One week challenge – Tuesday

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This is a post for my one week challenge.

[07:00] Again the same ritual. Wake up, kids, car, work. This is exactly the same as yesterday, except for an additional stop at the hospital where I drop off Ana for her work. Yesterday there was no need, because the day before yesterday she has a 24hour shift, so she was already there.

[08:20] Punch in

[12:50] My daily cappuccino was a bit of a disappointment. I suspect that someone before me tried to use a recyclable capsule. These are capsules that you fill up yourself with coffee, and afterwards you clean it and you can use it again. Much better for the environment, but at the same time much worse for the machine (and much worse for the next person, in this case me). The ‘dolce gusto’ injects the water into the capsule with quite a bit of pressure, and the recyclable capsule could not handle this pressure and this resulted in the entire machine covered in old coffee grounds. My cappuccino was likewise covered with a bit of these coffee grounds. Well, at least we had a good laugh and my coffee was only visually affected. It still tasted pretty good as usual.

[16:20] Punch out, head home.

[17:30] Alan has his very first English class! (Just like Alex at Tiny Tots)

[18:30] Alan finishes his first class, and he left the class pretty happy. During the class I went running. We head back home. I take a shower and wash all the running sweat off me.

[19:30] Alex Engels (at Tiny tots)

[20:30] Alex finishes his class. Head home. I did not run again, but instead I went for a walk.

[20:50] Home again. Ana informed about Alan at his English class (Ana indicated in a subtle manner that Alan has lots of contact/experience with different languages. He understands Dutch, and speaks it a little bit. He understands English, because everything he watches on TV/YouTube is in English, so we expect Alan to dominate his English class without even breaking a sweat), and the was pomptly promoted to a higher level! After only one class. Very good! Kids eat, pyjama’s, brush teeth, bathroom, review homework, another mini massage for Alan, and to sleep.

[22:15] Take a shower. Update this blog. A little exercise, read a bit of reddit, give my trail installation of publisher a test, and to sleep.

One week challenge – Monday

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This is a post for my one week challenge.

[07:00] The weeks starts as usual with my alarm early in the morning. I get up, get dressed, brush my teeth, and start preparing. Milk for the kids. Milk for Ana and a small drinkable yogurt for me with a hefty dose of vitamin C and a multi vitamin. Then I prepare the school uniforms. Wake up the kids, dress Alan. Feed the gamba’s. Raise the curtains and make the beds.

[07:45] Daily comute. It takes me about half an hour to get from home to work. Light traffic normally, except when there is some kind of accident, then there are no alternative roads, and my small commute can take a very long time.

[08:15] I park the car and walk to the office, I punch in and get ready for my first coffee. The office is a big open area with about 80 or 90 people working. I currently work on maintaining/improving an API used by a mobile app.

[12:15] At the office our entire department eats their lunch. I have rice, with coliflour and pieces of fried pig, left over from last week. After lunch I get a nice capuccino.

[16:15] I punch out and head on home. I might be just in time to pick up the kids from our front door and drop them off at their music school for their piano/keyboard classes.

[16:xx] After/during music I go to do some required shopping at a nearby supermarket. Every week we need milk for the kids, and various other stuff. I will also get my turkey which I usually eat during my lunch together with rice and some vegetables. With the shopping done I load everything in the car and head home.

[17:30] Music classes are finished for this week. Ana will take the kids home.

[18:30] Everybody is home again. The kids are going next door to eat their dinner with grandma. In the meanwhile we orden the house. I clean a few mirrors, the roomba, we was a set of clothes. I used an old tshirt to clean the floor and I collected a lot of dust. Much more than usual. I figured maybe the roomba needed cleaning, and I was right. It was filled to the brim with dust. The roomba is programmed to clean every workday (when we at all working) but it was so full of dust that I suspect it was unable to clean anything. After emptying and cleaning the roomba it should be good for at least a week.

[18:xx] Alex was doing his homework, and he noticed movement outside his window. One of his plants was covered in caterpillers. We removed all the caterpillers except the fattest one, so there will be enough food for the one to grow into a pretty monarch butterfly.

[20:00] Around eight I make the milk for the kids.

[21:10] Kids are asleep. The clothes are outside, they will dry during the night. Alan is sleeping after a little massage. Normally I read three jip and jannekes, but today he preferred a mini-massage. Alex read a chapter in his book and went to sleep as well.

[22:00] Shower. In bed. I will do a little of exercise, to hopefully reduce a bit of the size of my belly. Read a bit of reddit, and sleep. Tomorrow another day.

One week challenge

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You might have noticed that the usage of this blog has gone up a bit. After years of having little time and frankly little interest in blogging my interest has once again increased, and I feel like I have things to share. I like sharing my opinion about all kinds of things, but I also wanted to try something new.

I will be doing the one week challenge. Now-a-days lots of things are framed like a challenge, and why not. I made a challenge myself and that is that I challenge myself to write daily for one week on this blog. Even if there is nothing to say, or it is a boring day.

I will start on Monday (tomorrow), so the challenge will run from Monday, October 3rd till Sunday, October 9th. I will tell you what I do each day, and I will add a daily picture.

Tides

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Tides!High or low tide? I really don’t have a clue, and because it changes every couple of hours, and is influenced by the moon and even the sun (I think) it is very difficult for lots of people to know if it is low or high tide. Luckily there is an app for that. It has the fitting name ‘Tides‘ and it will show the current water level as well as the past and future levels. Great information to review before heading to the beach.

The app itself costs around two euros. Actually, the app is free, but removing the advertisements costs the mentioned two euros. This is one of the few app’s where I did not even think about it. Two euros for such a good and useful app is a bargain.

With low tide the kids directly know the drill. We will head to ‘la Laja’ and search/explore the tide pools. If it is high tide there are more options. The woods, a park or hiking a track.

Too good to go

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Too good to go!Too good to throw out. Toogoodtogo is an app that makes an effort to reduce waste. When a product is still pretty good a company can decide to toss it in the trash, or sell it with a big discount (or give it away, but that sometimes conflicts with the business interests). I installed the app and we have tried it twice!

Chinese foodFirst experience (4.99)
There were some left-overs available at a local Chinese restaurant. This felt like quite a risk, because what are you going to get? The left-overs from the buffet? Still we took a gamble, and what we got was unexpected. Four containers with freshly made Chinese food. Nothing to good to go, just normal Chinese food, with the only exception that we could not chose the menu. What we got was pretty good. White rice, rice with chicken, noodles with chicken and croquet’s. All very tasty, but not something that was at risk of being thrown away.

Meat!Second experience (3.99)
The second time we rescued a package from the trash from a big supermarket. This time we got lots of meat. Bacon, bacon pieces, sausages, yogurt (8x), and three apples. All the meat was from a pig. The best-before dates were all on the current date. Not bad, the products all looked pretty good, and we received a big amount of food. I spend the evening frying the meat and even though I would normally avoid pig-meat out of personal preference it looks like the next couple of days I’ll be having pig for lunch.

Conclusion
It is really a gamble. You don’t know what you will get, and you don’t know what state it will be in. I don’t think we will use this app a lot more. The food you get is cheap, and it can be a lot of food, but it is still a gamble. It is unusual to get something you really need. In our case it is much easier to simply pay a little more and get exactly what we want/need. As a game/gamble/surprise it might be fun to get something with friends.

For the company it is an easy way to achieve something. In the case of the Chines restaurant I think they used as a new way to advertise. A random menu for a low price, to maybe get some new customers. In this case I think there is a high probability I would try this Chinese place again, just to see what I will get next time. In case of the supermarkt the app clearly achieved its goal. Avoid throwing away food that was perfectly fine.

Companies that can really benefit from this app are companies that deal with perishable foods. Fruit, vegetables, bread, meat, fish, etc. These shops can avoid throwing away things and get some new potential customers at the same time. For the customer there is the potential for cheap food, but with a risk in not knowing what you are going to get.

From plant to oil

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Yet again! A little marihuana plant!I grew two small marihuana plants and it looks like they are already done growing. Their bigger leaves are starting to dehydrate, so I will turn these plants into oil. The theory is that the active ingredients of the marihuana plant will dissolve in oil, and will repel water, so all we need to do is break open all the plants cells (with hot water) so the active ingredients can get out of the plant material and into the oil. I will follow the next steps:

Step 1: (optional) Dry your plant. This is normally the first step, and for smoking the plant it is required, but for extracting the active ingredients to oil it is not needed.
Step 2: Cut the plant into small pieces. Remove big leaves and the stem. Mix these pieces with water and oil and put this mix including the container in a big pan with hot water (bain-marie). Stir every now and then. Keep the water hot, but avoid boiling it. Leave the plant material in the hot water for a couple of hours. The hot water will destroy the plants cells so the active ingredients can dissolve into the oil.
Step 3: Filter the mix to remove all the plant material. Clean the solid residues with some additional hot water.
Step 4: You should now have a container with oil and water. Let it rest for while so the liquids can separate. Put the container in the freezer until the next day
Step 5: The water is frozen, so you can simply pour the oil off. The water is not needed anymore. All the active ingredients are in the oil.
Step 6: Try it! It might be a very strong mix, so first try it with a tiny drop below your tongue, before going to sleep. If the oil works you should notice in your dreams, or by changes in your sleep patterns. If you notice/feel the effects are too strong you can dilute the mix with more oil, until you reach the desired strength. If the effects are to weak you can simply use a higher dosage.

I sometimes use a drop of oil because I noticed my dreams get a lot more interesting. Some people use it sleep better or to help with chronic pain.

This is a 100% natural product but you still need to be careful and use your mind. Don’t take to much. Be patient for the effects to appear, sometimes it will take a few hours. Don’t drive, don’t do anything dangerous. Don’t start cleaning with all kinds of chemicals, don’t go into the kitchen to cut unions with a sharp knife or to boil hot water. Avoid fire. Do not combine with alcohol, drugs or medicines. Really use your mind and avoid any problems.

Optional: If you hate the texture of the oil you can mix it with some honey
Optional: Use (part of) the oil for baking a cake!

Baobab

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Baobab in the rain!Our expectations were set quite high for Baobab. A 5 star hotel should be the best of the best. Everything is arranged to make the guests stay as nice as possible. This was also our expectation, but sadly we found a couple of issues that were not as we expected.

First there was the weather. It rained all the time, and there were warnings about a cyclone! That is not a very common thing here in Gran Canaria, and of course this is not the hotels fault. The rain caused the hotel to turn into a place where the floor was covered with lots of towels and buckets. There was water everywhere, and the African themed hotel was clearly not made for rainy weather. All the entertainment was cancelled. At night there was nothing to see or to do, even inside.

There were other inconveniences. We could not park near the hotel. The guy near the entrance of the hotel had no idea. We were offered a welcome cocktail during our check-in. Two without and two with alcohol, but the offer never materialized. We did not receive anything and we were not explained anything about our drinks. We were clueless.

An elevator did not work, but this was not indicated anywhere. There was a huge queue for the breakfast buffet, where the queue was standing in the rain. Our room had a broken coffee machine. The drinks machine at the breakfast buffet (primarily used for coffee) also had hot water and milk options, but whatever your selection a drop of coffee was added at the end. The buffet had a big tray of raw eggs (next to the slightly hidden cooked eggs). I took a raw egg by accident, no idea why anyone would want a raw egg?

Before our checkout the kids were playing ping pong. Nice! but it was not meant to be. A member of the animation team came, saw and conquered. The pingpong table had to go, because of the bad weather. The simple fact that the table was located at a sheltered dry place (and in use by our kids!) did not matter.

The hotel itself was stunning. The architecture was breathtaking. The pools where everywhere and were really very nice. The greenery looks very nice. There were elephants, zebras, crocodiles and flamencos (all fake) all over the gardens, and it helped with the nice African feeling. There was a lot of personal walking around, doing their jobs, and the personal was very helpful. The rooms very nice and very big. Except for a broken coffee machine, and a led strip that was hanging around everything was in order. We had a well stocked mini-bar and a really nice big bath. Good beds. The room was great. A very nice view and a nice balcony, but this was unusable because of the weather.

Fuerteventura

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Quite literally the name of the island means ‘Strong wind’. We stayed in a little village called ‘Costa Calma’ (Quiet coast). In both cases the name perfectly fit the place. The coast was quite calm, with only some very small waves, and we spend 3 days on the very windy island. On the way there (by boat) we spotted a large group of dolphins! Around 25 dolphins that were jumping out of the water. Sadly we were going in opposite directions, so we quickly lost sight. After arriving we drove to our appartement and quickly jumped into the pool. Later we visited the beach. The next day we went to the zoo and at night we visited a sand dune, and our final day we spend with some impressive caves and a nice beach. After the beach we went back home by boat. A short but very pleasant break.

Feeding the giraffes!Oasis Wildlife Fuerteventura
A big park, a lot bigger that what I had expected. The restaurants were pretty good. A lot better that the typical hamburger places you normally have. There were three big shows to visit. A sea-lion show, a show with big birds, and a show with smaller birds and all kinds of smaller animals. The park looked very nice. There was a lot of greenery and lots of shadow. For some animals a part of their food was sold to the visitors, so Alex and Alan could feed the giraffes and the camels their fruit that we bought for 1.50 EUR per bag. A very nice experience. One camel did not want to miss his piece of apple, and left Alans little hand all licked and slimy. The kids were also invited by the caretaker of the elephants to feed them an union and some lettuce.

– First we visited the sea lion show. It was the standard show, like most other parks. The focus lay in our responsibility to take care of animals. They explained a lot about the species. This kind of show was nice for the kids, but they always leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. These animals are forced to do their show three times a day. They live much shorter lives that in the wild. They are forced to eat dead fish (which they normally would never eat). They are sick a lot, and
they live in a very confined space.

A human in a comparable situation would be forced to stay in her room all the time. Only be given raw fish to eat, be required to perform three times a day and would be kept alive with lots of medicines and drugs. To top it off, the story that was acted out during the show was like a love story between the trainer and the animal, well, that is just a bit too much.

– The small birds and reptiles show was very nice. There were parrots, lizards, turtles, snakes. Each with a little bit of information. The animals seemed quite content. Alex even got visited by a parrot on his shoulder.

– The big birds show had owls, hawks, eagels, and all kinds of birds of prey. It was a nice show, maybe a little chaotic, but this is also a bit of the charm of shows with live animals. Alex got selected as a volunteer. He had to run with a rope with some food, which some bird attacked (in this case even two birds attacked the food). Later a bird had to pass over his head, through his hands to get to the trainer.

Ajun Caves
The caves of Ajun were a very nice visit. It is a nice route to get to the caves, easy to do with kids. The caves at the end of the route are quite big. On the way back there was a colony of chipmunks asking for a bit of food. After the caves we spend some time at the beach, and found a natural aquarium in the rocks where we could swim with the fish. On our way over it was clear the island does not get a lot of rain. Everything looked so dry, and there was always a lot of wind.

We enjoyed our short stay in Fuerteventura, but there are lots of things we did not get a chance to see, so we will have to visit the island again sometime in the future.

Super-easy cake recipe

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Ingredient and measuring cup!A couple of days ago I made another cake and I wanted to share this extremely easy recipe. You use one yogurt cup for all the measurements, so there are almost no dishes to clean!

Ingredients:
– One small cup with yogurt (lemon or vanilla taste, or whatever taste you like)
– 2 eggs
Use the empty yogurt cup (no need to clean it) to measure the next items:
– about one cup of sugar
– about 3 cups of flour
– about half a cup of olive oil

Steps:
Throw everything together and mix with a spoon until it is a somewhat smooth mass. Afterwards you can optionally add some extra ingredients like:
– extra pieces of apple
– extra pieces of chocolate
– extra pieces of walnut
– extra pieces of banana
– extra pieces of rasped lemon peel

Put everything in the desired shape. Put in a preheated oven around 180 degrees for 45 minutes. Let cool, and you’re done.