Kyria's journal

The wedding is roughly two weeks away and I need to stop touching my face. Since I quit the pill, my cystic acne has returned in the shape of red bulges on my face. It is inflamed from the inside, ergo it itches and hurts. The good news is that the redness can be covered up, but crusts and oozing pimples (sorry for the lively image) can't. So.

I am trying really hard to not touch my face in the next couple of weeks, and I am already failing. Argh! I also failed at cleaning up my diet in the past couple of weeks, I will look exactly like the real me on my wedding day :-)

My older brother will be at our wedding in august. He moved his holiday to september for us :-)

Ofcourse, other things happened too, but this was the most unexpected happening.

I went wedding dress shopping with Ikaya and my mother last Friday and we stryed at Covers, the biggest bridal store in Utrecht. It also happened to be the place where my mother bought her weddingdress forty years ago.

As we enterenthe world of bright light, taupe carpet and an infinite amount of white dresses it felt like we entered another world. A universe where every bride too be is extensively congratulated, ushered into booth and applauded for coming out wearing a wedding dress.

My budget was 1500 and I brought pictured of dresses that I liked and of the venue. The lady that helped me quickly ruled out all dresses over 1500 which is essentially everything I liked on the internet and picked three assymetrial one shoulder gowns.

Gown number one was assymetrical, satin and had ruching that didn't quite work for me. However, it is true that weddingdresses are engineered to pull you in in all the right places. Maybe it was the light. But damn, I lookes good in that dress! This appeared to be a general trait in weddingdresses.

Gown 2 was an assymetrical one shoulder chiffon dress that madr me look like a greek goddeas. It qas divine. But it wasn't THE dress, id you know what I mean.

Gown 3 was a symmetrical chiffon gown, with pleads in all the right places. It needed a bit more as it felt like an evening gown instead of a bridal gown. We paired it with a beaded belt (actually a satin ribbon with a beaded applique). Better, but not quite it.

In the meantime we were eyeing the other customers who were also trying out gorgeous dresses, probably in a different price range. Each with an entourage of friends and mothers.

Gown 4 was something completely different, as I asked if I could try something with lace. The shop assistent eyed me up and down before telling me in a low voice that the lace dresses are more expensive and start at 2000. 'All of the dresses that you liked on the internet are out of your pricerange but zi'll try to find something'. She returned with a roaring twenties type of dress that was surprisingly pretty. It had a bit too much going on though.

Gown 5 was a satin halterstrap with a slight mermaid like flair at the knee and a tiny train. I stoos in front of the mirror wearing a veil and holding a silk flower bouquet and I felt myself choking up, being happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I really want to marry E. I have no doubt that we belong together. And sad because it is the end of an era, somehow I alluded growing up in the past 33 years and it appears that I am catching up with this step.

I believe in my wedding vows. I believe that we will want to be together in 30 years. I believe that this is really happening. And this magical creation of white satin was what I was going to wear.

Yeah, we took a lunchbreak but I already knew that this was what I wanted. I ended up happily paying 1530 euro for my dress, shoes, corset, veil and fitting of the dress. I can't show it to you guys though, as the dress stayed in the store and I will see it again two days before my wedding in august for the final fitting.

Second menses since I stopped taking the pill and can I say OUCH. I have much more PMS, cramps and other symptoms then when I still took the pill. Another annoying thing: feeling like I am going to menstruate soon, and my body decides to hold out on me for a week before I am actually in need of female hygienic propucts. Ofcourse using said products as a precaution because you don't want to find out that aunt flo is visiting when you get out of your chair after a two hour meeting and seeing a red mark on the chair.

I take my hat off to all the ladies all over the world including myself for not complaining all the time. And even if we complain or are stressed because of our menses, this is only because we need to remind the people around us that we deserve chocolate, red wine and lots of hugs and kisses.

We picked up the moving van on saturday morning around 9.00 and the first thing that struck me was that it is HUGE. A small sized car could be stashed in the back.
Needless to say that I wasn't looking forward to drivign this thing into the city of Utrecht and Mr. R took the first drive. Ikaya came over to help, which was incredibly nice of her and made things go smoother. We took most of the boxes plus the biggest furniture items, the. Drove back to De Meern. We spent the rest of the afternoon by unpacking most of the boxes, getting the tv up on the tv cupboard from my house and switching the mattrass to mine. I ended the day being fairly optimistic about the whole process.

We relaxed during the evening, Mr.R had a dixieland performance that was fun to attend, but a little bit loud and a couple of hours too long to my taste. We hit the sheets at 02.30.

Waking up on Sunday morning was not very pleasant. We managed to crawl out of bed on time and I drove the van to Scheveningen. We ran into a couple of tight spots when I scraped the walkway with the aide of my tires, and when we had to drive through a couple of very narrow streets with lots of parked cars and bicycles. The closet with the big mirror doors was okay, a bit worn out but it'll nicely considering the price. The seller was nice, he helped us by taking the closet apart and helping us get everything into the van. Mr.R drove us to the house of a friend, where we bought a table and chairs for the garden, then back to De Meern.

By that time we were feeling the fatigue but Little Brother reinforced our team. The strong burly guys carried the heavy stuff upstairs and we went back to my house in Utrecht for the second round. See, second round is tricky because all the easy stuff was already packed up, leaving us with the harder items. We managed to even bring my regular bike back to De Meern. I ordered pizza to celebrate, making this weekend the official shoarma/chips/pizza weekend.

As expected, the house is a mess. Things will ease in in the next couple of weeks, with mutual effort and a lot of selling, decluttering and giving away of stuff. I am glad that this weekend is over.

It is a good weekend, after quite a busy week at work where I felt like I forgot everything I knew during the holidays. I managed to figure out stuff and do a couple constructive things on Friday, like creating a one page summary of the article for the Lectorate, a powerpoint to talk the MT through how we are creating our quality management book and I updated my manager about several items. Still stuck on how to implement the data classification I am working on, and I suggested splitting it into three: document classification, application classification, and the basic document on classification.

But! Then it was weekend, glorious weekend. It started with our kitchen being installed and fully functional. We now have two kick ass ovens to make delicious pies and brownies in and I desperately need to do so soon. I started packing up my bookcases at home (we are moving my stuff in batches) and had another sewing bout. Anxiety induced sewing is the best as I hemmed a circleskirt, finished the closures on the gold coin bra and used the fabric remnants of the pink capri to make a matching top.

Unfortunately I needed fabric for my students and I ended up buying some pink lace fabric to create a shrug that matches the corset belt that Ozma send me six years ago. I want to wear it on the student recital for our tribal fusion number. I hemmed the veils, they are on the heavy side but it'll work. Despite my best efforts, there still is a fine amount of stuff that needs to be moved and closets that need to be bought. I am hunting marktplaats.nl voor affordable second hand wardrobes with huge mirrors for my dance room.

Today we are moving the first boxes from my place to the new house and we have dinner at my dad's place. It'll be fun! Have a great weekend guys :-)

You guessed it, our christmas was largely spent on painting doors and doorframes white. It was nice, on christmas eve we watched a couple of cheesy christmas movies sitting next to our very own christmas tree.

On the first day of christmas we were invited to dinner in a restaurant that looked all posh, but ended up being a bit blegh. We waited two hours before the first course came through and the food was okay but not that special. I chatted a bit with his brotherse and their wifes, and with his nephew who is a couple of years younger then me. He has a lovely girlfriend and they just bought a new house. I am so excited for them! I talked a bit with Erica, who is from costa rica and who is going there after christmas for six weeks so she could catch up with her close family. The three brothers were catching up on childhood stories at the end of the dinner which wad very fun. Stories about three rascals playing outdoors and such :-)

On the second day of christmas my mother cooked us a wonderful meal, and we spent the evening not discussing the absence of my Big Brother, except that we did because we couldn't help ourselves. And then the childhood stories from our childhood came out, something Mr.R. Was actively hoping for. Turns out that I was a bit of a tantrum thrower when I got angry and that Little Brother and I agree on many things regarding our youth. Like the way our mother told us to solve problems with talking, which doesn't go down well among kids. It was a great night and my mother gave us a wooden garden fence door for the garden that she had lying around the house. She also wants to give me her old bike which is awesome! It's 12 years old, still 20 years younger then my current bike.

On friday I went into town for a yoga class and found out that the bus that stops next to our house drives straight to the yoga school, which is next door to where I teach my belly dance classes. In short, excellent bus connection for the win! Afterwards I noodled a bit in my rented home. It is silly that it is starting to feel less like a home because we spent a week in the new house. We haven't actually moved stuff from my houseto the new house becaue we are still painting the doors and woodwork on the inside and because Mr.R has stuff to unpack too. Fitting both our stuff in the house will be interesting, to say the least. We went to the 'furniture boulevard' to look at curtains and carpet for the staircases. Looks like we agree: we both want red carpet and red curtains :-)

In short, I had a good time during christmas, despite doing a lot of not-so-christmassy things. To top it off, today is our one year anniversary and we had a lovely dinner yesterday to celebrate. I am happy with him, in an unexpected way. He makes me feel loved and respected in a thousand tiny ways that melts my heart and turns my into a glowing heap of sentiment.

I'm turning 33 today, and I was woken up buy the rough call of the alarm clock, softened by hugs and kisses from Mr.R. I know that this sounds disgustingly mushy but it is true: I love waking up together.

I did not love getting up early so we'd be at the house in time for the moving company to arrive and for the workers to clear the livingroom and bedroom. The workers received their christmas bonus from Mr.R, which made them happy. They speak Polish and listen to Polish radio, and after they finish the work on our house they will drive back to Poland to be with their families. I can't even imagine how hard it must be for them to be away from their loved ones for months at a time.

The movers were a stocky fifty something guy, a boy who was barely twenty and a rather pudgy thirty something guy. Family bussiness, as it turns out. They did a good job unloading the truck without an elevator, using a three step ladder instead.we hung around for a while, answering questions about where things were supposed to go. The house is now full with Polish workers and over a hundred boxes with stuff.

I am excited over the wood burning stove in the living room because it looks good and I can imagine sitting in the livingroom with Mr.R. just hanging, having tea,enjoying the heat of the fire. Anyway, afterwards Mr.R. drove me back home. I lounged on the couch and watched Firefly episodes. Then got up for groceries, the post office and baking apple pie. My mother, father and little brother are coming over tonight and that's about all that I can handle right now. I look forward to another year full of suprises, of dance, friends, loved ones, good food and plenty of wine.

The fatigue was okay, I started the day with Jillian Michaels daily shred level 1 in pantherprint leggings. After a quick recap of yesterdays rhythms and a small detour by Issam to other related rhythms, we started on the rhythms of the day: wahda kabira and karsilama. Very nice explanation from both a musicians and a dancers point of view. We did some dancing to the karsilama but haven't gotten to that part yet in the choreography.

Today we learned how to drum the first part of the drum solo, which I am really excited about. How awesome is it to be able to play the drum? I do ofcourse have every intention of continuing playing but since I can't even do one inatructional dvd in two years, that probably is not going to happen. The morning workouts have inspired me to return to my dvd collection and start shredding again. I have fond memories of lying on my livingroom floor whith a dvd instructor telling me that 'results come from hard work, keep on pushing!)

I met Suzanna on Tuesday, who happens to love the construction of subletting as opposed to sharing a house, on account of being an amzingly busy person who is working full-time, writing a thesis and having her own company. The downside: she can rent startin on august 1th, meaning that I'll lose 600€ in income becaus the room is empty

Today at 19.00 I had Tamara in for a look. She is into theater, studies for a masters degree here in Utrecht and does free lance theatre work. She was a bit too energetic for me, I felt my face tense up after talking with her for 30 minutes. Overall very nice, but she texted me half an hour after she left that she decided to not go for the room.

Today at 20.00 I had Irene, who currently lives in a studio in Eindhoven. She is specifically looking for something quiet and clean amd loved the room. She told me that she could move in on june 17th, even though she is in the middel of exams and will fully move in per july 1th. She is my top choice. I'll bebgine most of july, she'll be gone during august due to holidays. I am considering offering her to start the contract at july 1th but giving her the key on june 17th. It doesn't hurt to start with a gesture of good will, or does this skew our relationship?

Anyway, I am calling her tomorrow. If she says no, I'll call Suzanna as a back up.

The thing about these plans is that they have to want to live here too.

To be continued!,