Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

Ik ben sinds ik als jong meisje met Disney prinsessen opgroeide gek op prinsessenjurken. Ik ben ook stapelgek op trouwjurken, baljurken en galajurken. De Troonswisseling vandaag 30 april 2013 was een fantastische gelegenheid om ontzettend mooie jurken te zien! Er waren veel Kroonprinsen- en prinsessen dus per definitie erg veel prinsessenjurken te zien. Ik heb mijn hart kunnen ophalen! Ik hoop nog wat zinnigs te kunnen schrijven over de woorden van onze nieuwe Koning en over wat deze gebeurtenis voor mij persoonlijk betekent. Dat zal later komen. Voor nu zal ik het erbij laten de kledingkeuze van onze nieuwe Koningin te bejubelen. De ontzettend mooie blauwe jurk met mantel gedragen bij de Inhuldiging en de magisch mooie creatie (met Argentijnse invloed?) die Máxima 's avonds aanhad waren alle twee ontzettend mooi. Ik heb er in ieder geval twee jurken bij voor mijn "Als ik een prinses was, dan..." lijstje van jurken waar ik in het dagelijks leven alleen maar van k...

In a few days, my country will have a King instead of a Queen. For 33 years we've had a Queen at the head of our nation. Her son will now take over and become the King. Our Crown Prince Willem Alexander is a smart, charming and intelligent man who in my opinion will make a very good future king. He has had the time to become his own person, form his own opinions and really understand his future role. A husband and father, advocate for sports and the environment and a well-spoken and funny man; I believe Willem Alexander is a King of the current age and one who will put his own stamp on our country and on his new office.  While I am certain that Willem Alexander will be an amazing new head of our country, there is the little girl in me that is much more impressed by our new Queen to be. It is Willem Alexander's wife Princess Máxima who has left no-one in doubt that she will be an amazing future Queen. She is intelligent and charming and has the makings, bearing and of c...

I am so sick and tired of Instagram's issues! Been trying (on and off) for the past 45 minutes to post comments to a photo I posted and am having no luck. Managed to get a few 'tags' posted however apart from the few tags, the others remain unposted. Instagram uses a method of tagging a photo so others can find it by subject. Tagging works by putting a hash tag before a word. One may search for #flowers or pictures of the #beach, for instance. When tagging is practically impossible, getting my photos 'out there' is harder as I can't put as many tags (descriptions) on my photos as I would like. Problems with posting comments to Instagram are annoying. They are not life threatening or anything like that, I am aware of that :-) Sometimes though, it's good to complain a bit when I manage to wind myself up too much over an insignificant problem! It helps me get it out of my system and hopefully gets my problem some exposure by putting it online. Anyone out t...

I work in customer service. Working in customer service means giving people my name in good faith and hoping that those people will understand that me giving them my name does not mean I want to become friends online or in real life. Having encountered some customers who do not understand the difference between a friendly professional chat while waiting for a computer to come up with results and something else, I have now stopped giving people my real name. I am also changing and rearranging the information I have available online. As a result of "editing" my online privacy I have reverted most of my blog posts to draft. I will be going through the posts, editing where necessary and removing a post where it is too personal. The others I will put back online. I look forward to a new, changed and improved blog,  I hope you will join me in that enthusiasm! 

Doctor Who: The Bells Of St John broadcast time confirmed | Den of Geek

I am trying to decide what to read next. Could do with a re-read of a loved book or series. Could read a new and inspiring book. Which one, though? I've just re-read J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Have also read several Laurell K. Hamilton books in the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series. I'm familiar with the worlds created by the authors and know the books and the characters. I am looking for a similarly familiar series to read or re-read. To explain 'similarly familiar' : I love stories about vampires, were-animals, dragons, aliens, magical worlds and such and know those genres. Whether one reads Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris or Stephenie Meyer, they are all writing about vampires and how these walking undead interact with humanity and with the world around them. Whether the vampires sparkle, fly, question organised religion or fall in love - the basics of vampirism (is that even a word?!) stay mostly the same and thus the story feels familiar. I like b...

RTL Nieuws - Emma en Daan populairste kindernamen Overzicht van meest populaire kindernamen in Nederland. Moet toegeven dat ik er best een paar mooie namen tussen zie staan. Goed om zo'n lijst te hebben, weet ik meteen hoe we onze toekomstige kinderen niet zullen noemen! ;-)

Stadslichten. Vanaf de brug tegenover bushalte Kanaalkade. City Lights. Taken from the bridge across from bus stop Kanaalkade.  Binnenstad Alkmaar. Noord Holland, Nederland. Taken with my Samsung Galaxy S II.

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...