I'm back!

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a post and I’m sorry for that, I really didn’t mean to. But because introduction camp and college were coming closer and closer I got really scared and anxious, which resulted in me escaping to my fantasy world hiding from the reality (it all got a bit too real I guess). The only times I did get out into reality was whenever I needed to do some preparation for college, such as ordering books, a new laptop, etc. But now I’m back and I will try my hardest to get as many posts up as possible.

My introduction camp has been a blast, but having said that, it also has been the biggest and scariest thing I’ve done so far, even harder than I expected it would be. I had expected that as soon as I got in the building and interacted with other human beings the panic, remaining from the very large panic attack I had in the car before entering the building (it had been such a while I had such a panic attack), would be gone. But it didn’t it lasted the first one and a half day, it was crawling just underneath my skin waiting for one last trigger to escape again. This might perhaps be because everything from this introduction was a secret, we knew nothing about where we would sleep or what we would be going to do, but none the less I survived, even more than that. I interacted with others, had a laugh and a very great time this week. I can say I feel very proud of myself and I think I have another victory.

Tomorrow will be another big day as I’m moving out to live with my Grandmother until I find a place of my own. Reason for me to live there is because it is a lot closer and I won’t be traveling as much as I would if I stayed home and therefore I will have more time left for blogging. Another thing that will be happening very soon, Monday the first of September, is my first day of college, which of course I feel nervous for and slightly exited.  
I still have to prove myself I can do this, because I’m still not convinced I can become a journalist in training, I mean I will be having to do a lot of things that are out of my comfort zone (it might not be the most logical step to make for someone with social anxiety), but of course it would be great to expand my comfort zone, to become more comfortable for me and of course it will be a great adventure where I can grow and learn a lot.

An update

 On Wednesday we went to Bremen with the four of us, which was for a long-time and the first this vacation. We really have enjoyed ourselves in this beautiful city with its beautiful and magnificent buildings, small streets, those cute, beautiful and magical streets you sometimes find hiding in big cities. Found an adorable candy shop where you can see them actually make the candy (although unfortunately every time we went past they weren’t), saw a huge lollypop 50cm in diameter, which I of course fancy (but did not buy).

 

 

One thing I was very exited about, perhaps more than I should have been, was going to the lush there. I wanted to go there for so long and wanted to try some of the product out so badly, but there is no lush nearby where I live. In Bremen there is a lush and so I went in and bought some products from there. But besides going to the lush we also went in a few other shops to get supplies (clothing wise and shoe wise) that we needed and of course we played proper tourist taking photographs of all the buildings, ordering drinks and watching all the people pass by.

 

 

The lush products I’ve bought:

Angels on bare skin:
This is the only product I’ve used so far and so I thought I give you a little heads up about what I think of it so far. I love, until now my face feels great afterwards.

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Dragon's egg:

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Phoenix Rising Bath Ballistic:

 

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Sugar Scrub:

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Friday
Friday we went to the beach, although it wasn’t as sunny and warm it was the week before the water was a nice temperature and so it was very doable. Perhaps even more comfortable, my skin is very pale and so I burn very quickly (and I always make sure I put enough sunscreen on). Although I still got a bit burned after all, but imagine how it would have been if the sun was shining fully and with all its heat.

I really loved being at the beach as it was so long ago I have had a proper swim, which is a shame because I love swimming. Everything we had with us was tasting like sand and salt, the sand, we later found everywhere you wouldn’t want it to be, so all the signs of a good day at the beach are here.   

Strange visitor

It’s Sneekweek in Sneek (a small place in Friesland in the Netherlands). It’s when whole Sneek is partying for a week and when sailboats of all kinds are sailing through this city/village. Not that the boats are just cruising through the channels, because they make a spectacular show of it with flying man (not really of course, it’s something they did with water so they could keep the humans in the air) and beautiful fireworks, which we had a first rang view off a balcony. And I can tell you that it was the most beautiful fireworks I have ever seen, it gave me a somewhat magical feeling.

I came there together with my parents, who went for nostalgic reasons, they both grew up here and spent almost every year at this event. I on the other hand went because I was curious and of course the yummy treats (such as oliebollen, suikerbrood bread with sucker), because we spent our nights at my grandmothers as she lives there nearby. Of course also to spend some time with her.

In the morning we had a strange visitor, who was very drunk and a bit rude (using our classes without really asking to pour himself a glass of berenburg cola, a strong alcoholic drink, and smoking in a no-smoke building and bothering elderly). He said he came after a night of partying while losing his friend to visit his grandparents, a few moments later we found out he had no grandparents in this building. Also, he had a very sad story about how his friend left him and he could not get home, because he had no money and he came with his friend's car and he wasn’t living nearby. But when my dad, after a while and when a lot of complaining about this guy, left him out, he left by bicycle (which he said he had not with him). Why he came to this building and how, we are not sure.

Even though we had this strange drunk visitor (which is leaving as with a good story to tell) we had a good weekend where we had lots of fun. Have any of you done anything this weekend you enjoyed?

I bought some things from Primark

I’ve done some shopping in Almere, mostly to get some clothing essentials for my intro camp, such a pajama that fits and more. Not that I catered everything that I need yet, but it’s a start.

Pajama one: Elmo shirt € 8,00, Pants € 3,00, Primark. The pajama that I already owned was three sizes too big and therefore I would not feel comfortable to wear it out on camp. So I needed a new one and I found this one to replace, I love the Elmo shirt (with the Tickle me! Sign on the back) and thought these pants, that were on sale, would be cute to pair with. This means I’m ready for sleeping during camp!

Pajama two: € 9,00, Primark. I do not really have an explanation why, other than I like it and really want it. I already slept in this one, and it’s very comfortable to wear and perfect for the warm summer nights, because It isn’t a thick material or very warm.

Dress: € 3,00, Primark. This dress was on sale and if it wasn’t for my mom I wouldn’t have seen it, which would be a shame, because I really love it. I love the fit on me, over the last year I discovered I like looser, more about me, simply because it suits my body better than the skin tight, which I wore before.

Kimono: € 18,00, Primark. I really like the look of a kimono, so when I came across this one I couldn’t do anything else to buy it and take it with me.

Dress: € 9,95, Zara. I found this dress in the sale in Zara and immediately loved it. It’s so soft and lightweight that I would wear this loads in summer.

Black Jeans: € 29,95, Only. I already planned on buying a more expensive one (€ 60) somewhere else, but when I found this one for 30 euros less, the choice was easy. I think a simple black high waist jeans is a good staple in my closet, something I can build an outfit from.

Socks: € 2,50, Primark. Last year I bought a pack of Christmas socks from Primark and they were very comfortable, so comfortable that I still wear them every now and then, even though it is summertime. So buying a new pair of these socks was not a bad idea, I chose these bear ones this time.

Flower crown: € 3,50, Primark. As you might know, I’m trying to expand my comfort zone clothing wise and because a flower crown is something I wanted to try out for quite some time now, but never had the courage to do so, I thought I might now start to just wear it without too many thoughts. So I bought this one, because they weren’t that expensive and because I would not have an excuse not to try it.

July favourites

Another month has past and I got a few favourites collected to share with you.

Book: F*ck! I’m in my twenties by Emma Koening. This book I got for my twentieth birthday this year, because it seemed appropriate. And I loved flipping through it, whenever I needed to wait for something or just felt like it, so much that it just took me a few hours to finish.

Udder cream: My skin has been so dry these past two months and nothing seemed to help and I tried everything we had, until we found udder cream somewhere hiding in our house. I though why not give it a try and it felt amazing, I almost heard my skin drinking al the moist that was in it (I swear I hear it slurp). My skin felt so much better and softer after the first try.

Candle holder: I always wanted a candle holder with a holder so you can carry it around, like you see in films about stories in the 18^th century, and I found one just in my home town in a cute shop full of second hand things.

Face mask: Dr. Van Der Hoog, Hypo sensitive. My skin was so dry, tight and sometimes even painful that I needed something to calm it down and bring back some life in it. I went to the shop and bought this one from Dr. Van Der Hoog to give it a try and I’m happy I did. It does exactly what it says it will and my skin feels more relaxed, less dry and definitely not that tight or painful anymore.

Something I never done Before

You might know from reading my Liebster award post, that the people I know (like friends and family) have never seen my blog or even know that I have a blog. And because I do want to share the thing I enjoy most with the people I love, I thought that my parents should be the first to have a look, because right now they are the only ones (together with my aunt) who know that I’m blogging and are very curious about it.

Of course I don’t want to just give them a link and be done with it, what I would like is to make a little present out of it.

This summer might be the last time we spent it the way we always did, together as a family, we all know that this year lots of things will change, I will move out, study, make friends and we don’t know how next year will look like. And that’s why I thought this would be a great time to give my parents the link to my blog, which they have been waiting for such a long time (I know they have). Like I said I wanted to make it a bit more like a present, so what I’m thinking of doing is to write it on the back of a card and give this card at the end of a day where we would have spent the entire day of having fun together as a family, perhaps at dinner.

Now I did limit my choice to just two cards, but I’m not sure which one I like more for this occasion. So if any of you have a suggestion on which one you like most, please let me know, because it would be very helpful. If you are wondering about what the first card says (it is in Dutch), it says: Lots of love (Veel liefs).

I feel so nervous about doing this, as I know how much of a big step this is. Also, I know my parents would appreciate it and probably be surprised about me getting these cards on my own and in such a spontaneous way. Even I am very surprised, I know what is the big deal right, well, I have never done such a thing before I used to stay home and not leave the house, last year I would be terrified to do this and therefore I would not have gone on a spontaneous trip to the store. This show how much I have grown this year and makes this present even a greater deal for my parents.

Chocolate Muffin

Yesterday it was my uncle's birthday, and I’ve been told he loves chocolate muffins, so I thought I bake him a couple. Because I loved the other recipe so much I customized it to a chocolate muffin recipe, basically the basics are just the same as the blueberry one.

I have to tell you I’m not a massive chocolate lover (I know, weird), but even I liked this muffin.


Preparation time: 30 min

Cooking time: 15-25 min

Serves: 12-13 muffins

Oven at 200° C/400 F

Ingredients:
-200g plain flour (1 & 2/3 cups)
-150g caster sugar (1 & 1/2 cups)
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-75ml vegetable oil or just sunflower oil (1/3 cup)
-1 egg (or two small ones, like I did, our chickens don’t do big eggs)
-75ml milk (1/3 cup)
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 small bag vanilla sugar
- Pure chocolate bar (add as much as you like)

Put all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then mix these with a metal spoon. Now you can add the vegetable/sunflower oil, egg, milk and mix until you get a smooth consistency. Now you can get to be aggressive with the chocolate bar and “stab” the chocolate into small chunks and add and mix those pieces into the mixture.

The only things you're left to do are to divide the mixture between the muffin tins and wait for them to get ready in the oven. They should be ready in around 15 to 25 min (depends on your oven). You can check if they're ready by sticking a toothpick in one of the muffins and when nothing sticks to it they are done.

Before

and

After

I love the way they look so round when they come out of the oven, it’s ridiculous how excited I got when I first saw them coming out of the oven (oh the joy it gives me!).