Finally!

I finally got my kitchen set up the way I wanted it. I've been wanting to get rid of the existing cabinets (old, rotten, bulky) and change the overall layout of the room.

A while back, my son and I tore apart the largest of the cabinets (actually, a combo of 2) and tossed the debris out into the garden (well, we set it along the wall, we didn't just throw it out, the dog needs her space out there). We assembled the new one and that only made me want to change the rest even more.

Here's my son, pretending to be a mad Bob the Builder

And this is the finished product.

So, yesterday, I finally had someone over to help me with getting the rest of it done.
They broke out the old sink and the cabinets it was mounted on top of (and tossed everything out along with the rest of it), hammered a sturdy wooden panel where the cabinets had been (one of the previous occupants made a construction about 10 inches away from the exterior (brick) wall, mounted wooden panels on it, but omitted to do the same behind the cabinets. So once it was torn down, there was a gaping hole in the wall.

Here, you can see part of the cabinets, this was taken after my new central heating was installed (in September 2017). I was getting tired of the color and the wood soaked up so much water from all the times the kitchen got flooded, it was barely holding together.

Here, you can see most of it as my son is washing the ceiling (that needed some serious lovin' (and a whole heck of a lot of elbow grease, lemme tell you that!!)) The double sink and "dripping" section cover the entire length of the cabinet (2 meters), so it's not something you can just pick up and move. It took some serious muscle power to get it out!

And here you can see what the wall looked like when they took everything away (the green panel is the new one, next to it, you can see how far the whole thing actually sits from the wall (I lose about 25 cm of my width and I'm sure it's the same on the other side).

The dirt at the bottom was put there to keep the drain in place.

Now, this is what it looks like with the new panel attached. Washing machine was put in place first, as the door opens from right to left. The door on the dryer opens left to right, so this way, I can put my basket in between and go from one to the other smoothly.

All of the appliances were lined up against the new wall, resulting in this awesome view (the one I've been after for months!!!)

The hanging cabinet will be taken down, stripped and repainted. The old double sink was replaced by a very ingenious kit from IKEA, which slides over the dryer (or any other appliance), provides work space and allows for storage underneath. What it doesn't allow for, is rodents hiding away in it (we live right by crop fields and often get mice inside, but we've had the larger variety a few times as well and they're less welcome).

You might also notice the patch of paint missing next to the cooker hood (is that what you call it in English???). That's because the last paint job was done *around* things. One lazy ass (my ex-husband) didn't want to take everything down to do a decent job, which leaves me with a patchwork of paint on the walls. The holes just above the electrical rail are from the previous outlets and will be plugged before I repaint.

I already have the paint and the walls will be a sandy yellow. Not sure what I'm going to paint the remaining cabinet, but I might just put a clear varnish on it if I manage to strip it down to the wood and I like the look of it. My new cabinets have that wooden look too, so it would fit right in.

Any suggestions for other colors are appreciated.

And to close the debates, here is a shot of my new microwave cabinet, with the new microwave oven sitting pretty (it was a b-day gift from my mom and has been sitting in a corner for 6 weeks, waiting for me to get things sorted out so it could go in its rightful place). The smaller one that is sitting on top of my dishwasher in the picture above, has found a new owner in my mom's upstairs neighbor.

It took all day to get this put together and finished properly, then my son and I battled the final cabinet (and yes, my doors are crooked, I was tired of it and needed to start on dinner, so it had to wait).

Overall, I gained a lot of space in my kitchen (dishwasher and dryer are now sitting against the wall instead of taking up space between the cabinet and heater on one side and between the washing machine and new fridge on the other (I recently bought a new washing machine with a bigger door than the previous one, and this door couldn't open entirely because of the position of the dishwasher).

Happy home owner!!!

Well ... that happened

I'm quoting my son here, who will be 18 this summer.

Can you imagine that?
18!!
I have no idea where time went. It seems like yesterday he was nothing more than a tiny bundle in my arms. Now, he wants to buy a car.

I guess one could say "life got away from me" and that's why I haven't posted here in two years.
It wouldn't be such a bad thing to say. Honestly, life did get away from me quite a bit in the last two years. One of my last posts, dating from October 2016 explains a few things already, the death of both my father (whom I never really knew) and my ex-husband had quite a long-winded follow-up to them. I ended up buying the house in March 2017, so I've been a home owner for little over a year.

Around the time of my last two posts here, I had burglars in the house one night. While I was in my living room, playing some Call of Duty, someone jumped the back wall into the garden, managed to open the back door into the kitchen and raided my fridge without me ever noticing a thing!!! I can tell you it's not a great feeling when you realize they could've been bolder or you could've walked in on them emptying your fridge. For about a year, nothing else happened, even though I did 'fortify' the kitchen door a bit. Then, almost exactly one year later, a similar thing happened. It did the trick and I got a dog less than 2 weeks later. A lovely female German Shepherd dog. The kind with big teeth and a certain dislike for people who try to enter uninvited.
In the few weeks following the second break-in, she chased wannabe burglars away 5 more times!! Not sure what the hell was going on, but everyone wanted a piece of me!

The spree ended when I (finally) got my new doors and windows installed, which are far more deterring than the old raggedy door and worn window frames used to be. So that happened. And more improvements happened to the house, which is almost 100 years old. It was in dire need of some serious lovin'.

And something else happened.

I - finally - finished my first novel!!!

I will be sending it off to be formatted, hopefully it can be done quickly (now that I've gotten to the end of it, I don't want to waste any more time) and I will give the final information to my cover artist, then .... it will be time to release it into the wild ....

So, hopefully some people will pick up a copy and I won't feel like a total failure.

I will try to come here more frequently again and hopefully, I will be posting a link to where my book can be ordered from next.

Yikes!!!!

Holy crap!!

Has it really been nearly a year since I was last here??????

Well, they say time flies when you're having fun, but I guess it flies just as quickly when you're not.

So, what has happened the past 11 months?
A lot!! That's for sure!!

First of all, let me just say I finished NaNoWriMo with a win (but just barely so). That was after all the last post I made, an update on my progress. So there ya have it. I won!!! LOL

What else has been going on since?
Well, my father died (no worries, I never really knew him, he left my mom when I was still a baby) and we're only now getting to the end of all the follow-up. Now, the only thing that is left to discuss, is the house. When he died, my siblings and I (there's 3 of us, but don't worry, I'm the only crazy one) inherited his half of the house he bought with my mom. We're trying to figure out what to do with it (I live in it at the time, since I'm renting it from my mom who had full "use" of it after their divorce so many years ago).

Then, exactly 2 months after his death (even though we didn't find out till the end of April because nobody knew if he had a family or not), my ex-husband died. He actually didn't just "die", he committed suicide. That made a big impact on our lives. Thankfully, it was an immensely positive impact!! My son no longer has to find an excuse every other weekend and there are no more arguments or fights over him not wanting to go. The kid just turned 16. That's YEARS, not months. There's no way you could get away with forcing a 16-year old to spend his weekend in your tiny, stinky apartment, watching you smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes each day and pour beer after beer after beer down your throat. Eventually, you're gonna have a problem.
Now, the problem has resolved itself.

Nobody knows why he did it, but I sorta put 2 and 2 together and I'm thinking he simply ran out of money and decided that was it and he put an end to it. I can't think of anything else because he really wasn't the type of guy who would even consider "backing out" of anything. He'd rather make your life miserable than admit he was wrong. Even about the silliest things.

So, that's a weight off our shoulders (even though I'm keeping an eye on my son, just in case).

Then what happened?

Oh yeah!! We had a great holiday visiting my friend in Canada and adding a long weekend in New York City after what my son went on his second trip to Sweden (he's becoming a genuine little globe trotter).

That actually brings us almost up to today.

One more thing I might want to add, I finally found Krav Maga classes in the area and have started last week. Good thing about it, my son can join me (even though it's an adult class). We're probably going to enjoy the fact we're doing it together more than the activity itself, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Looking forward to tomorrow's class and if you're lucky, I might even start updating on that .... if I don't lose my link.

Talking Trash

Something I have to get off my chest.
And no, I'm not the one who's talking trash. And no, this post is *not* related to the latest "news" on Kiefer.

What this post *is* about, is a co-worker. Now, I'm not the type of gal who will come online and get into the blame & shame game and I usually keep private stuff to myself, but this is really starting to bug me, so I need to vent. Once you're done reading, you may think it's no big deal, but it is and if you give it some time, you'll find out why.

So what is this about??
Kiefer in the first place.
How?
By constantly (and deliberately) getting his name wrong. In Dutch, there is only one way to pronounce it and that's the right way!
-IE- in Dutch is ALWAYS pronounced "e" whereas -EI- sounds more like the word "heir". There is no way you can get it wrong, unless you're *trying* to get it wrong. And that's what bugs me.
That intention to say it wrong just to tick me off.

News Flash!!
It's a lack of respect when you don't get a person's name right, especially when you're doing it on purpose. You want to disrespect Kiefer "to my face"? You're gonna get a reaction and you know it.

And here's another news flash!
Stuff like that is "funny" when you're 15 and in mid school! Not when you're a grown woman and even less so AT WORK!

Makes me feel like I'm 15 again and being constantly pestered by my stepdad. HIS biggest joy, was to talk trash about my idols just to tick me off. Just to get me going. For the sake of pissing and setting me off.
Ten years worth of that are enough to last me a lifetime, thanks a bunch for putting me through it again.

Yeah, I'm stronger than that, but honestly, enough is enough.
You're really starting to piss me off by intentionally disrespecting someone I admire and respect immensely. You don't like him? Fine! To each their own. That doesn't mean you can/should disrespect the man. You're also disrespecting me in the process.

That's the first point.

And this is the second one.

You trashing my writing!!

You asked me what my upcoming novel is about. When I told you it was Sci-Fi, your reactions said enough. When I added the word "aliens", your response gutted me.

"Booooo-ring"

How do you know?
You haven't even read THE FIRST WORD and you're saying my novel is boring, simply because it's about aliens. What makes you think a story about aliens can be nothing but "boring"?? Don't you think you should try *reading* it before deciding whether or not it's "boring"?
It could be. But how do you know?

How can you say something like that, when you haven't read ANYTHING I've ever written??


I tried explaining the difference between "not being interested in something" and "something being boring", but you weren't listening. You even dragged another colleague into it, asking HIM what he thought about aliens, and practically telling him he should agree with you in saying aliens are "boring". Thankfully, he's slightly more tactful than you are. And a little more respectful as well.


Do you have any idea how hurtful that remark was?
You don't even know what the damn story is about!
How do you know the book is going to be "boring"?
Simply because it's about aliens?
Why couldn't that be intriguing?
Thought-provoking?
Riveting?

What makes you think it's impossible to write an interesting story about aliens?


Maybe Sci-Fi is not your thing and maybe you don't believe in aliens.
That's fine by me, I won't judge you over that.
But what gives you the right to judge my work without even reading it?
What gives you the right to shoot my story down without even giving it the benefit of the doubt?


What gives you that right??



It's a good thing I've been publishing my work online for over a decade. I've had more than enough compliments and confidence boosters over the years and I know I can write a good, strong, intriguing story. You're not the one who will convince me otherwise.


Just know that talking trash about people and disrespecting them and those they admire, isn't going to make you many friends.


You know who you are.

Enjoy your weekend, I'll be working on that "boring" piece of junk you'll never read.

Moody

It's a word.
It's a name.
It's a state of mind.

But where did it come from?

Here's the place for you to find out more about me.

Who is Moody?

I guess everyone can be moody at times, but no one can be as moody as Moody is. LOL
Now, where did it come from?

A few years ago ... okay, fine, over a *decade* ago, I worked at Disneyland Paris.



I'm not sure how people feel about that, but I don't really care. I had a blast. I worked there for 3 years, starting in 1995. The main reason why they hired me, is because I speak 4 languages and Main Street is the one place where they need that most since all visitors come through there at least twice every. The more languages you speak, the more visitors you can assist, so the choice was logical. After a year and a half approximately, I moved on to Discoveryland before moving out of the park and into one of the hotels about 6 months later, where my languages still opened all the doors. At the Sequoia Lodge hotel, I was also "noticed" by the Parade manager, which resulted in this:

 

It's hard to tell (and maybe even harder to believe), but that's me (oh, but don't tell the kids, okay!!!!)

I had an absolute BLAST, even though it wasn't always easy. The feeling you get when all those kids rush you, happy smiles on their faces and magic in their eyes .... you can be depressed when you walk out "on stage", but it sure doesn't last long. Before you know it, there's an ear-to-ear smile on your face that just won't go away, no matter what.

It's excellent therapy!!!

Something else I did while in Disney, was spend a lot (a whole heck of a lot actually!!!) time in the Village, more specifically at Billy Bob's Country and Western Saloon. It still exists nowadays, but things have changed so much since they added the second park, I don't think I would still enjoy it as much as I used to. The one reason why I spent so much time at Billy Bob's, is the fact they had live country music every night. The band's name: The Moody Brothers.

In this picture, from left to right: Billy Helms, Marcc Nutter and Brian (sorry, can't remember your last name), in the back, behind the drums is Greg Auch.

These guys rock in more than one ways.

When I returned home after 3 years, I wanted to do something to keep the memory alive. I started using the internet and when I was prompted to enter a username, I adopted "moodywizz" as a name. It later morphed into simply "Moody" and more recently into "Moody Val".

Bottom line, Moody Val is a total fruit loop who likes to run around in costumes, making little kids happy and loves country music so much, she didn't want the memory of a great bunch of musicians to fade away.

Stick around to learn more about me.
I promise you, there's a LOT more to come.

Toodles for now!