First, I would like to thank you for visiting my website. Please call me Mari! I made this website to spread joy and inspiration. I like to do this through sharing photos of travel and animals, making mini games, posting cute drawings and occasionally sharing delicious food to inspire people to make delicious meals.
It means the world to me to think that people get a smile on their face from my work. ^_^
Find me:
Personal
I live in the Netherlands, together with my mom. I used to help out in the care for my dad, who has had a long history of illness since 2009. Unfortunately, he passed away on January 14th.
My mom was diagnosed with cancer in December 2021 and has had numerous health issues since my dad’s passing, with days where she couldn’t do anything but lie on the couch. I have been doing the cooking and cleaning for her since. I have hopes for the situation to improve, but at this time I am a fulltime caretaker for her.
Hobbies
There are three main hobbies that I would like to tell you a little bit more about:
Drawing
My main hobby is drawing. 2D art, 3D art, pixel art. I love experimenting and trying out new things. My main focus is ‘kawaii’, the Japanese word for ‘cute’. Kawaii means bright colors, happy faces, shiny eyes… in short, things that make you go ‘awww!’.
Tools of the Trade
- Monitor: Acer Gaming Monitor Nitro VGO Series 21.5″
- Screen Resolution: 1920×1080
- Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming
- Processor: AMD FX6300 AM3
- Graphics card: MSI GeForce GTX750Ti Gaming 2GB
- Memory: 16 GB
- Tablet: Huion Kamvas 13
- Phone: Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro
- Laptop: Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 82K200L5MH – Gaming Laptop – 15.6 Inch
Gaming
I don’t have a lot of time for games, but I love playing games. While short on time, I prefer games that allow me to go straight into action and quit at any time.
All-time favorites:
– Kirby Air Ride (GC)
– Wheel of Fortune (Wii)
– Jeopardy (Wii)
– Monopoly (Wii)
– Super Mario Kart 64 / 8 DX
– Plants vs Zombies (PC)
– Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, 3 (SNES)
– The Legend of Zelda: Adventure of Link (N64)
…Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask (N64)
…Twilight Princess (GC)
Splatoon (Wii U)
Super Mario Maker (Wii U, Switch)
Super Mario Kart (SNES, N64, GC, Switch)
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (Wii U)
Language Learning
I’ve always been interested in languages. I think it is genuinely fun and fulfulling to study a language, including my native language (Dutch). I speak Dutch and English on a native level, and I can understand a fair amount of German.
SwedishI have been learning Swedish since 2008 and I have quite a lot of vocabulary and understanding of the grammtical rules and all, but I will need a lot more practice to actually put my knowledge to use.
I am also interested in Norwegian and to a lesser extent, Danish, but these are not my focus.
JapaneseI developed an interest for Asia when I was a young teenager, the first country and language being Korean, South Korea. It all started with a book I rented from the library at probably the age of 13. I really wanted to learn Korean, but resources were scarce at that time. I searched far and wide, both on the internet as well as in book stores in my country, but was unable to find anything that could really help me study the language. Instead, I developed an interest in Japanese. As anime was becoming more and more popular, more people developed an interest and shared their language knowledge and resources, so I was able to study Japanese early on.
Other languagesI am also interested in Finnish and Indonesian. I will add Afrikaans and Serbian to this list if I find better resources.
Animals
I absolutely love animals, and my pets, two cats, mean everything to me.
Tommy is turning ten years old in July 31. He joined our family back in 2012, when he unexpectedly came running through the door. Just about 3 months old, he ran around the house, meowed and fell asleep on a mattress on the floor. Unfortunately we had to send him back out later, as he belonged to our neighbor. Lucky for us: Tommy was up for adoption! So we hurried over to our neighbor and took Tommy back to our home.
He is a cute red cat who loves sleeping during the day and going into the garden in the evening. Tommy is scared of most sounds.
Find Tommy:
Wholesome Tommy on Instagram
Ricky is feisty little princess, with a super cute face and a tiny body. Ricky is also very naughty, though. Originally purchased as a male kitten, she turned out to be a female. She’s adorable, which allows her to get away with many things. Her fur is soft, her eyes are like gemstones in the sunlight and her nose is innocently pink. She seems to stay quite small, despite turning two years old in June 13.
Find Tommy:
Ricky on Instagram