On my reading list

Or rather the books I've read recently which have blown me away:

Nothing to be Frightened of, Julian Barnes

OMG, the best book ever! This book speaks to me on so many levels. It's main subject is fear of death and how it transforms through our ages of life and different outlooks on the world we assume as our experiences and knowledge grow. It also deals with the religious, philosophical and literary take on the  unavoidable grim reaper. It's hilariously funny at times and soberingly frightening at others, but it's a gripping read as it dissects one by one all our prejudice and misconceptions about death. It does not give definitive answers, it can leave you even more confused than when you started reading it, but at least it shows how deeply humane it is to be afraid of the unknown and how we are all entitled to come up with ways (religions, philosophies, rituals) to relieve that primeval fear.

Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre

I've had this one for a long time before I got around to reading it. This book will stun you with a sheer amount of incredible twists of fate that will occur throughout, yet it will offer some of the most honest insights into people, youth, sensitive teenagers, relations with parents, sexuality, prejudice and small-town mentality that can be so typical of America, yet can be so universally applicable through the world. It's a story of a serious crime committed and a community not willing to accept it, eager to point fingers and apportion blame without recognizing the root cause of this unfortunate event. Vernon is the unlikely anti-hero of the book who gets the girl in the end! No more spoilers, go read the book.

I'm a voracious reader, but I had a break in this life habit/need for the past few years when I had to deal with things both happy and sad in my life - the birth of my daughter and the loss of my father. Since a few months ago, I feel my brain is fully regenerated and capable of devouring books once again!

Mimi
XOXO

Color

I like color. In fact, I think I would be seriously endangered if I was ever made to look at the world in black and white. My emotions have colors, my days have colors, and I wear copious amount of color.

Since this spring I've been in love with orange. But combining orange and light blue with brown accents - I don't think there's more people like me out there. Sometimes I feel so alone in my color combos, and yet sometimes while looking at the fashion mags they seem so plain and pedestrian compared to some of the antics ongoing among the fashionista crowd.

Take my outfit of the day today:

This 3/4 sleeve tee is one of my wardrobe staples ever since I bought it a few months ago. The light blue pencil skirt was tailor-made from some leftover fabric my mom has been safe keeping for years ;-)













These shoes are easily my favorite ones ever! If you ask me - they go with everything!

The necklace is big wooden beads and is a gift from a dear friend.















Despite a few odd looks from people around the office, i think this works. This kind of skirt-tee/shirt-flats with a print combination has become a sort of a uniform in my case.

Lots of good news from several friends today and I feel all hopeful and joyous, hence the colors are totally appropriate!

XOXO
Mimi

Parole, parole

I hope youtube linking works:

Mina et A. Lupo, Parole, Parole

Vintage

Vintage, vintage, vintage - this word jumps at me from everywhere, the internet and the blogosphere, the fashion magazines, it's all about vintage this or that. I am not even sure what it means any more, although here is what Wikipedia says:

'Vintage clothing is a generic term for new or second hand garments originating from a previous era'.

Hmm, still not sure. I guess the shirt I'm wearing today could loosely pass off as vintage as it was sewn by my grandmother back in the 80s for my mom. It's a part of a three-piece arrangement (a shirt, a coat and a skirt) all made from very fine silk and modeled on a then-current pattern.

For me, this clothing bears emotional value. The fact that my grandmother made it by her own two hands makes it priceless. She is 82 now and has long since stopped sewing - blame poor eyesight - but my mom keeps some of the things she crafted and I'm grateful for that.

I feel special wearing this shirt today. I especially love the colors and the pattern:

Not being all about fast fashion and designer brands, I like combining items like this shirt with what I would normally wear to work, like a skirt or pants. It makes me feel less generic.

The bracelet I'm wearing was a gift from mom a long time ago and it usually lingers on the bottom of my bracelet pile, but I took it out this morning thinking how it complements well the shirt. And by this simple act I feel in touch with the female power of my family - and that is a force to be reckoned with.

XOXO,

Mimi

Do we need to have it all?

The topic of women and their position in the modern society is something I do think about a lot lately. Given that I'm in my thirties, a mother of a four-year old, a wife, a daughter, a sister, and a working woman for almost ten years now, it is only natural that I am considering this important issue.

Monday Morning

I find that more than ever before we - women - are finding ourselves in this impossible position that we need to fulfill too many social roles and, what's more, that we need to excel in all of them in order to make it count. We need to be perfect mothers or our children will end up as miserable sociopaths, drug users, homicidal maniacs, or generally unhappy people. We need to be perfect wives and keep our marriages together and our husbands happy. We need to be highly educated, professional and committed at our work place and work harder than our male colleagues for smaller salaries. We need to be there for our parents or siblings, unconditionally, mending and patching whatever needs to be tended to, helping and being there, listening if nothing else. And, we also need to be as good looking and youthful as possible, cultured and informed, working on ourselves all the time, perfecting, perfecting, perfecting to infinity and beyond.

Why? And, more importantly - who says so? Why all this pressure? I find that most of the time this comes from other women. And we are so quick when it comes to criticizing one other and dishing out judgement. Hell, I do it as often as the next person.

I think that we do not need to have it all. We really don't. What we need to do is try and do the best we can but even then we must not start out with this impossible premise that we need to be perfect in everything.

Also, we need to lose the guilt trip. Men really have an advantage over us there - they rarely ever have guilt trips. For a woman, this comes naturally. Especially in the Balkans. We are brought up that way, most of us anyway. And I don't think it is even a conscious decision on the part of our mothers.They just replicate this age old model and we happily play along, striving to be these perfect daughters. Until it becomes too much and we snap. I don't want that for my daughter. I want to do a better job at that than my mom did. (This does not mean that I don't absolutely love and respect my mom for everything she's done for me.)

Loosing the guilt, accepting that we cannot fix everything, trying the best we can - this should be enough. Enough for us and enough for the society. Less judging, more understanding and acceptance. Less tension and restlessness, more being at peace with who we are and where our lives are going. This needs to become my mantra anyway.

XOXO
Mimi

Breaking news

Damian Lewis, Claire Danes and 'The Homeland' won the Emmys! Woo-hoo! I just love that show, it's all American patriotic bs on the one hand, I know, but it is all dark and troubled and moody and dramatic on the other, and both Damian Lewis's and Claire's characters are amazing. It also means that 'Mad Men' have finally been ousted from the top spot after four consecutive years - that should speak about the quality of 'Homeland' for sure.

Plus, it helps that Mr. Lewis is easy on the eyes.

Exhibit 1:

Photo via phineasandferb.wikia.com

Not convinced?

Exhibit 2:

Photo via bestof.provocateuse.com

You need more persuading?

Brace yourselves for exhibit 3:

Photo via bestof.provocateuse.com

I rest my case. Plus it is a know fact that gingers will steal your heart ;-)

The perks of having a personal blog: you can lust after your favorite actors and have no one b**** about it!

XOXO
Mimi

Secret celebrity crush

To end this Friday on a lighter note:

Chris Martin, Coldplay

Photo via Coldplay Facebook page

Super nice guy, I love all the lyrics he comes up with, and I have a particular weakness for men playing pianos ;-)










Barry Pepper

Photo via thefilmcynics.com

I loved him in 'The Flags of Our Fathers' and in 'Saving Private Ryan', I just love this guy and I think he is incredibly sexy! And I don't think any of my friends know I have the hots for him, so here you go!

Whenever I'm down I call on you my friend

Fact of the matter is - that's not me, actually, the one that calls on a friend when down. No, no, that's not me at all. I go it alone. Most of the time. That is how I decided early on in life.

That does not mean I don't have friends. I do. I have a few very dear friends without whom I would not be me since these are the girls that I've spent my formative years with and all the things we went through together make me what I am today. For that, I am eternally grateful.

The only thing is that I first need to mull things over inside, deep down, be sad or happy about them, cherish them or perish any thought of them, and only then I might share them with another person. I might, which does not mean that I necessarily will.

I was not always like that. It goes without saying that I've spent most of my teenage years going over everything that happened to me in the course of a day with several friends, but I think I always held a little of it back. Not information, but my feelings about things. My deepest insecurities, fears, or inclinations. For fear of being judged, dissected, hurt, ridiculed. Not that my friends would do that. It's just my fear and I think everyone fears that at some level, consciously or unconsciously.

All these friendships have evolved during the years. We are not, none of us, those same persons we were when we set off in our childhood or teens. I am not the same person. I am not nearly as carefree or sure of myself as I was. Strange, because that confidence should actually come with the wisdom of age, but not in my case. Everything I know makes me question everything in my life even more.

But what has changed most about me is that I have only recently learned that it is ok to fall apart and it is ok for your friends to see it and see you like that. It is ok to depend on people and their support. It is ok to depend and it is ok to share more. No one will think less of me because of that. And I think I have really made progress with this and it has made me a better person, a better friend for sure.

The only thing is that I am not sure how my life choices have affected my friendships, or rather their quality. In my early twenties I decided that having a serious relationship, working hard for my studies and eventually gaining financial and all other kinds of independence from my parents is something to invest all my efforts in and that has kept me away from my friends for quite some time.

It does not mean I loved them less. No. I loved them the same and I missed them often but I kept my time and my energies focused on something else. My friendships have certainly suffered for that. And when rather recently, or in the past few years I re-evaluated some of my life choices and sort of tried to re-establish these important friendships I am not sure I fully succeeded. My friends accepted me back sort of with all the love and care as previously, but certainly not without some resentment. Not that any of it was ever said out loud. But i kind of feel it's there.

And I often wonder if our relationship will ever be the same.

Or if my struggle for sameness is actually a battle lost in advance as it is impossible.

And I should accept my friends and our relationships as they are and cherish them the best I can and hope we all grow old together.

XOXO
Mimi

Autumn fashion in transition

There is a word 'style' in the title of this blog, did you think I was going to let you off easy on that one? I made a quick snap of my favorite scarf that is getting plenty of wear these days as the weather is getting chilly and I need more layers, especially in the morning.

I love the gray and those rusty nuances combined with gold accents make it a warm and cold combination all at once and it complement my skin tone. It's very soft, a nice cotton blend, so it will get a lot of wear. My little owl earring is pictured also as I really like the quirky accessorizing and I'm bang on trend with the animal theme, right?

Next up is a new purchase - a Ralph Lauren long-sleeved tee, all striped and navy and with a nice detail on one of the sleeves - I could not resist getting it.

I'm not big on brands etc., but the quality of this one is awesome.

Will post pictures of me wearing it once I get round to it.

XOXO

Mimi

p.s. also, I need to figure out why blogger keeps messing with my pictures?!?!

And now a proper first blog post

The actual first blog post was something I had to get off of my chest and there seems to be no one at the moment with whom I could actually talk about it . . .
This blog is going to be more of a journal-type thing and I don't know, or rather am not sure for now, whether it will actually see the light of day and have followers/readers/audience - whatever. I just feel this incredible urge for writing things down and somehow the pen and paper thing does not do it for me anymore, except for the to-do and grocery shopping lists ;-) Thus, the blog.
I write in English, although it is not my mother tongue. I, however, have a major in English language and literature, I work in an international environment and have been using English every day for a number of years, and I have even been dreaming in English, so there you go, it's become potentially obsessive on some level I guess.
I have no plan for a particular type(s) of blog posts that you would be able to find here. I'll write about what's going on inside, even if it's as trivial as hankering for a pair of shoes. There will be pictures, for entertainment purposes of course. And I don't promise much more.
So here goes, this first proper blog post. Now that it's out of the way, the rest of the writing should flow more freely ;-)

XOXO, Mimi

Rest in peace, kite boy!

I always thought you will be there, looking at me with those smiling eyes, telling me: ‘hey kiddo, you’ve finally grow up, and I think you’re awesome’. I would show you my daughter, you would be impressed with her beauty and her eyes, just like mine.
And you would just wave good bye and say: ‘see ya!’
And I would be content, getting that seal of approval from you, showing you how well things have turned out for me, showing you that I still have it, that something you liked . . .
And now there is no chance of that happening ever.
I’m sad, so sad. I miss you!
Rest in peace kite boy!