Halloween... should I be worried?

So on Saturday my bf and I are throwing our first Halloween party for friends. I'm SO excited : ) Unfortunately apart from the menu and some decorations that I have been working on for a long time now (tomorrow we're going to curve the pumpkins with all the staff at school, so I'll take mine home and use it on Saturday), I have no idea about what costumes we should wear... Yesterday I met one of my friends who will come to our dinner and she's making the costumes herself... (!) I mean, yeah, she's skilled and crafty and have all those extraordinary ideas. I don't. The worst thing is that when sending out the invitations I highlighted the fact about the costumes and warned that those ones who are not dressed properly will not be welcome to the party. Therefore I scream from the top of my lungs: HELP!!!!

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Mercedes Ad

Are you at work just like me? Yeah.. Monday AGAIN... Bleh.... Just to cheer you up and not to distract you too much from your work, a little ad, my bf showed me some days ago. I was saving it for the right moment. I think it finally came... : )

Enjoy!

It was banned, you knew it? In my humble opinion it's absolutely exquisite! Some brands, some makes of cars, for example, should be only for people who really deserve them, not those who can "simply" afford them : )

Hope this helped you a little bit. Have a nice, light Monday everyone!

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A tag and an award!

Deva from Always Carried Away has tagged me! Random me. 25 random things about me and my life. I also received an award from Ella from Here. There. Everywhere.


The Rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might not know.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

Thank you both!

Since they are both almost the same and right now I cannot think of 32 (!) things about me that you might not know (25 + 7), I have decided to combine them and write as many as I can.

Let's start...

1. My favourite colours are pink, violet and purple. But it wasn't always like that. In the High School I loved blue, light green, yellow and orange. I was wearing the most colourful clothes at school and I used to wear ribbons in my hair. Yes, you could say I had Pippi Longstocking style...

2. I love my Smart car SO much that I treat it as a person. She's called Smartina (in Italian a car is a feminine gender).

3. I love soups and cannot survive winter without them. Even in Sicily.

4. Every year I buy my planner-agenda in Poland and I write in Polish in it. I'm really attached to my Polish identity and I like having on me sth that proves it. Plus, no one can understand anything which is good because things I do or plan are really only my business.

5. I always knew I would live abroad. Never imagined it would be Italy.

6. In the winter time I'm addicted to white chocolate, especially this one

7. My deepest dream is to have a dog. This has been an unchangeable dream ever since I was like 6 years old. Hope it will come true one day.

8. I never take off my 3 bracelets (2 are from my Mum and one from my aunt) and a ring I received for my 26th birthday from my bf. They are all extremely precious for me.

9. I like ironing, I hate passing the vacuum cleaner and dusting

10. During the whole high school I wanted to be a singer and I took exams to the musical school.

11. I was in love with Bartek Wrona, one of singers of the first Polish boyband called Just Five...

12. I love sleeping. I think I need at least 8.5h of sleep/night in order to feel really good during the day. I never have time to take naps during the week but try to catch up during the weekends : )

13. I'd like to be able to do a split. During my preparations to the musical school I took ballet lessons and after 6 months of intensive training I was really agile... Now I'm really stiff...

14. I love tea. Since Italians don't have the habit of drinking tea a lot (they boil water for tea in the microwave, can you believe it?!), I bought myself a special porcelain teapot in Poland and everytime I'm in my country I bring myself tons of packets of tea, my favourite one is Dilmah.

15. I never thought blogging will become such an important part of my life. Really. And it's thanks to you.

Ok, it's 6.55pm here now and I started working on this post today in the morning... I think that's all I would like to write about me today. As Sarah would say: "this was a very self-absorbed post" : )

I'd like to nominate: Al, Jordan, Deva, Mary Evelyn, Sarah, London Girl and Kate Funk for this award! : ) Congratulations!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! : ) I really hope to stay more at home this weekend, read some books and watch some movies with my bf : ) You?

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Hectic week(end)!

This whole last week was fast and furious : ) Let's start from the very beginning. On Wednesday evening, I decided to decorate the appartment of our British-American couple of friends who were coming back (after 6 months) from the US to Sicily for the winter season to get rest after the taxing summer (they own an agrotourism back in the US). I asked my very crafty and talented friend to help me a bit. And this was the result of our efforts:

Then on Friday evening I made these for dinner : ) Real Bavarian sausages rolled in puff pastry. Easy and tasty : )

On Saturday we went to the cinema to see UP. I was absolutely thrilled to see it (together with hundreds of people aged 2-14) and to my amazement, it met my high expectations! : ) I cried 3 times during the film. And you were right it's both for parents and children : ) Well, I don't belong to neither of these categories but I loved it the same : )

In the end I went to do some shopping on Sunday morning: ) I bought a skirt, a long-sleeved top (by Esprit) and a pair of black leather shoes.

In the evening we went to our boy-friend (actually it's a colleague of our friend, who became our very good friend) who invited us for dinner. We had paella.. and lots of fun. Take a look at the beautiful decorations he chose for the evening! They even match the colour of the walls perfectly! : ) that's not a small thing for a single! Speaking of which, do you remember Ania, my Polish friend who came to visit me in Sicily in August this year. Well, she's single too... I have some ideas... : )

No, he didn't make this cake. It was bought in a local pasticceria and was absolutely delicious (chocolate and pistache)



And this is what we saw near our friend's appartment. In the autumn and winter, cats love to lie on scooters which has been just rdden and still have a warm engine.. : )

Have a wonderful week everyone!

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Calzedonia Spot

Another week has passed! The weather is different in comparison to one week ago. I used to waer shorts and t-shirt, now I need a jacket to go out! Plus the strong, horrible wind and rain! I look sth like this these days:

Anyway, weather is not sth I wanted to tell you about. There's a new Calzedonia spot on tv now. Do you know Calzedonia? It's one of my favourite Italian brands selling tights, stockings, socks, leggings, swimming and bathing costumes and other eye-pleasing items : ) I like it because of the huge variety of colours, styles, patterns. I mean everyone can always find sth suitable for them!

Ok, let's watch and then comment!

Did you like it as much as I did when I first saw it? I'm sure you did! The first question I asked my bf was: But this song, is it famous? And he responded: Yes, it should be quite popular, it's the Italian anthem. I was like: ???!!!!!!!!!

No, I was like this:




I mean: isn't it amazing? And then it struck me. In the end of the spot you can read: "For Italy, Vittoria, Laura, Francesca and all the others". Italy is treated as a woman here. It's so ingenous, original and brilliant at the same time! : )

What are you up to this weekend? I want to see this film:


I then I need to do some shopping and maybe I'll drop in on Calzedonia? : )

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My birthday, my presents, and some update! : )

This will be quite a long post...

I know it took me a while, but here I am, finally! : ) I have started to advertise my lessons, especially among people who work in the tourism industry who, as you can imagine, are a big part of the population in Sicily in general. Some of them have already responded, and so I'm getting really busy: in the morning I'm (still, for the last 4 weeks) in the office, and then from 5.00pm I work as a private tutor. I love it and I don't have time to waste! : )

Anyway, girls, I had a wonderful time during this little gathering with my "second family" and my closest friends : ) I think these pictures (some of them are not of a perfect quality, we forgot to take the camera with us, so used Ra's IPhone) speak for themselves:

1. Some of my invitees, i.e. all the people I care about most when in Italy (unfortunately not all could be here with me that day):

I had a problem with the ONE wish I had to think before blowing off the candles.. there are so many of them these times...




3. And then... PRESENTS time!!!!


The necklace from my collegues:

and in this little box...

I found this little beuty from my bf... :)


.. somthing for the senses by Coloniali from my dearest friends:


and a bag from Benetton from my bf's parents, sister and her husband:

Aprt from those, I received also a beautiful plum coloured coat by Benetton (together with the bag) that you can see in one of the pictures above and a violet shawl for colder days. from another colleague of mine. I love all of them!

Then, yesterday, we went to Ragusa, a little town in Sicily, where we participated in the "Buskers Ragusa Ibla" event. Travelplan website describes it this way: "Since 1994, Ragusa Ibla’s streets and squares have been invaded by street artists from all over the world every October for a week: jugglers, acrobats, clowns and others all perform in exciting shows." It's a wonderful occasion the city gives to local artists to exhibit their works and present themselves to the public.


.. I just couldn't resist this Dalmatian with a red ribbon (on the right there's a real fortune teller..at work!)...



... and we also performed! : )




You should visit the website for some wonderful pictures!

And in the end, when ironing at home, we had some rain here, and then, we spotted this:

Mother Nature.. isn't She great?!

That's all from me, my Dears! Have a wonderful Sunday! : )

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My last two weekends...

Girls, on emore time thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all the posts, comments and emails I have received from you! You're great and I cannot imagine my bloglife without you! : )) REALLY!

Today I'm going to tell you what I was doing during my last two weekends. Unfortunately the weather in Sicily is not really summer like this September and October but I manged to go to the seaside and take some pics for you!






The colour of the water this time of the year is so intense, so amazing! It's still possibile to immerse in the sea, water is cooler than in August for example but pleasant : ) I didn't out on my bathing suit but still, you can see in the pictures was too tempted to resist:



There are some splendid flowers blossoming in fall time.. just look:





Then, last weekend we went to a small village called Bronte, near Etna since there was a Sagra del Pistacchio organized. According to Wikipedia, in Italy, a sagra (plural: sagre) is a local festival, very often involving foodis often dedicated to some specific local food, and the name of the sagra includes that food; the array of gastronomic specialties covered across Italy is amazing. Among the most common sagre are those celebrating olive oil, wine, pasta and pastry of various kinds, chestnuts, and cheese.

I love going to "sagras" because of the food, of course. Naturally, there are some accompanying events like concerts, film/theatre shows, art exhibitions which are more or less interesting, but the food... guys the food is worth 2h spent in a car on a road full of curves!

Everything we ate this day was green: I had a sausage with pistache, pancakes with pistach,e ice-cream à la pistache, even coffee was with pistache! Just look:






And then to finish off and reinforce my view that Italy is a really strange country... I saw this house in Bronte... Can you see that the pines are growing out of the roof of the house...???!!!!

Tomorrow I'll show you all the presents I received yesterday! : ))

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