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Drawing lesson nr. 1, ‘How to draw an owl’.

Try it yourself, it’s easy! 😉

Norman Vincent Peale: “We struggle with the complexities and avoid the simplicities.”

Oogway (Kung Fu Panda): “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the ‘present’.“

Misha turned 16 today…uhh, 16 months that is! 😉

A happy little boy, making everybody smile, including the doctor yesterday at his 15 months check-up; she was pleased with his progress, no surprises and all is very very well! At 16 months Misha’s world is getting bigger and bigger, walking completely replaced crawling and everything…*everything* is interesting and needs to be touched, eaten or thrown on the floor! Ha, and that includes a champagne bottle, though empty still a 16 months old boy best toy! (eyes closed when you open a bottle!! 😉 )

Margaret Cho: “Try to put your happiness before anyone else’s, because you may never have done so in your entire life, if you really think about it, if you are really honest with yourself.”

Terry Lynn Taylor: “Gratitude is our most direct line to God and the angels. If we take the time, no matter how crazy and troubled we feel, we can find something to be thankful for.”

Mary MacCracken: “Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.”

George Lois: “Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.”

Michele Shea: “Creativity is…seeing something that doesn’t exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God.”

Paul Theroux: “Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.”

It all worked out today; I made my flight back from sunny Curacao (oh how I miss thee 😉 ), saw my friend of friends (and even had time for one GFO), spent some quality time with the biggest little angel of all and am able to see my sis and nephew who celebrate their Birthdays today! Oh, and I just ignore the existence of any jetlag, which uhhh becomes tougher and tougher… 😉

If all goes well I will high up in the air on only way back to NL in a few hours! *If* all goes well…I am flying on a standby ticket and while the flight ain’t full, there are many fellow staff-travelers listed on this flight…actually, too many. My ‘crew seniority’ and the captain following the procedure should make it all work though, so fingers crossed!
A little over two weeks of sun, sea, beach,

Kahlil Gibran: “Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.'”

I never travel without my balls…uhh, *JUGGLE* balls I meant! 😉

And nothing beats juggling in the sun on the beach: earbuds in, Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ dictating the rhythm, all systems GO…I love it! 😉

P.S. picture was taken some days ago, when I still had my ring…

Benjamin Disraeli: “To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.”

So, today is Blue Monday, a day which is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year according to the following formula:

W = weather, d=debt, T=time since Christmas, Q=time since failing our new year’s resolutions, M=low motivational levels, N_a=the feeling of a need to take action and ’D’ is not defined.

I am not so sure what the outcome of the formula should be in order to declare today Blue Monday, all I know is that I am having many ‘Blue days’ here in sunny Curaçao, not only this particular Monday, and…not at all depressing!

Hehe, I don’t really get this Blue Monday thingy. 😉

Norman Vincent Peale: “Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities – always see them, for they’re always there.”

Sunday=Funday, so I decided to book a dive trip to ‘Klein Curaçao’ (Little Curaçao), a small island along the coast. I had to wake up terribly early at 5:50h, *way* too early on a vacation Sunday (though I could have been woken up by the church bells next to the hotel which started ringing for the early service at 6am…hehe, for some reason I missed that *completely* last week Sunday! 😉 ).
We arrived at the island bright and early and right in time for breakfast…by thwn the sun already started to roast skin. 😉
It was my first dive since Bonaire in 2009, so I took it relatively easy. It was very nice to see a BIG turtle within 5 minutes…welcome to the ocean, fantastic! We had a nice BBQ lunch on the beach (fish for Ray 😉 ), and I took a second dive in the afternoon…beautiful, beautiful, beautiful…there is a whole world down there ready to be explored and, it is beautiful! 😉 Thanks to my dive master Patrick I am hooked on diving again. Pictures might follow (if they turned out nice).
The only BIG bummer of this trip; I lost my thumb ring 🙁 , it is probably somewhere on the bottom of the ocean…

Clarence E. Hodges: “For today and its blessings, I owe the world an attitude of gratitude.”

For cheese heads longing back to the guilder era or, if you are really old, the Florin (stone)age 😉 , Curaçao is a good place for a trip down memory lane. The official currency on the island is the Netherlands Antillean guilder (to be replaced by the Caribbean Guilder somehwere in 2013) while the currency symbol, NAF, is derived from Netherlands Antilles Florin.

Most of the NAF bank notes have a similar color as what the Dutch guilder bank notes used to look like, giving the nostalgic feeling an even bigger boost…quite special to have guilders in my pocket again. 😉

(oh, I couldn’t get hold of the 50 cent coin which is hardly used in everyday money, quite a pity as it quite a special one being square shaped)