Work and Santa stuff

~ Work has been great and I’m so lucky to have this job. I’m on vacation until the 3^rd of January though. I felt a little tired so I took some days off. Unfortunately, starting from this Monday, I’ve been a little sick too. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better until Saturday.

~ Pleasant surprise @ work – so, there’s this colleague of mine who’s pregnant so right now she’s in the maternity leave. Of course, my managers have been looking for someone to replace her (she’s an accountant). I never thought it’d be so difficult to find someone suitable for a job, considering how many accountants there are in Romania and how tough the economy has been. Some of the applicants weren’t enough qualified, some thought 10 hours/day is too much, some thought the distance is too big (our offices are 3 km away from Bucharest – it takes me 1h and 15mins to get there everyday). Among these applicants there was this woman, at about 50 years of age, very nice, very friendly, very polite and very well prepared. She gave it a shot for 2 weeks in our offices but she didn’t feel comfortable with the job so she left… In the short time I had her around I could see that she was kind and mild. Anyway, in her last day at our place we left together. In the subway, before the train entered the station where I had to get down, she told me “I wish you luck and inspiration to make the right decisions and to live your life to the fullest. You’re a special kid, God gave you more gifts than He gave to others. Use them wisely. I hope you have a wonderful life.” I must admit, she kind of impressed me and she also left me thinking about the meaning of her words.

~ Also @ work – my boss rules. She told me I’m a hardworking kiddo and I do a good job. And I got a raise – the second one in 8 months. :)

~ I made tiramisu 2 days ago. It came out pretty yummy and everybody enjoyed it. I even got the “it’s the best Tiramisu I’ve had in my whole life” line coming from someone. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the cake. Maybe next time…

~ So, Christmas is gone... It's my favorite holiday but this year I didn't love it so much. I think it's the first time in my life when I don't enjoy Christmas... (for an explanation, read the previous post). Anyway, since Santa knows I'm a good kid he visited me too and he brought me....books - as boring as it may sound, I LOVE books and I'm always happy when I receive or buy them. My "Santa brother" was very thoughtful and gave me this book along with this adorable plushie whose name is Aki.

~~ Aki & Luka and the Fire of Life by S. Rushdie ~~

~ I also bought this book.

~~ A Farewell to Arms by E. Hemingway ~~

~ And I ordered this one at this online library. It should be delivered in a few days. I can't wait :)

~ I hope you had a great Christmas & I wish you a wonderful New Year.
♥ Doina :)

The girl who learned

~ Sometimes life gives you lemons... And when life gives you lemons the best thing to do is to make lemonade out of them :)
~ So okay, something happened to me, something has changed in my life and because of it I've been in a pretty crappy mood. Take the crappy mood and add this song to it... To see the result please, read below.....
~ You can give this story whatever meaning you want :)

"Once upon a time there was this cute little girl who lived a peaceful life inside her tiny house with ginger bread walls and windows like wafers. She was well aware of her beauty but she never showed it because she knew that beauty was of little significance…

She lived her life quietly but in her heart she knew that at some point something special would happen.

God didn’t give her a perfect, wealthy family, nor did He give her a castle but what He gave her instead was her beauty – the simplest and most natural kind – a vivid imagination that allowed her thoughts to fly and a good mind. He gave her a healthy body and a vulnerable spirit that would tremble to the smallest of this Earth’s sufferings. But beyond all these, her most precious gift was her Smile – yes, God gave her the kindest and goofy-est smile so when she smiled the ones around her couldn’t but smile back to her.

This girl believed in dreams and in fairytales, she thought Christmas was the most beautiful holiday there was and she still believed in Santa, because she thought that Santa, as well as God, dwell inside each and every one of us. This girl loved butterflies and ladybugs, she thought flowers were God’s most wonderful invention and music was her most favorite language.

Yet, she still had many lessons to learn. The gingerbread walls hid her well and kept her away from the ugliness of the world. Her old parents knew how vulnerable she was so they did their best to protect her and raised her up holding her as you would hold a crystal ball that needs the most special attention in order not to get broken.

So everywhere they took her she was one of the best children, got high marks, learned well, was a good pupil, read a lot, learned to play the piano but as she grew she became more and more curious about the world… Unprepared, used to the unconditional love of her family, used to the warmth of her home she began her adventure. She thought people were essentially good, she believed there was something good in all of them and she lived with the conviction that her goodness would only be repaid with goodness…But she was wrong….

She put her heart in the hands of strangers and believed in every word they said. She though that as long as she wouldn’t harm them she wouldn’t get hurt. But they only squeezed her heart until it was broken and then they threw it away.

She lost her confidence, she got disappointed, she lost the ability to trust and to believe…

She would still believe in God and in His plan for her, she would still believe in the power of goodness. She kept the faith that all people can be good and that positive energy draws positive things. She just wouldn’t let her heart shine like she used to do. She wouldn’t let the others see her heart so that no one could harm it.

She would still be nice to the people around her but she built a wall so that they couldn’t get too close and somehow she pushed them away…..

She hid her fears, her frustration, her lack of trust, her tears behind this wall so that people would think she was strong and confident and impossible to be hurt….What a lie!

But one day something happened…. she didn’t pray for it, she didn’t wish for it to happen…it simply happened…Destiny brought him in her life just like that, without any explanation. He was a charming man, the “beast” she’d been waiting for, a knight…Unfortunately this knight lived in a sort of “Far far away kingdom”…Smart, brave, funny, cute, sometimes childish, sensitive…he conquered her heart and she didn’t even notice it. It happened fast. His words put a spell on her and broke down her wall. Flowers and beautiful trees started to grow roots on the place where the cold wall used to be and wonderful butterflies and bees and ladybugs invaded her heart. She began to dream and believe again. She felt that that was the moment she’d been waiting for all her life – her little miracle, her little “something special”.

He was special, he was her fairytale but beyond all these he was her “lesson of love”.And, ohh, what a lesson it was. There were so many things about love she didn’t know. She had to learn that love is patient, caring, tender and giving. She had to learn that love is not selfish, that love thinks for “two”. She had to learn that love means trust and understanding. She had to learn to wait and trust. She had to learn that love is kind and she had to give him a chance …. a chance to give her an explanation, a chance to prove her that his words were not mere lies, a chance to let him show his love.

Always trapped between the voice of her heart and the voice of her head, there was always a battle going on inside of her, so she had to LEARN how to control her duality and she had to bring this fight to an end. So she had to pick a winner, make a decision and stick with it.

When her head said “you should come first on his list of priorities” her heart said “you know and you understand his situation and love is about “us”, not only about “me”".

When her head said “he abandoned you” her heart said “believe in his words and in his promises”.

When her head said “he should have protected you” her heart answered “you are not for everybody a crystal ball..some may see you like this, some may not, you must accept them as they are and you must protect yourself from breaking”.

Where there was disappointment her heart replaced it with faith, where there was doubt her heart sat in peace and waited for a nice surprise. When her mind felt abandoned, her heart chose to believe in his words and in God’s plan for her.

Her heart won, she chose to believe, hope and wait.

But him? What about him?

Well.. it’s not simple to build bridges between distant shores and it’s not easy to build bridges between two hearts that beat so far away from each other. And how do you convince a heart to love what she cannot see or feel? If he just gave up on her, she would understand.

And if, after all, this would prove itself to be a simple happening in her life and not that “something special” she’d been waiting for, then she would just choose to learn. And a lesson learned is nothing but a step closer to God, closer to perfection."

A book can make me happy

~ If anyone asked me which is my favorite writer I would answer, without hesitation, Ernest Hemingway.
~Born in 1899, E. Hemingway is one of the best and most popular American writers.
Winner of a Pulitzer prize and of a Nobel prize for Literature, he wrote the most part of his work between the 1920s and the 1950s. Ernest Hemingway was married four times and participated in both World Wars as well as in the Spanish Civil War.
~ His entire work was inspired by his real-life experiences.
~ His writing style is amazing and deludingly simple ~ inspired by the author's own life but making reflexions on life in general.
~ Hemingway committed suicide in 1961.
~ Doubtlessly my all time favorite book is For Whom the Bell Tolls and I couldn't but LOVE The Old Man and The Sea.
~ The book below is my newest acquisition and I'm so looking forward to reading it :):)
~ Wish you all a great new week :)

~ Green Hills of Africa, 1935

~ For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Old Man and the Sea

:)

~~ Which bees give milk?
~~ The Boo-bees :D


~ Have a nice weekend!! :)

Bits and pieces of thoughts

~ (pieces of my imagination)
.....

She sat there and smoked the cigarette sighing….She spent the night thinking and listening to music….the chords of music helped her put her thoughts in order, like you carefully place books on library shelves. Sometimes I feel too much, she thought, but at the end of the day it is all about sensations – we remember fragrances, sights, emotions, the way things feel when we touch them. That’s all we take with us when we leave this world.

She lit another cigarette Men are weird…or maybe I am weird…I am either an icon or a piece of meat to them and I can’t understand why.

Sounds were lightly coming out of her cassette player but she couldn’t hear them. The room bathed into neon light and the black&white keys of her piano gave her a somewhat psychedelic state I think I am in love. And there’s only one way I know how to do this – with my entire being. Does he know that?! Can he understand? When he subtly asks me to wait for him, does he mean it? Does he know I would really wait? Maybe I am the only one who’s in love. Or maybe he is confused. But does he know that what I actually give him is my time…hours of my days…little parts of my life. Isn’t this the greatest gift?......And I…what am I to him aside from a sweet distraction? NOTHING…probably nothing.

Sweet words…if only he knew how many meanings words have to me…he asks me to speak my language to him…my language is a complicated symphony…if only he knew.

All of the sudden she began to pay attention to the music again “And I give up forever to touch you”…her favorite song, one that made her heart tremble and wet her eyes with tears….Give up…he doesn’t give up on anything for my sake…He says he loves me but he goes on with his life like I wouldn’t even be here. LIAR!!! And I’m just a fool…the biggest fool ever…everybody takes me for a fool..and they all think they can tread on my feelings. Don’t they know that I feel too?!

In my little world I thought I could get lucky for once.

I made a dream, an impossible dream,

like all my other dreams.

I forgot to measure the distance between our worlds…

Like a star that shines upon my world,

so far away in the cold distance,

he is

She was trying to write a few verses when she heard these words "What if all these fantasies/ Come flailing around/ Now I've said too much/ I thought that I heard you laughing/ I thought that I heard you sing/ I think I thought I saw you try/ But that was just a dream/ That was just a dream."

In a weird way the music was accompanying her state of spirit God, if you are up there why are you doing this to me? What wrong have I done?!

She stood up and left her half-smoked cigarette in the flowery blue china ash tray – No, I won’t cry again. I won’t take half measures and no man will kneel me in this life time. I will live my life fully, I will have fun and I will make the best of it. I have enough problems to deal with so no, I won’t waste any more time with you and your “ball-less”nature.

If you are not able to fight for me then you can go away and leave me alone.

If you are not able to choose, then go away!

If you are not able to stand up for your choices, then go away!

If you are not able to love me, then go away!

LIAR!!!!!!!!!

I might be a kid, I might have a lot of growing up to do but I’m not your fool. I might be too childish and dreamy – no more of that!!!! Dreams are for fools!

"Forgive that they teared down my soul
Bless them that they might grow old"

Music always helped her put her thoughts in order – the order of the books carefully placed on library shelves.

She turned off the music and the lights, she drew the curtains and in the cold darkness she went to bed hoping for a better tomorrow.

Sometimes I feel too much…

She left her heart and the half-smoked cigarette in the flowery blue china ash tray.

Capricorn vs. Gemini - My books

~ I can't decide which book to read first. What do you suggest?
Should it be

Thomas Mann (born on 6th of June 1875 = a Gemini) - The Magic Mountain

or

Edgar A. Poe (born on 19th of January 1809 = a Capricorn) - Tales

~ On another note - I had an awful week and not a very nice weekend. Thanks God, it's over!
Work has been crazy, work mates have been crazy and , to top it, I can't manage to understand malice, stupidity and non-creative minds. But then again, this week is over!

~ I'm off to bed:) Wish you a cool new week:)
xoxo


~~ PS: I really love this song

My books, my drawings

~~ My books

Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and The Sea ;
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein ;
Salman Rushdie - Haroun and The Sea of Stories

~~ My (crappy) drawings
~ The Blue Alien and The Chocolate Bunny :D