here's what happened

So here’s a short update type thingy on my life. Stuff that happened and stuff I’ve got planned.

Here’s the short list

- Sorry for leaving you
- Ixani closed for the summer
- Greebo our cat and beloved friend died
- Plans for becoming a tattoo artist fleshing out
- Mum’s cat has kittens, we decide to adopt Freya
- Seriously ill
- Updating my virtual presence and taking a new approach to social media
- RIP NL Tarot Forum
- Auryn showroom
- Coming up

And here is the same list enhanced with a blog like text.

Sorry for leaving you

Yes I’ve been away for a while, I came close to not going back to blogging at all. But I couldn’t leave this one to die. I have downgraded my online presence a bit, more on that further on, and the blog doesn’t really fit in this new approach to the virtual community. But screw it, I have to get my attention-fix somewhere, so for now it stays up.

Ixani closed for the summer

Friend and business relation Anja from Ixani (www.ixani.nl) where I do most of my tarot readings, workshops and coaching’s is moving her shop along with a summer break. Which means that regarding a lot of my tarot and coaching activities, I’m taking a break too. Which is in many ways a good thing, though at times a slight financial inconvenience, especially regarding my Mc Donald’s habits. I am out of a burger budget.

Greebo our cat and beloved friend died

Not everybody is able to understand how completely devastating the loss of an animal friend can be. Our cat Greebo died, most likely of a heart attack. She was ripped from our midst so suddenly we barely grasped what happened. She died in my arms after a terrible but mercifully short struggle. I miss her so much, her cold wet nose against my skin, her warm furr against me as we’re dozing off together on the couch and her running down the stairs in the morning greeting me while cheerfully meowing. I miss you poezemeis.

Plans for becoming a tattoo artist fleshing out

On a lighter note… I have found a tattoo kit of which I think it will help me along my first steps of my plans to become something of a tattoo artist. It’s a long road with many obstacles. I have been careful to find a balance in what I am willing to invest at the moment and what can be done on long term when I learn more about the art itself and how I am able to make it mine. So I have gone some steps above the ultimately cheap Chinese kits but have steered away from the serious professional tattoo guns. So now it’s practice, practice, practice on synthetic skin, fruit and vegetables and pig’s skin and ultimately myself.

I have also played with a name and a logo for when it all gets serious. Who knows, maybe some years from now I will open a shop. For now however it is just playing with ideas, coming up with different scenarios for where to take this tattoo thing.

Mum’s cat has kittens, we decide to adopt Freya

Only a few days after our poor little Greebo died, my mums slut-cat gave birth to four awesome miniature tigers. It is her third litter, it was also about the third time she managed to run away…. That’s what I said slut-cat, when she goes out, she goes to “get some”. Seriously Sophie is one hell of a cat and a great mum. One of the four kittens was Freya, it’s hard to describe or to see on the photo’s but Freya was so amazingly pretty and weird it took her little effort to win our heart and manipulate us into adopting her. We had armorered ourselves against it and we were still stricken with grief from the sudden loss of Greebo, but somehow every objection we had seemed to vanish after coincidence after coincidence and everything seemed to point us to this kitten we have now named Freya Greebo Goldilux.

Seriously ill

A few weeks ago I completely lost my voice. The following day I was hit with some sort of über-cold. Having trouble breathing and being awake for more then half an hour at the time I felt completely miserable, though the pain in my throat cleared I still had no voice and my problems seemed to have migrated to my chest. After going to the doctor I learned I had some sort of bronchitis. Medicated and rested I was still too sick to do anything useful for a period of ten days, after which regular life slowly returned, though up till now I still get tired way too fast and still have some mucus-throat related problems. I seem to be producing slime in Ghostbuster proportions and keeping thing “solid” on the toilet remains somewhat of a challenge during most of the days.

Updating my virtual presence and taking a new approach to social media

You know that angry post with which I left you? Well that attitude stuck for a while. I had a lot of frustrations to sort through and I am still working on that. One thing I did was take a good look at my life in cyberspace. Facebook, twitter, blogspot, myspace etc. etc. a lot of my regular frustration seemed to stem from somewhere online. So I changed that around, I chose to minimize and centralize my online efforts. I deleted a lot of “friends” from facebook, starting with colleagues. Somehow half of my friendslist seemed to consist of colleagues. So at home I would still be constantly confronted with work related issues and at work my private life seemed to have become public property. Though I had first planned to quit Facebook altogether I decided to just cut down a lot.

RIP NL Tarot Forum

Yeah I scrapped the forum, nobody came there so no use in keeping it up, it appears there is just too little need for forums anymore. I personally find Twitter and facebook too superficial. As I have posted before I have a warm fuzzy feeling when it comes down to for a, but there’s little sense in me posting all by myself.

Auryn showroom

This last weekend we had a fathers day type happening in our friends webshop showroom Auryn. It basically boiled down to beer, BBQ and lots of pretty girls. Yes I had a blast. It was interesting to see was the girls behind some of the biggest beautyblogs (makeup, fashion etc.) of the country. Some took a very professional and businesslike approach to their online presence and some just “do what feels good”, neither strategies are any guarantee for success or failure it seemed.


At one point there was a bit of a fuzz and half of the ladies there took out their Blackberries and Iphones, apparently there was some sort of online drama with other beautybloggers calling each other names…. A wave of gossip ensued and suddenly I pictured this American beauty salon with all the women gossiping with curlers in their hair or under those fifty style blow dryers. Some things never change, even though the means by which things are done may.

I am soooooo looking forward to the next Halloween themed Auryn event, where I will actually be participating… how? You’ll see.

Coming up

So what’s next? Well I have a pretty busy schedule coming up filled with kitten adventures, tattoo practice and computer games (Alice the madness returns, F3AR). I’ve got ticket to Cantus Buranus (Corvus Corax and orchestra) and Castlefest (renaissance fair type thingy but cooler). Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows will soon be hitting the theatres and when I’ve gone and watched it I can claim having seen all the HP flicks in the theatre… still having an internal debate on if that’s something to be proud of.

My inner nerd is content.