One photo per week: week 12 - Water droplets (3)

Happy Monday everyone! How was your weekend? Good, relaxing, inspirational?! Do you remember last week photograph of water droplets in a cruciferous leaf? If you don't click here. This week a bunch of water droplets in the solid state and a cute yellow bird adding some color to a grey sky in Linz.

Have a nice, creative week!

Linz

Images: Maria Miranda

One photo per week: week 11 Water droplets (2)

Happy Monday everyone! How was your weekend? Good, relaxing, inspirational?! Do you remember last week photograph of a water droplet? If you don't click here. This week, as it was pretty hard to select only one water droplet image, we have again an image on this topic: a bunch of water droplets in one cruciferous leaf.

Have a nice, creative week!

Sobrado dos Monxes, A Coruña

Images: Maria Miranda

Sweet treats with lemon and making me happy!

If life gives you lemons... you make lemonade! Right?! Well, you make lemonade, lemon curd, flavored corn cookies and lemon tart with blueberries. No, lemons were not in promotion at the grocery store! It happens that I got a nice organic batch from my Dad. These lemons have the best scent and taste that I know. I got a break while our sweetie was taking a nap and the first thing I tried was lemon tart with blueberries. I got the inspiration from Emma Duckworth lemon and thyme syrup cake for Decor 8 here, but changed some ingredients accordingly to what I had in the pantry. Instead of vegetable oil I used coconut oil, for the flour I used chickpea flour, for the sugar used 1/4 cup of raw sugar and 2 tablespoons of honey, and did not use any thyme. It was too late when I remembered I did not add any raising powder...  We loved the lemon rich flavor!!

Have a lovely weekend!

After lunch...have to repeat this recipe!

Images: Maria Miranda

One photo per week: week 11 Water droplets (1)

Happy Monday everyone! How was your weekend? Good, relaxing, inspirational?! Do you remember last week photograph of water reflections? If you don't click here. This week, I thought it would be nice to keep going on the water theme and I chose one photograph of water droplets. It was pretty hard to elect only one, so I will on this topic for the next ones. And this one is almost, almost dropping from that nude branch tree.

Have a nice, creative week!

Sobrado dos Monxes, A. Coruña

Images: Maria Miranda

Creativity and socks: Fridays here at the blog

Happy Friday everyone! I have found some pretty interesting articles and shared them on facebook but forgot to do it here. Today, we have creativity and mental health and socks. 

Yes, you read it well socks and what they say about you. Are you wearing neon polka dots or with some comics on it? Do I hear a yes? You are intriguing and rebellious. It is what John Haltiwanger says in his article. I have already gone through my stash of socks and family knows that I always like a pair of socks as a gift. Yes, socks! 

The second one is related to how any form of creativity is good for your mental health. Yep, any form it may be knitting, art, photography, crochet, gardening, cooking... These are good for stress relief and getting relaxed. The author of the study explains that :

“Using knitting to achieve a meditative state of mind could enable a much wider population to experience the benefits of meditation, as it does not entail having to understand, accept or engage in a prolonged learning period of the practice. It happens as a natural side-effect of knitting.”

Have a lovely weekend and see you Monday! I will be preparing myself for the Kid's Clothes Week, starts on Monday.

Winter outdoors, a walk at Sobrado dos Monxes and making me happy

Hello everyone and happy Wednesday! How is your week going? Around here we had one warm sunny day for the last week and rain again. Lovely rainy days, let me enjoy them making plans for lemon curd, cuddling with my sweetie, having an herbal tea while listening Mozart lullabies. Well, most of the times I make a huge effort to not fall asleep before her while we are listening lullabies but that is another story!

While organizing photographs folders I found these from Sobrado dos Monxes (Galicia, Spain) taken February last year. I believe it resembles pretty much the same now as the weather has been the same as here. I love the dramatic grey skies contrasting with the lush greens. Let's go for a short walk in the lake (that was built by the monks) area.

Images: Maria Miranda

One photo per week: week 10

Happy Monday everyone! Last week we had a gorgeous magnolia bloom photographed. Today, we have a photograph of Winter reflections in the lake. Another way of watching around us through water reflections. Pretty nice, hum? Gives a different perspective. Optical physics that explains these phenomena behind this is pretty complicated, but who cares about physics when watching this beauty?! Those long, long branch trees waiting for the new Spring leaves.

Have a nice, inspirational week!

Bom Jesus, Braga

Images: Maria Miranda