Tuesday 23 December 2008: Thursday veggie day!

Heidi says:

I just read that the EVA (ethisch vegetarisch alternatief) is proposing a vegetarian day: Thursday veggie day. I think that is a wonderful idea! The bond says that if every belgian would stick to eating vegetarian on Thursday (or at least one day per week), these would be the consequences for the world: it would mean as much for the environment as to take half a million cars from the road, or as if people would ride 1100 kilometers by bike instead of driving their cars. A good idea for the new year?

Monday 22 December 2008: Heidi waits for the Christmas feeling...

Heidi says: I don't find the christmas feeling. I have always been so nostalgic and I have always loved christmas. This year, I miss the feeling. Maybe I miss all my usual emotions.

Sunday 21 December 2008

Heidi says: exhausted.

Saturday 20 December 2008: Sarah's off to Germany and you probably won't se here here till Thursday! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Sarah says:
I am outy! The rush is over! Time for rest and relaxation before 2009 starts. I think 2009 will be a hell of a year! I can' wait for my one week vacation to start in a small town in Germant tomorrow but I also really look forward to the new year! Very exciting! I may not be on here until Thursday or so! Not sure I'll have a computer to use or internet while we are away! I don't care! It will be great to be off a computer for a bit! Heidi will hold down the fort as usual!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN ADVANCE MS!!!! I'LL BE SENDING YOU WISHES ALL THE WAY FROM GERMANY ON THE 22 DAY!!!!! HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY!

Friday 19 December 2008: Heidi, Sarah and Nancy Face The Night at Face The Day for their office reception! Viva this team of three!

Sarah says:
Friday we had an office reception! There the three of us looking cheery at the end of the evening. It was a nice night. It was also my last work before my vacation which has officially started I am happy to say. I have one week ahead of rest and relaxation with my husband, daughter, mother and friends ASG and TSG in a small town in Germany (Morsdorf). I can't wait to relax, reat, read, listen to good music, eat well! Just what I need!

Thursday 18 december 2008: Heidi got diagnosed and Sarah's mom is in Belgium for 2 weeks!

Sarah says:

I get your frustration Heidi and understand your struggle! I really feel for you!

My mom arrived yesterday and there above you can see her with Heidi and me. It's good to have her here. My daughter is happy when she's around. Our house is relaxed. It's nice to be cooked for too! I'm looking forward to vacation for a week starting next Monday!

Heidi says:
I went back to the doctor yesterday. We talked for an hour. He told me I might have Fibromyalgie. He pushed a flyer in my hands and I read it thoroughly. He might be completely right. Fibromyalgie has a lot to do with tension. The causes aren't known, but people with fibromyalgie have a lot of pain in muscles and joints, on certain points, mostly in the area of the neck, shoulder back and arms and legs. They also have a bad bowel transit or system. They often suffer from chronic stress or angst. And when they wake up in the morning, they are tired.
When I read all this, it scared me because I recognised myself totally in this.
I went over it lightly, like I usually do when I am at the doctor because I want to seem strong and not weak, but the doctor said I shouldn't go over it lightly, because if I don't work on it and change my life, I can get chronically tired and that is not something you wanna get.
So what do I need to do now?
The doctor says: Change your life. Take time for yourself. Rest. Sleep. Relax.

How do you change your life when you're me? I am a nervous type of person. When I was 6 years old, I was in a dancegroup and we had to perform. Right before we had to get dressed and to get ready, I started to cry. The danceteacher let my mother come, and I told my mom I had a bellyache. At the age of 13, I had bellyached every single day of the year. I staid in the hospital for 3 days and got examined completely. I got diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The bellyaches never stopped anymore since then. I don't suffer from them all the time, but I can just get a bellyache that lasts for three or four days and there is nothing I can do about it.
When I was 27, and six months pregnant, the gyneacologist told me I had to stay in bed for 10 weeks, because my uterus was too sensitive. Yesterday, I got diagnosed with fibromyalgie.

My personality is this: I am a nervous person. I like thing to be the way I like them to be. I don't like to sit still. I like to be active. I need a lot of sleep (since I was a tiny baby).

When I get a moment to myself, I can't just sit at home and be relaxed. I always need to do something. It is time to change that. I think it is time to learn the art of relaxation. I have a very long way to go and it scares me a bit. I don't know if I am capable. The good thing about this is: I am healthy in a way (I do feel the pain and the tension, but it's nothing that can be located and so there is no operation needed. Everything looks perfect in my neck and bones and nerves). And it's almost new year. New year means resolutions. For the first time, I can have real resolutions.
I HAVE TO MAKE RESOLUTIONS AND I HAVE TO GO FOR THEM.

So what can I think about and what can I do?
- yoga
- sleep more
- rest more
- keep a book about what I feel every day (fysically and psychologically)
- take the pills the doc prescribed me to relax
- go to a osteopath
- change my life, which is the hardest part. What do I keep on doing and what not?

I have a lot to think about.

Wednesday 17 December 2008: Heidi and Sarah are just Heidi and Sarah all over again! No time to make interesting pics anymore! Just same old same old!

Sarah says:

There we are again with our mulle and tote! Yes ASG - there's that shirt you love yet again!!!! I am saving the planet by never changing my clothes! Less wash! No hassle! You love it! Heidi is even starting to match her hat to my shirt I wear it so much! Another day with not much to report other than I love the OXFAM shop. We got such great stuff there for not a lot of money. I want to try most of my gifts there as it's almost like doing a good deed. Heidi turned me on to that - so thanks for that Heidi. I always thought it was way too expensive - kind of like solar panels - but it's not and like solar panels it's a little step at saving this freaking planet of ours and the people in it!

Tuesday 16 December 2008: Heidi finds nothing and Sarah knows sprouts aren't for everyone and make a lot of people gassy but try just try this recipe!

Sarah says:
I know that many of you think brussels sprouts are nasty and cause too much gas! I agree about the gas but not about the the taste. I totally love sprouts. The photo above indeed makes them look a little nasty - but trust me - this is a great recipe that you all might want to try!

It's not mine I am sad to admit. I stole it from the Moosewood Celebrations cookbook. Basically you take a pound of sprouts (so half kilo). You cut the stems and put a deep X on each sprout bottom with a knife. In a small dish you put half a cup of soy sauce, three tablespoons of honey and about two tablespoons of red wine (dry). In the meantime, you melt about two tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan. You add the sprouts and the liquid mix along with about half a cup of water. You cook let it come to a boil and then turn it to a simmer and put a cover on and let it all cook for 15 minutes. Stir it a few times in between. Take off the cover and let it cook another 10 minutes? Then take some cornstarch and a bit of water mixed and pour it in and stir. It should become a thickish sauce. Voila! Try it! You'll love it! Just not too many at once or you'll regret it when you get into bed!

Heidi says:

Result of the scan of my neck: NOTHING! Back to the beginning. Pain but no cause and so no help. Fabulous.

Monday 15 December 2008: Heidi and Sarah are here yet again with the same faces as usual... It's Monday. Nothing to report!

Sarah says:
Rather - lots to report but NO TIME!!!

And I didn't forget - my Post Secret pick of the week. Don't take this card wrong. It's just one perspective and it's not mine. I suspect my dad will be around for a while still - but fact is you never know. He or anyone I know and love could kick the bucket tomorrow. I hate how death just steals people away. Today I heard that a musician-friend of my friend Peter just died after a 7 month battle with cancer. Peter only died a bit more than a year ago and now many people who knew Peter are now facing the death of another friend in a similar way and it just sucks! These guys were young so it makes even less sense than watching an older person get sick and die. But I don't want to watch anyone die. This is the part of life I have a hard time coming to terms with. I guess we all do yet we all do have to deal with death. Watching a friend suffer through illness is heart-breaking. Watching a parent faced with a shorter lifespan than perhaps expected or hoped for is not easy. You just see life in another way and as the cliche goes you look at your own life in a whole new way. It's amazing what things like this can trigger in one's head.



And on a lighter side - the below Post Secret card. It just makes me laugh. I have an ongoing bad joke at my husband's expense that he is gay. When he walked in to the room the first day I saw him back in The Netherlands he was wering a pink jacket. A friend of mine who knew I always liked guys with long hair aid to me "that's going to be your boyfriend" because my husband had really long hair back then. All I saw was his pink jacket and a certain swing in his walk and I said to my friend "no way, he's gay"! Turns out that friend is gay. I knew it back then as it was pretty clear but he was in the closet still -- not my husband - but the friend of mine. Anyway -- since then there's alwys been this joke between my husband and me and our friends that my husband is a bit gay. Don't get me wrong - he's very manly too and actually not very gay at all. But there is something a bit gay about him and it's a little game we play. So I like the idea that we met in a gay bar even though we didn't...

Heidi says:
I am waiting for the results of a scan. I am almost certain it will show nothing and I am afraid that I will not have a solution. We'll see. We'll see :)

Sunday 14 december 2008: The train

Heidi says:

How joyful to be on a train, definitely with my sweet daughter and mother!

Sarah says:

Feeling sick as a freaking dog in that photo! Can you tell?

Saturday 13 December 2008: The christmas t(h)ree

Heidi says:

My dreams have come true: Nico, me and Yma decorated a christmas tree!! aaah, life can be sweet!

Sarah says: I felt good when this photo was taken before I went out to a lying-down concert Saturday night. I came home really sick. Still don't know what made me sick. I think it was raw egg on a pizza I ate before the gig...

Friday 12 December 2008: Heidi faces the day while Sarah defaces the day with her dumb face...AND they welcome Jan De Campenaere from Venus in Flames!

Sarah adds:
Here's an update! We had a lovely visitor this afternoon whose face we wanted to grace Face The Day with. Please welcome special guest Jan De Campenaere from the Belgian band Venus in Flames to Face The Day with Heidi and Sarah! Via this link, you can check out the music of Venus in Flames. We are very happy and proud that Sound Performance will be making Venus in Flames' CD and we were very pleased to meet the friendly Jan today!

Sarah says:

I am so glad it is Friday. I long to sleep late tomorrow morning and to clean up my house, which is so messy it is screwing up my head! We neeed to food shop badly! So many things that need doing to put some order into our lives again! Tonight I'll go to the winter walk of my daughte's school so that will be invigorating as well as relaxing. Tomorrow it's errands and chores followed by a night out and to a lying-down gig of my good friend Filip D. Sunday it's time to put up our Christmas tree and hang out with my kid and husband and make a nice atmosphere. Can't wait!

Thursday 11 December 2008: Heidi and Sarah return from Hanover, Germany on another little, noisy, warm plane and are happy to be on the ground again..

Sarah says:

That photo was taken when we were about to board the plane. I hated that plane. We almost missed it by the way. We were at the wrong gate because they changed it. The one on our boarding pass was not right. We realized at 18:30 when we were supposed to have boarded our plane. We made it though because our plane had been delayed by 15 minutes. That would have sucked if we had missed it. One night in Hanover is enough!

Wednesday 10 December 2008 : Heidi and Sarah make themselves sick with the Starbucks way-too-sweet vanilla bullshit thingy at the Brussels airport...

Sarah says:

Heidi and I went on a road-plane trip today - to the Brussels airport to get a plane to Hanover for a short trip. At the airport we got a Starbucks vanilla toffe latte. IT WAS DISGUSTINGLY SWEET and made us both feel sick! NEVER AGAIN!!! We got to Hanover and stayed at a hotel at the airport. Traveling went very smoothly other than the plane being way too small, noisy and warm...

Tuesday 09 December 2008: Heidi and Sarah are hiding in their heads and hoods and pulling faces today for you....

Sarah says:

I just used all my writing time to write in yesterday's entry. All I can add now is that though my photo yesterday was more fresh-faced than I felt - today there was no reason at all for me to show you all my face - hence my hiding behind a super-model! I am actually just showing you my inner super-model. Heidi is showing you how fluffy she can be and her inner beast!

Monday 08 December 2008: Happy Birthday to Sarah's mom and to her friend Rachel and to her sister-in-law Tess! Heidi and Sarah are close up today...

Sarah says:

We are still not on top of things here at Face The Day! This entry is late - though we did remember to take a photo. And there's just never enough time in our days and nights to get on here and write something worthwhile anymore. I miss writing. Life is about work and about raising my kid these days. Not much room for much else most of the time. I'm not complaining. I am lucky to totally love my work and obviously totaly love my kid! My husband and I have made some changes lately to make life groove better for the both of us and our daughter. Little things such as getting up at 6:50 each day in place of 7am so we all get downstairs by 7:30 and have breakfast together without rushing as much as we did before. We are also trying to be in bed earlier - by 10 pm when possible. We have become bad sleepers - always wound up and waking up in the middle of the night with racing thoughts - so by getting in bed by 10 pm we feel a bit more rested than we did before. And we have been watching the series Brothers and Sisters this week from like 9pm to 10pm. That gets our minds off our days and we get to be together and to relax and unwind. It's all good. I'm glad we are learning to live with our busier than ever lives lately. Snce my husband changed jobs and gets home each night at least two hours later than before but leaves at the same time as before each morning - I have struggled with the new pressures on me to be totally in charge of our daughter's needs as I race home to get her in time and get her fed and do whatever chores need doing such as cleaning the guinea pigs' cage and that sort of thing. It's all a bit too much. But we are slowly but surely looking for ways to make things better and it's working. So far so good...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TESS!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 07 December 2008: Sarah continues to be sleepy and lazy and unproductive.... It's a great, great thing!

Sarah says:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sarah adds:

I don't agree with that Post Secret below at all. As much drama as a family can cause, cutting people out just never resolves anything for me. It just means there's always something out there to haunt me. In the end, my siblings and family are forever connected to me and I'd rather not have the drama that sometimes goes along with family but I also get a lot of joy from my contact with my siblings and family at different phases in my life. I see as we get older we have fewer friends and it gets harder to make true friends. I'm happy to have the relations I do with some of my siblings. Sometimes they are truly the only people you can talk to who really understand you. At other times they are the ones you can disagree with most and who can say the things that hurt you most. In the end, they all really do matter though. Drama or no drama...

Saturday 06 December 2008: Happy Birthday Trees and Happy Sinterklaas!

Heidi says: Yma was very happy with Sinterklaas today! He brought her very nice presents.

Heidi says: later that day.... Nico and Heidi go wild! The Moonshine cafe was a blast!

Sarah says:

It's a sleepy Sinterklaas over here at our home in Belgium. Our daughter got us out of bed early to ope her Sinterklaas gift. She got exactly what she wanted so she was happy - a Barbie I Design set for the computer. It's the first Sinterklaas year that she knows that mommy and daddy are actually Sinterklaas. She seems a little sad about that - as if she doesn't want to grow up jus yet! You can see that my husband and I had sleep in our eyes pretty much the whole day! I love that Sinterklass cartoon with the black Sinterklaas - Obama-style!

Friday 5 December 2008: Heidi is happy it's friday and Sarah is happy she has no plans at all this weekend other than to be lazy and unproductive...

Heidi says:
I am happy that is is Friday because I had pain from the second I sat at my computer till the moment I lay down in my couch in the evening this week. It made it hard to concentrate and I hope that this weekend is better... Next week I am going to get a scan, of which i think I will learn nothing but the fact that I have repetive strain injury. But it's good I will have the scan and that will help eliminate causes. More later!

Sarah says:

This weekend I will do only what I feel like doing. No plans. Lazy. Glad.

Thursday 4 December 2008: Heidi says rrrrrrr and Sarah says rrrrrrr with her...

-

Heidi says:
Sick of the pain! Sick of the damn pain! Need help! Will go to doctor!

Sarah says:

I feel Heidi's pain and I feel for Heidi! I have been in that constant-pain-with-no-known-cause boat and it's not a good place to be! I hope Heidi finds her answers. We forgot a photo today so you only get one of me feeling less sick than yesterday!

Wednesday 03 December 2008: Sarah is still ill and Heidi feels love for D is done by madensuyu!

Sarah says:
This photo shows EXACTLY how I feel right now. This cold is getting worse, not better. I was up half the night with a cough and unable to breath. This seems to be my once-a-year big cold. I'll get through it and will feel much better soon no doubt!

Heidi says:
I am still having that damn pain... It really is worse than ever... BUT that shouldn't ruin my plans for tonight: eating out (maybe) and watching a play (definitely). Pieterjan Vervondel from Madensuyu is playing in it and I am very curious. I can honestly say that I am a big fan of Madensuyu. Their last record, D is done, is the record of 2008 for me. It gives me heartpain in a way that only few bands or some music can do. It's about surviving and about living. It's melancholy in a non traditional way. It gives me every feeling I want to get from music. And then I am not even talking about seeing them live... These two friends have gained my eternal respect. And I really advise everybody to buy that CD! D IS DONE by MADENSUYU!

Tuesday 2 December 2008: Heidi has to complain

Sarah says:
Sick as a dog! Look at my nose. Disgusting! I look and feel disgusting. Bad, bad cold.

Heidi says:
Sorry, but I have to complain about something. I am having such bad pain in my right neck, shoulder and arm. It's already since Yma is born, that I am struggling with that kind of pain, but the last two days are the worst ever. From the moment I start my day at the computer, till the moment I go home, I have these intense pains that make my concentration so much less. I already went to the doctor several times to complain about this, and he prescribed me 10 sessions of kine (massage) but when that didn't help, he sent me to a rheumatologist. Pictures were taken, and the rheumatologist sent me away with... nothing. I started biting my teeth, and tried to sit well at my desk and take short breaks (maybe not enough) every once in a while. The problems got more severe anyway. Since yesterday, it is unbearable. I don't want to think about it, but I do because it's so in my face! What to do about this? Do I go to the doctor again so that he can say there is nothing he can do, or do I immediately go to the alternative circuit, like an Osteapath? Something has to be done, that's for sure...

Monday 01 December 2008: It's Flashback 1st of the month at Face The Day + Sarah's pics from the last couple of days as she's fallen behind on life!

Sarah says:
I haven't been able to keep up with life lately and that includes Face The Day! Just too much going on in my head these days that I can't really write about on here so it's made me not feel like writing and I have really not felt like being on a computer at all after a hard day's work! Tonight I have made an exception because it's the 1st of the month and I don't want to let Face The Day go! If it does start to go then we'll have the 1st of the months still to look forward to and then maybe 2 times a year (like my and Heidi's birthdays) and then maybe once a year... Who knows - that is for the future! For now, I want to keep this up. If you know me then you know if I am not keeping this up it's because something is getting in my way of being on here. Let's just say my brain is experiencing technical difficulties these days! Please stand by and don't give up on Face The Day! Heidi's been keeping it up so that's great.

So - above you can see Heidi and I today, 01 December 2008! We have our Christmas reds and greens on a little early!
There above you can see me exactly a year ago today on 01 December 2007. Via this link you can see where my head was at last year.

The photo of me above is eactly 2 years ago today on 01 December 2006. It was 14 days before my big back operation and I was hungry! Straving myself before the operation. In total pain. I can't even remember all that pain anymore. Two years on and I feel amazing! I still don't do sport or fitness or anything like that, which is a shame. But I am so afraid of the pain. When I did pilates, I had pain again and it scared me. I'd rather ne fat and pain-free then thinner and in pain. I know I could probably be thinner and pain free but I freeze up at the idea of sport because no matter what, there's always some pain and I just can't go there. One day I will and one day I have to and hopefully it won't be too long from now! Via this link you can re-visit today two years ago at Face The Day!

Via the same link above you can see what was on Heidi's mind two years ago today. The photo above shows Heidi that day in 2006.

And last but not least - in the photo above you can see Heidi and me 3 years ago today exactly on 01 December 2005! Via this link, you can learn more about what was going on in our heads that day. We were being wise-guys that day for sure. We haven't been wise-uys on here in a while. We just don't have enough time these dasy for anything but a quick photo! One of these days we'll surprise you with something good and fun!

There's my photo from Sunday 30 November 2008 above with weird hair. My day was coming to an end. We had had guest over for lunch. It was a calm and lovely afternoon. Tom's old friend Filip W. came over with his three kids and wife. It's been a while since we saw them so it was nice to catch up over good food and to meet their 5 month old baby. The night I sort of became a couple with Tom was the same night I met Filip. He, Tom's friend Dirk and Tom were sitting together with me and Tom apparently told the two of them in Dutch to get out of the room and leave him and me alone. I think that is so funny!!
Above is my photo from Saturday 29 November 2008 and so is the below photo of my husband's fabulous mom, Trees. Tom's parents and brother and nephew came over for a birthday meal for Tom's mom. I got to use it as an excuse to make a Thanksgiving-like meal with turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce... It was all really delish if I do say so myself.

And below is my favorite Post Secret of the week in honor of organ and body donors. What better way for doctors to learn than from real organs and corpses. I want to leave my whole body to science for sure! Here in Belgium your organs automatically get donated unless you sign a card saying you don't want them to be. I think in The States it is the other way around - that you have to sign a card saying you want to donate your organs. I need to go to the city hall here to sign an extra paper sang they can have my whole body. Right now they just get my organs. They can have all of me! All the better for someone to learn from! Doctors can freak me out and I don't always feel safe in their care. With that said, I will forever be thankful to the doctor who basically saved my daughter twice and to the doctor who gave me a new and working back. These two doctors changed my life almost more than anyone else.