Five Friday Favorites 04.02.22

Happy Friday, everyone!

I hope you’re healthy, safe and happy.

This morning I’m sharing my very favorite things from this week, in no particular order.

Number one: Dinner with friends

Our friends have just bought a new house and invited us over for dinner on Monday. We talked a bunch, ate delicious homemade tuna lasagna and I got to sneak in a few cat cuddles with sweet Margarida.

Number Two: Our first prenatal class.

We were not sure what to expect but it turned out to be very informative and fun. There are 8 couples and only two are having girls so a bunch of boys being born this year.

Can’t show a picture so here’s a beautiful sunset instead

Number Three: This beautiful new plant I bought on thursday.

Not much to say about this. She’s beautiful and I had to have her.

Number four: Getting to vote on Monday.

The day was lovely and so we walked all the way to the polling place. I am very thankful that we live in a democracy and that we are able to express our opinions and wishes and to vote on our leaders. This is not something we take for granted.

Number Five: Blogging

I’ve been on a blogging kick lately and genuinely feel like writing every day. I hope this stays with me for a while as I’m enjoying being back.

What was your favorite moment this week?

Wishing you all a fun, relaxing weekend!

Love,

Cheila

Advertisement

Weekend Plans: 02.03.18 “Raining All Weekend” Edition + How do you feel on Fridays? Do you work weekends?

Happy Friday Dear Blogging Family,

I’m not really sure if I’m super happy it’s Friday or if I’m having a hard day because I’m tired and I still have to get through many hours of work.

How do you usually feel by Friday? Ecstatic or dead? 

Does the day go by really fast or super slow because you cannot wait for the weekend to begin? Share your thoughts with me.

If you work weekends, which I have for so many years before, I hope work is good to you and that your day off comes soon enough. I didn’t mind Saturdays but I always hated working on Sundays. Imagine working 8 p.m to 1 a.m on a Sunday. Gosh, I’m tired just thinking about it.

Thankfully, I no longer work on weekends, which is great for other reasons too, as Rui used to be at home while I was working because he never worked weekends.

So Friday is here and I need to make some plans.

 

This weekend I’d like to:

• Watch the Oscars, obviously. This Sunday. I mean, for me it’s actually on Monday, since it does not start until 1 a.m. I really hope I don’t get sleepy and miss it like I did last year. #shameonme
• Watch the six nominees for best picture I haven’t seen yet. I’m hoping to get started on this tonight. How am I going to watch 6 movies in 2 days? Well, it’s raining so it’s not like I’m actually going anywhere. We had planed on doing some gardening but that is obviously not happening because of the bad weather.
• Laundry. When it’s raining, we use our indoor hanger combined with our dehumidifier and our space heater, sometimes. We don’t own a drier. I kind of thought about buying a washer/drying when we bought our washer a few months ago but it was twice as expensive, it’s a waste of energy, not environmentally friendly, and we don’t have a real need for it because we get so much sun in Portugal, which allows us to dry our clothes outside most of the time. It’s also easy to dry them inside when it’s raining. If we’re desperate or if it has been raining for a few weeks we just go to the wash station to dry our laundry. It’s not expensive and it only happens on occasion. I have a ton of laundry to put away too.
• Clean/Organize our bedroom (which doubles as my home office). This includes: Dusting, cleaning the surfaces, vacuuming the floor and rugs, mopping the floor, changing our sheets, cleaning the windows a bit. We have this table (that used to be Rui’s desk) that I’m using as a vanity but it’s huge (1.50 m long) and it’s taking way too much space so I’m definitely disassembling it and storing it in the garage because I don’t think we have a place for it anywhere in the house. Our bedroom is big enough but this table just takes too much space and I don’t want the room to look too cluttered.
• Clean our living room. We should definitely get our sofa covers washed. I feel like we’re always doing this but they’re whitish and we have a dog. She doesn’t think to clean her dirty paws before going inside, the bitch! I hate to throw a blanket on the sofa but I need to accept the fact that old people are right and it really saves the covers a lot of washed. If IKEA didn’t charge 60€ for covers for a 300€ couch I would have bough new covers by now. I feel like they’re too expensive and I’d be better off buying a new, used sofa. We need to dust, vacuum and mop the floor.
• Clean our kitchen. I really want to go through every single item in our kitchen and do a general de-clutter and deep cleaning. Let’s hope I’m not as lazy as last weekend.
• Work on my freelance work project for a few hours.
• Read blogs.
• Update my planner for next week.

What about you? Big plans for the weekend?

Let’s talk soon.

*Beautiful rainy pictures are from Pixabay

Just another Friday – No taxes and new printer edition!

Hi there!

Are you happy it’s Friday??

I’m having a good day. I can change because Mr. R said I’ve just changed my Karma because I refused to answer a questionnaire at a store and told the lady I was in a rush. He might be right, I was in no rush and could easily have done it but, apparently, I was on bitch mode lol I’m sorry, dear God! Karma, don’t screw me over, please!

One of our local supermarkets was having an amazing sale today, and we had to take advantage of it. They weren’t charging taxes today, which meant a 23% discount for non-food items and 6% for food items. Some of the things were already on sale, which meant a huge price difference. It was really good and I stocked up on some things. In the end, we saved about 40€.

We got a great brand detergent, a big box of 120 washes, that was initial 24,99€, for 8,12€!! It’s an amazing discount and it will last a long time. I’m really happy with this particular purchase!

We also got:

2 cans of Nivea men’s deodorant – 7,18€ for two cans, a 3,60€ discount and an additional 0,66€ of tax discount, we ended up spending 2,92€ for the two cans, which is less than the original price for one (3,59€);

2 tubes of Colgate toothpaste that originally cost 3,49€, with a 1,75€ discount and an additional 0,33€ of tax discount, ended up costing 1,41€.

We got many things but these were the best deals!

We also got a new printer! We were not planning on getting a new one, just needed to buy the ink cartridges which are quite expensive. We would have to spend about 40/50€ on them. While we were looking, we saw a printer that we liked, that cost 45,99€ and came with an additional black ink cartridge. We would only have to buy the color one, which would end up a total of about 70€. We considered it, since our printer is about 3 years old already, but we decided we would check the price for the cartridges at another store. So off we went, and we found the exact same printer on sale for 35,99€!! A 10€ difference and the fact that it was a super cheap but good printer made us decide to get it. We would only have to buy the said color cartridge. When we looked for it, it was also on discount, costing 15,99€!! We came home with a new printer for 35,99€, plus an extra free black ink cartridge and a colored ink cartridge for a total of 51,98€. We are pretty pleased with our purchase.

This is our new printer:

Isn’t it cute? I love the green! It will look super cute in our office!! I’m really happy about it!! 🙂

We will print a bunch of pictures to fill all the empty walls we have in our home! I have a bunch of picture frames to fill in and I’m doing a gallery wall in our bedroom! I’m really excited about it.

We have also being looking at paint colors because the house is in desperate need to be painted, but we are going to wait until Summer for that. But we already have a pretty cool idea of which colors we want to use.

I have a recipe to share with you and also a kitchen tour, I’ll post it later today!

I hope you are having an amazing Friday!

Do you have exciting plans for the weekend?

We might go to the beach, since being close to the sea helps with our sinusitis.

Love you guys.

 

 

Friday Favorites and a health update

This was a short week for me, as I stayed home for three days. I’m starting my second semester of university next week and that will add so much to my big to-do list. I will go back to studying, attending classes, doing homework and reading the materials while I’m running my business by myself and trying to take care of my house and normal life tasks. I’m also entering the busiest time of the year – the months before the final exams, for students that are applying for college, for which I give tutoring sessions. From now on, I will be super busy, until at least the middle of June. I’m doing this while fighting depression and anxiety, changing medications and trying to get better. It’s not easy, but I don’t dislike it. I love working and being busy and having a lot going on at the same time, I just wish my health was cooperating. I needed to take a few days before the craziness starts, so I’m glad I did. I’m really blessed by the fact that I’m able to manage my own schedule and take some days-off when I need them. Oh, I should also mention that this is my last year of university so I really need to finish every single one of my courses. No pressure, right?

Anyway, I have some news regarding my health situation. I went to a new psychiatrist yesterday, looking for a second opinion. We talked for a long time, she asked me many questions, I told her everything about my life and my symptoms and how I’ve been getting worse. She decided that my medication wasn’t working and so I’m trying a new one. She also said that she thinks I might have type 2 bipolar disorder, which is a completely new diagnostic. A very scary one. Will I have to live like this forever? Take medication until the day I die? It’s quite possible. People keep telling me that I should not be suffering by anticipation, because she is not sure yet, but I can’t help but think about what this means, how my life will change, how can I live with it. I guess I need to wait and see, be patient and to hope for the best.

Okay, so let’s try to come up with some favorites to cheer things up a bit:

• My new doctor. I loved our appointment yesterday and her, as a professional. She is really nice and seems to know what she’s talking about. She was recommended to me by my best friend, and recommended to him by his therapist, which I recommended to him because she is also my therapist and I really like her. Am I making you confuse? My best friend and I share the same therapist and the same psychiatrist. We also share 12 years of history, since we are childhood best friends. The sad part is, we also share a huge depression.

• The fact that my new doctor recommended my current therapist. I was thinking about changing and had actually scheduled an appointment somewhere else, but now I will go back to the one I had and liked. I just wasn’t sure if she was helping me enough, but my doctor described her as an “excellent professional” and recommended that I keep going there, once a week. I talked to my therapist about my psychiatrist and she said she is really happy that I found her, because she really trusts her work. Looks like I’m finally in good hands, right?

• I’ve watched Passengers and Moonlight this week. I liked the first one and loved the second. I think it could win the Oscar for best picture, if La La Land wasn’t so popular and so well-liked. I loved it because it’s so different and unique and maybe it should get a chance.

• I didn’t have to cook this week. Mr.R took care of the kitchen and cooked two amazing roast dinners. He’s such a great cook and I’m very lucky to have him to take over and cook delicious meals for us, when I’m not able. He likes it too and it’s some sort of hobby for him so it’s a win-win situation.

• We are almost done with the 5th season of American Horror Story and, as usual, it started kind of slow and meh for me, but now I love it and I’m curious to see how it ends. I still think Lady Gaga is almost playing herself, with the power games and crazy costumes but I also think she can act.

• I’ve got a bunch of new followers and cool people who I’m following and interacting with. Blogging has become such a great and fulfilling hobby and I’m falling more and more in love with it each day.

• I discovered lactose-free milk at Aldi for 0,79€, which is a lot cheaper than what I was paying for the brand I was buying (1,37€). It’s not fat-free, just semi-skimmed but I guess I will just have to settle for that because it’s so inexpensive and I go through a lot of milk each week.

 

• New medication. I hate taking medication and I hate it even more when they change it and I have to start all over again. I guess it’s not so bad because it also gives me hope that this time it will work and I will feel better.

• My not certain but possible bipolar disorder diagnosis. I’m obviously worried about it and will only relax when I know, for sure, if I have it and what that means for me.

• The fact that I haven’t started any books yet, which is one of my goals for the month of February.

• My house is a mess and we are too tired to clean it up. We have laundry to do, laundry to fold, clothes to put away, we need to vacuum and dust, the dog needs a bath… the list never ends. Busy schedules are the worst. There’s always something that we cannot get to.

• How expensive my doctor’s appointment and my new medication was. It was a big investment and, although I understand that it is a necessity, it kind of hurts to pay that amount.

Friday Favorites and the really bad week

I’m so glad this week is over because it was a really bad one. It will be very difficult to come up with any favorites at all, because I can’t think of any good thing that has happened to me since last week. When I say I’ve had a bad week, I’m talking about my mental health so, if you don’t like to read about this type of thing or if you feel uncomfortable with the subject of depression this post is not for you. If you are going to read it anyway, I’m sorry about the negativity. I promise I will try to end on a positive note to balance it.

I stayed home, in bed, all day, three days of this week. My energy levels are so low that I almost can’t get up to go to the bathroom. I feel really useless and really sad because there is so much that I would like to be doing but my body and mind just don’t cooperate. I also don’t want to be a burden on my boyfriend, but I know that I am. How can I explain to you how I really feel? It’s hard to put into words but, imagine that you haven’t slept in three days, you have a huge headache, your back hurts like hell and you cannot, for the life of you, get out of bed in the morning. You have no strength, no power, no will. Your body and mind don’t function like they should, so you can’t do any of the things that you’re supposed to do. Even simple everyday things like getting out f bed, taking a shower and getting dress seem like impossible tasks. This is the best explanation that I have for you but, if you’ve never felt it, I know for sure that you will not understand what I’m trying to describe and for that I am sorry.

For three of five days of this week I was completely useless and almost non-existent and that makes me extremely frustrated, which makes it worse, which turns it into a cycle. And that was my week. I know that we should always try to find something good even in the worst of situations so I will do a list of some favorites from this week. Just know that I am digging really, really deep.

• On Sunday, I bought a great pair of warm black leggings for 3,99€;

• On Wednesday, I was full of energy and worked for 12 hours straight. At night I felt really tired but also really good because I was so productive;

• The weather has been kind of nasty and rainy here, but I’m the kind of person who likes that. I love rain. It’s also really cool because we live about 10 minutes from the ocean and when we have wind we can hear the waves from our house; They were really high this week so one night we even went out to see them and the ocean looked beautiful;

• I finished one of my courses with really good average: 15 in 20. I was really happy about that;

• I got a recommendation for a new psychiatrist that is supposed to be great and really sweet (I talked to her on the phone and she actually was) and was able to schedule an appointment for next Thursday;

• I got to do a little (just a little) of crochet and work on the blanket that I am making. I will be working on it for the next five years but it’s coming out great.

• I tried to get an appointment with a family doctor, which I should have but I don’t, because there aren’t enough doctors for everyone. The not so nice lady that answered the phone told me that the month of February was already full, despite the fact that is was only the second day of the month. Can’t even get a doctor in this country.

• I called to get an appointment with my psychiatrist because I need some prescriptions and he will be out next week, which is shit because I’m running out of medication.
• My friends 4 best friends (yes, I have 4) are going out together on Sunday and I can’t go because I’m behind on lots of things and need to work on a lot of stuff before my semester begins, on the 13th. It’s also too far for me anytime that we go out and also very expensive in terms of transportation. Sorry girls.

• My house is a real mess, just like myself. Ha!

Anyway, I’m determined to make next week a better one. I just hope to have some cooperation from the part of me that I cannot control.

Yesterday the dog ran away

Yeiiihh, it’s Friday. Just kidding, I have to work tomorrow so for me it is like Thursday.

I read so many blogs and all of them have some kind of version of a “Friday Favorites” list, where the bloggers write about their current favorites, the highlights of their week, etc. I thought I should try something like that and see 1. if I like it, 2. if I can keep up with it every week.

• The fact that I was able to finish the week with a very positive balance in terms of earnings from my business (I’m self-employed and earn by the hour), which is great and doesn’t always happen. I’m not going to talk about numbers but this was a very good week.

• Yesterday I went shopping and got great deals on all the things that I needed. Fabric softener and hair conditioner 50% off (my favorite brands), two boxes of strawberries for 1,75€ each instead of 2,99€, two very cute little plants for 0,99€ each (I left one at the office and took the other one home), some amazing chocolate, fat-free and lactose-free milk (I got 2 cartons for 1,19€ each instead of 1,37€, I think, which is not much but this kind of milk is expensive comparing to “regular”milk.)

Tiny little plant

• As a tutor (who works long hours)/student I always need new markers because they run out of ink really fast. I don’t like to spend a lot of money on them (maybe that’s the problem) and so I always buy the cheap kind. Yesterday the stars were aligned and I found a really great pack from a really great brand (at Lidl) for 1,99€. It made my day. Now I will keep using my old ones because I’m saving them for a special occasion. Just kidding. Maybe.

• I was able to talk to one of my best friends who lives in Vienna and it was amazing to have the chance to catch up. Since we both have busy schedules and because we are living in different countries, we don’t talk as often as we would like to. I really miss having her around.

• This week I found a way to leave work early twice (which is rare) and so my boyfriend and I were able to do something else in the evening, instead of getting home and crashing in bed. Yesterday I even cooked two different dishes. I was on a health kick (so rare) and wanted something with Brussels sprouts for dinner. We usually buy them frozen from but the supermarket we went to was out of them, so we settled for broccoli.We ended up having grilled salmon for dinner with steamed broccoli and some boiled potatoes. It was really good, even for healthy food. I then decided to cook something else so we could bring lunch to work today, since the salmon was not enough for more than two portions. I came up with some type of beef roast with lots of veggies, onions and cornbread. It was also really tasty and I made enough for tonight’s dinner. Getting home earlier also means that we are able to light the fire and relax while we watched something. Yesterday I even got a massage. I have a bad back but a good boyfriend.

 

• I missed a day of work, which means I was bad enough to miss a day of work which is really sad and frustrating and I hate it.

• Obviously all my family problems and bad news. My auntie is better physically and a little better emotionally but it is still very hard for her and she will need some time to heal. My grandmother is not better because she never will be. We need to accept it now that we have a complete diagnosis. It’s hard for me, really. To see someone just fade away. Die a little each day. To know that they are not there anymore.

• I’m still bored with the fourth season of American Horror Story and I have only watched 4 or 5 episodes. It drags on and on and I don’t know if I can take it. I also haven’t watched any of the movies I want to watch.

• Saving the best for last. Yesterday my dog, Miss. R., decided it was a good idea to escape and start running around the neighborhood. Let me rephrase this. Yesterday my dog decided it was a good idea to escape and start running around the neighborhood, at 8 a.m, while it was raining cats and dogs, and we were already almost late for work. We, of course, had to chase her, corner her, threaten her, but it took several trials until we could finally get her home. 30 minutes later, we got into the car, pouring wet, very late for work and hating life. Oh, I forgot to say, she escaped because I left the gate open while we were leaving for work, thinking that my boyfriend was right behind me. He wasn’t. Lesson learned. Always keep an eye on both gate and sneaky dog. I’m such a disaster. She’s so cute, tough.