Christmas

Christmas 2021

Hi you all! Long time, no see. I won’t make any excuses about the time, there’s never enough time, but when there is, I seem to be letting it slip from my hands by doing nothing much. November has been cold and I’ve been sitting by the fire, pretty much like my cats used to do. 🙂 I guess it’s not really a waste of time, as long as it’s a sort of therapy- your body and mind tell you that you need to rest and you’d better listen. Especially since I’m still waking up at 5 am and the days are a mist of a never-ending todo-list. Too bad this inactivity usually spills over into my admin work, so that I’m way behind with my VAT again. But that’s a different story.

How have you been? I miss you commenting my entries, but hey, as long as I’m hardly ever in here anymore, I can’t expect you to be. 😉 We’ve been decorating a little, it looks really Christmassy and cosy here. And Madeleine and I made gingerbread twice, with the kind of dough you buy in the stores, since I can’t seem to find the inspiration for any real baking these days. She really enjoyed it, both eating the dough (and the cakes) and fooling around shaping it. 😉 I won’t even mention the mess…

Work is slow, but I don’t mind it that much, as long as I know I have a couple of cases coming up in January. I’m finding it harder and harder to put up with the way interpreters get treated, but I won’t even go there, I feel like a broken record as it is. I should probably do something entirely different, but until the day I figure out what that might be, I’m taking my Bachelor in interpreting, to be on the safe side. Just handed in my exam, I wrote all kinds of personal bullshit and I’m not expecting to pass, but at least I gave it a go.

Otherwise I’m really close to taking my driving test (and hopefully my driver’s license), I’m already planning to lease a car in February or March. Cross your fingers! I can’t bear another day without a car! I know it’s not politically correct to even think that, but the city is not made for getting around by bus with a toddler in pram and between walking Sam, her getting her nap and the short winter days- it gets dark at 3:30!!- we seldom get to do anything else than buy cocoa at the coffeeshop 5 minutes by bus from our home.

Christmas is around the corner and I’m looking forward to a break from it all. We bought very little presents and just gave each other a vintage lounge chair, the type you sit in by the fireplace. For Madeleine I ordered a toy train set, a book (mostly because I’m bored reading the old ones) and a set of jumper and beanie in a traditional Norwegian knitting model. I used to hate them before, maybe because I also had one when I was little and it itched like hell, but now I find them really cute (and warm). 😉 What are you getting your loved ones for Christmas?

Hope to be back with a recipe soon!

xxx, Alina

Christmas as 4

This year we’re celebrating Christmas the 4 of us: me and F, Madde and Sam. ❤ I’m trying to find the Christmas tree foot stored somewhere in the attic, ’cause, guess what: We’re getting a tree! I’m so excited I could jump for joy, had I not been so sleep deprived that.. But that’s another story.

Since we moved into a new apartment in February, we’ve been negotiating a new style together- I have things to fill a whole house, but it’s stuff I bought on my own or in “my previous life”, so we’re trying to find something that both can live with. 😉 Which is why we’re not gifting each other anything this Christmas, instead we’re getting this lovely lamp from &tradition. It’s called Copenhagen, one of my favorite cities. We wanted to make sure it would come on time for the holidays and because I dared to ask, we were able to buy the one on exhibited in the store with a big discount. Yay!

My George Nelson bubble lamp is not double insulated and so we have to find another pendant for our living room table. And who would have thought it would be such a hard task? I’d been looking at Louis Poulsens PH lamp, but it has the same shortcoming, so we’ll have to search some more. Do you have any advice?

I had to get a new Mac since my old one ended on the floor with a cup of coffee aboard and I need to buy an Apple Card for my memory card, or else I can’t seem to transfer pictures from my camera. And you know me, these things take a lifetime to get sorted, which is why I only have pictures from my mobile. But I’ll leave you a cute picture of my two babies who seem to make friends with each day that passes.

I hope you have a lovely holiday and drop me a line if you feel like it.

xxx, Alina

Holidays 2019

It’s late in the evening, I’ve packed my bags, stuffed them with gifts and goodies for big and small and can’t wait to head home tomorrow. I say home, although we’ll be staying in an airbnb in Bucharest and not at my parents’ house in Craiova, because home is where your heart is and mine is in Bucharest.

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Christmas Break

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Phew, done with everything (that counts)! From today on I’m officially off duty and I’m enjoying it to the fullest. Outside it’s snowing, I’ve walked Sam and made myself a ham and cheese sandwich, the apartment is warm and the gifts are all wrapped up, the tiny tree is decorated and I’ve even remembered to buy pantyhose for the Christmas dinner. 😉 Haha! (I always forget!) Continue reading →

Counting down to Christmas

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Hi darlings! How have you been doing? I’m good, a walking Christmas spirit these days. 😉 I’m done with buying presents, had planned on wrapping everything today, but I can’t seem to find the tape. After having painted the apartment, nothing is in its place anymore. But hey, nothing to despair about, I’m running myself a hot bath instead. 😉 Continue reading →

Merry Christmas 2017

Finally here. Today was my first day off and besides sleeping in, binge-watching Netflix, taking a bath, walking Sammy and having a nap, I did nothing impressing with my time. I was so tired I though I’d never get better. But indulging yourself half a day can work wonders and I now made my first batch of sugarcoated almonds and I’m on to making dinner soon enough. IMG_1639.jpg Continue reading →

Pre-Christmas Days

Hey, peeps! How are you? I’ve been way too busy for my own good lately, but now that the weekend is here I have little plans to do anything else than relax, bake a little, clean the house and buy a cute Christmas tree.

Sammy turned 5 on Tuesday and since that day was horrendously hectic for my part, he only got a longer walk and some liver pate as a treat. But yesterday we finally bought him a new toy and he was ecstatic, he carried it around everywhere and asked us to keep it, so he could pull it from our hands. 😉 haha! You should have seen him! So cute!

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I’m done with the gifts, except for one last extra present, now I only need to bake a bit, fill up the cookie jars and wrap the presents up. What about you? Are you “en route”? Have you done the Christmas baking, too?

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These pics are from our neighborhood, where I’m taking Sam for walkies three times a day, listening to Sidney Bechet, Nat King Cole and Madeleine Peyroux. With my condition, I cannot overwork myself, or else I come crashing down and lose my will to wake up, so I need to plan a day off here and there or a couple of half days, to cope with the pressure. That’s exactly what I did yesterday- after wrapping up a couple of things with the accountant and delivering some small presents, it was just me on the agenda. I had a Prosecco with a close friend, then a couple more on my own, under the pretext of feeling sorry for myself on account of the pain ( apparently you need a couple of vaccines for Morocco). 😉

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Yesterday evening we went out for pizza and beer, just me and my boo. It felt like ages ago we did anything together, just the two of us, and it’s oh so important. The town was teeming with drunk people already at 5 o’clock and again I felt ashamed of this stupid Christmas party tradition here where people seem to lose all common sense. Do you have the same wherever you are?

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Leaving you with a couple of endearing pictures of Sammy boy, guarding the neighborhood. Fancying a bath with a glass of cold Christmas soda. 😉

xxx, Alina

Christmas 2016

Christmas is a difficult time for many people, myself included. All this focus on family, the being on your best behaviour and the “look how successfully we’re wrapping up the year” makes me feel pretty exhausted. I feel much closer to many of my friends than to some of my blood relatives. As for the in laws, I’ve never been a mother-in-law’s dream, God knows why, and this time is no different. haha!_mg_9892 Continue reading →

Last minute gifts

Are you ready? I know I am. Still haven’t decorated much, I’ve been busy working, baking and agonising about things. I did venture into the storage room yesterday (finally!) and I managed to put up my Xmas stars and a couple of other light chains. So pretty! And while munching on my first batch of candied almonds (not my best one so far), Sam on the floor admiring the lights, I felt a tickling in my gut, no, I’m far from being pregnant, it’s the Xmas joy I used to feel before. It used to sneak up on me already in November, last year I never got any, but this year it seems “better late than never” works just fine. 😉

Today I bought the amaryllis flowers and the booze and this evening I’m hosting an ever so small Romanian party, just 4 friends, some mulled wine and a pizza.

So I thought I’d give you a couple of tips on super-duper gifts, although I’ll have to say, for your own sanity, I hope you’re not that behind. haha! 😉 Found Ricky Gervais’ fb. entry so funny: “I’m out Christmas shopping, where do I find the will to live?” Haha!

For your boyfriend, this espresso stovetop from Freud is a true jewellery.be3cb779dc0ca46d2038c743873b067a Continue reading →

Stavanger in Winter Clothes

The second half of this year I’ve spend working my ass off, billing and paying debts and I’m still miles away. 😦 Luckily I’ve had a couple days out of town here and there, so I used each opportunity to have a short city break. And Stavanger was no exception. I was there in court with a good friend of mine for two days and we had a blast. Heroines by day, superwomen by night. Haha! I’m exaggerating, of course, all we did was have a late dinner on the first evening and an early one the second one. But it felt so good catching up, no kids to tend to, no dog to walk, lots of time to buy the last Xmas gifts (for her) and to get a Xmas haircut (for me)._mg_0053 Continue reading →