Born on the 29th of August, 1983 under the name of Marlijne Rosaliene Stek.
Marlijne is a fun-loving, caring, young woman and I'm not just saying that because I'm her husband! I've come to know her as the perfect wife to a geek: she has a wicked sense of humour, is intelligent, is strong willed and she has patience with my silly, geeky tendencies.
Marli's biggest hobbies all revolve around Harry Potter, Inu Yasha, Twilight: books, movies, toys and fan fiction. Seriously, she devours fan-fic! And she's actually the first person I've met who is holding out on reading the final part of Harry Potter, since it may spoil the fan-fic for her ^_^
When we'd just met, she was a typical teenaged girl with typical hobbies. It would seem that I've perverted her (read the first comic) to follow some geeky pursuits of her own! And to think that it all started out with one carefully placed Inu Yasha manga!
Unfortunately for her, Marli's never had much of a direction when it comes to work. There's all kinds of stuff that she's interested in, but there's not something that makes her go "Yes!". It's hard to pick a job or education when you don't really know what you'd like. Luckily she has found an awesome amount of inspiration in motherhood.
| 1998 - 2002 | Studied Sociaal Cultureel Werk in Leiden. |
| 2002 - 2003 | Various jobs, including home care through Stichting Fokus. |
| 2004 - 2005 | Freshman year of Bedrijfskundige informatica at the HU in Utrecht. |
| 2005 - 2006 | Freshman year of Sociaal Cultureel Werk at the HU in Utrecht. |
| 2006 - 2007 | Saleswoman at Ulla Popken. |
| 2007 - 2008 | Customer representative at the dutch railways. |
| 2008 - today | Stay-at-home mother to our daughter. |
When I started this website I'd been seeing Marlijne for about a year. We'd met in the summer of 2000 and were in a relationship from the get-go. There was no dating and no dancing around each other for months on end, like moths drawn to a flame.
The first few years we spent together at her parents' houses and cooped up in my bedroom. Finally we moved in together in fall of 2003. We ended up renting that appartment in Nieuwegein for a little over two years. Then, in winter of 2005 we bought our very first home: an appartment in Utrecht, five minutes away from the town's center.
| 1983 | Was born on the 29th of August. |
| 1998 | Visited an SCA event with her father. Caught Thomas' eye at the time. |
| 1998 - 2002 | Studied social sciences at ID College in Leiden. |
| 2000 | I met Marlijne at an archery event in Wijk Bij Duurstede. |
| 2002 | We move in together, renting an apartment above a supermarket in Nieuwegein. |
| 2002 | We lost Marlijne's father Henk to cancer. |
| 2004 | We got married in May on a lovely sunny (yet very windy) day. |
| 2004 - 2006 | Tries her hand at college in Utrecht. Quits after two years. |
| 2005 | We bought our first house, an apartment in Utrecht. |
| 2008 | We are surprised to find that we're pregnant and our daughter Dana is born. |
| 2009 | We sell our flat and buy a real house in Almere. |
You know? I really ought to sit down with her to fill that list a little more. ^_^
The nickname actually consists of two parts. The -chan bit is quite easily explained: it's a Japanese suffix for endearment. You tag it to the back of someone's name if they are either younger than you, lower in rank, or very friendly. The Marli part started out in Finland. We had a hard time explaining the pronunciation of her real name to my geriatric grandmother, so "Marli" was a lot easier.
Since then I started using this shortened name to refer to Marlijne on my website. She thought it was cute and started using it as well. And since then it's stuck! Even some of our friends have started calling her by that name :)
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