short trip

It seems we’re always on the move this year, driving and visiting. This last friday we went to a wedding (I was also the photographer). The venue was a beautiful castle with gorgeous rooms.


The bedroom we were staying in was a real step back in time with the wood furniture and the flowery wallpaper…exactly like I picture rooms in the 1930’s or 40’s (and it may have been untouched since then, as the castle has been the property of the local university since 1949).

I have to say the winding wooden staircase leading up to the upper floors freaked me out a little. It was so old that each step creaked loudly and the whole staircase was tilting heavily towards the middle.

We had a wonderful time, but between driving down, taking photos all day and driving back up we took all of saturday to recover (I did anyway) and we’re taking it easy for the rest of the weekend.
True to my words from last post, as soon as I sat down at my sewing machine last weekend I couldn’t stop and have been sewing up a storm in the evenings, resulting in a summer skirt, a blouse and a silk dress. No wonder I’m exhausted 🙂 I’ll try and get photos soon, but first, it’s back to editing the wedding!

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june days

I am SO hooked on making videos…I just can’t seem to stop.

We’ve had some lovely sunny days here which I’ve tried hard to enjoy. Between my pollen allergy and a LOT of work it hasn’t always been easy. Sneeze.
In addition to some really tough days at the office (which unfortunately will continue all month) I’ve been quite busy with my photography as well, which is great of course and I am enjoying myself immensely doing photoshoots. So far I’ve been blessed with the sweetest clients imaginable and I hope I’ll be able to share the results pretty soon!
At this point I just have to mention this speech I listened to the other day. Do yourselves a favor and sit down with a cup of tea or lemonade, depending on your weather, watch this and be inspired. Preferably after you’ve read this post to the end that is 🙂

I’m trying to soak up this time of year at the barn, when the wind is still fresh and the grass is lush and green, before the flies and the heat. Sneeze. I also gave in today and started taking pills against my allergy.
I then rode the pony bareback through the woods without a single sneeze. Heaven.
My balcony garden is coming along nicely as well. I got flowers in addition to edibles this year and they look lovely in their pots next to the herbs and mints. Which reminds me, I just bought a fourth type of mint. Ginger mint. How could I resist?

The kohlrabis are getting chubbier.

I took out the sukkulents to soak up some sun too, then had to take them inside again because they got burned and turned red! Now they’re back to green and doing great thankfully.

The sunniest corner is occupied by the tomatoes and peppers, along with a little mint and yet more flowers tucked in here and there.


I was given some soil to use from a friend and mixed it with storebought soil. I seems to have come from a garden, because these have been growing in between my plants:

Aren’t they cute? The seeds must have been dormant in the soil. Anyone know their name in english?
The wild strawberries are producing like crazy.

I love the unique taste of wild strawberries. The greatest weekend breakfast!

I also finally got some green things for our bare window sills inside. It’s amazing how a little bit of green can cheer a room up so much.

The cats love them too. Unfortunately this means they’re busy nibbling away at them. Good thing I took care only to buy plants that are non-toxic for cats and so far, the addition to their diet doesn’t seem to be doing any harm.
They do love our new rug as well…I’m predicting the plants are tougher than the rug and will last longer. Good thing too because the rug only cost me 3€ at the thrift store 🙂 Slowly but surely this new place of ours is getting cozy!

my point of view

After spending every waking hour for the last five days on our new couch I’ve decided I still like it a lot but wouldn’t mind actually setting foot out of the door again.
The cats have been splendid company though, not leaving my side for a minute and even following me around the apartment on the rare occasions I actually got up (which I didn’t have to do very often, because my awesome boyfriend brought me medicine and tea and broth right up on a tray).

They love it when we’re home during the day, but they’re not usually so clingy so I think they must have sensed how awful and cold I’ve felt.
Today’s a lot better already and after a three-hour nap I even felt well enough to pick up the camera, to share a few shots of our new place.


Two rugs we ordered from a small weaving company in Austria got delivered last week and we (both humans and felines) totally love them. This is their website (german language only), they sell made-to-order woven sheep-wool and cotton rugs.


I can’t say how much I’m looking forward to eating something other than broth tonight. I already treated myself to chocolate this afternoon. Isn’t my life riveting 🙂


Seeing me up and taking pictures the cats seem to have decided I’m well enough to be let out of their sight for a while. This is them playing a favourite game, “chase the sunny spots in the room”.

Don’t be fooled though, about two minutes after this was taken, one of them started scratching that lamp and the sideboard very slowly and deliberately, while looking straight at me, saying as plainly as could be “You’re up and better, I am going to keep scratching your precious new furniture until we all head to the kitchen and you give me some food”.
Cats are the best.

inspiration day

We have this great rule at work that every employee can take one day a year off to do something inspiring for him/herself.
Normally that would involve going somewhere to see something or participate in a day course but I chose to spend my inspiration day at home with this book:

It’s a decorating book but different from any I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t give you tons of rules or advice to follow but makes you work hard at finding out, step by step, what you need, what you want and what you like.
The book is organized in 18 consecutive steps toward your dream room (it makes you tackle just one room). My goal was to complete the first 5 steps and I barely got finished in the one day, even though I had prepared beforehand and already compiled lots and lots of image inspiration on pinterest.
The first steps are discovering your aspirations (what do you want to do in the room), your functional needs (what do you need to realize your aspirations) and your emotional needs (how do you want to feel to do your aspirations). Now Meghan really makes you work here, filling out dozens of work sheets which can be downloaded on her website.

I picked the hardest room (naturally) and did a combined living and dining room.
Since functional needs can tell us what things we need to put in our room but we have trouble translating emotional needs to actual items of furniture/lighting/accessories etc., Meghan concludes we have to find a muse and a style to translate them. Once we find a muse (1 to 3 pictures that perfectly capture your emotional needs which you’ve written down) she helps you break it up into actual, usable information like shapes, patterns, colors, textures.

Sources: image 1 | image 2 | image 3

Image Source

Image Source

Once you’ve done that your next task is to look at hundreds of room pictures and pick the ones you love and that represents the feelings you’ve written down on your emotional needs worksheet. When you’ve got at least a dozen of those, you go about dissecting them much the same way.

Sources: image 1 | image 2 | image 3

By now you have gotten a pretty clear idea what you need and want and what items and characteristics can help you build a room that fits you and your needs perfectly.
There will likely be some surprises. For example I always thought I was a color person and my styles pictures very clearly showed a preference for the colors brown, cream and white. This tells me to stick to neutral colors for the big pictures and choose colorful items (with colors from my muse pictures) as eye catchers and accessories instead of covering a whole wall in them.
There were also things I knew subconsciously, like that I need to surround myself with natural, warm and smooth materials like wood and fabric, instead of sparkly, cool ones like glass and metal.
All in all, a perfect inspiration day for me and the things I found out about myself will come in very handy planning and decorating the new apartment. I probably won’t be following the next steps in the book as closely, simply because of lack of time. But before I start buying stuff and throwing it together because I have a vague idea it could look good together, I will read definitely through them and look things up and pause to consider and plan and match it up to my insights from this day.