Blogging slump, self care & 30 Days of Yoga Challenge!

Hello there!

I've been dealing with a blogging slump for quite a while, essentially for a few months since my laptop had a break down and stopped working for a week, and then came my vacation time and BEA and now I feel that I'm finally getting over it and starting feeling more motivated to write posts and reviews again!

Before my vacation time I had been feeling really tired and with work and the apartment work (it's been a year already since I'm a home owner wooohooo!!), I had pushed blogging to the corner, using what little motivation I had to do house work and assemble furniture and the like.

But now after my vacation I'm back and feeling much more motivated and energized! I wake up feeling rested and I've realized that if I oversleep and wake up late in the morning, I end up feeling more tired.

I think that not only the vacation time rest has done wonders, but also I finally decided to take a step onto self care and I've finally started doing some exercise. You might not know this but since I stopped doing ballet & swimming in high school, I've been the most unathletic person EVER! I hate working out, I hate the thought of going to the gym... just NO.

But, I'm a really flexible person (hello, years of ballet) and I've noticed that my posture was slouching, and as a nurse, my back sometimes complains, so I thought I really needed to DO something, so... my first thought was to give yoga a try.

Again, not a gym person so I thought "if I learnt how to wrap a saree in 6 different ways with YouTube tutorials, I'm sure I can find a Yoga For Beginners video to try" so I did my search and came upon Yoga With Adriene!



The moment I started watching her videos I knew I had found the right videos for me! She's funny, she always gives you options for the asanas depending on how advanced or not you are on your yoga practice, and she's not overly mystical (sorry, really NOT a mystical person here...).

I've been practicing her beginners videos now for a month and surprise surprise, I wake up in the morning WANTING to do my yoga! And that is seriously BIG for me!

I'm so happy about my yoga practice that I've decided to work on the 30 Days of Yoga Challenge playlist that she has, and I start tomorrow! Wish me luck guys!

Hello October, you're looking good this year!

Hello guys!!

Today is a bit of random post since I don't usually do recaps for months or even a TBR goal for the month, whenever I try I always end up failing massively at reading those particular books.

And this is not a recap, not really, it's mostly a mash up of random stuff that is going through my head today and also triggered by a mention that appeared on my Twitter when I checked it this morning.

It was an extremely positive mention, because I was asked for a follow back by a fellow blogger and was called a #BloggerGoal along with a few other amazing bloggers that create such unique and amazing content and that are both inspiring and a lil intimidating (not them really because they're uber nice) but their blogs and content.

My blog is just my own little nook & corner of the internet where I share my love & support for books, and except for my Ink & Batter feature (that I seriously need to bring back and soon, I'm itching to bake book inspired cupcakes AGAIN!) I don't feel that I do anything so special to really inspire or be considered an example or goal? So yeah, right now I'm a bit baffled and quite a lot floored and honoured!

Now onto other bloggy and bookish things. September was not the most successful month of reading ever, since I only managed to read 5 new books, 2 novellas and I re-read 3 books (on the one side, YAY 3 re-reads, I'm finally allowing myself re-reading books and that's quite awesome) but 10 books total in a month? For a fast reader like me that's quite pitiful, but I blame the massive book hangovers 3 of the books and one of the re-reads gave me!

And with such a pitiful amount of books is no surprise that I failed my September is for Sequels challenge and quite catastrophically at that! I only read 1 book for it, and it wasn't even one of the books in my goals...

On other more happy and positive news, it's October! Autumn is here, I am a year older (since I am a late September baby) and the suffocating heat of the summer is gone! And October is one of my fave months of the year because HALLOWEEN!!

And this year it is even more special because the amazing Shelly from Read Sleep Repeat has organized a fantastic October Month of Diversity event!!

I will be contributing with a guest post and book recommendations (that I still need to write, hopefully today or tomorrow at the latest, sorry Shelly, I suck, I know!!) but I'm really looking forward to see what all Shelly has planned! Many amazing posts and books I'm sure!

And because of October being the month of all things spooky and the celebration/reminder of diversity, I plan to focus my reading on that. My not-really-but-sort-of tentative TBR pile will be made of both spooky books and diverse books!

As far as life goes, I'm right now on vacation, with cleaning to do in my new apartment (not keen on it, but life as an adult is hard sometimes) and also quite rewarding trips!
Next week I'm going to London for 4 days with my younger nephew (he's 20, so it's not like I'm babysitting him!) and we'll be visiting the Sherlock Holmes museum, Stonehedge and the Harry Potter studios! Very exciting!
And a lil after that I'm going on a trip to Copenhangen with Paula Stokes! She wants to get inspiration for her next book and I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't been to yet, so we'll be touristing around and generally be silly.

How was your September? I hope that you had a better reading month than mine, at least in numbers? Any particular books you're excited to read in October?? Tell me!!

Looking Foward to 2014: Resolutions!

Today is the last day of 2013, and I have to say I'm not exactly sorry to see this year go.
It has been a very tough year for me, emotionally the worst year of my life and I sure hope there won't come another to top this one.

Not everything has been bad, of course, and once again I was quite thankful to have my books to get me to weather the rough times. I have the best friends ever, but I am not good at sharing when I'm going through tough stuff. I will be trying to keep the best of 2013 in mind and try not to dwell on the bad.

I'm hoping 2014 will be better and I'm gonna be working on it. My main two resolutions for the new year are:

-  Smile more

- Love more

And in the book blogging side of resolutions... I have a pair too.

- Read more
- Enjoy what I read more

I've got myself into 4 challenges and I have a looooooooooong TBR pile but I'm determined to improve my reading to reviewing ratio, and I will allow myself to enjoy the book hangovers. The bf told me I needed to enjoy the books I read more and not just jump from one to another, and I intend to do just that, no matter how long my ARCs list is or how towering the TBR pile gets. I've always loved books and I will be sure I am enjoying them as much as I can.

Happy 2014!! Smile, Love, Read!

To end the year right, meet Dory! Nothing like puppy love!

The Road Goes Ever On And On...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Life does take us down very winding paths, even if some of them are only in our mind, and even if sometimes we just amble along and others drag ourselves on, there's always a time to pick ourselves up and continue on our path, hopefully not forgetting that the important thing is the journey and not the destination.


Finally, after an hiatus due to lack of motivation, probably a mix of being burnt out with work, the loss of my precious puppy Canela and the agony of being apart from the love of my life, I'm back to blogging. To avoid being overwhelmed, you push back strong emotions to go on with your life, with going to work, with spending time with your friends, cause I you let them take you, you just can't function right... but that takes a toll on you, and that toll is usually that spring in your step and that will to write, to share and to capture the beauty of life. I needed some time off, and my vacation to spend time with the bf was exactly what I needed. Plenty of time to think, to relax, to read, to cry, to look in the eyes of love... in short, time to pick myself up, and get myself on the road, back to writing, back to shooting and back to facing the world and my own chosen journey.




Laugh, Love and above all, Live.

Music Monday: Mazzy Star ~ Into Dust

Some days my work is not the most rewarding one ever, so I thought that today I needed to do a Music Monday.

I fell in love with this song when it was used in Charmed, Season 4.







For all those soldiers of life that have lost the fight and the war against the enemy within. You will be remembered by those who loved you and by those who care.

"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love"

Carl Sagan

One Hundred Rambles later... Thank you!

Here it is! My 100th blog entry! =D


Who would have thought that my lil bloggie should reach such a milestone? Not me, that for sure!


I have to say I had lots of doubts when I started writing this blog in 2008, even if I started it just as a way of talking about what I love, and showing it off to the world, but my main doubt was: is there anybody going to read anything? & do I really care if they do?


Truth be told, there have been times when I have thought that it was a worthless effort, and why would anyone bother reading what I wrote, but both my very supportive boyfriend (who thinks that I'm a crazy shopper but supports my handmade interest and my blogging about it) and my increasing number of followers (81 already!) and of course, all the supportive and positive comments from fellow bloggers have helped me to decide to keep on going.





Regardless of the comments (which always make me smile and I'm always thankful for) and the people that might read but not comment, I like blogging, though work, life, the universe & everything don't always allow me to blog as often as I'd like sometimes. So my choice has been to keep on writing about what I love, to keep on showing off to any & all that care to look the handmade goodies I buy for myself or others, to share with other my lil efforts at photography (another love of mine) and to rant & ramble about myself on occasion.





This blog entry is not only a reflection on my blogging but a big THANK YOU to all my followers, readers and fellow bloggers who encourage me to keep on going, and of course, also a big thank you to all the sellers that put so much talent & love on their creations, cause they're the ones that inspired me to start writing this blog! I just want to return the love via my lil blog entries!





I had been thinking about what my 100th blog entry should be, and I just thought that saying thank you again was a good idea, but today while doing some grocery shopping an idea popped in my head, I've just decided to add a weekly feature to my blog, just like Sunday Shots are (I know, they aren't really all that weekly as they should be, and not always on Sunday... but you get my drift) and that would reflect another of my big loves: reading! I'm still trying to find a catchy name, and wondering what day should I reserve for it, so if you guys have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! I intend to talk weekly about one book or series that I've recently read (that very week) or one of my all time favourites. I've just thought that along with my Shopping Handmade entries that show off how much I love gifting handmade to my friends & family, I love recommending books and gifting them, so I'd do the same in my blog!





I'm also thinking of getting my very good friend Lexie from Headless Tess to work on a button for my blog, but I'm not awfully inspired as of late, so I have no idea how do I want it to look... Any ideas? I was thinking about something featuring cupcakes, books & a camera? Would probably portray pretty well what I am, but I was also thinking that it should probably be made off one my shots, so now I need to start working on that!





In you're still awake after such a long rambling, I thank you, and hope you decide to not stop reading my blog from now on! I plan to update more often, call it a New Year resolution, let's see how good I am at keeping it!


So long and thanks for all the fish!