Spring in my studio

It might snow today, but it's spring in my little studio



Finished one necklace yesterday. Started a new one today (Laura McCabe design). The centre piece looks pretty good.

Location:E Old Elm Rd,Lake Forest,United States

And as promised Ruba and her new boots...

Don't make fun of her. She won't like you anymore!!!

At work...

Almost a month!!! I mean that we live in Highland Park. A month! Time flies when you are having....
We had a wonderful Christmas. Jeff, Joanne and Marianne were here. We had an alternative Christmas dinner, fish-fondue: oysters, lobster and some white fish. Mmmmmmm. We had heaps of snow, we had lunch with J&J at 'the purple pig' in Chicago, we went downtown by train, we bought snow-shoes, all fun. Now back to the normal live. We still have to figure out what that means in our new surroundings: Jeroen's new job, our new house, new supermarket, new pet hospital, new insurance, new dentist, new pharmacy, new bead group, new sounds. All very exciting, sometimes tiresome.
My car at the front door, very lonely, 2 days before Christmas:

The blob in downtown Chicago. And see, no snow:

Start of our Christmas dinner. Tomato, fig soup:

Our tree. After 2 weeks of hard work, we had just enough time to put up a tree:

Man cleaning our 'stoepje'. Nasty job:

Jeroen cleaning our front door steps. He's the young guy in our hallway of 4 families:

A little hike to the lake. Lots of snow!

The lake was spitting ice, heaps of ice. Brrrrrr cold:

We  finally recovered our computer from the boxes. So now we can upload a bunch of pictures from our latest adventure: our move. Saying goodbye to friends in Atlanta and loading Johnnie:

We drive from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Nashville, Louisville, Indianapolis and finally Chicago. A 13 hour trip in 2 days through snowy city-and landscapes.

Arrival in Illinois. Not too impressive in terms of beauty:

Arrival at our Fort. We live some houses past the tower:

This is our front door, which we share with 3 other apartments. Our unit is on the top floor, with 5 windows left from the stairs.

This is the view from our front door, the former parade grounds of the fort.

This is Dave's truck with our belongings:

This is what our belongings look like when they come out of the truck. What a mess:

We are still cleaning up and organizing. Hopefully we can soon show you the house in a livable state.
Keep smiling. Keep warm. :)))

Illinois winter

We made it!!! Got the keys to our new Highland Park, Illinois home on Monday night, cleaned and prepared on Tuesday, so the movers could deliver on Wednesday. And Dave, Mike and Gary the movers surely delivered. Everything from this impressive truck had to come up to the second floor without elevator! And we immediately got a treat of the Illinois winter: it was 18oF (-7oC) outside and with the door to the hallway open and our heating on we could barely keep it at 45oF (7oC) inside......... At least the skies were bright blue and the view from our home is a picture perfect Christmas card.

Location:Whistler Rd,Highland Park,United States

We're on our way

After two days of packing, 1 day of loading, a lovely dinner at Antica Posta and a great good-bye party with the best friends you can wish for, we are on our way to Chicago. Flurry snow in Chattanooga, flurry snow in Nashville, real snow in Louisville where we stop for the night. Ruba is asleep most of the way on Johnnie's backseat; she seems to understand what's going on and happy she can come.

It's cold outside..

and Ruba has a holiday hairdo. Nice warm dreadlocks.



We are staying at Jeff & Jo's. Had a nice quiet day. Our 'stuff' is somewhere in Cincinnati, where Dave our mover lives. Tomorrow we will have a goodbye party and then.... is it time to get into Johnnie and drive up North. Mr. Winter here we come.

Location:Foster Ridge Ct NE,Atlanta,United States