My 2010

It's pretty unbelievable that another year has passed! It's true what they say about time passing faster when you get older! Anyway, this is my yearly attempt at summarizing all that happened in that year...

Work
I actually still work for the same company as last year! After a few turbulent years I've finally found a steady work environment again. I'm learning a lot about HR Management, which is also part of my responsibilities. The workload is very heavy though and I really have to watch the work-life balance to avoid coming too close to a burn-out situation. It's a good thing I really like the job and the variety of responsibilities!

Love
We've been living together for almost a year now and so far so good! Our love is only getting stronger and I really do believe that I've found the love of my life!

Health
The biggest news here is probably the lasik eye surgery I've had in July 2010. I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it is to wake up and see! No more glasses, no more contact lenses... No more eye infections either, which is the reason why I could finally have the lasik surgery. They disappeared as sudden as they appeared almost 5 years ago! Good riddance!

House
Well, our house is for sale at the moment! One of the requirements of my current job is that I live within 30km of the office. Right now it's 89km, so time to move... Unfortunately the house market isn't very good and I already know that I'll have to sell the house at a loss. I am also struggling with leaving my current home town, as my entire social life is here and I don't find it very easy to start all over in a new place. On the other hand, it will be really nice to start a new home together and find something that pleases us both. But first we've got to sell this place... Will you keep your fingers crossed for us?

Cats
Tux & Roxy are both well. They had to get used to collars (?) this year with a magnet on it to open the cat flap. An unfortunate measure we had to take to stop other cats from coming into the house!

Dancing
We did it again, promoting to the next class within one year! We are now dancing in the one-but-highest class for our age group in The Netherlands. Progress is getting harder and slower, but we're definitely still growing. Our biggest challenge is to add more power and dynamics to our dancing, which is what we'll focus on for 2011. I also have a beautiful new dress and we've added an extra trainer who together with our regular trainer will help us progress even further. Another highlight of 2010 was of course the trip we won to Vienna where we had lessons from a top dance, Anastasia Stiglitz, to help improve our Viennese Waltz!

That pretty much sums up 2010 for me! I'm looking forward to what 2011 will bring us and will end this blog with my favourite new year wish:

May the best of 2010 be the worst of 2011!

Sniffles, coughs, dancing, and websites

That pretty much sums up last weekend for me... Both me and my boyfriend were not feeling well with a cold for him and a throat infection for me. One of my cats, Tux, joined us in the sick bay with an eye infection requiring 4-6 drops of anti-biotic in his eye every day for a week (have you ever tried giving eye drops to a cat? I could dedicate an entire blog entry to just that process!).

The 4-6 eye drops a day also meant that we had to rearrange our weekend plans a bit. In spite of not feeling well, we still went to the private dance class we had booked with our trainer, where we learned some cool, but difficult moves in the tango. My boyfriend has bought a video camera so that we can now tape the training and for example how we dance during a competition to review later. I'm glad we taped this training, as I'm bound to forget a few steps until we've practised it enough!

Saturday evening we had our first Christmas ball. Unfortunately it was so incredibly crowded that we couldn't really dance the way we normally do. But they had some interesting shows as well, so we still had a good time. Sunday was a family day, as my boyfriend's mother was celebrating her birthday with a family brunch. And of course we had our regular Sunday-evening dance class as well.

I also decided to build a new website (in Dutch), just to share our dance experiences with family, friends and other people who are interested. We have some big plans for our dance future, so stay tuned!

Cats and emotions

As some of you know, I share my life with two cats, and have been around cats for most of my life. Having lived so closely with them, it didn't surprise me at all when research found that cats actually do have emotions.

I have had a cat that grieved, truly grieved when her brother was hit by a car and died. She would just sit in the hallway, sighing, and wouldn't eat...

I'm convinced that cats can feel love. One of my current cats is especially skillful in expressing that, to the extent that it gets really annoying at times! This same cat also has a talent for showing when he's unhappy. He kinda lowers his whiskers and I swear that he knows how to lower the corners of his mouth to make him look even more upset.

Having shared my life with multiple cats at the same time, I've most definitely also seen jealousy, when one cat thought the other was getting too much attention.

Anger or fear I noticed recently when I tried to douse a cat-burglar (neighbor's cat who likes the food my cats have better and tries to visit us) with a bucket of water. The first time I tried dousing the cat with water I ended up bleeding to such an extent that I almost needed stitches. But the second and third time I won, and the cat ended up soaking wet... He still tries to visit, but as soon as he sees me he runs. Ha!

Below a picture of my current two sweeties when they were still kittens...