to work. No matter how tight the knot I tie it in, the wind always seems to catch some strands ...

Even as I write this, I don't quite want to write it. I don't want to write about Amy and Rory's final farewell. I don't want to rewatch the episode yet either, or think about it too much just yet. I watched the episode a few hours after it aired, soon before going to bed. I sat here on my couch and watched it, knowing this episode would be The Ponds' final goodbye. Let me just say this: I cried my eyes out as I watched, I cried my eyes out after watching and I cried again as I woke up the next morning. I cried during the episode because it was a sad story and those always makes me cry. I cried after the episode because I understood Amy's decision and felt for the character. I cried the next morning as well. I cried when I woke up, looked at my amazing partner and realised that I, like Amy, would follow him any where, any place and any time, no matter what it takes or what I would be giving up. Dear Doctor Who creators - Thank you for an amazing episode; it ...

The Fourth Doctor Gallery - BBC UK Whereas one Doctors like bow ties and fez's  another had a thing for scarves. Very cool looking and awesome scarves too! While thinking about a new knitting project the idea of knitting a Doctor Who scarf crossed my mind. I bought knitting needles a few weeks ago, so am pretty much ready to go. As soon as I've finished deciding what I want to knit so I know what wool to buy, that is. I learnt to knit when I was about nine or ten and sadly never quite progressed from the "this is how you make a scarf that looks like a 9-year old made it" stage. This means I need to start with a simple project - one of the many reasons why a Doctor Who scarf is a logical first place to start! It's got large blocks of colour which makes the knitting easier and is eclectic-looking enough that a few "smudges" in the places one colour touches another won't be a problem. Source : The Caffeinated Lifestyle Having decided on wha...

As it gets colder outside and I am trying to find excuses to stay indoors more and more, I'm trying to come up with new ways to entertain myself away from the wind, the rain and the cold. I've rediscovered my 1000-piece "Starry Night" puzzle by Van Gogh (yay for getting past the point I was at last time!) and am trying to decide on other crafty projects for when the puzzle is finished. I take photos, like puzzles & games and I enjoy writing, however that is about as creative as it gets for me. I'm perfectly content spending a whole weekend doing puzzles, playing games and reading a good book. I enjoy doing those things as much as others would enjoy a DIY project, the restoration of a car or building model trains and such. I do love the feeling of being productive, however when the weekend comes around I'm happy to turn my brain off and enjoy Weekend Mode. No stress, no hassles, no customers yelling at me, no alarm clocks and no schedule to stick to....

Saw this on Instagram and simply had to screencap it as it made me laugh. A lot. Source: Instagram

I've never been one of the "popular girls". I'm also not at all someone who seeks fame or fortune. I never wanted to be class president or Miss Something-or-Other. Never wanted my photo in the newsletter or to be "famous one day". I'm happy being in the background, doing a great job supporting those whose face is in the newsletter and whose name is above the door. While I love taking photos, I have no interest in being the subject of them myself. I want to be appreciated for what I do and what I contribute, not for my familiar face or the power of my name. I want my work and my actions to speak for me! Having a blog, a Facebook page and an Instagram account (Oh, and Goodreads and Twitter and who knows what else!) feels strange and natural at the same time. Strange because even though I don't sign my post with my real name or have a mugshot on display, I am putting a lot of information about myself online for anyone to read and view, and for anyone ...

First Aired : 22 September 2012 Source : We Got This Covered As a Charmed fan, the name of this episode intrigued me. As a conspiracy theory fan, I loved the black boxes. As a Doctor Who fan, there was absolutely nothing about this episode not to like. It was fun and action packed, intriguing and charming, and best of all - UNIT showed up! The Doctor is off enjoying his own adventures while Amy and Rory are adjusting to normal life on earth. One day, millions of small black cubes arrive on earth - they appear all around the globe, all at exactly the same time. The appearance of the black boxes is talked about all over the globe, and such agencies as UNIT are busily investigating their sudden appearance. The Doctor shows up to check out the strange happenings *and* Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's daughter Kate (who now works for UNIT) shows up to recruit the Doctor. Source : SFX As nothing of note happens after the arrival of the boxes, the human population happily acce...

Source : Doctor Who @ BBC First aired 15 September 2012.  In this third episode of the seventh series, The Doctor inadvertently travels to wild-western America with Amy and Rory where they encounter some things that don't quite make sense. Things like electric lights in Mercy village's main street years before they were even invented, for instance. Source : Radio Times  As we find out, there is another person in the village who calls himself a Doctor. This doctor turns out to be an alien named Kahler-Jex who crash-landed on Earth about ten years ago. When our Doctor investigates the strange alien doctor, it is revealed that this Doctor is actually a criminal who was once part of a team who experimented on volunteers to create an army of cyborgs who either died or killed countless people... And the one remaining cyborg is waiting for the townspeople to hand over the doctor so he can stand trial. Right then and there... In a story that can pretty much only happen...

A fast-paced and action packed episode that has the doctor "on a roll" like he was in this episode was great fun to watch. Dinosaurs on a space ship in space, with a time travelling alien doctor, humans from the past and the present, oh and a little blue box that transports everyone all around time and space. The episode shows that Earth Defense has picked up a ship travelling towards Earth that's not responding to any hails. Before firing missiles at the craft out of self-defence, thereby destroying it, The Doctor is asked to investigate. With 6 hours before the missiles will destroy the ship, The Doctor takes Queen Nefertiti, John Riddell (an English big-game hunter), Amy, Rory and Rory's father Brian along into space to figure out if they can't  turn the craft around. Source: SFX What ensues is a mad and entertaining tale that leaves me with the distinct feeling that no matter how much I love and enjoy Doctor Who, I might never fully understand the sho...

Met minder dan 2% van de stemmen nog te tellen kunnen we met zekerheid zeggen dat de VVD en de PvdA de grootste partijen zijn. Alhoewel ik het op een aantal punten eens ben met Geert Wilders en de PVV ben ik toch blij om te zien dat de steun van Nederland voor de PVV minder lijkt te worden. Bedankt Nederland, ik heb wat vertrouwen in ons landje terug!

Monument dedicated to Alexander Ball . Lower Barakka Gardens in Valletta, Malta. Valletta, Malta A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Sep 6, 2012 at 2:51am PDT

Star Trek celebrates 46 years of daring to dream of boldly going where none had gone before. The first Star Trek episode aired on 08 September 1966. To commemorate that, Google created a Google Doodle with characters from The Original Series on it. How totally awesome!!! Congratulations, Star Trek! " Celebrating 46 years with a Google Doodle " | Star Trek.com (Photo was added later)

Asylum of the Daleks | BBC Kidnapped by the Daleks, The Doctor, Amy and Rory are dumped on their prison planet slash insane asylum ( slash resting place for the most terrifying and insane Daleks ever... ) to deactivate the failing force field that is protecting the planet so the Dalek parliament can destroy the planet before the force field fails completely and all the insane Daleks get out... somewhere... not nice The Doctor, Amy and Rory are helped by Oswin, a young woman stranded on the planet a year ago. She's stranded in an escape pod right at the heart of the Dalek planet. It is the crash landing of her ship the Alaska (still on the surface of the planet) that damaged the force field around the planet. The big problem with the planet is that it is covered in a nanogene cloud which means that anyone not protected by a special bracelet will slowly be transformed into a Dalek... Asylum Artwork | BBC As the episode progresses, we get a look at the amazing space...

Walking along the rocky beach.  Qawra, Malta. September 2012 Water, on the Rocks | Nimavenl Photography

As written about from time to time on this Blog, I am an avid photographer. I've been using Instagram (a smartphone app for sharing photos with other users) for about 8 weeks now. It is an amazing thrill to see that other Instagram users, absolute and total random strangers I don't know and have never met or had contact with before, like the photos I take. They sometimes even like them enough to leave comments or to follow my updates. As not everyone these days has a smartphone or cares to download and/or use a photo sharing app, it is very handy that Instagram photos are also available outside the app. Click this link to see a copy of all my photos on Pingram , and if you happen to have your own Instagram account, don't be shy and come on by! 

Source: Wat Lees Jij

Adorable kitten, playing. Get it! A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Aug 23, 2012 at 10:38am PDT

A very positive thought (or well, a few of them) to start the week with! :-) On a not at all related yet also very positive note - we are heading to Malta for a holiday a week from now!!! Yes, I really am only human which means that I *will be* counting down the days and the hours until our holiday starts! ;-)

Gondelvaart A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Aug 19, 2012 at 12:49am PDT

Hidden Treasure A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Aug 2, 2012 at 12:40pm PDT

Under the bridge A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 29, 2012 at 11:51am PDT

Railway bridge street art A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 25, 2012 at 4:03pm PDT

Windmill by the water A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 24, 2012 at 2:02pm PDT

You're half a bridge away A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 24, 2012 at 3:41am PDT

Around Alkmaar 01 A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 22, 2012 at 2:38pm PDT

Orange Overload A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 21, 2012 at 6:01am PDT

Gorgeous evening A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 20, 2012 at 1:02pm PDT

Sunshine! A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 19, 2012 at 12:31am PDT

The River is my World A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 17, 2012 at 6:56pm PDT

How very true and worth sharing! Source: Happy Life Quotes 

I'm an avid photographer and love taking photos of pretty much everything that grabs my attention. I also love sharing what I see with other people. Transferring what I see to a picture that shows that same image is always a challenge. Taking the photo itself is not the challenging part. Anyone can point a camera at something and click a button to take a photo. Nimavenl on Instagram For me, the challenge is to share what I see, feel and think when I see something, with other people. I want those people to be able to see, feel and think those same things. Be that because they see, feel and think those things themselves or because they look at the photograph I took and are able to tell what I saw, felt and thought when I took the photo. They say one photograph can beat a thousand words. My mission is to be the one who takes that one photo! Every mission has a beginning and every journey has a very first step. Check out my first steps on my way to one day becoming a life-cha...

The ever gorgeous and always amazing Peppa, our lovely cat. Please make the rain stop? #rain #cat #outside #poes #regen #alkmaar A photo posted by Nicole M. Verhaaf (@nimavenl) on Jul 14, 2012 at 2:59am PDT

We were thrilled when our new garden furniture arrived. It looks nice, it's comfortable to sit on and having furniture outside means we finally have that indoor / outdoor flow we envisioned when we moved into this house. All that's left to do now is wait for the rain to stop...

It's April and here in Europe that means we're getting ready for summer. Whether it's warm outside or not doesn't matter - we're unpacking our summer clothes, anticipating fun trips to the beach and doing the spring cleaning. To celebrate the season, here's a photo I took recently. @Nimavenl

Google strikes back? * As I'm updating posts, I try to add references and links where previously there were none. This image most likely came from this Design Magazine .

“ You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. ” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Growing up in the age of gaming, I was part of the generation that stayed inside to play their Atari, Game Boy, Nintendo or PlayStation. Dolls, wooden train sets, Barbies, G-I-Joes and ball games were abandoned for action-packed adventure games to be enjoyed from the comfort of one's own bed or couch. No more hiking through the snow to reach a friend or playing ball in the pouring rain - instead we sat down, often with a drink and some crisps, and battled monsters of each and every variety. I remember being extremely proud when I rescued Princess Peach in Super Mario 64 by defeating Bowser not once, not twice, but three times. This achievement is still the only one I can boast about, as over the years I have tried many games, but finished only this one. Photo credit:  Lara Croft Wiki One game I still want to get back to one day is Tomb Raider. I really enjoyed playing the original game when it first came out, even though it really really scared me. Instead ...

Source: WheelTronix While I am by no means a car enthusiast or even a car person , I do love Minis and other small cars. Not the newer models so much, but the older ones I will simply drool over. I used to live in the same street as a guy who did up old Minis. Whether for sport, for fun or for a living I have no idea  -- I never asked. I walked past his Mini standing in the street every day and checked out the developments. New paint job, headlights, front seats, doors - I loved seeing the changes and the new things he'd done that day or that week. After a while the current project would be finished. Everyone admired the shiny, beautiful car and a few weeks later a new project-car would appear. Dented, dusty, rusty and worn - it looked like heaven to my 11 year-old eyes. To this day, every time I walk past a Mini Cooper, a Morris Minor, VW Bug or a Renault 4CV, I stop and stare... And dream of one day owning one, just like I did when I was eleven years old and saw how hap...

Sometimes, doing absolutely nothing is simply bliss. Relaxing at home, watching The Big Bang Theory on TV, reading a book, having a hot bath... Sometimes, an evening of doing absolutely nothing really is the best thing in the world. Forget about war, famine, disease, work, life, stress or anything else outside my happy bubble, and just relax. Bliss :)

I took this photo about two weeks ago. I walk along this footpath daily on my way to work.  This time I happened to be walking here on a day I wasn't working. As I wasn't talking or rushing or trying to get somewhere, I had my phone out and was taking photos of random things along the way. Blurry trees and traffic lights, blurry buildings in the semi-dark and well, blurry shots of the pavement as well! This photo - Sure, it's weird and blurry and strange, however I love it.  I don't know exactly why, however this image feels a bit like it's the opening frame for a horror movie. Guess that's why I like it so much - it feels like it's the beginning of something. Perhaps simply the beginning of something new and different, the beginning of a journey into the future. Or, in true horror movie style, the beginning to being eaten by a monster that jumps out of the trees just ahead. Who knows...  Just imagine what would happen, what you ...

@Nimavenl Took this photo last weekend while walking around my home town. (C) Nimavenl 2012

Can´t help but think that somehow this is very, very true! Found it here , although by the looks of it they got it somewhere else as well...

Wandering around the mall last week, I decided I needed to work on my creativity - and possibly get me a new hobby. A week later, I'm wondering why that crazy thought entered my mind. I read, I write, I do crosswords, I enjoy photography - surely those are good hobbies to have?! Source: Wikipedia My muse disagreed however, and when I saw a 1000-piece puzzle of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night , I simply had to buy it. I honestly can't remember the last time I completed a puzzle that didn't involve words, so to say that completing this puzzle is a challenge is definitely an understatement! It's a challenge I'm enjoying, however! As of today, the outside pieces are all in place, as are the bottom left and the top right pieces. As for the rest... I have about five piles of purple puzzle pieces ranging from pinkish to almost black, a pile each with brownish and blackish pieces, another huge pile of greenish pieces, a bunch of stars ready to be fit...