It's been a while...

I've been on a long break from blogging. I guess everyone goes through a time of struggle every now and then, and I'm in such a phase right now. For some reason, blogging started to feel a bit like an obligation, and that didn't feel right. Taking this break helped me remind that I'm free to blog or not blog whenever I want to :-) 
I built in all these features, like Tattoo Love Tuesday, but the chances are that these will not return every week, but only when I feel like it..letting that go, gives me more freedom to express myself, depending on how I feel that day and is also a part of stepping away from that obligation-feeling.


Ok, on to some music! I would really love to share this totally AWESOME cover of Lykke Li's 'I follow rivers' by Belgian rockband Triggerfinger, played during a Dutch radio show. I actually think it's even better than the original and check out the cups and knife in this video :-)

Back again and new hairdo

I did it! Finally dreads in my hair! I'm oh so happy with them and I already love the process of seeing them mature :-)

I haven't changed anything about the layout of my blog yet, but this will happen somewhere in the upcoming weeks.

I've figured out why I want changes here; I'm actually quite spiritual and also very earthy, but this both comes up way too little in my blog posts. I've realized that it's so easy to just do what everybody does, but it takes a lot more to make my blog a place that really reflects pieces of myself.

Having said that, you'll understand that my blog will be more personal, but that's a good thing I guess :-)

Changes and thoughts

I realize that I've been kinda absent lately, but it all has to do with the fact that I want some changes here at my blog, but I'm not sure where to start..I want my blog to be more 'me', it's really hard to explain, but I hope you understand what I mean :-)

Next week will be a week of vacation for me, also a week off blogging. Time to gather inspiration, make new plans and then, hopefully, I'll be back with new, fresh ideas and a new and improved blog :-)

Have a great weekend and I'll be back soon!

 

You are what you eat

Ever heard of whole food? It seems to become more and more popular these days, but we have been eating whole food for years, so it's nothing special in our house really :-)
Whole foods are foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible, before being consumed. Whole foods typically do not contain added ingredients, such as salt, carbohydrates, or fat (I found this description on Wikipedia). It's also called 'clean eating'.
Diseases like cancer, diabetes or obesitas became more common, since everyone is eating too much processed food which contains too much sugar, fat, white flour, and  provides little or no nutritional value.

I don't know how supermarkets in other countries are arranged, but here in the Netherlands you can find most fresh foods or unprocessed foods in the outer line of the store and all processed foods are in the middle of the supermarket. Simply avoiding the middle rows in the supermarket helps a lot to not buy processed food, or, if you really need something in the middle part of the supermarket, then simply read the label!

I love the website http://www.damyhealth.com/, it has such wonderful recipes and so I thought it would be great to share one recipe here :-)

Raw lime mousse pie

Makes 1 8-inch Pie for Entertaining (Serves 8-12)
Crust Ingredients:

• 2 Cups Raw Cashews
• 1 Cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
• 1/2 Cup Pitted Dates
• 2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tbsp Lime Zest
• 2 Tbsp Lime Juice
• Dash of Salt
• 4 Packets of Stevia
• 2 Tbsp Agave (You can use maple syrup)

Mousse Ingredients:

• 4 Large Ripe Avocados (Pealed and Pitted)
• 1/2 Cup Lime Juice
• 1/4 Cup Lime Zest (You’ll need 6-8 limes for this entire recipe)
• 1/4 Cup Agave (or maple syrup)
• 2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• Dash of Salt
• 8 Packets of Stevia

Directions:

1. Place the crust ingredients in your food processor and blend until dough-like.
2. Spray your 8 inch spring form pan with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Using your hands press the dough evenly into the pan.
4. Place all mousse ingredients in your food processor and blend until smooth (stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides).
5. Pour mousse over-top of crust.
6. Chill in your refrigerator or freezer (depending on your desired texture) for at least 3 hours.
7. Cut and serve immediately.
8. Enjoy!

Do you eat clean too? And if not, what's keeping you from buying natural, unprocessed food?

Herb garden ideas

Herbs in the garden make me very happy, so I thought I'd share some fun ideas for placing herbs in the yard . One of my new projects for this Spring is to make a herb-spiral in the front yard like the last picture, because I think they look sooo pretty! Ofcourse I'll show pictures on my blog when it's done :-)

 

I'm slowly getting at where I want to be this month, and it's getting easier everyday actually. I've lost 5 pounds so far and besides feeling a little tired now and then, I'm doing just fine :-) It helps to set a goal like I did at the beginning of this month, when I said I wanted to come as close to 154 pounds as possible (from 165 pounds). That seems like a lot more achievable than thinking about going from 165 to 143 pounds!

Happy; Paula's back

Just wanted to share a quick note that I'm happy that one of my blog-friends, Paula from Owls and Ink, is back in blogworld again after taking an important break :-) She's such an awesome girl and I really love her blog! 

You probably already noticed today, but it's kind of impossible to blog everyday this week.. Friday my little girl will turn 8 years old, so I have some serious prep to do! Like, for example, clean my house because my hubby placed some windows in our attic last week and decided to saw the tiles INSIDE our house, which basically means that everything is covered in dust right now :-)

No worries, I love him anyway, but that wasn't the best idea, haha. I'll try to keep up with my blog, but I won't make any promises :-)
I'll be right back!

Almost creepy..

OMG, isn´t this weird??

Doubts..

Doubts can really control my life and sometimes it frustrates me so much! My hubby always says: "It's your egg, I'm not going to lay it for you", when I ask about his opinion on something that I should really decide on my own. I know he's so right, but still it seems I need someone elses thoughts to help me make up my mind...sigh...

Having dreads in my hair is such a typical example; I've been wanting these for years, I think dreads can be so pretty and when I look at these pictures above, I think all these persons have such awesome dreads. So, every now and then this thought comes up again..I start to browse the internet on information about dreads, looking at pictures to find out what kind of dreads I would want, sending e-mails to persons who can make dreads in my hair who live close to me, and then, in the end, I'm letting this thought go again, when I start to think about dandruff and itchiness...

Do you have this problem too? And if so, can you help me with a great advice? Pretty please??

Absence

This wasn't supposed to happen...I've just been on a short vacation and this week off duty was supposed to be filled with blog-posts and fun and new items... But then I woke up with a terrible sinusitis, and it lasted until yesterday, and then my son came home with a fever :-(
Anyways, I guess I'll just have to accept how the week developes and try to make it up to you guys with a really fun blog-post tomorrow! I'll be back!

I'm back!

Hi friends! I had a wonderful weekend with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and my own family ofcourse :-) My mom was so surprised, we made her very happy, she smiled all weekend long!

Texel is an amazing island, I always feel so relaxed when I come there. It was awesome to look at a frozen ocean, so surreal! I made some great pictures with my Canon, but still have to transfer those to my computer, so in the meantime I made a collage of pictures that we took with our phones :-)

Excercise!

I never thought I would say this one day, but I just started going to the gym this week! I always said that I hated the gym, but now I actually like it. It's not my intention to become super slim, but I stopped smoking 9 months ago and now I just want to get rid of all the extra weight that I gained because of stopping.
It's not that I'm overweight right now, but I already have been too heavy once and I really don't want to get back to that point again. One of the instructors at the gym made a schedule for me that fits my goals and now it's all up to me!
I'm very motivated, but still decided to search for some inspiration to keep me going :-)

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Are you excercising too and what are your goals? Are you also interested in eating healthy food like me? Are you going to the gym or do you excercise in another way?

OMG, this made me laugh so much :-)

I really needed to post this video, the first time I saw this I laughed so much, that poor man...:-) 

Just a quick note today, because I have all kinds of things to do, this morning me and my friend visited our allotment, just to see if everything's o.k. (It was freezing cold!!) Tonight my parents are coming over for diner, so I picked up some groceries and now I'm just doing the random chores for today.

So, just a regular day, but that's fine :-) What are you doing today?

Project; my little girl's room

Another one of my projects for this year is to make-over my little girl's bedroom :-) Last year we all moved to another bedroom and now she has her brother's old bedroom, which we didn't change yet, so it's not her style at all.. It has dark blue carpet and I painted a big dragon on one of the walls :-)

I'm starting to get an idea of what I want to make of her room and I'm collecting pictures and stuff to make a moodboard for inspiration, which is so much fun to do!

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New looks :-)

I've been busy making new images and buttons for my blog, so here it is; my new blog :-)
It still needs some editing, but I'm quite happy with the result. All images and buttons are my copyright, so please don't use them! Thanks!


Ofcourse, if you need help with your own blogdesign, I'll be happy to help you out, just shoot me an e-mail.
And now off to all random chores of the day, I'm going to clean the house, yay!

2012 Inspiration

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This week I have like 7 days of time to do whatever I want, whenever I want it (sort of..), but that doesn't mean that I don't have to plan anything. If I don't, my week of vacation will be filled with blur and this week will be over without having anything done. And that's not what I want.. So, first things first, I have to make a schedule for the upcoming week!

In the meantime, I thought I'ld share some inspiring words with you for the coming new year.

What are you doing this first week of 2012?

My goals for 2012

I've made a small list of goals for the next year, it's not much, but that's ok, then it will be more clarifying for me :-)

I'm looking forward to 2012! I have lots of fun things planned and it will involve a lot of blogging!!

I've also started a Facebook page and Pinterest (Check them out, follow me and/or become my friend :-)), so that's also a goal for the next year to work on that and keep those pages updated :-)

My main goal for the next year is my Etsy shop, but I'll keep you posted about that! Yay!

Do you have fun things planned for the next year? 

 

Christmassy creativity

I don´t know if this is something typically Dutch, but here the days before Christmas are spent making all kinds of pretty decorative things, such as ´kerststukjes´. If I translate this letterly, then it´s called a ´christmaspiece´ in English :-) It's basically like flower arranging, only then with pine branches, a candle, decorations like little stars or mushrooms and pine cones. The christmaspiece decorates the table at home and on christmas eve, we burn the candle.

My little girl had a lot of fun today, making 2 pretty Christmaspieces, first at school this morning and in the afternoon she invited a friend and the three of us went to a market hall and they made another Christmaspiece there. It was so much fun today!

What kind of decorations do you make for Christmas and what is tradition where you live?

Cakepops

I recently got a cakepopmaker as a present from my parents, so yesterday my little girl and I were busy making these yummy cakepops! Oh my gosh, it was so much fun to do! We melted some white chocolate to dip the cakepops in and decorated them with sprinkles. I tried to make the white chocolate pink, but that didn't work out well.. anyways, we had a blast and will definitely be making cakepops more often!

Falalalalaaaaa Lalalala :-)

I was basically too busy to think about the fact that it's almost christmas, but yesterday my mom visited us and said that she wanted to visit the big home and garden shop in my town, and asked if I wanted to come with her.

This shop always has a beautiful and enormous christmas setting and it was so much fun to walk with my mum through al the pretty lights and christmas decorations! They had a lot of nostalgic christmas stuff, which I love the most, so I spent way too much money, but I'm totally happy with all my new stuff and now I'm sooooo much in a christmassy mood, woohoo!

What I love the most, are my new mushroom-tree-decorations, look at the picture below, they're so cute!

Do you like christmas shopping as much as I do and what pretty things did you buy?