The final days of 2007

Note: I am having a problem with pics again, so check again later. I will keep trying, they are worth it!

Happy 2008! We are back in Austin after a nice vacation with family and a week in Santa Fe. I started writing while we were in SF, but never got around to completing it or adding the pics. Travel with a toddler is quite time-consuming! So I will leave the little blurb in this blog entry, and will continue with the current up-date below.

Greetings from Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is cold here. 15F (that's -10 Celsius!) But as always, the sky is a beautifully clear light blue and the sun is shining. It snowed again last night, and Evelina actually played in the snow on the plaza today. Her first experience with the chilly white stuff was not such a success. It snowed the day after we got to Amarillo from Austin, where we left sweating again. I will post a picture of that encounter so you can see for yourself what she thought of it. We spent Christmas at Robert's mother's house with everybody there. Rachel, JP, and Cousin Rush, drove down from Chicago and Rebecca and the dog Paka came up from Austin as well. We relaxed, ate, went to the playground and pool with Evelina and of course wrapped and unwrapped gifts. Granma's house was 100% Christmas atmosphere and a delight for the little one. She liked the present exchange very much as well.

And then we left for Santa Fe. Just the three of us. I must say it is a slight challenge keeping an energetic toddler busy in this cold. But so far, so good. I will post some pictures of how pretty things are here. In the meantime, things have of course slowed down on the Antwerp house. Our biggest news is not so good, although ultimately it will all be for the better I think: the house will definately not be finished for us to move into in February. Maybe some of you surmised that already simply by looking at the pictures. I still had some hope. But no, alas. At best it will be done the end of March. So I am looking for a short-term lease now. Arg... I guess it will still be some more months before our lives will be in order again. Sigh.

So, as I said, we have arrived back in Austin, after driving three consecutive days: first from Santa Fe to Amarillo, then on to Abilene the next day, where we got a hotel with pool so Evelina could get rid of some stored energy from sitting in the car, and then on to Austin the next day. She did great! She is a wonderful traveler. It was great to spend so much time together.

So what is going on now that we are back here and have only a few days left (gulp!)?

Work on the Antwerp house has picked up again and is moving along at a nice pace. There was some uncertainty regarding the possibility of bringing a wall back to its original brick in the kitchen and up to the 1st floor, but this now seems to be working out just perfectly. I received pictures of the wall stripped off its plaster and the brick looks exactly like we wanted it to look: 100 years old.

Now it is time for breaking out the old floor on the 1st floor, and prepping it for the new wood floor. Then the glass ceiling/floor will have to be put in between the ground floor and the 1st floor and that will pretty much be the end of all the heavy structural work. Then finally things will start to look pretty! (Right?)

Now that we are used to the idea that things will be rather far from finished by Feb. 1, Robert and I are actually seeing the positive of that. We will both be there to monitor the final touches. This is great actually. There were some things I had decided on rather quickly that one week in September which we now can look over again together. Plus, a great weight will be lifted off the shoulders of my parents I know. They have been coordinating every little detail until now ( a daunting task, constantly worried they might make the wrong decision...) so they will be happy to hand it over to whom it belongs. ha. Bedankt mama en papa, voor al het werk! We hadden het niet kunnen doen zonder jullie!

We have pretty much decided on an apartment after much browsing the various websites and looking at many pictures. So during February and March (and maybe also April) we will be living in the Museum district where all the hip folks live, ha. All in all, this might be for the better as well, as we can hopefully then unpack the boxes etc. without having to stay in the mess.

Our tickets are all in order as well. I leave on the 19th of January with Evelina (that is in a few days, another big GULP!) and Robert on Feb. 3rd. We have made arrangements to take both cats. This too comes after much deliberation. Our little Pumpkin has not been in the best of health lately, but she is hanging on. We could not justify putting her to sleep only because of our plans. So we are taking the whole family, geriatrics and all.

Then the not so good news. The Austin house is still not sold. We really hit an all-time low point in the real-estate market. We have had some bids, but all below value. She we hold on. We will have another open house this weekend, and will keep all our fingers crossed.

All of this takes up most of our time. It is at night that I notice that I am getting quite nervous about all of it. Frantic may be a slightly better term... I am trying to understand the implications of all of it, but honestly, I cannot. I do not fully realize that I am actually leaving this house, this neighborhood ( I am at the local coffee shop writing this), this city that has been my home for the past 15 years. Somehow it seems like I am making just another trip to Belgium. As I said to my good friend Leslie, I think it will all hit me several months from now, when it will become clear that there is no return-flight. The pending dissertation of course will require that I come back to Austin, but my life as I know it now will be over. I WILL miss it, I will miss my friends (or rather seeing them regularly, for the friendships do not have to end) and I will in many ways, miss Texas and the US. I just don't know yet how that will feel, and that is a good thing. It will make leaving and saying goodbyes (hopefully) a little easier.

I might not write for a while. I will be busy. Tomorrow my mother arrives to help me wrap up (also quite literally) things here. And she will fly back with Evelina and me. Then all our furniture will be picked up by the movers and Robert and the kitties will be left here for one more week in an empty house before they join us. So, next time I write, I will god-willing be in Belgium. So for one more time I end with this, greetings from Texas with love.

Birthdays, festivals, and more rubble

Note: Blogger seems to have some problems loading some of the photos, so I will post this one as is and will add the pics later. So check back!

When I look at the calendar I panic a little. December is almost here. That means that in a few weeks movers will come and wrap up our furniture, and will load all the boxes that contain the physical evidence of our lives onto a truck. After that our house will be nearly empty. It will take about eight weeks for everything to get to the port of Antwerp, unless the ship sinks and all of our stuff will end up on the bottom of the ocean, awaiting future archaeologists to dig it up and hypothesize about who we were and what we might have planned based on the sporadic remnants spared by time. (Wow, I digress... that is the archaeologist in me! ha.) Anyway, it will be weird to continue with "normal" life with a nearly empty house. But December is the Holiday month, so we will actually not be here that much. We will spend Christmas with Robert's family in Amarillo, Texas and in New Mexico, and that we are very much looking forward to.

November had my mother's birthday and we sang to her and had cake on her behalf, with a candle as Evelina likes it for a "happy day!" (as she calls it) with my mom connected via Sightspeed. How wonderful this is and how bizarre too, that for Evelina the computer is a connection to her grandparents. She will often ask for them (moeke, baba, gramma) and then run to the computer and point and say "yes, look!" The other day when she came home from daycare, there was no computer on my desk (it was in the shop for repair) and she noticed (of course) and nearly panicked. "Computer gone, moeke-baba gone, gramma gone!!!" she shouted and put her little head in her hands and cried. Robert and I were astounded by her reaction and I quickly showed her that all was OK as we still had the laptop. Phew! She knows they all exist as real people, but somehow they also reside inside the computer and with the device gone, well... they must have been gone too. It was touching to see.

Oh and then there was my birthday too! 38. Hard to believe. This too was celebrated with cake and candles and singing. I must say the biggest gift is having your child all worked up about delivering your cake and gift to you. She could not contain herself and her little feet trampled with excitement. I nearly forgot that there was something inside of the little bag (thank you Robert!) after her exhilaration. Robert and Evelina had a wonderful chocolate ganache cake made for me at the local bakery and it read "happy day Mama!" What more can one wish for.









The weekend before my birthday we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival. This is an annual themed outdoor festival outside of Houston. The theme of course being the "renaissance" period which is interpreted very broadly and quite different from what I as an art historian would define it. There are numerous little shops with everything from beads, to candles, to clothes in chainmail (even bikinis!), to costumes, etc. There are shows with belly dancers, jousting, magicians, and all kinds of other entertainment. People arrive in costume, from elaborate gowns, to skimpy gypsie atire, and fairies (why? Don't know but they do), alchemists and witches. People eat (corn-on-the cob, turkey legs, and pretzles) and drink (sometimes too much.) We had gone a few times before, years ago and I had loved it. I am not sure why we forgot about it for several years, but I am so happy we went again! I just loved it. It is tacky, totally white-trash (if my Euro-friends do not know what this means, they can email me and I will explain) and cheesy (same here -- I remember my Italian friend Germano taking issue with this term and trying to translate it!) But I loved it (or should there be no "but" in this phrase?). And of course, this year we had our own little fairy with us. She was adorable and turned many heads. I will post some pics of this day. I could have gone back a second time, but of course we didn't, it would have been less exciting and less "magical" the second time around. Oh, one more thing I should mention about this day. Evelina saw real elephants and camels and was pretty amazed about that. We were standing quite close when suddenly one of the elephants pooped! This made such a big impression on her that we still hear about that BIG elephant-poop that had to be picked up with a shovel no less. The world truly is amazing when you are a little toddler.



Thanksgiving was quiet and intimate. We stayed at home on the most-heavily-traveled long weekend in the country. It is rather ironic that over the years, it is precisly this all-American holiday which brings nearly all families together, we have mostly celebrated with just the two of us in Austin. And so it was to be for this last one (three of us now). We made a smallish Thanksgiving dinner and Evelina helped with everything she could. We also made pizzas much to Evelina's delight and I will share some of those pictures here.



















One other highpoint was the fact that we got to visit Rebecca on the set of Friday Night Lights. For the uninitiated, FNL is a new TV series about a Texas town and its high-school football team. That is how it is known, but it is sooo much more than that. The show is filmed here in Austin and is in its 2nd season and Robert's sister Rebecca is one of the script-supervisors of the show (i.e. the very important person sitting next to the director.) Robert and I watched the pilot and were instantly hooked! Since we don't have TV we have watched all the episodes available on DVD, often 2 to 3 a night. The show really draws you in. So we feel like we know all of the characters. So how awesome when we got to go on set and see them film part of an episode. Now I am not one to be starstruck, and this show really doesn't have any stars in it (although I am sure that many of the actors will become that after this show) but it was supercool to actually MEET some of our favorite characters in the show (or did we meet the actors playing those characters? That is hard to say!) We met Coach Taylor (super cool) and his wife (on the show) and we met one of the football-players. (It was my lucky day because the one in this scene whom we met truly is eye-candy!) Of course we also met the director and some other behind-the-sceners, those very important people but whom nobody really drools over. I would have loved to stay, but space was tight and we obviously did not belong there, so we snuck out... We are trying to get Rebecca to get us in as extras, but I am afraid that it won't happen. The shooting will soon be done. That damned writers' strike. Curse them! I took a picture of Rebecca at work. I was too shy to take pics of the actors!

Our house is still on the market and we approach a difficult period now to try to sell a house. But we persist. It will happen! I had to remind Robert about the fact that most people are not like us and do not decide on buying a house after seeing it only twice (on the same day)! So how are things with THAT house? Well, we finally got the permit! YEAH!! That is 11 months after buying it, by the way. So this means that the heavy-duty interior construction and the replacing of the windows can start now. (yes, in case you thought that those previous pictures were of the heavy-duty work, no! That is still to come.) Several steel beams will be delivered this week actually and will be placed to support the house where we have decided to take walls away. After that, things ought to move more swifly. It is about time, no, considering we will be moving there in about 2 months! I truly cannot wait to be able to post pictures of the construction (as opposed to de-construction.) But for now, all I have is this. Will we truly be living there in February?


Well I will post more pics as I receive them. And I will try to keep everyone abreast of goings-on. With this, many greetings from Texas with love (oh dear, I will soon have to change the title of my blog!) Oh, and I do have to mention that finally the colder weather has blown in. How wonderful it is to be able to put on a jacket and wrap up in a scarf (well I do at least, many students are still wearing shorts and T-shirts, but I think that now they actually must be cold). It came overnight. 85 degrees F one day and 40 the next. That's Texas for ya! I will end with one more picture. Evelina has started using the potty... with drumrolls!

Accessorize!

What happens when a 19-month-old toddler chooses her own accessories? This picture speaks for itself, no?

October is over!

I can't say that I have enjoyed October. It was a stressful month, completely taken up by packing and prepping the house here in Austin for its sale. As we tried to pack things away, it seemed that every room was in chaos. Stuff was everywhere and whenever i needed something I couldn't find it. I am not the world's neatest person in general but this mess really got on my nerves. I was pretty much stressed out throughout the entire process. It seemed that there would be no end to it. But there did come an end to it. It had to as last Sunday we had an open house. Robert worked until about 15 minutes before people started walking into the door. I had taken Evelina for a long walk around town lake as he finished things up, trying (successfully) to take my mind off of things. The FOR SALE sign had gone up the day before while I was shopping with Evelina. As we turned the street, she happily shouted "Thuis!" (Home!) and then I saw it. The combination of her happy exclamation and my stresslevel just popped the tears into my eyes. It is weird to see the house you have lived in for 14 years suddenly slowly becoming not yours anymore. We have been talking about all this for so long, yet this sign made it all truly real and felt like a punch in the stomach. In moments like those I notice the wonderful trees in our street, our wonderful back yard, and now too, the simple fact that this has been Evelina's only home. But no fear... I have no regrets. Moving is an emotional thing to do nomatter how or what the circunstances. On Sunday the house looked fabulous and we left just in time for the crowd to come--cause apparently a crowd it was. The three of us went over to Rebecca's house and relaxed, with all the work behind us. Leave it to a toddler, a dog and a water hose to take your mind off of everything.

















In fact, if you want to share in some of the fun they had go see the video on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWDJSCRRsCY). Yes, Evelina is on youtube now! We made a little video for her Moeke's birthday and this was the only way I could figure out to make it available. So we have started something now. More to come I am sure!

Here is another picture as proof that October was not so great. This is about the only visual we have received from the house in Antwerp where rubble still rules. I just am so ready for some shots where things are actually looking better than when we bought it!

There was one absolutely wonderful thing in October and that was Halloween. It was so much fun to be able to have a holiday such as this one with a child. Last year we did sort of dress her in costume, but we did not take her out. This year, not only was she in full costume, but we took her to the streets, and she actually got really into it. It was so much fun. Evelina as skunk, going trick-or-treating with papa the pirate and mama the heks (witch!) (Which, I know, he didn't actually say it, but Robert found quite an appropriate match to my mood of the month. Never mind, Evelina really liked my hat!) So I will post some pics of the day that made up for all the others in the month. We did quite some seasonal activities as well. I made pumpkin pie which Evelina loved, we painted pumpkins (which turned into total body-painting), carved pumpkins, and put out luminarios. She loved every little bit of it. I have promised her that I will continue the tradition of Halloween regardless of where we are. I am already making plans for a big party next year!











She was a trooper on Halloween night, and stayed up late walking the streets with us admiring people's decorations. She was in awe of all the "spooky spiders and bones and pumpkins and candles." I was relieved that she is still too little to understand the blood and gore that some people get into. Halloween should be spooky, not resemble a stage set of a B-rated horror-flick. She was pretty popular herself, and got many compliments. One man said she was the cutest thing that had come across his porch in years! And that for a skunk. Here is our little stinker after all that, exhausted and very exhausted.




















Well, there was one other highpoint this month. Robert and I saw Sinead O'Conner in concert here in Austin, at a rather small venue. I could write about that experience for a while, but it is late and I am tired. It was by far the ver best performance I have ever seen. We both feel very fortunate to have seen and heard her, but we are bummed too that we will just miss her European section of the tour in the spring. We would travel to experience that performance again, for sure... just not to Australia. Bummer.

Well, wish us luck on the sale of the house, and on the progress on the Antwerp house. November should be a very different month on all fronts! Greetings, with love from Texas.

Moving along...

Fall has arrived in Austin. Suddenly, as it always does. Like a child's high fever the weather here suddenly breaks. One day it is still in the 90s and then overnight the temperature drops to the 40s and it rains. Plants nearly freeze, limbs on trees break because they are dry and brittle and cannot bear the weight of the water, and people sniffle and cough. But oh it feels nice to be able to wait for the bus actually sitting on the bench and not having to hide under a tree scared of the sun. I actually overdressed today with my jacket and scarf. Partly because I actually do already have a cold, and partly because I really felt like wrapping my scarf around my neck. (So, ironically, I am again too warm, ha!) The sun is still out, but she has ceased to burn. It actually doesn't seem like such a weird thing now to see pumpkins and Halloween decorations everywhere.

So with the weather moving along to more bearable temperatures, so we are moving along with our various house projects. Robert and I have managed to pack up some 65 boxes of our belongings. These boxes are filled with items deemed worthy to take along on the transatlantic voyage but without which we can easily continue to go on until they arrive sometime late January or mid February in Belgium. Isn't that strange? Almost an entire 5 X 5 feet storage space filled with things we can live without yet do not want to dispose of! The house looks only slightly "lighter" for it. Granted most closets and cabinets are empty, and many of the "things" that were sitting around are gone -- as Evelina keeps stressing by pointing at the bare spaces and saying "gone!". Several of the bookshelves are gone. All of the personal photographs and most of the artwork is gone. And I am actually beginning to appreciate the beauty of the bare wall. (This will not last long, fear not.)


Getting this house ready to be put on the market is quite some work. We have a great real-estate agent though and he has taken care of quite some things already. The back yard has been nicely cleaned up and trimmed. Several windows have been given new screens, and some broken bricks have been replaced. Now we still need to patch up some cracks in the kitchen and repaint it, and we will be close to ready. We will then try to do away with any mess (this has proven to be quite a challenge in the past) and then make sure it is clean and smells nice. I read once somewhere that the smell of apple pie makes a house sell faster than no scent at all because it recalls coziness and homeliness. Of course,I don't have time to bake a pie the morning of the open-house. I wonder if a plug-in would work too!

In order to rid ourselves of excessive stuff (i.e. things that do not go in boxes to be taken with us) we had a one-day yard sale last Saturday. It was a last minute decision to do it then, mainly because the weather forcast for this coming weekend looked grim. In just one afternoon Robert filled our entire living room with stuff that we could get rid of. Then we made some signs, attached price-cards,a nd I posted the "event" on the local Craigslist. Robert got up at 5:30 to put everything outside, and lo and behold, before 7 am, before sunrise (!!) there were people in our front yard with flashlights and we were taking cash for our stuff. Evelina thought it was quite intriguing to have all kinds of things scattered in front of the house and have strangers poking at it. We had a thermos among the items so she walked around with it saying "coffee, coffee" as if she was a waitress. We did pretty well, and what did not sell we took to Goodwill and items that were not fit for that got a "FREE" sign on it and they had all disappeared by evening. We watched a black pick-up truck pull up with two frat-boys who seemed delighted with the fact that we had a large poster of a nude Natasha Kinski hugging a fat a python waiting to be picked up. I am sure it is now proudly decorating some frat-house nearby. I am all for recycling over adding to the world's waste heaps!

In the meantime in Antwerp work is moving along fast. We have received pictures and I will post some here although they might be hard to figure out, and probably not seem very impressive to any of you. For us they are the first real evidence that all our drawings and plans will actually become living spaces. Not wanted walls are being removed and new ones are being constructed. The plumber is putting in all the plumbing and the electrician is about to start. After that, the walls can be filled in and it will actually start to look better.

My parents have been working hard being our middle-man/men. They found appropiate antique doors which we will have fitted in on two floors and an antique glass pane that will be placed in the wall between my office and the hallway to allow the light to fall into the corridor. We also finally have a carpenter on board which is big news as we were about to give up on the renovation of the bay window for now. But this man and his team has agreed to completely rebuilt and install it in time for the interior finishing work to continue. Yeah!

We have pretty much made decisions on everything that we needed to. Robert and I bought a stainless steel sink (like the ones in professional kitchens) in Austin this weekend and will have it shipped. These things are about three times as expensive in Belgium we found out. We also decided on a large stainless steel table with a maple John Boos top that will serve as a large prep table in the kitchen. We will put it on coasters so that it can be placed whereever we need it. We think this is a pretty clever idea and really look forward to cooking in our new kitchen now. You will all have to come over!

So what is still pending? The fridge still. I keep finding models I like but that are not available in Belgium. Arg. The quest continues. As October comes to an end we hope to hear soon from the City of Antwerp on our building permit. Once we have that, the new windows can be placed and that will change the entire look of the house.

As to moving to Belgium in the broad sense... there still is no government! It has been over 4 months now. At the 100 day mark of absence of government, the Flemish national party had a big feast with champagne and cake celebrating the near-independence of Flanders. How ironic is it that one of main issues the current elected officials of Flemish and French parts cannot agree upon relates to immigrants, while in the high court a case just closed with the conviction of an 18-year old (white Belgian) boy with double murder and assault with racist motives. While the officials argue about how immigrants must be dealt with in Belgium, the family members of the African woman who got shot (only for being African), thanked the country of Belgium for its solidarity and stated that few other countries would hold such a fair trial in a purely racist matter. (That kid by the way, also shot a Turkish woman who survived, and killed a little white girl only because she was in the care of the African nanny. The shooters parents are members of the Flemish national party.)

Then on the (local Flemish) news they reported of several instances of major disruption in local governments near Brussels only because the "wrong" language was being spoken. A mostly French-speaking community located within the Flemish district had its meetings sabotaged (and later officially annulled) because its members were speaking French. The mayor may face charges because he did nothing to prevent French from being spoken. Grow-ups were yelling "Spreek Nederlands!" (Speak Flemish) while the others said "I can speak what I want" (but then in French of course.) Really people, are we not too small of a country to make such a big deal of language? Or are we?

So the point of the matter is, whether we are moving to "Belgium" is at this point still unsure. We can locate the point on the map and we are sure we are going there, but we are not sure what it will be called by the time we get there! (And here is a random thought, I wonder how our royal family feels about all this?)

I will end with some pictures of various things. Adding them on to the end of the text is just quicker than merging them in. I will get back on track some day and make everything match up again, I promise. Now is not the time. With that, many greetings from Texas with love, v





























Sofar for the Austin house and the yardsale. Here are some of the works going on in the Antwerp house. That bottom one will become our closet!

I take a quick break after working for several days on an application for a job in Belgium. It is sent off and I will now try to forget about it. How strange to be writing a letter of introduction in Dutch. I had to look up more words in the dictionary than I do when writing English. At the very least this was a good excercise. Still, fingers crossed everyone.

It is October. Have you noticed? That is Fall. Here in Austin we are still hitting the 90s so I am not convinced yet that this is the month of Halloween and falling leaves. I cannot tell all you people who do not live here how tired I am of the heat. How exhausting it is to still be sweating in jeans and a button-down shirt, and how frustrating it is that Evelina still turns tomato-red while playing in the school's playground. I am sure that next year around this time, when I will be in Belgium in the rain, I will not really remember myself how much not fun it is, the heat. But I will get back to you on that then.

My parents were here and had a good time with Evelina (and us too, presumably). And Evelina had a great time with them. They went to various playgrounds, shopping at Central Market (which Evelina loves as she gets to call out the names of all the produce she knows. She turns quite some heads!) and on a daytrip to Fredericksburg. Here are some shots from all that.





After years of visiting Austin, my parents are pretty comfortable here and very much used to all the little differences between Belgium and Texas. I was more aware of their habits and customs and cravings now because I am about to return to the place of origin of all of those "peculiarities." My mother was really surprised to see several hospital staff in scrubs in a restaurant for lunch. I thought nothing of it. I used to work in a restaurant next to a hospital and I saw them like that all the time. She thought it was completely not the right thing to do. I made the argument that they too have to eat and that cops don't change out of uniform either, but she was right of course to say that working in a hospital is a different matter. Well, yes, I suppose in Belgium this is a big no-no. I am used to it here. But it was interesting that I forgot that this is indeed a difference.

Then there is food. Like my father eating tacos with knife and fork, rather than rolling up the tortilla and eating it from the hands, like us gringos have learned from the Mexicans. One of the major differences that never will be settled is the coffee-culture. My parents like to have their cup of coffee in the early afternoon, especially when we are out together shopping or whatever. At home, when I am out in town with my mother, we walk around, we windowshop, we shop, and then go to a coffee shop (no, not the Amsterdam-kind) to sit and have a cup of coffee and something sweet, a pastry, a waffle, or a crepe (pannekoek -- which is not a pancake.) The coffee is served on a little tray, with three or four types of sugar, with some milk, sometimes with whipcream, or at one place with some pretty strong eggnog, and a cookie or a piece of chocolate. Granted you pay for each cup of coffee you order (no such things as a bottomless cup) but at least you get more than a big ol' mug with drip coffee. That this is just not to be found here seems to be quite difficult to get used to for my parents. So one afternoon while we were shopping I took them to a place where I know you can have coffee and sweets (for the Texans -- I took them to the Cheesecake factory) and they ordered an apple crumble, after having looked through the 20-page menu -- this is after all primarily a restaurant. Good thing I warned them to only get one dessert! They were served a bowl, a huge bowl, of apple crumble and icecream and whip-cream. Good thing there were constant refills on the coffee to wash it all down with. In Texas nothing is dainty, ha.




While they were here, I worked on a masterplan for the house. Since they are in charge of the construction team in Antwerp, it was essential that they know exactly what Robert and I want to happen. So I produced a booklet with all plans, all data, all info, and drawings, that I was aware of for every team-member. So they left with a big list of instructions, which they have been checking off one by one now that they are back. It does feel nice to be able to say that nearly everything has been decided upon. (Yes, we are ultimately putting wood on the floor in the kitchen!) All materials have been chosen, all fixtures, etc. Now all we wait for is for the work to finally begin! I am too tired and exhausted to describe the two recent "problematic issues" we have had to endure, but I hope that we are back on the positive side of things and that all will be OK. Remodeling a house is hard on the nervous system! Let's hope it will all pay off! Since I don't have pictures of anything yet, I will put up this one of Evelina and I pretending to be working in the house while at the Children's Museum.




So now that all is out of our hands on the house in Antwerp, we charge full steam ahead on the Austin house. This place here has to be fully prepped for being put on the market. It needs paint in certain areas, a lot less mess (that is the hard part!) and fixed up here and there. Robert and I have already packed nearly 40 boxes of things that need to be moved and put them in storage. The real-estate person wants the house sparse, so we try to eliminate. We will be selling quite a bit of our stuff now, and then more in January. If we manage to get it all done, we will have it up for sale by the end of this month. Fingers crossed on that one too! The market is at a low and the dollar is lower than ever agains the euro. But we have started this and we are not turning around.

So still no photos of house-improvements. Hopefully soon(ish)! many greetings with love from Texas. And a few more pics to close off. More of Evelina eating, birthday cake (for my father) and melon (with my father, but he is shirtless so I figured it was best to cut him out of the picture, ha), and then Evelina packing up and leaving the story-telling at the museum (I agreed with her, they could not tell a story right. I would have left too!), and one last one with Moeke and Baba at the airport before going back to Belgium.

Back from Belgium

At last I return, briefly, to the blogsite. I have returned from Belgium where I spent a little over a week dealing with all things HOUSE. It was one of the shortest trips I have ever made over there and one of the busiest. In fact, I wonder if I could qualify for a Guiness world record on the most amount of building-supply stores visited in a week, ha. (Let's hope that category does not exist.) I went over (alone! i.e. without Robert and more importantly without Evelina, more about that later) especially to make some decisions about materials etc. and to have face to face conversations with the construction team before they start up work again. I will spare you all a full report. In general, all went well. I decided on part of the kitchen, I decided on the organisation of the house, i.e. which bathroom gets a bath, which a shower, and so on, and I divided up the top floor in master bedroom, walk-in closet, and extra room where my dark room will be installed. (ahhhh to have a dark room again in this digital age!) I picked tile for the bathrooms, and colors for the entire house! I spent two sessions of 3 hours with the electrician deciding on lighting, plugs, and switches. And I discussed all the plumbing and heating issues with the plumber. There still are some talks needed between the contractor and the engineer on adding the right supports everywhere and the manner in which this will be done, but hopefully all that wil be straightened out this week (no pun intended.)

So what did I not yet decide on (even though I had planned to): the type of floor for the dining room and kitchen. Wood or not wood, that has been the question. And if not, then what? I also had hoped to have all the bathroom fixtures taken care of but I brought all the catalogues and after Robert and I went over everything together this week, we are making progress and I hope to finalize all that soon as well. See, the plumber needs to know where the faucets will be and what type of faucet they will be. He is the first to start now, along with the general contractor who will be adding steel in the walls so that the our 3rd floor will indeed remain where it is and not merge with the 2nd and 1st. So it seems like a detail, to be chosing this faucet or that when the house is basically reduced to a pile of rubble, but it is quite important. If the plumber can't move on, the electrician has to wait, etc. etc.

So, I have learned many things! One is that everything is very expensive! Ha. I can see now that it would be easy (provided one had the money) to spend hundreds of thousands on a house. Many of the 1st bids I received, I slashed in half by taking out luxurious items. Example: a single switch on a LCD computer-programmed panel that turns on all the lights in the house just as they are programmed while classical (or any other) music comes out of little speakers in every room. Nice, but no thanks. Not with that price-tag. Even after all my slashing and scratching out of items, the house will still be exponentially more convenient and luxurious than we have had here in our bungalow in Austin--where we have lived very happily for the past 14 years.

Another thing I learned is that there is always WAY, WAY more to do than one initially thinks there is to do. Would we have bought this house if we had exactly known all the work that is involved now? Maybe, maybe not. But gosh, it will all be worth it. We are very excited to see the end result. And I am very happy with everyone who is working for us. Everyone made a effort to come meet with me in Antwerp and go over everything in much more detail than normal, all because everyone is aware of our situation in trying to orchestrate this from across the Atlantic.

Together with my parents I kept busy with all this from early in the morning until late at night. After all the businesses were closed, I worked on revising bids and drawing plans. My mom joked that the architect ought to pay me, ha. That's a good one! I barely had time to miss my little girl. But when I did, I missed her much. I had her little PJ's with me and a little clay footprint and we saw each other on sightspeed regularly. She did not miss me much (thank goodness) as she was having fun in Austin with extra attention from her papa, Gramma who was visiting, and her aunt Rebecca who came over to play with her and who got a new puppy! Plus, she seemed to understand that I was on an airplane and went to Belgium.

I came back last Sunday with my mom, who is here now. Wednesday my father arrives for what may be their last trip to Austin while we live here. I keep hoping that everyone will come back when I finally will walk for my PhD graduation... but gosh, when will that be? Evelina is loving all the visits and learning new words every day. I promise I will post plans and photos next time. I just wanted to send out a quick update and apologize to all of you who are reading this and are not getting emails from me. I am keeping very busy.

Greetings from a very hot Texas, with love, vanessa
And PS Belgium still does not have a government! More on that next time too.

A trip to Santa Fe while Belgium is in political crisis

August is nearly over. Robert, Evelina, and I just got back from a nice vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We flew to Amarillo (well that was the plan -- more later), stayed with Robert's mom, and then drove from there to Santa Fe, which takes about 5 hours including a stop for a picnic. It is a beautiful drive. I have now in these past 15 years done it several times, in both winter and summer, and I still enjoy just gazing at the landscape. Evelina did really well too. She is becoming a seasoned traveler.


Of course non of us could have anticipated that the trip to Amarillo (which should have been a 35 minute flight from Austin to Dallas, and then another 50 minute flight to Amarillo) would take us over 12 hours and we never even made it to Amarillo! Robert's mom had to come get us in Lubbock (where Buddy Holly was born, for those of you who care) at 9 in the evening and then drive another hour and a half to Amarillo. We decided to fly to Amarillo because we thought an 8 hour drive would have been too much for Evelina. Then one cancelled flight and several rebookings later (and hardly an apology from American Airlines, let alone any reimbursement) it took us 12 hours of driving, flying, and 3 airports, but not the one we had planned to go. For those of you in Belgium, is this sufficient proof that Texas is a BIG state?

We were in Santa Fe for seven days and it was wonderful to be there again. It was hotter than we expected and wanted it to be but we nevertheless enjoyed the mountain air and the wonderful food. And the art. It was Indian Market, an annual festival that exhibits the arts of over 1000 Native American artists in the plaza. Lots to see and lots to buy (not for us though, most of it is way beyond our wallets.) But it was fun to look at. Over 100,000 people came to SF this very weekend for looking at and buying art. Santa Fe in general has lots of art to admire with the galleries and the public art everywhere, so with this market added to it, it was a real treat. Evelina loved all the sculptures of animals and made sure that all animals large and small were hugged and touched. Her favorites were the large elephants by an artist of whom we have a few small pieces.











She was also introduced to Native American music and loved the drums. She drummed so much on Grandma's drum that Grandma got her one of her own. See here in the picture, she could not even wait to get her diaper back on, so drumming bare-bottomed it is!


At Grandma's house in Amarillo she discovered the piano and that truly topped it all. She played whenever we let her and got so excited that she had to stand up. She did pretty well, considering the piano was slightly out of tune and it was her first attempt. In fact, it sounded quite similar to some avant-garde experimental jazz that is often played in coffee-shops. This type of music is much more bearable when you have a cute toddler to look at than as back ground over some coffee, lemme tell ya!












One of the events at the Festival was a competition in Native American costume. So here are a few shots from that. It was hard to capture them all due to the large crowd of spectators, but I think I got some of the splendor in these pictures.






















She did wonderfully on the way back again and on the drive and flight back. We stopped at the "Welcome to Texas" sign which now also proudly announces that Texas is the home of President Bush. In case anyone still was not aware of that connection.. I got out to take pictures. The plan was to take pictures of Evelina and each of us there, but with a temperatur of 111F (nearly 43 Celsius!) we decided to leave her in the car! The ones I took of myself did not turn out too flattering, so I post only this one:








And here is Evelina at the Amarillo airport ready to head to Austin again.


She was very happy to be home again too, and to play with toys that she had done without for over a week. Going back to day care the next day seemed exciting until the reality of that hit. She has not been happy there all week. I'd keep her home if it weren't for the fact that I leave for Belgium next week and she will have to be there anyway, and I don't want to make it more difficult on Robert.

So, what is going on in Belgium? On a national level, the country is in crisis! Remember how on June 10th there were elections? Well, all that is still not solved. The various parties cannot seem to agree on a coalition. It seems that all the subborness is coming from one particular woman on the French-speaking side. Because, of course nearly all of the stumbling blocks have to do with the language issue French (the Walloons) and Flemish. Can we please get over this? The funny part of it all (at least to me) is that in the Netherlands they did a poll about the Belgian situation and a whopping 64% thinks that Flanders ought to secede and join the Netherlands. Ha! And who shall rule them then? Well, the Dutch queen of course! That really got me. All the problems are due to the strong identities of both groups (Walloons and Flemish) and then to solve it the Flemish should become Dutch? Yeah right.

So now, the person who has been leading all the conversations and negotiations has called it quits. He has gone knocking on the Palace's door and said to the King, you solve it. (Doesn't it start to sound like some fictional tale of some far-away place now? Well, I suppose for many of you Belgium is some far-away place.) Anyway, the King now will have to fix it. Either by his own negotiations, or by putting someone else in charge of trying to appease the opposing views. So how abaout that! A democratically-voted parliament cannot agree and has to have the KING (!) come urge them to stop hooking horns so that the country can finally have a government again? Oh the irony of it all!

More personally, good news about the house. The building permit has FINALLY been submitted and while we wait to obtain it, much of the work can actually continue (or rather, ... start.) I must say that I am eager to be there again. I leave the 31st. The plan is that I will make several decisions about materials etc. so that all the work can continue smoothly. The architect is hopeful that all can be done by January. Let's keep all fingers crossed about that. I will post more pictures as they become available. I will post some more pics of our trip below the blabla here for you all.

For now, I hope you have enjoyed these and I send you all greetings from Texas with love, vanessa

Here are some shots of Evelina with a new friend at Grandma's house, Evelina walking with Grandma and Dale, strollin' in Santa Fe and looking stylish, Evelina at the SF children's museum with face-paint, and observing a rolly-polly bug on Grandma's front porch. And then a great shot (I think) of Evelina and Papa taken at our pic-nic. I absolutely love the wide-open skies in Texas and New Mexico. And then of course, even on vacation there is phone-business to do, even for toddlers.