because i worry a lot and over-think everything

I've been on my blog a lot recently messing with the layout and i realized that i use it mostly as a sort of journal of things i dont mind being public. But in my photographic tour of 2012 i've been posting pictures of people without even asking.

Is that a "no-no"? Should i ask?

I'm not sure very mane people are reading this but if you happen to read my blog and i've posted your picture and you want it down totally tell me and it's done.

Or maybe I'm just over-thinking as usual and worrying over nothing? I'm very very good at finding new things to worry about.

August 2012 in pictures

Since I've been posting quite a bit lately (for me) I have decided that I dont like the look of my blog. So i'm experimenting with different layouts/fonts/cover picts/etc. I'm not sure that enough people actually read this blog to notice, but in case that you are out there and wondering what's up - that is the explanation.

I also noticed that I dont seem to post anything of substance anymore. Just pictures and random captions. Probably it's because things are not so great and I bitch enough in real life about them that if anyone is reading this who knows me might be so sick of all the depressing diatribe. Science is hard. Getting a PhD is hard. Northern European winters are dreary and depressing. It's gray and raining for an unbelievable amount of time in the Netherlands. I get a lot of migraines. I dont get a lot of sleep. I'm a grumpy-grumpatron. If science was easy, everyone would do it. I'm contemplating how much longer I can deal with academic science and I'm not even that far along in the game. I guess going back to school when you are older is a bit tougher. Long hours are a young persons game. A young person who doesnt have chronic headaches.

So there is some substance. Back to the cat pictures!

Islay discovered that she could watch birds out of our window. 
We call it her TV.

Awwww

This stuff is great!

We bought her some cat grass at a local pet shop and she absolutely Loved it. Too bad she ate too much (every damn time) and vomited. Considering that she was quite the sickly kitten we took the grass away from her after the 2nd vomiting episode - we really didnt need any more sickness and vomiting than she was already having due to teething.

One of her favorite things to do at this time was to crawl into tiny s

paces in shelves and such, push whatever was there out, and take a nap. 

Here she is after pushing out knitting stuff.   

  

Another favorite activity is to tackle the laundry bags and tip them over 
so that they can become forts. Cats love forts!

Sleeping on feet and legs! It's awesome! 

July 2012 pictures

So many pictures to choose from! So many blurry pictures of a kitten that just wouldnt stay still. And hates cameras. Like a new mom, I had to have a picture of everything. Too bad we coulnt ever recreate any of the pictures so we could get a sense of scale of her growing.

Jamie made an origami samurai hat and we put it on Islay while she slept. She was a bit confused when she woke up.

She doesnt really cuddle with us like this much anymore. We hope its a teenager phase.

She fit in a small size shoebox. So cute. 

Jamie's parents came to visit (staying in a hotel down the block) and even though the weather was cold and rainy we went to the botanical gardens anyway. The nicest parts were indoors - like the butterfly house. 

We bought Islay a stuffed bird to kill - and we thought she'd died of happiness when we gave it to her. She still occasionally "kills" it. She does this hilarious thing where she pretends to walk away from her kill while keeping her foot on it, then she turns around and kills it some more. 

 She fells asleep like this one night on Jamie's legs. We had a hard time staying still we were laughing so hard.

She loves cuddling feet. Still does. Strange cat. 

June 2012 in pictures

Ok, back to this picture thing. I will finish this. I will.

June was a big month for us. After many months of begging, presenting all the pros, and debating the cons, I convinced Jamie that we should get a kitten. The problem was, we couldnt find one! Finally after a couple weeks we found one on Marktplaatz and we picked her up. We had a choice between her and her stripey-tiger-looking sister, but sister was terrified of us. Our little kitten nestled up to me immediately and didn't want to let go. So basically, she chose us. She was born on April 13, 2012; she was 7 weeks old when we brought her home.

Here she is sleeping in her carrier shortly after we got her home.
We named her Islay (pronounced eye-la or ay-la)

This is her on my pillow after she came out of hiding on her first morning with us. I found out pretty quickly that she hates cameras and especially flashes. 

When she finally got comfortable with us she liked to sleep on our laps or snuggle her way behind our back and sleep there. She also slept snuggled in between us at night - she was the middle spoon.

We didn't know it at the time, but she was sick this weekend. Here she is 2 days before her first vet visit, 2 days before we discovered she was not the healthiest little kitten. 

Oh and also, our amaryllis bloomed again. This time with 4 flowers!

Like all cats she loves paper bags

We had a giant cardboard box that we used as a kitten playpen. Such a tiny little thing with her ping pong ball and mousie. 

Always trying to catch or capture my camera - probably so I'll stop taking pictures of her. 

And she loved to kill and wrestle the carrot we got her from Ikea. Gotta eat those veggies!

May 2012 in pictures

Getting a bit behind in my photo wrap-up of 2012. Or maybe it 's just that i was avoiding blogging about the month that I turned the dreaded 3-0. Still pretending to be "over" it. I guess we all have to deal with the inevitable. Since I started off discussing the birthday, lets get on with the pictures of the birthday.
We were crammed into a tiny part of one of my favorite bar/restaurants here in Utrecht (Cafe Olivier) so I could only get a picture of the whole group (that remained by 23:00) by taking two pictures.

Among other awesome gifts, Jamie bought me these chocolate brains skulls

Lots of other things happened besides my birthday. For instance, I finished the blanket for my nephew:

Also our amaryllis bloomed:

a smidgen of happiness

Been having a tough time lately with my impending unemployment and deportation.... It's not easy to never buy anything and be poor.... Too many things I dont want to go into here or now BUT i did see this wonderful yarn in the most fantastic colors and for 2euros a ball, i can afford to buy some for socks.

Also, i've been fiddling around, trying to figure out how to take good pictures with my new camera and this is the best picture yet. Maybe I just got lucky.

Without further ado, here is the fantastic circus sock yarn (click on it to see a bigger version):

April 2012 in Pictures

In April we had to come back home from the most amazing trip and go back to reality (e.g. work and PhD life). We finished some work on the roof-terrace, started our graden, and I did some knitting (of course).

Here is a neighborhood cat surveying our changes to the covered bit of our roof-terrace:

The start of our new garden

A close up of plants we would eventually manage to kill (except the aloe, that one is still miraculously alive)

A nearly finished mitered square blanket for my nephew

March 2012 in Pictures

Picking just a few pictures for the month of March is almost impossible. In March Jamie and I took one of the most amazing trips of our lives to South America. There was a scientific congress for my field, and it's only held every other year in different locations. I was accepted to present a poster and I was determined to go to present it. It's a great experience to present your work at a congress full of people who not only understand the work, but are also interested in it. It doesn't hurt when the congress is held in an amazing location. This edition was set for Iguazu Falls, Brazil.

I really should do a blog post about our trip. ... I have such a bad memory you'd think I would blog all the time to help me remember, but I am just too busy being lazy when I'm not working my ass off for the PhD.

Ok enough talk, lets get to the amazing pictures!

Strelitzia flowers at our hotel in Sao Paulo

One part of the amazing Foz do Iguazu

A toucan friend pondering me at the bird sanctuary in Foz do Iguazu (the city, not the national park)

Our hostel in Porto Alegre, Brazil

A massive tree among other massive trees spanning more than a city block in the Recoleta area of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Smoke and deliciousness in the Mercado del Puerto in Montevideo, Uruguay

A tropical storm coming in at Ipenema beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The strangest flower I've ever seen at the botanical gardens in Rio