My room {An update and DIY!}

I'm just in between my early lunch (muesli. Sorry. It's one of those days) and getting my laundry up as well as heading to university right after that. Phew. Thursdays are my productive days...and my math days (which kind of gives every Thursday an underlining threat....but I'm determined to not give up!).
And because I haven't really figured out a way to organise all of my upcoming food posts, we'll go with a little update from my room first (and seriously, I had that planned for two weeks now, so it might just be the time for that as well!)
Well, that was yesterday. Today I'm all sore and beaten up from my martial arts training (but it sure is fun!!) and just about to start with my Portuguese. (After I cleaned up the room and the kitchen. AND! had the first coffee with my extraordinary amazing coffee machine!!!)

And because I know you're all just as stoked about that as I am...here is even a little video about it! Ha!
(This can also be found on my instagram account)

And now, look at this beauty of a first coffee (and that cute anthropology mug!!! Still in love with it)!

Ok. Now since we have cleared that, I actually have something else to talk about.
As promised my room would change quite a bit after my first update all the way back when I moved in here.
So now, even though they are still going to be smaller changes, I feel pretty confident that this is "my" room for the next time. And because I'm such a nice person (over enthusiastic cough) I'm not just going to share my coffee with you, but also this little room update ;) (careful photo overload!):

The general "first" impression

Lots and lots of greens...but the amount is probably only cause by my knowledge that in two month...only half of it will still be there. My and my so not green thumb. Sight.

I printed some of the prints from my pinterest board (this one) in exchange for some of the picture, which got removed. I really like this one! (Link) 

The inspiration for that "stick lamp" comes from the "COUCH" magazine (which I love!) If you would write a tutorial for it, it would pretty much be: Grab a stick from the woods, carry it home, wrap your lamp around it. And you're done!!!! (well, the really weird part is carrying those sticks out of the wood and home. You should have seen the stares I got. Haha, well I guess I don't mind breaking up their daily boring routine a bit ;) )

BUT, I also used the "stick method" to create a holder for my mirror! Remember how I mentioned that my wall is solid concrete? Well, it turned out that the self-adhesive hooks I bought couldn't really handle what I wanted them to handle, and since I still don't own or am capable of using (though that might be up to discussion) a power drill, I needed to find a different solution.
For the stick-mirror: Simply drill two holes into your sticks (at the height of where you want to hang your mirror). Insert two hooks (one for each stick). And now, (my mirror has a wire strand at its back, if you don't have one, apply one) and hang the mirror on! They'll lean pretty stable by themselves on your wall, though I'm sure you'll be able to somehow come up with an idea how to make that even more secure (...in case you can drill holes and hooks into your wall that is. I'm fine with what I have now ;) ).

I like F's....friends, family, food, France, fun, favourite, fearless....

It feels more and more like home. And with that I'm off to learn more Portuguese words and head into an amazing weekend afterwards, seeing one of my best best best best friends for the first time after my move. Yay! ;D

Time {and my more or, right now, less greater management with it}

With so much going on recently (not just recent recent, but just recently in general) I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my priorities, wishes and goals.

When you're an open minded and interested person, you'll might have come across the problem that the day actually only has 24 hours, there are 'only' 7 days a week and also, ones strength knows its boundaries. And lately I have come across all those limits quite often. So what to do. 

Just to sum, it up (we'll pretend I'm doing that for you, and not to get my cuddled mind organised) this is what I've been working on/ doing lately:

1. Biggest and most important: I started university! And while a lot of people I know, seem to have quite an easy going life during courses, I somehow can't see the end of work I'm supposed to do right now. And we're only in the first couple of weeks. (But that might have something to do with what I chose to study).
2. Secondly, I've been "working" on a lot of bucket list points recently. Those take time, but also make me extremely happy. I'm currently tackling:

• Learn a martial art,
• learn Portuguese,
• try out yoga and
• perfect (well, rather develop) my cooking skills (though that only feels like a half point)

     3.  I also have a little blog update/project I'm working on (which is quite time consuming...hence it 

          only gets done in really small baby steps. But were slowly getting there).

     4.  And there are a few more, but also more private, smaller projects going on besides all this (Oh less

          private so eventually interesting for you: The 30 day plank challenge!!! This is the link and you can

          see my progress at the top left side. So proud! Do it people!!).

I'm also trying to focus a bit more on a healthier life style and another one of my 2013-goals is to improve me general level of fitness. Yay for making the most of your time. Which, actually brings me back to my current problem. Time. 

And here's what I want to do about it.

It's actually quite simple. Along with all the thinking, a lot of thinking-about-myself /redefining my values has happened recently, and I'm embarrassed to admit, but I could do so much better on my time management. While I know that breaks are necessary, I often find myself not really getting started with things but rather idly wandering along with thousands of unnecessary side distractions (hi facebook!). Also, I'm tending to stay up later and later lately (haha) while I know, that this time isn't really spend productively nor is it spent to actually relax (and it makes it so much harder to wake up in the morning). It's more that I spent the time telling myself what I still should do while I know, I'm not going to do it. Aka: Pure stress and remorse. Aka: wasted time!! (Can you relate? It's so horrible!!).

Sooooooo. (deep deep breath!).

I want to be more focused on what I do. I want to sit down and DO the task I set myself beforehand! Easy as that. Also, less distracting and wasted time spent on social media! And also: An even closer look on my diet! Because what you eat has such a great impact on your energy and general feeling!

And most important of all (well, for me right now anyway): Don't hover over sad/depressing thoughts. Allow them their time, but also be able to let them move on! Otherwise this whole thing ends up being a vicious cycle. 

And with that, thanks for reading all my cuddled thoughts ;) I'll make sure to report back!

(Btw who was wondering about the pictures: Those were taken on my last bike tour through the woods behind our dorm. I starting to really...like this place. Slowly, but we actually might get along!)

Comfort Cooking {broccoli white bean noodle pan}

Life turns out to be a bit messy, once again, but even in those times, someone needs lunch right? Right! And because my appetite comes and goes randomly right now, I seized the moment and jumped into our kitchen as soon as my stomach signalled "Food! asap!".

So this is perfect for: Quick, nutritious, colourful, yum and too lazy to do some 'serious' cooking. Comfort food all around. (Oh, and also for: when you don't have a lot in your fridge!)

1. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook some whole wheat noodles. While they cook,
2. Throw together in a frying pan:

• olive oil
• half a broccoli (separate the little parts)
• vegetable broth (powder)
• curry
• pepper

1. (That's supposed to be a 3. but my writing program stubbornly places a 1. here. Oh well, let's move on cooking!) Fry your broccoli with the spices for a few minutes. 
2. Than add some water and let your broccoli soften.  
3. When all the water evaporated, add about three Tablespoon white beans. 
4. While the beans warm up, beat together: 

• 1 egg
• a sip of milk
• 1 tablespoon cream cheese
• 1 slice of cheese

1. ...and pour the egg mixture over your broccoli and beans. 
2. Add the noodles. Stir. And you're done!

Ha! And you do feel accomplished after you see that bowl of steaming warm food sit in front of you! (Optional: Add a dollop of cream cheese (It might be that I do that with everything. I simply love cream cheese I guess) and sprinkle with a bit of pepper and herb salt).

Some vanity {because yes, sometimes I'm a girly girl}

Sometimes, and I talk as a girl here (can guys relate?) vanity is simply balm for the soul! (Please forgive me!). And sometimes you need that balm quite desperately. So that's what I did, during my university courses in the morning, and my learning in the evening, today. I went pretended dress shopping. (Sorry to all the saleswoman, who had to collect the dresses afterwards, which I never intended to buy!).

So. I went in there, and because it's not balm for the soul if you can't share it with anyone, my really good friend had to endure a private model show during her university courses (Ha! With comments and introductions! Because when you do it, you have to do it right!). To make this less self-centred, we could add here that I made her classes more interesting, right? No? Oh well.

And because I totally don't want you to miss out on something ;) Here we go with all the awesome dresses I picked (this, please, has to be taken not quite that seriously! After all, I did this to brighten my mood...not to find the perfect dress. Duh.)
And...I'll spare you from my hilarious comments ;)

No.1 + No. 2

No. 2

No. 4

No. 5

No. 6

And? Aren't you impressed with the immense variety of my poses? No? Me neither. Haha, but it sure did brighten my mood! And now. you can all try and guess which dress my friend is now trying to talk me into buying so we can go out somewhere during the next weekends...

One month {life lessons}

It is exactly one month today that I moved out from home (out and away I should say. Because there is a huge difference between those two!) and the last month has been one of the probably most intense month in my life. I feel like I've never been so aware of so many things and that I have never learnt as much in such a short time.
And what actually made me start writing about this, is that  I noticed all those little "classes" that seem to pop up on my way and which are, if you think about them, obvious, but than again, they are so obvious that we forget about them most of the time.

Like, to cherish time!
And to really use time and live in the moment we're in right now. Because we won't be able to change what happened and we can't predict what lies in the future but we can have some saying in it with what we are doing right now.
And another, to respect other people.

Especially the last one gave me a lot to think about because it seemed like such a basic thing. We know we have to respect other people. But how much goes into that, I didn't really get before (and I still might only get a small part of it now). But understanding it better made it so much more important to me.
Because we feel.
And we can be hurt.
And often actions have far greater effects than we first really think or notice.
And we are responsible, with our actions, for others!

So we do have to respect the people surrounding us and that can be affected by what we do, say, show... 

What also came along is that you need to be aware of your actions in order to learn from mistakes!
That strength and stamina is good but that it often takes even more strength and courage to find your own limits and accept them!
And also, what a friend told me, that at the end of the day, it is important that we (you!) feel good. Not in a selfish kind of way or excuse to be selfish, but to find a balance to respect others without letting yourself down in the process. And again to have the courage that if something is continually causing you pain and damage, the you have to find your limit, on which it is better to say "No!" to something, even it might be hard.

I'm so thankful that I get the possibility to experience and learn all of this. And to get the opportunity to make mistakes so that I can learn from them and at the end, develop and grow.

My "Thank you"s for that and to everyone who helps me catch myself when I'm struggling ♥

Update

We're reporting live from the battlefield. So far, there have been sightings of several sneaky chocolate-attack-stations! (Which are starting to lead to a slight sickness among our soldiers).

It is to be feared that we also might loose a second green-ally in the process. The spread of the brown disease is ongoing (unstoppable, if we have to be honest here!).

And the "puckering brow" is in position as a constant concomitant.

That's it for news. We're reporting back after we, hopefully successful, fought and defeated "accounting"!

A random rant about nothing in special

Sometimes it happens that you get this great urge to write something and than, sitting in front of your laptop, you realise, that actually there isn't really that much too write about. I mean, I could report that I already managed to kill my first plant post-moving (The forward-thinking person I am, I bought enough plants so it won't really matter), or that I accomplished the great skill of counting to 20 (vinte) in Portuguese, or that I feel like running right now but, I guess there is no real point in telling you this. So I won't. (Ha! I totally tricked you didn't I?!).

Anyway, before this gets more embarrassing than it actually already is (and I still need to do quite a lot of learning tonight, so I really shouldn't be writing here) I'll confess another embarrassing thing:
Sunday, I turned a supposed-to-be-quick bike ride into a 14 hm one, because I got lost in the woods. Duh!
I found my wait out again, though (and that without google maps!), so admitting this might actually be only semi-embarrassing.

And with that, I'll leave you with the pictures of my great bike ride and dive head-first back into my economic studies.

Oh and one of my friends got engaged!! I'm so so so happy for them!
...Though it also made me think about the fact, that three of my friends got engaged or married during the last year, and two got pregnant. Which makes me think: What does this tell me?

...random endings. And Congrats again to the two of them! :) Yay!

A quick chicken salad

It's Monday, the sun is shining and I just spent three hours at university excitingly looking forward to another four. Just kidding.
Well. The sun is actually shining, and I did have three hours of courses but only the 1 1/2 first ones were good (Portuguese), the others 1 1/2 hours were spent, cramped in a small room, with an amount of people, double than what would actually be allowed (well, that would fit) in there, listening to things that just wouldn't start to make sense. Grr.
Oh yeah, and there are another four hours waiting for me. But you'll have to cross the "excitingly" out of the sentence. (For everyone who starts being worried here, don't take me too seriously right now, it's the aftermath of my last class....).
So with all of that heavy stuff going on, I thought it was the perfect time to share this salad with you.

Doesn't it look amazing?
I have to admit that I made that salad like...4(?) month ago and just never shared it. But it was too good to just get deleted. So here you go.
If you want to eat something like this, you should throw together on a plate:

• cut salad leaves (romaine)
• 1/4 cut cucumber
• 1 handful cherry tomatoes
• 3-4 little pieces of cooked chicken breast (we used already prepared ones. Makes it so much easier!)
• cress
• and a bit of sweet balsamic vinegar

And that's it. Done in about two minutes and so so yummy!
I'll be off to have a further look into my study books and to mentally prepare (aka pack chocolate and fruits for the coming hours. Ha!) myself for the next four hours.

Oh! I finished the first season (I know, I know. I'm way behind!) of Game Of Thrones! So addicted now and I can't wait for the next one!
Obrigada e até logo.

My last week

For this week, just pictures!

New paths {and an end-of-the-world impression}

Bem-vindos! Just a quick update from me (I know it's ridiculous to start learning in the second week in your studies, but since everything is new to me (haha I'm an business economics newbie!) I feel, if I don't start now, I'll never see the end of it. Sight).
Anyways, may I introduce: My new running path!

Our dorm is situated super close to university (obviously) but also super close to the woods (which is simply amazing!). And while wandering, I found my perfect new running path! Tschaka!

You'll start in this little 'orchard'. The forest starts pretty much right behind our dorm complex. Hey there!

You'll jog the first bit  along a little canal, than over it and...

...into the woods. Beautiful, with dozens of little paths. And depending on the weather it is either bright and colourful (the leaves are at their peak of being golden and shiny right now!) or gloomy and mysterious. Ha!

And from time to time you'll have to pass another (or the same!?) little river.

The path has a little loop at the end and you run back pretty much the same way you came.Also, 7.7 km it  has a great length (enough to walk a bit before and after, and jog/run in between).
I'm happy to welcome this one in my row of running paths :D

Back at home

My second one at my second 'home'

This summer

Oh and a bit unrelated, but who really cares!? We had the most odd light this morning I've seen in a long time. Made up for a pretty good world-is-ending-soon-mood!!

Look at this!