Weekly diary #25: I celebrated my anniversary

Hiii, great that you’re reading this weekly diary! This week I promise you a full weekly diary, no worries. The past week I visited Het Lokaal in Amersfoort, I bought secondhand clothing and I celebrated a 2-year anniversary with my boyfriend! Want to read along? Weekly diary #25.

Thursday

As I told you in the last weekly diary, I went away with my boyfriend to celebrate our 2nd anniversary together. It was great, I love trips like these. You can be in your own bubble for a while. We went to Oisterwijk yesterday, a place in the Netherlands. We slept at Landgoed De Rosep. I can really recommend it, it’s a beautiful location. We biked there from the station using lended bikes. We had dinner there, there was a lovely spa we used, breakfast and a bottle of Champagne during our stay. For the spa they also gave us a bathing gown and slippers. The bathing gown could be returned after use but the slippers couldn’t. And so I didn’t use them, I used my socks. The dinner was 100% vegan for me and it was sooooo delicious. This was quite a fancy restaurant and the room was fancy too. Today we left early after breakfast for a day in Nijmegen. During breakfast I tried to use the products in glass and paper and I avoided the plastic. Once in Nijmegen we had coffee and vegan chocolate milk at Quetzal. A great place for vegan chocolate milk! They have a lot of flavors. During the shopping I bought a secondhand skirt at Appel & Ei for 15 euros. I fitted around 20 items I would guess and I bought only this one. They had so many great things but I’m critical. I have to be aware that I keep a minimal wardrobe. I needed a skirt since the one I had got too big for me and so I got rid of it (in a responsible way of course). While I was paying the cashier already packed the skirt in paper while I wasn’t watching, shit. In another store I also bought a skinny jeans for 2 euros. I had been searching for it for so long that I almost gave it up, but I found one in the Reshare Store. For lunch we went to Bagels & Beans where I tried the vegan ‘cream cheese’ tomato bagel. I loved it! My juice was without a straw too! Later that day I also ordered some fries without mayonnaise but I got it anyhow at another place. They also served a lot of plastic there.

Friday

After the past two days in utopia with my boyfriend I am hoping to win the jackpot so that I can do this all the time. However, I don’t compete in the lottery and so I had to work today to earn money haha. I worked from 7AM till 5PM. After work I made a good pasta for myself with soy-cream, it was the first time I tried it. I made pasta with onion, spinach, soya-cream and tomatoes, hmmm. All vegan and quite easy!

Saturday

Same story as yesterday, work from 7 AM till 5PM. And like every Saturday the last few months I haven’t done much afterwards. However, I did watch some new videos from The Messy Minimalist, I love her channel. I like the videos where she cleans up her house most. I also got rid of some things today again, you can see them below on the picture. On left a body lotion which I never use. The other day my hands were quite dry and so I used it again. My hand itched enormously and so this is going away. On the right you see the lid of my bronzer, it broke. I am currently looking for another bronzer for when this one is empty. In the middle a box of cotton buds. It took me ages to finish it since I only use them when I mess up my make-up. Now that I finished it the box is going away and I’m not getting new ones. Oh! And good news. Lidl now has vegan pizza’s. It’s temporarily but I’m so excited. They sold out really soon but mom did manage to buy two. It was a great pizza!

Sunday

And here it is everybody: the news you have been waiting for: I won a handball game! YES! We won for the first time and it was one big party. We needed this. At night I watched a movie, the Wolf of Wall Street. Quite a fun movie but I don’t like watching movies on tv. I’d rather watch Netflix since you don’t have that many commercials there.

Monday

It’s starting again today: school. At 13:00 and so I could at sleep till a normal time. I feel like I’m still on schedule and so I feel good about school. School can be very exhausting sometimes but I see it as challenging myself. I have an interview with a stranger for school soon. That’s one of these things where I challenge myself. I am dragged out of my nice comfort zone. Today we also had a guest lecture. Someone from the catering company from our school, explaining about their news steps towards a sustainable concept. Also, I wore my ‘new’ skirt to school today. I realized that I hadn’t looked at the label yet and wow, this is pig leather. I feel like a hypocrite. But still, it is secondhand and so I’m not involved in the demand for pig leather (and I don’t want to since I’m vegan). I just try to use the thing that’s already there for as long as possible. So right now I feel at peace with this purchase. Next time I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe I’m sending a message right now, that wearing leather is okay. I don’t want to send out that message. I don’t know yet. That night my boyfriend came over and we ate at Happy Italy. They say the purchase local ingredients and they have vegan options. Then we watched some episode of Narcos. It’s a great series we’re watching together.

Tuesday

I got up way too late today and so I had to buy some food on my way. I bought a sandwich in plastic at Albert Heijn. It happens sometimes. I have decided to take all my trash home from now on so that I can recycle it there. At school they don’t recycle. When I cycled home from school today I saw all these sad Christmas trees lying on the side of the streets. I like Christmas, but treating Christmas trees as something disposable is something I don’t like. All these trees are grown for just two weeks of use, such a waste of resources! After use they end up dead on the streets. Did you know that the brand RUIK makes perfume from the Christmas tree on the Dam in Amsterdam? And did you know that you can also adopt a Christmas tree? Then you can give it back to Adopteer een Kerstboom after Christmas, they plant is somewhere and the next Christmas you can pick it back up. Christmas trees are not supposed to be disposable.

Wednesday

Today no school, but we visited a company. Het Lokaal in Amersfoort for the course Good Food. I liked it so much that I want to write a separate blogpost about it soon. What I can share is that I bought a zero waste sour dough bread in my reusable bag. For lunch I made a sandwich with vegan mayonnaise, radishes and mushrooms. This might seem like a crazy combination but I am trying to eat more local. These vegetables are from the Netherlands in this month and so I am eating those. I will see how it goes, I don’t tink I can give up avocados haha. Eating local is one of the best things to reduce your food impact. That night I also watched a documentary about eating local and I’ll share that soon too!

Yours sincerely,
Romee