Obscure Journey

Hello all!

So, in my previous post, I told you about the challenge with the subjects to write about in March. 

This time, I have to update you on 7 challenges. However, some of them have no signification for me, so the entries would have been too short. I'm not particularly fond of very short entries, so here I am. 

First, let's see again which are the challenges or topics I'm supposed to write about, and right after that, I can start completing the tasks. 

March 16 - International day of being nice while driving

I don't really know how else to translate that. 

What can I say? I don't drive. I did notice how some drivers thank one another for being left in front, so I imitate that when drivers let me pass. 

What I appreciate more than anything, is silent cars. Please, if you drive, don't blast the music that can be heard a mile away. Also, you don't need a very upset engine with a loud exhaust pipe or whatever it's called. That's very disturbing for passers-by. 

If I ever learn how to drive and get a car, I'll search for the most silent car. 

March 17 - Saint Patrick's day

We don't celebrate this in Romania. I have no idea what this celebration is all about. All I know is that people like to wear green if they celebrate. 

-15 minutes later- reading about him, I learned he brought Christianity to the Irish people and he explained the Holy Trinity with a shamrock. 

Despite all this, I was prepared to celebrate it because the previous day I had just completed the following skirt!

I should probably retake the photos of this skirt because the color is blue-ish here. But the real color is a deep BEAUTIFUL green. And I should also press the skirt. 

On the upside, this picture was taken on this day, March 17. 

March 18 - World tourism fair

I have nothing to say about this day. Going on a trip is a bit difficult currently. Travel has more purposes - relaxation, helping one refind some inspiration, and discover places. 

I can't travel so I'll share 2 pictures instead. I think these pictures can help with discovering places and find some inspiration. 

This is a street in the heart of Bucharest. I walk on this street a few times per month. This is the view to home. The date was Nov. 2020. 

This picture was taken back in Aug. 2017 when we visited a cemetery near the city. 

March 20 - World happiness day 

I think this is what the French means. 

These days I can get at least more cheerful when seeing certain items. That I received as a gift for this past Christmas. They are actually 2 items.

The first of them is a plate covered in strawberries, made by CLAYRE & EEF. This is NOT an affiliate link. This is a link to the official page of the brand. I wasn't able to find the plate there anymore. 

While the above plate cheers me up while eating, it has nothing on the next item:

This picture doesn't come close to telling you how stinkin' cute these Christmas avocadoes are. They SO. FRICKIN'. ADORABLE!!!! I really have no words to express myself. 

And since these are socks, the avocadoes become larger on the feet, then they return to the original size. These socks are from H&M. I wouldn't have bought them if I were looking to buy socks. But, BOY AM I GLAD I got them as a gift! 

I hope you can cheer up seeing their happy faces.. I'm losing my mind over here... 

March 21 - Spring Equinox

Welcome spring! I really feel and think spring came when I can see these flowers in bloom - see below.

These are not cherry blossoms, but very similar. They have a faint, nice smell that I can't have enough of. 

March 22 - International Water Day

Water is important for life. Correct. But lately, I only had bad luck with water... I have nothing to say more about this. 

March 25 -World Procrastination Day

How ironic that precisely on this day I get to post such a long entry. But that's because I use almost the whole year to procrastinate. 

This is it for now. Most likely, the remaining challenges will be grouped in a single entry as well. 

See you then! 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello everyone!

I haven't posted in a while, and I really wanted to write since the first day of March, but somehow, like I always do, I procrastinated instead. 

The admins of the platform hosting my blog decided in February to launch another challenge, similar to the one for December. 

Like for Blogmas, we get several topics to write about every day. Or nearly every day. 

I'll borrow the official image from the staff's blog, and share it here, blow. Yes, it's in French, but I hope it's not very difficult to understand or figure out. 

I'll also share the translations for each day, as I complete the day's challenge, or task. 

DAY: MARCH 1ST - International Compliment Day

I personally never heard of this day or celebration, yet I think we all need it. And we shouldn't wait for a specific day to say something nice to someone. 

To you, my reader, I want to say YOU are a wonderful and unique person. You sure have your quirks and stuff, but that's OK. That's what sets you apart from the rest. 

To my fiance, I want to say that you are the best, and I could never ask for or dream of anyone better than you to be with. 

DAY: MARCH 2ND - International Tennis Day

When did we get an International Tennis Day? 

Many people disregard women's tennis, however, there are many female tennis players who made history. I should only briefly point to Steffi Graf who was number 1 for 377 weeks.

In recent years, the Williams sisters, and especially Serena, were at the top. They are relevant because there are few Black women in a sport dominated by white women (or people). 

In August 2020, there were 2 Romanians in the top 10 WTA: Simona Halep and Bianca Andreescu. This is relevant as I currently live in Romania, and this country wasn't particularly known for its tennis players. Especially not in WTA. 

DAY: MARCH 7th - Celebrating Grand-mothers

Or Grand-mothers' day. I also didn't know this day/celebration existed. 

I'm also a bit confused by this celebration because I find it redundant with Mother's day. The way I see it, you can't be a grandparent without being a parent first. And once you become a parent, you'll always be one. 

But let's indulge, as there's nothing wrong or bad about that. For this challenge, I want to share the pictures of 2 grannies and the teaching of one of them. 

Here we can see fiance’s great grandmother (Mrs. Serafim) holding fiance’s 2-year old grandmother (Marioara), surrounded by granny’s older sisters - Lenuta (6) and Viorica (3?). The photo was taken in 1933. 

I really wanted to share this very old picture, even if it's not a good representation of granny. But, most of the things granny knew, was knowledge she had from her mother. And in this post, Anna shared some of that.

Here we can see my grandma holding me and a cousin. A picture from 1982. I look more like granny these days than I did back then. 

There's just one thing i can say: Granny, i miss you.

DAY: MARCH 8th - International Day of Women's Rights

At least this is how it's known officially. We call it International Women's Day. 

However, the terminology is very important in this case. If we call it "International Women's Day" we celebrate one thing, and if we say "International Day of Women's Rights," then we celebrate something else. 

In the first instance, we kinda maintain gender roles and an old-fashioned lifestyle for women. In the second instance, we recognize women are also humans and they also have rights. They have the right to live their lives as they see fit, even if that is living an old-fashioned lifestyle. 

It means, they are free to choose and nothing is imposed onto them. 

DAY: MARCH 13th - National Sleep Day

This day needs to be an internationally celebrated day. 

And we need one every week, on the weekend, haha. 

I don't have much to say about this day, unfortunately. But I can recommend a Youtube channel with good music to help you sleep. 

The channel's name is Nemo's Dreamscapes and one of the songs I managed to fall asleep to can be found here. I must say, I can't usually sleep with sounds or music around me. But these old songs were so calming. 

And this concludes 5 challenges in a single entry. Because each entry would have been too short otherwise. 

See you in the next entry!

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello all! 

I don't know what to make this entry. I might change the title in the future if I can find a better title. 

This blog entry is probably a boring one for most of you. Unless you like to see cups and plates made of porcelain. 

Here I want to somehow list my china collection. There's a  second part coming related to my collection of plates/cups made by ARPO Porcelain, a now-defunct Romanian company that was making dinnerware, decors, and other stuff out of porcelain.

I can make a 3rd entry about the plates and cups I have only 1 of. 

All these entries are designed more for me, I suppose unless you're curious and like porcelain collections as well. 

And it just occurred to me that I have some pairs of glass items as well. I'll include them here, as somehow one pair started everything. 

These plates are the oldest in the collection. 

They are modern, as the colors can tell. I'm not familiar with the brand and I don't know what else to say about them. They were given to us at some point. 

These cups followed at some point. I like these cups because they can go in the microwave oven, if I need a bit of water warmed up quickly. 

They came with a 3rd cup that has the same shape and size as these ones, but a different design and color scheme. 

These plates are rounded-squares if that makes sense. I believe they're from MIL. They might also have been received before the cups above, but who can remember anymore? 

These plates are larger. They're best used for putting a cake on, the Salad à la Russe, pancakes, or anything that you cook more of and can be stacked.

Currently, one of the plates serves as a tray on the kitchen table, for various smaller items to try and keep some order.  

These glasses were supposed to be 3 actually. One broke before I got them. I found them on the local Freecycle group. Here, people give away stuff they don't need or want anymore, and those who need or want them can just take them. 

These glasses are the ones that made me decide to have a collection of matching cups and plates since I already had a few matching stuff. 

These are my matching ARPO plates. When I took the pics, I only had 2 of them. Last week I received some food on a 3rd identical plate, which I will be keeping. Surely MIL won't mind. 

They are just so pretty in real life, these plates. 

These mugs are not identical. And I only just noticed when ii took the picture. My brain didn't realize this before. 

The thing is, these mugs were found in a box, packed together. They were an unwanted gift. I found it at a FreeShop event at the end of 2019 or the beginning of 2020 before the nonsense started. You know what nonsense I'm talking about ;) 

At this event, people brought whatever they didn't need, like, use, and took home whatever else they liked, from the others who came. so, it was like an item exchange, though the focus was clothes. 

These are big mugs: 450 ml. I can serve soup in them if I want to, and I even did a few times. 

These cups are from H&M HOME. I first saw them either in the summer of towards the end of 2019, but they disappeared quickly. I hoped they'd go on sale, as I didn't want to pay full price for them. Go figure. 

They returned only after the stores reopened after the quarantine. They were bought at separate times though. I REALLY REALLY wanted 2 and not just 1. I'm using them ALL the time. 

These cups cannot go in the microwave oven, but I think they can go in the dishwasher. We don't have one, so I'm not 100% sure. 

I bought these cups AFTER I saw the ones from H&M were gone. They're not matching 100%, but they have the same shape and size and were bought at the same time. 

Fun fact, they're from the same store as the Christmas ones. I only realized this recently, as I saw the red ones in that store. i entered the store out of curiosity, to look for something else which I didn't find. I can safely put these in the microwave oven as well. 

These are salt and pepper shakers. They were a bit dirty, but I o make sure to clean them regularly. We bought these last year I think.

These plates are not porcelain, but glass or opal. You could get these by buying 2 bottles of Coca-Cola, of 2L, from the participating supermarkets. Not much to say here. I used these in the microwave oven. 

They read something like "I like your cooking, but I prefer your loving" or something. 

I can imagine what you must be thinking: "These are not the same." No, they're not. Fiance bought the bowl and then i saw the tile in a thrift store. It serves as a coaster. 

I'm using the coaster ALL the time as it sits by my computer. The colors are more vibrant in real life. 

These are 2 glasses that came with a bottle of gin. And i have no more to say about them. They're the latest addition to the collection. 

I'm pretty impressed with how many paired items i have for the kitchen. 

This is it for now. See you in the next one!

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Happy new year! 

I have no idea since when you guys read my ramblings here. But with a quick search in my past entries, you'll see that at the end of each year, for the past 2 or 3 years, i tried to post some "End of the year thoughts". See here, here.

This time i decided against it. I have more reasons:

• All December I had work to do (my main job)
• I tried to do/did blogmas (see my recent posts or the link)
• I have this entry where i drew a bit of a line for 2020.

For blogmas day 10, we were supposed to talk about the Christmas menu. And I did. And i mentioned that, traditionally, in Romania, people like to make salad à la russe. 

I looked through my shared recipes and i noticed that i haven't shared this one yet, despite having made it quite a few times already. 

Well, now's the time to share the recipe! 

We wanted to make a lot of salad this time around because we really like it. This wasn't the best idea ever but we did it anyway, so here we go.

We used for the salad:

• 2.5 kg potatoes
• some 4 carrots
• 4 -5? pickled cucumbers
• some salt
• 1 big jar of peas (already cooked, drained)
• egg-whites from 1 or 2 boiled eggs

We decided to make our own mayonnaise, but to also buy some, in case I fail at making the mayo. I remember the first time I made mayonnaise - it was thick, yummy, and I was proud of myself. 

Most likely, after that, I was over-confident, as the next other times I made it, it didn't turn out quite the same. Oh, well, we live, practice, and then we become better. 

For the mayo I used:

• 1 egg yolk (from a boiled egg)
• 1 raw egg -whole
• some mustard 
• some salt
• oil (as much as needed)

For decoration: (you can use what you have on hand, these are the most common things you'll see in Romania, on this dish)

• black olives - pitted
• pickled red peppers
• pickled cucumbers
• pickled carrots
• fresh parsley (not other herbs)
• hard-boiled egg(s)

For this salad, we have to boil the potatoes and the carrots, then dice them. The dice shouldn't be too small, nor too big. You want the dice to be actually smaller, rather than larger, so that the salad would have a smoother appearance. 

If the dice are larger, the salad will look as if you made it with rocks and boulders instead of potatoes.

We decided to boil these 1 day ahead. And as you can see from my pictures, i boiled the potatoes for far too long. They shouldn't crack like that. The potatoes should be cooked, but firm for this salad.

Maybe I should have used red potatoes? I have no idea, but almost every time I try making this dish, I overboil my potatoes and they're far better mashed than diced. 

As you can see, I used larger pieces of carrots. I think by weight, the carrots are half the weight of the potatoes, maybe even less than that.  

Given the quantities, you'll need a very large bowl in which you'll throw everything for mixing. 

I suggest that on the day you want to prepare this, you first make the mayonnaise. If you don't want to make it, you better buy 2 bigger jars of mayo. 

To make things better, get the fancier, more expensive brand. It should taste better. The type and taste of the pickles, as well as that of the mayonnaise, are the secrets to this dish.

These 2 ingredients will make or break the taste of the whole thing and will decide if you like it or not. 

So, to make mayonnaise, you have to mix the hard-boiled egg yolk, the raw egg yolk, some salt, some mustard, with plenty of oil. 

The best tool for mixing, I noticed/learned to be the vertical blender part of your mixer. You add the oil bit by bit, and you might also need to add some salt and mustard from time to time. 

If you think the mayo looks too thick (almost like cream cheese) you can add the raw egg white as well. Try not to add it all at once as you could ruin the result, or it may take some time for the mayo to re-gain a decently thick consistency (yogurt-like). 

Once you figured the mayo out, cover it and put it in the fridge to rest. Now you can start dicing the potatoes, carrots, and pickles.

You throw these in the large pot/container along with the drained peas. For reference, I used the pot in which I boiled the potatoes after cleaning it.  

At the end, you can also throw in a hard-boiled egg you diced. This improves the taste of the salad. Don't forget to add some salt in with everything, or this will be a bit sweet and tasteless. This is not something you want.

As you can see, I diced my potatoes in sizes that are a bit too big. They should have been half that size, thus slightly larger than the peas. I also forgot to add the salt. And that's not the only thing i forgot to add. 

Now, it's time to add in the mayonnaise and to get your hand dirty. Mixing with a spoon is fine, but I feel I have better control over the mixing process if I use my hand. 

Once you're done, you can transfer the salad to other containers or plates, for decoration. I used 2 plates and a big soup bowl - i forgot its name. 

 And then, you'll need to use your imagination on decorating these. Nature-inspired decor (like flowers, or the sun) looks the best - somehow it balances out the heaviness of the mayonnaise. Red, orange, and black give it a nice visual contrast.

Above, you can see the decor I came up with. I had black olives in the fridge, but i forgot about them at first. I added some after, but i didn't take pictures anymore. 

Like i said, this is best eaten the day after you prepare it, so that the flavors mix in a bit more. We eat this usually on its own, but with bread. Extra pickles also work, as there is plenty of mayonnaise to make one nauseous. I think it's served before dishes with meat. 

I hope you can give this salad a go and that if you do, you'll enjoy it as much as we do. 

Bon Appetit! 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello.

In November I had some time to make something and to even finish it. YAY!

Disclaimer: Well, I'm not sure they're really called "pantaloons" but this is what I'll call them in this article. I say they're Victorian-inspired because they have frills and lace. 

INSPIRATION

My inspiration came from 2 places if I can call them that. 

The first place is Subeta's (that is a referral link to this online pet and dress-up game) Magical Pirate Pantaloons of Sweet Love - you can see them here (This is a fan-made and helpful site for those playing Subeta).

The above image belongs to Subeta - used for informational purposes.

The second place is Bernadette Banner's video in which she makes a pair of Victorian underwear or combinations. You can watch the video here. She uses historically accurate fabrics and methods, including or especially hand-sewing. 

The end result is closer to the Pantaloons of Sweet Love mentioned above, as you'll see from the pictures. 

WHAT DID I USE

Fabric: As for fabric, I used some blue and very thin polyester fabric I had. Despite it being polyester, it feels quite nice against the skin. 

Pattern: For the pattern, I had nothing "historical" or something made for a (Halloween) costume. I had this May 1996 Burda magazine that had a pattern I could use. 

I needed some loose trousers with the simplest pattern possible. This one had just 2 pieces and was very loose. What else can I ask for?!

Other supplies: a pair of shears, matching thread, sewing machine, some elastic (not included in the picture), hand-made lace, and chord that i just had on hand. The lace and chord were either given to me or i may have found them at the trash. 

The white lace is the remaining piece from what i had. Because it didn't occur to me to take pictures BEFORE i use it. Click here to see a close-up of the lace and the chord thing. 

WHAT DID I DO

As you could imagine, first I had to trace out my pattern pieces and to cut the fabric. As a matter of fact, i wanted to make these Burda trousers for Anna, a while back. So i had the pattern already traced out and cut. 

I only needed to cut the fabric. I folded the fabric in half, placed the paper on it, and cut with no seam allowance. This design is quite loose, therefore cutting with no seam allowance is fine. Otherwise, Burda patterns require you to add 1 cm (about half an inch?) of the seam allowance. 

The next step was to sew 1 front piece to a back piece, then to sew the crotch. And at this point, you have a pair of trousers. I made a channel for the elastic at the waist, out of the pants - the design has a quite long crotch area, and therefore, you have plenty of fabric to just roll the top inwards twice for this purpose.  

As you can see, my seam allowance is pretty small, but enough.

You can use elastic or a chord. This depends on whether you just want to pull the pants on or you want to bother to knot the chord, as the line drawing suggests. For me, the elastic was just SO easy! 

And now comes the part where i made my first mistake which made things a bit more difficult for me. I constructed the trousers BEFORE i added the lace or formed those ruffles or channel for the knee elastic.  

If you ever sew something, you would know it's easier to put ruffles on something when the item is flat/2D and not in a 3D shape. I think i would have been more accurate as well. 

I measured about the place where i want the elastic to be, made the channel for it, eyeballed the place of the first ruffle, eyeballed the location of the hem, and completed the first leg. 

I assumed that finishing 1 leg and then doing the second one would be easier. I'm not sure if it was or not, but it did feel that way.  

Another mistake was not to measure the white lace, to ensure i have enough. From my eyeballing, it looked as if i did have enough. By now, you already know my guess was correct.

However, while I was working on the project, i had my doubts when time came for me to complete the second leg. I suggest you measure everything ahead of time, unless you trust your eyeballing guess. I'm pretty good at guessing, and this is why i didn't do the sensible thing of measuring. But I shall in the future. 

Once the ruffles and the lace were installed, the pantaloons were done! YAY! Now (as I type this), they're packed and hidden, as they're a gift for Anna. You'll be reading this after she gets her present, sorry. 

Previous Experience

What i want to also mention is that i actually worked with this pattern once before. 

I made a pair of trousers for myself, last year in October. Back then, i used this pinkish silk fabric, that only later i realized it could be silk and i nearly fainted. I was either brave or decided to just go for it, and make myself some trousers. 

That being said, this is how my pair turned out. There are many mistakes to be seen up-close. From further away, you can't tell. 

For Anna, I used size 36 -the smallest available and for myself size 44, the largest available. I chose the sizes based on our measurements, but i didn't measure the pattern pieces themselves to see how large the finished garment would be. 

For my pair, i tried leaving 1 cm of the seam allowance. My pair is a bit too roomy. It's because of this previous experience with the pattern that i knew not to cut with a seam allowance this time around. 

As you can see, the expectation VS reality hits again, hahaha. Don't ask about what i'm wearing - at the time i thought it looked OK. The top is also hand/home-made, but it's a hand-me-down, so i don't know the pattern nor fabric. 

Yes, sadly, the picture with me is not complete, therefore you can't see these pants are a tiny bit short on me. But this is because I'm taller than most and the pattern is for regular-height persons. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello Everyone!

This entry is a short overview of Blogmas days 19, 20, 21, and 22. The challenges for days 23 and 24 have never been posted. Even the challenges for these 4 days appeared much later. 

With all these aspects taken into account, this will be the last blogmas entry for me, for this year. 

I'm writing this on the 27th, but thanks to some functionalities, I can post this on any previous day I want (as I type this, I'm still trying to decide on which day to post this). Someone who will read this blog for the first time in the future, will not know without this disclosure. 

I just wanted to mention this, so that those of you who visit my blog will not think your brain is playing tricks on you. 

On with the challenges, shall we?

DAYS 19 and 20

I put together these 2 days because they have the same challenge: finish up the gifts for Christmas. 

I gifted my partner mostly on Hanukkah and on the virtual-pet site we play. You can read more and see here the gift I prepared for them. 

I still prepared another gift for them. This time a satin poncho/wrap/thing that looks as if it could be some pajama top or cover. 

It can be worn anywhere, any time almost. I want to write a blog entry about how I made it and everything, so please keep an eye out for that. I want to post it before the New Year, but we'll see. 

DAY 21

The challenge for the 21st day of blogmas was to draw a line/conclusion from the statistics (of the blog). 

So, i posted  during 10 months out of 12 in 2020. However, i had people visiting my blog every month. I'll share the data here for transparency, as well as for me to find it easier if i ever want to look back on it (in December 2021 for instance). 

The article with most views is "What is tea like in Romania." I posted a total of 36 articles in 2020, this one not included. 

The only thing i can think of that drove more visits was that i was probably more active on various forums where i have links to my blog/site in the signature. 

DAY 22

For the 22nd day of the blogmas, all we had to do was to enter a contest for a free business account for 1 year! And of course i entered. 

and....

I WON! I WON! I WON! 

I can't believe i won! 

The cost of the Business account is 239.88 euro per year. I had an Individual (lower) account that costs 59.88 euro per year. Those who choose to pay every month, have to pay 23.99 euro/month (or 287.88 euro per year) and 5.99 euro/month (or 71.88 euro per year), respectively.

Now I have to post as much as i humanly can, to take advantage of this offer. 

See you next year!

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello Dear everyone! 

Today's challenge is to read the blog written by the staff of Over-Blog for the bloggers using this platform. 

This blog is in French, and you can access it here. 

Here is where the staff shares updates for the platform or where new ideas and subjects are posted, for us to develop on, on our own blogs. 

I personally like seeing what others share. However, it is difficult for me to find someone who i enjoy following. Especially in reading. 

You see, i'm a slow reader. I only read only when i have to - for work, tutorials, recipes, or other instructions. Of course, i read some books as well. 

I just recently discovered a French creator. She runs the blog Les Creations de Cathy M. but she writes in French. She presents sewing-related creations. However, there are pictures for some of the things she makes. Some of the entries have step-by-step pictures, so it's easy to understand if you don't speak the language. 

I recommend using Google Chrome for the option to translate a page on the spot.

If you prefer sewing blogs in English, try the Camden Stitch blog. Jay, its author, also has a Youtube channel, by the same name. She didn't post recently due to some personal problems, but i'm sure she'll be happy to receive some attention. 

See you in the next entry, because I don't know what else to say. <3 :3

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello everybody!

Today is the 17th day of Blogmas and you perhaps wonder why didn't I post daily as promised, especially lately.

The answer is pretty simple: not all the challenges were created to writing something. Or if I could have written something, it would have been too short. 

Personally, I don't like very short entries - we have Twitter for that. I also don't read very long entries, and I'm pretty sure nobody really is either. 

Let's have a look at the challenges for the missing days!

DAY 15

For blogmas day 15, we were supposed to make a Christmas wreath. You may wonder why, since for the 5th day of blogmas we had to decorate for the holidays. I mean, it does include putting out a wreath as well, right?  

And you may also remember from the same entry that we don't really have any such decors. 

Well, at the time you may be reading this entry, you may not know, but I have some updates for that blogmas day ;) 

However, I also completed the challenge for the 15th day as well. Well, sort of.... 

I had these magnets on the entrance door. and they were placed in a chaotic manner. 

Now, they're arranged (in no particular) order. But they form a circle more or less, that can be reminiscent of a wreath. a very stylized wreath, if you will. 

Can I get a T for "I tried?" ;p 

DAY 16

To be completely honest with you, I haven't even seen the challenge for this day. Like I mentioned, the challenges are posted on Facebook. 

Even if I did see it, I wouldn't have been able to write anything because I was out and about for most of the day. This involved a lot of walking. 

When we got home I was tired, I had to write for my day job, as well as cook some food. I also decided to write a review for a beer on my BeingObscure.com website. 

Writing for my blog would have been impossible. 

In any case, when I finally discovered what the challenge was, I realized I couldn't write much about it anyway. The challenge was to "be positive the whole day."

This challenge did make me think of this entry from about 2 and a half years ago. I can't believe it's been so long since I wrote it. 

I believe we'll have to change our perspective on this year and everything that happened. it's been tough, but we made it. Those who didn't ... let's pray for them and let's not forget them if they were close to us. We can only hope their suffering ended and that they are in a better place, I suppose. Let's not take our lives for granted. 

However, to keep in the spirit of the challenge even more, I'll share with you something that manages to make me feel better and more positive: some nice hot coffee.

DAY 17

Today's challenge is to update old entries. This is good practice for bloggers. Over-blog suggests a few ways in which we can do this: 

Update your old items regularly

Create an article on a theme that comes back regularly on your blog

Submit a Best-of-Your-Read Best-of-Your-Best-Read Articles

Link your articles

Repost/share old articles on your social media

I, in fact, recently updated an old entry. It's a recipe and you can see it here. 

Most of my articles have links - either to other entries on my blog or to other sites, as you can see in this entry. 

Well, this is it for now! see you tomorrow!

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello everyone!

Today's entry is another combined entry. And you'll soon learn why, when i talk about the challenges.

DAY 12

For the 12th day of the challenge, we were instructed to watch a movie. 

We didn't watch any movie, but we do watch a Chinese historical drama called, in English, Ruyi Royal Love in the Palace. You can watch this show on youtube for now. 

We are actually kind of binge-watching it because I'm playing about 2 episodes at once. 

Before the show though, i had to work on the project at hand with the deadline on December 31st. The current project is rather boring, and I'm dragging myself to write it, thus wasting quite a lot of time, sadly. 

We also went to the store and bought some stuff, including some minced meat that became meatballs. I have a recipe for meatballs over here. 

This time, instead of frying the meatballs, i actually cooked them in the oven. This way, i can cook more at once - this time, all of them, thus saving time. They also turn out less oily, which is better. However I didn't take any pictures, so i'm using the old one.

That day I also made doughnuts. You already know the recipe from here. 

DAY 13

For the 13th day of the challenge, we had another contest at hand. This meant we didn't need to write any entry. 

Due to some events, ahem/procrastination/ahem, this entry was thought of on this day. I wasn't able to finish it on time, sadly. 

Oh, the result of the contest? Again I didn't win. Maybe next time? 

DAY 14

On the 14th day of blogmas, we're supposed to write an ABOUT ME page. 

OOPS. I just realized i don't have such a page, but now i will have to write one. However, i need to think it out well enough, so i can't publish it for now. 

Once the blogmas challenge is done, I will write such a page and it will be linked at the top, like the others. 

Thank you for your patience with no entries for 2 days in a row. I just condensed 3 shorter entries in a single one. 

See you tomorrow. hopefully.

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello there!

So today i'm supposed to talk about the worst Christmas. 

This will be hard for me. Not because i have too many such instances to chose from, but because i can't remember. 

Honestly, i don't want to remember bad things. I want to remember good things. I want nice memories. 

I don't think we had bad Christmases. Maybe last year was a bad one or ruined one.. And most other Christmases were probably sad while seen from outside as we had no decorations and not much gifts. 

Milky the cat back in Dec. 2016

However Anna and I had one another and the pets, and we were healthy. We also had a roof over our heads and food on the table. Sometimes we even had a lot of work to do, so that was distracting. 

I also wish for my readers to collect nice memories more than bad ones. 

The world has enough bad things going on that we really don't need more negativity. 

I'm also trying this blogmas challenge for the first time this year, to end the business year on a positive note. This is because so far, after 10 days of writing on the blog every day, i realize i had fun. 

I expected to have fun at least to some degree, and i see i wasn't wrong. So yay! 

(c) ObscureJourney.com - december 2020