Birthday picnic idea

When I was little I was aways sad that my birthday came in the end of June. All the kids throughout the year would bring birthday candy to share with the class on their special day. They'd stand in front of everyone, while everybody sings "Happy Birthday". In Russia kids go on their summer vacation in the end of May, so obviously being a late June baby didn't make me happy then. 

I always wanted to experience that, but not for the birthday song. 

I loved the idea of sharing treats with everyone, so when they enjoy their candy, they think of me.

Nowadays I still love the idea of sharing food. Something that I personally made and put my heart into. 

Here is a little idea for someone who is struggling with a Birthday idea and is on tight budget - throw a Birthday Picnic! 

I prepared little appetizers, like cucumber feta cheese rolls, which are super easy to make. Also ham rolls for meat lovers. Fresh pre-cut vegetables with hummus. Cheese with grapes. Ideas are endless! For desert I made raspberry tiramisu and my mother-in-law made lemon cupcakes.

P.S. if things go wrong:

My plan was to have a picnic at the park, but of course the Oregon weather didn't let that happen and it started raining. So instead of canceling the whole thing we just set it up on our apartment balcony.

Being special

So it's 20 days until my birthday but I don't know what to do yet. Lots of people don't really care about birthdays once getting older, but I believe that this should be the best celebration of the year. Maybe not the biggest (depending on the budget), but you definitely MUST feel special.
Just think. What if...your mom decided not to have you? Or what if things went wrong? I mean, what are actually the chances that you would appear in this world? And despite everything here we are, happy or not, healthy or not really, but we are here. For one or another reason. And we must celebrate. Celebrate our life! Because it's wonderful and special. I mean YOU are special and this is the perfect day to remind yourself about that.

Today I found out that I'm 8,382 days old. So let's celebrate!

autumn

Dear Diary,

                                                                    Some little love notes about this autumn.

1. cinnamon in my latte

2. pumpking recepies

3. gorgeous colours of the trees

4. playing in the fall leaves

5. sweaters and knit -wear

6. fresh rainy autumn air

                There is a beauty in every season. 

Thoughts and birds

Every day passes by and only today I realised that it's October already. If days keep going so fast Christmas will come sooner than we'd all expect. It's rainy and cold today but for some reason I'm enjoying it at the moment. And even I have hundreds of things planned I'm procrastinating by writing two more blog posts today.

 A month ago I was lucky to take pictures of a very beautiful wedding. And as a part of the entertaining we went to "the Birds Park". I haven't been there before because it is 200 km from Moscow so I was amazed as soon as we got there. For some people it might be even more entertaining than a Zoo and I was probably enjoying it more than anyone else. Because these little creatures turn out to be very good posers :)

You'll be my friend and I'll be your homie.

Keeping a photoblog is not that hard when you have thousands of pictures on your server. These shots are from my American vacation and I picked them to show today because I like them. Pretty simple. 

Писать блог по-русски?

I have been debating with myself on if I should keep blogging in English or get back to Russian. I can't decide. The only thing I know is that in Russian I'd probably get more pleasure of writing, but English helps me to share my thoughts with people from the other side of the world...hm, anyway, here are some new film pictures from the last couple of weeks. I didn't expect myself to make friends with a film camera so fast, but it turns out we get along pretty well. Most of the photos here were taken in Tula, my hometown. And now I'm going to get some pistachio ice-cream to celebrate my Saturday.

Happy

Just very happy. Happy to look forward to my graduation, which is in 3 weeks, happy to know that I'll be on an airplane soon again, happy to become twenty one in twenty one days, happy to share my Sunday with my family and happy to be able to do what I love doing. Every single day. Каждый день.  

Film

They say "Art never comes from happiness", but it's not true for me. Every day contains at least one happy event, a moment in time that we are thankful for. This is how my every day goes.

 I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way and I'm really grateful my parents haven't ever pushed me. They just said that I can be happy only when I can live outside myself. And I do.

  My first ever film pictures.

Moscow, May, 2012.

I guess I remember every glance you shot me.

Yesterday (at work :P) I was going through my summer pictures and I came across a few which I haven't noticed before. To collect the favorite pics of mine I had to create a new folder on my mac a long time ago so I could take a look at them every time I need to cheer up and smile. Now  I want to use some of them as the postcards and send to my friends all over the world. Why haven't I some up with this idea before I wonder?

weekly

Just some random pictures of the last week. Hope you guys are enjoying July, aren't you? :)