Fudge

So, Monday was Fudge night. We were allowed to use the kitchen of a cafe close by where we work because the boyfriend of one of our colleagues runs the place. We definitely needed some bigger then usual workspaces, pots and pans and they provided it for us. Thanks Hans! Yes, Hans again, but another Hans.

The recipe looks quite simple, but it definitely took me a few batches trying out at home before I got it down completely and before I was able to make the recipe in different flavors. Just two degrees can make a huge difference when working with sugar in the kind of end product you get. To get the fudge to set properly or have it still a bit liquid. It's also a matter of moist, water. It also can't be too dry because then you get something different as well and although that end product could turn out very tasty indeed, it's not what we're aiming for. After several try outs at home, bags of sugar, heavy cream and butter and a sugar thermometer, a dinner of 1.5 bananas, we were ready and went to the cafe 'Onze vrienden' right after we finished work.

We were able to turn the disgusting looking mixture of heavy cream, butter, sugar, sugar, sugar, a bit of salt and chocolate and vanilla into the best badge of fudge I've ever made.

Here you can see the velvety, meltingly hot, lava like liquid it turned into. You should almost be able to imagine the smell of the caramel wafting through the kitchen. Elian is multitasking, and handling the stirring of two batches of fudge at once, while I shoot the picture. On the left is the vanilla fudge, on the right is the chocolate fudge. As you can see, warm fudge is much intenser of color than fudge that has cooled down.

The few hours we spend in the kitchen also made very clear that Elian's knee isn't holding up very well. The pain got worse and she was almost unable to stay standing. On Tuesday it got worse and she called the hospital to find out if there was something wrong or if she was supposed to be doing something about it. Apparently, it was because the anaesthesia had worn off that was in the stuff they directly injected into her knee. Her physiotherapist told her it should get better in a few days. If it wasn't on Friday, she's supposed to call back. On Wednesday it was still the same, so we're hoping it's been at it's worse and her knee will start to feel better from now on. 

On Tuesday night, I cut the fudge and put it into bags. 

Unfortunately the coffee fudge hadn't set properly. In hindsight we know what caused it, but by then it was too late to do something about it. We have now two perfect badges of fudge sitting at the office, waiting to be sold. The first one was sold already!

Dutch mountain

In the Netherlands, we don't have mountains. We do have hills that are amazingly steep and can take you by surprise,

but however mean and steep those can't really be classified as long climbs.

What we do have is lots of wind and open spaces, creating what we call "Dutch mountain". The harder the wind, the steeper the mountain so to speak. Going up against the wind is climbing and tailwind means down hilling. The wind we had or are still having today, we can actually classify as an autumn storm. At 8.00 am the winds became a storm with heavy storms along the coast force 9 (this means the average wind speed is 75 km/h (46.6 miles/h) over a 10 minutes period) with gusts of wind (110 km/h) and landward force 6 (average windspeed around 50 km/h (31.1 miles/h)) with hard gusts of wind (80 to 90 km/h). Apparently there was also a weather warning, urging people to stay inside if they didn't need to go anywhere.

I didn't know this until I came back from my training. Every Sunday I try and get in a couple of hours on the bike outdoors. It makes me feel the effects of my training on the bike and can be highly encouraging and motivating to keep up the indoor training. Today I was actually aiming for a rather relaxed ride on my bike. I'd heard the wind, but it didn't quite come across as hard as it turned out when cycling up against it. When I really got into the open roads, along the fields, I actually became aware the wind was above average, blowing me to the other side of the road. The only way to stay on course was by hanging in the wind sideways. A little bit like this only with... well... on an extremely light bike with very different clothing. I was very happy with the new winter gear I decided to buy on Friday night!

I cycled roads which were completely scattered with broken branches. Snapped like twigs by the wind.

There were a few moments I didn't think I'd be able to stay on my bike when the wind suddenly caught me, but back in one piece. I warmed up under the shower, drank my milk which is supposed to be very good for recovery, ate carbohydrates and nuts and now snuggled up inside with cozy lights, warm drinks and some nice music.

work-out

The reaction to the robbery is now really obvious in my parents. The picture of what exactly happened to them getting more complete and vivid. My dad is limping his way through the day for the moment and I now know why and how he got this ugly cut on his hand. My mom is having trouble going to certain places by herself. We don't really dare think about what happened and what could have been. 

Having a shop and owning your own business means life has to go on though. Too much depends on it. There's no room to slack or to go easy for a few days. Suck it up and keep going. This challenge we've decided to take on, means we've got to keep going. And so we have. We've been working out and we've been casting plaster, drying it actively and painting it in our spare time. Also our teacher parents nights are done. So, this means we've got a few more minutes of spare time in our lives besides the projects. Just as well, as it's almost December and the pressure is coming on. There have been parents of students, looking up Christmas decorations they don't use, bringing them over to us, donating them for making Christmas pieces, so that's awesome! Thanks everyone who's brought in something. We are definitely going to be making them into something beautiful in the coming weeks!

For now, this time isn't an update on our normal work-outs, but on some other work-out in progress:

Here's the proof we actually did all this with our own bare hands

This were the marks on the paper we used to protect the table. An artwork on its own!

Here's a finished set of silver hearts. And yes, we sold the first set already!! Here we go, let's get that ball rolling ROLLING!!!!

Of course we used some gold as well. I mean, what's Christmas without some gold decorations?!

And of course, we also made several different colored sets: Pink, purple, red, gold... All ready to go!

Good training, Bad training

Sometimes training is good. Sometimes it's not. After the short night from Tuesday on Wednesday, I could really use some extra hours of sleep. But the dog decided differently. At 3.30 am he had been banging at my door enough to open it and jumped on my bed.
Here's the hateful bugger (Toetie), I know he looks sweet and nice and stuff, but looks can be deceiving, especially if they wake you up at 3.30 am.

No more rest for the wicked. At 7 I was at Elian's and at 7.30 we were working out. It wouldn't have taken very much for me to not go. I actually only went because I promised to pick up Elian, but she was determined to go, quoting the Alpe d'HuZes slogan "quitting is not an option" with this wicked smile on her face. When we actually got there, she couldn't stress enough how nice it would have been to have a bed there and how early it was. Bless anyone at the gym this morning because we were horrible creatures, giggling and whining and dragging ourselves through the motions, saying silly things, finding everything funny, almost collapsing on the rowing machine from laughter. Ah...! We were definitely annoying, but we became a little serious later on. Just a fit here and there. We finished about 1 hour and 45 minutes later, which has become our average work out time at the gym.

This evening Elian went to the orthopedic surgeon to get her knee patched up. An injection straight into her knee to fight the bursitis. Hoping it will have the desired effect and she's going to be able to train full out from.... well... tomorrow on basically. Expecting a rapid and amazing recovery. It's the positive vibes we're sending the knee that will make it work without pain again. I just heard from her her knee now feels heavy and weird, but apparently that's normal and she should wake up painless tomorrow. Will let you know.

Wow.... today was a weird day!! This week is pretty extreme in the hours that we are making. Every night we have an appointment or parents night or are tutoring children or whatever. We still need to fit in our training in the mornings, so late nights, and early mornings all around this week. Somehow you, or at least I, prepare mentally for this kind of week. I'm able to set my mind to it and keep going and going until I've survived. Today was a weird day though, not something to prepare for and something that can knock you out of your mind set:

5.20 alarm went off.
5.34 I got out of my bed, went downstairs, put the kettle on for a cup of tea, made my warm wrap with banana (it's an amazingly easy, warm, comforting and filling breakfast I discovered by accident).
6.00 chucked my sports gear into my bag, dressed and stuff.
6.35 What's apped Elian to let her know I was on my way to pick her up.
6.50 arrived at Elian's to find her coming out of the door with a laptop bag, a sports bag, a plastic bag with a large pan full of pea soup and a box full of plaster figures.
7.05 checking in at the gym.
7.15 rowing like crazy. I mean... really crazy. Not like we were warming up, we were just racing each other.
9.15 left the gym.
10.00 started working.
12.30 had lunch break and updated our 'King's Empire' game. Right... I know this is just a bit sad, but we've only been playing this for 3 days now, so it's still relatively new, so that's what I'm ascribing it to. It's just the newness of the thing. But we were like 3 adults all focused on their smart phones all in our own world. Although it has to be said... it's not our own world, as it's inhabited by people around the world. It's obviously a question of interpretation.
13.15 work.
18.00 appointment.
19.00 we had about half an hour to eat some dinner. Thankfully we already had great soup (it looks awful, but it's quite good) at lunch so, we just downed some bread.
19.30 headed off to another appointment. We were meeting with someone who rode the Alpe d'HuZes last year so he could give us some tips, tell us about the process.
20.05 Hans actually rode the Alpe d'Huez 5 times in honor of his sister, which is an amazing feat for someone who had started cycling less than a year prior to that. It made it pretty clear to us that this goal definitely puts life in a different perspective and shifts priorities. Everything that's involved, it affects not only our lives, but also the lives of the people around you. We got some great tips and know that finding a place to stay at the Alpe d'Huez HAS to be a priority right now! This is a huge event and Alpe d'Huez is more like a place for winter sports, to go skiing and snow boarding. By the time June arrives, the season is over. Everything is closed down in this period, but for about a week, around the Alpe d'HuZes, everyone opens up their hotels, restaurants and chalets and is booked full. So, we really need to start searching for that. Also had some great tips on sponsoring, some do's and don'ts on preparation, on training and on when to take it easy. It's all not as clear cut as it seems, so we're taking a lot of information in.
22.00 Phone rings. First I want to ignore it, I mean, it's not nice to take on your phone when you're visiting people, but when I check I see I've already had two missed calls. My friend then also gets a call. So I call back. It's my mom. She tells me my dad and her are at the hospital. My mom hasn't been entirely well lately, some health issues going on, so my mind immediately starts to list all possible things that might be wrong, but is abruptly halted when she tells me my dad and her have been robbed. First I think... really... yeah... right... But she continues to tell me that they were threatened with a knife and with a gun, which definitely makes me realize: 'she would never ever ever make a story like this up'. So I start to... 'what? really? but... when where how why... uhm.....?' Immediately the atmosphere around me started to tense up, everyone around me alert, trying to understand from my one sided conversation what's happening when my tone shifts from playful to serious and worried. I try to find out what happened, how my dad is, and when I ask her if I should come to the ER she of course tells me to just do what I'm doing and that it's nothing really serious, just a cut in his hand. She just asked me to block a bank card for her. At that point she started to give me the details and I start to actively dig into my bag to find a pen and some paper. Immediately everyone sees me searching and not finding, of course, so everyone starts frantically looking and pens and papers are handed to me all around. So I blocked the card and obviously headed over to the hospital.
22.30 Elian went with me, and we ended up in the waiting room of the ER. Finally my mom found us and tells us the whole chilling story. After that we sit around, joke about how my dad won't be able to do the dishes (it's a long story, but it comes down to the dishes becoming his private job). It's our way to cope. Just laugh, say silly things and pretend everything is alright. It still didn't feel real. Even though I saw my dad with the doctor. It's like this story that happens to other people, that you only imagine. With knifes and guns and blood and police and ambulances and sirens and meetings... My dad trying to protect my mom, my mom trying to protect my dad....
23.30 I dropped Elian off at her place. Thank goodness it's not too serious, and my dad is able to move his entire hand. He's been extremely lucky and only needed stitches. He will be having trouble with moving his hand because the cut is right in the skin between his index finger and thumb, which obviously moves with every move you make, but it will heal and he'll have all his functions intact.
23.50 we're home. Drinking a cup of tea, which is something to comfort all of us, give us a sense of normality and some time to digest all that has happened. Besides... who is actually going to be able to sleep after all this....? How's my dad going to be able to keep the shop open? He's really stubborn and not the first one to admit something isn't going well or he's got troubles. But we'll work it out. Take things as they come and figure out problem by problem as we go along.
00.30 It has really been a long day. I'm really starting to feel it. Eyes are itching, but now my mind is starting to get creative, making pictures that go with the story. I see guns, my dad on the ground, a knife...

It's chilling to realize... Life can be over in one popping sound, in one movement, in one moment. Just like that. Thankfully my dad has a tough act, and my mom thought on her feet. They're both here and the gift of life is more precious than ever.

01.45 It's time to sleep.

Since the last time I wrote, a loooooooooot has happened. At the moment we're bubbling with ideas and thoughts and things that are going on and we don't have the time and resources to do all we think off. It's frustrating, inspiring and exciting all at once!! At the night we heard we were both in, we were just going crazy, like ping pong balls (is that even a known term in English? Especially for you: table tennis balls) throwing ideas and thoughts at each other. It's starting to become very clear we can't do everything and we need to make choices. That's hard though!

Training
We did a new fittest to establish the effects of my training and the starting point of Elian's training. Elian starts somewhere in level 3. After 1.5 years of no sports at all because of a bad knee and 3 operations, that's not bad at all. Just a shame she can't go full out yet seeing she has got an infection in her knee that needs treatment. She was able to up her cardio workout though, so that's good.

Apparently I've progressed up to the end of level 6 from somewhere halfway level 4. Because of the change in level, which goes from 1 to 7 with 1 being the lowest and 7 being the highest, my workouts have effectively doubled. I've started training 4 times a week now and got a new schedule for my strength training (thanks for that Bjorn, no muscle aches at all!).

Fundraising
Then there is the fundraising which need very serious attention now. For starters we opened up a bank account. We've been writing letters to big organizations for donations. I can tell you they're not that enthusiastic about the idea. Big organizations already have commitments to charities and usually stick with them. We are getting very positive feedback from parents of our students and from people around us however, so we're definitely not giving up, we're just starting out, but we are realizing a lot of the money has got to be earned by some creativity and inventiveness from our side.

Right now we're gathering a lot of little pots and everything that might be turned into a little Christmas piece. Believe me, there's A LOT! A LOT!

And at this moment we only have the separate pieces, we still need to turn them into a decorative complete piece. And when we've got a lot of those, we're going to stow ourselves away on a few Christmas markets, selling Christmas pieces and decoration and fudge.


Of course the fudge is a story on its own, but more (and pictures) on that later.

Caramel Fudge - Chocolate Fudge - Coffee Fudge... - anyone? :-D :-P

Motivation

Cancer is an awful disease. About 28 million people in the world are fighting. Fighting to survive. In the Netherlands, cancer is the number one cause of death in men and women. One in three people get some form of cancer at some point in life. It's a leading cause of death world wide. A report from the World Health Organization, published in 2003, let us know that in 2000 10 million people suffered from cancer, probably increasing with 50% to 15 million in 2020. In 2008 7.6 million people died from cancer (13% of all deaths). 

Everybody has a story:
We're not intending to throw all kinds of creepy statistics at you. These numbers just show more objectively and more clearly than words can express that "it" is out there and everybody knows it. Up close and personal. Almost everybody has a 'cancer story'.  Sobering, emotional, painful, life altering stories about: 

husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers and children. 

I don't know anyone that hasn't lost somebody to cancer. I don't know anyone that doesn't know someone personally affected by cancer at this very moment. It's not only those suffering from the disease itself, but also the close family and friends that are having to deal with the consequences and in the worst cases with the loss of a loved one. 

We too have stories. Our grandfathers died from cancer. I would so have loved to have known them better, knowing them growing up to be a teenager, to an adult. A great aunt died from cancer. We have students with family members fighting cancer. A sister fighting cancer, a mother fighting cancer... 

A lot is known about cancer. But there's also still a lot we do not know. There are still mysteries to be solved. For those to be solved, money is needed. For the right support and assistance for those fighting the disease, money and expertise are needed. To prevent cancer from entering our futures, we need research, education, change, expertise... And money will come in very handy to actually make it happen! We are, both of us, educators in one way or another. We're no medical specialists. Money is a small contribution we will be able to make in the fight against cancer. Show our support to those affected. Inspire people to keep fighting, to not give up!

Six times the Alpe d'Huez (Alpe d'HuZes)
In order to raise as much money as possible, we've set ourselves a challenge. A challenge to show our support, to raise money, to inspire... This obviously calls for a big challenge: We are setting out to "take" the Alpe d'Huez. Not once. No. That wouldn't be a huge challenge like cancer. We are going to try and cycle up this mountain 6 times. To be more precise: 

6 times in one day. 

Right... so for those of you who don't know the Alpe d'Huez, it's a mountain. In the Alps. In Europe. And almost always a part of the track of the Tour de France. And whenever it is part of the Tour, usually, the mountain will be occupied by people from the Netherlands, effectively turning it into a Dutch mountain for a short period of time. As we all know, we don't actually have a mountain in the Netherlands. Just hills. And wind. The Alpe d'Huez is 13.8 km long, has 21 hairpin corners, has a height difference of 1060 meters and has an average climbing percentage of 7.9% of which the first 1.5 km has 16.4%. The fastest cyclist to ever climb this mountain, was Marco Pantani, needing a little over 37 minutes. An average amateur cyclist needs around 1.5 hours to complete the climb.

We have received an official e-mail today, informing us that we have entered the event and are expected to ride on the 6th of the 6th in 2013!