joyful gratitude

Marching for equality

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #20

I’m grateful for the thousands of women, men, kids, dogs and their owners who carved some time out of their busy lives to come to the second Women’s March in Amsterdam last Saturday.

There were many wonderful slogans with puns and creative colourful banners, but the one above was my favorite. Simple, yes, but sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics, especially considering all the misconceptions around feminism.

There was a great atmosphere of solidarity at the march and it was heartwarming to see so many people who care enough to turn up and make sure their voice is heard for women and equality in general.

Taking another route

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #19

This morning was one of the first sunny spring mornings, so instead of trying to get to the office as fast as possible I decided to take my time (it was Friday after all!). I took a slightly different route as I cycled through the Vondelpark and just making that small change made me much more aware of my surroundings.  Normally I am lost in my thoughts, or just paying attention to the path, but this morning I really enjoyed the view. The soft sunlight shining through the trees was magnificent!

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Discovering Nijmegen

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #18

I’m very grateful for a lovely weekend with Paolo discovering Nijmegen for the first time. Despite the cold, we walked around the park overlooking the river Waal from Nijmegen’s hill and wandered down the little streets of the town.

We had to warm up regularly and which was a great excuse to stop in wonderful cafés and indulge in hearty sandwiches and rich cakes:)

Thanks to Paolo’s perseverance and good luck, we even got the last two tickets to watch a play version of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road that just happened to be playing that evening at the theater. The actors  were captivating and their way of telling the story was gripping!

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Pizza dinner

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #17

After a long day, full of meetings at work, I came home with a bad headache. Luckily we had planned to make pizza for dinner.  I don’t know if it was the fact that I was concentrated on chopping the veggies and cheese, as well as rolling out the dough for the pizza, or simply the pleasure of eating it, but my headache disappeared and I felt a hundred times better by the time we finished:)

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Full disclosure:  the second pizza may or may not have landed on the kitchen floor right after this picture was taken… however I swiftly applied the well-tested 3-second rule and it was delicious all the same!

A big shout out to Simona B. who shared her pizza making skills with me a few months ago. The dough was perfect!

Precious daylight

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #16

Since a few days when I leave the office it’s still daylight!  I feel like the worst of winter is over now and it’s such a pleasure to no longer be cycling in the dark.  The soothing light of the magic hour over the Amsterdam canals on my way home is so beautiful.

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The icing on the cake

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #15

This may be controversial, but I believe regularly eating delicious cake is part of a healthy diet.  According to me, cake is perfect for any occasion and at any time, whether it’s for fueling a creative afternoon in a cosy café, celebrating a birthday or simply for dipping in my morning coffee for breakfast, and it tastes even better when it is shared with family, colleagues or friends.

Cake is also an important way of transmitting family traditions.  My grand-dad’s speciality was making Biscuit de Savoie for us (which is a cake despite its confusing name). I miss watching him in his kitchen, patiently folding the beaten egg whites into the batter with a wooden spoon, turning always in the same direction to keep the cake fluffy (and obviously licking the bowl which was the best part!). We still use his recipe to make this amazing cake for every family reunion:)

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 The pretty cakes in these pictures were made in Ahhh Toots, a stand in the Glass Arcade in Bristol. My friend Eva and I attempted to sample as many of them as we could when we were visiting in 2015.  They truly know how to make icing in the UK:)

Morning coffee

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #14

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I am grateful for the quiet moment at the beginning of the day when I prepare coffee. It takes only a few minutes, but I relish the deliberate action of cleaning the moka, filling it with just the right amount of cold water, delicately placing the ground coffee into the filter, closing the moka tight and putting it to cook on the stove. The split second when the first coffee topples over though the column is a magical one!

Sparkling sunlight

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #13

Last weekend the sky was crisp blue and the sun was out, so on Sunday Paolo and I wrapped up in many layers of warm clothes to go for a brisk walk. There are a few nice places to wander close to our flat, and this time we ended up in De Oeverlanden park, a place we’d never explored together.

It felt great to be outdoors, and enjoy chatting while we walked along the water. It was so good to feel the sun on my face, and the reflection of the sunlight sparkling on the lake through the reeds was simply beautiful.

 

Taking time to relax

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img_6446JOYFUL GRATITUDE #12

Blue monday has now passed and this week the ice freezing on the trees was so beautiful.  So why the sun flower? I guess I just feel like seeing some warm colours – and because with my painfully freezing fingers I unfortunately didn’t manage to make a decent picture to post here of those amazing pointy icicles on the branches 😉 .

This week I’m very grateful for a fun yoga session organised by a colleague in a meeting room after work. We spent a wonderful hour stretching, keeping our muscles warm, going through the movements and practicing our balance.  It was great to just take some time for myself after a busy work day in order to breathe, stretch and get out of my head.

Lunch time walks

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #11

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At the moment the days are so short that it’s dark when I arrive at work early in the morning, and night has already fallen by the time I get on my bike to cycle home from the office. So the only way to stock up on precious vitamine D is to go for a quick walk after eating lunch.

I’m lucky that my office is just next to the beautiful Westerdok which is very sunny in the early afternoon, so I regularly go there during my lunch break, usually with one or a few colleagues to chat with on the way.

I love looking at all the colourful houseboats and imagining what it’s like to live in them. When it’s sunny, it’s wonderful, obviously. But I try and head out even if it’s rainy because it always feels great to stretch my legs and be away from the computer, and after getting some fresh air I can focus so much better in the afternooon.

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