The good life

This week, I went to see the musical 'Wicked' with the in-laws (thanks guys!), and had a short walk on the beach before it started. Of course, I hád to take off my shoes and jump in the water!

The musical was awesome, I loved the story, the songs, decors, costumes and especially the lead actress: Willemijn Verkaik (she played Elpheba, the wicked witch of the west). Here is my favorite song of the muscial (without Willemijn unfortunately, since it is in English):

Apart from enjoying the good life, all I seem to be doing is work, work and work. This week I have two whole days for working on my designs, and next week I'll have an extra day off from my part-time job, so three more days available for my three rings designs. So... if they're still not done by then, I think I'll just quit as a product designer altogether... Just kidding though. I finished the six different versions of ring no.2, which had been lying around for weeks now, and now it's just working on ring no.1 and no.3, so I've made progress. A little sneak peek of ring no.3:

No, I don't have to alter ALL these points manually, just the ones around the edges and corners. Still waaay too much work for comfort though. Luckily, no.1 is much simpler.

I whipped up a little pizza bread for lunch, because working hard should be accompanied by eating well. Just a little homemade pesto (basil leaves, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, salt, Dutch: basilicum, pijnboompitten, olijfolie, knoflook, zout) with tomato paste, spread on some bread. I mixed a bit of scallion through and sprinkled Gouda on top, in the oven for 5 minutes and you have yourself a fairly decent lunch.

I've also found a new recipe for cookies. After taking a mouthwatering stroll through our local 'organic/healthy stuff' store, I came home with a bag of wholemeal spelt flour. I wanted to try out baking cookies with some more health-friendly ingredients. Well, it worked! They're not overly sweet, but if you enjoy cookies from organic sugar-free brands, you'll definitely enjoy these as well!

Recipe: sugar-free spelt cookies
For about 12 cookies:

100 grams spelt flour
40 grams rice syrup
10 grams honey
50 grams butter
a bit of salt

Extra: a few dates (Dutch: dadels), chopped in small pieces and mixed through, and/or coconut shavings on top.

Mix everything, bake for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, let it cool: enjoy!

Rain and clouds

Well well well... Turns out I had forgotten even more than I thought about my camera. I had problems getting my images lighter (they kept turning out rather dark), even when adapting the diaphragm and shutter time over and over again. That was, until J. ('zee boyfriend') figured out I hadn't been adapting the shutter time but the light balance instead, which doesn't do anything when zooming manually. Oh.

You'd thínk that realisation would leave one with lots of motivation and inspiration to take lots of pictures, but unfortunately the weather forecast for this and next week has basically been rain and clouds, accompanied by a rather grey and dark sky and thus bad lighting. Maybe I should take the opportunity to practise working with a light box and maybe even separate flashes, but, well, yeah... I'm dreading that. Time will tell if I'll ever have the courage to start with it.

But fear not, I've gotten several fantastic crafting tools as birthday gifts, so I guess I'll be able to keep myself busy for the time being *grins*. Among these, pictures will follow later:

...lino cutting tools (Dutch: linoleumgutsen) for making custom stamps, I've already made a few
...thick high-quality colouring pencils (my fingers get cramped when I use regular ones, so I'm really happy with these)
 ...a wood-cutting knife
...an ironing board (already had a small tabletop one, but using that was annoying the living daylight out of me), great for my sewing projects
...and THE most awesome sewing book ever, "Allemaal rokjes" (all kinds of skirts, only available in Dutch yet) from Mme Zsazsa, and everyone who knows me in real life knows I never even wear skirts but I really wanted the book anyway. Because it's so awesome. And because I do want to make skirts, even though I might not wear them that often, as they are much easier to make than pants or shirts.

And I've found another song I really like for practise, but I'm still pondering which one I like better, the original or Joe Cocker's version:

Oh so unfitting with the current weather here, but hey, hopeful thinking never hurts.