Sunday Smiles 1

So this was my idea a few weeks back, which never came to fruition until now! Just a short list of things that have made me smile this week. It will hopefully be weekly and I am giving myself permission to post it a day late if I really don't have time to post it on Sunday. Ok? Let's go!

• Catching up with all my series while sick at home.
• Having my boyfriend surprise me by taking an afternoon off work so that he can come and take care of me :)
• MOUNTAINS of strawberries
• Catching up with my childhood bestie and heading off the the cinema to watch a movie together.
• An awesome present from said childhood best friend:

 

 A Kermit the Frog keychain and air-freshener for my aptly named car- Kermit! (and a shirt :D)

• Finally losing some weight! (not much, but it's a start!)
• Remembering an April photo-of-the-day thingy, which I really want to do! Although, I am slightly cheating by taking the first and second pics tomorrow, since I've already taken my make-up off tonight and my hair's a mess ;)
• Lots and lots of driving in Kermit.
• Plans with a few friends to put up a photoshoot including a stylist and make-up artist (all friends, no money involved! Wooo!!)
• Some images from a day on the sister island, Gozo, for my birthday finally coming back. Like this one:

I love having such a talented boyfriend :) (Copyright: Jonathan Farrugia)

Tomorrow it's back to work until Wednesday, have to make up a few sessions I missed due to being sick last week, then it's Easter holidays :) Nothing planned yet, but I want to make the best of them, since I hardly get any time off!

I hope anyone who celebrates Easter has a great one! :)

Saturday night crochet party-for-one and music!

It's a Saturday night alone tonight since J is working nightshift. What do I do? Continue my granny square blanket and watch Top of the Pops pop-up videos with my dad!

My in-progress since last winter - first granny-square blanket!

 

I have a confession to make.

I kinda love my dad's taste in music! Well, not EVERYTHING, but come on, you have to admit that Johnny Cash is awesome! My dad's always been more of a country guy than anything else, and I've recently realised that some of my favourite artists are in fact country or countryish at least: Rascal Flatts, Blake Shelton, Alanis Morisette, and Lady Antebellum. 

There are very little modern artists who really grab my attention. I'm more of an oldies and relaxed music kinda person I guess :)

I have a post ready (in my head at least!) for tomorrow...thinking of starting a weekly thing :)

Procrastination!

Ugh, I've been procrastinating so bad lately, it's amazing! Mostly I've let go of this blog, just a few posts after starting :/ But here is my 'back again' post, and I'll get you updated about all that's been going on lately. Here's some of what's happened:

• I FINALLY passed my practical driving test, so I can finally drive!
• I bought Kermit, my car :D I pretty pretty Mazda Demio (aka Mazda 2) in green! Like this.
• Celebrated my birthday with my boy for about 5 days, thankfully taking a few days off work!

I'll update soon, promise!

Scenery, Scrabble, and...Snow?!

So according to Italian Meteoweb, temperatures in Malta might go down to -4 and -5°C and it might even snow somewhere between tomorrow afternoon and Tuesday morning. According to my research (ie googling it) it has snowed briefly in Malta (the latest being 1962) without the snow even touching the ground before melting. I just hope that if it does actually snow (or hail, which is common-ish here, happening about two or three times a winter), I'll be at home, not at work!


In other news, my boyfriend and I (J, as he shall be known) went out for some photography time. It ended up being too cold to take any, plus my shoes were SO not good for the rocky terrain we ended up choosing for our walk. So we went for a drive instead. Here comes (cell phone) pic-heaviness:

J took an HDR of this scene, I was too comfy in the car so I snapped a quick pic with my phone instead ;)

Then, we decided that we needed something warm to drink, so we drove to Mdina and walked around there and Rabat for a while before heading to Point de Vue for this:

Chocolate cake, green tea, THE best banoffee pie I have ever tasted, and Jamaican coffee.

Sooooo good! And inexpensive, which is always a plus. 

See, happy people :D

 Back to the car and off to J's house for some more green tea and a brilliant idea:

DIY footwarmer

Then to round up a pretty awesome day, I taught J how to play Scrabble. He was winning for a while, then skipped a few turns and I got the upper hand ;) Then I decided to play around with the tiles instead:

*insert heart symbol here, guys*

And now I'm in bed, wondering if it'll snow. Who knows, maybe Tuesday might end up being a snow day!

 

Of pencils and sunsets...

Well, today I started off writing a blog post the old-fashioned way: pencil on regular, lined paper. Just when I was about to launch into the loveliness of the cathartic feeling of writing and erasing whatever you want to change, I realized something. There I was, alone on the upper deck of the Gozo ferry, just as the sun was about to set. I grabbed my camera and thought I'd catch some awesome picture of the pretty colours everyone says sunset makes.

Leaving Gozo, just before sunset

Yepp, as everyone says. Because until this evening I had never experienced the sun setting. This may seem weird since I live on an island which isn't as urban as smaller cities in bigger countries, but I just never was in the right place at the right time. I'd barely even know which way to look since my directional skills are near-crap and the only reason I'm sure that the sun rises in the east is because the east is the 'Land of the Rising Sun'. Yeah, I'm that bad.

But anyway, this time I was finally in the right place at the right time. Luckily for me, the upper deck area I was in was deserted, probably because it was too cold out for any sane person. So there I was, happily snapping away until I realized all this. There I was, watching the sunset alone, with the wind whipping around me, the waves crashing beneath me, and a light humming sound coming from the ferry itself. Just sitting there surrounded by nature was so peaceful, and I didn't experience that whole romantic-watching-the-sunset feeling at all. I just felt that that moment was mine, and no one else was experiencing it quite like I was. And I was happy. I've often felt that my life is too rushed, flitting from one thing to the next without much of a chance to gather my thoughts, so much so that at night I sometimes have to wonder whether I'd done anything for myself that day.

Today, allowing myself that moment of peace and letting my thoughts wander was my gift to myself. As cliche' as it sounds, I lived in the moment, and I've got to start doing that more often.

This was about the time I realized it was too windy to take any good pictures!

So...here's the first post!

I confess, I've been wanting to start blogging for a while now, but just haven't had the courage to get this first blog post rolled out yet. Until now.

Most of my bookmark toolbar is taken up by the RSS feeds of loads of different blogs about different subjects, from all over the world. So now I guess it's my turn.

I've taken the plunge and gotten this first post out of the way. Not sure when I'll be blogging or how often but at least I've got loads of ideas about what to blog about, let's just hope life doesn't get in the way of having my say ;)

Until next time, I'll leave you (i.e. the void as no one knows about this blog yet) with the world's most poser of a cat: Kiki <3

Much love to anyone who ends up reading this,

Miyna xx