some doodles on a thursday

Life is a little mad at the moment. I'm either waitressing, babysitting, trying to redecorate a room or do a load of pinterest projects.

But there's always time for doodles.

Hello ~ I'm back to blogging. I'm also back home, finally- after finals, after interrailling & after a short but sweet holiday to Jersey.

Interrailling was so much fun. We started off in Amsterdam, and visited Potsdam, Berlin, Gdynia (Poland), Warsaw, Krakow, Vienna (Austria) & Lucerne (Switzerland). We were away for three weeks, and had bought an interrail pass which allowed us to travel for 10 out of 21 days.

We camped almost every night, in cities, next to lakes and mountains, and through thunderstorms. We cycled round Amsterdam, the City of Bikes, let the trams of Vienna take us wherever they chose. We got lost at almost every turn, and tried to learn a bit of every language; explored castles, palaces, and winding streets. 

In Gdynia, we went to Open'er music festival which was incredible. We saw Bon Iver, Mumford & Sons, and The XX, - even Bjork! It was a lovely, low-key & chilled out festival. Everyone was so calm!

I was pretty sad to come home- but had to for my graduation, which didn't feel at all real. But now I'm filled with even more wonderlust, and can't wait for my next trip (wherever that may be). 

Now, it's a few weeks until I start my Law course. I'm looking forward to it, & the return to routine!

Home Office Inspiration

I'm spending most of my would-be revision time at the moment looking at inspiration for the study which I'm hoping to redecorate when I get home. I found THIS in the english department with a sticker telling me that it was free to a good home. 

My friend & I sacrificed our arms and managed to carry it all the way back to my flat, where it now sits proudly. I thought it will go nicely in the study when I've removed all it's ugly sticky labels. It also came with loads of floppy discs in one of the drawers... I'd definitely forgotten that they even existed.

Here are some pictures from Pinterest of the rest of my inspiration for redecoration.

~*~

Innocent Veg Pot DIY

Since I got back to uni there have been no innocent veg pots for sale in my local supermarket.. which is sad because they would be good brain food for now. So, I decided to have a go at my own version, but was really surprised when it turned out tasting almost exactly the same.

I just made one lot and split it into 3, and I've put two lots in the fridge for the week. So this recipe makes three (quite big!) servings.

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato, diced (mine was 300g)
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves
2 carrots, diced
1 can mixed beans in chilli sauce (I got this from tesco)
1/2 can chopped tomatoes
1 shake of Cayenne Pepper
1 tsp smoked Paprika
1 tbsp Lemon Juice

250 grams cooked rice (I used mexican chilli bean tilda steamed rice, but any rice would do)


First of all, dice the sweet potato and carrot. Boil these together for 10-15 minutes until both are tender.

Dice the onion and garlic and fry until cooked. Drain the sweet potato & carrot, add the onion, chopped tomatoes and mixed beans. Heat for 5-6 minutes, stirring. Add spices and sprinkle of lemon juice. Boil or cook the rice, and add this to the mixture, mix all together and you're done!!

With the rice, because I intend to reheat two meals, I decided to only cook and add the rice after I'd split the meals up. This is because I'm always a bit apprehensive about reheating rice. I'd suggest you do this too if you plan on reheating some of it... better safe than sorry.

 I'm pretty sure it tastes better than it looks

~*~

Starbucks revision

Well, I have had my most successful revision day yet... and it took place in starbucks! Even though I usually find it hard to concentrate with noise around me... and I can't revise listening to music with lyrics, the white noise created by coffee machines and coffee drinkers seems to allow me to function at my most productive! (It wasn't an entirely fair test- it could have been the extreme amounts of caffiene I consumed.. or the fact that it's getting pretty close to my exams..) but anyway, I shall be returning. (I'm not sure how financially sound my plan is... but I did manage to smuggle in a tuna wrap, so at least I didn't have to spend ten million pounds on a sandwich... or however much they are now). I think the main thing about it that I preferred was the reminder that there are normal sane people in the world who don't spend all day at a desk. I really can't stand our university library at the moment; people are breathing stress. The caffeine definitely helped too, at one point I felt decidedly hyper, which is unfortunate sitting at a small coffee table, where really the most acceptable movement that one can achieve is tapping one's foot. It meant I felt weirdly happy about revising, anyway. I hope caffiene carries on affecting me the way it seems to at the moment, though I doubt this.

It's also been an amazingly nice day, so hot, and starbucks was nice and cool, and the big windows meant I could feel like I was outside, without the inconvenience of my papers blowing everywhere. In a library, it's easy to forget that there is actually a world out there.

I also had my first frappuccino which actually had coffee in it, and really liked it. This is odd, because I've tried them before and hated them. I think my brain has readjusted it's opinion on coffee. Whilst thinking about this, I happened to be studying the topic of personal identity. One of the criterion for a particular theory which depends on psychological continuity for the persistence of your 'self' included 'preferences', along with 'memory' etc. I then started to entertain the possibility that I might be turning into an entirely different person altogether.... after all, in the last month or so I have decided that I love coffee where I previously couldn't stand it, as well as liquorice... and I think there's something else but I can't remember it now. Perhaps I'm being taken over by a coffee, liquorice loving alien. Or perhaps not.

Ah, the everyday implications of philosophy... xox

Longboarding

:( He's gone. We had an amazing time as usual, and went on so many 'dates' this time! Coffee shops, libraries, parks, restaurants, the cinema! We did them all.

As I said, I took some photos of him longboarding. I even had a go myself, though it was mildly terrifying... and I grazed my ankle.

Here we go:

he's silly :)

my wound!

 xox

My first coffee

My boyfriend arrived on saturday, and we have been having a great time. That evening, we went out for drinks for my housemate's 21st (which is actually tomorrow). Before heading to the bar, my boyfriend and I ate a meal at ASK, which was YUMMY (especially the chocolate pudding we couldn't resist because of the description 'molten middle'..!) When we arrived at the bar, my friend ordered about 6 jugs of mojito, so everyone had a pretty good time!

This meant that I spent the whole of sunday feeling a little worse for wear. This was when we decided it might be a good idea for me to try a coffee. I've always liked the smell, but never the taste, however I've tried a few of his lattes recently and not minded them. We headed to cafe nero... ordered a skinny latte (all lattes at cafe nero come with 2 shots of expresso) and I actually loved it! With a bit of sugar, I thought it was delicious. It definitely gave me the pick me up I needed. In fact, probably because I've never really drunk any high-caffiene drinks before, I actually became pretty hyper. I couldn't stop moving for about 2 hours- it was quite funny.



Another way I decided to make myself feel better was by REORGANISING. (Does anyone else do this??) For a while I've wanted to store my flour and sugar and pasta, etc, in jars with pretty labels but haven't got round to doing this. So, we cycled to sainsburies, loaded my bike-bag up with jars (rather precariously), and then I spent the whole afternoon finding, printing and sticking pretty labels! Not quite revision, but it made me feel slightly better about my life.

I also made this card for my friend:

And I'm giving her these, as well as some peanut butter cookies she loves that I'm going to make tomorrow. (Last time we made them, we ate the whole batch in a day).  

I also got this for my boyfriend the other week. He's got a VW camper van which he's mainly done himself, and often lives in it for periods of time in the summer. Hopefully this summer we will go and do some camping somewhere, so I thought this would be a fun thing to get! 

(The mug is a present from his lovely mum :))

mmm yes please!



xox