Ellen In Amerika!

Happy Thanksgiving and more, 23 November 2011

Ellen — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 05:07:33 +0000

It has been a while since I blogged, but today I felt I wanted to write again. It might also have to do with my “new” and so much faster computer (Dan’s old one, he has a Mac now ). I hope you are all doing fine and to my American friends/readers: Have a great ”Thank You Giving Day”. I can say for sure, I am so thankful for so many things that have been and is currently going on in my life. My life here in The United States of America with Dan is so much more than my already high expectations anticipated. Being part of this country, despite how chaotic and messed up Congress is doing, I love it here. My work in the hospital and with the special need children is for me still a miracle. That I have two wonderful jobs with nice colleagues, makes me feel blessed and very, very thankful. Also, my children and their partners are doing so well, and the contact with my Dutch and American families and friends is more than I could ask for. So what are you thankful for?

Today it is also the birthday of my oldest son Niels. Last year we were in the Netherlands, and we were able to be with him on this special day. I’ve been thinking about him the whole day and how it all began, 29 years ago: Motherhood! :-)

Since I arrived in the USA, we worked at so called writing tables. Comfortably large but not really economic. So last week, we ordered two new desks, and yesterday they arrived. How quickly do you forget how much work it is to assemble furniture. And how heavy the parts are. So, after 2 times 4 hours, we had two beautiful large desks together with lots of space to put away our folders etc, nice!!

Tomorrow we will have a nice breakfast and an early dinner because I have to work at 5 PM at the hospital. One of my colleagues is going to the sale opening at midnight (Black Friday). I do hope she is not going to be squeezed by all the other shoppers. My, you will not see in the stores on Friday, it will be a mess and way too crowded for me.

See you next time!

EAT LOTS OF SWEET POTATOES

Ellen — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 06:24:19 +0000

It’s been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish… All before making a human. He made and provided what we’d need before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw. We’re such slow learners…

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye… And YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocados, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female – they look just like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries.

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like the body’s cells. Today’s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Almost 3 years! 24 July 2011

Ellen — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 03:57:46 +0000

Again it has been a very long time since I wrote here. I do not know why, but I am not so inspired lately. When I started to blog, I did it to share my life here with my family in the Netherlands and keep them updated with my new life here in the States. After about a year, I decided to write in English, mainly because some of my American family in law were reading this post and surprisingly, also people from around the world who did the effort to read my posts through Google translate. It has been a joy to discover that I had readers with whom I am staying in contact and who became my blog buddies.

Most of my family and friends back in Holland are now so adjusted to the idea I live on the other side of the world, it is not that exciting anymore to read about my daily life, and with most of them I am in close contact (email, phone) anyway. I have to admit, I like to write. I always had that. At school I had great grades for essays. (My mom said I had lots of imagination.) I am not saying that I will stop writing this blog, but I have the feeling it becomes less interesting to write about my daily life for the outside world. I am still very, very excited that I live in this great country with the best husband ever. I feel a part of this country. When we were celebrating the 4th of July at the College campus with thousands of Americans, I felt secretly I was one of them. I sang the National Anthem loud and did the Pledge of Allegiance as well. So what is going on now, makes me immensely sad; that the two political parties here can make such a mess and refuse to do their job! Disgusting!! Sorry…… I had to say that…..

Anyway, things are going very well here. Last weekend we had 5 members of my family in law visiting here, and it was a blast. I got to know them a bit during our family reunion, and now we were able to intensify our new family bond. We went to Santa Barbara and visited the mission, the pier and we went shopping. Three Teenage girls and two moms shopping…poor dads :-)

So for now I say goodbye!

Family reunion in the Smokey Mountains, 05 July 2011

Ellen — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:48:29 +0000

We are back from a great vacation in the Smokey Mountains with Dan’s family, now also my family It has been a wonderful time. We had so much fun and nice talks. We did adventurous activities and we relaxed a lot. One of the activities was Zip lining. This was by far the most adventurous activity I have done in at least 25 years. In the early morning we drove up to the Zip line facility. There they put you in harnesses and helmets. They explained the rules and then they drove us in open army trucks up the mountain to the first platform. I was pretty scared by the heights of the platform and the length of the cable you had to go down to the next platform. But it was great! It was so thrilling to zip down the cable through the mountains and seeing all the trees underneath you. Here is one of the pictures in their brochure, it was really like the picture.

Below an impression of our vacation. The zip line pictures will come later. If the slide show goes too fast, you can click on middle pause button, then you can control the slideshow by clicking on the right forward arrow.

Father’s Day: Hiking and barbecue, 20 June 2011

Ellen — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 05:32:12 +0000

What a nice weekend we had. Saturday morning we went to the gym, and we had a great workout. After coming home, I took a shower and made a quick lunch. At 2.30 PM Dan took me to work. My shift went fine. Not overly busy, but still enough to do to not become bored. Dan picked me up at 11.30 PM, and we watched a recorded movie, Taken with Liam Neeson and Famke Janssen (a Dutch actress!). We already had seen this one years ago, but it was still good to see it again. Unfortunately I fell asleep after 20 minutes of watching, so we went to bed.

Sunday morning, Ryan and I gave Dan his Father’s Day presents and cards, and I made his favorite breakfast: Pancakes! After talking with one of my sisters on the phone and Dan working for Ruysdeal Design, we went to Wildwood Park in Thousand Oaks. This park has several trails and we decided to do the Paradise Waterfall trail. We have done this trail several times, but every time it is so beautiful. We had not been hiking for some time, but we were up and walking as if it was yesterday! Here is a slide show with some of the pictures we took. The last one shows a picture of a rattlesnake, a huge one. It was pretty scary at one point because the snake locked eyes with Dan and he was recoiling. Then we thought it would be wise to move on When you click the forward button under the slideshow, you can pace the slideshow manually.

Around 4.30 PM we were home again, and Dan started the barbecue. I cleaned the corn on the cobs and made baked potatoes. We had again a great dinner with all kinds of little side dishes.

In the evening we watched the rest of the movie Taken, and now I managed to stay awake till the end. I really can recommend this movie.