Whirlwind

Some days it feels that if you were to open up my head, you would see a whirlwind of thoughts, ideas, plans and feelings, all combined with so much energy that they're about to spill out.  Can you picture it?
Well, today my head felt like that. It started last night when I was restless, couldn't really sleep and even kept Nolan up. He asked me what I was thinking of, and we talked about some of it. But the 'business' kept rumbling in my head.
I also felt a slight hint of the 'empty nest syndrome' today. This morning, Gijsbert and Anouk took off to go  Montreal and Quebec to spend the remainder of their vacation their. I was working at home since we were supposed to get a technician in to fix our treadmill, so the quietness was really obvious when I was sitting at the table and did not hear any other sounds, voices and other noises.
So what did this lead to? Even though it was frisk outside (wind chill of -20 with a strong wind), I decided to go for a run, also because our treadmill would not be fixed today. It was the best decision of the day! The trails were slightly covered in snow, and a bit slick, but slowing down did the trick and it was just plain gorgeous. During the run I felt a great sense of being alive, and even though my head was a bit cold, it really allowed me to calm down the whirlwind in my head. After my run I had a nice hot bath, and I almost feel reborn! My body is calm, my head is calm, and I feel good.

Ok, enough Zen talk :-)

As I said, Gijsbert and Anouk spent the last few days with us, which was really nice. We didn't really do any exiting things, we went for a walk in the Greenbelt on Saturday and went for a drive through the city on Sunday, but spent a lot of time together and caught up.  And of course, we celebrated 'Sinterklaas'! We all had some gifts for each other including the poems, and there was (and still is!) and abundance of pepernoten and chocolate letters! Needless to say we had a great time!

Now the countdown to Christmas has started, and it's coming closer at an incredibly fast pace! November feels like a blur, and December is going into a similar direction. Luckily we both get some time off for the holidays, so we can recharge our batteries. Until then, we keep plugging away at it!