Christmas 2015

Hello lovelies!
Another Christmas has came and gone and soon we'll say goodbye to 2015 as well (and I'll be correcting the date for another six months from 2015 to 2016). I feel like every year goes by quicker and quicker, someone should seriously get it a speeding ticket already!
I currently have holidays and finally I got some sleep. I wish I could say I was really productive these few days, but honestly I spent days in my pjs watching different Christmas and not Christmas movies (you should definitely watch Mike says goodbye!, a really good movie) and reading, reading a lot. I was fortunate enough to get quite a few books for Christmas (Santa knows me so well haha). I am actually a horrible owner of books, I still have a few from last year that I haven't read yet. I know, know, but it's really hard with everything we have to read for school and it just doesn't feel fair to the book not to devote all my attention to it.
This December was once again packed with exams and I must admit, sadly, that I didn't have much time for fun festive activities. I am one of those people who love Christmas more than anything and I own too many Christmas sweaters (I am still looking for new ones, guilty) and decorations. Not to mention my obsession with gingerbread men which I believe all my friends know for it, judging by the presents I've received this year. I probably love December that much, because I have great memories from my childhood when we didn't have to worry about exams yet.  If I could change anything in our schooling system I would definitely extend Christmas holiday throughout December even if that meant shortening summer holidays. In most of the countries they at least have holidays before Christmas eve while we have to go to school on the 24th of December! I must say I was quite cheerful despite all that, weirdly festive according to my family. Since the 1st of December I've been subconsciously singing Christmas songs and been unusually happy most of the time (I am usually not the most joyful person). I am glad that I've managed to get into the festive spirit unlike most of the people my age that I know.  But thinking about it it is really not as magical as it used to be. For one I now know that Santa isn't real. Imagine if he was? That would be the coolest thing ever! I will definitely try to conceal the truth from my children for as long as possible. Secondly, it may feel this way because of all the videos on you tube showing you tubers having perfectly decorated houses, gorgeous Christmas trees and lots of time for being festive. To be honest those videos also made me more excited for Christmas, so I guess they had double effect. Anyways, I still had a lot of fun with my family and I also got some pretty cool presents. If you want me to write more about our Christmas traditions let me know in the comments. Also let me know if you want me to do a "What I got for Christmas" post, because I'm not sure if anyone's interested and it seems to me a bit like bragging, although I know some people honestly enjoy reading this kind of posts.

Hmm...oh right! I almost forgot to tell you! Tomorrow I am flying with my family to Singapore and then we're going on a cruise visiting places in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bali. I'm soo excited! I haven't packed everything yet (as usual) and we're leaving tomorrow morning, so it probably won't be the most exciting New year's eve. We'll probably just watch Modern family or Friends, which is in my opinion still a fun thing to do on a last day of the year. Do you have any more exciting plans? Wherever you are, stay safe.

Also, this blog reached more than 1000 views a few days ago! I know this might not be a lot for some bloggers, but It was really exciting for me! Thank you so so much! You are the best! I wish you lots of happiness, health, luck, love, good music, delicious food & unforgettable vacations in new year! See you in 2016!

                                                                      xoxo

Apple cupcakes and halloween chatter

Hello loves. I'm basically drowning in homework and all kinds of assignments, but my blog is not called a scent of stress, right? So let's just skip to fun things. Tomorrow is Halloween! Anyone excited? We actually don't even celebrate Halloween here, we have this holidays called ''Pust'' in February when we dress up in costumes and make doughnuts. The main idea is not scaring people, but chasing away winter and greeting spring. Also, when I say doughnuts, I don't mean American pastry with a hole. I admit the dough is quite similar, but our doughnuts don't have holes and they're just filled with apricot jam and sprinkled on top with sugar. I'll probably write a whole post about it in February, because I think it's too bad that so little people know about our culture.

 Let's go back to Halloween. I'm not a huge fan, but I like the idea of it, pumpkins and spooky atmosphere. Knowing myself I would probably make a huge deal out of it if I lived in USA. The problem is that stores here sell more and more Halloween related things every year and that's actually one of the reasons why I am not so fond of the holiday. I have nothing against American culture, but it's really taking over the world. That's why I didn't make any Halloween treats as planned but instead opted for a more general autumnal dessert: apple cupcakes. If I haven't mentioned it yet (hard to believe haha) I love cupcakes. They are super easy to make and there are so many varieties: from basic vanilla ones to fancy ones with papaya and almonds And there are so many that you can always find a variety that is perfect for the time of the year or holiday. I mean what is more Christmasy than cupcakes with eggnog? Not to mention how creative you can get with decorating them. Sometimes they look so cute that I almost feel bad for eating them. Everyone in my family knows for my love, so they gave me a Cupcakes cookbook a few years ago. I must admit I am getting pretty good at making them and the apple ones turned out great as well (I have to trust my family on that haha). I'll show you some pictures, so you can see for yourself.

What I did do ''for Halloween'' is that I borrowed Nightmare before Christmas in the library. I know, how come I haven't seen it before? Let's just say my family isn't a big fan of Tim Burton. To be honest I was pleasantly surprised as well: it's a really lovely movie, great songs and a nice ending, quite expected, but also not too cheesy. A true Halloween classic for sure (or Christmas, I won't get into that). Do you have any special plans?  Have a faBOOlous Halloween!
                                                          xoxo

Lack of motivation

Do you ever have those days when you just don't do anything from the moment that you wake till the time that you go to bed? I mean of course you eat and drink and take care of everything crucial for living, but you just don't do anything well productive. That was me almost every day of this summer holidays. Luckily I wasn't at home that much, so there were only like two weeks of me spending my days on you tube trying to learn new dance moves and ending up watching Dance Mums. Yeah, that happened...

I know we sometimes just need a lazy day to give our brains a rest or something, but why so many days? The thing is that just for a few days it actually feels nice catching up on everything that you've missed during school, but than after a while it gets to the point where your head hurts, your eyes hurt and you're basically bored of watching other people's life instead of living your own. Makes sense, right? So why do I still do it? During school year I always have so many plans for the summer holidays, how I'll hang out with all my friends, do a bunch of cool DIYs and basically be very  productive. See, this words just keeps on haunting me? It must have been on my mind a lot. As you can probably guess I hung out only with my best friend, did zero DIYs and we could talk about me being productive...

Summer holidays are almost over and again I have this terrible feeling of regret for not spending them differently. I had a great time in Scotland, Norway, Denmark and than Croatia and I did get some rest, but I just feel that I could do so much more. We're constantly surrounded with successful young people who have already achieved so much. You tubers who make videos for their jobs, young actors and actresses star in movies based on books that I absolutely love, singers are worshipped by millions of teenagers just to name a few. Not to mention tumblr, pinterest and other websites packed with photos of amazing DIYs, drawings, paintings and other creations of very talented teenagers. Maybe that's the reason why I am being so hard on myself, always comparing my life to life of just a small percentage of people that should never ever even be considered as average. I'm not saying that I want to be exactly like them, famous, rich and with no privacy, because we all know that their lives aren't just rainbows and sunshine and that fame has more disadvantages than advantages, but achieving something, that really appeals to me. I've been an overachiever for my whole life and my parents trying to stop me from being a perfectionist too, stopped complimenting me for my grades and good placing on different competitions quiet some time ago. One of my theories is that that's why I am trying to succeed outside the school today. I feel almost pressured to do things that I would actually love to do, but this pressure makes it forced and I lose all my motivation. It almost feels like doing homework or studying for an exam, something that you have to do and not want to. Since during school I do things that I really have to do for the sake of my education, I perhaps  get this sort of rebellious response to do anything that would include my brains and have a purpose in the summer. I just needed to completely get away from any obligations and sadly challenges as well.
I'm 100% sure that I am not the only that feels this way. I've seen so many ''relatable' posts about being productive lately that it seems like everyone experiences a lack of motivation sooner or later. Like I've mentioned before the media is bombing us with messages that all have the same idea: Being successful equals being happy. What I want you to remember is that being successful represents different things to different people. Some people don't have a big appetite for fame and fortune and they consider themselves successful when they have a loving family and friends. Those kind of people are truly the happiest. My mum always says that health comes first and that if you have enough to support your family as well, you should be happy. It's better to set yourself a more realistic goal and achieve it than to always yearn for something bigger and better that seems impossible and therefore takes your motivation away. Going on a walk with your dog and reading a new books is productive as well, your dog is happy, your mind is clear and reading almost equals learning. See? You don't have to write a novel to feel good about yourself and you don't need to have 3 million subscribers to feel successful. It's all about how you comprehend things. I also have to mention this: Little things are the ones that count. If you don't see little accomplishments as basically steps that are taking you up to your goal and you just completely ignore them you will give up, because you won't realise how far you've already come. So don't be so hard on yourself. You should always be your own biggest supporter.
It definitely helped me to write this post as everything seems much clearer and understandable when I write it down, but I do hope it helped you as well. I would love to hear your thoughts about it, so leave a comment and we can chat. Thank you so much for reading!
                                                                                  xoxo

A French movie you need to watch

Hello loves! I know I should continue with my travel posts, but I'm on another vacation right now. We're in Croatia in my grandpa's weekend house that is very near the beach so we can go there every day. It's hot and sunny and the sea is very warm so we're really enjoying ourselves. Sadly we don't have wifi except for the one at the reception-room which is not very good either and I can only take my iPad there. I have all my photos on the computer and there is no point in publishing a travel post without photos, am I right? On the other hand I don't want to leave you without a new post for the next  weeks, so I decided to do some kind of a recommendation of a very good French movie called "Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au bon dieu?". We have this habit of watching a DVD every night so we always take a bunch of them with us, usually some new ones or classics that we love. I don't know about you and your family but we always take too much stuff when go on a vacation with a car. Naturally you have to follow the rule of a maximum luggage weight when you travel by plane if you don't want to pay extra of course. If you go with a car you don't have any rules to follow and we well ehh we tend to go a bit overboard while packing heh. I mean of course I take my whole wheat toast and rolls and my coconut pancakes and cookies with me oh and sugar-free mustard and paté, but you know I'm diabetic (that's just me trying to convince myself that I'm not as guilty as others. Not working.). And it's not only food, we also pack gazillion books and magazines like we're only going to read for the rest of the vacation. Forget eating and all the food that we brought, we have books to read! Though I actually do read a lot here I admit mostly because I can't go on my computer or anything, but it's nice because I finally get to cross off some of the books from my "Reading list" which just keeps getting longer and longer. 

Oh gosh, I've been babbling again! I'm so sorry, back to the movie. I don't know any of the actors, but honestly I don't really know many French actors, so that's not really surprising. I just loved the fact that it is French, because I'm learning it and in contrast to English with which I'm surrounded all the time (movies, books, internet), I'm not really in touch with French. Naturally we watched it with subtitles, because my French isn't good enough and they speak pretty fast, so it's hard to understand. The story is about a French couple with four daughters, three of them married to a Muslim, Jew and Chinese. The youngest daughter is still single and her parents are really hoping that she will marry a French Christian. I won't tell you who is her secret fiancé (if you intend to watch it and I really hope you do, because I was cracking up the whole time) but let's just say he's a big surprise for her family. The movie goes on with the "unlucky" parents helping with the upcoming wedding and trying to adapt to their multicultural son-in-laws. The end is really nice and not typically cheesy like in American movies, so of course I enjoyed it even more. The setting is also gorgeous, a big and old-fashioned house in French countryside with a huge garden, looking exactly like a weekened house that I would love to own in the future if I'll have enough money.

 I highly recommend this movie and if you do watch it or you already know it, please let me know what you think. I would also love to hear your recommendations as I'll have two more weeks of summer holidays when we get back, a perfect time to see a few more movies before school takes up all my evenings again. Thanks for reading!

                                                                            xoxo

Music crisis

I believe everyone can relate to this problem: trying to find new music that you actually like. If you're anything like me, than you have gazillion songs on your iPod, but whenever you listen to it, you always skip old songs and listen to the new ones. That means you're constantly on a search. I don't know why, but loads of songs that are popular and huge hits just don't impress me at all. I may be picky, but sometimes I hear a song and I'm like "Wow, what a great intro!" and then they start singing and it's all wrong.  A lot of times I listen to a song and I think how much better it would be, if they sang certain parts a bit different, as they don't make any sense to me. I'm not a musician and I don't know much about music, but I find this very annoying. And covers! So many covers are better than original versions, which is really unfair to those talented but unknown artists.

Lately I've been really trying to find some not so famous artists that I would like, for many reasons: 

1. if they're not so popular it's easier to meet them

2. go on their concerts 

3. and those concerts are much more intimate than on big stadiums. Unless you come from a very small and unknown country to which nobody ever comes to like I do. I believe everyone that's not from USA or UK can relate: all new artists always have their first concerts and meet & greets there. They'll never come to I don't know Luxembourg or a small country like that, because they don't have enough fans there. To be honest even when they're famous enough, they don't come, but at least they visit bigger countries near us. They usually visit us when they're old and they play their old hits haha...Not interesting for me anymore. And admit or not, it is always better to be an old fan, supporting the artist from the beginning, than a new fan, discovering the artist when they already have millions of fans. I'm always the second one, sadly.
Today I stumbled upon a great artist on you tube: Shawn Mendes. I believe that you all know him, not just because he is really cute (maybe I shouldn't have written this...what if he ever reads this? Haha, just kidding, won't happen), but because he has an amazing vocal as well. His new album Handwritten is soo good! I was almost in a shock that I loved every single one of the songs. If you know any, my favourites are Strings and Imagination. For those who don't know his music, he is kind of like Ed Sheeran, only using his voice and a guitar in songs, so no massive production, but  also in a way different than Ed. I love this about them, it just seems unspoiled and raw. He just has a beautiful voice and I know he doesn't use auto-tune, as he sings just as good live performing. I really really recommend checking him out and if you do, please let me know what you think. I hope that you were able to relate to some things in this post or just simply enjoyed reading it. Thank you for reading it at all haha!:)

                                                                   xoxo

Be yourself, everyone else is taken

I was thinking today and I realised that there is so much stuff about me, that only my family knows.  I'm generally not so much of an open person and I think before I say something, but that's really weird. Like people don't even know the real me. Obviously I had friends before, but most of them turned out not to be so great, so maybe that made me more careful with trusting people? For example I became friends with someone and I was so happy, but then they started doing weird stuff, being mean, bossy, even started taking advantage of me. And poof, end of the friendship. Usually it even took an ''outside'' person to tell me that it's not good for me to stick to it.  Now in high school I have friends that I actually feel comfortable around and I finally started to open up. And guess what? We're similar in so many ways! If you think that there're things that only you do, think again. And it's so much fun to find people with a similar sense of humour and way of thinking! And actually saying what's on your mind feels so good. I always thought that ''I'm being myself'', but now I see how different this is. And for some time I thought friendships like that exist only in books and movies, but I was proved wrong, because there're still great people on this planet. :) 
One of the fears we probably all have is being judged. This is one of the main things that keeps holding me back in my life. I always admired girls and boys, who are confident enough to be unique, who change something about themselves only because they want to, who aren't afraid to show others who they really are. I used to thinks those were  all the pretty girls and attractive guys, but my mum told me that usually the most ''perfect'' ones are the least happy with themselves. That even models and celebrities feel really insecure about themselves. That in a way makes me feel better. Nobody is perfect, so don't be afraid to show your real you. Probably all people won't like you, but they wouldn't even if you pretended to be someone else. What matters the most, is that people you trully care about will and you'll feel much more comfortable being around them.
I hope this post helped you! I know it's all words and that it's harder to actually do it. Trust me, I've been there. But I don't want you to waste a minute of your life, not being the happiest you can be. :)
                                                                             xoxo

New Year's Resolutions

So, this is the first year that I even thought about making my New Year's resolutions. And I thought, why not? Setting goals and actually sticking to them is great for making priorities or just to find ways to improve your life. And those resolutions don't have to be hard or unpleasant like losing weight.  Think of the happy feeling you'll have when you tick off something. :) My teacher once said that setting small goals, well more like to-do lists each days is very helpful. I couldn't agree more. But always put on the list things that you're completely sure you'll manage to get done, so if you do even a little more, you're even more satisfied.Since this is the first time I'm doing this, why not share it with you guys. So next December we can all see how successful I'll actually be (not very probably, haha). Bur I promise to try my best. So, here they're:
- Being more social and not just on Internet haha ;) This means hanging out with my friends outside school more, going to cinema, shopping...I'll have to ask my buds if I accomplished that.
- Spending less time on social medias for sure. I spend waaay too much time, when I could actually be doing something creative and useful. Especially during holidays, when I have school I don't even have time for anything, really.
- Be less stressed and worry less about school grades. Like all perfectionist I care too much about grades which of course have to be perfect like everything I start doing, which is wrong! I have to tell this to myself more often! And stress really impacts my health, so that's a must, new year's resolution or not.
-  Post on this blog regularly. This one of my priorities as well, because I really want something in my life that I actually like and have fun creating. I am not a talented singer or painter, but I can write (at least I hope so haha). If I get a few readers along, even better. :)
- Be less egoistic. I mean it. I should listen to people around me
more, because no matter the fact that they have to adapt because of my disease, I could make it less just about me. I guess we're all a little bit egoistic, which is OK, because you have to put yourself first sometimes as well, but not as much as I do.

This is all. I know it's not much, but don't forget, you don't have to write a whole page. Really put on things that you think you can actually make happen. I hope I'll be able to tick off most of this resolutions. Let me know what are your resolutions for 2015! :) Thank you for reading!
                                                                            xoxo

Style struggle

When I look around in my high school, I see so many people with such great unique styles and I always tell myself that I have to make my own style as well. But here's the problem. I like so many things from different styles, like I love shirts and jeans, but I also love skater skirts and dresses and floral pattern. I love cute graphic tops and I also want to dress more elegant. So when I come to the shopping mall I firstly don't even know to which store I should go. Besides, I go shopping on such rare occasions, usually when I really need something (because of the ''never enough time struggle'') , so I don't really have much already chosen. The other thing is that I'm not confident enough, to buy some pieces. My clothes are really very plain, jeans, lots of sweaters (I got way too many Christmasy ones) and actually just a few things that I actually like. That's probably also because I change my taste in clothes so quickly that I shouldn't be allowed to buy more than 2 things at once. That's what makes shopping even harder. I never really know if I should buy something, so I end up trying on for hours and then buying two things or nothing at all. My mum says that I am a very unsatisfied person and that I never like anything, but that's not completely true! I'm just not sure anymore what I like. If I see a girl what an outfit that I really love, I'd feel like a copy cat if I bought something similar. I kind of envy girls who start wearing something cute and it later becomes so popular, that when I notice it, so many people are already wearing it. Then I kind of don't want to have it anymore, because how can stay unique that way? Also, like I mentioned before, my style is very plain, nothing bold, so I think that if I started wearing different clothes people would give all sorts of mean comments, which I couldn't bear. I know, I'm a little bit pathetic. I hope I'm not the only one feeling this way. If you have any advice or tip that would help me, I'd be very happy to hear it. Thank you so much for reading this weird post, haha. :)
                                                                  xoxo