Hazy life

I don't post quotes as I used to but that is not due to diminished quote love. I want to share one now that fits my feeling about ringing out 2014 and ringing in 2015. It's a quote from Søren Kierkegaard. The art is Haze from Anne Nowak. I spotted it on The Poster Club, whose collection has me weak in the knees. The undefined transition from darker to lighter reminds me of living life, from past through the present to the future.

 "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

Read more

Light em up copper style

I love interiors.I love accessories, from vases to trays to candle holders. I love them all. But my first product love, the one I share the most is lights. I love lighting. I need brightness, so if I can't always have the sunshine then give me the light shine, please. 

Other things I love; materials, textures, innovation, originality, invention and quirk. So how much do I love the Mono-Lights, the copper edition from Os and Oos. This light is as brilliant as the original version but with the added stunning factor that the rose-golden hue gives it. These lights takes the humble fluorescent tube to new heights by not only making it LED but by integrating the tube and the lamp into one. Add in fluidity of shape and you have yourself a winner.

Read more

Flip, salto and roll

While I won’t shy away from the muddy paths on a run, I am not in anyway to be confused for an outdoorsy mum. No mom jeans and hiking boots here. Furthermore sand without pristine beaches is so against the grain that I am really not into hours spent at playgrounds. I always end up with sand between my teeth. But I believe in movement and exercise should be fun else you won’t do it, no matter your age. So my daughter’s room was always an interactive space with slide, which I recently made steeper, and swing. And now we've taken it a step or two further.

Sitting under her bed for months was a replacement tent from Ferm Living (total sale score) because hide and seek counts too. Christmas day while she played with her other gifts I rushed upstairs to hang the gymnast rings from the hooks I’d secretly put up earlier in the week. Out came the tent that I had ready in the laundry room, some extra decorations and the final Christmas gift containing the retro cool wooden jump rope from Nobodinoz (another sale score). Needless to say she loves her space, declaring it the ‘best room in the whole world’.

The gym mat from Ikea  was sadly sold out the week before Christmas so I got that a bit later. It helps because while my daughter turns her body into the saltos we practise while holding tight to the rings, her brother is so excited he lets go almost every single time..not that I’m not holding him but just in case and in the meantime the somersaults are going well. I didn't mean to but I was just holding onto the rings swinging and did a salto and now I'm hooked as well. I especially love doing the 'candlestick' while on the rings..

The only thing left to get is the balance beam, also from Ikea but that has been sold out for months..so maybe an antique climbing rack on the wall. What do you think? Let them flip, salto, roll and climb?

Read more

Designed in Arnhem

Making time to get out the door is a struggle. I decided the same day to take a mini trip to my college town of Arnhem for a winter event; Strikje, in the fashion district. I now appreciate the quirky uniqueness of my town more than when I lived there and that includes this super hip hub. Probably because I spent most of my free time travelling down South so I never realised how amazing my own town was. But some things never change. I still love the hills and green. The slopy, greener setting gives it a more relaxed vibe than my current design hub of Eindhoven. The fashion district is set on just such a long sloping road that adds to the character. 

There are several spots I always hit on when I’m in town and this occasion being no different. I stopped by Graphic Playground where I found yet another amazing coffee cup to add to my collection and the most lovely of geometric decorations which will be finding a home in my soon-to-be-updated home office! I loaded up on sugary goodness at Sweet Sugar Hill, which I think is amazing! I had one baba au rhum in the car before setting off for home and I swear I understand why pirates would go to great lengths for this liquid gold and why they acted the way the did..seriously my poor car. Patisseries  are common enough but a sugar house carrying everything from confectionery to lemon curd and lemon meringue pie (I have a thing for citrus), I melt and willingly travel. A stop at Lenneke Wispelwey was also on the cards, where I got a good look at the collection she did for PT and there might have been one tiny little ceramic treasure sitting under the tree. But the first and most rewarding stop was at Mirte Engelhard.

I will be doing a couple of posts on the treasures I scored on the trip. What can I say but that I am still in holiday mood and a bit ahem.. relaxed. Plus I think each piece is lovely enough to shine by itself! But for now a couple of quick snaps I took with my iPhone at Graphic Playground of products now firmly on my wishlist..my birthday is getting close.

 

 

Read more

Schedule

Few posts and no schedule during the holidays. Spent time at home, with my kids, alone in my trusty comfy bathrobe, doing nothing and I mean nothing, not even exercising beyond the daily set. Plus all the little things you usually don’t get around to. Fun things like mega cleaning (my shower and kicks are new penny shiny), sewing and paperwork .. oh and the real fun things like getting through my magazine, website and blog backlog and even reading the latest book in my favourite series.

Plus I finally stopped procrastinating and pared my wardrobe way back..all that is left is offloading about 100 pieces but for now they are neatly packed away for the next sprint of time and energy because it took me days to get this far. But now back to business as usual. To kick of the first blogweek of the year, I want to share;

• A daytrip I took to my college town to visit the fashion & design district
• The transformation of my daughter’s room into a space demanding an entry fee and protective gear
• I’ve said it time and time again but I love me some lighting, so here comes another stunner
• A little bit of old/new year inspiration with an art twist

Have a great start to 2015!

Read more

2015

Rang out 2014. So now it is time to ring in 2015. I have no idea if and how I will celebrate its arrival because despite 2014 leaving me stronger, wiser, sexier and a hell of a lot more independent, I’m more than bone dead tired. Seriously I discovered two steel grey patches of hair that I thought was frost but turned out to be ahem my wisdom marks. So I might just stay horizontal and try and find some physical calm before the new year starts.

For 2015 I have no long list of things I want to do or achieve. Like most, I still have most of the list of 2014 left. Yet there are a few things that seem to be floating around in the back of my noggin. And once that happens, I know what comes next..

• Starting with my running. Running is my release, my passion, my thing. I want to work on my arm and foot placement mostly because I want to stop holding back. I know I can go faster. I want to go faster. And I want to go longer. Funny when I started I told the trainer 3km. I now want to do another a second and third 21km in the first half of the year and the 42km, a full marathon distance in the second. I want my speed closer to my original 12 an hour. I want to burn the path beneath my feet as well as bounce a little closer to the heavens with each step.

• For my power yoga I want to not only learn more complex poses, I want to do them the advanced yogi way. I want to find calm in the most uncomfortable of positions. I want that beautiful, tranquil lotus blossom that I can see to be me, always. To see with my third eye; my true eye, my feeling.

• To get where I want to go with my sport, I need to fuel up and that means eating. I developed poor eating habits after moving out from my parents. God, I used to drive my partner slightly deranged because I'd rather not eat than eat something other than what I craved. But more importantly cooking and meals are the way I show I care. Feeder? Guilty. So not having anyone there half the week, means not only is there is no one to say it  but no to do it for and your body adjusts and rapidly so. For a while I kept thinking I needed to turn meals into a practical situation instead of a care instrument but now I think differently. I need to care for me. I feed my soul, now to feed my body. If I can do what I do on a coffee, just imagine... 

• I want a vacation. I haven’t been away for years and never somewhere truly isolated, always urban. I want to go somewhere peaceful, where I can stretch, meditate and run over the hills, down the paths and towards the beauty of the orange glow of sunrise and the red of the sunset.

• The previous points brings me to number four. The last and most important one. The one that encompasses the other three and everything else; love, baby. What else is there?

• 2014 found me love for myself. Only towards the near end of the year did I become the best thing that ever happened to me. That grey patch doesn’t faze me nor the fact that losing ahem my baby fat makes me look older. Those laugh lines only show I live and I embrace my molehills because I worked for it, everyday. I look at my abs first thing each morning and don’t wince for the pain in my knees at night. I am Lisa, hear me roar and purr, strong and soft. I am amazing as is.

• 2014 also strengthened my belief in kindness and so I give more because others showed me how. And I plan on giving more because I more left to give. I think it is time to volunteer my time as well. Actually I would like to do something with cooking, whether as a volunteer or maybe cooking and sharing a meal with those who don't have even half a week.

• It taught me trueness. Friendship is the foundation and friendship is not so much those you smile with, invite into your home, cook for and share moments with. It is for me true when I can share tears and sadness as well and above all when words are not always needed, when there is sense and feeling.

• The past year brought me a deeper lover for being the mom of my two cubs. They make me mama bear, both ferocious and soft, protective and tender. Their love is my reason, full stop!

• I am passionate about my passions because I am a passionate soul. There is a part of me, deeply centred, all the way to the base and never before unfolded as the person I am now. That person, that strong and soft chick, longs for a soul just as passionate, not afraid nor in disdain, not of a spat, the differences, the similarities or of the depths but revels in the beauty found even in the faults and cracks of which I have plenty. I do not believe in the one, nor even in halves completing. I believe in connection. I want  to connect, soul to soul. My run buddy. If not in silent understanding, to run with towards the sunrise, then the reason to come back from the run. I have a heart bigger than my chest and it broke to its depths but guess what? It now beats harder and louder than ever, so much so I can hear it pounding in my ears. It is full with love for design, art, beauty, discovery, strangers, friends, Zoe Isobel & Mika, for life, love and love of live. So maybe the sayings hold true, it is not breaking, it is only expanding. I believe in hearts, more today than yesterday. More this year than the last. 

My 2015 is my heart expanding till there is nowhere left to go but upwards and outwards. The strongest four letters, one for each number in the year. 2015 is love.This year and every year yet to come. For everyone. Happy New Year!

Read more