{Do you know Dutch DWEILEN for Mopping up Water?}

When we had the Flash Flood problems we were using 17 Dutch style DWEILEN for mopping up the ground water that came in our basement. Besides the two wet vacs that we ran all the time. What a job. I ended up ordering 6 more of these Dutch Witte Dweilen, from Michigan's VanderVeen's also called: The Dutch Store. Just click on both links and you also might want to get their Dutch Chocolate Letters in time for the holiday season.

From Albert Heijn

A 50 x 60 cm DWEIL in white cotton...

It is woven such that it has a high absorption of water.

The way I use this is with a squeegee that I place over the wet 'dweil'. This one is dry, just for demonstrating on our balcony.

Next you turn the 'dweil' over the squeegee  and now you can move over your tiles.

I do this with a wet 'dweil' then I rinse it out and wring it dry and go over the same spot again for drying it off.

Those cotton dweilen (plural for dweil) I throw into my Miele washer and they get laundered on 170°F for cleaning and disinfecting them for the next use. This is a very hygienic way of mopping floors.

{Writing a Thank-You-Note and Acknowledging a Parcel Received}

For sure most of you have received over the years some meaningful and touching Thank-You-Notes, hand written for a gift received, or for something else special.

Example of hand written thank you note on Cotton Crane & Co. Stationery...
In the front you see my Montblanc travel fountain pen.

LOOK: this beautiful Thank You note we received in the mail on Friday, October 4, following a dinner that we hosted for sweet friends. This is such an incredible thank you note, with a sweet personal touch...

Dear Friend Pam's Grandmother actually hand tatted these lovely thank you cards...
They are the most precious thing I've ever seen!
Such labor of love...

Even the back of the envelop showed a lovely tatted pink flower...
It got a bit smudged by handling in the mail but what a lovely presentation!
~♥~
Below is another example of ready printed thank-you notes, also in Cotton Crane Stationery

My husband Pieter receives the monthly Rotarian magazine; being a long time Rotary member himself.

In the September issue of 2013, there was a nice article about Writing Thank-You Notes...

Below post you can also read it in full screen mode.

Much obliged

Writing thank-you notes is hard. Too bad

By Paul Engleman

Expressing thanks is a fundamental social skill and should be a simple task..

The best way to do this is by a hand written note!

~♥~

We often have sent parcels from the USA to The Netherlands for family and friends and most of the time we never got even notified when they arrived...

Only after we called, following a long wait and worrying that maybe the parcel got lost... (God forbid) we got the statement: 'Oh yes, we received that a long time ago...' 

Except for brother Martin, who always right away picked up the phone and told us very excited: 'Wish you could have seen their faces...' when my niece and nephew unwrapped things that got delivered in the mail.

Is this only both of us, or are there more examples out there, where acknowledging a parcel/gift in the mail did never happen?

Whenever we ourselves received anything in the mail, we hastily grab the phone to let the generous sender know that things arrived in good order and that we're very pleased with them.

With Germany we do have excellent back and forth rapport but not so with The Netherlands.

However, some of my clients from The Netherlands did follow up and let me know they received my parcel. 

That too is very courteous and it is more the exception than the norm!

Some very touchy notes I received from happy customers, from Australia and from the UK also.

Is this culture related? Or are people's morals and standards lacking...?

Both of us have always followed our moral compass!

What are your thoughts on this subject?

~♥~

ISSUU - September 2013 vol2 by Rotary News India | On page 16 here you can find the same story from above - just click to open below. It will fully enlarge for easy reading. Just click Esc to exit full screen mode. 

{These Wasps Stung Me Near my Eye}

On September 7, when we finished putting our LPG Gas Tank on its new spot after I made photos, I liked to snap some shots from our white bird houses in the gazebo. On my previous post about Our Gazebo (see link below) I got some comments about our bird houses. So I thought why not show them up close...

Oh my; I was in for a surprise. When I pulled the drawer out with its heart shaped opening, I felt a sudden pain around my right eye. Turned out that wasps had built their nest inside... I dropped the drawer and went inside the house to put some Tea Tree Oil on the spot that was burning so bad. It was my right eye, my only good eye... Now I was tearing from the Tea Tree Oil but it sure helped to take out the burn. 

This photo I had still snapped right after being stung and when I'd dropped its drawer...

I did sit at my PC for uploading the LPG Gas Tank photos that I'd just shot, to check if they were okay.

Doing that, teary eyed and still hurting, I heard a FB comment come in and when I did check it was my sister-in-law, in The Netherlands, asking me what is a John Deere EZtrak. I'd written on FB to her that with all the underground springs in our garden it still causes a problem for Pieter on his John Deere EZtrak. He got stuck twice already.

With my swollen and teary eye, I did Google it for her and typed my reply, that it is a Zero-Turn Mower, with the note that she herself easily could have looked it up via Google.  

Wow; that was enough! So much for nice relatives that bug you at the wrong time...

I did give my eye some rest after that... It gave me quite a scare as I got stung three times; close to the corner of my eye, below the eye and to the side of my nose. 

This is almost an hour later, that's what was inside in the top part of the bird feeder. 

I went back to the gazebo for revenge, to spray them all to death. 

With the rains we had not been able to fill this particular feeder with some nuts inside that drawer. 

That's what our little birds usually snack on. 

They even occupied an adjacent birdhouse!

Those little bastards! 

How painful their sting is but they paid with their lives...

What a tiny waist those wasps have...

But still, what a venom comes from them!

Related links:
{Moving Our LPG Gas Tank} | previous post by me
{Our Gazebo with Chair Cushions} | previous post by me
{Our 'GREEN' Bedroom} | previous post by me and last photo is showing this bird feeder up close; last photos