January loves

I'm a little sad that january is over already. The first month of 2012 was a good one for me overall, and I will kind of miss it. Is that silly?

Anyway. Milkshakes and fireworks and poetry and green tea are perpetual favourites of mine, but in addition to that, each month has it's own little highlights. Here are my January loves:

Steampunk inspired jewellery
Imagine a cameo brooch combined with an old clockwork, or a locket adorned with cogwheels. I would love to try my hand at this, but finding supplies might be a hassle... I adore the estethics of it, though.

The moomin books
You do know those, don't you? They never fail to inspire me creatively.

Essential oils 
I go trough periods with these, but this month I've been loving aromatherapy.

Eliza Doolittle
Pack up, Rollerblades and Skinny genes have basically made up the soundtrack to my life this month.

Creative writing
October was a wire crafting month for me, November was a crocheting month, December was a card-making month, and January has most definitely been a writing month. I got inspired by a picture of a lighthouse a couple of weeks ago and somehow it grew into this huge story, which I write mainly to entertain myself on study breaks. It's a little addicting - I cannot wait to see what my characters will do next...


Farewell, January. Welcome, February. Please treat us all well.

Lush loves

I'm still feeling a bit low, and I'm really longing for a hot, fragrant bath today. More specifically, I'm longing for a Lush bath. However, my tiny studio apartment doesn't have a bath tub (shocker...), and my university town doesn't have a Lush store, so, well, no Lush bath for me.

In an attempt to cheer myself up, I will now write a blog post purely about Lush. Consider yourselves warned: Few (materialistic) things get me as excited as good bath products.

My top ten Lush favourites:

1. Cinders, spicy christmas bath bomb
2. Yuzu and cocoa bubbleroon, mandarin and cocoa butter bubble bar
3. Miranda, kiwi soap
4. Whoosh, lime shower jelly
5. Business time, spicy lavender massage bar
6. Butterball, cocoa butter bath bomb
7. Lady Catrina, agave and lime soap
8. Strawberry feels forever, strawberry massage bar
9. Happy Hippy, grapefruit shower gel
10. Karma, orange-pine-patchouli solid perfume


Basically, these are all my favourites because of their absolutely gorgeous scents. Lush is quite expensive if you're on a student budget, but just entering the fragrant store is such a lovely experience that whenever I go to the capital, the very first thing I do is pop into the Lush store and stroll around for a while just smelling things.

On my next visit, I'd like to pick up a bath melt of some kind (to use in the family bath tub back in my home town), along with a Butterball and a Fizzbanger or a Mrs. Whippy, some bubble bars and a Strawberry feels forever massage bar. (My Business time is at the end of it's life, and nothing makes my legs as smooth as these massage bars!) The really problematic thing about living so far away from a Lush store is that when I actually do go there, I kind of feel like it's okay to splurge a little...

Sadly, I'm not thrilled about the Lush soaps. Their scents tend to not linger on my skin, and I don't find them moisturizing in the slightest. Still, I am quite fond of Miranda, Candy Cane and Lady Catrina, since they smell so nice, but I would only ever use them on my hands.

There. Time to get back to studying. Please, do share your bath-related favourites, and give me ideas on new Lush products to try!

November love

How absurd - the last day of November is here. October felt like it went on and on forever (albeit in a good way), but November just whizzed past. A quick look in my planner tells me I've had quite a few tests and presentations, more lectures than usual and several church related activities along with a couple of visits from friends this month. Over all, it's been a good one, although I haven't got nearly enough things done. (Then again, I feel like I'm always saying that... Not good at all.) Tomorrow, I'll be starting my December off with a bang by taking my final Italian test. Madonna mia... I feel like we need an inspirational, uplifting picture here:

(This one will do.)

November favourites:

Mint chocolate milkshakes. 
I'm getting into a habit of bringing my laptop to my favourite café in order to escape the distractions of my apartment. (So far, it seems to be working.) I usually get there too late in the afternoon to be able to order coffee (as it would keep me up all night if I did), and they happen to serve the most fantastic mint chocolate milkshakes on the planet. Plus drinking it makes me feel very 50's American. I quite like that feeling.

Painted nails. 
Just painted nails in general - nothing makes me feel so instantly polished (no pun intended) and put together as a good manicure, preferably in bright red, ink blue, lavender or burgundy. Right now I'm wearing my vampiest, most Marilyn Monroe-esque red, so that I'll at least have something nice to look at while I'm trying to conjugate irregular Italian verbs tomorrow...

Academia.
Aside from struggling with my language classes, I've been quite into the rest of my studies and the whole university thing this month. I've recieved surprising support regarding my work, I've done some research of my own, I've picked up a couple of lovely thesis related books, and I'm just generally feeling good about that part of my life right now.

Christmas card making
Er, yeah. Some people go out dancing on friday nights, I make christmas cards. Several november evenings have been spent with a friend who's just as much into arts and crafts as I am, covering my floor with paper, glitter, old magazines, sequins and everything you could possibly need to make christmas cards. I do feel slightly ridiculous looking at the giant pile of cards stacked on my desk, but we did have heaps of fun making them.

Not that exciting, huh? I'd love for a month to come when my favourites are things like "going for spontaneous roadtrips with the windows down", "skinny dipping at midnight with new friends", "getting a poem published in a super pretentious anthology about the power of nothingness" etc... But, alas - it's too cold for skinny dipping, I don't have a car, and my poems really aren't that good. (They are very pretentious though. Brownie points?)

We just wanna make the world dance

I got up unusually early today (I normally have fridays off and sleep in) for a meeting with my professor, but he cancelled - which means I now have a whole long lovely friday all to myself! Considering that I've been out of town for four weekends in a row it will be so, so nice to not go anywhere this weekend.

My Big Friday Plans:
-have an early lunch
-bring text books to café, study
-write overly pretentious poetry while people-watching in said café
-draw something colourful while watching inspiring movie of choice
-make birthday card for dear brother
-sing along to Price Tag, Pack Up and other happy tunes

(I really, really liked the original 90210. I kind of still do.)

This week has been slightly packed - since I got back on monday, I've been working non-stop with thesis stuff and an art presentation. My Italian and French classes also take up way too much time, but they're fun in equal measure, so it's been worth it. The problem is, I never seem to have the time to just sit down and read for fun, or even read thesis-related texts, as I'm so busy producing text myself or learning grammar. This is probably why I find myself getting all excited at the prospect of emerging myself in books on postmodern theory and narrative method... Which is exactly what I'll do today.

Whishing you all a lovely friday!

Oktober love

I had a surprisingly lovely weekend, going back home to attend a celebration with the whole clan. My relatives rarely gather, but when we do, there's singing. A lot of it. And it's kind of awesome.

Anyway, October is over. That month was a whirlwind of doing things and going places, and for most part, I loved every minute. Of course, if I could relive the past 30 days I'd enjoy them even more, because I wouldn't allow myself to worry so much about every task and every trip - but it's still been the best month in quite a while.

 

My October favourites list looks like this:

-Green tea. It's basically the only tea I drink these days. Once I got used to the green kind (that is, once it stopped tasting like hay!) black tea simply started tasting too bitter and sharp for my liking. I do love non-flavoured green tea, but my favourite flavours are vanilla, cranberry and orange blossom.

-cardigans from the men's section. I recently bought a dark green one, and I've been living in it ever since.

-stormy weather. Few things make me as happy as a really windy day! (I feel like I can say this, since where I live, we haven't yet had any storms of the dangerous kind.)

-blue-tinted nail polish. I normally prefer my nails non-sparkly, but recently I mixed together an old silver polish and an ink-coloured one that I had a dupe of, and ended up with a lovely dusty metallic blue. 

-Unexpected coffee-breaks. This one is quite obvious, but there's nothing like running into a friend on campus and deciding to head for a spontaneous coffee to brighten my day.

 

This picture describes my university town perfectly - over the course of a weekend, all the gorgeous leaves disappeared. Just like that. And thank goodness for daylight savings - my mornings were getting unbearably dark. 

Still, I'm embracing November - this month with its foggy dawns and early twilights brings a very specific kind of calm and tranquility, and I intend to fill my days with lots of studying, arts and crafts and painting. October was hectic but wonderful, and here's to an even better November for all of us!

September love

I would quote one of my favourite Bon Jovi songs, it's pretty cold for late September... But that would be blatantly lying. We had 22 degrees celcius in my town today! For us, that's about as normal as a snowstorm in July. I've been sitting in my favourite park next to the art museum all afternoon, reading and taking photos. Lovely.

So, September is wrapping up. For years now, I've been making these lists in my diary, here's this month's:


Favourites of the month 

-old-school aerobics classes (my gym is very retro and kind of dodgy, and I love it!)
-jojoba oil (Has done wonders for my skin this month)
-my new blue teapot (Need I say more?)
-Jean Paul Gaultier: Classique (My favourite perfume of all time)
-dark red nailpolish (Suitably vampire-y and autumn-y)
-homemade facials with tea leaves and honey (Better than any store-bought face masks)
-wire craft (You know, making candle holders and bowls out of wire? I love it)
-my new fringe (Best. Decision. Ever.)

I've been reading a lot more books than usual this month. Favourites have been One day (I'm really looking forward to the movie), The Lessons och La dame aux camelias. I've also been buying cheap but ornate picture frames and made random collages to put in them. 

(I do admit that both the reading and the collage-making have diverted my attention from my thesis work more than they should... I'll do better in October, I swear!)


 My favourite discovery this month has to be the Yale lecture series that I randomly found on Youtube. Yes, apparently Yale University posts a handful of their lectures online. You probably have to be slightly nerdy to appreciate this, but I was over the moon! So these last weeks, in the evenings, while cooking or drawing, I've been attending Yale lectures on gender studies and American literature... Kind of amazing.


All in all, September has been a fairly good month, even though it started out stressful and chaotic. To me, October is usually less stressful and more cheerful - it is my birthday month, after all! I'm planning to spend this weekend making carrot cake, celebrating with various friends, visiting the art museum and hopefully get some studying done as well.

Much love!

Tiro avanti

Life goes on. That's one of the truely wonderful things about life - you can wallow all you want, but life goes on, and at one point it's going to drag you along with it, weather you like it or not.
 

(I do like it.)

Finally, we had our first real autumn day in my university town: The trees and bushes outside my window are starting to turn orange, and the air has a crisp, smoky, almost wintery note to it. Since September has been unusually warm so far, I'm perfectly okay with this - the winters here are certainly very harsh and long, but I'm still always looking forward to the change of seasons.

The change from early autumn to late autumn is for me also marked by my birthday - I'll be 25 in a week. And just like I'm looking forward to winter every year, I'm also still looking forward to my birthday. I don't like throwing parties for myself, but I do like to have that one day a year when I'm allowed to feel like it's all about me. That's what birthdays are all about, really: Simply celebrating the fact that you exist.

Because it truly is worth celebrating.

I'll be celebrating by cutting a fringe, buying the perfect shade of red nail polish and baking toffee-filled raspberry cupcakes. Sounds mature enough.

My birthday whishes this year:

The perfect red lipstick (I've found the perfect shade for my nails, but not for my lips)
A fragrance locket (because I love perfume and the idea is totally romantic)
Juggling balls (I learned to juggle when I was 18, and I really want to take it up again)
A new scent (I'm thinking a cheaper perfume, perhaps a Bodyshop one)
Metal wire (I'm really into wire craft and I'm constantly running out of material)
A negligee (I really want something silky and sort of boudoirish... Which seems to be hard to find in reasonably priced stores, since everything is either hot pink, leopard or flannel)
New skincare (because I seem to be running out of everything right now)


And of course I'd love to get flowers. And flowery things. And flowery pieces of clothing. My year-long obsession with flowerprints shows no sign of fading yet, even though I should probably be looking at knits and wintery things instead... Oh well.

I wish you all a sweet sunday!