Sketches of a Life: 2016

DIY Tanning Oil for Fair Skin

Picture the palest pale you possibly can. Now try to triple it. The colour you’re thinking of is my natural skin tone. For years I had been struggling to get some tan. I followed every tanning rule there was and, then again, broke it but... I could literally spend the whole summer at the beach and my skin would either still remain as...

6:46 pm
1 Comments

The Privilege of Privacy

personal

“Don't tell them your story unless you want them being a part of it.” Lately I've been pondering my privacy a great deal. Some may argue it odd coming from a blogger, but it’s an actual thought-provoking issue for me. In modern times, social networks have created an environment in which there is a perceived duty to expose oneself. Unfortunately, some took...

5:15 pm
2 Comments

DIY Relief Easter Eggs

tutorial

Is there such a thing as an Easter miracle? Cause I am about to publish a timely DIY post! :) As Easter break is finally here, which means I had some free time over the weekend, I thought I might try out something new with this year’s Easter decorations. Several months ago, I stumbled upon a photo of a relief Easter egg...

5:41 pm
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A Nice Day for a... Black Wedding

women's day

I had the best of intentions of writing an empowering, inspirational post on International Women’s Day. However, as I woke up with the worst flu ever, followed by the Husband proclaiming “no one marks the occasion anymore”, I simply called in sick and crawled back to bed. Several painkiller and Aspirin bottles later, I finally found the strength and inspiration to write a...

2:40 pm
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20 Things I Wish Upon My Enemies

optimism

Nothing ever happens in February. Which leaves you with plenty of time to think. Like, actually consider and question things. For Valentine's day I received a text message from a dear friend of mine. A she-friend of mine. Getting a loving message from someone other than the Husband (or, if I were younger and freer, my boyfriend / crush) certainly made for a...

2:09 pm
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A Good Day for Disguise

diy costume

"Every face is born with a thousand masks to go with it.” February. The month of love [ugh!]. And Mardi Gras. Oh, the beautiful, colourful, jolly Mardi Gras! My favourite time of year. The day I centre my year around. The highlight of all my creative aspirations. THE of my everything. I have had my costume all planned out and ready to come...

8:13 pm
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Time for That "New Year, New Me" Post

personal

So... I’ve decided to start this year off with something so silly and trivial I myself am amazed – New Year’s resolutions. Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve ever considered setting objectives to achieve during a year’s time. I am generally not accustomed to functioning within any kind of enforced frameworks, weather set by the environment, by myself, or by something/someone else. The only occassion I’ve managed to achieve something hatched this way was years ago at college, after I had set my mind to becoming one of the top students and earning the highest acknowledgement a student in my country can earn - Chancellor's Award. No question I was working hard to get there, but I shamefully must admit I was driven by negative sentiments back then, including resentment, vindictiveness, desire to prove someone wrong (looking at you, dear professor X!), and even envy (looking at you, dear suck-up colleague Y!). If the primary passion driving me forward had been, for example, an honest desire for personal development as a young educated woman, I am not so certain I would have equally succeeded or enjoyed the journey. But sometimes off beam reasons lead to upright goals and achievements. And sometimes our own desires aren’t sufficient inspiration to us, and we need the thought of someone else to keep us going.

...which brings me to the purpose of this long introduction. I’ve read somewhere that people tend to stick to their resolutions firmer when they share them with other people. I guess most people try harder when there’s an aspiration to prove something to someone else rather than to themselves. I know I do. And this is in all probability because it’s easier to let yourself down and give up silently when no one knows a thing about your inner battles, than to publically give up and raise the white flag. Therefore, as I am not good at practicing self-discipline or likely to stick to the promises made to self, I need you guys to be my promisees in this one. Knowing that an indefinite number of people will have known about my goals would prevent me from giving up and theoretically letting them down. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Why am I doing this anyway? Perhaps the reason is that every year, without exception, I get slapped by life once or twice so hard that it leaves indelible scars. So I guess I simply feel a vast urge to make a change. And although many of the bad things happening cannot possibly be affected by anything I might do or say, I still think I need to start from somewhere. However, this is not going to be one of those cross an item off the bucket list / lose weight / quit smoking lists. No, 2015 has showed me there are other aspects of my life that need to be worked on. So, 2016 is going to be my year to:

Invest more effort into being a good friend. Even though I use the term “friendship” here, it actually applies to all the people in my life; my family, relatives, colleagues, etc. For me, 2015 was an extremely important year friendship-wise. I learned that one can only have a handful of true friends, and should keep them as the apple of their eye. In my mind’s eye, this means not informing them of important events via social media, refraining from yelling at them if they drive slowly, responding to their stupid snail-mails, and laughing at their puns (I hate puns!).
Invest more effort into managing stress: draw up a list of the people who were nasty to me during the past year and get back at them!
Invest more effort into my job and hobbies. ‘Cause all I need is a chance to prove money can’t change me.
Invest more effort into improving my blog. Or at least do my best not to make it any worse.
Stop making lists. Item #2 excluded.

Ok, enough with the jokes. If you close your eyes to them, you'll see that my list is actually genuine. I hope some of you out there would find encouragement to improve your flaws in this text as well. But remember: it doesn't matter what it is that drives you forward as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. And we actually don't need New years to start working on ourselves. Every day is a good day to make a change.

As always, thank you for reading. Have a lovely day!

12:22 pm
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Sketches of a Life

DIY Tanning Oil for Fair Skin

The Privilege of Privacy

DIY Relief Easter Eggs

A Nice Day for a... Black Wedding

20 Things I Wish Upon My Enemies

A Good Day for Disguise

Time for That "New Year, New Me" Post

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