iris-impressions.com

Earlier when I was walking to the post-box in my flip flops (not only my flip flops, mind) it struck me that I am actually quite happy. This is quite a huge thing coming from me, ever the depressed pessimist.

Life’s thrown some punches at me and I’ve been good at surviving, but lately I’ve felt a bit of a shift. For a few years now I’ve not merely been surviving, but living and lately I’ve been enjoying life with more consistency than ever before.

I just want to mention that although I’ve suffered from depression, I would have never described myself as an unhappy person. The difference I am talking about now though, is something between having happy moments or spells, and a more consistent contentment.

The reasons for this are ample, I think, there isn’t one single thing (I am averse to the whole ‘one single thing’ mindset as a whole, it puts too much pressure and expectation on something that can never deliver). Overall though, I think it can be summed up as ‘life is finally going right for me’.

Sure there are still things I want and would like to achieve, and I don’t want to become complacent, but I feel less like something is missing. That’s quite huge, because my life has been governed by loss a lot (both in the bigger sense from losing my mother, but also in smaller ways, in which I recreate or re-experience loss in almost every situation).

It may sound trite but having a husband who loves me, living in our own place (rented, but not shared with flatmates), having a cat, having a nice bottle of wine every now and again, fiddling with crochet/knitting/art/cooking… it all just fills me with more calm than I’ve ever felt in my life.

It makes me feel like, yes I can have nice things (or rather, a nice life), and no they’re not going to be taken away from me at a moment’s notice for no good reason.

One-Skein Scarf (Crochet), originally uploaded by rrreow.

I’ve recently taken up crocheting (a suggestion by my friend Daniela) and after doing it wrong a lot of times and then finally getting my aunt to show me how to do it right, I thought I’d attempt an actual pattern.

It’s from a book called Stitch ‘n’ Bitch: The Happy Hooker. I find crochet extremely fun! I’ve knitted before, but I seem to always get bored before I finish anything. With crochet there are so many more stitches and possibilities to make stuff look interesting without getting too complicated.

I also find it very relaxing. I sit upstairs and listen to classical music while creating. It’s a nice change because I usually spend too much time at my computer!

I think my next project will be a shawl. Have to swallow the fact that (nice) yarn is incredibly expensive though. The results are well worth it though.

Someone kick me and make me update already! I’ve been toying with the idea of updating my blog for about a month but I keep putting it off. So voila, an impromptu update with no topic or meaningful content whatsoever!

I just bought a Nintendo DS Lite off ebay, so I’m pretty excited about that! I got it because I’m going to Holland in a few weeks BY BUS. So for the lovely 10 hour journey I thought I’d get something to occupy myself with. Thing is, going by bus, AND buying a Nintendo DS, is still cheaper than flying… flying is quite expensive at the moment.

Since you didn’t ask, I’m going to Holland (my lovely country of birth and corruption – my corruption, not the country’s) to sign papers for my house which was sold. I’m also visiting my best friend from uni (who is American, studied in England, and then him and his Italian girlfriend moved to Holland.. go figure) who has recently had a child!! And I’m catching up with two of my best friends from high school who I last saw at my wedding where we really didn’t have enough time to properly talk.

A while back I started another painting. Similar to the one before, in the same watercolour Moleskine, with the same techniques, just a different face. I painted the face & hair, I still have to colour in her top and the background (have needed to do that for about 2 weeks now..) which I will get around to sometime, and then I will show you, because I know you’re practically dying to see it.

I’m watching season 1 of Gossip Girl at the moment and it makes me wish I was a teenager again because I have unresolved issues and there are lots of people I would totally kick in the teeth. But not literally. Also, I don’t really wish I was a teenager again because adolescence = hell with too many hormones.

Oh and last night I had this awesome dream and Nathan Fillion was in it.

I’m going to do a serious post (cue ominous music) soon in relation to this book I am reading. But I need to get in the mood to write about srs bsns, so not yet my pretties, not yet.

Also I don’t know why my site is so incredibly slow. Maybe it’s the theme? I just hope for your sake you are reading this through a feed reader.

I can’t contain myself!!! We are picking up our kitten TOMORROW!! Andrew refers to her as the ‘office cat’ and I think he expects her to be typing up reports and answering the phone hehe.

Having a hard time concentrating on anything today because I’m just SO EXCITED!

In other news, something funny happened the other day. I was talking to an insurance company on the phone and the guy was getting a gazillion details from me. I had to liaise with Andrew about some of them so I put the person I was talking to on hold. THEN HE STARTED TALKING ABOUT ME!! When I put someone on hold I can still hear what they are saying, they just can’t hear me (effectively the phone just mutes itself from my side). So this person was talking smack behind my back. They were saying stuff like “oh I’m obviously talking to the wrong person, this is just a PA”…! I’m not a PA but isn’t it hilariously funny that the call centre person feels superior to a PA?!

So I guess the lesson is, when someone puts you on hold, don’t mouth off about them as chances are they might hear you! (unless that is your intention of course)

When I say new, we’ve been living here almost a month already! Time flies. We’re picking up Tikka (the kitten) on Friday. I am so excited, I can’t wait!

I’m currently taking an online art class which is run by my friend Tam. It’s called World of Whimsy and it’s a lot of fun!

As much as I enjoy painting I’m not that prolific creating it (not because I don’t want to, but usually because of self doubt and other such issues). Beside a few sketches the below portrait is the first ‘finished’ piece I’ve created using the skills and techniques Tam is teaching. I absolutely love the shading techniques she uses, they’re quite easy and produce a subtle but nice effect.

I’m really proud of this one actually! The scanner hasn’t really done it justice though. Come to think of it, I really need to clean it, there’s a ton of dust and little specks on everything I scan.

Spiral Staircase, originally uploaded by rrreow.

Time for an update about My Life™

Yesterday was an exciting yet frustrating day. We had taken the day off work to go IKEA shopping to get some bits and pieces for our new flat. Oh yeah, forgot to mention (although I’ve Twittered about it), we moved to a new flat! It’s gorgeous and spacious and it’s soooo nice to not be sharing anymore (our flatmates were nice, but when you’re married it should really be time to think about your own place, right?!).

Anyway, like I mentioned a while back, money has been tight and obviously there are costs involved with moving too, so we are trying to budget a lot and trying to be really careful with what we spend money on. Sooo we went to IKEA to buy some stuff, arrived back in the car park afterwards and noticed someone had tried to break into our hired van. NOT NICE. They didn’t manage to get into the van (even if they did, it was completely empty anyway) but they broke the lock, for which the rental company is now trying to charge us an exorbitant sum.

I’m feeling quite angry and sad about it. Obviously glad we had nothing in the van that could’ve been stolen, but I’m just so angry that the illegal actions of some thoughtless individual(s) can really impact our financial situation like that. Especially seeing as we’ve been agonising over every single purchase we make (from what groceries we buy to putting stuff back at IKEA because we didn’t really need them) and really cutting back on a lot of little luxuries you might usually take for granted (like having an occasional coffee at Starbucks, getting a take-away, buying books or DVDs). And then just BOOM, through something not our fault all that care we took is just obliterated by a several hundred pound bill.

Anyway, having got that off my chest, right now we’re just focussing on work a lot, as complaining about the situation isn’t going to make it better; making money is. Although I find that a bit saddening too. I don’t want my life to revolve around money, but sadly that’s how it is at the moment.

The much more exciting part about yesterday was that we went to look at some kittens! I’ve literally wanted a cat since I was about 4 years old, so now, approx 20 years later it is finally going to happen! We picked out an adorable little female kitten and she will be ready for us to pick up in about a month’s time. I’m incredibly excited!!! I’ll hopefully get some pictures from the breeder soon, so I’ll be able to post those.

We moved about 1.5 weeks ago now, but stuff is still in boxes. However, now that we’ve sorted out the final pieces of furniture we can finally unpack all the rest of our stuff (mainly books & DVDs) and really finish everything off. It’ll be nice to have our whole home ‘completed’. Especially since lots of our stuff has been in storage for about a year (due to the tiny size of our previous flat/room), so I’m really excited about putting the bookcases together and putting my books on the shelves. Once that’s all been done I’ll do a picture or video update of the flat!

Decision Time. This article published on the BBC News site today is pretty interesting. It is about emotion vs rationality in decision making.

Things that especially resonate with me are:

As Kahneman and Tversky put it: “In human decision-making, losses loom larger than gains.”

Loss aversion is now recognised as an important mental bias, with widespread implications. Our desire to avoid anything that smacks of a loss often shapes our behaviour, leading us to do foolish things.

As a person who has experienced rather acute loss in my life, loss aversion is something that influences and controls my life to a large extent. For example procrastination. Lots of people dismiss procrastination with a simplistic ‘you are lazy’, however to me, procrastination is an effect of trying to limit the feeling of loss.

I also like this:

So how should we make a decision? The key is something called metacognition, or thinking about thinking.

As it hails back to what Eckhart Tolle writes about in The Power of Now. He explains how one can observe the brain when it is filled with emotion or reacting emotionally. Like for example, if you are feeling badly you could either wallow in the feeling (which will prolong the feeling and probably augment it, too) or look at the feeling and see what kind of thinking created it and is perpetuating it. It lets you understand the feeling more fully than if you were just feeling the feeling.

I really like coming across articles (especially on big respected websites!) that connect with other things that I am currently reading or thinking about.

I made this recipe the other day and it was yummy, so I thought I’d share it! I can’t take full credit for the recipe as my aunt used to make something similar, which this is based on although I can’t remember it 100%

Vegetarian Cottage Pie with Cheese (serves 4)

Ingredients
-300g Quorn mince
-5 medium sized potatoes
-1 onion
-handful of raisins
-2tsp gravy granules
-1tsp mixed spice

For the cheese sauce:
-25g flour
-25g butter
-250ml milk
-100g mild cheese, grated

You will also need a largeish oven dish.

Start by boiling the potatoes for approx 25 minutes, so they are soft enough to mash easily. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C. Cut the onion into rings and sauté with some olive oil over moderate heat. Add the Quorn mince and mix it all together. Add the gravy granules and mixed spice with a little bit of water, then add the raisins. Stir occasionally and leave it on a moderate heat for about 10 minutes so it is heated through.

Drain the potatoes and mash them until they are smooth. You may want to add a little bit of water or milk to make mashing easier. You want a firm consistency though.

Put your Quorn mince mix into the oven dish so it covers the bottom evenly. Add the mashed potatoes on top to create another even layer. You can use a spatula or wooden spoon to make the top smooth. Put the dish in the oven.

To make the cheese sauce you will need a small saucepan, non-stick ones work very well but it’s not a necessity. Over a low heat melt the butter in the saucepan, once it is melted add the flour and stir everything together. Leave this to simmer for a minute or two, then start adding the milk bit by bit while stirring continuously. Continue until you have added all the milk and you should have a smooth pale yellow sauce. Stir in the cheese bit by bit until it is all melted.

Take the dish out of the oven and pour the cheese sauce on top. Smoothen it with a spatula/wooden spoon so it is an even layer. Return the dish to the oven for approx 15-25 minutes or until the cheese sauce looks golden brown.

Serve with pepper to taste (it shouldn’t need salt due to the cheese & gravy granules, but add whatever floats your boat. Andrew likes to eat it with tomato ketchup which I find rather mind boggling!) and maybe with a side salad.

Note: I am not a vegetarian, so if you want to make sure this is really vegetarian, use vegetarian gravy granules and make sure the cheese you use is vegetarian.

Note 2: Alternatively you could make it specifically NOT vegetarian by replacing the Quorn with real mince meat. In that case you should probably not add water with the gravy granules (as meat tends to hold more moisture than Quorn) and also cook it for longer to make sure it is fully cooked.