Once a year I try to unwind a bit in the Netherlands. The kids already know exactly what we usually do. Hanging around at home with grandma Nel. Playing Settlers of Catan (with our own rules). Visiting family and friends, and mostly just relaxing and getting a small taste of what my life used to be like. The lake, the beach, the village, a trip to Leiden, and not much more.

Ana prefers a different kind of holiday, where activities and experiences follow each other at high speed. I’m increasingly choosing convenience. Getting an ice cream. Finding a geocache in the town. A little trip to buy some eel. A walk along the beach with a kroket to finish it off. Wonderful.

Still, I try to plan one fun activity every year. Mudflat hiking, Volendam, Efteling, Rotterdam. This year I want to take a trip to Limburg. The province where my godparents lived, and where I spent many holidays myself. Visiting the Three‑Country Point, descending into a cave, and enjoying a good slice of vlaai. This year we’ll see. I ended up cancelling the trip to Limburg because the family in the Netherlands described the situation as ‘scorchingly hot’, and that’s not the best moment to go to Limburg.

Silence before the storm. This month I celebrated my birthday again. Ana also celebrated her birthday, and apart from that it was quiet. Luckily so, because the coming months the peace will be over.

The kids have two months of vacation ahead, so that will be an interesting period. They both received their report cards, and it was a very pleasant situation: they each had a list of perfect results or near perfect results. They’re very smart boys, and they’ve earned their vacation.

Last year I turned 50, and now another year has passed and I’m hitting 51. Compared to last year, little has changed; the daily routine dominated. Still, I managed to spend some time on the things I enjoy. Together with the kids we built a few LEGO plants, I set up a couple of coconut orchids, and I released my new hobby project into the world. Enough to make me feel very satisfied with the past year.

In terms of health, things are still going well. I still faithfully take my gram of vitamin C every morning, and the pills I used to buy in the Netherlands are now available in Spain as well. Together with the occasional little health experiment, I’m happy to say that I feel very good.

In May I had to get to work at the company run. I tried something new, a personal pacer! I ran with Alex for almost half the distance and running together motivated me to go just a bit faster.

For my game it was an important month! Big changes! Its now called MycoSweep and it’s still available on iOS, but now also on Android!

It was a month with some odd events. A tree almost fell on Ana while she was on her way to pick up Alan from school. As it came down, the tree took a streetlight with it, and that pole crashed onto the ground right next to her. Just a few days later we even had a little earthquake.

Cleaning! Spring is for cleaning, we all know it, but this spring I focussed my cleaning efforts on the digital world. First, my blog. My domain and hosting have all moved to IONOS; basically from a Dutch provider to a Spanish one. The result is a much cheaper and much newer server, with some extras like HTTPS (more secure) and new email addresses (info@leiden365.nl).

I installed a VPN for safe browsing, and I stopped using a single email address for everything, and started to use a few different ones. All your eggs in one basket is a risk, so now I have a few baskets with each contain a couple of eggs. Much safer.

Then there’s my game. A huge rebranding with a new name: MycoSweep. It has become more professional with its own website (mycosweep.com) and its own email (info@mycosweep.com).

And what about the typical spring cleaning? Well, with all the work I’ve done in the digital world, the ‘real’ cleaning has been postponed for a bit although I’m quite sure that a delay won’t become a cancellation.

April began with a nice outing. We visited Lanzarote and spent a few days traveling around the island to discover all the interesting spots.

I released two updates for Mushroom Mayhem. First version 1.4, which adds an in-app store and a statistics page. At the end of the month version 1.5, which basically simplifies the app. Less options more play.

This was also the month of my experiment.

April 0.0 – Results: A month without went surprisingly well; thanks to alcohol-free beer I completed this challenge easily. It took Ana about four days to notice that I had suddenly switched to 0.0. There were three situations where I would normally drink a bit, which made things challenging: our trip to Lanzarote, a farewell party for a colleague, and a dinner with the guys. In Lanzarote I switched to 0.0 perfectly. During the other two events I sinned a tiny bit, but in my opinion that fell reasonably outside the scope of this experiment, so it was allowed.

My coffee stop went unnoticed by my family, because I drank 99% of my coffee at work. I noticed it myself though, and quite strongly. I kept my coffee ritual exactly the same, but instead of coffee I grabbed water. Same cup, same ritual, that should be easy, I thought. During the first few days I had a slight headache in the evenings; on the third and fourth day I was genuinely surprised, because I had a strong headache the entire day, and after that it slowly got better again. I definitely hadn’t expected that.

The first week I had headaches, the second week I felt normal again, though I still occasionally had a strong craving for a cup of coffee. Monday mornings were the worst, and at the end of the workday I often felt like I needed a little boost, but I held back and stuck to just water.

The experiment is now finished, so I think I’m going back to my normal rhythm. I am going to drink less coffee, and maybe a few more 0.0 beers. I was actually a bit disappointed that there was so little to notice from changing my behavior. Apart from the headaches, the only real difference was a small social adjustment because I drank less, but that honestly didn’t amount to much.

A Dutch saying is ‘Maart roert zijn staart’, which translates to: ‘In March things happen’, but luckily this was not the case in this March. Just like February, March was a quiet month.

Alan has won a few football matches, complete with some really beautiful goals. Alex plays beach volleyball once a week, and he was invited to join a tournament in Fuerteventura. We were super proud, but unfortunately we couldn’t convince him and he preferred to stay home. Ah well, next time. I went out to a little restaurant again with the ‘dads’, this time to Casa Brito, to enjoy some delicious food and relax.

It was a quiet month, but it did have some very fun moments. One weekend that gave me a few amusing, atypical stories about a sheep and an ex. Another weekend was less fun, but more productive, I released a new version of Mushroom Mayhem! We also enjoyed a visit by Alex and Alan’s godfather Miguel!

Together with Copilot, I also gave my old app ezDatepad a technology update. I think I’m the only one who uses ezDatepad (for my shopping lists and for quickly jotting down ideas), but having an updated version is always a bonus.

We sometimes call them sushi, but it’s actually a maki, a little roll of seaweed, rice, and some tasty fillings. In the store or in a restaurant you never see the ends, but for me that’s the best part. I think it looks beautiful, like a kind of wild maki on one side and a perfect maki on the other.

Chefs creating a maki want it to look good, uniform, all the pieces the same. I thight unit with everything pressed together. The ends are often different. Some loose rice, some extra ingredients, some things missing. For me it is like ying and yang. Opposites that unite. One side perfect, the other chaos. Together they are better than apart. Each bite unique, each flavor slightly different, each piece has its own identity. Perfection.

Alex en Alan both helped creating some very creative makis. We even have a typical Canarian maki with Pata! Here are some of our creations.

A normal, calm month this time. No deviations from our routine, just completely standard. Not bad at all, I’m not complaining. Alan played his football matches again. Alex was busy with beach volleyball and tennis. I went running a few times a week and worked on my little game.

The kids were lucky because they had a few days off this month and enjoyed carnival. Sometimes these calm months are exactly what you need to recharge.

I ran into my upstairs neighbor in the elevator. The usual small talk unfolded: he asked how I was doing, and I asked how he was doing. Normally you get the standard replies, ‘everything’s fine’ or ‘same old, same old’, the autopilot of everyday politeness.

But this time he said, ‘En la lucha’.
In the fight.

Huh. I looked at him, a bit puzzled. In the fight? I know he does something in the army, but still it sounded strange, and I asked him to explain. He smiled and told me he meant the daily struggle: the endless stream of tasks, obligations, all the things that need to be done. No drama, no great tragedy, just the ongoing battle of everyday life.

Next time someone asks me how I’m doing, I already know what my answer will be.
‘Right in the middle of the fight’. 🙂