I've decided to do weekly posts about my life instead of waffling over what content I should create from scratch. Some of it will probably inspire other posts - in that case, cool. Otherwise this makes sure I have fresh content pretty consistently.

I'll try to include photos, because I do tend to take a lot and context is fun to provide.

If you're new to me, I posted a brief intro of who I am in the first part of my moving to the Netherlands series.

Yes the days of the week are in Dutch. Deal with it, I'm practicing. 😁

maandag

Travelled to Enschede today for a home viewing. Do I expect to get this place? Not really, the market is pretty aggressive. But I saw @frenck.social who was forced to chauffeur me around (thanks to his fiancée, not me, lol).

Hilariously I got on the train in the wrong class car without realizing it until my pass was checked. 😅

I toured Enschede a bit, was treated to ice cream and lunch, walked a defunct airfield/military base, and was introduced to what the Dutch call a mountain. 😂

dinsdag

Back to work after a long weekend. Since my department lead is back from her holiday, I got to bombard her with a ton of things to sort out. 😂

Realized I haven't taken my ADHD medication in like...several days. Whoops? Not that I've felt crazy from it just yet, but definitely shouldn't let that slip out of my blood stream.

WE ALSO GOT THE HOUSE???? 😳 I genuinely did not expect to land something a) in the city we actually wanted to reside and b) on my first viewing???? I'm also basically a neighbor to Franck now, absolutely laughing about this. I joked about living near him and now I'm 2km away. 🤣

Found out my tax situation should be sorted out soon, and that it will be retroactive once approved so I'll be getting back whatever extra taxes they have taken so far.

Plus I won the argument with my landlord for the "excessive damages" he was claiming - his lawyer stepped back all of his demands.

Today was a great day all around.

woensdag

Went to Den Bosch for a coworking event/BBQ at the Ecosystems department lead's home. It's become an annual thing for the Dutchies at the foundation during the summer - Marcel has a pool so it's a great location for hosting in the summer.

Got a much better photo with @joostlek.bsky.social than I have previous times we've hung out lol.

My husband and son got to meet a good portion of people I work with, which is great because they've heard a lot about them for over two years now.

As we were leaving Den Bosch the train ended up being 15 minutes late and had no AC. Instead of staying on it to Den Haag, we got off in Utrecht to ride another later train to our final destination. 😂

donderdag

Today I got started on the proposal to run an experiment with Roomy. Because of this, I kicked off open conversations with the active community members in the Home Assistant Discord server about the incoming experiment.

I'm really stoked about this, it means we get to help Roomy get the jump it needs.

Chris went to our first coffeeshop to pick up some edibles. Weed is so cheap here, wtf. 😂

Thanks to efforts from the @openhomefoundation.org (specifically our Android Developer, Timo), Google will now have to give Home Assistant wake word detection on Android devices due to a ruling on interoperability. This should allow us to make using Home Assistant on Android devices with voice SO MUCH BETTER. 👏🏻

I also published my second blog post, kicking off a series about moving to the Netherlands.

vrijdag

Did NOT want to wake up today, so I slept in. It's pretty weird to me still that I can sleep in and not lose precious time communicating with my colleagues. If I did this in the US, most of them would be well into their evening hours if I logged on at 10am Pacific Time.

Overall today was pretty chill, nothing special happened. For work I had to focus on some upcoming project stuff (boring) instead of upcoming project stuff (exciting). I'd much rather get the exciting one rolling. 😂

My husband bought a 1g weed brownie from a coffeeshop this week and surprised me with it and some ice cream. 🤩

zaterdag

Weed brownie gave me amazing sleep last night lol.

Husband went to the market in Den Haag today to see what its like and told me it's basically a panic attack waiting to happen. 😅

Another chill day as I try to list out what all we need for the new house. The little daily things you need aren't thought about until you lose access to them.

zondag

Final chill day to round out the weekend. Nothing spectacular happened, just some Overwatch and laundry.

I managed to actually fold and put away said finished laundry, too.

Did I go to sleep with some laundry still in the washer? Stay tuned for next week's blog for the continuation of the laundry saga...