HO HO HO

 

ho ho ly shit, is it that time of the year already?

What Christmas is all about

One of the funniest series I know is the BBC's Gavin and Stacey. This is a clip from their Christmas Special, in which Gwen, Bryn and elderly neighbour Doris explain to you what Christmas is all about (Doris also mentions Scott, who is her toy boy lover).

Makes me laugh every time.

Good as new and I can now reveal what I’ve been busy with lately

 

So I braved the snowstorm and went on my way to the dentist this morning. It took me about 50 minutes to get there, which isn’t too bad if you live in the USA or another huge country and everything is a minimum of a one hour drive away from your home, but when you live in the tiny Netherlands, where almost everything is right on your doorstep, a 50 minutes drive to get to your dentist is considered to be rather excessive.

However, I got there, told the receptionist it was me that had arrived, she told me to take a seat and as soon as my posterior touched the comfy waiting room bench I could get up again because they were ready to admire my damaged molar.

The dentist looked at the molar, said something like: “Oh, no worries. It isn’t rotten and I’m just going to do some supergluing”, and before I knew it I had an iron casing or form (I’m not sure what the English word for ‘bekisting’ is) around the damaged molar. Then he went to work with electric files and brushes and blue gooey stuff and bright blue lights and white stuff and warm air and cool air and he did a bit of moulding and pressing and 15 minutes later I had a molar as good as new. It’s a miracle. Then his assistant took away a bit of yuck and muck that had nestled itself between some of my teeth and lectured me about flossing EVERY DAY (yes Miss) and I was sent home again. Uncrowned. I think. I’ve never had a crown, but I don’t think I have one now. Do I?

So… it wasn’t all that bad. If only everything in life would be that easy.

And what have I been so busy with lately that I didn’t have much time left to be a blogger? Remember I shot the buns in the ovens? Well, I’d made so many photos of both expecting mothers and they almost all were pretty nice ones, I decided I’d make some photobooks as presents for the mothers to be. I had never made a photobook. But I did a Photoshop course this last Autumn and the photographer who taught us all we now know about Photoshop said that www.blurb.com was a great site for good photobooks.

So I downloaded the blurb-make-your-own-photobook-software, watched the online video about how to get started and the one about lay-outs and so on and then I went to work. Now… I do have gorgeous friends, but in one or two shots they both had a little bit of a double chin, you get that when you look down, it can’t be helped but it can be photoshopped away, and in some shots you could see some electrical wires or a socket on the wall. You know the sort of things that can be a little bit disturbing in a photo. And I wanted my friends to be able to look at their photos without focusing on the wrong things. Therefore I did some crafty photoshopping. Nothing too much, but just enough to make the shots that little bit nicer. I was pretty happy with the result. But it took me quite some time, being a novice Photoshopper.

Then I made the two books. Such fun! I loved it. Thinking about lay-outs and backgrounds and colours. I totally went into ‘creative-Brinkbeest-mode’. But as I am quite a perfectionist with that sort of thing, again it took some time to get both books exactly right.

And since both friends didn’t know about the books, I couldn’t tell you before I gave them to my friends. They both read my blog now and again you see. It would have ruined the surprise.

Yesterday I gave both friends their books. They were happy. I was happy. We were all happy. Now we only have to keep our fingers crossed for all babies to come out quick and healthy and happy too. One of the twins will need surgery after his birth, so that is quite worrying. Please send positive thoughts and energy towards friend. It might help.

Thanks.