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

Where is home?

This post was inspired by LCR's 'Get the Picture' challenge, which got me thinking about the idea of 'home'. She posts the definition
"home |hōm|noun
a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates."

My last post was called 'home for the weekend'. By this, I meant the house where my mum, dad, and sister live. My current conception of 'home', then, fits with the last definition; "from which it originates". I wasn't thinking when I used that expression, but I suppose that's the place I still call home. It will be interesting to see when that will change. 

The definition "is most typically found" definitely doesn't apply to me right now. I am most typically found in my university shared house of 8. Even though its made up of some close friends, it just isn't 'home'. Part of this will be the fact that the house is actually fairly disgusting, given the unfortunate fact that my housemates seem to be allergic to cleaning, or any suggestion of it. I've sort of grown used to it now so it doesn't get to me as much, and I'm not a clean freak myself, but honestly, this is a new level. Luckily my room is my sanctuary, complete with fridge, and I do quite a bit of food preparation in it to escape. I've just gone and taken some photos of the rest of the house, to show you I'm not just being melodramatic. If anyone reading this is eating, I'd advise them to stop doing so now. :/

My poor, neglected cleaning rota. I tried.

Actual disgusting mould :/

So you 'get the picture'. The final definition is, "where something flourishes". I was glad this was suggested, because it fits my other, and perhaps preferred definition of home. Cheesy I know, but a line from the song 'Home', by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes struck a chord with me; "Home is wherever I'm with you". I feel most comfortable, most content, and most happy when I'm with my boyfriend. I think, for me, that's what I really consider 'home' to be now. Because I moved house a few times when I was a child, I experienced the transition of "home" a few times. The point that I would always notice that the transition had fully formed was when I'd get back from a holiday, and realised that it truly felt as though I was home. I now get the same feeling every time I see my boyfriend (this is an obvious feeling for me, because we're in a long distance relationship).

Where do you consider to be home? Has this changed much throughout your life? Thanks to LCR for that food for thought.

Which brings me onto real food! I went for a run with my housemate today and, whilst I've lost loads of fitness (okay, been lazy) recently, it felt really good and we ran well together, as we spurred eachother on. There were so many times that I would have stopped if she hadn't been there! Anyway, it left me feeling healthy:



And finally, the dream drawing from the other day...





xox

Home for the weekend

I decided to come home this weekend, partly for just some home comforts, partly because there were a few things I left behind from Easter, and partly because I thought it might kickstart my revision (it didn't.) However, it has been fun! Yesterday I met up with my best friend, Jenny, and we decided to give our cameras some exercise! We drove around looking for interesting places, and enjoyed the break from work as well as some catching up. Here are some of the photos we got:

:)

It was good to have a play with some photos, as I haven't really done much photography for a while. I'm looking forward to my boyfriend visiting next weekend, because we're going to take some pictures of him longboarding!

I'm having a slight sugar-overload this weekend... I'm not used to having to control myself around so much chocolate/icecream, etc, as I just usually don't buy it at university, or buy it in small amounts!! Woops.

Also, more dream drawings to come soon. Had another really odd dream where I was going on holiday to some place where they still lived as savages. I had to go to watch a film (in screen 9..?) about what it was going to be like, and then I had to go on a plane to get there. The people were all a bit evil I think, and I remember there being a huge hill... and oddly some esculators at some point. I have no idea how my brain comes up with these things...

xox