The Catcher in the Rye - A summer in a glass and packing for Vienna

   You know how one is always in search for something to do on the plane? Something interesting to read, watch or to listen to?

As I finished my working day in the office and was packing my bag to fly to Vienna for a few days, I looked at my bedside table with that lovely flower bouquet and it made me think of one book - "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.

   Now, many of you must have read that book at school and there is a chance it could be your favourite book as well. But I got inspired by that and had to immediately download it to my kindle to then read it on the plane to Austria that day.

   You can also very well see my set up for when I am packing for the trips: a cup of green jasmine tea, some very dark chocolate, as it complements the bitterness of the warm tea well and an apple, which I grabbed once I packed and got ready. I usually just chew a fruit on the plane. And to hide nothing - it matches the picture perfectly :)

   One more thing - I often put an atmospheric music to add to the ambience and that allows me to pack stress free...or almost stress free :)

   You can get this bouquet as a one off with the next day delivery or get the monthly subscription for as many months as you would like on the Prestige Flowers website (3, 9 or 12 months subscriptions are available).

   The ones I like in particular are the National Gallery bouquets, you have Van Gogh bouquet available, Snow Scene by Monet (one of my favourite pieces of art, and bouquet matches that well), Da Vinci, and many more.
This particular bouquet comes from the Luxury flower selection and is called a Niagra, with avalanche roses cushioned with iris, thistle dashes and agapanthus.

What is your favourite book right now?


Thank you for stopping by x

2019 Goal Setting and Get Motivated to Achieve your Goals

Hi, my dear friend!

If you are reading this message that means you are very blessed and we will be seeing the arrival of the New 2019 together.
I hope you are in a good health and are on your way to new achievements and life lessons which will shape you to be an even better human than you already are.
It is not always the most pleasant experience, but it will definitely be worth it.
If you want to see how to plan for a better and smoother ride in 2019, prepare your nicest notepad and a cup of your favourite drink and get reading...

1. Make a list of people you need to think and care about in 2019 and keep it:
You need it to help you keep focused on the people which you truly care about. It is the same as writing goals - something new comes up in your life, you whip out your list with goals, check - whether this "new thing" going to help you achieve one of your goals or not. If it doesn't - you can safely skip it. Unless, of course, it's helping someone in need.

Same with people - your colleague is inviting you for a drink, and you know you have promised your grandma to take her out shopping - whip out your list of "Important people in your life" and check it - it will quickly help you to make the right decision.
As you can see - I have started my list with "Myself" as point number 1.
I strongly suggest you do the same. And keep your list at a place where it is easily accessible throughout the year.
It doesn't come naturally to me at all - to put myself first. But I am learning and I can see that in 95% of cases where people have asked me for help and I dropped everything of my own to help them - it was not urgent, they could either easily done it themselves or waited until I complete my own things first and then help them.

2. Start writing all your achievements down right from the 1st of January 2019:
(Remember, I asked you to prepare your best notebook. Thats why).
Why is it important to do straight away and not wait until the end of the year?
Because as the year goes on, you will have a lot of ups and achievements, but equally - a lot of downs. And in the moments when you are low, you won't remember everything good you have done and got accomplished so far.

With the notepad and everything nicely documented - you can just sit down, read it, get inspired, understand  "this too shall pass", wipe your tears away and go! You will get your confidence back up in no time.

3. Every day, no matter where you are and what you do - always ask yourself two questions:
a/ What am I feeling right now?
b/ What do I want right now?

And act accordingly. I dare you!

We go through our lives and see what our friends are doing, what we need to be doing for work, what are we expected to do for our families. But do we really want to do it?
Is it something we really need to be doing? Maybe ourselves and others around us would benefit a lot more if we were to do what we truly want and feel like doing.
This is the secret to your non-existent motivation! And to all the lazy people out there - you are simply NOT doing what you truly want.
There is only one person who can make any, ANY difference in your life - it is YOU!
Your seat is waiting - sit down and take charge of where you are going in 2019.

You have 8760 hours in the year of 2019. Out of which you will be asleep for about 2920 hours and maybe even more.
In total you are left with 5840 hours to do something. It is so little, especially if you start watching where do you spend each hour of your day. So the 2019 will go by and you will just about manage to blink few times.
If you don't want to be that sad person with "no achievements" at the end of 2019, act now. Go and start with following the only 3 points of advise I left for you above. That is all you need, I promise.

As for me - the main lesson I learned in 2018 - is how to be more present in the moment - notice all the little things and stop and take time to inhale the smells around you, hear the noises around you, see the smiles of people...
And I will continue improving on this skill in the upcoming year. Hopefully by the end of the 2019 I will be a guru in this :)

This gorgeous flower bouquet is from Prestige Flowers. And I am in love with how well it fitted into my interior and has also replaced the aromatic Christmas tree as well, which I didn't have.  It came with all three of the lilies closed, but they opened exactly on Christmas day. This was a wonderful surprise to all of us.

Cinnamon sticks in the bouquet kept adding to the gorgeous aroma of the clementines - the king fruit of this season.

To remind you, my friend, that the days of our life are running fast and we don't have as many as we think we do!
So make the right priorities, as you don't have time for everything.

With all my love and best wishes for each one of you for the Happy New 2019 xx

Write below what are your goals for the 2019?

The best and easiest Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving and Winter tea party

   I had visitors coming one of these day and I had only few hours notice, considering I was also working in the day...What would you do in this case?
   Exactly! You get out the staple food from your fridge and whip the picture perfect and taste perfect (for me) pumpkin pie.

   I got inspired by all of the stories I was hearing from my US friends and colleagues - the hustle around the Thanksgiving day preparation. For many - it is the next best celebration to Christmas, for some - it is THE best celebration in the year.
   Our particularly active friends across the pond go through a few weeks preparation for this celebration and while the centrepiece of any family table is definitely a shiny stuffed turkey. The centrepiece of the dessert table - is a Pumpkin pie!

   A year ago I had the opportunity to try the real pumpkin pie when I was visiting California and upon my return home I made sure I recreate this king of many pies.

   This is the recipe I follow for the second year now and it is definitely the quickest and easiest you can get. ( I have also got the vegan pumpkin pie recipe, but since the majority of my readers eats eggs and milk, here you go).

For the Pumpkin pie of 20cm diameter you will need:

Ingredients:
1 x 425g can of Pumpkin Puree in the tin (alternatively you can cut fresh pumpkin in chunks, boilfor about 20 minutes and make a puree out of it - in this case you would need to prepare the puree in advance, so you have it ready)

255g shortcrust pastry (sometimes I make it myself, this time I got it from the shop)
2 large lightly beaten eggs
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon of salt
260g condensed milk
(some recipes call for sugar and if you are that way inclined, you can add about 170g of granulated sugar into your mix. But for me the half a jar of condensed milk is more than enough for sweetness).

How to make it:
Pre-heat your oven to 220C, gas mark 7. Or 200C - 210C for Fan ovens.
Meantime, roll out your pastry, go over it with the rolling pin few times to make it more or less rounded, like you would for pizza. Leave it to be about half a centimetre thick.
Place it into your flan tin (I use the one with the removable bottom - best creation in baking cooking world).
Bake blind for 10-15 minutes.

I like to fill it either with some beans or chickpeas (if you don't have ceramic beans to hand), to make sure the bottom doesn't raise while in the oven and to help distribute the heat evenly.

While your pumpkin pie shell is baking, get to business by whizzing all ingredients together in any type of the blender you have. You can even use the handheld blender.

Start with beating the eggs just a bit, then drop in the same bowl all of the spices, salt, pumpkin puree, and finish with the condensed milk.
Blend!

It should then look something like that:

Reduce the oven to 180C, gas mark 4. (Or 160C-170C if you have a fan oven).
Get the shell out of the oven, pour your blended content into the baked shell.

Leave it to bake for about 40 - 50 minutes. Check by inserting the wooden stick into the middle and making sure it comes out clean.
I then disappeared off to quickly refresh the living room, and set the table. While the house started to fill with the baked pie aroma...mmm

You can do the same and use your time wisely to prepare the house or yourself to see your best buddies. Because I would only share such pie with my best friends.

   My table is decorated with the flowers I have timely received from my friends at the Prestige Flowers team. With whom I have partnered to enjoy the most amazing fresh bouquet of the month of November - Onyx. Made out of the gorgeous velvet grand prix roses, calla lilies and bouvardia, which opens up more and more as the days go by. With it all refreshed by few eucalyptus sprigs throughout the hand-tied bouquet. It is a second week already and its still going strong.

   You can get this bouquet as a one off with the next day delivery or get the monthly subscription for as many months as you would like on the Prestige Flowers website (3, 9 or 12 months subscriptions are available).

Let me know if you have tried making this pie and how did you like it!

Thank you for stopping by, my friends! xx

Fall 2018: Flowers and Candles to Indulge in this Autumn Season

 With the October behind the window and the summer-like weather outside, it seems like autumn is not going to come. Do you want tiredness and less than a great mood to become your best friend for the next 4 months?

If not, continue reading further, because I have prepared a list of what helps me :)
   As the days go shorter and shorter and the temperature in the house and outside drops, I start burning candles. Their live fire makes me feel happier and warmer just by looking at it.

I also significantly up my visits to the nearby Garden Centers, where I get the bunch of live flowers and bring them home. Their colours and the fact that majority of plants flowers in the warm seasons and climate only makes me happier and reminds me the spring is coming soon and nature is still alive, even though it is cold. It is just not visible to our eye just yet.

Do not forget - the best gifts are flowers and candles for a reason. These are both going to be very appreciated and enjoyed, at the same time - you do not need to look as to which shelf to place your gift on.
These are also suitable to pretty much any type of a friend or acquaintance that you have and any occasion.

In this case, Prestige Flowers company has offered to send me a bouquet from the Haute Florist range.

Knowing my love for fresh flowers and also realizing they are more than happy to accommodate to the fact that I have Pepper, the cat, and some flowers are toxic and dangerous to them - so they replace the lilies, for example, with the equivalent bloom. Of course, I said yes - and the flowers are already making my conservatory beautiful. Its a next day delivery and I got them just after 10am, with the postman.

They are also having the bouquets with double flowering lilies on their website - which have no pollen at all and therefore pet and child-friendly.

It is a monthly subscription and you can choose to subscribe for 3, 6 and 12 months.
Go and have a look at the Prestige Flowers website yourself.

Orion - is the bouquet of the month of October.

If you look at the Orion Nebula, you will understand why florists named it this way.
With the pink and dusky lilac shades, it reminds us of cosines and sweet things, which we naturally allow ourselves more of during the colder seasons :)

Eucalyptus twigs are serving as the accents to the hand-tied bouquet made out of sweet avalanche and memory lane roses, antique carnations, lilac, trumpet calla lilies, and some veronica flowers.

You also get a vase for the bouquet with the first delivery, so you can always be sure you have an appropriate vessel to display them in. As well as the appropriately sized gift bag.

These lovely pink and tiny blooms were opening up more and more every day as the week went by...

And now onto my top 5 candles:

The biggest and the most long-burning one is the Pumpkin Pecan from DW Candles.  It does smell like a pumpkin fried in a pecan and caramel and fills the entire house with that yummy aroma.
I use it day and night.

My second favourite is the Iris Candle from the White Company.
Which has a lovely blend of comforting sandalwood, iris and jasmine.
It is already a repurchase and I will continue getting more if they don't stop making those.

The third one - is another Pumpkin Pecan from the Tuscany Candle.
I got it from the Trago Mills shop on one of my journey's to the South of UK. And cannot be happier. The aroma is, again, never fails to fill the entire room up of baked pumpkin pie.

The fourth candle - but not the least favourite from it - is Sea Salt and Maple Popcorn from Bath and Body Works.
It is another repurchase and I got it when I was in States. It smells of salty sweet popcorn and probaly is the most able out of all 5 to make the biggest room in the house smell of autumn.

The last one, the 5th - and I have not yet burned it, but I love, love the smell - is the Thanksgiving candle with the owl on top from DW Candles again.
I am going to definitely try it out in a week's time, when I have visitors. And will let you know how well it lasts.

When I put them all together, I noticed they are in majority - all orange and sweet smelling.

Stay cozy and warm through this autumn, friends! xx