Keeping track of the year

Many times throughout my life have I started a diary with the intention to write in it pretty much every day for at least a year. Every time I failed after at about a month and didn't feel like picking it up again until the next year. I have found that I am just no a diary-keeping person. I do like to be able to look back at my year and see wat happened, but I don't always feel like writing about an event. When I've had a long and amazing day and I go to bed I just want to sleep and I do not want to have to write about it. I usually convince myself I will do it later, but it never happens.
What works way better for me is having a memory jar. I did this for the first time in 2012 and I am doing it again this year. Basically I have this jar standing on my nightstand and every time something worth remembering, whether good or bad, takes place, I write it on a slip of paper and put it in the jar. The pieces of paper just have the date on it and a very brief description of what happened. Writing these short notes takes very little time and makes me do it right away, rather than wait till a later moment. At the end of the year it will be easy to see all the things that happened throughout the year.

'1-1 celebrated the new year with Sophie'
'2-1 Visited Teyler's museum'

Day Zero Project

101 Things in 1001 DaysJan 04, 2014 - Oct 01, 2016

I wish you all a happy new year! This year I'm not really doing any new year's resolutions, but I decided to make a new Day Zero list. Basically the idea behind this project is that you make a list of 101 goals that you are going to try to achieve within 1001 days. I made a list like this before and in the begining it really helped me to achieve my goals, but after a while it didn't anymore because a lot of my goals were school or horse related and I finished high school and I don't ride horses anymore. I have been thinking about making a new list for a while now and I finally got around to it. Eventhough I might not even complete all of these within the given time, making a list like this really stimulates me to try. Here are my goals:

1. Learn 10 phrases in Manderin Chinese
2. Read 5 non fiction books
3. Go hiking or make a biking trip without without pre-set destination
4. Complete a coursera course
5. Learn to play a song on the guitar
6. Make myself a dress
7. Go camping
8. Learn to fold 10 more origami creations
9. Make a webseries
10. Finish the Web Fundamentals course at codecademy
11. Learn a card game
12. Repeat my swedish course
13. Learn a song on the violin
14. Run a 5K race
15. Finish a crossword puzzle
16. Make an idea book
17. Learn about runes
18. Read a book in German
19. Decide what I want to study
20. Learn to play Nuvole Bianche on the piano
21. Write a book
22. Send a message in a bottle
23. Complete NaNoWriMo
24. Enter a writing contest
25. Make a short jacket
26. Reread the Hobbit and finally finish the Lord of the Rings
27. Participate in BookCrossing
28. Ride a horse again
29. Cook a three course meal
30. Read a book about physics
31. Finish a painting
32. Learn the alphabet in sign language
33. Read a book about mythology
34. Organize a themed party
35. Make a dreamcatcher
36. Learn first aid again
37. Get up at 8 a.m. for a week
38. Make 10 things from my pinterest DIY board
39. Succesfully bake bread
40. Read a Jane Austen novel
41. Finish my quiver
42. Bind a book
43. Make a backpack
44. Copy our movie 'Miesje' for Sophie
45. Crochet a blanket
46. Read a French book
47. Spend one weekend with only my music, art and books. "Unplug"
48. Make a short film
49. Do yoga every day for a week
50. Spend a day at the beach
51. Write every day for a week
52. Learn 10 phrases in Russian
53. Bake 5 cakes
54. Go on a multi-day biking trip
55. Do some volunteer work
56. Learn 10 phrases in Spanish
57. Send 10 Postcards via PostCrossing
58. Get photos printed
59. Do archery again
60. Compose a piece of music
61. Go ice skating
62. Learn to identify all the countries on a map
63. Make a hat
64. Read 10 classic books
65. Do something to become more self sufficient
66. Learn to say hello in 10 languages
67. Learn a card trick
68. Blog for 7 days in a row
69. Go kayaking or canoeing
70. Be able to identify 5 constellations
71. Read the Narnia series
72. Write a poem
73. Learn to find 10 edible wild plants
74. Make a smoothie
75. Bake pizza
76. Send a handwritten letter
77. Have a Lord of the Rings movie marathon
78. Buy something from Etsy
79. Knit a scarf
80. Bake Christmas cookies
81. Make shorts
82. Bury a treasure
83. Swim in the ocean, a river or a lake
84. Go to a climbing forest
85. Learn to play 2 more songs on the piano
86. Go on a picnic
87. Take my painting supplies and go paint outdoors
88. Visit a cave
89. Spend an entire day outside
90. Write 50 more blogposts
91. Get my driver's license
92. Buy camping gear
93. Go to an amusement park
94. Make a new friend
95. Do something completely out of my comfort zone
96. Visit Teyler's museum in Haarlem
97. See an IMAX film
98. Go to a concert
99. Enter a photography contest
100. Go abroad by myself
101. Read a book in a day

Couch to 5k

Last weekend I bought my first pair of running shoes. I realised that it was a good idea to use a schedule for my running, and that is how I stumbled upon the Couch to 5k program. In nine weeks you should be able to run 5 kilometers without previous running experience. I decided for myself to go running monday, wednesday and friday. So far I'm doing good, but this is only week one!

Hopefully I'll be able to complete the program and then I plan to sign up for a competition!

Plot in a jar

Lately my writing has occupied most of my thoughts. I constantly go from having a lot of inspiration to having none and back. When I don't have inspiration for the story I'm working on, I still want to write something else to get better. I've created this Plot in a jar so that I will have a start for a short story and go from there.

How to make a Plot in a jar

Take 3 jars (or more if you want more seperate ones) and paint 'Who', 'What' and 'When-Where-How' on the lids (or whatever you want). Cut a lot little pieces of paper and write characters, actions, places and moments or conditions on them. I will give a few examples:

Characters
A king with no land
A masked barber
A retired circusmember
A crawling todler
etc.

Actions
fel out of a tree
bought an unreliable timemachine
joined the circus
entered an other world
met a long-lost family member
befriended a vampire
got arrested

Places
in a cave
in a hospital in the jungle
under a giant christmas tree 
at a masquerade
in an underwater world

Moments
on christmas eve
right before marrying the wrong person
during a pottery course
when he/she heard a family member had died
on the opening night of his/her restaurant
after just having an accident

Conditions
like he/she had expected
because his/her mom said so
like he/she had had a vision about
because his/her loved one asked him/her to
because he/she was sure it was a dream

Put the pieces of paper in the right jars and your finished! Whenever you need a simple plot idea to start writing a story you can just randomly take a piece of paper out of each jar and start from there!

Upgraded from skirt to shirt

Today I wanted to sew a piece of clothing, so I started searching for the right fabric in my fabric stack. Everytime I do that, I'm reminded of all the pretty pieces of fabric that I own and always forget. So once again I've got tons of projects in my head.

While searching, I found an old skirt of my mother, that she gave me once to make something out of it because she didn't wear it anymore. When I held it in my hands I realised that I could use it as a strapless shirt. Normally I don't really wear clothes different from how they are 'supposed' to be worn, so this is a new. I've been reading Nadya's blog recently and she does some great things with clothes, so maybe she inspired me a little ;) .

 

Normally I would have chosen a better background for a picture like this, but my room was (and is) a mess.

A rose from a stranger

Yesterday my friend Suzan and I went to an openday of an university. We visited a presentation of Nutrition and health, Earth, water and atmosphere and Enviromental sciences. We went there by train and on the way there we both received a rose like this from someone. I love it when strangers do stuff like that, it makes my day.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do next year. My plan changes almost every day. There is just so much I would love to do! Earth, water and atmosphere and Environmental sciences seemed very interesting, but I'm also still thinking about studying Medicine, Astronomy, Psychology, Rehabilitation sciences or just taking a gap year to travel, work and learn a new language. It's so diffucult to choose! Suzan sugested that I should make a list of all the things that interest me, so that's what I'm going to do.

No more fashion victims!

Today I want to talk a little bit about something I heard a while ago, and I think more people should know;
The toxic water pollution that is caused by all sorts of clothing brands.
It effects those who live in the area where a factory dumps poisonous substances but also yourselves! The toxin can cause several diseases, including cancer. I think it's definitely not fair that other people have to suffer because we are a society wich is so obsessed with clothes. 
However, the toxin doesn't stay where the clothes are fabricated, in fact it infects our whole ecosystem. Everytime you wash your toxin containing clothes, some of it gets into the surface water. 

Click here to learn more!

You might think that there is nothing that you can do, but in fact, there is! I experienced it myself. I signed up for the newsletter at the Dutch website No more fashion victims, wich is powered by Greenpeace. Several days later I received an e-mail requesting my help. All I had to do, was go to the Facebook page of G-Star Raw and leave a message to urge them to detox. So I did, and I wasn't alone. A week later I received an e-mail saying thousands of people did the same and G-star Raw showed its true face and commits to detox!

My action was so small, but all together those small actions achieved something big!



So what can you do?
- Buy second-hand clothes
- Only buy new clothes from brands that don't dump toxic (go to the Greenpeace website)
- Raise awareness amongst other people (tell them about it, post it on your blog, Facebook or Twitter, etc.)
- Urge clothing brands to detox!

Wild books

It's been a while since I read a really good book. One that consumes me. One that you don't want to put down, and continue reading till late in the night eventhough you know you have something important the next day. I believe the last book I experienced this feeling with, was The Hungergames. After that I've read several books, but none of them were amazing. I liked most of them, but again, they weren't amazing.
First I have to read a few books for school, but after that I'm going on a bookscout.

Talking about books, look at this BIBLIO-MAT! I wish it were near here...


I also signed up for Bookcrossing a while ago. The idea is that you'll leave a book at a random place with a link to the Bookcrossing website and a book ID number. Anyone who finds the book, can register it online so everyone will be able to follow the books journey. Still deciding on wich book to set free...

Have you ever send a book into the wild via Bookcrossing?

Memories of 2013

Januari already is a bussy month. I had to do a lot for school and I've been a little stressed out lately. Last weekend I held my 'endpresentation' at school. I really hate talking in front of a lot of people, and there were around 70 people. Before my presentation I was extremely nervous and at the beginning as well. However, while talking, I slowly got more comfortable, mostly because I was talking about something close to my heart and know a lot about. In the end the presentation went really well, and I received a lot of positive feedback. I was quite proud of myself and it really was one of those moments I didn't want to forget. So I wrote it down, on a little piece of paper and put it in a jar. I painted the lid of this jar a little while ago and used homemade mod podge to cover the lid (to make sure the paint would stay on).

Happy New Year!

First of all I want to wish you all a very happy New Year! I never really made new years resolutions before, because I never thought I would be able to keep them up throughout the year. But in 2012 I had set myself a few goals and was able to reach them. It's a great feeling when you know you wanted something and you had to work for it, but was able to accomplish it.
For 2013 a made 10 resolutions.

 

1. Film more with my camera and edit those shots.

2. Be less insecure.

3. Execute the ideas that I come up with.

4. Do more fun stuff with friends.

5. Find out what I want to do after I graduate.

6. Do joga or other fitness exercises on a daily basis.

7. Complain less and surf less on the internet on websites that actually don't interest me very much.

8. Stress less.

9. Buy less things I don't need.

10. Make money

I hope I manage to do all this. Have you got any new years resolutions this year or did you last year (and were you able to execute them) ?

All you need

The last couple of days I've been pretty bussy. The little time I had I spend on Pinterest. I came across this quote saying: All you need is less. I like sayings like this, especially this one because it really made me think. It is so true that I have way to much stuff that I don't use and even forget about. So I decided that it would be a good time to start cleaning up my room. I'm far from finished, but there was already so much stuff I found that I could go without. I've already sold some via the internet, and hopefully in a few days the rest of my stuff I put out there will be sold as well. From now on I'm going to try to buy less and at least think more about wether or not I will really use it.

Last year we had a project on my school wich was all about who you are and who you want to become. We took a suitcase, decorated it and filled it with things we made during this project or were important to us. Now almost everything I find in my room and want to keep for sentimental reasons, I put in there. It is a nice way to store items that you really don't want to throw away!