French goodies

The French know good food. I wish there was a french supermarket in my neighborhood or a place that sells french food because I miss the food so much! So I thought I'd share some of the food that I wish I could get more often. But maybe it's a good thing, who knows I might be obese if I could get these whenever I want... And yes there is more, and so there will be more posts about French food I'm addicted to. 

The BEST chocolate you can even have! Trust me, these are truly the best! 

A 'healthier' type of candy. Different fruity flavors, I'm not too much a fan of the taste, but they look so cute in a bowl :D

I absolutely loved this since I was a little kid. And if you were wondering, yes I did take this picture a while back ;) I wish I had this in my fridge now... So good! It's a type of yoghurt, very simple but so good.

Stella Mare: Cranberry Tangerine soy candle

So since this is the official 'Blue Monday', I thought why not post a little review on a little candle? A little happiness in the midst of this blueness if you will.

For Christmas I received two Stella Mare candles (amongst others), and this is the first one I've tried out. I was not familiar with this brand, but the packaging looked very cute and even though at first the scent seemed strong, when it's lit up, the room just smells so nice! In no way is it overwhelming. So I can't wait to try out the other one! These candles are hand poured, it's soy wax (Somehow I'm thinking about starbucks soy latte now...) and it's lead-free. So I guess these candles aren't harmful at all, not that I ever looked at that... Maybe I should in the future? I always buy them for the scent whenever I buy scented candles. But anyway, they burn up for 50 hours (I've been burning it for 3 days on and off and there's still over 50% left, so they could be right on this one) I guess you can only get these in the USA so I'll only have these 2 to last me for now :-( 

I really love scented candles, especially during the colder days. It makes me happy and makes my place cozy. And somehow I'm more productive when burning some candles... Not sure why, guess it has to do with the happiness :) 

Koraal Tabak with the dogs

This was the last morning we could go to the beach (where dogs are allowed) with the dogs before they'll start stressing out because of the fireworks. The fireworks here on the island are pretty loud, which I actually love, oddly enough. It just feels right some way or another, guess it's because I grew up with it. Anyway, we went off to the beach and I took plenty of pictures and even filmed sometimes. 

Here is a clip I've made and a couple of pictures :)

Playing around

They're both pretty bad swimmers... One (Rex) splashes A LOT and the other (Maxie) basically jumps in the shallow waters... As you can see here 

Rex, or as I often call him 'sexy Rexy'. Don't ask, it rhymes...

Some other car arrived!

Lucky shot! 

'I never played with sand! How dare you ask!'

Got everything out of the car back home, and they jump back in... Not really willing to get out. (I got the chance to go in the house, grab my camera and come back outside.)

Photography

I decided to open a new blog dedicated to my photography. Here's the link: http://stephanievhphotography.blogspot.com

And this is one of the pictures I've posted on there which is one of my favorites!

Gotta love my little island Curacao :)

   <3

Home for christmas! Meet the dogs

I am home for christmas! And I have an excellent camera that I tried out today. My models were my parents' dogs (I also consider them my dogs, especially Rex since we've got him while I still lived at home). And they will be for quite a lot of photos too. I just love taking pictures of them :)

So here they are:

Maxi 

Rex

I love the quality of the pictures with this camera! And I still have a lot to figure out with the features. Great photography times ahead!

<3

Small Christmas shop

As I was catching up with a friend I've known for almost 20(!!) years now, we passed a cute little Christmas shop in Amsterdam centre, so I figured why not share this deliciously yummy christmassy stuff? So here are a couple of pictures :) 

I am really excited for Christmas so there will be many more christmassy posts coming up ~ just so you know :D 

"I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it!" 

They had so much cute stuff! And we were very afraid we might accidentally bump something over and break it, thankfully that did not happen!!

Sorry for the quality, but as you can see everything was super expensive so we did not buy anything. But it's a nice store to visit either way :)

Random picture of the Christmas decor in the street, this one really reminded me of a DNA strand! Yes I find that cool, I'm a nerd :)

<3

How not to sell a product (Oct 3, 2013)

This is a little bit of a rant post. I've seen this happen a couple of times on a certain website and I really wonder how this get's approved by the board or whoever...
Here's the screenshot:
I mean the photograph is actually of good quality, but why take a picture of a broken product? I don't know anyone who would buy a eyeshadow pallet that is broken, much less order it with the chance of the other colours having a layer of this broken white one when you receive it in the post. Either way I don't understand who approved to let this be on the website. The colours are pretty though.

<3

New desk chair! (Sep 27, 2013)

When you have a lot of writing to do, you're sitting for the biggest part of the day. Therefore, the desk chair you're sitting in should at least be comfortable right?! Well I've been sitting in a crappy broken desk chair for over half a year now. Why? Because I am broke and good desk chairs cost a lot of money, plus I don't want to invest the money I don't have in a chair I might have to sell again if I have to move to another country some time soon. The future job for me is still unknown and as I'm willing to move to the corners of the earth there is no way in knowing where I might end up in the time ahead. But anyway that's a different story.

I have been sitting on this broken chair for way too long, and I have to admit, I have had 2 versions of this desk chair and they all start off okay but then become very uncomfortable pretty quickly after purchased. Anyway, here are some pictures of what I have been sitting on. I've already placed it on my balcony, so my apologies for the dirty floor.

So as you can see, the seat was broken which somehow either made my leg fall asleep, or made my back ache. It's just uncomfortable. But the good news is that I found a cheap desk chair which I bought and put together, and here it is:

Okay it's smaller, but it actually is pretty comfortable. Or maybe I find anything comfortable after having to sit in a broken chair for so long... Either way I am very happy and it was only E35,- from the store Kwantum which is very cheap, I've checked many websites and usually the cheapest one was around E60,-. Sad thing is because I don't own a car or know anyone who does in my neighbourhood (the cons of living in a city where you can get anywhere with public transport or a bike I guess) I had to order it and that costs an additional E15,-. Still E50,- is reasonably cheap. And I'm happy I get to sit comfortably at my desk again :D

<3