*** fooooooooood ***

Last night, my man-friend (whose name I will not mention, because he would probably be horrified...) and I decided to cook.  Our thought was "lets make something nice".  I thought I'd make dolmades [stuffed vine leaves] which I haven't made in ages... This thought led to an array of foodstuff sortiments that 'go well with dolmades' and (just for the two of us) we ended up making [dolmades], tsasiki, hummus, melitzana salata, gyros, oven veggies and courgette fritters.  I also had a carrot cake... In stuffing our faces with this yummi food, we must have each consumed at least an entire garlic bulb.  Now I stink [apologies to anyone that will encounter my smelliness this evening...].

An added observation to this cooking experience was a substitute for the lack of vine leaves ( a very essential ingredient to make 'stuffed vine leaves'): We randomly chose a leafy vegetable from Sainsbury's rack to wrap the ricey filling in.  I could not have hoped for a better choice- although not the same, this vegetable [I still have no idea what it actually is- the packet was named something to the effect of "spring greens" (who names a vegetable "spring greens"?)] was a perfect substitute- try it...

If anyone happens to want any one of these lovely recipes, let me know...

*** finishedness ***

I am almost finished with my practical masters project... Deadline is tomorrow before noon. I intensely dislike what I have created over the last 3 months, so there will be no uploading of this horrific piece of animation- but that is not what this blogpost is about (otherwise it would be entitled "i dislike...").  What this is about is that, at least for a while, I can indulge in glorious freedom. I can have a social life. I can go outside. I can leave this grey town. I can bake. I can see sunshine. And I can't wait...

I was planning to find some lovely things on pinterest to accompany this post, but at the moment I do not have to patience to do so, instead I have murdered my monkey...

*** little shop of horrors ***

As I have recently moved into a new flat [pictures soon to come. yay], I went for a visit to IKEA. I dearly love IKEA, I will not go into detail about how much I love IKEA- it will suffice to say that I love it very very very much...

My flatmate- who, unlike me, is not very much into the home-shopping experience- very quickly, without mucking about, found his list of items and was ready to leave.  Almost at the end of ikea is the plant section  in which I made him wait patiently while I inspected almost every plant in the shop.  Nearing the end of my plant shopping, I turned around and to my surprise my flatmate was standing next to (or rather bent forwards, as he is very very tall) a shelf filled with venus flytraps. Very intrigued by this species of flora.

£7 and plus-one-carnivorous-plant later we went home.

Today I heard Dani listening to the Little shop of Horrors song "Feed me Seymore".  Greatly amused.  This in turn greatly brightened up my day: a 2 meter tall, polish scientist laughing at a man-eating-hollywood-plant-star. Superb.

Here are some pictures of our [well, Dani's] "Seymore" along with some images of the Little Shop of Horrors. Lovely.

*** glue factories ***

The other day I went to an 'abandoned' gluefactory [more like ex-glue-factory-art-school-converted-clutter-storeroom/exhibiton-space] to document a friend's dissertation endeavours. Being surrounded by a rundown interior, dripping pipes and vintage audio equipment, it was a very welcome change of scenery to my mundane screen-staring-reality I am currently facing, and I was even fed marvelous cookies [of which, unfortunately I didn't even take a single photo...]

*** thread paintings ***

Daniel Kornrumpf not only has artistic talent, but he must possess extreme large quantities of patience... something I have not enough of.

Aren't his thread paintings just lovely? Yes, they are.

Images from you might like this blog.

*** stuffed toys and good times ***

I love these funny little plush stuffed toys you get these days. Once I am not as obsessively busy trying to complete my masters project, I am so going to make odd little stuffed things... Have a look at some cool ones I've seen on the interweb here.

One of them in particular amused me, because similarly to my fox-and-cat-on-head-picture-experience, I thought "hey, that reminds me of back in the day, when..." Well this one reminded me of when my very dear friend, Hannes, covered my head in masking tape. Oh, the random shit we used to do for entertainment...

***cat-coincidences ***

The other day I got entirely sucked into lovely things the internet had to show me, there are so many lovely things out there. I came across this image of a girl with a fox sleeping on her head, and it made me think of my old kitty cat, Pixie (indeed, I too find this name a little bit retarded, but the person I was dating at that time insisted on calling her that, but this is besides the point).

Pixie was the most docile being on the face of the planet.  She used to follow people around like a little puppy, sleep stretched out against my belly [yes, very very much like people spoon. I tried many times to move her in her sleep in fear of me squashing her, but she always jumped straight back into the bed, dug herself under the blankets and proceeded her spooning again]; and she used to sit on my head.  Originally I had planned to upload the photograph of this, but alas I seem to have lost it over the years, so instead I am uploading a cheap imitation of the photo, namely a self portrait I did in my first year of undergraduate degree. Not as effective, but you get the point.

We even both have hearts on the clothes we are wearing. I like...

Girl with fox on head found on Etsy, here.