Love List

I read a lot of blogs on how to make myself happier. Recently I came across a good one:

The Freedom Experiment

Some of the articles on the Norsewoman's blog really appealed to me. She has gone through her own share of pain and her writing hits home.

One of her articles deal with how to get back passion and inspiration. This is a big one for me. For a long time I have felt empty. Not in the mood to do much of anything. And for me, creating was a perhaps not a big emotional outlet, but something I took pride in at the very least.

And at the top of the list I receive the advice of making a love list. So here goes. Without limiting myself, I will try to write down what I love, in no particular order of priority.

1. Eating out
2. Watching the sunrise and sunset
3. Being around animals
4. A clean, tidy, decluttered house
5. A hot bath
6. Scents: essential oils, perfume, incense, you name it.
7. My husband (being with him, talking to him, sex with him...)
8. Craft beers
9. Wine
10. Food
11. Nailing a recipe
12. Amending a recipe and nailing that
13. The cruelty free lifestyle: freerange meat/eggs, non animal tested cosmetics...
14. Birdsong
15. My bed: sleeping, reading...
16. Being engrossed in a book
17. Discovering something awesome: a film, tv show, book, website...
18. Being creative: drawing, crochet, origami...etc.
19. Getting recognised for something I did well.
20. Little luxuries: nice handcreme, lipbalms, etc.
21. Massages
22. Horse riding
23. A good night out
24. The fantasy genre (also, medieval etc.)
25. A good hike
26. Beautiful art
27. Language: English in particular.
28. Watching ballet
29. A good hair day
30. An awesome gig
31. Tasty tea
32. Coke Zero
33. Middle-Earth
34. Pre Christian Cultures, folklore, mythologies...
35. Nordic culture
36. Nature: the sea, the forest...
37. Friendship and family
38. The feeling after exercise
39. The feeling after meditation


So there is a few already. I will add more!

Insert Title Here

Once again I welcome myself back to my own blog. I am actually quite amazed I have mustered up the motivation to write. Because I don't have motivation for much nowadays. My funk has been long and deep so far and to be honest, I don't know when I see myself crawling out.

Obviously I want to. Everyone wants to be happy, right? But should happy be taking this much work? Exercise, meditate, force yourself to smile...I have heard and read many tips over the last year and I wonder...why am I not just happy? I have plenty to smile about, husband, cat, steadyandnothorrible job...
Anxiety is a big part of it. Last year I started a lot and gave up a lot in the space of a few months. And now it seems I cannot start anything without self doubt crashing down immediately.

I don't know, maybe one day I will wake up and it will all be different. That seems to have happened the last time...

I have kindasorta picked up a new hobby in the form of origami. Here are some of the models I folded in the last few weeks.

It is fun to do and it does take my mind off my issues. Of course I have started looking at other people's work and I get horribly jealous of their original designs and perfect execution thereof. But maybe one day?

One final side note: new Essence nailpolish. I decided my Yule colour this year will be green. So I got this:

Pretty, right?

Right, thanks for reading to those who do. Let's get on with it!

The locals

I like to indulge in animal photography when given the opportunity and wanted to share some pictures of some of the locals.

Back to Red

Hello readers!

For autumn I decided there are a few things I want to do. One of them being going back to having red hair. And because I did not want to ruin my hair any further, I decided to dye it with henna.

Here's a nice picture of my before hair, dark blonde with highlights.

I bought a few bags of skin quality henna from Amazon and latex gloves, concentrated lemon juice and cling film in the local Tesco. I used a mixture of 200 gr henna (2 bags) and 500 ml lemon juice. I left the mixture to sit in a glass bowl under clingfilm for about 24 hours before the long suffering hubs pasted it all onto my head. This is no easy task and I would definitely hate to do it alone. The stuff dries quickly and is very claylike, not as easy to apply as other hair dyes. Once it was all on I wrapped my head in clingfilm and put a bathing cap over it. I slept in that (somewhat poorly) and the next morning the rinsing process began. I read a tip to run a bath and just lie back in it, soaking your hair until the henna rinses out easily. I did that and it worked pretty well. 

The initial results were quite orangey, as predicted. But here is the result after a couple of days of oxidising. 

I am very happy with the results and will be repeating the process once necessary. Getting used to red again was remarkably easy ^^!

Quick cosmetics review

I bought a few new bits of makeup this week. I was looking for a nice autumn colour for my nails and a way to do my eyes a bit more smoky as I love my Lavera shadows, but they are a little light for when I go out in the evening.  So first up, Essence's new shade: Red Ahead. 

This is the photo from their website. 

This is my bottle and my (badly) painted index finger beside it. 

As you can see, the website photo makes the colour look a lot lighter and in my opinion, not as nice. To me it looks like a beautiful rouge noir and I must say it with an emphasis on the noir, it comes out very dark with just one coat. I have been very happy with the Essence nail polished. Their price/quality is amazing. I always use a base coat and as long as I am patient with my application, the colour stays on well.  

Now over to my new eyeshadow. This is the first time I bought something from Swedish brand IsaDora. I went for quad palette Muddy Nudes. Not the nicest name, but I do like these kinds of colours. I mainly wanted the taupe shade in the bottom right corner to use as a liner with my Lavera shadows. 

The photo from the website in all its glory. 

With this one, the photo from the website is very accurate. These are 3 nice matte shades. The only one with a hint of shimmer is the brownish shade in the bottom left. I used Urban Decay's Primer Potion under my makeup and their Deslick setting spray over it. I was quite happy with its staying power and colour payoff. It's not particularly dark, but that is not what I wanted. It's perfect for a hint of definition. I used the taupe from the lashline to the crease as well and that was nice too. It's a lovely little palette for travelling with I would think, or for just having in your bag for whenever you need it. 

Quick shot of the look. So basically Lavera's shadow in Golden Ivory all over the lid up to the brow bone. Then Lavera's shadow in Chocolate brown from lash line to crease. Then the taupe colour from above palette used as a liner. I used Lush's Eyes Right Mascara and you will recognise the nail polish as the one above. 

So, there's 2 products I would recommend trying out if it's your kind of thing! Both cruelty free of course, otherwise they wouldn't end up with me.

Thanks for reading!

Autumn Post

I just cannot seem to get into the habit of blogging frequently. Probably something to do with not having that much of a life to blog about. Or the opposite, being too busy to write!
Either way, I have both things to blog about and the time in which to do so on this Sunday morning. And what a morning it is too. Day of the Autumn equinox, it is very sunny and forecasted to reach 22 degrees Celsius.

So before I go outside and do the obligatory sun worshipping thing, here's a few updates.

Last weekend I had family over to visit from the Netherlands in the form of my father and my sister. Our main touristy trip out was to Inis Mor, biggest of the Aran Islands. They lie on the West coast of Ireland, so we found ourselves on the edge of Europe.

Here we are now, looking straight at America!

See how lucky we got with the weather? In the right light and setting, Ireland is barely distinguishable from the Mediterranean. Here's a pic of me at the charming Moycullen market (Friday afternoons from 12-6PM) to prove it!

You wouldn't say this was a photo of me buying olive oil in Ireland, would you? 

But I digress. Back to Inis Mor. The Aran Islands are home to the Aran jumper/sweater and for that it has a lot of places to buy wool. In the later part of the year I tend to get into knitting and crocheting and lately Merino wool had had my interest. I was most certainly not disappointed. I managed to purchase 3 balls in nice neutral colours in one shop and my husband dearest bought me a 2kg bag in the main wool shop in neutral creamy white! So I can crochet up a storm. My first project is a beanie hat for my sister for winter. I can't wait until it's finished, mainly because right now it looks like a crashed flying saucer and I'm curious as to how it will turn out....

Behold the WIP!

So that is a little update on what I have been up to. Meanwhile life goes on with work, horse riding lessons and figuring out things to do. I always get excited when Halloween is around the corner but the last 2 have left me so disappointed that I'm afraid of getting invested again. Maybe a small gathering. I'm sure it will end up here regardless.

Thanks for reading!

Funny animal pic dump.

Decided to grace my blog with some of the cute and funny animals I have recently encountered.

 Arwen, our own cat, looking thoroughly freaked XD

The local petshop has meerkats. Just for show, I believe, not for sale. They're awesome.