A stoma is a hole (opening) made in the skin in front of your neck to allow you to breathe. The opening is made at the base of your neck. Through this hole air enters and leaves your windpipe (trachea) and lungs.
When I was working as a 9-1-1 dispatcher, we had special instructions we provided for patients with a stoma for CPR.
Wellllllllllllll, I will no longer think of "stoma" the same way! The term in Dutch means something totally different! The word for Grandmother is "Oma". Soooo, they combined "Step" and "Oma" and came up with the term "Stoma" for Step-Grandma! Aye!!! I'm going to stick with "Nonni" and/or "Oma", or "Grandma"!!! LOL!
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Last night we met my hairdresser, Carla, and her boyfriend, Teo, and a few of her other clients for dinner at the Kineda Restaurant. It's a teppanyaki/sushi restaurant. The food there was very tasty and fresh. I had a few different types of sushi, some nigiri and some of the teppanyaki (cooked on grill). The dinner was all you can eat and drink (wine, beer, tea and/or coffee) for €31.50 each. It was delicious! Carla had expected more people, but we ended up with a small group (7 of us). We had a very enjoyable evening. I would recommend going there on a week night, as it was very busy and the service was a little lacking.
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A few days ago we received a bill for our gas and electric. Throughout the year Eneco (the gas/electric company) had been taking €89 out of our bank account monthly for the bill. Previous to July, they were taking out €134 . We don't know why they lowered the price in the middle of the year. A few months ago they sent someone out to read the meters....and that is apparently why we received this bill. The bill states we owe €1,700!!! WHAT?!?!? And they are going to just take it out of our account at the end of the month. If we have any questions about the bill we can call.......at a charge to us of 10cents per minute!??!?! WHAT?!?!? We are at their mercy.......So, now the monthly charge will be €291 a month! This is for two people in a 1000 square foot house! We keep the heat set at around 20C (68 degrees Farenheit). We don't know how anyone could afford a larger house here.
The weather has turned cold again here.....so I am back to wearing my UGGS in the house! It's so drafty in the house, we have to dress in layers inside! (single paned windows).
The use of checks has been gone here for about 10 years from what we've heard. So, when you need to pay a bill you transfer it directly to the separate accounts. The security on our PIN cards seems to be ultrasafe. We can't even check the balance on our account on-line without the use of a PIN card reader and typing in access codes.
While going over our tax information with a consultant we found out that people here who have any more than €40,000 in the bank have to pay tax on it! Not tax on the interest made, tax on the full amount!!! I don't know what the percentage is.....but that certainly doesn't encourage people to save money.
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Andrew was telling me the other day that Dutch employees receive an extra paycheck once a year....an entire month's pay! This is for "vakantie" (vacation)!!! Europeans take their vacations seriously...being of the mind that it gives people time away and they go back to the job refreshed and ready to work. I like it! Andrew still works a lotttt of hours, but at least he is willing to take a week off now a couple of times a year, and a day or two off at a time here and there during the year.
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While I was in the States I mailed myself a package back to the Netherlands. I received the package on Friday.......with €56 TAX due!!! Luckily, I had cash (I usually don't have annnny!) and I was able to pay it. After looking over the shipping paperwork I figured out what happened. The woman at the UPS store had put the value of the bars of soap I mailed at $200, rather than $20!!! Grrrrrrrrr......That is some exxxxpensive soap!
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