happy november!

trying to grasp the ungraspable fact that november is already here. seems like only last week i was melting in budapest. this year had really flown by. and what an amazing year at that!

thus i have every confidence november will be filled with awesomeness too, great and small - expectancy is such a lovely feeling, no matter age or time in life.

happy november one and all!

cats with a sense of entitlement

One of many things I'm grateful for having in my life is my bunch of pretty darn awesome cats. Even if their highly-developed sense of entitlement can drive you tad crazy at times.



But that's (mostly) alright because the sense of entitlement is partly genetic partly environment caused and I like the fact that I've bred them well and that this home is a place friendly and happy enough to cause that.



Now if their sense of entitlement could comprise emptying their own litter boxes too I'd be even more grateful actually. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.

eating in season

I really love the concept of eating in season, good for the environment, the health and the wallet, what's not to embrace?!

However one thing that has not worked so great this past awesome year of 2013 is my interest in cooking, I'm totally in a boring rut of about five dishes I "vary" myself with. And it's not as I eat crap food, there's always plenty of veggies a day, it's just not in very exciting dishes. I can't be bothered with cooking, I completely lack inspiration in the food department and I constantly find myself way over-hungry and then it has to be something quick and easy.

But I'm thinking that if I make a real effort in scouting just the special fruit and veggies of the season (though I will most likely cheat adding frozen ones too) I have to force myself to vary my cooking again. In theory it sounds like a great idea - it still remains to see if I can practice it too. Fingers crossed.

Carrots and courgettes are veggies I always have in the fridge, now there's a white cabbage there too. My repertoire has a new player, what will I make for dinner I wonder...

Are you good at eating in season?
Do you pretty much always have inspiration for a varied cooking?
And what are your favourite (vegetarian or vegan of course) dishes to make?

pink is in the details

My subconscious did the colour-matching again.
Birthday nails amazingly enough matched the shoe per diem boots
(which happened to be last year's birthday boots).
Silly little details like this is the icing on the cake.
Any day, not only birthdays actually.

The old fashioned pink polish is Essie Island hopping,
the silver on two nails is one of
the pretty bottles from the other day
(unfortunately lousy quality, despite top coat
it chipped and fell of completely after two days...).

the skeleton room

I reasonably regularly take advantage of different skincare and body treatments at beauty and massage schools in Stockholm, where there are pretty great discounts on treatments when the students practice their skills. Most of the time I've been very happy with the treatments (my favourite ones have been aromatherapy massage, medical pedicure and facials), a few times have been lousy -

for various reasons, like someone training to be a masseur refused to massage without wearing plastic gloves or that chiropodist to be who wasn't very interested in taking her time doing a good job with the pedicure. Not to mention a few guys training to be masseurs who actually stayed and chatted while I un-dressed and dressed. Seriously, I thought that was THE first thing you were taught in masseur school, to respect the privacy of clients. I suppose I should have complained, but I couldn't be bothered then. Now I would. -

Today, after a rather brutal session of zone therapy (I don't remember it being quite as painful in parts, maybe it's the age talking...) I caught a glimpse of this room. My immediate conclusion was;

oops, I guess this is what happens when the student treatments go terribly wrong.

So I suppose I shouldn't complain about lousiness above, as things could be so much worse. One could indeed end up in the skeleton room.

skin rescuer

still haven't found an all-year-round moisturizer that works for my skin. the aloe vera one from body shop that was lovely during the summer that was just isn't enough for my sad dry winter skin unfortunately.

and the classic kiehl's one doesn't do the pretty trick anymore either. probably an age thing, sigh. so i have high hopes for this one, skin rescuer from kiehl's too, which is supposedly good against redness too. fingers crossed.

also found out that kiehl's now has a recycle bottles in store-system in which you get bonus products. and even if one of course always recycles bottles and jars bonus or not, it is indeed nice to get a little sweet reward in life now and then.

what's your favourite facial product?

EDIT - during the hot summer of 2014 i found that this face cream is great for my skin actually. apparently it just isn't enough for my skin type during long, dry, cold winter months. but as a summer facial cream it gets lots of thumbs up!

love at first sight

Sometimes the unexpected happens, in a surprising place and at an unforeeseen time. Like finding your fellow pea in the same pod. As it did for wee Miffwinkle today, she met a li'l piggy and was immediately smitten (but did her best to remain calm) - wee piggy was (obviously) a tad bit more excited.

Not really sure if li'l piggy had a good life were we unexpectedly found him, hopefully this won't be the first and last time they met, Miffwinkle and Li'l Pig. I'm sure they'd have a wonderful, fun life together and accomplish great deeds complimenting eachothers strengths and weaknesses.

To be continued.

happy birthday to me ~

My wish for today is that it'll be exceptionally lovely
and dreamy in an unpretentious way.
Sunshine would be awesome and blue skies too,
cakes a plenty and my innermost wishes come true.



And for the year to come, my next chapter in life
to be filled with love, laughter, joy and kindness,
colours, creativity, magic and a dash of success
with a sprinkle of magic and serendipity too.

For that, Universe, I thank you so very much in advance ~

nailpolish eightlings

Just a silly and smile inducing little thing M picked up on a business trip - eight perky nailpolish beings. I feel very sorry for the bottle with a blank face though, poor thing.

words on creativity

One of my favourite talks from TEDxStockholm on Monday was that of Anna Linda Hultström who, after warming us all up with making us dance a bit and open up for flow, in an entertaining way talked about flow and creativity's important part in life.

Which of course I obviously totally get, but sadly still too many don't seem to.





I really enjoyed her slides. And who doesn't love a good and thoughtprovoking quote?