Useful tips!

Dear all,

My dad sent me a link to a Dutch website that is written by a college student. I read a couple of his posts and I'm really liking this one about why you should wake up early in the morning.
I found the link to the Dutch version, and the original English verison:

http://www.davecheong.com/2007/06/15/waking-up-early-15-tips-that-work/ (ENGLISH)
http://lifehacking.nl/persoonlijke-ontwikkeling/op-tijd-op-staan/ (DUTCH)

I'm the kind of person that sets an alarm, even during the weekends. On schooldays I get up at 7, sometimes 8 if my first block is cancelled. I go to bed at around 11 and listen to my iPod for about an hour and then I'll fall asleep. I've heard so many people say that listening to music before you go to bed isn't good because it will make you want to listen more and more which makes the time that you sleep shorter. Anyway, for me it works! :)

Love,Rachelle

Creative Nail art

Hola todos,

As I mentioned before, me and my friend had a staying-in day! We baked some Dutch treats but we also painted our nails :). I just wanted to show you a picture. Because it looks AWESOME:D

Love,Rachelle

My Dutch Side

Dear all,
I'm sorry for not posting anything earlier. Besides the fact that I've been busy, I've also been thinking about a certain article I'd like to write (no, I'm not giving any hints!). Today, and the last few days have been horribly bad. The weather's been no different than rain, wind and coldness. Instead of going to the beach, me and my friend Claudia stayed in and made 'pepernoten'. That is a Dutch treat that you buy/bake during November and December. On December 5th, there is this Dutch holiday called Sinterklaas. Now you're asking me about a longgg story haha. You should look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

I really wanted to bake the pepernoten ['pepper nuts'] even though my friend broke her wrist. Anyway, we managed to get the ingredients mixed together and put the pepper nuts on the baking plate! :)

WHAT YOU NEED:
100 gr. of butter
250 gr. of self-rising flower
100 gr. of fine sugar
1 teaspoon of syrup
30 gr. of cinnamon
10 gr. of nutmeg
5 gr. of white pepper
5 gr. of coriander
5 gr. of anise
HOW TO:
Put the oven on 175 C.
Knead all the ingredients with moisture hands (makes it easier to knead!)
Take bits of the mix and make these into small balls, flatten them when you put them on the baking plate.
Put the pepper nuts in the oven for 20 minutes and let them cool down afterwards.

ENJOY :]

Love,Rachelle

Hair-Dying Results :)

Hola chicos,
I recently wrote about buying the HEMA Blond Spray and yes, it worked! :) I washed my hair, towel-dried it, and my mom sprayed the dye in my hair. Once in a while, she brushed my hair just to make sure every hair got dye. When my whole head was covered, she had only used up half of the bottle. We decided to keep it, for second rounds, haha! I sat in the sun till my hair was dry and I did see a difference! My hair looked naturally brown, more goldish than brunette. I liked it, but I wanted my hair blonder. A couple of days later we did the process over again. This time it got muchos more lighter :O My parents liked it better the first time but oh well! It’s my hair :)
How to:
Wear old clothes
wash your hair first & towel-dry it
you'll need a lot of sun
a comb
any kind of blond spray (check if it contains water peroxide, because it's dangerous stuff!)

<3,

Rachelle

Eyebrow Plucking

Hellooooo,

Don’t we all pluck our eyebrows, girls? I don’t think we realize that these annoying hairs won’t grow back forever. There will be a time when they don’t, and you’ll have no eyebrows left! (That’s why a lot of older women have eyebrow-penciled eyes in stead of real ones). Why do we create really thin eyebrows if our ‘natural’ ones look just fine? I think I’m gonna pluck less than before just for the sake of the future J

Love,Rachelle

Nailpolish!

Dear all,

On Lappendag(read post on Lappendag), I bought 4 kinds of nailpolish! I just took some pics of it to show you. I'm in loveeee with the green one that I'm wearing right now. Love it!

xoxo

Love,Rachelle

Lappendag

(august 15th)

Dear Readers,

Today was Lappendag. This is a typically Dutch day when people go into town really early in the morning (starting at 5 am) and go shopping. There is also this other part of the tradition when the men(also teenagers, women) go to the bars and just drink and don’t stop till it gets late. I guess there are two types of people on this kind of day… the shopaholics and the alcoholics (mostly drunk!). I guess I would be number uno, right?

My friends and me got up at 6 and were in town at 7, and shopped for about 3 hours. There are not only stores, shops and boutiques but also this market in the middle of the streets. They sell all sorts of things – jewelry, make-up, books. You name it, they have it. Okay that isn’t completely true. But what most people want you to believe is that all the stuff that’s on sale when you walk in, wasn’t there a couple of days before. And honestly, I’ve seen things on sale today that were on sale for weeks now. Most of the things are summer collections, which they need to get rid off anyway so Lappendag is great for the local stores.

I bought a jumpsuit, something I’ve been wanting to get for ages now! It’s a really thin suit, with a flower print. (5 euros) Because it’s so drapy, you can wear it in a lot of different ways! You can barely see the shorts, so it looks like a dress, which makes you able to wear leggings/tights underneath. Put on some hot heels and you’re ready to go! When you’re going to the beach, all you need it the jumpsuit it self.

I also got a dress from Only, with with all these colors. Almost like paint accidently dripped on it. (5 euros) It’s pretty short so I guess you’re able to wear it as a regular top, with skinny jeans.

At the market I got 4 bottles of nailpolish for 5 euros (beyond cheap, guys!). Colors: white, see-through, dark green and pink. My friend got light blue (a color I reallyyyy want to have) but I decided I’ll just borrow hers someday because that’s just a waste of money if you live a block away. ;-)

The mascara was on sale for 2 euros, so hey, what the heck, I got brown mascara. Now that I’m blond, I would like to look more earth-toney.

The later it gets, the more drunk the people get. That’s why we decided that after we were done shopping we would just go home and have lunch and then we would see if we’d like to go back or not. In the end we did and saw how crowded the bars were. Amazing scene but not my style! We had a drink and went to get some ice cream. I got a bit claustrophobic, I’ve got to admit. We had a really fun afternoon after that :-).

Conclusion: Lappendag is fun if you are okay with getting up early for bargains ;-)

Love always,

Rachelle

Love,Rachelle

Een Blauwe Vlinder Zegt Gedag – Sophie van der Stap

Dear Readers,

Yes, I did read another book. Sorry if it bores ya.

This book is a follow-up about Sophie´s life.

When she was 21, she got a horrible type of cancer. She started writing down her story from the beginning of the process till the end (yes, she survived cancer!). She went through chemo's and lost her hair. She decided to buy wigs because she didn´t feel pretty with a bald head (trust me, I wouldn´t even feel comfortable walking on the street!). All together, she had 9 wigs. Each of them different - long blond, short brunette, etc. What makes this book so good is that every time Sophie wears a different wig, she feels like she has a different personality. She attracts different kinds of people and acts differently. She could be anyone without somebody noticing it was her (except her friends of course).

Her second book is about her life after cancer. She doesn´t know what she lives for and goes on a world trip to find out. She meets lots of people but still doesn´t realize what she is and what she wants. One of her dear friends, who also had cancer, doesn´t survive it. In the hospital, her friend asks her if Sophie would want to write about her, and she does. So this book is basically about Sophie´s visits and her life after her friend dies.

And here comes my opinion! I really really liked the first book. I loved her write-style. Very modern, easy to read. The way Sophie talks about her cancer is like it´s no big deal. Like there are worse things. She´s very strong and she jokes about it too. Not like she wants to have cancer or anything, but she makes jokes about it. Because I loved the first book so much, I decided to get the second one too. Well guys, I wouldn´t recommend it. It´s really boring and when I was at page 150 (of the 224) I was like; ´why is she writing about what she sees in Argentina? I mean great, but it totally doesn´t relate to what her story was about.´ the title of the book is about her friend who dies, and her story kind of ends on page 150. I dragged myself through the rest of the story, but if it wasn´t for you guys, I would´ve stopped reading.

Love, Rachelleeeeee.

Verraad – Karin Alvtegen

Hiiiii

I just finished up reading this book called Verraad (English: Betrayal). It´s a psycho thriller translated from Swedish to Dutch. I found it at the library at the ´Most Popular ´section so I decided to take it with me. Honestly, I´m not a book reader. Whenever I pick up a book, I sighed at the number of pages. Whatever the subject, I can´t be dragged into it. So when I get bored I just stop reading for days or just hand it back to the library without finishing it. But since I have so much time left over during this vacation, I decided to get myself to read it, if I´d like to or not. This book has 254 pages, so it´s reasonable. The cover looks like a picture from World War II and I personally don´t think this cover belongs to the story.

Anyway, the story is about a woman named Eva, who is about to divorce her husband when she finds out about his affair with the after-school care lady where their son goes to. One night she goes to a café and runs into Jonas. They have a great night together (ahem, ahem) but what he doesn´t tell her is that his girlfriend, Anna, is at the hospital in a coma and has been like this for about 2 years. Jonas thinks Eva is his new Anna and that thought is going to change Eva´s life forever…

The story ends in a way I would have never thought it would end, but that is, I guess, what a psycho thriller wants you to think. This book is written for adults but if you´re around 14 years or older, you would be able to know what you´re reading ;)

I´m not sure if this book is available in the US though…

Cover:	Story line:	Story in general:	Letter size:	Letter type:	Story plot:
Not a real eye-catcher but it relates to the story.	It gets confusing when three characters have their own chapters, written from their point of view. It´s up to you to find out who is talking, because the write doesn´t mention the character speaking anywhere.	Really psychological but very good. The story ends in a way I didn´t expect it to.	Just right. I think it´s font 12.	Times New Roman – a letter type I personally don´t enjoy.	easy to follow and understand.

Enjoy reading!

° Rachelle.

Scoobiedoo

Bonjourrrrr,

Scoobiedoo – don´t we all remember those colorful, plastic strings? I kind of forgot about them a couple of years ago but when we started packing for our vacation, my mom decided to buy a pack just in case we got bored. Thanks to her I´ve made 9 bracelets –blush- ! There are many ways to tie the strings but I still love the round one the most. I guess that one is the easiest to make, too! The scoobiedoo strings are really cheap (probably because nobody wants them anymore, except this obsessed girl named Rachelle…and wait there is also my friend Margriet who started again!). I made a picture collage to show you in steps how to make a bracelet.

1. Get four strings
   
2. Tie a knot on one end
   
3. Let the string hang over the knot, so that you can see them all. Get one string, place it over the next one.
   
4. Place the next string over the third string
   
5. Place the third string over the fourth
   
6. Get the fourth string and pull it through the first string
   
7. ….so it will look like this
   
8. Hold two strings in both hands, pull really hard, so they form a square
   
9. Repeat the whole process again but don´t forget to ALWAYS start by the string on the top right (in this case the read one). If you don´t do that, you will end up with a square bracelet…
   

   
   

   
   

   Many thanks to Margriet for this blog idea!
   

   XOXOXO, Rachelle

New Hair Band!

Last week I went shopping with Sharona, because our hard work paid off : tons of money! Haha. One of the things I bought is this hair band. It was only one euro and it´s really cute. I wanted to buy a pair of black vintage earrings, but that would make it a bit too black. I think I´ll wear this hair band with pearl earrings….mmm…

Love, Rachelle

Home-Made Jewelry

Hello you,

How much fun can you have with a ball of wool? Well, a lot! You can create bracelets, necklaces, rings and ankle bands. My sister and me found some really nice pebbles at the beach and they are light-weight too! All I did was braid three pieces of pink wool, wrap a ribbon around the pebble, glued the pink wool-braid to the pebble for security and done! Easy and cheep J

XOXO, Rachelle

Barbeque Recipe

Dear all,

Since we´ve been barbequing almost every day, we´ve tried many things on our grill. My favorite is and always will be is mushrooms with bacon. It´s soooo good! The salad (read below) makes it even better. So for all you people out there willing to take a risk and try something new while barbequing, instead of the boring old burgers and sausages: here you go!

• Lettuce
  
• An onion
  
• 150 gr. Slices of bacon
  
• 250 gr. Mushrooms
  
• 150 gr. Goat cheese
  
• Oil
  
• Vinegar
  
• Salt
  
• Pepper
  
• A grill
  

  
  

  Love, Rachelle

Hema Blondspray... ?

Hellluuuuh!

So before I went on vacation I bought a spray for my hair that will lighten it about 1 to 2 shades. I got all excited because it was only 3 euros and it should be easy to use. What you do is you need to have towel-wet hair, spray as much as you can on your hair (it's waterperoxide so watch out!), comb it through and let it dry (the blond effect will work at its best when the sun's out!).

What you'll need:
- the spray (I bought Hema Blondspray)
- an old towel
- a comb that you're willing to give up haha
- sun
- disposable plastic gloves

And yet again, I can't find a picture to show you what my spray looks like.... -sigh-

I'm probably going to use it tomorrow and when I do, I'll post some pictures! :)

XOxo
Love,Rachelle

Bretagne's Summer Salad

Dear all,

Since I signed up for Weekly Hit Counter Summary, I am able to see how many times my site has been read. I'm really gratefull for everyone that comments on my blogs, gives me good subjects to write about, and all of that! So thanks :)
I'm in France (Betagne) right now and we've been eating a lot of good food here. One of the salads that my mom made this week is the one below. It's really summerish and light.
Sorry for this really short blog, but I'm running out of internet-time because we have to pay for it per hour ;) Enjoy!

Summer Salad (4 persons):
- lettuce
- big piece of grilled octopus (3 ounces)
- 1 onion (sliced)
- 4 slices of lemon
- cajun herbs
- salt
-pepper
-oil
-vinegar


Love,Rachelle