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Photo challenge (part two)

Today I’ll hope to get a smile on your face again with some pictures. As I told you before, I'm completing a '30 days photo challenge' as a side project. Every day, I am taking a picture of something that really made me happy, and post it to Facebook.

Here’s an overview of the second week

#8 My boyfriend made pasta for me. We added way too much water, so it looked more like pasta-soupe! :D I love to cook with him <3

#9 Baking cornflake-cookies with my sister Jana. Yummy! (except the eggs! )

#10 I finally bought a pop-up-tent! I'm really looking forward to the summer holidays <3

#11 Today was my granddad's birthday. We had dinner with the family and I enjoyed it a lot

#12 Today I spent few hours to write postcards

#13 My bestie Viv came over. We made a banana-vanilla-milkshake and watched some tv

#14 Today Belgium played their football match against Russia. We won!

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Enjoy the simple pleasures in life

So far, I've learned a lot of things that I hadn't even thought of before I started with the 30 days of happiness project. The most important thing that I learned is that I enjoy a lot of simple things in life.

Like a friend told me once: you should enjoy the little things as much as you can, because the big things aren't worth it. I think she's absolutely right.

That's why I made a list of small things that I enjoy a lot. I didn't even knew that I liked them so much, untill I started this project:

Drinking tea. I never knew how much pleasure a hot cup of tea brings me. Maybe I should go shopping and buy some special flavours, just to try them out? I've read on the internet that green tea is the most healthy, maybe I can buy some of these?

Having a decent breakfast. I usually have a cookie or, even worse, nothing at all for breakfast. While there are so many nice things to eat: cornflakes, eggs, toast, ...

Reading new books. Most of my books are quite old and I've read them many many times (yes, I can read nice books over and over, it never gets boring altough I already know what will happen!). Maybe I should also do a books-swap with some friends?

Writing letters. While writing, I can re-order my thoughts. I noticed that my thoughts are always way more positive while writing. As I wrote before in my post about writing a prisoner, I already found some new people to write to. Finding more people is a must! :-)

Giving compliments. It really made me happy to give compliments to others and see them smiling. While surfing the internet, I found this website called 'Random acts of kindness'. Maybe I can find some ideas here?

Watching tv-series. I should find some more tv-series to watch regularly :-)

As you might have noticed, I even thought about ways to increase the happiness of this small things.

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The physical side: living healthier

The next part of the 30 days of happiness-program is working on your health. We all know it's really important, but still many people are knocking of this part of the training. So I decided to follow the training sceme very punctual.

It's divided in 3 parts: exercice, eating habits, and sleep.

Exercice

Since I left highschool, I didn't do a lot of physical exercice. This is why my condition is really bad (sometimes I have to have a pause while going up the stairs to my bedroom. Don't you dare to laugh, I have to climb over 50 steps!)

About two months ago I felt like doing something about it. I've found this Start to Run program, that helps you to start exercicing again after a period of inaction. I go running three times a week. Inbetween two lessons, I go cycling are have a long walk.

If this is too much, you have to make sure to do some physical effort every day for at least 30 minutes.

You can follow my exercice on this Runtastic website.

Update 29/06/2014: I injured my knees and gotta go to a doctor. I haven't run for over a week :-(

Eating habits

I guess my eating habits are quite ok. I eat fresh food every day and I love to cook, so I shouldn't worry about any food-related problems. I've already posted one of my recipes here, and I promise to upload even more

Sleep

The final point of the physical side is getting better sleep. I think I should worry a little less, so I get to sleep earlier

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Recipe: Bramboráks

Today I will upload one of my recipes. As I wrote before in my post about things that make me happy, I enjoy cooking a lot. Since January I am collecting recipes from traditional dishes from all over the world. These bramboráks (traditional food in Czech Republik) are one of my favourites (and my family also likes them a lot)

Bramboráks

Ingredients

3 big potatoes

100ml warm milk

1 egg

100g flour

Grated cheese, bacon, onion

Salt, pepper, oregano (and some paprika powder)

How to make it

Peel and grate the potatoes. Make sure to squeeze them so the juice gets out of them

Add some warm milk and an egg. Spice them with salt, pepper en oregano. I like to use a lot of spices and actually overdo a bit. When you use ingredients with little flavour (like milk or potatoes), it's necessary to spice a lot

Peel and cut the onion into slices. Add it to the mixture together with the grated cheese and bacon. You can also use other ingredients, maybe it would be nice to add sausages? Or mushrooms? If you have any ideas, don't hesitate to let me know! :-)

Finally add some flour to make the dough more solid

Heat a frying pan (I use a 'pancake-pan') with some butter. Use a tablespoon to make thin pancakes (about half a centimeter thick and with a diameter of 10 centimeters). Let it bake untill it's golden brown

Is serve my bramboráks with a salad and baked sausages

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Write a prisoner

As I wrote before in my post about 'creating a plan', one of the things on my bucketlist for the coming year is to start writing to a prisoner.

I think it’s really exciting, but also a little ‘scary’, to write to someone who’s in prison. On the other side, I think it very satisfying to write to someone who’s only distraction is to read your mail.

So I found this website called Write a prisoner, where you can browse and search the internet for inmates who are willing to correspond through snail mail. You can even find the crime they were incarcerated for.

You begin as a pen pal, but you are in a position to become much more - a mentor. Many inmates lose all contact with the outside world and you may become the most influential person in your prison pen pal's life

I started searching for someone who I share the same interests with, as I find this easier to know what to talk about in my letters. The first profile I decided to click was the one from a young woman who likes cooking, photography, and animals. The perfect combination! Then I opened the list of her crimes. The sweet girl with a big smile that I could see on her picture, seemed to be a violent murderer who hung her children, shot her man and cutted him to pieces... I guess this is not the kind of penpal I'm looking for!

My quest wasn't over yet. The next profile that I found was this from a 24-years old girl named Jessica. She wrote that she likes to stay busy, and while serving her sentence, she's following an 'Culinary Arts' education. Maybe she could be the one?

I was very excited while writing to her. I've been writing letters since I was a 5-years old kid (yeah, I couldn't write or even read by that time. I used to draw pictures and send them to my friend :-) ) but I never wrote to an inmate before.

Untill now, I haven't send the letter yet. I'm not sure weather if I should write my address on it, or let her send a reply to a postbox. On the website I've read that the local governance should give permission to use their postbox.

To be continued...

Yes, my letters aren't complete without a drawing. A remainder of my childhood? Possibly...

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Creating a plan

The next thing on my 'to-do'-list, was creating a plan. Therefore, I made a so-called SWOT-analysis about myself. I'm not going to explain what it's all about, but briefly, it contains elements that I'm good at and also things I'm bad at. Besides that, I wrote down activities that would make me feel happier. And last but not least, I thought about things in my life that make me feel sad

By now, you should have a whole bunch of actions that you can take that will increase your happiness. With a clear road map of things to do, you now have a personalized way to improve your life and make yourself happier

After writing this SWOT-analysis, I was able to set up a sort of bucketlist with goals that I want to complete during the next year. I've made this kind of bucketlists before, but I never succeeded in completing all of my goals. This time, I want to scratch at least one element every month from my list.

Here's a short overview of my bucketlist:

Write to a prisoner. I think it's really exciting, but also a little 'scary', to write to someone who's in prison. On the other side, I think it very satisfying to write to someone who's only distraction is to read your mail

Start a blog. Maybe this is one of the easiest things on my list to do, but the key is to keep on writing posts everyday. As this is my fifth post, I think I'm doing a good job :-) Writing about my life and my experiences helps me to stay calm

Bury a time capsule. It's something we see in movies and I always wanted to do this.

Attend a course of something that I'm really interested in

Do something good for nature. I've always been very concerned about nature and the environment, so this year I want to find an organisation or action that takes care of the nature.

Take a nude photoshoot. Since I have seen the images of the movie The Broken Circle Breakdown, I started to think about doing a (non-sexual) nude photoshoot myself

Send some fanmail to someone that I really stand in awe of

Do something good for humanity. I feel like the time is now to take some action and give someone a better life. I don't know yet how to achieve this goal, but I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out

Let myself been hand-fasted. Handfasting is a sort of Celtic wedding ceremony. I never wanted a big wedding in a church with a party afterwards, because it just doesn't make any sense to me. Last year I heard about this handfesting-thing and now I'm really interested in it

Attend a cosplay. I don't know when or where, but I think it must be so much fun to dress up like some character :-)

Bake cookies and bring them to an elder home. I think I should do this somewhere around Christmas time, as this is a very lonely period for these people

Meet someone that I know through postcrossing

Get myself painted like an album of Pink Floyd. I once saw this beautiful bodypaint showing an album cover of my favourite band.

Go skydiving. This is one thing that I always wanted to do and I feel like I need to do this now, before I'm older and maybe too scared to do it :-)

Get a tattoo

Learn how to windsurf. Since I was a little kid, I dreamed of living in Hawaii and go surfing every day.

While writing this list, I noticed that all of these goals are things that I 'always wanted to do'. The list is still open to suggestions, additions or changes :-) I'll add some posts about all of these goals later on my blog!

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Photo challenge (part one)

Today I'll hope to get a smile on your face with some pictures. So not again a bulk of text to read, but just some pictures with explanations.

Another side-project is of my program is the '30 days photo challenge'. Every day, I am taking a picture of something that really made me happy, and post it to Facebook.

Here's an overview of the first week

#1 A barbecue with my family. The weather is very nice here at the moment, and just because we love to do a barbecue, we do it very often. My family is the most important in my life, and will always be

#2 Having lunch with my dad in a restaurant. We visited Brussels and had lunch afterwards in a Greek restaurant. I love the Greek 'dolmades' (vine leaves filled with rice)

#3 While I was cycling near the water, the sun was shining. I just enjoyed the beautiful view of the water and the flowers dancing in the sun

 #4 Picking flowers while I was having a long walk. People who passed me were all laughing

#5 I found a nest with a little bird and 3 small eggs. They were hidden in a bag of fertilizer. Update: 3 little birds came out of their eggs 2 days later. So cute!

#6 I played 'fluo-golf': minigolf, but while it's dark. The ball and the obstacles were luminous

 #7 Enjoying the jacuzzi at my boyfriends home

As you can see, the first week was full of happy moments :-) Did you enjoyed some happy moments too during the past week?

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Things that make me happy

The first part of the program is all about discovering what makes you happy, and of course, using this knowledge to increase your 'happiness-level'.

Therefore, I made a list with things that I enjoy a lot. At first I thought it would be hard to find more than, roughly, twenty things to put on my list. I spent about fifteen minutes to write down the things that came up in my mind. I was shocked to see my list was already two pages long! :-)

Don’t write down things that you think you should enjoy, only things that you actually do enjoy. This exercise is pointless if you are not honest with yourself.

Once you’ve made your list, you must do at least three things from this list every day

Every night when I go to bed, I read the things on my list and see in which ones I succeeded. I even invented a color code! :-) Up till now, it worked for me.

I'd like to share some things on my list with you

Wake up without my alarm clock. Many people hate to get awakened by an alarm. As I work as a freelancer, I don't need to be at the office from nine to five. Before I started this program, I just got out of bed when I woke up, sometimes even in the afternoon. Now I try to get up at 9pm - 9.30pm, but without an alarm! I feel way better AND I get to sleep better

Have a healthy breakfast. I used to eat a cookie or (even worse) nothing at all for breakfast, but now I try to eat more healthy to start my day fit

Go jogging or cycling. After graduating, I had no physical exercice at all. Just a few months ago I started to try jogging with the Start to Run program. Now I sport about 45 minutes everyday. I can assure you it made me feel a lot better. I will talk about this later on my blog

Make something that is eatable or try a new recipe. I really love cooking, it makes me feel calm. When others say it's delicious, or even eatable, I feel like I'm in seventh heaven. Because of my love for other cultures and traditions, I also collect traditional recipes from other countries, but I'll tell you more about that later

Do postcrossing or write a letter. In 2012 I started to do postcrossing. The concept is: you send a postcard, you receive a postcard from any country in the world. I think it's a nice way to travel all around the world and see beautiful places, but without spending money. Nowadays it's one of my greatest hobbies and something that really makes me happy. I've been also writing letters since I was 5 years old, and still having contact through 'snail mail'

Take photographs. A photo can show you more than a thousand words. That's why I love photography

Read a book. As a kid, I never played with toys or videogames. When I was missing, my parents could find me probably somewhere cosy, reading a book. My favourite books are fantasy books. At the moment, I'm also writing my own book, but it will take some more time to finish it! ;-)

Go out with friends. I'm done wasting time to people who don't deserve my attention. From now on, I'll only spent time with people who deserve my presence

Do something creative or make presents for someone else. Creativity is my trademark and I love to make DIY-items with my own hands. I'll probably add some posts about creativity later on my blog

Learn something new. Every human learns something new everyday. So why not listing things I learn?

Do something good for someone else. It always gives me a good feeling to do something for anyone.

This is a first impression of my list. Stay tuned to find out more about my project!

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About the project

My project started about two weeks ago, while I was searching the internet to find some synonyms for 'Happiness'.

Suddenly, I saw a very promising website called 'Feel Happiness'

I clicked the link and started reading, not knowing that my life was about to change just by reading what the author wrote. Just a few minutes later, I visited the tab '30 days of Happiness'

During the next 30 days, you will do a bunch of little things that add up and have a snowball-effect on your mood and outlook on life

At first, I was a bit sceptic about this. How on earth can a blog make my so-called 'happiness-level' rise up all the way to the sky? Anyway, the more I read, the more I started to think that it really can help me.

I made this blog to write about my experiences with the '30 days of Happiness'-project and to give you the opportunity to enjoy my stories while finding the ultimate happiness.

I hope you DO enjoy everything I write. Feel free to comment or send me a message.

Eva