The creepy all-knowing world wide web

You all know those ads on the Internet, right? You see them a lot on Facebook. And pretty much any other site too. They kind of creep me out! They know way too much about my life. Looking for a new apartment? Or a job? Or shoes? Chocoholic? Runner? Single? Yes, the all-knowing world wide web really does know it all!

When I was looking for a new apartment (I found one last summer, it's awesomely cute), all of these ads about gorgeous apartments in my city where popping up. Completely out of my price-range of course, so it was really just more annoying than helpful. And on the rare occasion I'm looking online for shoes or jeans or something and show some pretty impressive, if I may say so myself, constraint by not buying anything (then why look in the first place, you ask? Well, I don't know, apparently I like to torture myself or something. Torture by looking-at-shoes-online-but-not-buying-them, yes, it's a thing, didn't you know?), I'm bombarded by ads about those shoes I so impressively decided not to buy the next time I log in on Facebook and I have to constrain myself all over again.

Lately, things have gone to a whole new level though! Now, all I keep seeing are ads about dating sites. What's that all about? Yes, I'm single. I have been for about a year now. But I'm okay with that. So why the heck can't the Internet be? Is it not enough that my friends keep asking me about my love life, now the Internet has to start bugging me about it too (if you are my friend, and you're reading this, and you've asked me about this once - or many, many times - I know you mean well and I love you, but I promise you right here and know on the Internet so it's all official and all, I will tell you when I find the next love of my life - or someone close to it. In the meantime I'm happy on my own, just trust me). I kind of feel judged. So stop it, you darn creepy world wide web!

Ignoring dirty dishes

My house is a gigantic mess right now. I don't know how it got this bad, everything was fine just a few days ago!

But you know what? I don't care! Not today anyway. Normally it would irritate the hell out of me, because I like my house at the very least a little bit tidy and clean. And of course I'm going to clean this big mess up. Just not today. Today I have other things I want to do. So for this one day, I don't care! I don't care that there are dirty dishes in my sink. I don't care that my bed is almost completely covered with laundry that needs to be folded (of course I'm going to care tonight when I want to go to bed, but then I will just cover some other piece of furniture with it). I don't care that there are stacks of paper and all kinds of random stuff all over my dining room table. And I love that. I love not caring. Even if it's just for a day. It's liberating!

Who would have thought freedom could be found in unfolded laundry and dirty dishes!

Budapest

Last month I traveled to Budapest for a couple of days with two of my very best friends. I've known them for about 15 years now and we always have the best of times. I love them! They're basically my sisters. Although I wouldn't really know what it's like to have actual sisters, since I only have a brother, but I'd like to think it would be something like what we have going on. Except for the fact that we look nothing alike of course. I mean, there is the cute but I-will-kick-your-ass-if-you-mess-with-me half-chinese part of our threesome with pretty curly dark hair. Then we have the fair-skinned, dark haired (although it's more a beautiful golden red-ish color these days) ever so funny and brilliant lawyer. And then there's me, the blond (alright, not so much nowadays, it's fall you see, so of course I had to throw some brown hairdye up in there, blond is more of a spring/summer type of thing) chick who manages to say the wrong thing at precisely the wrong moment and who is as clumpsy as can be, but still pretty adorable, obviously. Anyway... I wanted to write about Budapest. My brain does that all the time, jumping from one thing to another. Completely unrelated things sometimes! And it just keeps going and going too, I never seem to be able to turn it off. It's like one of those darn duracell bunnies! I hate those things! I want to smack them over the head with the biggest hammer I can find (see if you keep moving then, bunny!). You see, there it goes again, from Budapest to battery operated bunnies in a matter of seconds (man, I'm going to be some poor shrink's most annoying patient one day, because let's face it, with a brain like this I'm bound to end up on some psychologist's couch at one point in my life). Ok, back to Budapest! Gorgeous city, beautiful buildings, good food, great company (a.k.a. 'the sisters'). Wanna see some photos? Here you go:

Birthday resolutions

Tomorrow it's my birthday!

Only 3 short years left before I'll be turning 30, ai!

Last year before I turned 26, I made a list of 26 things I wanted to try to accomplish during the year I was going to be 26 ('26 for 26' I called it). I didn't quite get everything on the list done, but that's ok. It was never really my intention to actually do every singly thing, because a lack of money (and time) would probably have stood in my way of doing that. And if it turned out I didn't like something I had put on my list, why keep doing it just because I had put it on there? Anyway, it was still fun to dream up things I wanted to do during the year and to try to work on them.

This year I'm going to do things a little bit differently. I'm still making a list of things I want to do, but they don't necessarily have to happen in the year that I'm 27. They are just things I would like to do, either sometime soon or some day. A bucketlist if you will (although I must admit, I've never really cared for that word very much). I'm going to assume that I will be able to cross of at least a couple of things each year and than on each upcoming birthday I'm going to add a couple more. That's the plan anyway. Let's see how I like it! To make this unnecessarily long story a little bit shorter... here is my (bucket)list:

• Learn to bake the perfect brownies (o yeah, definitively putting that one first on my list, just to get my priorities straight)
• Find a better job (ok, so perhaps this list isn't in any particular order)
• Learn to make delicious homemade crusli
• Read at the very least one book a month (if I wasn't such a terribly slow reader, I would say I wanted to read at least two books a month, but I'm afraid that would just be wishful thinking)
• Keep running
• Run in a race
• Learn how to make a pretty dress (or any other piece of clothing really)
• Take more pictures and learn how to take better ones (perhaps even take a photography class)
• Go on a (small) trip by myself
• Get my drivers license
• Find my own appartment (I've been living on my own for years, but I currently have to share my kitchen and bathroom with someone, I'd like to change that)
• Try to always have flowers in my house
• Watch the news regurarly (I'm extremely terrible at keeping up with current events, I'm ashamed of myself!)
• Travel! (there are so many cities and countries I want to visit, I could make a list here, but I'm afraid it would never end)
• Learn to play the piano
• Learn to understand and speak French
• Get a completely different haircut (I'm open to all kinds of suggestions except really really short, I tried that once and I looked like a boy. And not like a boy but still kind of sexy, no, an actual boy!)
• Get a different haircolour
• Learn at least one new creative craft (definitively sewing - otherwise how am I ever going to make my own dress? see above - and maybe painting or perhaps bookbinding)
• Try to plant my own little vegetable garden (once I actually have a garden, that is)
• Make this blog look prettier

The best and worst places to be a woman

Last month The Independent wrote about The best and worst places to be a woman. It turns out the best place to be a woman is Iceland. "Iceland has the greatest equality between men and women, taking into account politics, education, employment and health indicators." The worst place for a woman to live is Yemen and currently the most dangerous is Afghanistan. Here are some of the other places the article lists:

• Best place to be a politician: Rwanda. It's the only state where the majority of parliamentarians are women. The worst places to be a female politician are Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Oman and Belize. These have no women in parliament.
• Best place to be head of state: Sri Lanka. Women have run Sri Lanka for 23 years whereas lots of countries, including Sweden and Spain have never had a female head of state.
• Best place to be a top dog: Thailand. This state has the greatest percentage of women (45 per cent) in senior management. In Japan only 8 per cent of these positions are held by women.
• Best place for economic participation: Bahamas. Worst: Yemen.
• Best place for the right to choose: Sweden. "Sweden permits women to have abortions without restrictions for the first 18 weeks of pregnancy and there are no mandatory consent requirement." States that have a ban on all abortions include El Salvador, the Philippines and Nicaraqua.
• Best place to earn money: Luxembourg. "When income is capped at $40,000, women and men are as likely to earn the same amount." In Saudi Arabia women only earn $7,157 when men get $36,727.
• Best place to go to university: Qatar. Six times as many women are enrolled in tertiary education as men. The worst state is Chad where three men are enrolled for every woman.
• Best place to leave your husband: Guam. "The Micronesian island of Guam has the highest divorce rate in the world, and Guatemala has the lowest."
• Best place to drive a car: India. "An NGO in the country's capital launched an initiative to train women in the first radio-taxi service run only by women." Saudi Arabia is the only state in the world where women are banned from driving.
• Best place for high-skilled jobs: Jamaica. Almost 60 per cent of high-skilled jobs, such as legislators, senior officials and managers in Jamaica are filled by women. In Yemen only 2 per cent of such jobs are taken up by women.

Something In The Water

Love this song! And love the video!

- Something in the Water by Brooke Fraser -

The Fade Out Line

I'm loving this song at the moment!

- The Fade Out Line by Phoebe Killdeer & The Short Straws -

(This live version is pretty great too)

Vintage

I'm absolutely and completely in love with this bag! My mother gave it to me and my father had given it to her not long after they started dating. I love that it looks so old and used, especially knowing that it was my mother who used it (and used it a lot, she tells me).