In between figuring out how to get our documents apostilled (short answer, throw lots of money at someone to take care of this for you), we’ve been reorganizing and repurposing what exists in our house. We’ve been working over the last few years to limit what we buy and think more carefully about where we buy from. When we worked through packing up our lives, we realized just how much stuff we accumulated over the years, even in a NYC apartment. It adds up, and some of it we barely or never even used! So when we moved to our new place, we reorganized everything to see what we’d use on a regular basis that was already here, and what we still needed. Some things you can’t repurpose, like a new plug for a European outlet. But others, we have been experimenting with to find new ways to use what’s existing.
One example is a scarf holder from ikea that we turned into a jewelry display for Diana’s things. It’s become a great reminder of the pieces to wear, but also show it off as an art alternative. The second example is a coffee maker. We love coffee (koffie - same pronunciation), and have become slightly particular on how to make it. In NYC we had a coffee grinder and a French press. Here, the place came equipped with a coffee pot, but we felt that wasted too many beans resulting in a less robust flavor. Our new solution: use a masher for the grinding into a pot, then boil them in water, and sit overnight in a tea kettle to help filter the grinds. It works for us!
Another project that has kept Martin busy is rebuilding a private server for us personally and for the business. We are trying to reduce our data footprint on big sites like google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc…which is hard! But Martin has developed our own server to share files, music, movies, all things digital, between all our devices using a raspberry pi and old harddrives.
These are the types of things that have kept us distracted while we await our documents. In order to do that, we’ve found out that each state has a different procedure and different loopholes to accomplish quickly acquiring the apostille versions of our birth certificates and marriage license. There are enterprises dedicated to these servers, and each country, of course, has its own needs. Thankfully the Netherlands doesn’t require any documents to be translated. The Florida paperwork was the quickest, with an online service to do it all. New York is still underway, but we found someone in the city who can quickly turn everything around, much faster than getting someone we know to do it in person. Ohio was the most challenging, with very few work arounds. We are still waiting for the forms that were sent from here to arrive in Ohio, get processed, and come back to the Netherlands, and hope the turnaround time is quick. It will be a true Christmas miracle if we get everything back before the New Year!
We are thankful to be doing this together, and have each other as a support system through this process!