Monday Musings, Week 8, 2022

With the Netherlands opening up a bit more after a soft lockdown in January, I decided to take a week off from work, so Bren and I could finally have some quality time and do the things we love to do. But this week is also a great week to start plotting my new novel. I already made a little start last Sunday, by writing in a brand new notebook. I have a good idea of how I want to structure the new novel and this week I’ll finally have some time to sit down and really consider where I want the story to go. Since it’s going to be a five novel series, I have to plan ahead a little, or at least have a faint idea of where the story is going in the course of these novels. This also means that I’ll soon be able to share a little bit about my methods as a writer.

The raging storm

Last weekend we had a visit from storm Eunice, luckily we weren’t affected by the storm, but a lot of trees here in Hilversum have fallen over, branches caused a lot of damage and we heard that some people had problems with their roof, with roof tiles flying off. I love being on Reddit and there’s a certain subreddit that shares posts from people who believe in all kinds of weird conspiracies. One of them apparently is that these storms are caused by our government to push the climate change agenda. I don’t know how stupid people are to believe theories like this, but it takes a certain kind of stupid to do so. If anything, storms like these are the sign that climate change is a real thing and we can only expect more like these if we don’t make a change for the better. What I find odd about people believing these theories is how they justify why our government would willingly want to destroy so much (of their own) property to push a climate change agenda. Anyway, I digress, the storm has caused a lot of damage and I hope everyone came through it safe.

Finally some time to relax

It’s quite odd how you can have some time off work and still not feel like you were able to relax. We experienced this in January, when I still had some time off and everything was closed down. This week we can finally visit a museum, do some thrift shopping and well, whatever we like. It’s quite odd that you experience a lockdown almost as being locked up yourself when you don’t have the freedom to do the things you love, but I suppose that it’s something we all experienced over the last couple of years. We really miss the big festivals like Castlefest the most.

And to get some stuff done

After I finish writing this blog, I’ll sit down and have a look at everything I want to do this week. There’s still some chores around the house that need doing. For instance, we received a couple of WiFi enhancers that I still need to install and there’s definitely some other things that I just never seem to get around to that I’m hoping I’ll be able to do this week. Time always flies when you have one week off, in my experience, so I’m hoping to find a nice balance between getting stuff done and relaxing.

I’ve also taken up a new hobby. I started doing sculpting/modeling with Fimo clay. I’m still working on a little project, but I really love doing this stuff and I intend to make all kinds of fun stuff. Bren is making amazing jewelry with it (as you can see in the picture above!) and some of that will be up for sale on the Green Dream Shop this week! People reacted very positively to them on our Instagram, so it’s definitely something Bren would love to put more energy into.

Well, that’s it for now, I’m off to make my To-Do for the week and wish you all a great week!

Jeffrey