Time to stock up the kitchen!

Yesterday Andrew worked from home. He has a cold and didn't want to go in and get everyone else sick. I took the time during the day to straighten up some things around the house. I also went for a walk downtown Haarlem. Oh my, I had forgotten what it's like to live in the cold. Since I am walking everywhere, rather than jumping in a car, I have to get all bundled up just to walk out the door! I have to make sure I grab a bag or two in case I go shopping, so I don't have to purchase them.

In the early evening I made dinner and afterwards we made another trip over to IKEA. We bought a cute little cabinet for the bathroom (which we started putting together last night), a soup pot, a little butcher block rolling cabinet for the kitchen, and other household items.

This morning Andrew headed out to work and I started cleaning!  I cut up a few boxes and put them in bags in front of the house for the garbage collectors.  Then I vacuumed the house. The stairs are so steep I feel like a mountain goat as I climb up and down them.  Vacuuming them was quite a challenge!  Let me tell you, I seriously think about it when I have to go up or down those stairs.....is that trip reallllllly necessary?!?!   Today, I decided to take a nap and hopefully catch up from the jet lag that still seemed to have a grip on me. I slept for two hours, and now I feel so much better!

Picture of stairs from bottom looking up:

Picture of stairs from top looking down:

The washing machine in the house is very small. So, I have been doing 2-3 loads of laundry a day since I arrived.  After the 1st load today the screen on the machine was blinking"F7". The owner's manual (luckily it's in English) said a repair person has to be called out for that.  Andrew happened to be on-line later so we IM'ed via Skype. I told him what happened and he suggested turning it off and turning it on again. Oh yeah!  It reset the machine. Then I told him I couldn't open the door, he said "jiggle it"!  Oh yeah! That worked too...so we're back in business!

The plan for dinner was that I was going to make potato leek or butternut squash soup.  Andrew bought me an immersible blender the other day that would be perfect. I walked over to the Albert Heijn store and bought all my supplies for potato leek (no butternut squash at that store), trekked it home and got ready to cook the soup in my new pot!  Guess what?!?!?!  No chicken stock!  I am so used to having the kitchen stocked full of the basics that I didn't even think about it. Now, it's dark and colder, so I don't feel like walking the several blocks to go get the chicken stock, so I'll have to make something else!

This is what I decided to make for dinner (chicken sausage and vegetables, along with an added squash):

Tomorrow is a new day, I can walk to the store (again) to get a few basics for the kitchen!