Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

I've been reading a lot the last few weeks. I wrote about it briefly - in this 09 August 2015 post - however didn't elaborate all that much. I haven't even updated Goodreads (which is where I keep track of what I read and want to read) to show or share what I'm reading. Those who know me won't be surprised that I'm reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series and loving it. Starting to get to the last few books and have to say I almost want to take a break from reading just so the series will last longer! All this reading means I haven't been blogging much, haven't shared many posts on Twitter and have barely updated Facebook. And honestly, while I try to keep up to date with what's going on in the real world, I find myself thinking more about what's going on in MZB's fictional world than our real one. So, here's a quick post today with a few quotes about reading... The quotes were all found on Goodreads . “The more that you ...

Happy Scar-Day to me... Surgery was two years ago today. Without that surgery, I wouldn't be alive today. Feels like I should be having a party or something! I'll just have a beer instead... To Life!

Note To Self: Use knife to cut vegetables, not to slice finger. 2nd Note To Self: Tomatoes good. Tomato sauce good. Hey why is it red I didn't spill any tomato there... Oh wait because I cut my finger. .. Blood sauce bad. 3rd Note To Self: When cooking, the pot on the stove with boiling water in it is hot. Hot means auchie ow auw ow = bad. Really: Duh. Remember not to to touch. 4th Note To Self: Walking away from kitchen while cooking is not advised. Sitting down to write notes to self is fine, usually, just not when it makes you forget about stirring. 5th Note To Self: Remember note number three. And for crying out loud, don't pick up a hot pot with your bare hands, you will hurt your fingers. 6th Note To Self: That pot holder hanging on the hook by the stove... Use it... 7th Note To Self: No, that cloud does not look like Drogon. Really, it doesn't. Which doesn't mean it wouldn't be cool to ride a ... Cooking! You're cooking! Stop dreaming ...

Having decided that I'm going to assign myself Photo Challenges on a weekly (perhaps bi-weekly? perhaps fortnightly?) basis, the time has come to investigate Challenges. The whole idea is that I want to challenge myself to take photos based on themes and ideas or photograph certain features such as trees, flowers, buildings, windows, doors, playgrounds etcetera. The first Challenge was to walk a route I normally don't take my camera on and photograph what I see every hundred or so steps. After completing that Challenge and posting a set of eight photos of nature and the Dutch landscape, the next challenge is... To decide on the next Challenge. While  I want to challenge myself to take photos of new and different things, to look at the world in a new way and to go 'hunting' for photos (something I don't usually do), I don't want to pick challenges that are too hard or difficult and don't want to lose interest in the whole concept. The whole idea is to have ...

A description of my day so far. Dramatised (if only a little) to insert humour, edited because my exact daily schedule is no-one's business really and polished because certain things simply don't need to be shared online with strangers! Wake up. Get dressed. Make coffee. Sit down to drink coffee while reading. Make myself breakfast and head out for the morning. Come back home, make coffee, then sit down to write down some thoughts. Get up to make more coffee - Walk to kitchen, rinse coffee cup and turn Senseo on. Wipe bench and stove, promise myself I'll clean the kitchen floor today. Fill sink for first load of dishes. Load washing machine and turn on. Sit down again. Turn laptop on, check emails.7 Remember I wanted coffee earlier - head back to kitchen, actually make cup of coffee. Check Twitter and reTweet interesting Tweets from my timeline. Sit while staring into space contemplating gender inequality and literacy rates around the world. Remember that I made coffee and ...

On navigating meltdowns when your child has autism. http://t.co/qd0iACmx9R #JDAM15 pic.twitter.com/VFtW3kjYbx — Kveller (@Kveller) February 5, 2015 Growing up, I knew I was a little different from others. I didn't always react or respond as I was expected to. I didn't always understand sarcasm or social cues or say the right thing. I preferred reading to group sports, didn't like being touched by strangers, would insult people without noticing they were insulted, loved learning but hated school, was (and am) pretty much obsessed with Star Trek, loved learning about people and society but sometimes had trouble understanding others... Today I understand that I wasn't strange or dumb or weird or unsocial or unfriendly or awkward or stupid or silly or anything of the sort. I was simply me, simply being true to myself, simply too young and innocent to understand that all people are special, individual, unique and amazing. I was too young to understand tha...

Dear Reader,  This is a bit of an angry rant.  Please read at your own discretion.  Dear Google, I use your services. Well, I use Google Search, Gmail, Blogger and Translate. Most of your other so-called services I just complain about. Or actively avoid, as in the case of YouTube. You see, dear Google, I am liking you less and less. We became close friends some ten years ago -- our 'ten year anniversary' is coming up... Will you congratulate me and tell me you love being friends with me? Of course not. At most you'll hassle me about buying something, spending my money on something, installing something that will allow you to better track my online movement or... No, wait. Let me start over. What will happen is this: In your quest to learn more about me, who I am and how I behave, you will only collect more information that gets passed on to more parties wanting to use that information to send me advertising you or they think I might like, send me offers to s...

I put my headphones on earlier (as there was some construction work going on close by) and was listening to Manu Chao which tends to make me smile and want to dance along. As I walked (or waltzed? seeing my hips were definitely moving) into the kitchen trying to remember all the words to " Me Gustas Tu " I was focused on the music. And on the smell of coffee coming from the coffee maker, in all honesty. Which means that, without pause or hesitation, I walked straight into the open door of a kitchen cabinet which struck my forehead and has now left me with a pretty impressive bruise. As I stood in my kitchen repeating "owowowowowowow" I figured this might make for a fun blog entry which is why instead of drinking my coffee while it's hot, I am writing down these words. You know what - I've decided that hot coffee comes first after all; it smells divine.

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, the floor creaked. Not unusual, however something that still reminds me of our cat who died last year. Just for a few seconds lying there in between sleep and waking, I allowed myself to imagine our cat was still alive and prowling through the house; that it was her making the floor creak. Catching some Sunshine | Nimavenl As I wiped away a tear I smiled and reminded myself of the famous quote from Alfred. Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam that it is "Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." How true indeed and such perfect words for when one remembers a loved one who is no longer with us (no matter the species of that loved one!). Today's photo is for all those who have loved and lost - Always remember the good times, the sunshine and the times that made you smile, laugh and love.

In case you read last night's post and are wondering how getting to sleep went... The imaginary little shoulder devil was right. I heard music almost as soon as I'd written the words. The music dulled the voices a little though, so it was more like a blessing in disguise, thankfully. After being unable to sleep last night because the noise from next-door was bugging me, I decided I would try to 'write away' my frustration while listening to some soothing music. It worked, which I'm quite happy about. I usually enjoy being awake in the evening or at night when it's quiet and there are no noises to remind me of how many people live in The Netherlands and how crowded it can feel here. I like city life, people and living in the middle of Europe, however after almost ten years in New Zealand I've grown to appreciate peace and quiet as well. I don't mind having neighbours as most of them are friendly and living in a building full of people makes me f...

Music is playing on my headphones yet the noise behind the music is still bugging me, just a tiny little bit. I can't quite relax, can't get to sleep. My brain keeps thinking "hey, something's up" because I can hear the voices next-door so well. Normally voices heard that clearly are nearby, as in right outside my house. Voices right outside my house means there are people outside my house, people in my garden, people by the door, people who shouldn't be there; strangers who are too close to the house. Hearing noises outside my house signals DANGER danger DANGER and means I need to call the police, need to be sure the doors are locked, need to be sure the windows are closed, need to be ready to scare intruders off, need to be ready to hide, need to... No. Stop. Wait. There is no danger.

There was a terrorist attack on the office of satirical paper Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday which killed twelve people, the murder of an unarmed policewoman last Thursday and the hostage-taking at a kosher deli resulting in four deaths on Friday. It's been a week of being glued to the television and laptop, a week of checking websites and social media feeds for information, answers and others' opinions about what is going on in our world. Predictably, there are those who loudly scream that Islam is evil or that all Muslims are evil. Please, give me a break. Extremism is what's dangerous, and thinking that your way being superior to another's way allows you to kill them when you disagree about something as insignificant as a satirical drawing. I had never heard of Charlie Hebdo before Wednesday, had never seen a single one of their cartoons. Even though I live in western Europe, even though I started learning French in primary school, even though I've been to Fran...

Took this photo a year ago on what I think was my first solo outing after surgery. Post by Nimavenl .

A photo from 8am this morning. Love the colours! Post by Nimavenl .

Woke up today to my (ahum) lovely and (ahum ahum) considerate neighbours drilling into shared concrete walls, banging on shared walls, hammering away and - I can only imagine - generally having a good time pretending to be workers at a construction site instead of people who live inside a building they share with other people who all have their own lives.  It's not a fun way to wake up; being forced awake by things happening outside my own flat yet inside my building. I can't change anything about the banging and noise or the complete disregard my neighbours have for other people, however I can't get away from it either. Not without leaving the entire building, which means waking up, getting dressed and leaving the house to... to.... to try to go to sleep in a park or by the side of the road because sleeping inside my own house is impossible? Do they seriously not realise that their walls are also my walls? That when they start banging away, everyone else in the bu...

Dear Readers, Blog posts have temporarily disappeared while I work out what will happen with this blog. Thank you for your patience.

Source: The A Factor Shop My super sweet and amazing boyfriend gave me a Doctor Who Tardis key-chain and a "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" / Tardis top to celebrate my surviving open heart surgery almost three weeks ago.  As a huge Doctor Who fan I was super thrilled and yes, I definitely squealed like a teenager. (Well, pretty much... Sort of... Ish?...) While I've been a fan of both Doctor Who and Torchwood for several years, I've never bought or owned any Who merchandise.  Won't be able to use the key-chain for a while as I'm still quite apprehensive about leaving the house while I can barely stand and walk due to the problems with my leg caused by surgery. Won't wear the top yet as I want to keep it looking as spiffy as possible. Still - I am super, super thrilled with my prezzies and can't stop looking at them!  I understand that many other women would have preferred shoes, clothes, handbags or jewellery however I am - thank the Lo...

There are some things in life that are serious enough to take one away from the internet for some time. This is one of those things. I'll be having open heart surgery next week which means I won't be posting as much as I might for some time and will hopefully have more time to write and post when I'm recovering.

I've got a feeling this is going to be another random ramble. There have been goings-on in the world at large and in my personal world that I've wanted to write about. The plane crash of a great number of Poland's officials for instance. The ash cloud hanging over Europe after a volcano erupted in Iceland. People I talk to. Things I'm reading about.  In the end, I didn't write about any of these things. They mattered, I followed the news, read more about things that interested me, however didn't feel I had enough to say about any of these things to write an opinion piece about them. A general recap definitely, however a well-researched and thought-through story, argument, anything - no. Life is going on. It's going well. I'm doing well. Coming to terms with several things, learning new things about myself, learning new things about life. I'm also starting to realise that some people I thought of as good friends maybe aren't such good f...

I've had the first verse of Simple Plan's "Welcome to my Life" as the description at the top of my blog for some time now. The lyrics fit me, somehow, sometimes. They describe someone feeling lost and alone and unsure of who they are and what their place is in the world. The lyrics describe how I feel sometimes. They are also more than I am, and less than I am as well. I'm not always down or depressed, I'm not always lost and searching. Certainly not. There are times when I know exactly how I feel and why, what I want and how to go about achieving my goals. There are times I'm sad and times I'm happy, times I know I'm on the right track and other times when I feel like I've completely lost the plot and the meaning of life seems to elude me. Don't we all have times like that?! Do you ever feel like breaking down / Do you ever feel out of place / Like somehow you just don't belong / And no one understands you / Do you ever wanna run a...