KB Girl's journal

[KB Girl]

Hi! I'm KB Girl, 33 years old, mom of two littles, gym owner and kettlebell enthusiast.. I've decided to hang out in a battle log for a while because I need NF to be a low pressure thing to help me and not challenge me right now. 

 

I'm rebuilding all my usual habits like training regularly, taking care of my people at home and in the gym.. I've never quite mastered going to bed on time but that's still on top of my priority list and ehh, lots of vit D that I should remember to take, y'know, all sorts of stuff.

 

I track all of the above in my bullet journal so I'll probably just talk about the highlights? lowlights? or just the stuff I want to talk about I guess. Processing. Thinking out loud. (and isn't it interesting/special that it's better to do that on NF than in a journal or a word doc or something like that?) 

 

Hopefully I can progress beyond just surviving/rebuilding and give some thought to long term goals and even challenges again

 

[KB Girl]

Reserved for overarching goals musings. (wip)

 

Pleasant Living

• building cleaning/upkeep routines
  - zone work (go by fly lady stuff? personalise? -> put it on our whiteboard)
  - daily habits (keep bujo list, expand?)
• projects
  - book thingy over Emma's desk
  - hall way make over
  - my closet situation
  - the attic
   

[Mad Hatter]

How lovely to seeeee youuu!!! ?

[Harriet]

I don't usually visit the battle logs section but I found you because hatter did. Happy journaling!

[Mad Hatter]

15 minutes ago, Harriet said:

I don't usually visit the battle logs section but I found you because hatter did. Happy journaling!

Posting in the battle log was a sneaky sneaky move. ?

[Harriet]

51 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Posting in the battle log was a sneaky sneaky move. ?

But we found her. Quick, let's start a discussion about cannibalism!

[KB Girl]

7 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

How lovely to seeeee youuu!!! ?

Way to make me feel welcome! ? I was secretly lurking but it’s really good to be properly back ❤️

 

6 hours ago, Harriet said:

I don't usually visit the battle logs section but I found you because hatter did. Happy journaling!

glad you did  
 

6 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Posting in the battle log was a sneaky sneaky move. ?

I feel very innocent and none-sneaky!
 

5 hours ago, Harriet said:

But we found her. Quick, let's start a discussion about cannibalism!

Maybe not thát glad ?;) 

[KB Girl]

Today (friday) was a pretty good day, had a day off work so just me and the girls and we had a really nice relaxed day. When it was time to cook I had to clean the kitchen first and while doing that I somehow ended up doing laundry and deep cleaning the spice cabinet and sweeping the floor (the girls helped with cleaning up toys and taking laundry from the clothes line etc).. but yea, no food. So when Jaap came home from work we went for a walk to get some fries that we combined with a salad. 
 

After dinner and kids bed time we watched the fifth episode of wheel of time together and then watched a review on YouTube and then watched some bonus content and I can’t even express how lovely it is to watch and talk about it together. Making him read the books while we were dating was one of my best decisions ever ?

 

Only downside is that it is now past midnight and we have an early morning and a long work day tomorrow. 

[KB Girl]

This week was a bit odd. On the one hand I have done a lot more around the house, got a lot of work stuff organised.. cleaning up after dinner instead of leaving it.. 

Which for me is definitely a sign that I am doing a bit better- though you really couldn’t tell that from my mood. Anxiety was high, some of that hopelessness. 
But I recognise this pattern, of feeling not so great when in other ways I’m making progress.
 

Today we celebrated Sinterklaas, with small gifts, pepernoten and chocolate letters. I got a couple of pens, Jaap got pyjama pants and the kids got books ? 

Emma (5yo) knows Sinterklaas is not real, we told her when she was 3 partly because we were already considering because of the not lying preference I mentioned in @deftona’s challenge aaand she was very scared by the whole thing. Now she pretends along with us that it is real (for example we had a neighbour knock on the door and leave the bag of presents, I remember the same from my own childhood) and it’s actually very fun and magical and just nice to do this together, like this. 
Emma and I made this; 

it was very good  way way way better than store bought. 

[deftona]

That looks delicious! What is it?

[Scaly Freak]

9 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Emma and I made this; 1

 

That picture is lovely. ❤️

 

But I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on a name and a link to the recipe as well.

[Mad Hatter]

On 12/3/2021 at 11:53 PM, KB Girl said:

After dinner and kids bed time we watched the fifth episode of wheel of time together and then watched a review on YouTube and then watched some bonus content and I can’t even express how lovely it is to watch and talk about it together. Making him read the books while we were dating was one of my best decisions ever ?

? How is it? I can’t possibly imagine how they’d squeeze in all of the books into one series, do they focus on just one character?  No spoilers plz! My plan is to binge it when it’s all released. ?

[Harriet]

Sorry about the anxiety and hopelessness. Hopefully spontaneously doing more around the house is indeed a sign that things are on an upward path.

[KB Girl]

14 hours ago, deftona said:

That looks delicious! What is it?

It translates as filled spiced biscuit (gevuld speculaas).. ehh.. it's a spicy soft cookie filled with an almond sugar mixture. It's a dutch classic made this time of year

 

12 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

That picture is lovely. ❤️

 

But I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on a name and a link to the recipe as well.

I tried finding a recipe in English.. actually I found two, but one of them required you to buy their special cake and spice mixes and the other was.. not good! 

If you're serious about making it, I'll type it out for you?  this is the one I used; https://rutgerbakt.nl/sinterklaas-recepten/recept-gevuld-speculaas/

 

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

? How is it? I can’t possibly imagine how they’d squeeze in all of the books into one series, do they focus on just one character?  No spoilers plz! My plan is to binge it when it’s all released. ?

It's... a bit of a mixed bag? it definitely has some problems, especially the first two episodes were a bit rough with pacing and story telling, but the third was much better and the fourth was brilliant. It's not exactly the book storyline ofcourse, but the changes they've made do make sense and the characters feel right. The casting is brilliant! and they're definitely making an effort to stay true to the source material's ehh.. spirit?  I'm definitely enjoying myself even if I'm sometimes a little bit worried how they'll tackle some of the future plot. 

 

10 hours ago, Harriet said:

Sorry about the anxiety and hopelessness. Hopefully spontaneously doing more around the house is indeed a sign that things are on an upward path.

Not exactly spontaneously, I'm definitely making an effort- but having that be a possibility is good. 

[Elastigirl]

That looks yummy! Glad your family enjoyed the day. When my son was little we always presented Santa Claus as pretend. Part of me kind of wondered if I spoiled some of the magic of the holiday by doing that, but my son still loves Christmas, and still comes over to our house to decorate for it, so I figure it must have worked out all right. We did a lot of the traditional Christmas things, I just tried to present the same as other stories that are imaginary but we still enjoy.

[Scaly Freak]

21 minutes ago, KB Girl said:

this is the one I used; https://rutgerbakt.nl/sinterklaas-recepten/recept-gevuld-speculaas/

 

My browser helpfully translated that for me, so I am all set. Thank you!

 

I'm still not sure if I'll make it or not, but there is no such thing as too many cake recipes.

[Scaly Freak]

14 minutes ago, Elastigirl said:

Part of me kind of wondered if I spoiled some of the magic of the holiday by doing that

 

You absolutely did. If you want proof, just look at countries where no one pretends that the gifts are delivered by a fictional character they lie to their children about... there is no Christmas magic in those cultures. None at all.  

[KB Girl]

1 hour ago, Elastigirl said:

That looks yummy! Glad your family enjoyed the day. When my son was little we always presented Santa Claus as pretend. Part of me kind of wondered if I spoiled some of the magic of the holiday by doing that, but my son still loves Christmas, and still comes over to our house to decorate for it, so I figure it must have worked out all right. We did a lot of the traditional Christmas things, I just tried to present the same as other stories that are imaginary but we still enjoy.

I think so!  I actually prefer Christmas over Sinterklaas so it's a big deal in our house and so far both kids absolutely love it. We had a really good time decorating the tree and almost every evening when it's dark we go out for a walk to admire all the Christmas lights in our neighbourhood ❤️ 

Kids are great at imaginary stuff, they make it extra special. The only downside when they're young is that it is a bit harder to spend 3+ hours eating Christmas dinner and we can't all play games all day.. but I'm sure that'll be compensated when they're older. 

 

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

My browser helpfully translated that for me, so I am all set. Thank you!

 

I'm still not sure if I'll make it or not, but there is no such thing as too many cake recipes.

This is true! Let me know if you need any help after all. 

That website is brilliant by the way, everything I make from it turns out great. 

[Mad Hatter]

11 hours ago, KB Girl said:

That website is brilliant by the way, everything I make from it turns out great. 

Any favourites?

[Mad Hatter]

14 hours ago, KB Girl said:

I'm definitely enjoying myself even if I'm sometimes a little bit worried how they'll tackle some of the future plot. 

The first book is manageable, but I do wonder how they will tackle the 2782 characters the story sprawls into. ? But I’m not fussy about movies and shows sticking to the books they’re based on. To me the story telling and as you said the spirit are much more important. It doesn’t even make sense to try and stick to a book to the letter, everyone experiences the same book differently anyway. 

[KB Girl]

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Any favourites?

Mmm he has a simple oatmeal cookie recipe meant for making with kids (Emma loves rolling little dough balls and then squishing them with a fork) and they’re really tasty but small.. perfect really  I also always have the ingredients in the house anyway.

https://rutgerbakt.nl/koek-recepten/recept-krokante-haverkoekjes/

 

10 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

The first book is manageable, but I do wonder how they will tackle the 2782 characters the story sprawls into. ? But I’m not fussy about movies and shows sticking to the books they’re based on. To me the story telling and as you said the spirit are much more important. It doesn’t even make sense to try and stick to a book to the letter, everyone experiences the same book differently anyway. 

That is true! Did you have a favourite character? They’re probably going to cut a lot of them out.. probably combine several roles, that sort of thing. 

[KB Girl]

Monday and Tuesday were uneventful really. Got a simple strength training in on both days. Made dinner on Monday with enough leftovers for lunches. Got rid of the science projects in the fridge and cleaned it.. should have done some laundry but didn’t because it was tiny clothes time and ugh. 

 

Emma is still dressed as ‘Pete’ (one of Sinterklaas’ helpers) 24/7. She’s been learning to read recently- motivated by stories my mom told her about how I used to read in the middle of the night with a flashlight. I think she’s determined to do the same  together we’re reading the rangers apprentice series, which is nice. 
 

Do the forum overlords mind when I post lots of photos? 

[Elastigirl]

A good day!

[Mad Hatter]

12 hours ago, KB Girl said:

That is true! Did you have a favourite character? They’re probably going to cut a lot of them out.. probably combine several roles, that sort of thing. 

Ahh I can’t remember, it was yonks ago since I read the books, and I didn’t even finish the series after he died. Too long a break and I never did commit to rereading them since. Who’s yours?

Thanks for the cookie tip! They look tasty and simple enough for some travel baking. ?

[Harriet]

Ahhh! Tiny adorable rings girl! She's going to be doing muscle ups in no time! And yay for good food and simple strength training. Perfect.