Day maximum: 27,0 points
Day´s Bonuspoints used/saved: 25,5/1,5
Day´s excercise: 00 minutes
(REQUIRED 6) water/tea: 5
REQUIRED 3) vegetables:2
(REQUIRED 2) fruit: 2
(REQUIRED 2) fat: 2
(REQUIRED 2) calcium:2
Goal 4: 1st centennial - loose 100 lbs/45 kg
Long live Queen BeatrixToday is Queens day! We celebrate the duty and honor our queen pays us, thankful for her efforts, her excellence, her expertise, every second of her days. To many outside of our small but regal country, she is the face of the Netherlands, or Holland as many, even the Dutch, call it colloquially.
It is a public holday, when free enterprise with the margins of the law, allows all people to go out and enjoy themselves. It is a day where children and adults go out into the streets, enjoy the festivities, the food, the drinks, the sun if possible, and in general a day where we feel we are one nation, one people under the red, white and blue flag of our democracy.
Holland turns into one big flea market. Any one who wishes can sell anything legal in the street. It is endearing to see children seling their old toys and books. And surpriseing to see the creative ways people have devised to earn a euro. They play music, sell home made cookies, sell their old furniture, home knitted scarfs, patchwork, jewellery, trinkets and in general trash. But as they say one man's trash is another man's treasure. I still own and use a glass butterdish, which I bought some 14 years ago on queen's day, for 25 cents every day!
People look forward to Queen's day because it is a day off, but laso, and moreso because it is OUR day! Queens day is orinally the birthday of Queen Juliana. She was dubbed "the Mother if the Nation"; a warm, kind motherly type of queen. When her daughter, Princess Beatrix ascended the throne, she decreed that enceforth the 30 april was to be Queen's day, in cebration of her mother and the monarch of The Netherlands (regardless of the present queen's birthday). And so on the 0th April, every year...WE CELBRATE!
And so on the 30th april, ONE day before my 1 year annivesary of a new and healthy life I offer you a history lesson (borrowed from wikipedia) on The Netherlands.
Oh and as to why all of this is in orange?
It is the national color, as our kings and queens are decendants of the house of Orange.
and .........even Google pays homage to our Queen on Queen's day!
History lesson on The Netherlands
The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying and densely populated country. It is popularly known for its traditional windmills, tulips, cheese, clogs (wooden shoes), delftware and gouda pottery, for its bicycles, its dikes and surge barriers, and, on the other hand, traditional values and civil virtues such as its classic social tolerance. But primarily, the Netherlands is a modern, advanced and open society. An old parliamentary democracy, the country is more recently known for its rather liberal policies toward recreational drugs, prostitution, homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia. The Netherlands is also one of the most densely cabled countries in the world; its internet connection rate is 87.8%, the 2nd highest in the world.
The Netherlands has an international outlook; among other affiliations the country is a founding member of the European Union (EU), NATO, the OECD, and has signed the Kyoto protocol. Along with Belgium and Luxembourg, the Netherlands is one of three member nations of the Benelux economic union. The country is host to five international(ised) courts: the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. All of these courts (except the Special Tribunal for Lebanon), as well as the EU's criminal intelligence agency (Europol), are situated in The Hague, which has led to the city being referred to as "the world's legal capital."
A remarkable aspect of the Netherlands is its flatness. Hilly landscapes can be found only in the south-eastern tip of the country on the foothills of the Ardennes, the central part and where the glaciers pushed up several hilly ridges such as the Hondsrug in Drenthe, the stuwwallen (push moraines) near Arnhem and Nijmegen, Salland, Twente and the Utrechtse Heuvelrug.
The Kingdom of The Netherlands
In 1795 the last stadtholder William V of Orange fled to England. His son returned to the Netherlands in 1813 to become William I of the Netherlands, Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands. On March 16, 1815 the Sovereign Prince became King of the Netherlands.
In 1815 the Congress of Vienna formed the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, by expanding the Netherlands with Belgium in order to create a strong country on the northern border of France. In addition, William became hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The Congress of Vienna gave Luxembourg to William personally in exchange for his German possessions, Nassau-Dillenburg, Siegen, Hadamar and Diez.
Belgium rebelled and gained independence in 1830, while the personal union between Luxembourg and the Netherlands was severed in 1890, when King William III of the Netherlands died with no surviving male heirs. Ascendancy laws prevented his daughter Queen Wilhelmina from becoming the next Grand Duchess. Therefore the throne of Luxembourg passed over from the House of Orange-Nassau to the House of Nassau-Weilburg, another branch of the House of Nassau.
-grins- and so ends the History lesson!
As for my day it has started well. My favorite curd and fruit, getting ready for a day of fun and dutch national pride. I will report back, I promise! Oh..........-grins and adds quickly- I will do my darnest to stick to the healthy stuff! I will start by drinking a liter of water!
Breakfast T0tal weightloss 70,1 lbs
4,0 points
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3,0 - 500 gr. 0% curd
0,0 - pineapple and Mango
1,0 - 1 tbs dry oats
Lunch
0,0 points
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Diner
0,0 points
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Various
0,0 points
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Next Pandora charm at 92.6 lbs
