The queen

and kids (:

-j.

20 years..

.. and 2 days old now (:

Monday September 21 was my birthday, and I spend it at home with my boyfriend Marc because we were both ill.

But at 6 o'clock my father took us out to dinner at an all you can eat wok restaurant!
So we eat until we couldn't eat any more!
The food was really good and so were the strawberries which I dipped in the chocolate fountain ^^

I didn't make any photo's *shame on me* so it'll be just this little story (:

-j.

Dutch wisdom

Wanneer dingen in je leven haast teveel voor je worden, wanneer 24 uren in een dag voor jou niet genoeg zijn, denk dan aan de mayonaisepot en het bier.

Een leraar stond voor zijn klas. Er stonden allerlei dingen voor hem op zijn bureau. Toen het lesuur begon, pakte hij zonder woorden een grote, lege mayonaisepot en deed hem vol met golfballetjes. En toen de pot tot de rand gevuld was, vroeg hij de jongeren of de pot vol was. Ze zeiden: 'Ja.'

Toen pakte de leraar een doos met kleine kiezelsteentjes en goot die uit in de pot. Hij schudde de pot een beetje, en de kiezelsteentjes rolden in de open plekjes tussen de golfballetjes. Toen vroeg hij zijn leerlingen opnieuw of de pot vol was. En ze beaamden het.

Nu pakte de leraar een doos met zand en goot hem uit in de pot. En natuurlijk, het zand vulde alles verder op. En weer vroeg hij of de pot nu vol was. En weer zeiden ze: 'Ja, nu is de pot vol.'

Daarop nam de leraar twee blikjes bier van de tafel, maakte ze open, en goot ze leeg in de pot. En het bier vulde de ruimte tussen de zandkorrels. De jongeren lachten.

Toen het weer rustig was zei de leraar: 'Deze pot staat voor je leven.
De golfballetjes zijn de belangrijke dingen in je leven - je familie, je kinderen, je gezondheid, je vrienden, je grootste hobby. Het zijn de dingen die zo belangrijk voor je zijn, dat wanneer al het andere in je leven er niet meer zou zijn, maar dit nog wel, je leven nog steeds meer dan genoeg de moeite waard zou zijn.'
De kiezelsteentjes zijn de andere dingen die er toe doen - zoals je werk, je huis, je auto.
Het zand is al het andere, de kleine dingen. Wanneer je het zand eerst in de pot doet, is er geen ruimte meer voor de kiezelsteentjes of golfballetjes.
Dit geldt ook voor je leven. Wanneer je heel de dag al je tijd en energie geeft aan de kleine dingen, zul je nooit ruimte of tijd hebben voor de dingen die echt belangrijk voor je zijn. Let op de dingen die belangrijk zijn voor je geluk in je leven. Speel met je kinderen. Neem tijd om naar een dokter te gaan wanneer je je niet goed voelt. Neem je partner mee uit eten. Neem tijd voor ontspanning. Er zal altijd tijd zijn om je huis te poetsen, of om boodschappen te doen.
Zorg eerst voor de golfballetjes, de dingen die er echt toe doen. Stel je prioriteiten - de rest is zand.

Toen hij uitgesproken was, bleef het een poosje stil. Toen stak een van de leerlingen haar hand op en vroeg waar het bier voor stond. De leraar glimlachte. 'Ik ben blij dat je dit vraagt. Het laat je zien, dat hoe vol je leven ook lijkt te zitten, er altijd ruimte is voor een paar biertjes. '

-j.

Stray cat

A stray cat in Spain. The poor, beautiful little thing.

-j.

Edwardo Rodriguez

A man from Besalú I photographed for my school summer project.

-j.

Winter inspirations!

Some inspiration for my winter outfits.

A lot of tights, skirts, long shirts with cardigans and high heeled ankle boots.

-j.

Besalú

A beautiful little town in the north of Spain.

-j.

Dahrio is back

My other cat which was at my mothers house for the past 2,5 years is finally back in my own house!

My mom couldn't take care of him anymore because of her illness.

She has pain everywhere 24/7 and can't even wash her face with just water without having pain.

And because Dahrio is a bit rough with showing his love ( he gives a head-butt in stead of little heads for example) and he walks with you against your leg, and my mom trips over him alot.

So he became an obstacle for her and the best thing to do was to give him to me, so he'd be in a good place, and not far away from her.

In the beginning he was hiding behind the toilet, the morning after he was already walking in the kitchen and our old bedroom.

And now he is already walking around everywhere in the house, still a bit scared of Tommie (my other cat) but that'll be fine in a while.

-j.

Twitter

I just made a Twitter account.

For anyone that want's to follow me on there, or also have Twitter that want me to follow them or just talk, the link to my twitter is:

http://twitter.com/__xJoyce

-j.

On the search for..

These amazing 2g (6mm) earplugs that I have found on the internet:

I'm going to take a look at my favourite piercingshop tomorrow to see if they have these, or are able to order them because I can't get my PayPal account right and now I can't order them ):

Daaaaaaaaaaaah. Must. Have. Them.

-j.

1,2,3,4...

Uno, dos, tres, quatro!

And I'm back from Spain!
The weather was so nice, it was so sunny and warm, and now I'm back in Holland, it's cold and it rains...
But the vacation was great. We went to many little villages near our camping and visited a lot of markets. Which wasn't very good for my wallet :')

I'll give you guys an update soon, including photo's (:

-j.

Where soul meets body

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

-j.

Adventure

A not so dramatic forewarning: I'll be leaving on Sunday 19th for two and a half weeks!
Me, my boyfriend and his parents are leaving this little cold country for a two week vacation to Spain (:
So right now we are at his parents house to pack all the stuff, as since we leave by car.
And it's gonna be a two day drive to get to Spain, but then I can enjoy the sun and the beach for 14 days (:

So get at me for cute postcards and thoughts from Spain.

-j.

New orders made today

Today I ordered some new clothes at one of my favourite online asian fashion shops, loveloveclutch.nl!

So.. Here are some photo's of my buyings ^^

This cute black dress with a white bow:

This t-shirt:

This long sweater for in the evening when it gets colder (:

-j.

Summer holidays

First, sorry for not updating for so long!
The people with which we used to surf on with the internet probably have left so I don't have internet anymore back home.
But now I am at my in-laws residence and luckily they do have internet! So I'll give you a little update :)

Last week I've had an test week. I was really nervous about it but it went pretty good though :)
I scored a lot of 8's and 9's out of 10 so that's pretty nice :)

But the most important thing...
Two days ago my summer holidays started!
I'll be having an eight week (!) holiday this year, and we are planning to be leaving on 19 July to Spain for two weeks. I can't wait!

And as since I passed on to the next grade at school with really high marks I have bought myself an Ipod classic to celebrate :)
I also have new phone now, the Samsung Pixon because my supscription to my old phone ended.
It has an 8 megapixel camera on it and I love it! (L) :)

So now I'm entering my holidays real happy with a new phone, a new ipod and some sunny weather! :D


-j.

Old photo's Part I: Ticous

After spending some time on my fathers computer, I found some old photo's I've been missing out lately. So I thought I'd add them to my blog, before they'll get lost again.

This time, I'll be uploading the cutest photo's of Ticous :)

Ticous normally is a real timid cat, really scared of people. But when you're alone with her and she starts to trust you a little, she is a real sweet and playful cat :)

Ticous:

-j.

The Hague

Yesterday me and my boyfriend Marc went to Den Haag (The Hague) because I had to make photo's of the Peace Palace for a school project I have.

About the Peace Palace: This palace, a gift from the American, Andrew Carnegie. In this palace houses the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice and a splendid library. It is decorated with gifts donated by countries all over the world.

And there were a lot of Japanese people there!

After that, we wanted to go back home (or at least get back to Utrecht) but an accident had happened and the train had to go back to The Hague and stay there for a few more hours.

So we decided to get some food.

After a short walk we saw a group of people all standing there and taking pictures.
And as curious as we are, took a look too.
Guess who was visiting The Hague at the same moment we were...?

The Dalai Lama! He looked so old and wrinkled, but he waved us goodbye :)

After that, we decided to get some food at the Burger King and then move on to the train station checking if our train would be leaving again. It finally worked again, at least we thought.

The people couldn't attach the two trains together, so we had a delay of another 30 minutes.

But we did come home safe after all :)

The Peace Palace.
The sign in front says: "May Peace Prevail On Earth".

-j.

Steal this.. Project

In art history class we had to make groups and think of our own streetart project.
We could make graffity, print stickers or t-shirts and all that stuff.
So I formed a group with Stefan and Mark and we were thinking of all the thefts in big cities and so we came up with this idea:
We are going to print stickers and attach them on, for example, a brick wall. The sticker will say then "Steal this wall".
But we also want to make t-shirts which will say "Steal this shirt" and hand them out to people.

We came up with this idea beacause there are a lot of thefts and we want to make clear that stealing is useless by telling people to steal things you can't steal (like a brick wall, a building or a shirt someone's wearing).

Photo's of the designs will be uploaded soon :)

http://www.stealthis.tk is our website, it is in Dutch though :)

-j.

One hectic week

Last week has been a real hectic week...
After having a day off, my brother called me on monday telling me his girlfriend had given birth to their daughter!
We were all real excited and wanted to take a visit the next day.

On Tuesday my boyfriend Marc were rung by his father that his grandfather (Jaap) wasn't doing well, he was having a hard time breathing and his heartbeat was slowing down real fast. The nurses had told him that it was better if he'd call the family now.. So we went to the hospital in Almelo. Once we arrived at his room he was doing a little bit better, his breathing was stabilised.
Also, it was Jaaps 78th birthday that day..

When I called my dad to ask if he still wanted to visit my brother with us, he told me that it was already too late, because the nurses and taken away their daughter from them, because they thought my brother and his girlfriend weren't able to take of her!
My brother and his girlfriend were devastated.

On Wednesday we were rung again and so we spent another day in the Hospital, hoping that everything would turn out ok again.
We went back home around 23.30 and went to bed around 01.00, then at 03.10 we were rung by Marcs father that Jaap had died in his sleep a few minutes ago.
So we pulled on the first clothes we could find in the room and went to the hospital again for the last time.

So we cleaned the room in the hospital, took all of grandpa's clothes with us, and went back home to begin all the stress of taking care of his funeral.

Everyone was really tired and stressed that day because they have had no sleep at all, and everything had to be taken care off; the cards for the funeral had to be made, printed and send to family and friends before 19.00, the death notice had to be made and send to the newspaper the same day, the chest had to be chosen, the clothes had to be picked out and so on.
At 21.00 we went to the mortuary to see Jaap in his chest. It was beautiful and he looked so peaceful.

After seeing grandpa, we went back home to my father to also give him an invitation to the funeral. That evening he told us that my brother is going to concern a trial to get back his daughter.

On Friday a lady was coming by to take care of the funeral. She was writing down some stuff about Jaap, and she showed us all the songs and prayers that could be sung during the funeral, and we had to pick out some of them. It took so long, because there were so many things to read and so many things to choose from, but at the end we found stuff that really fits with grandpa so it would still be personal, and not a standard speech.

And today, after finally having a night to sleep, we went shopping for some formal clothes we could wear at the funeral.

The condolence will be on Monday at 17.00 - 18.00 and the funeral is being held on Tuesday morning at 10.30.Jaap at the all you can eat wok on his birthday last year.

Rest gently, Japie.

-j.

The day off story

Today was my day off and I spend it shopping with my boyfriend Marc in Enschede, a city in the Netherlands. And ofcourse we didn't come home empty handed!

First, I bought the most cutest shorts at the Britain,
Then I bought 2 Björn Borg mini shorts (boxers) at Hakans Budget Store for only €10,-!
And the best of all: I bought the book Eclipse from Stephenie Meyer!
It's the third book of the Twilight Saga and I can't wait to read it!

I also bought some slippers for Marc and at the end of the day we ate some fish :)

So, this was my update for today, how was yours?



-j.

Tomorrow

Is a day off!

Lieke just texted me asking if I knew why we didn't have school tomorrow, because our scedule didn't show any classes so I checked and... We are actually having a day off for no reason at all!
It's still completely strange because it is not a holiday or anything, and other students do have to go to school and follow classes from teachers we normally also have on monday...
Well.. It's a day off for me ^^

So, what should I do tomorrow?

I could go:
* Shopping.
* Get tanned on my balcony
* Buy the book 'Eclipse' from the Twilight saga and read it

Anyone more tips? ^^


-j.

Art history:

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-j.

Photoshoot with Rhojean

Yesterday my class was given an assignment to make some photo's of the fashion students with their designs. The student that was assigned to me, was Rhojean. She had made her own top.

The first photo is going to be exhibited in the restaurant of a museum in June.

-j.

Recipe 2: Double Chocolate Cupcakes

"Great for chocoholics - chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate icing topping."

Cook time:

12 - 15 min

Cooling time:

20 min

Ready in:

25 min

Original recipe yield 10 small cupcakes (fairy cakes).

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
25g/1oz Self-Raising Flour
25g/1oz Cocoa Powder
50g/2oz Caster Sugar
50g/2oz Margarine
1 Egg, beaten
For the Chocolate Icing:
100g/4oz Icing Sugar
2 teasp Cocoa Powder
approx 1 tbsp Water

Instructions:

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C or gas mark 5) and place 10 paper fairy cake cases evenly on a baking tray.

2. Place all the cupcake ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until well blended. The mixture should be soft enough to drop easily from the spoon when tapped.

3. Place a heaped teaspoon of cupcake mixture in each paper case and bake towards the top of the oven for 12-15 minutes, until the cupcakes are well-risen and firm to the touch.

4. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

5. Once cold, sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl, add the water and mix until smooth. The mixture should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon but not too runny.

6. Place a teaspoon of the chocolate icing on the top of each chocolate cupcake and smooth with the back of the spoon. Put aside to set for at least 20 minutes before serving.

-j.

Recipe 1: Sunshine S'more Cupcakes

"Easy cupcakes with graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate. The kids really love these."

Prep time:
30 Min
Cook time:
30 Min
Ready in:
1 Hr
Original recipe yield 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 (18.25 ounce) package French vanilla cake mix
2 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs
1 1/2 cups water
3 egg whites
24 milk chocolate candy kisses
1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 (7 ounce) jar marshmallow creme

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, 2 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs, water and egg whites. Beat for 2 minutes at high speed of an electric mixer.

3. Divide batter evenly among paper lined cups, filling about 2/3 full. Place a chocolate kiss in each cupcake, pressing in lightly. Spoon 1 teaspoon graham cracker crumbs onto each cupcake.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 18 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and top each cupcake with 1 teaspoon marshmallow creme. Dip spoon into hot water to prevent sticking. Return to oven for about 1 minute to melt slightly.

-j.

Un chat appelé Tommie

Here's a photo of my cat I made today. His name is Tommie and he's almost 8 years old now.

-j.

I met Darth Vader

He's a cool dude.

-j.

The King of Sweden

The king of Sweden came to Amsterdam for a visit.
And I was there to take photo's of him!
Which was quite a coincidence though.. I didn't knew he was visiting Amsterdam that day. I was visiting Amsterdam with school for an exhibition of Richard Avedon, and just was at the right place at the right time
You can click the images for a larger result.

-j.



When that limo arrived, there was this adrenaline rush running through my body like whoa!


Getting out of the car


Shaking hands


The limousine

Queen's Day deadly attack

During the Queen's Day activities on April 30th here in The Netherlands, the queen visited the people in the city Apeldoorn when she and her family got commited in a terrorist attack.

A car that drove straight through a crowd of people in Apeldoorn at the moment the royal family was passing by, did so deliberately. That was confirmed by the authorities at a press conference.
The drama cost the lives of seven members of the public, and a further 11 were injured, five of them severely. The attacker was cut out of the car wreck and died in hospital on Friday.

-j.

The naked skin

For a photography assignment at school we had to make a photo which showed the naked skin.
I found it a very interesting assignment, as I have always been fascinated by the naked human body and have always wanted to have a photoshoot with a naked model.
*Any folunteers? ^^*

A selfportrait.



Two classmates who are a couple.

I actually made this one like a half an hour before we had to send in the photo's.
It is made in an empty classroom at school, so no studio lights or what so ever. It sucked that there was such bad lightning, but it turned out ok, right? :)
At least my teacher didn't notice, and was proud of my using two models at the same time ^^

-j.

Bonjour a tous!

This is a new world and in it I'll be posting new art and new photos and new experiments and new experiences. I may tell stories, I may post recipes, I may post my life.


I guess the only thing you should be forewarned about is my excessive use of lines and circles, and my excessive consumption of tea, chocolate and cookies.
And pizza's.

-j.

Below is the end product of one of my first drawing assigments I had to make in my first year at my school of art where we had to make a drawing with a 'shadow'.

My drawing exists only out of shadows which is showing a person laying down.

I used a b6 pencil.