With the sun peeking shyly around the corner in Amsterdam, I can’t stop thinking about fast-forwarding this early days of spring and kick-starting the summer!

Well, ok. Mid-spring will do for now. Short skirts, tank tops, flowery dresses, summery shoes, my favourite leather jacket and of course, absolutely essential:  flashy sunglasses. But what will I  do with my specs that have been glued to my nose since September? No idea, but I’ll figure it out! Perhaps I’ll get used to my contacts again in no time…

For now I’ll just stick to daydreaming about lovely summer spots like in the picture. Just 167 days and I’ll be chilling in that chair on that exact same beach!

I’m a very dreamy person. And unfortunately, not always in a good, cheerful kinda way.  Last week I dreamt the coolest, most vivid dream about my dearest grandfather, who passed away five years ago. Waking up wasn’t exactly pleasant, as you might guess. Another night I was dreaming about riding on two bikes simultaneously. That alone was quite an adventure, but it turned into a mission impossible because I had to balance a parrot on my shoulder…

The same night there also was some crazy gal, who threw babies around in the streets. She was aiming at the trash cans! Again, in my dreams, but rather strange don’t you think? Not that long ago I was even tortured by not one but two nightmares, both in one night. I had a starring role in Stieg Larsson’s Milennium Trilogy. And I ended up in the middle of the ‘Panic Room’ episode. Not exactly the part you’d want to end up in, I can ensure you. It’s actually debatable whether you’d want to end up in any episode of Stieg Larsson’s story in real life is to be debated, but that’s another topic.

To cut a long story short; most often I want Mister Chifff to wake me up from my unpleasant dreams. Sometimes I’m even aware of the fact that I’m just having a bad dream and all I have to do is give him a sign to help me wake up. But you tell me: how can you warn someone who is sound asleep, when you’re sleeping yourself!?

Besides these above-mentioned scary dreams, there are some happy moments with oh-pleaaaase-don’t-tell-me-it’s-a-dream-dreams. Times when I have a huge smile on my face and even giggle out loud. Of joy, pure pleasure. Like my bounty beach dream. And in those cases, I’d strongly recommend: just let me be & do not, I repeat, do not wake me.

One of those dreams involved the most lovely shoes. By Proenza Schouler. I’ve absolutely adored these eye candies (see pic above) for some months now and last week they were mine. I remembered hearing the doorbell and when I opened the door, there he was. The postman, with a big red box tied up with a pink bow. And yes – he was certainly at the right address, this beautiful package was for me!  I couldn’t recall ordering anything but I just signed the receipt and hurried inside to open the box. And there they were: shiny, brand new, state of the art, gorgeous, wonderful, smelling like daisies (and that’s pretty strange, I don’t even know what daisies smell like!); my own Proenza Schouler sweethearts!

Within a nanosecond I had the beauties on and started parading around the house, like I was walking down the catwalk in a Victoria’s Secret show. Didn’t I look amazingly fierce with these high-heeled boots? I was disturbed while posing; the doorbell rang again. Who dared to interrupt my joyous moment? And why was no one at the door when I opened up? And why did the doorbell still ring!?

“Uhm, honey?” Someone was poking me… Okay, it turned into pushing. What the…  “Honey, why won’t you turn of your alarm clock?! It’s time to get up.” Grrrrrr. Bye bye, dearest Proenza Schouler shoes. Bye bye, sweet little dream…

PS My next dream has to be about winning the lottery, so I can buy my to-die-for boots. They’re on sale, so I only need a ‘meagre’ 1,100 dollars (instead of 1,364 dollars)!

Last Thursday night I was sound asleep and dreaming about laying on a bounty beach; a delicious raspberry mojito in one hand, a gossip magazine in the other hand, a very handsome lifeguard behind me waving a palm leaf to make sure the heat stayed bearable… I was just about to ask the lifeguard to rub my back with some sun screen when I heard a rustling noise. Like someone was browsing through a pile of magazines, trying to set a world record. I looked around but I couldn’t spot another creature on this bounty beach, besides the lifeguard and me.

This is really strange. The rustling noise keeps annoying me, let me just relax on this bounty beach, with my cutie guard! Uhm, I mean lifeguard! The noise stays and even though I try to fight it, I’m waking up from my marvellous dream and start to realise that the sound is coming from the corner of my bedroom. I have had some bad experiences in the past with tiny little but o so scary mice so I decide to wake my own cute lifeguard who’s sleeping next to me.

My own lifeguard isn’t really pleased (was he perhaps dreaming about his own bounty beach with Pammy A. in her red bathing suit?) but decides he has to be my lifesaver. He gets out of bed and tries to determine the exact coordinates of the rustling noise. Is it beneath the closet? Under a pile of old clothes I still have to get rid of (aka bring to the Salvation Army)?! Behind the laundry basket? No, nope and try again.

In the meantime the rustling sound is getting louder and my lifeguard invites two little hairy helpers to join him in his search. And yes, this was a great idea; the two little hairy helpers track down the bastard causing me to wake up from my pleasant dream. At this point my nerves are getting out of control. Why don’t we have our own high lifeguard chair in the bedroom? I could definitely use a safe hiding place…  And what or who is this creature that we are, okay, my lifeguard is hunting down!?

Well, it turns out: I don’t wanna know! My lifeguard asks politely if I can leave the room. So he and his little helpers can take care of business, without me uttering little screams all the time. Great cue, just what I needed; I’m ‘ Esmee Dentering’  Outta here! A few minutes and some hard knocks later my lifeguard starts walking up and down with a big bucket. What was in the bucket!? A freaking frog! Yup, I’m not kidding you… We had a freaking frog camping in our bedroom!!!!

As you can imagine; I didn’t get much sleep after this froggy adventure. How the hell did this frog end up in our bedroom? Did he escape from the fairy forest? Was it a Frog Prince waiting to be kissed? Brrr, in that case: he showed up at the wrong place! Luckily my lifeguard shared this thought and bought him a one way ticket to frog heaven…