Tuesday 30 July 2013

How I keep myself sane with an iPhone.


I was reading this blogpost from Styleberry blog and found it very interesting.
This blogger made some rules for herself, so that she would spend more time with her kids without her phone. I was writing a comment with the things I do, but it became such a long comment, that I decided to write some more and turn it into a blogpost.

I recognize myself in not wanting to use my phone every second, especially when spending time with someone. Not instagramming/facebooking/texting while you’re with friends.
Having an Iphone is great, but I always feel a lot of pressure. "Did you see my text, why didn't you respond to my mail/text/fb message, bla bla."
And then there’s our business. I don’t know why, but people expect you to be available 24 hours a day. I run a business, but I’m a human being too. I’ve got opening hours too. And even after the crazy hours, also a life...
But I won’t lose my mind over this. I refuse to. So I made myself some rules.

1. No notifications of social media or anything else on my iPhone.
I only see notifications when I open the apps, and it makes it more fun (like opening a present haha).

Work emails do not come in on my iPhone. I work every day in the office, so then I respond my work emails/calls on my computer. And with that, I'm fast, making sure the communication is smooth. 

2. I do not respond to texts from clients or employees.
Call me or email me, texting is not done. Some things cán wait. Even if they seem very important.
I’ve heard this one a couple of times:
 “You have an Iphone, so you got my email when I sent it, and you should respond immediately!” 
Wow.
See rule nr 1.

3. Texts come in without sound or buzzing.
I love this one. No annoying sounds. And I love the feeling of seeing new texts on the screen.
Let's be honest, we check our phone so often, why the huge alarm when getting a text? 
And I also respond when I have time. No pressure.

4. No instagramming/facebooking/texting when I'm with friends.
We can do that later. Nothing is more stupid than having dinner with your friends, and everyone is staring at their iPhones. Constantly reading the loudly incoming messages. Responding while talking and eating. Big no no in my opinion.

Sidenote: I make sure people know how I communicate, so it’s always clear en not (too) frustrating. AND, I don’t expect others to be available every minute and don’t expect people to reply me immediately. Give to others what you'd like to receive from the world.
 
Via Pinterest

I realize that a lot of people don’t agree on all the things above. Why have an iPhone, but not “use it properly”?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still an iPhone addict! I love posting Instagrams, love reading Facebook timelines and call & text a lot with my friends and family. But I don’t need the pressure of doing it NOW. I like to use my phone the way I want to, so it keeps me sane. And keeping myself sane is more important to me, than responding to every little thing as soon as possible.

How do you use your phone? 




Sunday 28 July 2013

What I've been eating.

In the series "No time, but keep the blog alive", here's number two : FOOD! (First part: London pics)

Just a little peek at what I've been cooking and eating.
Enjoy!


I know, I'm reminding you of this:

Source, via Pinterest


And you know what? It's true.

I am Sabrina and I post pictures of everything I eat on Instagram and Facebook.



Saturday 27 July 2013

I'm back...!


I know, I know. I didn’t write for a very long time, but here I am!
I could go on and on about my busy life, what happened at work (lots of good stuff, don’t worry), but it would be boring.
Instead, I’m giving you some fun Londonmoments and lots of good food. ‘Cause it’s the only thing I photographed. With instagram.
No fancy camera involved, just me and my Iphone.



In August I’m going again! So excited.


Monday 13 May 2013

London favorites nr 3: Food


In these posts I’m taking you to London, telling about my favorite places. 
For part one, about musicals, click here
For part two, about shopping and sight seeing, click here.

Last but not least… food!

I eat a cupcake every day I’m there. Sometimes two. Or three.
My favourite was the black bottom cupcake from the Hummingbird bakery. Rich, dark chocolate cake, filled with cheesecake and topped with cream cheese frosting. Read that sentence again.
I know.
You want it.
I ate it so fast I forgot to take a picture.



We like traditional English food like pies and fish and chips, so we eat that often. And last time we discovered Jamie’s Italian.
We love to cook Jamie Olivers recipes and it was delightful to eat it there. I highly recommend this restaurent! Go early or make a reservation, ‘cause it can be pretty crowded.
There’s so much more to discover…China town, lots of Indian restaurants.

The photo left with our friends is taken in Jamie's Italian.

Enough about my past trips… I can concentrate on our new trip next week! Planning new musicals, where to shop, what to eat… exciting!

I’ll keep you posted of course. London baby!


Sunday 12 May 2013

London favorites nr 2: Shopping and sightseeing.


This is part two of my London favorites. For part one, click here.

In fabulous London, it’s all about shopping till you drop. The huge stores on Oxford Street, the little shops in Covent Garden, the famous Harrod’s. Shopping is great in London.

I visited the Primark last year. That one is always incredibly crowded, so I went in at 10.00 AM sharp. And it was nice and quiet. By the time it got crowded, I decided to go fit.
Mistake. I took too much time collecting my stuff (it was just 15 minutes!), so there was already a line.
I waited for 45 minutes.
Forty-freakin-five minutes.
I was a little bit annoyed I didn’t get more items to fit. I just had three. The good news? Two of the three items were good, so I bought those. One was jeans, for ten English pounds. Ten pounds, can you believe it! And I have been wearing them for one and a half year now. Great.


                                                      One of my favourite items I bought in London are these heels. 
I have no pain when I wear these and they look great with a lot of different looks. I’ve got no idea where I bought them, but the shoe box says Irregular Choice. Don’t you think the website looks like a candy store? If I ever find the same shoes I’ll buy two more pairs. And I really hope they’re available in purple :-) 

The funniest store we ever went was the M&M Store. It was quiet and 4 floors, so we spent a lot of time over there! 


We bought two t-shirts and a present for our nephew and because we spent over fifty pounds, we got a M&M dispenser and two kilo’s of M&M’s for free. We like crazy things!



Now, about the sight seeing.
The thing is, most high schools in the Netherlands visit London for a few days. So many 16–year-olds have seen a lot in London, like St. Pauls Cathedral, changing of the guards, the Big Ben and more.
So did my hubs and I... and so we don’t do a lot of sightseeing! Weird right? But we always try to see one thing. Last time it was the Tower Bridge. As you can see, they were busy with the Olympic thing!

 



Hope to see you tomorrow for my final post in my London Favorites, about food!

Saturday 11 May 2013

London favorites nr 1: musicals!


My husband and I try to go to London every year in February. We love to see new musicals and to shop and eat there. This year was a bit more difficult, so we didn’t visit this year.
But… I wanted to go soooo bad, so we saved some money, we found a tiny hole in our busy schedule and I booked us a last minute 2 day trip to London.
Yay!

Normally we go four days. And then we like to see two musicals a day. (I know, we’re nuts, but we love it. And in a way, it’s a business trip too!)
So this time, we’re trying to squeeze in three musicals in two days.
We’re going just after Whitsun, so I can’t write about this trip, but I will tell you some of my highlights over the past few years!

This post is about musicals, musicals, musicals…

Singin' in the rain was one of my favorites. I loved the dancers. The old fashioned musical jazzdance and tapdance were gorgeous and it’s such a shame it’s not a part of many modern musicals.
We were in the front row and got wet… But it was totally worth it!

Matilda was also awesome.
As a musicaltheatre teacher it’s so great to see lots of talented kids on one stage. This is not a musical where there’s also a kid (like Miss Saigon), it’s a musical done by kids and supported by some adults.
Absolutely fantastic and my dream for our musicalschool.

The photo under Singin' in the rain was the stage of Matilda.
Avenue Q is one the first musicals I saw in London. 
I was with two friends and we also visited a lot of shows.
The last night, I decided to go to Avenue Q. Again. Second time that week. I was sitting in the second row and one of the actors winked at me, obviously recognizing me from a few nights ago. Awkward. I love musicals, I love to see a lot of them, but I am not a girly fan who asks for autographs and stuff. Again, awkward. Thankfully, the next time I saw the show was two years later. 

We will rock you! I can see this one over and over again.
In fact, I’ve seen it twice in London, once in Cologne (Germany) and once in the Netherlands. And it doesn’t get boring. I love the Queen music, the weird story (which is the worst actually), the great singers and the Bohemian Rhapsody in the end.
Nice little story:
A couple of years ago I was auditioning for a show (can’t remember which one). The pianist asked me what I was going to sing and when I said: “Somebody to love”, he was soooo excited.
He had been playing piano in the We Will Rock You orchestra for three years and totally missed that show. When I finished, he complimented me and told me how well I sang it. Cool! I've never sung that song better than that time. He was fantastic.

On the right we were visiting Shrek (loved it too).
The worst show I’ve ever seen in London?
There are two. One was Dirty Dancing. Great singers, great dancers.
But nobody puts Patrick Swayze in a corner.
It wasn’t the real stuff.
The second awful show was a play. Can’t remember the name. It was so dull.
My two friends went with me, because it was cheap. Why I went? Orlando Bloom was in it.
But listen to me my friend: Don’t ever let that be a reason to go to a play.

I’m so excited. Next week London!
Check back tomorrow for my favorite shopping and sightseeing in London!

Friday 3 May 2013

Happy high five!


It’s a miracle. I’ve discovered there’s a DIY-er inside of me. One that actually finishes stuff. 
Did some awesome things this week!



1. Photoshoot.
I’m a terrible photographer, but a while ago I decided for my blog to take better pics. I’ve learned a lot since then. And now… I did a photoshoot of my beautiful pregnant friend! I’m still not very good, but I was pretty surprised how good it turned out.

2. Bear.
Made a bear cake for my pregnant friend (who is really not me! But I’m respecting her privacy, so am not showing a full picture of her). The cake is not that special, ‘cause I bake more often than I DIY, but I like the colours and flavours. There’s vanilla cake, cinnamon cake and chocolate cake.

Friday 19 April 2013

High five!


I’m busy preparing everything for our musical The Wiz of Oz this weekend, so it’s a quick high five today!

Five top things:

1. Seeing my cute neeces again.
Don’t we look a lot like each other?!

2. Icecream!
Cinnamon icecream with sugared pieces of cinnamon inside. Yum!

3. More icecream!
My birthday was Sunday and my friends and hubs took me to my fave restaurant. This was dessert :-)



4. Cute notebook.
The same friends gave me this cute notebook! Handmade by her sister, I totally love it! (and do you recognize our logo on it? Cool!)

5. Flowers.
Bought myself some flowers! And yes, one vase is a Coca cola glass and the other one's a wine bottle.




Linking up with Lauren Elizabeth!
Happy weekend!

Friday 12 April 2013

Friday.


So after the very sad news my aunt had passed away, I was going through a lot of crazy things.
One moment so mad at myself for being too busy to visit her, other moments feeling better. Feeling guilty for feeling better.
Feeling joy seeing my students, who gave a lot of love this week. Most of them not knowing I was so sad.

So, here we are at the end of the week. The beginning of a weekend I do not want to start. Tomorrow is the funeral. But this is life. And we better celebrate it, than sit on our sad butts.

And because life always has a bright side, I better look at it today :-)

My five top things:

1. A nice present.
Our intern is leaving us and gave me two sorts of tea, chocolate and a box for tea. She is so sweet.

2. Villeroy and boch.
We have very expensive mugs, but we love to use them everyday. Why wait for special occasions? These are the espresso cup, the coffee mug and the tea mug (which I used for my cappuccino that morning).

3. Dinner date.
I saw my sweet and funny friend (and niece) Latoya and her boyfriend again, after months of not seeing her. She cooked us a delicious pasta and a Salad Caprese. I will leave out the part where we watched old videotapes of us lip syncing to the Backstreet Boys.

Oops, sorry for the weird iPhone-is-taking-a-picture-shadow.
And btw, the strawberry mint tea is great! 

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Life.

So we run a business.
It's succesfull, it makes me happy, it makes other people smile and it's full of love. Lots and lots of love.

But running a business is also very hard work.
People always say how you can manage your own time, that you can take the day off when you want to. That's not true of course. Who is going to teach when we take a day off? Who will be answering all the emails? Who will do my work? Exactly, no one will. So I have to do it myself. If I decide to get up two hours late, I'll go to bed two hours late too.
But yes, this business is our choice, so I'm not complaining.

Except today.
I have been working for 5 weeks in a row now. Not a single day off. I counted my working hours one week and decided never to count it again. Insane. But still, not complaining.
So let me tell you about the part I hate.
You can't see your friends and family often and run a business at the same time.
And I missed some important stuff.
I couldn't see our nephew eating his cake on his first birthday.
I couldn't play silly games at the babyshower of my very dear friend.
I couldn't visit my sick aunt in the hospital.
And she died today.
She. Died. Today.

You can probably imagine how I feel.
And you may ask, is it all worth it? Well, the answer is probably yes. Some kid will say something sweet to me tomorrow and I will smile, thinking this is just life.
And life is not supposed to be easy. And though bad things happened, lots of good stuff happened too. Lots!
It is just called life.

But today, life sucks.

Friday 5 April 2013

High five for Friday!


Can’t say I’ve had an interesting, inspiring week.
Can’t name five highs. So I’ll just post a pics of something pretty i found this week. And the five things I love about it.




1. There are soooo many cute icons to choose from. I change them constantly ‘cause I’m not satisfied yet.
2. It’s mostly pink.
3. There are lots of dots.
4. I get very happy when I look at my iPhone.
5. I have an icon that calls my hubs when I tap it. It’s a picture of an apple. Because he’s an AppleFrank Applefreak.

Linking up with Lauren. Happy weekend!


The app is called Cocoppa. Have fun ;-) 




Friday 22 March 2013

High five for Friday!


Let’s share our five highlights of the week! I'm linking up with Lauren as usual.

 photo H54Fbutton-triangle_zps678b65ba.jpg

These are my highlights:

1. Birthday of a dear friend.
He invited us to go to a lovely Italian restaurant. I ordered the Calzone pizza and it was delicious!
My hubs ordered "something with pineapple" for dessert. They took it very seriously.



2. Mini cupcakes
Made them for our great musicians who are going to play the musical Chicago with us.

3. Post its
I’m such a nerd. I got this cute little book, filled with post its.
I fell in love. Why? Because the little coloured ones matched my big ones I already had!
The colours are off, but the big ones are exactly the same colours as the mini post its.

Friday 15 March 2013

High five for Friday!


Happy Friday everyone!
How was your week?

My highlights of the past few weeks:

1. Premiere Sister Act
My friend Mark got tickets from a friend and asked me to go with him. This show is a must see, so hilarious and the music is great! 


2. Seeing Les Miserables
A friend of ours, a great theatre teacher, directed Les Mis on the high school where he teaches. It was great.
And the best part? My husband, in a spot in the back, conducting the whole piece. And wearing a bow :-)

3. Home made Dutch pea soup
I don’t think I can explain this Dutch soup. It probably doesn’t seem that good if you see the pic. But it’s delicious. A thick soup, made of green peas. Yum.

4. A little break.
We had half an hour left before work so my intern and I got us a nice McDonalds burger. Did anyone read my Le MacDo post? I’m very curious what a American Macmenu looks like :-)
 

5. Watching Sex and the City.
While I was watching a rerun on tv, my hubs was playing with his Ipad. He overheard some whining from Carrie and immediately said: “Is she breaking up with the jazz musician?” I laughed and kissed him. Because he was right. That means I watched this show way too many times.

Happy weekend!

Linking up with Lauren from www.frommygreydeskblog.com.




Sunday 3 March 2013

Le MacDo. Fast food French style.



Or MacDonalds as we usually call it. In France, its nickname is Le Macdo. Yesterday I told you my MacDo experience deserved a post. Well, here it is.

We were on vacation in France last week. And hungry, but didn’t know where to find a restaurant nearby. And the supermarket wasn’t open on Sunday. Good thing we remembered the MacDonalds!
We never drove in the dark before, so it was kinda exciting. The road was very, very dark… and about 15 kilometres long, going up and down with many turns. But we made it! Yay, there’s the Macdo!
Let’s go through the McDrive.

Holy sh*t. This menu seems different. Do they have the same? Oh thank goodness, I see a Big Mac.
“Jejajieblableebleu le MacDonalds, blableebleu blieblaaaa s’il vous plait?”
“Uhmmm…. Parlez vous Anglais?”, I tried. (“Do you speak English?”)
“Blablibleublaaablie ”
Damn. Ok. Let’s just try in French.
“Je voudrais….. (“I’d like”)…. A menu Big Mac.” That’s not how I learned this language. Why did I forgot these basic things? Yep, I just called ordering at MacDonalds a basic thing. I can do it in Dutch, English and German. So French should be in my head somewhere.
“blabliebloujejajeja”, she answered.
I turned to my hubs and said I don’t understand her. He didn’t either.
“I don’t… Je ne comprends pas!” (“I don’t understand”)
Lightly irritated she continues, a bit slower, but still in bliebluebla. She repeats it a couple of times and finally says slowly:
“ blablieblue Anglais: medium ou large!”
Oooooohhhh, do I want a medium or large menu! She could have said that right away, jeezzzzz.
“Medium!”, I yell back.
“Coca?”
“Oui”
Then she says something which I think it means, “Anything else?”
So I order a second menu for the hubs. I recognize the medium or large question this time. But it’s not fair. Medium sounds like “maydeehume” and large like “larch” (ch as in the word French).
I’m not even hesitating about asking something else than a coke or asking for sauce. This will have to do.
“And… uh… et… une royal cheese, mais non menu!”
Oh my goodness, it’s a good thing my French teachers aren’t there. They would hit me in the face for such bad French speaking.

I do know, somewhere in a little corner of my head, that I should have said something like “A royal cheeseburger, mais pas de menu. S’il vous plait.” Or something. I’m not sure.
What I’m sure of, you say “s’il vous plait” all the time. I didn’t say it enough at the McDrive.

And we were being punished for it.
‘Cause when we got back at the cottage, we noticed the fries were cold. Like really, really cold. And they couldn’t have gotten that cold. I suddenly remembered being surprised to see that we could immediately drive away from the Macdo, ‘cause there were at least three cars waiting for their order.
Guess they wanted the stupid Dutch one to go. Give the cold fries to that car. To the woman who didn’t say s’il vous plait enough.
Oh well.
It tasted good anyway!



I find it funny how other countries have slightly differerent MacDonalds menu’s. This French “pommes frites sauce” was like a mustard mayonaise. Much better than the ordinairy mayonaise, but also a lot different from the yellow sauce we get in Holland. Also, we got ketchup too. The size of the fries and drinks were the same.
People who’ve been to the USA always tell how big a Mac menu is over there. I’m very curious.
Who wants to take a pic of an American medium Mac menu and show it to me? How large are the drinks?

Anyway, I’m ending this post with one of my favorite moments in Friends: Phoebe teaching Joey how to speak French.
You suddenly know why I write “bleebluebla” when I’m referring to French talk.

Au revoir!



Saturday 2 March 2013

Sabrina's Seven Sins - SLOTH



The seven sins. Yep, I found a new project. When I blogged a couple of years ago, I had this idea. To link my blogging life to the sins.
Seven posts, seven stories, seven sins of my life.
But I didn’t know where to begin. What are my sins? And do I want to tell about them? Well, as you may guessed I put the idea of these seven posts in a little corner in my head where I couldn’t see it.

I quite forgot about it, until my hubs mentioned the sins last week. And I remembered my idea. And I thought, let’s give it a try.
So here’s the first one (not in any particular order), Acedia.

Acedia is the Latin name for sloth.
Laziness.
I can tell ya, between the busy hours of work, I am very good at laziness.
Like today. Remember my first Fridaypost? I went to France with my husband. Friends or ours have a lovely little cottage in Normandy, and we got to spend a week there, as a gift for our wedding.
We loved it so much, they said we could go more often if we wanted.
And so it happened that our friends didn’t go to their cottage last week (during springbreak) and they invited us to go instead. Yes please!

But it’s a dangerous thing.
Because, what can you do in a little cottage? Exactly, nothing. And even more dangerous, we even planned to do nothing. Not a single thing. We were there to get some rest, to get well (I had nasty cold) and to get a big break from working.
The little plans we had were visiting Caen, getting us some good Calvados (the apple drink of this area) and eating many, many, MANY delicious things. (and there’s sin number two, gluttony. Very good at that too.)

So there we were. Day 1. It’s cold. I feel sick-ish. Hubs is relaxing. There are warm blankets. There’s a bath tub. French food.
I’m reading my latest Cosmopolitan. Got lots of e-books. We took our laptops with us to play stupid games en to write blogposts. To make this laziness even worse, I brought dvd’s of Grey’s Anatomy, and my hubs brought a lot of movies. Thank goodness there’s no internet here. I’d be on Pinterest all day. We got a lot of “doing nothing” ahead of us.


And because it’s Sunday and the supermarket is closed and we don’t know any restaurants here (and it’s at least 45 minutes driving on dark roads), we went to get us some fast food. I’m getting more ashamed of ourselves as I’m writing this. We’re in freaking France. And we went to McDonalds. In our comfy clothes. We went through the McDrive of course.
That McDonalds in France deserves another blogpost by the way, ‘cause I totally made myself look stupid. Ever tried to order a menu in French? Go on. Try it. Not that hard? And then imagine someone talking back in French. In like, very-fast-train-French. Ahaa. Didn’t go so well, did it? I know all about it.

Anyway. Enough blogging for today. Hubs is waiting for me. Grey’s anatomy is starting.

And now… what’s your definition of being lazy? 

Friday 1 March 2013

High five for France!


Oh what a lovely week it has been. We’ve been spending a couple of days in Normandy, France. It was cold, but we enjoyed our days with some shopping, cooking, eating and watching movies.

My five faves of this week:

1. Driving to France
It took about six hours to get to Normandy. My hubs drove the whole way, singing all the time.


2. Basilique in Lisieux
It was peaceful and quiet, because of so little tourists in this time of year. So we got to take pics without other people on it and walk slowly through the basilique.



3. Les macarons
First time I tried it. Delicious! And now I know how they’re supposed to taste, I want to try making them sometime. Have you tried it? It seems to be not that easy.

4. Wine and food.
Lots. Of. Wine.
The French are serious about it. This is my hubs in the supermarket. So much too choose from!
And food... well, what's not to love about food. Hubs tried some new recipes.


5. Le MacDo
And yes, we went to the McDonalds one time! 
French McDonalds is just like Dutch McDonalds. Except when you have to order. Stay tuned for my Macdo-post this week! 

My hubs made pacmans from the French cheese. Not kidding.

Have a great weekend!

Linking up with Lauren!