26 Feb 2011

SATURDAY FUN - Old Advertisings

I found again a few ads from the past ....





Dream times for men !



I think meanwhile we changed haven't we ?



"nervousness or nervous exhaustion, sleeplessness, hysteria, headache, neuralgia, backache, pain, epilepsy, spasms, fits, and St. Vitus' dance". Unfortunately doesn't exist anymore since 1960.




McNeil Butisol Sodium
Brand name for butabarbital. "Mabel is unstable...it's 'that time' in her life. To see her through the menopause, there's gentle 'daytime sedation' in Butisol Sodium."

25 Feb 2011

FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE



more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

1. Again I can't say that this week has been my favorite ! The painters are gone and it was time to clean up and put everything into place.

2. We shared the work, Mr. G. hit the nails in the walls and put up the pictures which I had selected before





He washed up the cristal and Swarovski cats which now shine like diamonds !
Then he settled down for a well deserved rest and played cards on the computer in Pookie's company.

3.



While I changed the furniture and put all the decorations back in the living room. The floors were cleaned by our good cleaning lady Janka and everything looks now new and shiny

4.



I was very proud of the result of my closet which I had had painted in the same color than the walls and had found these beautiful door knobs in my favorite Indian shop. Arthur demonstrates not very enthousiastically how it looks now.

5.



I moved my cats around and Arthur kept me company he probably thought that I ran out of decorations and helped out.




I made a new flower arrangement and put my cats on the new shelves



I even found a place for Mr. G's original Ferrari rim, which had been always in my way by putting it on a newspaper rack, which I had found in the basement. He was very happy with my invention.

I hope next week will be more interesting !

24 Feb 2011

TATTOO OR NOT TATTOO

Jenny Matlock
more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

Letter : T

I have never payed attention to tattoos for the simple reason that it wasn't very well seen in Belgium or in Germany and a tattooed person was considered as rather vulgar.

So I was quiet surprised the first time I went to Egypt to see lots of British tourists more or less tattooed. It was the same for women and men, and they weren't the youngest once. They were all people like us, retired and stemming from the 60th/70th. When I asked why they all had these tatooes I have been told that it was very in fashion at hippie times End 60th and in the 70th in the UK and it was considered as very "in" ! I knew immediately who was English, because of the tattoos, no other tourists had them and ... they all regretted !

What probably looked nice when you are 20 doesn't have the same effect when you are in your 60th or 70th, put on some weight and lost your hair. Once a beautiful fresh little rose on an arm now looks rather faded, a snake has more wrinkles as usual and the once probably big and strong man who has "I love mom" tatoeed on his shrinked muscles looks rather ridiculous.

Some women were a little upset because their husband still had a heart with an arrow somewhere on his body, with a tattoo "Mary forever" but his wife's name was "Sue". You never know if it's forever !

Amongst my friends only one has a little rose tatooed on her shoulder, but even that, now at 67 looks rather ridiculous and she tries to hide it of course.

One thing is sure, when you are 20 you never think how you would look like at 60 ! and it is very hard to get rid of these "youth" souvenirs.

Originally tatoos hadn't been a fashion and exists since the New Stone Age beginning about 9500 BC they were used to mark the tribus or communities, to which people belonged to.

Today, people choose to be tattooed for cosmetic, sentimental/memorial, religious, and magical reasons, and to symbolize their belonging to or identification with particular groups, especially criminal gangs.

When I get into my third (or forth) puberty, maybe I will get a tattoo too, I only don't know yet what ?



What about that ?




Doesn't he look sexy ?



Imagine the same tattoo in 40 year with some kgs or pounds more





23 Feb 2011

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

more participants here





That's where you have to go if you have computer connection problems in India. I got this in an email of my Indian ex collegue !

22 Feb 2011

MY WORLD - Acqua Gym


more participants here

The only distraction I had during these 2 weeks of repainting the inside of our house was Acqua Gym, which is located in a beautiful house close to Waterloo, with an enormous parklike garden around.

The owner is a former Tennis champion who converted now to a health club, with all kind of activities and amongst others Acqua Gym.





Here you have an overlook of the property



with woods around




It looks beautiful in all seasons. I haven't seen spring and summer yet, because I only started in September.






The swimming pool from outside, from where we have this beautiful view



and from inside, my friend Dominique is posing. The wooden ceiling makes it very cosy and the buddha is watching that nobody drowns



and sometimes, when we have lost enough calories we are going for lunch together after the gym ! That's a good philosophy.

21 Feb 2011

WHAT DID YOU DO THIS WEEKEND ?



Helps you to remember what you have done on the weekend of February 19. You never know if you need an alibi ! If you participate please put the little logo on the top of your post and leave your link.

On Saturday afternoon I pushed a deep sigh of relief because our two painters had finally finished their work and my two weeks of suffering were over !

When I waved them good bye, I didn't pull out a box of tissues to dry my tears, I couldn't even jump to the ceiling of joy, because I was rather exhausted ! The worst thing was the stress, having two men all the time around me and my own one didn't know where to put himself so I had to push him from one room to the other and finally "locked" him in our guest room where he was out of the way !



Our house during two weeks !



Fortunately in the evening I went with my neighbor to the theatre and we saw a hilarious two men show, making fun of the actual political situation. As you may have heard Belgium has the mondial record of having no government since June of last year. The audience was fully packed and people were laughing all the time.



On Sunday, which usually is a day where you shouldn't work, I started to put all our decorations in place, and Mr. G. balanced on ladders to nail the paintings on the wall. We just did the living room and even not entirely and my room. There are still the curtains to be hanged on the windows and the floors need to be cleaned. Each day a little bit !

In the evening, we watched 4 murders in an Inspector Barnaby TV movie, and then fell half dead in our beds, not murdered but tired.



20 Feb 2011

THE CHIPS REVOLUTION


The Chips Revolution

Since February 16 Belgium helds the record of 249 days without a government breaking a modern-day mondial record that was held by Iraq. We are now ready to go into the Guinness Book of Records.



For this occasion an Arabic looking student representing Irak handed over a cup to the new winner .... Belgium represented by a Belgian student.

The Belgians have a lot of humor so this event was celebrated with several actions such as men letting their beards grow until a government is in place, or women following Lysistrata's example and refusing sex until an agreement is made.

Top of the bill was the "Révolution des Frites" (chips revolution) a public party in the streets on Thursday night, counting down to the new world record. In an ironic trailer, people were asked to gather and "help our political heroes through the last hours".

"Our politicians are heroes," people joked. "We're proud of this. Finally we can send out a positive message about Belgium -- our country is the world record-holder."

Residents in Brussels, Antwerp, Leuven and Liege wore red noses and had their versions of a Red Nose Day meant to shame politicians. But they apparently prefer to continue to play the clowns.

In Louvain la Neuve the organizers handed out 300 portions of free chips with mayonnaise, a staple part of the Belgian diet.





And in Ghent, where activists said 249 people would protest naked to mark each day of political paralysis, dozens stripped to their underwear.

Friends and people around me don't take the actual politicians seriously anymore. We really wonder for what they are useful. We all noticed that with or without government, our little lives continue and we don't see any difference.

An actress was asked by a Flemish newspaper why they were taking off their clothes

"Why? Because if we're naked, we're all people together," she said.

And that is true, Belgians want to stay together the Flemish and French speaking once. Only the politicians have a problem with it and put their personal ambitions in a language war.

The "chips revolution" wasn't appreciated by them at all !