Not sure if you noticed yet, but knitting is not a grandma thing anymore, a lot of people are talking about it. young people. and a few days ago walking around town I found this:
These were/are on the bridge at the corner of Spiegelgracht and Prinsengracht. They were my first Urban knitting find and I quite like this new trend :)
After seeing it I have to admit that I bought myself needles and wool to give knitting a shot!
x
Went to Stockholm to visit G since he was there for work. It was so cold, that remembering it makes me shiver, I wanted to take a lot of a pictures but didn’t because the choice between having cold hands or freezing hands was a tough one and I very often chose to keep them in my pocket.
The place is beautiful and I would love to go back there in summer time. here are a few of the pictures I took
{Metro wall on Gamla stan stop}
{Old public phone}
{Cold but colorful – Gamla stan}
{woolen garland}
{Center}
{Cafe on Skansen}
This cafe was our savior, we weren’t walking for a long time but in that temperature you don’t need long until your toes start freezing, there was nothing around but snow, trees and some closed cafes/restaurants on the way. I was very happy when we found this cafe and got to defrost and have a nice cup of coffee :)
This is the result of a girls night that ended up being a girls weekend…
{Cake pop}
{Shaped sweets}
{Valentine’s day cards}
We made those cute animal shaped sweets. The initial idea was that we would all make sheep because we only had the colors pink, black and cream, but something went wrong with everybody’s sheep, some looked too fat, some looked too round and we just worked with what we got and ended up having a huge variety of super cute little animals that we did not eat because they were too cute to be eaten!
About the Valentine’s day cards. I know, a tree is not very valentine-y but I guess that painting a tree is as good as painting pumpkins & sausages, a pan or turtles & foxes with hearts in it. I beat that if that tree had a heart in it the tree would be super duper valentine-y :)
There are a few standard things we do/take people to when they come over to visit and some of them are:
{Flower market}
{Bike ride}
{Go to this cafe that seats on a roof top}
{Utrecht, OK this is not a standard place we take visitors, but every time anyone from my family comes we go there}
The cool thing of having visitors and showing them pretty much the same things is that you get a different point of view from them and sometimes they bring something to your attention you haven’t even noticed before.
My sister, for instance, was amazed by this statue called standing stone, I have seen it a million times on my way home but because my sister liked it so much and thought it was so funny, now I like it too and it is as if she left a piece of her here, because every single time I pass in front of it I have to think of her :)
{Standing Stone}
{Carrot soup to be}
After all the crazy eating on Christmas, new years and a bit more after that with no festive reason, my sister and I decided to go on a detox diet for a week. If I was to list here all the things we couldn’t eat this post would become way too big, basically our diet was based on fruit, veggies, fish, water, silver rice, feta + goat’s cheese and nuts.
It wasn’t easy but also not as hard as it sounds, I have to say I felt pretty good and healthy. We came up with some pretty good soups and salads.
One of the salads, that became my sister’s favorite was the: Rucola, feta cheese, peaches, onions, mint and sugar snaps – delicious! in case you want to try, apart from chopping things and mixing it in a bowl with a bit of olive oil you cook the peaches and squeeze a bit of lime on them and add them hot to the salad. yummy!
It was great and I would do it again, but by the end of the week we could “eat a small child” as a friend of mine would say.
I stopped writing for a while because my sister and my cousin were here, but it’s time to get back into a writing routine again, which I am finding a bit hard (since all I seem to be doing is watching movies), but we just have got to do it. Well, I don’t have to, I want to, therefore i will – OK, enough of that.
This week I set myself to write about all we did during this silent time here on my blog, so stay tuned!
x Nati
* Image credits: John Hamil Photography
It’s been one week my sister went back home and a few weeks G left to Stockholm for work. Result:I have been completely alone for a week. I thought, with so much time in my hands, I would be able to do a few of the things I have been meaning to do and haven’t done because I didn’t have time.
well I have come to learn a few things….
So here I am, changing my nail polish, watching a movie, eating popcorn and thank God I will not burn dinner tonight because I will have dinner with friends :)
Who knows, maybe next week I will get round to do some of the things I had planned – I hope so, even though doing what I am doing is a lot of fun!
{Popcorn, my best friend at the moment}
* Picture credits = dutch houses by Blue jacaranda
These week is the last week I will have my sister and my cousin staying with me. and believe me it is impossible to blog when they are around, plus I can’t see them all the time so I should really dedicate my time to them instead.
Just thought I had to post something, otherwise people would get here and see a christmas post and think ” God this girl is late with her posts” or even worse ” I think she gave up” – I haven’t :)
So I hope you all have a nice week and I will leave you with a pic of the tulips I bought last weekend and kind of complaint that one of them was too short to go on the vase on the table so I had to give her a special place that now I just love looking at – not bad at all in the end :)
{Tulips}
{Special little one ;)}
NOTE: Because of technical problems this post didn’t go live yesterday :( , so please pretend today is the 6th :)
PS: Por causa de problemas técnicos esse post não foi publicado ontem :( , portanto finge que hoje é dia 6 :)
{Texto em português lá baixo}
Woke up this morning and looked at this two post cards I got a few weeks ago in a bar and thought, it is wise men day already! I need to get it done It’s my last chance to talk about Christmas here :)
{Three wise men/Três reis magos – Like the little Amsterdam houses in the background :) }
{ a sign??}
Yes, I know, I am quite late with this and it is already time to put Christmas decoration down but with the very hectic Christmas – New year’s schedule I forgive myself for taking so long to post about xmas and New year. hope you do too ;)
This Christmas I spent in England with G’s family and a little bit of my family as well. My sister and my cousin came to join us. It was really nice to see that everybody got along quite well and enjoyed each others company (at least that’s what they told me).
Apart from a-lot-of- presents we played games, ate a lot and on boxing night we went out fancy dressed, as it happens every year in Wigan – England. It was nice to show my sis and my cousin this tradition as well as how a English Christmas is and show them where G comes from. they are the first ones from my family to meet G’s family – special .
I don’t have many photos of Christmas because my sis took so many pics that I retired my camera over Christmas, relying on hers. the thing is, she is now in Berlin and all the photos are with her, so I will post the ones I’ve got here and hope for the best!
Actually, I’ve just realized I haven’t got Christmas pictures, but still the ones below are kind of Christmas related, right? – will post a few later on when my sis is back.
{Magazine bows being used}
{New magazine bow}
In the end I gave a second shot at making these bows and it looked way better than the first one. The first try ones got smashed, not sure how – maybe because I left them laying on the dinner table for a month. oops!. So I ended up using only one of the old and made a new one. both of them decorated 2 of G’s presents, he didn’t really seemed to notice it, should have used them to decorate one of the girls presents, girls notice this things more often.
Hope you had a nice Christmas!!
And Happy new year!! x
Português
Hoje de manhã eu acordei e dei de cara com esses dois cartões {1) tres reis magos e 2) let’s get it done – vamos terminar isso} acho que foi um sinal pra eu finalmente escrever sobre o natal aqui no meu blog!
Eu sei que já ta na hora de tirar as decorações de natal e ninguem mais ta falando sobre isso. até falar de ano novo é assunto antigo, imagina natal né. mas como hoje é o dia dos treis magos eu me permito a falar de natal :) e com a programação que a gente teve durante natal e ano novo eu me perdoo por não ter escrito muito aqui, espero que você tambem me perdoe ;)
Passamos o natal com a Familia do G e um pouquinho da minha familia tambem. a minha irmã e a minha prima vieram passar o natal e ano novo com a gente. Foi bem legal, e gostoso de ver que todo mundo se deu bem! (pelomenos é isso que eles me falaram)
Alem de receber e dar um monte de presentes, nós jogamos jogos, comemos muito e saimos fantasiados no dia 26 (que é feriado aqui). No dia 26 – Boxing day, o pessoal sai todo fantasiado de noite, indo de bar em bar em Wigan (Inglaterra) é bem elgal e foi legal de mostrar tudo isso para minha irmã e minha prima, elas são as primeiras da minha familia a conhecer os pais e o irmão do G – especial pra mim.
Eu não tenho muitas fotos do natal, minha irmã estava tirando tanta foto que eu aposentei a minha câmera, mas a minha irmã esta em Berlin agora e todas as fotos estão com ela, então vou postar as que eu tenho – que é quase zero – e ver no que dá :)
Antes do Natal eu fiz uns lacinhos de revista pra colocar nos meus presentes, no final eu só usei um porque os outros estavam amassados – talvez aconteceu isso porque eu dexei eles na mesa de jantar por um mês inteirinho! ops!. eu tentei fazer os laços denovo e a segunda tentativa ficou bem melhor! (eu fiz um só) eu usei eles pra colocar em dois presentes do G, mas ele nem notou…. devia ter colocado no presente das meninas, meninas notam esse tipo de coisa :)
Feliz natal atrasado! e Feliz ano novo!
Beijinhos
Nati
I have been thinking about ‘loving what you do’ recently and bumped into this picture yesterday. nice coincidence. It’s a cute, happy picture with a nice message.
“Permita que a beleza que amamos seja o que fazemos”
Ultimamente eu tenho pensado bastante em coisas relacionadas a ‘amar o seu trabalho’ e ontem eu encontrei essa foto num site. Muita conhecidência. Achei essa foto fofa e a mensagem muito legal.
Credits:
Image taken from The Wheatfield. (foto tirada da loja The Wheatfield )
