Happy holidays!

Finally Christmas is almost there. It means we get to take some rest after weeks of life that go mindblowingly fast and days that have waaaaaaay too little hours in them. Too little to be able to train. So no training update whatsoever. The entire month of December, we haven't set foot in the gym. Oh yeah, Elian went for an hour but was completely exhausted and didn't make it much longer than that.  Elian's knee is still not doing what it's supposed to do, so after a visit to the physiotherapist and the orthopedic surgeon, she has to take 4 weeks of rest. FOUR! That's like... quite a feat for her. Four weeks of no training, taking the easy way everywhere in order to decrease the stress on her knee... it's like a mental training. Which is good as well, but not quite the way you want it to be.

In December we managed to get our first little bit of money together. It's not quite the capital we're looking for, but it's a start. It went quite different than how we thought it would go. The Christmas markets we were at weren't really well visited or weren't real Christmas markets, but more flea market meeting christmas market or neighborhood parties. When we thought things couldn't get worse... they got worse. Every time! We actually had posters printed to tell people where the money they spend would go to. Obviously not from all people, but there were several people that were pretty tired of the idea of spending money somewhere and their money going to a charity. Taking down the posters actually ensured us of more interested people, not thinking 'oh what kind of crap do I need to spend my money on now to support another charity' but looking with a more open mind at what we were actually selling and seeing it were actually good and professional products. So in the last day we were actually seriously selling. We've now got 10% of our goal.

*learned to take panorama pictures....*

Yesterday we went to an actual serious christmas markets in Germany. That was very different from what we'd seen in Holland. There were a lot of Christmas stalls, an actual glass blower, crafting christmas ornaments, glühwein drinking people all over the city, people enjoying themselves, little stalls selling roast chestnuts, waffles, curry saucages, wooden figures, lights.... It was christmassy. The only thing we were seriously missing was Father Christmas. There was one in Holland, that definitely had the Christmas spirit and brought a happy and positive note to the market. Just a shame I forgot to take a picture of him. I was planning to, but forgot.

After our two weeks of holiday in which we're not going to do anything for this project, well, other than doing a sports medical test, we are going to sit down and think of some more ways of raising money.

For now to everyone out there: 

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!!!!!

icing sugar and broken mirrors

My day started at the garage today. Yesterday some idiot, on a small road in the country, refused to get his car a little off the road, which, if two cars are driving towards each other is necessary to pass each other without any damage. Well... I did, and the other didn't. Resulting in a pretty hefty bang. It was very dark and the other car just drove by. It wasn't the best start to the day ever at all. But still resulted in an unexepectedly relaxing morning. It gave me the opportunity to read my book on my iPhone, no doubt giving me the look of someone completely hooked to her phone.

Winter is here! Yes, it's official. It's been freezing, and snowing... Last Friday there was a lot of snow, even though the ground was still warm enough to melt through the snow in about a day. Now that's behind us, we've got a very adequate amount of snow, lying still on the ground like it has been sprinkeled on there as on a perfectly executed dessert, cake or cookie. Sprinkeled on the ground to make ik more beautiful to give it a fuzzy, cuddly look. Not that it feels fuzzy or cuddly... Or more importantly: warm for that matter. But it's the look that counts. Top that with the smell of burning logs of wood, and the dog tugging the leash, frolicing around, it did bring me in the holiday spirit. WOOT!!!!!

The dog stared lapping the snow off the ground, upping his fluid intake I suppose, or maybe he just likes the taste of frozen water, melting on his tongue. Who knows. I started making spirals in the snow.... What better use is there of freshly fallen snow than to make your mark in it?! I suppose it must have something to do with the explorer in me. The spiral was of course from the European series "The Spirals" which I started watching two days ago. It's pretty cool as well, as it's a partnership between several European countries, producing something awesome!

60 christmas pieces

It took us some time to get online again. It was a very bad week for training. Very bad indeed. Instead we've been working on raising money this week. Hopefully it will pay off this weekend. Last few days we've been working on getting 60 christmas pieces together. We've got two nightmare scenarios in our heads now:

1) We won't sell more then 10.
2) We will sell out in a few hours.

Both are horrific ideas because it will mean we've either invested a lot of energy, money, resources and it doesn't pay off, or, we're going to work our butts off to make huge production in a couple of days again. And to be quite frank: We're kind of tired already. But we're really pleased with the result. We're selling the fudge now, we're selling our casts now, we've got t-shirts coming in we are going to sell... Yep, we're going for the big bucks! There are just a few people we still need to convince to sponsor us. Some particularly stubborn people among them as well.

This first piece is quite special. It's actually a bucket you can close with a lid and to attach the lid safely there's this ring so it will close completely secure. We've made sure all those pieces will stay together. Anyone notice the lid and the ring?!

This last one I think, is my favorite. Elian thought of this one just before she almost zoned out from exhaustion and before I choked on my apple juice. Well, I almost drowned. Seriously. On apple juice. Anyway, Elian suddenly said: "I know! I'm going to make a banana!" and frantically began to put together some branches, winding some rope around it, sticking in more branches of green and more and more... Looking at me with wild eyes. It was a scary experience, but then, it took shape. The shape of a banana. Finishing it off with a sweet little pink light. This is definitely an inspired piece and the star of our show!

Christmas pieces

Thankfully Elian's knee is feeling better with the day now, which means: BACK INTO THE GYM this week for her LOL. She's also rode her new bike for the very first time. It's going to need some tweaking to get it entirely comfortable for her, but her dad is going to arrange for all that.

We've sold our 2nd package of fudge and our first order of a set of hearts is ready to go. Christmas is showing up everywhere now. Shops are setting up all new lines of christmas decorations and are opening it up. Christmas candy and chocolates are being displayed. This is always a transition period for us in the Netherlands, moving from St. Nicolas on the 5th of December, (our version of Santa Claus) to Christmas. We've got all the presents laying around in the house, people talking secretively to each other, having fun in the surprises they've got for others. It's always a nice, homely, warm holiday. 

To raise money, we're now aiming for another festive and grand holiday, Christmas! We've been to the woods to collect moss, pinecones and bark. As of this weekend, we got all the green we needed, all the decorations we needed and off we went. We divided our jobs as efficiently as possible and got the assistance of family members to make the production we needed. Elian, the florist, doing the christmas pieces, and me, doing the casts again. 

Here are some of the pine apples we sprayed to make beautifully christmassy decorations.

Here are some of the finished products. It's not the best picture ever, but I will be making some more tomorrow and see if we can make it a little more clear. There was no way we were going to be able to get everything done this weekend combining projects and appointments, so tomorrow evening we're continuing our efforts!