Giving up coffee

This is not the kind of things I would normally share on my blog but I couldn't help it. It popped up on my Facebook wall today and it just made me smile. I have been following Akward Yeti for some time now, and Heart, Brain and Stomach are among my favorite characters. I hope this comic brightens this cold spring day for you too...

Giving up coffee...I mean really...:)

(Source)

Bare necessities: sunglasses

I don't own many designer items. Most of my clothes, accessories and household items come from high street or second hand shops and they serve me just fine. But I am also willing to spend a little (or a lot) more on good quality designer items - when buying something I want to keep for long time and I know I will get a lot use out of. My sunglasses are from Ralph Lauren. I bought them in a duty free shop about 8 or 9 years ago and they did cost me a quite lot more than the sunglasses I owned before. But the investment paid off. Because I am so clumsy I dropped them a hundred times over the years but unlike the cheaper sunglasses I had before they stayed intact and without scratches. And I do get a lot of use out of them. My eyes can be a bit sensitive, so I wear sunglasses all year round, in summer and in winter, in the town and in the country, when sunbathing and when skiing...they are just one of those items I carry in my handbag or suitcase whenever I go. 

Happy Easter!

I hope your Easter weekend is as sunny and warm as mine...

Saturday espresso

Every Saturday I go to farmers market and on my way home I stop for a cup of coffee in a small coffee shop on the corner. Although it is still a bit chilly today, I decided to sit outside. The sky was overcast so I sat there wrapped up in a winter jacket and hut, drinking my first al fresco espresso of the year. 

The way I drink espresso is quite peculiar. I take the first sip of the hot coffee pure, to savor the strong, bitter taste. Then I add some sugar - little bit goes a long way, and take another sip. After that there is usually only a little bit of coffee left in the small cup, so I add some milk. The beverage becomes more of a sweet milk with faint coffee taste. A coffee purists would be  utterly outraged at this I imagine :) Well, you can not please everybody, so you may as well please yourself, right?

DIY - updating a table lamp

Here is what you need:

A simple Ikea lamp,

plastic stick-on lace (or regular lace and a glue),

scissors, and about 10 minutes of your time.

Stick (or glue) the lace along the upper inside edge of the lamp shade. If you like more playful and fancy design , continue along the bottom edge. 

Wait until it gets dark outside and turn the lamp on. Tadaaa!

Not a fan of this design? Try something different: painting on the lamp shade, decorating the outside with a ribbon or anything else that comes to your mind...And when you do, let me know how it looks :)

Dear Winter...

... where do I begin? We've had some really good times together. Mainly when I was younger. But then I realized that every year I look forward to your arrival less and less. And you have to admit, that you are no longer committed to this relationship too. You used to make more effort before. You used to be exciting, beautiful and white, but lately all this has been missing. I think, that you don't want to be here either. So, although it's not nice of me to tell you this, I want you to leave. It will be better for both of us.

Sincerely,

Me

A little bit of baking

The last couple of weeks have been...challenging. I was feeling tired, uncomfortable, generally not right. The cold and grey days didn't improve my mood either. Even the food didn't taste right. But this week at least my appetite, if nothing else, took a turn for the better :) To celebrate this I decided to bake some coconut bread.To be honest, I am not sure where the idea came from. I wasn't even sure if such kind of cake existed. I had to turn to internet to find some recipe, and I found this. I can confirm that the final product is a real treat for coconut lovers, sweet, moist and full of coconut flavor. Perfect with a cup of coffee while waiting for the cold weather to go away and for spring to finally start. I am so ready for spring - how about you?

Bare neccesities: Bread

Just like some people say they couldn't live without chocolate or meat, I couldn't imagine my diet without carbohydrates, more precisely, without bread. A staple food throughout Europe, it comes in many different shapes and sizes: French baguettes, Italian ciabatta, German rye bread... But for me the real bread is the sourdough loaf with a thick crust and soft, but firm middle, typical for Slovakia, Czech Republic and a handful of other European countries. Bread itself is plain and simple, but it can upgrade so many other kinds of food to a higher level.  What would a bowl of tomato soup be without a slice of fresh bread to eat it with? Or a hot-dog without a bun? What can improve chocolate spread more than a piece of sweet raisin bread? As the  Slovak poet Milan Rufus said in one of his poems: Bread is a reward. 

DIY diary

The year has begun and I've realized that this year I am going to need a diary. I didn't have one last year, or the year before, but it seems that this year will be pretty busy. The choice of diaries in the stationary store was huge, in fact so huge, that I could not decide which one to pick. So, in the end I decided to fish out my DIY box and craft my own. I used a small notice book, some washi tapes to distinguish between months, rubber stamp, so I don't have to write all the dates by hand, and stickers, to mark those special days and occasions.

And here is the final product, wrapped in some pretty fabric. I am happy to report that it is already filling up with some exciting memos and appointments :)

Snow at last

It started snowing this afternoon: at first, the random snowflake fell here and there, just when I was leaving the house, and by the time I reached the train station, the footpaths were sprinkled with a layer of snow. And when I arrived in the town the streets were already completely white.

Now, to those who work in the airline industry, snow mostly means delays, cancellations and trouble getting home. But I am not working this week, so I can really enjoy the first snow of this year, or, in fact, the first real snow of this winter.