2013 Wardrobe Resolutions

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While I have more than enough resolutions to live up to with my Daring Deeds, one bleak, boring, rainy day in late December I decided to make wardrobe resolutions. Why not. And now, one bleak, snowy, frozen-over day in March, I finally have found the time to share them with you.

1. Sailor Collars. I love sailor collars. But is there a way to wear one and not look like wearing a Sailor Moon costume? I’m going to find out (hopefully). Which requires more of them in my closet.
2. Skeleton Leggings. I think they might be nice for sports, and I’ve somewhat grown fond of leggings again (the first phase was back when my age had just one number) when worn underneath something else.
3. More Dresses. Dresses are great. I only have to pick a pair of tights to go with it, throw on the dress of the day and I’m ready to go. And it always looks tidy. Lovely.
4. Flannel Shirts. I got my first very own flannel (instead of inheriting them from some relatives when I was little) from my father for my 12th birthday. I started wearing his when I outgrew them, and now I’ve given his last one back. The only shirt I’ve left is one previously owned by my grandfather, a very pretty one with a herringbone pattern. What I need again, though, are lumber jack flannels, heavy, tartan affairs that are a few numbers too large (probably only to finally try one of Natron’s shirt alteration projects).
5. Tabi Shoes. I like them, somehow, and I think they’ll go really well with my harem pants. Plus, they would make a great addition to the city nomad-traveller / eco-alternative badass / “globetrotter’s daughter” part of my wardrobe.

It’s not that I don’t have other resolutions, though, but it’s the usual stuff like “lose weight” and “sew more” and “procrastinate less”. I thought sharing my wardrobe resolutions with you might be a little bit more fun for either of us.

Also, due to moving and the new year, I cleaned out my closet (literally) and found it utterly, depressingly boring. I’ve got to change this as soon as my sewing machine in set up in the new place. Until then I guess I’ll just have to find a shopping date with Jules.

Emotional Detox

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“Emotional Detox” is the name of a tea I bought yesterday and exactly what I needed yesterday evening. There’s been a lot of ruckus lately – the move, uni, our upcoming soirée this weekend, musical rehearsals and other stuff – that’ been burning me out lately. I’ve bottled things up a lot, trying not to hurt anyone in the process. Which is not the best idea I’ve ever had.

When I poured my first cup of tea last night I decided that I had to get an emotional detox right now. So I watched some feelgood anime, painted my nails with glitter – glitter is one of these things that always make me happy – …

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… and got me some soul food. Basmati rice with shrimps and shalotts (and herbal salt and lemon juice, but never mind). Simple but awesome.

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My detox might not be finished yet, but it’s definitely a start. What do you do when you’re completely stressed out?

On Campus: Skulls & Oddities

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I’ve been lucky enough to be in fine arts for my minor subject this semester, and I loved it. We’ve got a great, whimsical collection of stuff for drawing and painting, and I’m always amazed by the things one can find by going through the old cupboards in this building.

Another Tale of Boxes

I’ve written about boxes before. Here, when I went to the Fairytale town for university. Or here, when I got pretty ones. And here, where I wrote about my new colours.

It’s time for another post about boxes.

Because I’m moving.

It’s a bit irritating, but next to “Where?”, “Are you moving in with your boyfriend?” was the question I’ve heard the most during the last weeks.
As for the “Where?” question I can tell that I’ll stay in my fairytale town. I won’t even move far, it’s only two or three streets from the Little White House.
As for the “Boyfriend?” question, no. He likes his things orderly, I’m horribly chaotic. I’m an early bird, he’s a late riser. We both need our space, and we’d drive each other insane. So, no, I’m not moving in with my boyfriend.

I’ll have a place all to myself. My home. My castle. With a bathroom across the hallway and only one room for cooking and sleeping and drawing, but my very, very own.

So if it gets quiet again during the next few weeks that’s because I’m busy packing boxes and begging both my parents separately to drive me to IKEA (I love IKEA. They don’t.).

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Moving also means saying good-bye to my old room, home of three years. It was a nice room, really. A bit dark at times, yes, and it kept driving me insane that it was next to the kitchen where my flatmates’ talking and burned pizza smell were present far too often. But I’ve had great moments here at the flat and especially this room. Sad ones, exhausting ones, horrible ones, too, but overall it has been a good time. I’ve been told that it’s really cozy at my place, and a bit like the Burrow or a Hobbit hole, and very much a home.

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I get my keys to the new place tomorrow, and I think I can do even better.

 

Committing To A New Format

This was the last chance to show off my holiday decorations, so I took it.

I’m lost without my daily diary. Completely. I went insane when the new year had already begun and I had no book to write down my appointments. Let alone birthdays and silly holidays. Or quotes.

My planner is important. Really important. During the last three years I’ve always been using the same design in different colours, the slim format ones from paperblanks.
2013 is the first year with a new format. I wanted to try something else, as the usual design was a repeat and I already had one that look that way. Because I actually keep my old calendars.

It’s always a bit hard letting go of the old year’s planner – there are so many quotes and words and book recommendations in there, and birthdays and notes and other things. One quote actually made it to the first page of the new one, together with one all-time favourite and another one I found just today, but more on that another time.

I needed two days just to find the right format, but finally I found something to my liking – yes, paperblanks, again. But smaller. And in an 18 months format, which would be great if the additional six months were for 2014, not 2012. Who buys a calendar in June? Anyway, I’ll be making good use of that extra space, and you should have seen my face when I scribbled down my first notes for this year. Like a junkie who finally got their stuff.

The sticker is something I still had at home, patiently waiting for its day to come. Well, today was the day, and I like it. Also, it fit into the frame rather nicely.

I can’t be the only one so fixated. Are you this attached to your planners, too?

2012 in Review

Now that the year is nearing its end I find once again that I’m not the best when it comes to writing reviews, not of films and not even of a year of my own life.

There’s a lot of good things that happened over the last twelve months, such as taking up fine arts for my minor, stopping my bad habit of biting nails and getting to sing and act again. There are a few sad things, too, but I don’t see the point in getting into those.

One of the greatest things in 2012 was Jules moving here, definitely. Constantine returned from Ireland, Tony stayed on campus instead of transferring, and I’m still happily in love with the Scoundrel.

I also made new friends, unexpected ones, too. Actually, some of them I’ve known for years and didn’t know in the least that they were to become some of the best friends I could imagine!

As for today, I’m going to spend the evening with the usual suspects blowing up Bertie’s model houses and having raclette and then go up to Jules and have a merry change-of-years with him, Liz, some other great folks and a lot of cocktails and karaoke.

Have a great passage into the next year, I’ll see you there!

They Call This Christmas Where I’m From

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Merry Yuletide to all of you!

This is the return of light into a world full of darkness, so celebration is due. I’ll be back in a few days with a post about Jules’ and my annual Holiday dinner, and until then I’ll let the season be merry and bright and I hope you do, too.

The Biggest Project

… of the year, and it’s due on Saturday. ♥

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And then I’ll be a little less absent all the time, I hope. Also I’ve got new shoes:

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I desperately needed a new pair of heels since I’m doing ballroom dancing again (my old ones – which I bought when I was seventeen at least – are too small now) – you may have read that in November’s 10 Things. Real dancing shoes are far too precious for me, so I got these beauties. Aren’t they pretty?
I know that boots are some sort of difficult to dance in, but when my feet aren’t firmly set in my shoes I always fear I’ll slip out of them during dancing, and so it works for me.

I hope you all had a great start into December!

10 Things I Love in November

1. A Beautiful Mess is one of my current favourite blogs. It gives such a nice, warm, yet stylish feeling of family and home without being picket fency.
2. This Toothpick Sculpture of San Francisco. Isn’t it amazing?
3. Musical Rehearsals. I missed singing and theatre so much and now I’m even taking part in a musical! Jules is responsible for the costumes, and I’m really looking forward to it.
4. Learning French. It’s really fun and – at least for me – far more useful than Latin.
5. Godete, O Cori Amanti from Georg Friedrich Händel’s Amadigi di Gaula. Look it up, it’s a great choir piece, really worth listening to!
6. Viennese Waltz. I’m doing ballroom dancing again, and waltzing is something I could do all night long.
7. Church bells. Most of the time I’m not a very religious person, but there is something about church bells that gets me all the time. I also love it when I stroll through town on Sunday mornings and can hear the organ music through the thick walls of the church with the crooked bell tower.
8. Mulled Claret Jellies again! They are sold between November and February only, so I’ve got to stock some (if you want some, get them here).
9. This awesome College Humor video. Hat tips go to M. who happens to hit bullseye with almost all of his recommendations.
10. Portable Record Players. I really like this one from ModCloth. They are so much more handy than the big one I still keep at my mother’s place because I don’t have the space at the moment.

Interludium: I Took This One Because Of The Design

Lovely Zelde from Indigobirds was so nice to give me my second blog award, thanks! In her post presenting the two awards she got from other bloggers she said I could pick either of them, and this one definitely won me over with the cute logo design. It so retro without the lines and the shades of pink and cogwheel-ish shape and the texture!

Along with the award come eleven questions asked by Zelde:

1. How did you come up with your blog name?
Actually I answer this question on my “Ego” page, but as probably not everyone reads that kind of abouts I’ll tell you: Hedgefairy is the English translation of the German word Heckenfee, which is a sort-of translation of the Old High German word hagazussa, – hag meaning hedge or fence (this word is actually quite out of style but still in use: Brambly Hedge for example is called Brombeerhag in German) and ~zussa probably coming from Germanic or Norse tysja or Lithuanian dvasia, describing a faerie or spirit being respectively. Another interpretation calls for ~zussa to be (roughly) translated to sitting.
Either way, I thought that Hedgefairy was quite a nice word, rather catchy. Also, and how I stumbled upon this word in the first place, hagazussa is believed to be the origin of the German word Hexe – meaning witch. I think people would rather link me to the traditional image of a (good) witch than to the image of a fairy, but I like both as both are part of me, my believes and my personality, and I liked the two things being actually so close. Also, I’m a big fan of Cicely M. Barker’s Flower Fairies, especially the autumn ones, so that sort of made a good match, too.
I’m a pretty mercurial person when it comes to names usually (which is very unfortunate when someone firmly believes in the right to choose ones own name as I do, but more on that another time), but Hedgefairy got stuck in my head. When I decided to start writing this blog I needed a name, and at that point it didn’t really take any pondering to choose the one I’m still going by.

2. What’s the first community you joined on the internet?
I think it was a board for the members of our pupil’s magazine back in 8th or 9th grade. As someone who was some sort of a net native late bloomer (read: regular internet-at-home access when I moved to my father’s place at the age of 17 or 18) this wasn’t really something I used so often.
My more active times started with Natron & Soda, the most awesome German alternative DIY community ever and still my second home on the Aetherweb, and Garden of Shadows, a Sims 2 & 3-based community that I’m not active in anymore due to the fact that my current laptop can’t run the game.

3.What are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading the fifth book of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, Death Masks. Also, I have book six already waiting for me, and there’s a copy of The Little White Horse on my bedside table that I can’t wait to start reading. Yes, M., Fool On The Hill is lingering on my desk in all its yellow front page glory and yes, I will read it before uni starts again.
The problem with reading is that I mostly do it on trains or busses or while waiting for those horrible bureaucracy things to happen that just happen to happen. That’s not so very often. Maybe I should travel more.

4. Do you wear silly socks?
Huh. Define “silly”. I like striped socks a lot, but most of the time it is hard to find any socks at all. I always hang them to dry and then they simply keep vanishing. I had a pair of Union Jack ones several years ago, but then there was an accident with one of them and something new and red in the washer and then there was the bleaching attempt… I guess those were my last silly socks. Also, they are made of polyester most of the time and I prefer as much cotton and wool as I can possibly get. I guess that’s not really an answer.

5. Are you a list person?
Yes. Definitely. Even though I’ve neglected my listography account I’m a person who always has to have lists. A lot of my friends are amused by this obsession of mine as I seldom make realistic ones, except maybe my “to do today” lists. Maybe.
But I love lists, and I love ticking them off. Actually I think most of my “usable paper for scribbles and sketches and stuff like that” stack gets used up for lists of some sort…

6. Do you have an unusual hobby?
I practise non-asian martial arts which strikes a lot of people as unusual (seemingly most people don’t recognise that boxing and fencing also count as martial arts and are both European. Not that I’d train in any of these – yet -, but they are fairly popular in contrast to the ones I do train in and still people don’t really see them as what they are). I love DIY in every form, which is getting less unusual as you read this – it’s sort of trending at the moment, so I’m not sure if it really counts. I try to draw and write comics which might be a bit more unusual than just plain drawing. And I’m a passive (read: non-contributing but I wouldn’t want to live without them) troper.

7. Salt or Sugar?
If we’re talking about the kind one can buy in packages at the supermarket, I’d take salt. Archaeologically and historically viewed it is the far more expensive and prestigious material leading to great wealth for communities mining – and therefore providing – it. It is easy to find another ingredients to substitute sugar (honey, for example, or fruit), but salt is something that’s hard to replace in a recipe, especially when it comes to preservation.
Also, there’s the symbolic meaning of salt, warding off evil spirits and misfortune in general, protecting corpses during their wake, destroying the value of the soil, being given at housewarmings or finding use in cleansing or purifying traditions and rites.
In terms of my daily diet I wouldn’t like to do without any of them, but not necessarily together.

8.What is your best trick to get yourself out of a bad mood?
I must admit that I most of the time succumb to my bad moods, but usually nutrition helps (as I tend to forget about eating), as well as a bit of fresh air. Also, any episode of Bryan Fuller’s most distinctive dramedies might be a big help, they just make me feel warm and happy.

9. What is your favourite place in the world?
Windowsills broad enough to sit on. Cafés and tea houses with mismatched outworn tables, sofas and chairs. The bookbinding workshop of my old school. Old staircases.

10. Do you eat a lot of salad?
More than most people I know, I think, but then again most of my friends are students who need their food fast and stuffing. I’d like to eat more, though, it might be a nice challenge to come up with new variations and I should still have this one recipe somewhere with that French pear-and-walnut salad…

11. Do you have a secret trick to productivity?
Starting as early as possible in the morning and having an (unintentional, in most cases) internet breakdown.

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The rules of this award demand for it to be given to 11 other people with a new set of 11 questions. I really tried but couldn’t possibly come up with that many questions or people to award at the moment, so I fear this will be a dead-end for this award. This might not be too bad, anyway, they have to stop at some point, I think.

Thanks again for the lovely (and well-designed ♥) award, and I hope I didn’t bore you too much with my muddleheaded, scatterbrained (I liked both words so much, please pardon the redundancy) way of answering questions.