April

It's the 12th of April and I haven't blogged anything in April yet! It must be the beautiful weather, I'm outside in our garden most of the time right now. I've removed old leaves and lots of weeds and I've been staining the banisters (finally got that job done). In the meantime I'm working on my new website every now and then, with help from Martin. The website will be published in the first week of May! Promised!
Martin has been searching for the right cables and speakers to make our home cinema ready. A friend is coming over tonight and then we'll watch the first movie together! It's really cool :)
I've also become an aunt again yesterday! My second nephew is born and we'll go and see him tomorrow :) So we're busy and happy!

Garden

It's still too cold and wet to sit in our garden, but already there are beautiful flowers. And considering the concert free weekend I had to find something else to photograph...

(click to enlarge)

Sechs (!) Wise Guys melden sich zu Wort

Das ist mal ganz außergewöhnlich: Sechs Wise Guys melden sich innerhalb eines bestimmten Zeitraum zu Wort auf ihrer persönlichen Gästebuchseite und so tauchen sechs Bilder gleichzeitig nebeneinander auf. Dieses Bild wird es wahrscheinlich nie wieder geben - deswegen sollte es mal in meinem Blog 'verewigt' werden *g*.


Sehr interessant dabei ist natürlich Clemens' Eintrag, in dem er erzählt wie das Leben als nicht-Wise-Guy ihm gefällt.

Addition to the family

Today Piet moved in. Piet is the aged cat of my mother-in-law. Since my mother-in-law moved to an apartment last year, it was always the plan that Piet would come and live with us one day, because she doesn't have enough room for a cat. This is Piet:

iNtrmzzo

Seeing iNtrmzzo live is one big pleasure, being able to make great pics is another big pleasure! My weekend can't be better! :D


More pictures can be found on my Facebook-page (hint: join it!).

Just a little update

So what's new? Not much actually. We still have to find and buy chairs. We still have to stain the banisters. And we still have to connect the DVD-player to the TV, which is most important *cough*, because there are three (!) very nice a cappella DVD's coming up this year and I want to have them all and be able to watch them ;)
New is, that I found out how to take a shower without leaking water! The doors of our shower cabin are a bit weird, but I finally discovered how to close them properly! Very useful indeed.
I'm busy at work, because I have to catch up for the time I took off in January and I'm also doing a course about first aid and stuff. Today I learned how to revive somebody and next week I'm going to put out a fire. Also very useful.
Our free time is mostly filled with a cappella music, in many ways. Kin' de Lele is playing over and over again in the CD player and when I don't hear it I practice the "wa p t ba da da t ba ba chi ki ba tsao" from the Real Group (Chili con carne). I have to learn some songs by heart, because there are two concerts coming up with my choir with new repertoire. Besides this, I somehow planned to visit six concerts within four weeks (which is too much, but so much fun), I wrote one review and have to write another one this weekend.
In the mean time I've read 'The Kite Runner', which is a book I could hardly put down. A moving, but beautiful story! New reading tips are very welcome!
And now it's time for the weekend... in which we will also fill in the tax papers. Wish us luck!

Wasserflaschen auf der Bühne sind doof

Und Gläser mit Wasser auch. Das müssen die Jungs von theGlue wohl gedacht haben als sie ihre neue Outfits inklusiv Wasserrücksacke ausgesucht haben. Aber, ich muss sagen, es sieht geil aus. Und vielleicht ist es auch nur praktisch, während des Singen schnell ein Schluck Wasser trinken zu können.

Wie theGlue live bei diesen Bildern klingt, weiß ich leider nicht. Aber auf das neue Album Kin' de Lele finde ich hauptsächlich tolle Songs mit überraschenden Rhythmen, originellen Arrangements und geile vocal percussion. Und es gibt auch mal wieder ein paar sehr eigenartige Texten dabei.

Ich hätte gerne eine Reise nach Basel inkl. Konzertticket zum Geburtstag.
Mist... mein Geburtstag dauert noch viel zu lange...

New report at corine.located.nl

Due to moving houses I didn't find time to report about concerts we visited in the past few months. But now I've found time to write a story about the fantastic concert of Vocaldente in Marienthal! Ok, I have to admit, the report is a little longer than I'd planned... Check it out at corine.located.nl.

Chocolate-peanut-honey-cake

Or whatever it's called ;) But it's very, very nice and sweet!

Here's the recipe:

500 gram peanuts (I used salted ones)
half a packet of biscuits (+/- 120 gram)
2 bars of white chocolate (I used bars of 75 gram)
3 bars of dark chocolate (I used bars of 100 gram)
(you can always use more chocolate...)
honey, at least 150 ml


Cut the peanuts and biscuits in small pieces (1), add 1 bar of melted white chocolate, 1 bar of melted dark chocolate and the honey and stir it (2). Put it in a round baking dish or cake tin (don't forget the baking paper, else you will never get it out again). Then melt another bar of dark chocolate and pour it on top of the cake (3). Put it in the fridge for a while to cool down. Then turn the cake over - the dark chocolate layer will be the bottom of the cake. Melt the final two bars of dark and white chocolate to decorate the cake with. Again, let it cool down in the fridge for a while. And then.... yummy!

Big table

At the moment, we receive many guests who are curious and want to see our new home. A lot of friends and family came over already. Yesterday Martins colleagues had the chance to see our house and they all stayed for dinner. And because of occasions like this we bought the resizeble table, which can be this big:

Show must go on

Question: Thursday night, Rock4 is playing in Enschede. They're playing "A Night at the Opera", which Corine has seen twice already. Corine has choir rehearsal every Thursday night, also in Enschede. What would she do?

I attended the choir rehearsal! Never thought I would do that, didn't you? ;) But I just like singing so much and because I'm singing in a small choir, I don't want to miss it too often. Martin and his mother wanted to see Rock4 and because they needed transport, I had to drop them off at the theater. Man, that's a bit annoying, I wanted to go with them!

Singing with the choir was fun and I didn't regret. But when I got the chance to leave a little bit early, I left and drove to the theater, hoping to get the chance to sneak in... it was just after ten. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to get in, because I was told that "these men only sing, without music" and I would disturb the show. Ok, I could understand, I know I might disturb them, but I just wanted it so badly! *grrrr*

Ten seconds later, Jeanine came out (she's the manager of Rock4) because she had to prepare the CD stand. When she saw me, she told me to get in. They were going to sing one more song! Show must go on! Yeah! And so I got the chance to see Rock4 with their new man. Thank you Jeanine, you made my day! :)

House make over

This is the new living room about a week ago, with our old furniture:


This is the new living room yesterday, with some old and new furniture, and with McDull peeping over the edge of his cage:


And this is the new living room tonight, with the new couch:

Home cinema / guest room

Some people are interested in our home cinema, so here are some pictures. It will take a while before we can watch movies in this room, though. This room is also the place where guests can sleep. Because my family and many of our friends don't live close by, this room will probably be used for this purpose more often at first.

Here you can see Beddinge, which is a couch but also a bed for two persons, and Klubbo, which is the table (hurray for Ikea and its beautiful names...haha), and the beautiful "cinema-red" carpet:


Who wants to come over and be the first one to test Beddinge? ;)

And this is how we'll watch movies in the future:

Wrong turn

I didn't expect it to happen so soon, but it happened today... When I drove home from work I took a wrong turn and ended up driving towards our old home hahaha.
Think I'm just tired and ready for the weekend :)

PS: The phone is working again!

Moved...

...and the internet is up and running again!! :D (the phone isn't yet, for those who are wondering why they still can't reach us.)
We've been busy the past few days, but the big, huge, enormous mess has changed into a normal mess and I'm sure it will be tidy one day. I don't understand how all our stuff fitted in our old house.
I'll post some pictures soon, for now I just wanted to say: We're doing great and we feel so much at home!

Our house - part 14

We still have an internet connection in our old house, don't ask me why ;)
Just wanted to upload two pictures before falling into bed.

These are 'some' things from the old attic that still have to be moved...


But it starts to look like home:

Our house - part 13

Moving-Day is coming soon!
It's a chaos in the old house. Right now, there are no curtains in our living room, they are being cleaned tomorrow and then hanged in the new house. The hallway is full of boxes and every time we open the door to the hallway, it bangs into the boxes, because for some reason we seem to forget we've put them there time after time. Every closet we open is almost empty and all the pictures have been removed from the walls.
A lot of boxes (at least 30) have already been moved to the new house and in the new house it's almost invisible that we've put them there, because the house is just too big and there are many closets to hide the mess ;)
Today we also wanted to move some boxes to the new house, but we had some bad luck: Our car was standing on the parking with a flat tire! Damn! So first thing tomorrow, before going to work, is going to the garage to have it fixed. Tip for everybody: Make sure the air pressure of your spare tire is correct. I guess ours has never been checked before and the pressure seems pretty low. But it'll do.
Next Tuesday our internet/cable is moving already. I'll probably be offline for a while now. Next blog-post will be from the new house! Keep your fingers crossed for us please, I hope everything goes well in the coming week. Biggest concern, because it's not in our hands, is the carpet that has to be laid on Friday...
CU! X

Our house - part 12

I'm feeling a bit sick since Saturday and it's not getting better. There's an influenza epidemic in the Netherlands, maybe this time it will get me too? I hope not, there's too much work to do! The past couple of days I was free from work and I've been busy cleaning, packing and moving small things.

Things are really going on well, but I wish I could have done it without the headache, sneezing and sniffing... *sigh*. And tomorrow I need to work again... *bigsigh*

These are some of our books, now temporarily stored in a closet in the attic of our new house:
I have to tell you that the pile of books in this particular closet has grown even more... I think we've got too many books. But as it fitted in our old house, it will easily fit in the new one.

Our house - part 11

The plasterer has done his work and this is the result:


And today we removed the floor protection and this is how our living room looks now:


The biggest thing that still needs to be done is the carpet in the bedrooms and on the stairs, but we have to wait for it another week.
The next three days I'm free from work and there are many other things to be done as preparation before we can actually move houses. The only not very nice circumstance is the fact that I'm starting to feel ill... Think I'm going to bed to have a good rest now.

Winter!

Dutch people love to complain about the weather. It's probably the number one subject for small talk. But when winter really is winter, like it is now, everybody loves it. I didn't hear any complains about it yet. Minus 15 degrees Celsius at night, wow! Snow and ice with blue sky and sunshine - it can't be better! Okay, it's cold and it took me about 20 minutes to get the car ready to drive this morning, I had to scrape the ice from the outside and the inside of the windows, the drivers side of the car was frozen and I had to get inside on the other side of the car. The windshield wipers had disappeared under 3cm of frozen snow. But who cares? It's winter! :) And eventually I arrived at work in time.
Of course, it is very clever to have the plasterer working in our new house in this week, exactly when the central heating has been removed. There are ice drops on the air vents in our house right now... maybe we'll have icicles inside tomorrow? And there's so much moisture in the house as well. I really hope it all ends well and nothing gets damaged because of cold or moisture. I'll be happy when the plasterer is done with his job! Not only because it will be so much prettier after he's finished, but also because Martin and I can't do much right now and we'd love to get on with our own work!
But instead of worrying about those things, let's enjoy the winter and its beauty. I just saw a beautiful report on TV with images of skating people on big lakes in the western part of the Netherlands, where I used to live. And although I never watch sport in TV, I'm longing, like many other Dutch people, for an "Elfstedentocht" (Eleven Cities Tour), a legendary skating marathon in the Netherlands which haven't took place since 1997.
Unfortunately the report I just saw, is not yet online... so I'll just add another video, which also suits the occasion. It's from my favorite Dutch cabaret artist (and it's in Dutch, sorry for those who don't understand).

Ice skating

Yeah!! Finally I had time to go ice skating today!! I love it :) Many people have been ice skating in the past week, but I didn't have time for it. This morning my sister-in-law and I woke up early to enjoy the last bit of ice. Afterwards it started raining and the ice is really defrosting now. But we really loved it!

Our house - part 10

Happy New Year!!!!

Because there's not much work to do in our new house at this moment, and because we were a bit lazy from last night, we decided to start packing some things. By the way: we will probably move at January 24th!

Neue Gruppenbilder bei den Wise Guys

Das Abschiedskonzert ist schon wieder 10 Tage her. Jetzt ist Clemens aber auch auf der Webseite der Wise Guys verschwunden. Neu sind die Gruppenbilder von den Fünf, diesmal mit Nils. Aber was mir beim anschauen auffiel war nicht die neue Besetzung, aber den Hintergrund! Das kenne ich! Von unserem Kurzurlaub im letzten Sommer! (Mehr Bilder gibt es hier):



Neu sind übrigens auch die Steckbriefe von Dän und Nils. Und wahrscheinlich demnächst auch die von Eddi, Ferenc und Sari.

Zoo by night

Yesterday we visited the zoo in Emmen by night. Conclusions: It was cold, it was dark, 90% of the animals was not visible, and it was very cold.
Did I tell you it was damn cold?


To be honest, it was nice, but there were just too many people which made it too crowdy in the places where animals were visible. There was a beautiful laser show and a fire breather. The fire breather was very nice, mostly for the big flames that gave some warmth! The trees were beautifully lit in different colors. The little cup of hot soup was very nice and we enjoyed it fully - for it was 3,50 euro... We sat outside at a table which was frozen with ice *shiver*. One advantage of visiting a zoo in winter: no wasps around the rubbish bins!

Here you can see the home of the Nigerian Nightnosers, I guess... ;) and the pool with ehm... with many Dazzling Ducks. And, we saw See-lions! Oh wait, it were Sea-lions!


Luckily we could have a look inside some animal accommodations for the night, so we didn't leave the zoo without having seen an animal.

(click to enlarge)

Our house - part 9

We're painting. There's not much to tell, not much to see (except for white door frames in stead of yellowish ones), but we're making good progress.

Our house - part 8

We received many, many Christmas cards this year, a lot of them were sent to our new house, with beautiful wishes for the new year. It's very special, to have so many people thinking of you :) Especially the cards from people whom we didn't expect to hear from.
This morning, I decided to take a picture of all the cards. The window sill in the kitchen is full!


A couple of hours later, the postman delivered even more cards!


Thank you all for sending them :D

Now, we'll take two days off to celebrate Christmas. I'm looking forward to these two days more than in other years, because I think a break will do us good. We're a bit tired of all the working and planning. On Saturday we'll continue painting.

Happy holidays!! -X-

Our house - part 7

Yesterday we cleaned the house, together with my mother-in-law and our friend Marga. Most of the tools that were lying around have moved to our shed and the house is tidy and free of dust now. We were so busy cleaning, I forgot to make pictures until they went home.
After a great Wise Guys concert in Essen, a short night and a nice breakfast together with Lena and laptops for music- and photo-exchange, we started painting baseboards and ceiling this afternoon.

Our house - part 6

More work in the attic. This thing has to go from brown to white:

Our house - part 5

After the noise with sanding machines, I started using our special vacuum cleaner today to get rid of mortar, carpet remains and dust.... and this vacuum cleaner makes even more noise.
I'm really feeling sorry with the neighbours right now. I used ear protection to avoid getting deaf.

This is the room in the attic, which will be our computer room later, and you can see the noisy vacuum cleaner (be happy it's a picture, not a movie!):


Right now, we can start cleaning - get rid of all the dust everywhere. In the coming evenings I'm going to undercoat some small things as well. Cleanerteam can come over and join us next Saturday! After that, we can start painting 10 door frames and some other things. We still have to buy paint by the way, we don't even know yet what color we're going to use...

Oh ja, the plasterer will come over in the first week of Januar. Perfect timing!

Doch noch ein Weihnachtsbaum

Wozu ein Maybebop Weihnachtsshow führen kann:


Der lag noch unbenutzt in der Originalverpackung auf unserem Dachboden. Und mit seinem 50 cm ist er schnell aufgebaut und steht er uns nicht im Wege im derzeitigen Chaos und beim Packen :)

Die CD "Schenken" läuft jetzt im alten Haus und im Auto rauf und runter. Im neuen Haus kann ich sie nicht anhören, denn da haben wir leider keine CD-Player... Aber, es hatte sich heute doch nicht gelohnt, wir haben den ganzen Tag mit Schleifmaschinen nur ganz, ganz viel Lärm gemacht.

Und jetzt noch für alle, die Maybebop (noch) nicht kennen, frohe Weihnachten!!

Weil spontane Aktionen die beste sind....

... darum fahren wir heute Abend nach Münster, für ein Konzert von Maybebop. Das war so geil gestern!!! JUHU!! :D

Our house - part 4

We've got 10 door frames in our house that need to be painted. Our sanding machine died after two frames, but luckily we could borrow another machine. It's very dusty in the house now, but I guess we can start cleaning on Sunday or at least in the coming week. That means we can start painting within a week! But first, we are going out tonight.... it's a cappella night in Oss! Shiva Knows, Maybebop and Reset!

Testosteron - iNtrmzzo

I'm looking forward to see these guys live again, but I have to wait until March... Their new CD is very welcome right now!! Listen to it and buy it! It's really cool!

Our house - part 3

This morning I used a crowbar to remove these things from the bedrooms:
(The carpet was nailed to it with many, many tiny nails)


And these are Pig and Duck, originally from my mother-in-law's old garden, now happily living in our garden:


This afternoon Martin is free from work and we are going shopping for some new furniture!! :) Hopefully we can make decisions today. If there's enough time, we will also choose the new carpet for the bedrooms. Oh, and did I tell you about the home cinema Martin wants to create? It's going to be so beautiful hahaha.

Our house - part 2

We didn't believe it ourselves: Within 2,5 hours we removed all the carpet!!!

Our house - part 1

Last Thursday we got the keys of our new house. Today we removed all the wallpaper. With "all" I mean everything, all of it! In every room! Apart from that, we moved all the tools from the old to the new shed and we did some other small jobs. We didn't expect to do so much work today, so we're tired but very happy now :) Of course we had help from our parents and a friend.


Tomorrow we'll face a harder job, we think. We are going to remove the old carpet in the bedrooms, a corridor and on two stairs... New support teams are welcome to join us. There are still about 20 raspberry cakes left ;)

Krank...

Wann war ich zum letzten Mal krank? Ich habe keine Ahnung, ist auf jeden Fall ganz, ganz lange her. Aber seit gestern Abend fühle ich mich dann mal richtig krank. Mein Kopf tut weh, mein Hals tut weh, ich bin total erkältet und fühle mich mies. Sehr schön. Das tollste ist noch, dass ich heute den Workshop Mikrofontechnik im Theater verpasse. Das hat mich so interessiert und jetzt musste ich zu Hause bleiben. Naja, hoffentlich hat Martin einen tollen Tag.
Heute Abend muss ich aber wieder fit sein, denn das Konzert von Vocalicious und Leeuwenhart möchte ich nicht verpassen. Ich gieße also noch mal eine Tasse Tee mit Honig in meinem Kehl und hoffe, dass es mir in ein paar Stündchen wieder besser geht. Corine und krank geht ja nicht zusammen.

Krank sein und YouTube schauen geht aber noch zusammen.

Snow

I almost forgot to post this picture. Made last Monday.

(click to enlarge)

In two months we'll have a completely different view from our living room! And not only because of the snow ;)

Diskussion

Wer eine heftige Diskussion im Wise Guys Gästebuch nicht verpassen möchte, sollte jetzt die Seiten 8493 bis zu 8500 lesen... Für die nicht-Insider: Es handelt sich um zwei Konzerten in Hannover, bei denen Aufnahmen für die neue DVD gemacht worden sind. Und offenbar sind an beiden Abenden 35 Leute schon früher eingelassen um in der ersten Reihe stehen zu können, was manche Fans die Wise Guys jetzt sehr übel nehmen.
Es tut mir echt leid, was die Jungs da für Kritik bekommen. Und es wundert mich, dass es Leute gibt die sich über sowas ärgern - es gibt ja Schlimmeres in der Welt!

Jeg ville gerne lære dansk

What? Jer ville gerne lære dansk? Yes, I'd like to learn some Danish. Hvorfor? Why? Dansk er en sjov sprog! It's a funny language, because when I read it, I can understand many words. Og jeg lide sprogene. And I love languages, remember I learned some Cantonese in the past as well? Ja, du taler kun en smule cantonese. Nu jeg forstår. En ny udfordre hver dag!

Counting down

So here I am, sitting on the couch, not knowing what to do. There are only 16 days left and then we'll get the keys of our new home. I wish we could just start now. Just give me a scraper so I can start scraping the walls, so I'll have the feeling I can do something useful.
Planning the work that has to be done is impossible right now, because we still haven't chosen which carpet we want in the bedrooms and we still don't know when the plasterer has time to plaster our living room. We also still have to decide which kind of wallpaper we want in the bedrooms. There are so many things that still needs to be decided and organized. Me, Mrs. Planningmaniac, is having a hard time with all these uncertainties.
People ask me which colors we'll use, but honestly, we still don't know. Having an interior decorator in our family or in our circle of friends would be great. Or can someone please sign us on for one of those "home makeover" television programs? That would be nice. As long as they don't turn our house into something weird...
No, just kidding. I'm sure we'll manage. I just wish we'd finished it already.

Jungs aus dem Neandertal

Das große Vorteil bei einem Konzert, bei dem man alle Lieder schon kennt, ist, dass man auch genau weißt, wann man knipsen muss ;)

(click to enlarge)

Jetzt brauche ich nur noch irgendwann eine Kamera die im dunkeln auch mit niedrigen ISO Werten fotographieren kann.

Keine Sorgen, mich gibt's noch...

...bin nur ein bisschen müde. Zu müde zum Bloggen.

Ich könnte erzählen von der netten Halloween Party am letzten Samstag, bei der ich das Draculaspiel gewonnen habe, oder vom Bummeln in verschiedenen Möbelladen, auf der Suche nach Inspiration, von der neuen Übersetzungsarbeit für unsere Festivalwebseite, die irgendwie nie fertig ist, von der normalen Arbeit, die auch immer weiter geht, von meiner neuen "Mission", ein niederländisches Theater zu finden das meine letzte deutsche A-Cappella-Entdeckung buchen wird, vom neuen Facebook-Account, wo ich schon 14 Freunde habe *g*, oder von der Erwägung, vielleicht mal Dänisch zu lernen.

Aber nein, heute Abend mache ich's mir gemütlich auf dem Couch mit eine Tasse Tee. Ich erzähl euch ein anderes Mal mal wieder mehr.

Überdosis a cappella

Ich mag dieses Wochenende. Es gab die Premiere der neuen Rock4-Show, es gab einen Auftritt eines tollen Chores mit einer Afterparty mit unseren Freunden von Stimmrecht! Zwei Abenden spät ins Bett gekommen, weil wir uns verquatscht haben und an beiden Abenden als letzte das Theater verließen... Es war, vor allem bei der Premiere, wie ein A-Cappella-Treffen mit vielen A Cappella Freunden. Richtig toll!
Und jetzt gibt es eine menge Arbeit. Ein Konzertbericht und eine Rezension sollte noch geschrieben werden. Plus einer "Zwischenumbau" meiner Seite. Ja, denn der große Make-Over wird es doch noch nicht ganz bald geben, dafür haben wir im Moment wegen Umzug und so zu wenig Zeit. Ich habe mich aber eine Zwischenlösung ausgedacht, die nicht so ganz viel Arbeit kostet. Es ist die höchste Zeit, meine Seite jetzt täglich an zu schauen, denn die Änderungen sollten bald sichtbar sein.
Vielen Dank noch an die Zeitumstellung auf Winterzeit. Schade aber, dass es nur eine Stunde extra Zeit ist, ich brauche mehr!
*weiterwusel* und immer noch *hibbelisch* :D

Sold

Finally they've changed the sign. It's official now :)

Will you join me on Facebook?

I made an account on Facebook.com! Now all I need is friends with a Facebook account, haha. A lot of my friends in the Netherlands are into hyves (some kind of dutch myspace), but I've never liked that much. Why is Facebook different? I can't tell you. I just thought it would be fun. As if I haven't got other, more important things to do right now... ;)
Well, okay, I hope to welcome you soon! Now, I'll quit blogging and do some more important things for a change.

Need a new job?

Speedtest

78 Wörter

Speedtest

Hihi, schneller als Nina.

dies sind die häufigsten Wörter der deutschen Sprache

Die deutsche Sprache, mit vielen Umlauten und Großbuchstaben! Auf niederländisch tippe ich noch viel schneller! ;)

Technikfanatiker sind keine Sänger

Ok, ich gebe zu: Das mit der Garage war wohl zu viel Glück auf einmal für uns. Gestern hatten wir dann als Aufrechnung zweimal Autopanne.
Wer die Geschichte verstehen will, soll wissen, dass unser Auto im Moment beim Autohändler zu Kauf ist. Wir fahren im Moment in das Auto meiner Schwiegermutter. Wenn unser Auto verkauft ist, geht das Geld an meiner Schwiegermutter und behalten wir ihr Auto. Die beide Autos sind fast gleich, nur Eins musste weg, weil meine Schwiegermutter nie im Auto fahrt. Das Gras am Parkplatz ihres Autos kam schon bis zur Autotür ;)
Gestern Nachmittag kamen Martin und ich zu Hause (wir waren mit dem Auto zu unserem Versicherungsberater gewesen) als der Auspuff Krach machte. Hörte sich nicht gut an. Martin ist dann zur Autohändler gefahren, da haben sie auf ihm gewartet - denn eigentlich war's schon Ladenschluss. Unterwegs haben viele Leute ihn komisch angeschaut, weil der Lärm immer schlimmer wurde. Das Auto steht jetzt dort und wird repariert. Martin kam heim mit unserem eigenen Auto, das doch schon beim Händler stand.
Abends hatte ich Chorprobe. Das ist ungefähr 25 Minuten fahren von hier, aber mit dem zweiten Auto konnte ich zum Glück doch hin. Hin hat geklappt, zurück nicht mehr... Auf dem Hinweg gab es schon ein fremder Geruch, von dem ich zuerst dachte, es war ein stinkendes Auto, das vor mir an der Ampel stand. Aber als ich nach der Chorprobe beim Auto kam, gab es kein Öl mehr im Motor, nur noch auf dem Boden unter dem Auto. Sah nicht gut aus. Und dieses Auto möchten wir verkaufen... wir haben noch nie Panne gehabt!! Komisch...
Die drei männlichen Chormitglieder die im Moment auch noch da waren, hatten wenig Ahnung von Autos. Ich könnte daraus schließen, dass Sänger keine Technikfanatiker sind ;) Zum Glück habe ich im letzten Jahr einen Pannekurs gemacht, also keine Sorgen, Corine ist da! Der Ölstand war unter Minimum, und auch die Kühlflüssigkeit sah im Dunkel aus als ob sie völlig verbraucht war. Weiterfahren scheint mir kein guter Plan und ich habe das Auto stehen lassen.
Ein Freund hat mich abgeholt und so bin ich doch noch zu Hause gekommen. Das Auto steht jetzt noch da und wird heute von Martin und seinem Kollege (er ist Technikfanatiker, kein Sänger) inspiziert. Ich bin gespannt wie es weitergeht. Freue mich nur nicht auf die Rechnungen.
Was für ein Glück übrigens, dass ich heute frei bin und kein Auto brauche. Oops, ich sollte aufpassen, dass ich nicht zu viel Glück habe!

Luck!

We've got a garage!! We never thought we would be so lucky so soon!
Let me tell you the complete story. I celebrated my birthday last Saturday. The weather was nice and so we decided to make a small walk together to show my family our new house. I'm glad the owners were not at home, because everybody wanted to peek through the window quickly... At the back of the house, there are some garages for rent. We were just telling we're on a waiting list and were hoping one day we could get one, as we saw the following note pinned on one of the garages:


In English: "Who wants this garage? Call me at ..." And so we did. The owner of the garage did not want to subrent the garage, he wanted to take the "official way". And so we did. Several phonecalls and three days later we can say: We've got it! We can probably start moving things from our old-far-away-garage to our new-very-close-garage within two weeks already!

And for the rest: The official date of the key handover is the 4th of December. Everybody who loves to remove old wallpaper and carpet should come over the 6th and/or the 7th!

Eigene Wahl

Die Festivalsorganisation für Amusing Hengelo 2009 hat schon wieder angefangen, aber ich habe mich dieses Jahr dafür entschieden, nur noch Kontaktperson für die deutsche Chöre zu sein. Nichts mehr, nichts weniger. Die Sitzungen wohne ich nicht mehr bei und auch die gefühlsmäßig tausenden Kleinigkeiten die ich im letzten Jahr erledigt habe, sind von meiner ToDo-Liste gestrichen. Das fühlt gut! Wer 'meine' Aufgaben in diesem Jahr machen wird, weiß ich nicht genau und finde ich auch nicht mein Problem. Martins Aufgaben haben sich auch beschränkt. Er macht die Verwaltung der Webseite und Datenbank. Und er ist noch immer bei den Sitzungen dabei. Die Programmierung macht er dieses Jahr nicht mehr! Und das heißt im Klartext: Auch ich bin von April bis Juni nicht mehr täglich mit der Festivalprogrammierung beschäftigt ;)
Heute Abend findet die dritte Sitzung statt, diesmal bei uns zu Hause. Die Leute haben mich ein bisschen komisch angeguckt als ich mit Tasse Tee nach oben verschwunden bin. "Wenn eine Sitzung bei dir zu Hause stattfindet, kannst du doch ruhig dabei sitzen?" hat mir einer gesagt. Also nein, endgültig nein. Es ist gut so, ich habe genug zu tun und lasse das Festival nicht nochmals mein Leben führen so wie im letzten Jahr! Stattdessen schreibe ich heute Abend noch ein paar E-Mails, räume ich die gewaschene Wäsche auf und höre nebenbei die tolle CD von Vocaldente!

27

I didn't feel like baking cakes today, but this looks very nice as well :)
We'll have some people over tonight to celebrate my birthday, but most people are coming over next Saturday. So actually I'm celebrating twice!
For those who haven't seen it yet: I've uploaded the concert report from last friday on my website. Have a look: Stimmflut 2008 Lingen.

We miss Montezuma's Revenge!

That's the conclusion after talking to several people during the a cappella night in Lingen (Germany) last Friday. We talked to some singers from Vocaldente and after we told them we are from the Netherlands, they started asking about Montezuma's Revenge. Same happened while talking to LaLeLu. After that, a girl standing at the Viva Voce cd-table came to us, apologizing for hearing us talk about Montezuma. Montezuma's Revenge was her first a cappella group and she really missed them. We talked with her for a while then.
Although we had a great night in Lingen (report will follow tomorrow!), we miss Montezuma's Revenge!!!

*verflixtnochmal!*

(Keine Sorgen, ist nur eine LaLeLu-Textstelle. Ich fluche ja fast nie.)

Warum erinnere ich mich immer am Ende eines Konzertes an die beste Einstellungen meiner Kamera? Naja, ich habe wenigstens ein paar schöne Bilder vom gemeinsamen Finale der ersten Lingener A-Cappella-Nacht ;)
Es war toll! Vor allem Vocaldente hat uns sehr gut gefallen!! Bericht folgt, mit hoffentlich ein paar bearbeitete Bilder...

It's happening!

Small text, big message:

We've bought a house!!!!

Christmas will be different this year. Keywords: painting, plastering, furnishing, cleaning, packing, moving, etc. I wonder if we will put a Christmas tree in the living room this year. First question will be: In which living room? We'll temporarily have two. Hmm... I know the answer: We'll decorate a tree in our GARDEN!! I fear I won't have a relaxed holiday during Christmas, because we'll be too busy. But at least I can take a BATH!! :D :D :D

Endlich wieder Neues...

...auf meiner A Cappella Seite!
(Oder auch genannt: Zwischen Hypotheken und Makler...)
Und es gibt sogar gleich zwei neuen Berichten: der Bericht vom Wise Guys' Tanzbrunnenkonzert Mai dieses Jahres und das Gartenkonzert von Stimmrecht im letzten Monat. Mit vielen Bildern!!
So, es fühlt ganz gut, diese Berichte endlich online gestellt zu haben. Nur der Bericht der Hamburger A Cappella Nacht sollte noch geschrieben werden, aber ob das noch klappt ohne Notizen? Am nächsten Freitag wartet die nächste "Arbeit" auf dem ich mich ganz dolle freue: Die 1. Lingener A Cappella Nacht mit LaLeLu, Viva Voce und Vocaldente. Das wird toll!!

When will it stop?

Last week we saw three (!) different houses. Number 8 was very interesting, but we won't take it, because we saw number 10 which is probably even better! Number 9 was a clear no.

The search for a house continues and I'm wondering when it will stop. Maybe really soon. Maybe not. I've learned not to be too happy too soon, because visiting a house a second time can change your mind quite easily. You notice different things. Visiting so many houses does have an advantage. You learn what your preferences exactly are and how important they are. Some things we found very important in the beginning are less important now. Other preferences we found out throughout the search.

10 blue dots - 10 houses
We tend to stay in the east part of Hengelo, don't we?

I still hope to be able to send you all Christmas cards, not only to wish you nice holidays, but also to notify you of our new address. Please keep crossing your fingers for us? We'll visit number 10 a second time tomorrow!

theGlue

Ich entdeckte gerade die YouTube-Seite von Oliver Rudin von theGlue. Die vier Videos von theGlue kannte ich noch nicht. Im Moment arbeitet die Gruppe an ein neues Album. Ich bin schon mal ganz gespannt!!


(Das Publikum bei diesem Auftritt ist nur ein bisschen komisch...)

Number 8 and 9

Just a short note: we visited another house today! And number 9 is scheduled for next Monday. According to the estate agent we met today, the average amount of houses people visit before buying one is about 6 or 7, so we should find a house pretty soon.
Number 8 was pretty good, by the way. So good, that I just spoke to our personal professional adviser on the phone and we'll plan a second visit, together with him.
Will you keep your fingers crossed for us?

Danke Bodo

Warum hat mir keiner gesagt, dass es am 3. Oktober ein toller A-Cappella-Abend stattfindet in Lingen, nur 40 Minuten fahren von Hengelo? Zum Glück gibt es die Webseite von Bodo Wartke. Nicht, dass es dort A Cappella Konzerttermine gibt, aber weil Bodo mit Viva Voce gesungen hat, gelang ich auf der Viva Voce Webseite und Viva Voce kommt nach Lingen. Genauso wie LaLeLu und Vocaldente. Wenn das kein schöner Abend wird... Karten sind schon bestellt! Ich kann es noch kaum glauben und ich hoffe, dass ich nichts übersehen habe. Vielleicht entdecke ich morgen plötzlich, dass wir am 3. Oktober schon etwas Anderes geplant hatten. Oder dass Lingen nicht 40 Minuten, sondern 4 Stunden fahren ist, weil es noch eine andere Stadt in Deutschland gibt, die Lingen heißt. Oder ... Nein, das soll nicht sein!
Juhu! *freu* Es ist so schön so nah an der Grenze zu wohnen und A Cappella in zwei Ländern genießen zu können! :D

Gartenkonzert in Bottrop

"Gibt es eigentlich schon neue Termine? Ich möchte euch gerne irgendwann mal in Deutschland auf einer kleinen Bühne erleben", schrieb ich vor zwei Wochen an Swen von Stimmrecht. Die Antwort war sehr toll, Swen schrieb: "Wir machen am nächsten Samstag bei meinen Nachbarn nachmittags um halb 4 ein "Gartenkonzert". Das ist nichts Offizielles, es kommen ein paar Leute, aber wenn Ihr uns in ganz untypischer Umgebung erleben wollt: Herzlich willkommen!"
Beim Lesen freute ich mich schon riesig und Swen hat sich genau so gefreut als ich gesagt habe, dass wir nach Bottrop kommen wurden. Sedi, Dan und Tina hatten keine Ahnung, dass Swen uns eingeladen hatte. Überraschung!
Gestern war's dann so weit und wir fuhren nach Bottrop. Als wir durchs Gartentor hinein kamen, haben sie sich total gefreut uns zu sehen und Swen und wir haben nur gelacht, weil die Überraschung so gut gelungen war.
Das Konzert war echt toll, ganz locker und spontan, mit ein paar schiefen Tonen und lustigen Texthängern, weil sie nach dem Sommer noch fast nicht geprobt hatten. Wir haben viel gelacht und das Konzert echt genossen. Es war mal etwas ganz Außergewöhnliches, mit Nachbarn, Freunden und Familien in diesem schönen Garten, Getränke und Fingerfood dazu, und einfach mal wieder herrliche A Cappella Musik hören. Dieses Konzert bezeichne ich als die Eröffnung meiner neuen A-Cappella-Theatersaison. Jetzt geht's wieder los! :D


PS: Dank an Sedi für die tolle Gespräche über u.a. Rockmusik für Blockflöte und Gemüse Orchester ;)

Singing again :D

I've been looking around for quite some time, but now I've finally found a choir that suits me. Yesterday, during my third choir rehearsal, I had to do some vocal range tests to determine if I can sing alto. After singing several mm-mm-mm-mm's, ng-ng-ng-ng's, ni-ni-ni-ni's and na-na-na-na's, I'm officially a member of Half Past Nine now. The choir has 16 members, and they sing mainly a cappella arrangements of familiar songs. The arrangements are for at least five voices (SSATB). Right now we're rehearsing a Beach Boys song as performed by The Real Group, for instance.

By the way, it's a funny experience, to say the words "Wise Guys" and not being asked who they are! I'm among a cappella fans!
And I've given up to correct my colleague, who asked me again "That's a choir without music, isn't it?". I just answered her with a simple "yes" ;)