Baby booties (autumn collection)

I found one day a lovely and easy pattern (which you can see HERE) that did not require two point needles or circular needles that I don't have, yet which I saved for some rainy days :) I couldn't decide what yarn to use. So, my husband convinced me one Saturday morning to go to OSER (something like a flee market probably). I live in Cluj for 12 years I think and my husband for 5 years and we haven't been there until a few weeks ago. Shame on us ! :)
So we went. And I found wool. Real wool !!! I'm so enthusiastic about it cause I rarely find wool. It's always acrylic yarn.
So, finally real sheep's wool... huray :).
I took only 2 balls of yarns, to see if I like it and I can tell you that I adore them. :)
I must go again and buy some more.

So here's my baby booties collection :

10 minutes Raw Soup Recipe

My husband, in his attempt to make me eat healthy foods and give up chocolate (if that could ever be possible),  made us this incredible good and easy soup. I could eat this all the time :)

 Ingredients for 2 persons:

• basil (3-4 leaves)
• oregano (a few leaves)
• salad (2-3 leaves) (actually we liked it more without the salad)
• parsley (just a small hand)
• garlic  (5 small pieces)
• 1 small onion
• 2 big tomatoes
• 2 small capsicum
• salt, pepper

We used fresh  basil and oregano from our little garden.

We take the tomatoes and pass them through the blender.

We cut all the vegetables in small parts.

We pass all of them through the blender EXCEPT the parsley.

We pour  the whole content into a pot and we heat it a little, without boiling it.
Add salt, pepper or other condiments that you like.

And then we serve it decorating the soup with fresh parsley...

...or with parsley and corn flakes (as my husband want it) :)

          BON APPETIT  !!! :)

Lynn Austin - Song of Redemption

Song of Redemption by Lynn Austin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read this volume easier than the first one, the plot attracted me more, but I still don't like the writing style.

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Origami Flower Bouquet Instructions

Yesterday our friend F. had her birthday and today our Tuesday group will surprise her with a bouquet of paper flowers.

What you'll need:
                            paper
                            glue
                            wire stem
                            double side scotch
                            white pen

I started from the usual kusudama flower, each one with 5 petals in different shades of lila.
You can see how it is done here : Kusudama-Flower

So here are my petals.

 

 On the most dark ones I wrote with white pen the names of each person from our group.

Then I  glue three petals together with simple paper glue.
Now I used double side scotch to fix the wire stem to the flower and glued the two remaining petals on top of it.

 That's it.  Now you can finish the bouquet however you desire. I choose to live it simple just weaving the wire stems a bit. You can add buttons, paper leaves or whatever you can think of . :)

Knitted shrug

Finally I have finished it. It took me a few months but I did it :) It wasn't that I found it difficult cause it's not at all. It took me a long time maybe mostly because it was just knitting and purling all the time and I felt the need of coming out from this continuous pattern. But now is here and I really like how it turned up. So this morning I woke up early to iron my wedding dress (which surprisingly still fit me after 5 years of eating sweets) and another dress, difficultly pushed my husband out of bed, handed him a camera and drove to a nearby hill to take some pictures. I used white mohair for this and the shrug is so soft and lightweight and it kept me warm on this slightly cold morning. I was almost sorry that I didn't have something like this at my wedding when I had to take my husband's coat at one point :)

 

 

I really don't like someone  taken pictures of me. I can't keep my face still .My husband has a difficult job with me :) 

 

 

As you can see we also found some sheep and goats that I tried to pet but  was not successful in my try :)    

Milan Kundera- The book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I bought this book to give to my grandmother. Thank God that He gave me the inspiration to read it first. I don't understand the obsession of modern and contemporary writers to not only use but abuse of pornographic and deranged sexual activities images in their writings. Why does it have to be so explicit? It's like these tv shows that only want ratings and using sex is the best way to do it. They don't care about developing the human society, they only care about them getting as much money as possible, no higher goals. I read books expecting to find out more, to enrich myself, to get away from this self destroying world. And I stumble on books like this. If I want pornographic images I will read Sandra Brown. I don't expect to read the same thing from a high=rated author. I think Kundera had some interesting ideas in his book but I just couldn't pass over those images that got stuck to my brain. What is he trying to teach the public ??? Does a good author need to make use of shocking sexual images to attract the public like a bad television ? It's this the public he wants? I would like to give him another chance and read something else written by him but I don't have the courage right now. I don't want to buy another book like this that I will probably burn it. I want to have in my house books that I can recommend to my future kids to read and this I cannot.

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Prisme Pebeo paint

Going through one of my favorite store in Cluj, Rembrandt, looking for some Derwent Inktense new colors my eyes were attracted of a paint I didn't notice till now. Still being in a seaside mood I was completely dragged to the turquoise and blue and imagine all kinds of stuff I could do with this paint.

Pebeo Prisme paint

I had this antique bronze pendant base bought some time ago and I think it goes great with this paint that surprises you with its final results.

  I also tried a new coaster using this paint trying again to represent the beautiful sea. I didn't use any varnish on top of it and it works well like this. Neither the hot temperatures or the water ruins the design.

To kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This I really liked. I read in English cause I like lately to read my books in original as much as I can to capture the whole meaning of its written words. I must read it again cause the first time I was conquered also about the plot and wanted to see how everything ended. I recommend reading it.

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Of Kings and Gods - Lynn Austin

Gods and Kings by Lynn Austin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hm , well, I was not overwhelmed. I think the idea behind it is great and it helps you remember the kings of Iuda and Israel, but I just didn't like the way it was written. Maybe it had to do with the romanian translation or maybe because I'm found of russian writings, I don't know. Though it's easy to read and it has a plot I kept putting it aside and had no desire to see what was next. Maybe I found it too easy to read, too many dialogues as if I was reading a movie script or a book made after a movie.

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Hair pin with green sea glass

During our vacation I came across sea glass on the beach. I'm sure I must have found them lots of times before but I just didn't know what they were and I didn't collect them. But lately I kept reading about it so I was very happy to discover them on our beach. To my disappointment I only found green and white ones. I would have wished to pick up lots and lots of colors. But, well, that will do :)

I didn't know exactly what to do with them, especially because I have many small ones and just a few bigger. But yesterday I remembered that I had some hair pins and  brooches that I could use with. So this is what I came up with.

 I glued them first with a glue gun and it looked ok. but I dropped the hair pin while trying to make pictures with it and all the sea glass fell down. So I tried next with another glue that I use for almost everything and appears to be ok. I dropped it again and nothing happened.

 

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart UPDATE

 I promised you before we left to Montenegro to post a great recipe for a strawberry rhubarb tart that is simply delicious. Unfortunately there is no more rhubarb to find in my town now and I didn't make any picture when I did it so I'll just have to simply write it.

UPDATE: I just made this tart again and now I have pictures to show :) 

Ingredients:

400 gr biscuits
150 gr butter

1 cup sugar (or as much as you think you need; I will use less next time)
1/4 cup flour
2 cups cut-up rhubarb   (or as much as you have as I did)
2 cups strawberry

How to do it:

First crash the biscuits using a blender  and mix them with pre microwave-melted butter. Than arrange the mixture into your tart tray with your fingers.

Heat the oven to 200 C .

Mix sugar with flour.

Turn half of the rhubarb and strawberry in your tart tray, then sprinkle half of the mixture of sugar and flour, then the last half of the rhubarb and strawberry and finish with sprinkling the remaining mixture of sugar and flour.

Bake until juice begins to bubble. 

ENJOY IT ! :)
I will certainly do this again and again :)

Montenegro

I came back from the sea carrying a bunch of ideas and since I got home a few days ago I have been spending my time sketching in order not to forget them :)

We were to Montenegro  this year where we stayed at a camp called Maslina next to the city Petrovac. We didn't like the beach there, it was big, dirty, crowded with different kinds of music coming from all around you so we took the car every morning and drove away about 6 km to other beaches that were the opposite of what I just described.  We loved it there and I recommend you going .

                                             I have my usual vacation reading picture:

                           And here is me knitting my secret project :) while my husband is reading

                                                        I went rafting for the first time...

                                                             ... on the beautiful Tara river

                                                      I also tried and loved snorkeling 

                                       Climbing down the stairs to get to one beach we liked

                                                                       Beaches

                                                                  My dream came true:
                                            drinking my morning Moccacino on the beach

                                                           Going on the sea with our canoe

                                                                    A Montenegro cat

                                   You can even play some basketball in the middle of nowhere :)