.: so comes snow after fire :.

Only two days before I leave for the holidays, I can't wait. It'll be ten days of happy family time, and I really need it. I'm feeling much better and a lot like myself, but yeah, the change of scenery is so much needed. I still have to prepare all the xmas gifts, but at least I've already bought them all, and the cute glittery paper as well. Today it'll be me, a pair of children's scissors, and too much tape! Then in the afternoon Tati and I will exchange gifts, and go watch the final Hobbit movie together. I have tissues, I have eyedrops, I'm ready!

In fandom news I'm behind with a few tv shows, because I started my second Dragon Age Inquisition playthrough with the sole purpose of romancing Dorian, and then suddenly the party banter started working, so I decided to finish the whole game and enjoy all the dialogues I had missed the first time around. I'm still hoping they'll release a patch when I'm away that will finally fix it, though. By the way, here's a picture of my male Inquisitor, Narsil. I'm very proud of him, I usually find it very hard to create male characters in videogames (I went with the custom version for my male Hawke), but he looks handsome while looking realistic enough. And here's my first Inquisitor, Nimrais, for comparison. I love creating elf characters! *____*

And remember last month when I fixed the hairdresser's laptop? I went back for a haircut the other day and they did it for free (and the dye too), because now the laptop works perfectly! I'm so proud of myself. I told the story to my esthetician, and spent three hours yesterday, after she did my nails, fixing her laptop as well. It was in better conditions than the first one, but not that much. Windows 7 had never been updated in two years, and she had a lot of spyware and no antivirus software. It's actually kind of a miracle it was still working. But yeah, I managed to fix it, and felt really good while doing it. I might have found my new calling. :D

Today is an historical day in my healing process. Or we should call it Huge Step Ahead Day. Today is the day I finally made my mom's signature dish, her favourite recipe, my sister's and mine favourite dish when we were kids. Mom last made it a month before my sister's death, and we never mentioned it again after. I talked about it a few times with Tati and my therapist, but I never thought I'd feel strong enough to prepare it again, to reclaim the memory for myself. As it turns out, two years of therapy did the trick. Yesterday I bought the ingredients, and this morning, after getting an haircut, because that always makes me feel stronger, the magic happened.



The recipe was given thirty years ago to my mom by a Spanish friend of hers, who called it "Zuppa Spagnola" (italian for Spanish Soup). She was talking of the Gazpacho, but translated it for us, and we thought it was such a cute thought that we kept using the name. There are several recipes of the Gazpacho, some with bread, some without, some with alcohol in it. This is my mom's recipe, so I don't really consider it Gazpacho, it's more like something similar, but unique. You get the idea.



It's very easy to prepare, just takes a blender, really. I only had red bell peppers, but when possible my mom used a red one and a green one, so to give it a greenish hue.



Final result gets in the fridge for a day. I opened the fridge a few minutes ago and it smelled heavenly, of childhood and summer. First attempt: complete success, A+ for me.

I know I go on and on about little things like they're immense, but they're huge to me. I've lived with small and big traumas half my life, and had no idea that therapy could actually work. Small steps feel exactly like huge steps ahead do, they're all equally awesome and unexpected. ♥

(And my hair is now a lovely Night Vale purple, yay!)

I'm back! Spent three lovely days with Tati, enjoyed the first days of Autumn immensely, wore my Erik Lehnsherr jacket for the first time in months. Other highlights of the last few days include cutting my thumb while peeling a potato, while on the phone with a friend of mine who was telling me about what her gynecologist told her last week. She was very scared (she has to take some meds, nothing serious, but she never had any health problems in 30 years so she was freaking out), and I couldn't interrupt her, so I managed to keep reassuring her in a calm, soothing voice, while rushing to the bathroom and trying to stop the bleeding with toilet paper. It was quite a lot of bleeding, because when I do something, I do it properly. Thinking about it, it must have looked quite funny. :D

I came home a couple of hours ago, and downloaded the latest Doctor Who episode, Asylum of the Daleks. Don't know what I was expecting - after loving the first episodes of the last season, I hated the ending, so I was very conflicted. I'm not sure whether I liked it or not. Spoilery review under the cut, I'll just leave this here, why on earth every freaking a time a girl talks about liking another girl, it is always called "a phase"? It pisses me off so much. So offensive.

( We had a moment/That felt like summer/Now in slumber/I can see your smile. )

Forgot to post a picture here, but last week I got a new haircut (shorter and shorter), and died the bangs Tardis blue! I love it! *_____________*

I've had the most horrible week. So many ugly things happening, and no space to breathe. Today things are finally starting to look better, but I'm still tired from all that ordeal. So, after a well-deserved therapy session, I got a new haircut (shorter than before), and dyed it even pinker, and god, did I need that. I'm all cute and funny and pink, that's the way it should be!

And when I came home, I found the RedBubble package I'd been waiting for a whole month (why does it always take a month from the USA, why?). Since it was all t-shirts, and today was the first day I could actually wear a t-shirt and sandals, I have to admit it arrived at the right time. But I'm still shaking my fist at stupid customs at the italian border.



For an impromtu photoshoot with yours truly and her new amazing shirts (and her pink and funny and cute hair), just follow the cut. ^^

( Find it and shine it and wind it always//It is her hour and always it's hers. )


I also had this little envelope hidden inside a magazine, and inside it, my MJN Air luggage tags! Four of them, I still have to decide if I want to tie them all to my bag, or choose a different one every new day according to how I'm feeling. "Why, today I'll go for the jeans and the Abu Dhabi tag! Or maybe the yellow skirt and the Cremona one!" :D

My Shame soundtrack arrived today! It's one for me and one for Tati, but I couldn't resist and took a picture of both, so you can see my new hair colour too. The fuchsia stripes have been a success so far, I got lots of compliments. I can be so vain sometimes. :D



Today was the warmest day of the new year so far. I saw boys in the street stripped down to their shirts, and even if I have a feeling teenagers don't feel the cold like I do, it was still as warm as the first day of spring. Sakura loves it, so even if it is weird, I get an hyper cuddly cat two months in advance this year, that's good. Tiring, but good. :D

Yesterday I played a bit of Final Fantasy Dissidia 12 after months, because I want to get back in a Final Fantasy mood: in two weeks I'll have Final Fantasy XIII-2, and I want to be ready. This one has time travel in it, it's going to be amazing! *_______*

My Shame soundtrack arrived today! It's one for me and one for Tati, but I couldn't resist and took a picture of both, so you can see my new hair colour too. The fuchsia stripes have been a success so far, I got lots of compliments. I can be so vain sometimes. :D



Today was the warmest day of the new year so far. I saw boys in the street stripped down to their shirts, and even if I have a feeling teenagers don't feel the cold like I do, it was still as warm as the first day of spring. Sakura loves it, so even if it is weird, I get an hyper cuddly cat two months in advance this year, that's good. Tiring, but good. :D

Yesterday I played a bit of Final Fantasy Dissidia 12 after months, because I want to get back in a Final Fantasy mood: in two weeks I'll have Final Fantasy XIII-2, and I want to be ready. This one has time travel in it, it's going to be amazing! *_______*

I feel like this post is kind of obligatory now.

( How Sherlock did it - spoilers for both Sherlock and Doctor Who. )

I'm going to use this opportunity to say that I'm sorry that this blog has turned into a BBC Sherlock blog. I have other stuff happening in my life, I swear. Like, today I got a new haircut, and dyed my bangs fuchsia, and the guy at the comic book store asked me if I was going punk and that made me grin like an idiot for a whole hour. :D

Tomorrow, if the weather stays as sunny as today, is going to be my first day at the beach this year! I'll have to wear socks because of that stupid mycosis, but I'll wear blue ones, just like my bikini, so at least it'll look fashionable. :D

Yesterday I watched Sucker Punch, at last. I was very excited about this one, until I started reading not-so-excited reviews, so I tried not to have ridicolously high expectations. In the end, it turns out those reviews were right. The beginning of the movie was a blast, the Sweet Dreams sequence alone is a masterpiece, and all the first part was great, then we got to the dream sequences. And there it started to drag, until by the third sequence it got just plain boring. It was a great idea, but the choreographer for the fight scenes sucked (no other way to say it) and all turned yellow as soon as Babydoll started "dancing", and on the long run it was quite annoying. Maybe they should have gone for completely different colour palettes for every dream, sort of like in Hero (red dream, green dream and so on). And they definitely should have cut some of the fights to give us more time with the other girls, in the first level of the dream.

The actress who played Babydoll was really good. She had three lines tops, and she got the whole character right just using her face and body language. Really impressive. I loved Sweet Pea and Rocket too, while all the other girls felt like extras from Moulin Rouge.

The ending was a bit unexpected, but I liked it. It didn't make me want to re-watch the movie, though. So, after Watchmen, which is a 10 out of 10, this movie just gets a 6 from me. Pity.

I also finished the Book of Lost Things. Wow, I loved it. The one thing that annoyed me a lot was that my edition of the book had 100 extra pages at the end, with interviews to the author, analysis of the original fairytales and so on, and I didn't know it, so when I got to the final chapter I thought I still had a good fourth of the book left to read, and when I realized I was wrong I was so disappointed.

Other than that, it was great. I highly suggest it to everyone, it's a very intense, heartbreaking take on popular fairytales. The ending is quite perfect, it leaves a few questions open that are still rolling around in my brain, and that's a good sign. Every ending needs to be a bit open. ^^

What else? I finally found a torrent for Opera Italia, a bbc show about italian opera, as if it wasn't already quite obvious from the title. ^^" I watched the first episode on channel 3 a couple of weeks ago, and loved it to pieces. I'm a huge fan of Opera (italian or not), so it's definitely my kind of show. ^^

Also, I got a new haircut! It's very short on the neck, with long bangs on the two sides of my face. I'm planning on dying it, sooner or later this summer, but I still haven't decided on the colour. At least now it doesn't get in my eyes all the time. :D

Tomorrow, if the weather stays as sunny as today, is going to be my first day at the beach this year! I'll have to wear socks because of that stupid mycosis, but I'll wear blue ones, just like my bikini, so at least it'll look fashionable. :D

Yesterday I watched Sucker Punch, at last. I was very excited about this one, until I started reading not-so-excited reviews, so I tried not to have ridicolously high expectations. In the end, it turns out those reviews were right. The beginning of the movie was a blast, the Sweet Dreams sequence alone is a masterpiece, and all the first part was great, then we got to the dream sequences. And there it started to drag, until by the third sequence it got just plain boring. It was a great idea, but the choreographer for the fight scenes sucked (no other way to say it) and all turned yellow as soon as Babydoll started "dancing", and on the long run it was quite annoying. Maybe they should have gone for completely different colour palettes for every dream, sort of like in Hero (red dream, green dream and so on). And they definitely should have cut some of the fights to give us more time with the other girls, in the first level of the dream.

The actress who played Babydoll was really good. She had three lines tops, and she got the whole character right just using her face and body language. Really impressive. I loved Sweet Pea and Rocket too, while all the other girls felt like extras from Moulin Rouge.

The ending was a bit unexpected, but I liked it. It didn't make me want to re-watch the movie, though. So, after Watchmen, which is a 10 out of 10, this movie just gets a 6 from me. Pity.

I also finished the Book of Lost Things. Wow, I loved it. The one thing that annoyed me a lot was that my edition of the book had 100 extra pages at the end, with interviews to the author, analysis of the original fairytales and so on, and I didn't know it, so when I got to the final chapter I thought I still had a good fourth of the book left to read, and when I realized I was wrong I was so disappointed.

Other than that, it was great. I highly suggest it to everyone, it's a very intense, heartbreaking take on popular fairytales. The ending is quite perfect, it leaves a few questions open that are still rolling around in my brain, and that's a good sign. Every ending needs to be a bit open. ^^

What else? I finally found a torrent for Opera Italia, a bbc show about italian opera, as if it wasn't already quite obvious from the title. ^^" I watched the first episode on channel 3 a couple of weeks ago, and loved it to pieces. I'm a huge fan of Opera (italian or not), so it's definitely my kind of show. ^^

Also, I got a new haircut! It's very short on the neck, with long bangs on the two sides of my face. I'm planning on dying it, sooner or later this summer, but I still haven't decided on the colour. At least now it doesn't get in my eyes all the time. :D

After four months, it was time to change the layout here.

nausicaa83 nausicaa83 nausicaa83

I re-did that header at least six times from scratch before I was satisfied. And yes, it's from X-Men First Class and everyone is so surprised. So predictable. XD

Off-topic, tomorrow morning I'll finally have a new haircut. I love the way my hair looks now, but it's getting in my eyes all the time, too annoying.

Off-off-topic (meta off-topic?), my cousin has her final exams tomorrow. Let's all cross our fingers, toes, whatever and send her lots of happy thoughts! \o/