Life never stops to amaze me.

Isn’t it amazing how you can have a really lousy Sunday (or week actually) and an almost perfect Monday?

Yesterday I spend most of my time reading (a very depressing book, which I have locked away in a very deep cupboard now) and surfing the web trying to find more gift ideas. I actually found a couple of brilliant suggestions, but some are actually a bit too expensive so that depressed me even more. By the end of the afternoon I was getting so depressed I was getting ready to lock myself away in a cupboard too. But I didn’t! I turned the computer off and cooked a nice meal, enjoyed it and watch some old funny and romantic comedies.

Today I felt a lot better. My run, this morning, went amazingly well. My hay fever has disappeared now that the temperature dropped and that is helping a lot too! Afterwards I had a shower and folded my laundry while listening to the radio. It’s Pinkpop weekend and again, none of my friends (sometimes I wonder why these people are my friends) wanted to go, so radio, TV and internet is all I have to keep track of the festival. This morning I heard this (skip to 00:35) and all I can say is ……goose bumps! Although it made me feel I was really missing something, it also made me wonder what the band (Krezip) was feeling at the time. It must be amazing to sing just one line and then be drowned out by the crowd. Superb!

In the beginning of the afternoon I hopped on my bike and went to the local discount garden centre. It’s a really nice trip and the wildflowers growing next to the bike path really put a smile on my face.

This Highland cow (her sisters were around too) broadened my smile even more. So much nature (on the way back I saw and heard a woodpecker too) in a city! Woo hoo….it just blew the last lingering gloomy feelings right out of head.

I bought four cheerful flowering plants and jumped on my bike again for the pleasurable ride home. I didn’t get very far at first though, because a car pulled up beside me and followed me at a low speed (I really hate it when people do that, but maybe that is just me being paranoid). As it turned out the guy just wanted to ask directions. He had to go to the racket centre. So I pointed him in the right direction and he said ‘but I just came out of that street and didn’t see the centre’.
Me: ‘Well, you must have missed it then, it’s just across the street from the garden centre’
He: ‘Really, I didn’t see it’
Me: ‘But you must have, there are a gazillion cars parked in front of it. There is some sort of paranormal fair going on’
He: ‘Oh, that’s where I am going’
Me: ‘Guess you shouldn’t bother then’
He: ‘Why?’
Me: ‘Well, if your gift can’t feel all that paranormal energy, it’s probably useless’
He laughed really hard and said: ‘your right! But I am just lousy in finding my way, I am lucky if I can find my way home again’
Me: ‘Get rid of your gift and just get yourself a Henk Henk (a bit of Dutch humour, the thing is actually called a Tom Tom Go)’.
He laughed again and totally agreed. Next he turned the car around, thanked me with a big grin on his face and left. So nice to make a stranger laugh and smile like that!

On my way back I started thinking about my Mom’s upcoming birthday and all the gift ideas again. I am still having a hard time picking the right one, but I do think I have a solution if I can’t make up my mind. When every attempt to pick and choose fails, I’ll probably do this. I’ll get a gift box and fill it with 75 cards(or envelopes). On every card I’ll write an idea (of course I would cheat and write some of them down more than once). I’ll give the box to my Mom and let her pick five cards, with the option to swop them if she doesn’t like her first pick. Next she can pick her own present from the five cards. Maybe not the best solution, but at least that way I’ll be sure she gets a gift she really wants.