Running late

White chocolate brownies, recipe for heavy winter

brownies © mic dejun de bucuresti

I care so much about people that it often hurts. Yet again, this is what makes me be me so trusting people less would mean changing who I am into someone I wouldn't really like that much. Baking for others calms me down, makes me a better person. Sharing is caring, isn't it? Even though I learned that sharing too much is never a good idea.

There's a milion things one cannot control. There's unpredictable snow, there's unpredictable mistakes, changes of a plan and so forth and so on. Yet when you bake something, even when you make that recipe for the first time, it's you again, doing something you love, knowing that the dough will rise and the crust will turn golden.

I don't like these small certainties because they offer the impression of mere control, but because this means living. Drinking tea while doing nothing else but drinking tea. When thinking about other people, when trying to figure out what you already know cannot be figured out, baking is that one break you need from your thoughts. And then something good comes up from all this and it's you again, sharing brownies with people, smiling, knowing that in 10 years from now you'd enjoy doing the same thing. Sharing.

Not dreaming. Planning a white Christmas

I'm crazy about chocolate, friends and Christmas. Put them together and you'll have a perfect white Christmas. Because this is my plan for this year's Christmas. I'd say it would be my first holiday dinner since we had many parties there already in just one year since I moved in. But now my house is white with dust. Who knew renovating your bathroom (read: out with old, in with the new) would get so messy, so loud, so... flooding your neighbour for the second time this autumn? Well, I knew it alright. But one's has to be patient because the only way to make room for the new and the better is throwing away the old, the ugly and the someone else's memories. The more you bring out your personality in that house, the more you invest, the more you'll love it and the more it'll pay you back in comfort, peace of mind and dear new memories.

So I've been digging through the snow (read: Pinterest) to find some of the nicest white Christmas ideas. Since now there's almost nothing I can do but planning, I know these ideas will be useful once my house is clean again and ready for Christmas. I haven't decided what gifts to offer to all of my guests, but I'll figure out something. Until then, this is what I think might help me have the perfect white Christmas dinner and table:

Quinces jam and fighting inner foodie

One should never find the inner foodie, right? Well, I'm doing it. I'm struggling to get back to the Dukan diet but so far I've been doing the opposite. I'm thinking now it's my job to finish the jar I already opened, cook the vegetables in the fridge and restart tomorrow. Can't tell you how many times I started this again and again. But it did me so well, it cleansed my body and I want that feeling back. So tomorrow, Dukan Day 1.

Also, any tips for not murdering another orchid? My lemon trees seem to be doing rather well sitting by the window and I hope the orchid will thrive as well.

Work in progress

 Boy, there are so many things to do in a house. Even though there are moments when you think this is a continuous project and the day when you won't need to buy new tiles, new pipes, new whatever might never come, when things fall into place you understand how everything actually works and you only get excited about it.

As I write, two men are fixing a new door yet I have to run soon for a small photo project, come back home, change and leave again to buy floor tiles and a shower cabin. Tuesday we start working on the bathroom so that should be fun. :) Seriously though, I can't tell you how happy I am for finding all the pieces I want and getting even closer to such a dream.

The kitchen is far from being finished, especially since now I want dark paint where now is dark blue. I still haven't found the perfect chairs (looking for some lab stools, any ideas?). Actually, below is the perfect chair I wanted but it's not for sale at IKEA in Bucharest.

ikea.ro

News break. Coffee break

source: pinterest.com

OK, so I'm interrupting this perfect morning to write you all about this perfect morning. :) You don't get them just like that, you have to make them so.

I wouldn't say I've been myself lately. The same self, but just a little less of me. Whenever you put yourself out there, caring perhaps too much for others and worrying definitely too much about not getting other people upset, you end up disappointed and exhausted. Those strong connections all of a sudden seem thin, unstable, breakable. Something that even a draft could scatter.

So you need to work your way out of it and back to your own self. Knowing what your habits are. Those habits you like and that make you be you. And then, once you start enjoying your company again, once you reconnect and find that inner peace, once you remember nothing is lost and that everything is going to be okay, you are ready to embrace the whole new year.

So this morning is perfect. I had my coffee at home, so strong, so tasty. And then I got my favourite French magazine, December issue, newly put on the shelves. I had another coffee just one hour later and the question: "Do you want cinnamon in your coffee?" made my morning brighter.

I'm thinking sometimes this is all it takes. Just some cinnamon in your coffee.

Dreams come true, they really do

These past two days have been so nice yet equally busy. I still can't believe how many things are finally changing. Everything that makes me tired over the day is forgotten once I enter my house. My home. It's such an incredible feeling and such a relief. It took me months to feel that the place belongs to me and that I belong there. But it also took months to fill it with memories, with friends, with family. And building it step by step while looking at the results and seeing how much they are a reflection of who I am makes me feel so happy once again. It's a dream I once had and now it came true. And it's something it takes time and something you appreciate more and more.

I would not give this away for anything, this great feeling I have knowing that I made it, that it's something I accomplished. Something I wouldn't have thought possible 2 years ago. But it's been already one year and here I am: at home. My own home, soon even closer to that dream.

And I can't wait to share it with the most beautiful people in the world. Few, but those incredible few.