...what healed my heart in 2007...

Every relationship is an experiment, and you never know exactly what you'll get.
Some people bring out a side of you that you didn't know you had.
Some people remind you that your story isn't over.
Some people surprise you.
And once in a while, you surprise yourself.
And, although all relationships require compromise, sometimes you get more, not less.

And sometimes, you can't get more. Sometimes what you had is gone forever. And, although it's painful, you have to find the strength to go on, to keep searching for the love, for that one perfect ingredient.

In 2007 a boy broke my heart for the very first time. Did some serious damage too.
And after months of trying to figure out what I did wrong and daydreaming about him realizing what a horrible mistake he made… I finally came to grip with reality and a romantic comedy helped heal my broken heart.

Link to a few scenes from The Holiday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehUOLjuV_E8

For all my future boyfriends…

Grab my hand when you walk next to me
(I always get butterflies when you do it & it makes me feel wanted)
When standing, wrap your arms around me.
(It makes me feel like you really love me)
Cuddle with me
(I’ll feel like you’re there for me)
Write little notes.
(I smile. They're cute. The end.)
Call me at night to wish me sweet dreams.
(I’ll go to bed with a smile)
Pick me up and act completely silly or gross with me
(I may tell you I don’t, but I really love it)
When you hug me, hug me a for as long as you can
.(It makes me feel safe)

And never, ever, ever, ever, EVER walk out on me in the middle of a fight…

WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE !!!

Writing for your life: what a bizarre idea.
In a movie, if somebody yells “Run for your life!,” you know a dinosaur or slimy alien or a volcano is about to blow, and the good guys had better get their feet moving.
And if they yell, “Fight for your life!,” the danger is even more urgent, and the good guys had better put up their dukes and claw and scratch and bite-anything to keep themselves alive. Run for your life! Fight for your life! Write for your life! Right. What could these extreme reactions to overwhelming danger-fight or flight-have in common with writing: sitting still, staring into space, pushing a pen in slow motion across a flat piece of paper, tapping rhythmically at a keyboard-?

“Write for your life!” it doesn’t make sense, and yet thousands of people in extremity –from Frederick Douglas to Anne Frank to Ritchard Wright to Roberta Menchu-have found a life-line in writing. Through words, people in war zones and prison camps can bear witness to what they experience; people in isolation can communicate beyond themselves and others, and perhaps find ways to change their circumstances.

Even in apparently placid lives-and few lives, actually, are precisely placid-writing can help us define and refine our emotions, can help us clarify and strengthen our thoughts, can help us make sense-or, even better, nonsense-out of unfairness.

So: writing for your life: how will you find place for verbal play-Where? When? What? How? People will tell you that it’s good to write in a quite place, in a quite time, where you can be solitary and contemplative; and you can see that this is good advice, if for no other reason than it keeps your little brother form reading over your shoulder while you write: it keeps your secrets safe, allows you to luxuriate in your own thinking, gives you the opportunity to submerge yourself, push yourself, make interesting mistakes, be outrageous, explore your dark side, follow your perceptions down as deep as you can take them. But-surprisingly-there’s a lot to be said for writing in public, too-observing the world, listening to the way real people talk, incorporating unanticipated incidents into your own thinking. Lots of people write in cafes, in public parks, study halls.

When you write for yourself, you can be serious or playful, or both at once; you can examine your own feelings, or you can pretend to be somebody else; you can attempt to get the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, or you can spin out exhilarating lies; you can aim for sprawling narratives, or you can look carefully, precisely, intently, at a single detail; you can complain, all you want, without hurting anybody’s feelings, or you can dwell lovingly on your family or your friends or your sweet little puppy, without embarrassing yourself in public. Go in for a verbal volley-ball, or polish what you write, or give yourself a vacation from grammar and logic and punctuation. Anything goes!

This is it: write for your life-for your vitality, for your rich daily existence, for your spiritual essence, for your emotional expression and recalibration, for your mental exhilaration. And this is the most essential point: it’s your own intellectual life you’re writing for, and nothing you write can be wrong for you.

.. if I did the right thing, why does it feel so wrong?

Abe Lincoln once said,' When I do good I feel good. When I do bad I feel bad.' If only it were that black-and-white. Sometimes doing the right thing makes you feel everything but good. It can feel scary, uncomfortable, because even when you make the right choices, the bad things can still happen. As much as we want them, there are no guarantees. All we can do is have faith that if we act with our heart, the things we do will one day make us feel right even if sometimes the thing we do feels just a little wrong.

H&M Fashion Against AIDS

Ok, I admit it; I’m a sucker for any product that focuses on making this world a better place. Recently H&M partnered with major celebrities including Dita von Teese, Yoko Ono, Katy Perry, Estelle, N.E.R.D., Cindy Lauper, Robyn, Moby, Dangerous Muse, and more to spread awareness and fight AIDS.

The collection has a very 80’s feel to it and it includes super cute racer-back cuts, easy tees, body suits and t-shirt dresses while 25% of the sales will be donated to projects helping raise youth awareness of HIV.

What makes me even more excited about this is the fact that it’s very reasonably priced and boasts 100% organic cotton, making it even sweeter for those of us supporting a greener fashion world.

The sweet way to remove hair...

Sugaring is one of the oldest hair removing methods, originating in Egypt and currently very popular in Middle Eastern countries. It resembles waxing because it is basically a warm mixture applied to the skin and then quickly removed pulling the hairs out of their roots.

In my opinion and from personal experience it is less painful than waxing because sugar paste only adheres to the hair and not the skin. The recipe is ridiculously simple, and I wish I’d known about it years ago.

All you need is 2 cups of granulated sugar, 1 cup of water and ¼ cup of lemon/lime juice.
Combine the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer on low/medium heat.
In order to know when the mixture is ready you will have to test it several times to get the right consistency. When sugar is melted and you’re left with thick liquid, take a glass and fill it with room temperature water. Use a spoon and drop several drops of mixture into the water. If the drops dissolve into the water, it’s not ready, but if it falls to the bottom of the glass and it doesn’t dissolve then it is ready to use. I prefer to take a large baking pan and pour hot mixture into it until it’s pleasant to touch (lukewarm)

For the best results the hair should be short and the skin dry and clean of any lotion or oil residue. First stretch the wax over the direction of hair growth (not against it). Then press down firmly, wait a few seconds and jerk it off in one quick movement.

Sugaring is hypoallergenic and an ideal hair removal method for sensitive skin, and it’s very eco-friendly. No more red bumps or irritation and I’m super happy I found out about this method.

EDIT: To answer SunShower's questions..
I'm a makeup junkie and i adore Middle Eastern culture, so i love learning about these ancient beauty rituals that can still be used today. LOL I've got no hair left to remove, so i can't post my photos (yet), however you can find a lot of pictures on internet.
There are 2 ways to use this paste (often refered to as wax, but has no actuall wax in it). The first meathod is when the paste is still somewhat runny and warm, what you do is you apply it with some spatula where you want the hair to be removed and then you use some kind of cloth (i highly recommend denim) place it on top and then jerk it off in a quick motion. I find this meathod to be too messy, so i prefer the cold version. This is when you pour the hot mixture into a container and leave it to cool COMPLETLY. It's going to be this really thick paste that you can roll around in your hands. You apply it onto the skin, streaching the paste as much as you can. Now you would jerk it off quickly (the paste should be thick enaugh that you won't need strip or cloth to take it off. As far as pain level, it's significantly less painfull BUT not pain-free (you are removing hair after all)
This video is in different language (heads up, it's also kindda gross) but it shows you very well how it removes hair..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUbhg1MySPk&feature=PlayList&p=CC9CDAEDF237C775&index=5

It feels so good to feel bad

Alright, so I don't generally wear jewelry.. of the top of my head I have probably 2 necklaces and 3 rings.. and all of those are somewhere buried under my pile of makeup. So it's safe to say I don't wear jewelry but every once in a while I come across such a unique piece that I have to have it!! This was the case with this super cute, super bad-ass necklace.

I have gotten so many compliments on this one...

You can buy it at http://www.emitations.com/culone.html

The future.. My future

I want to finish school and become a nurse. After that I want to spend about 2 more years learning about medicine and working with patients. And then my hope is to spend the rest of my life wandering this lovely planet and doing some pro-bono work. In particular my dream is to spend few years in Africa, learning about the culture, the languages and most importantly giving medical help to those in need. I truly believe I was brought to this Earth to help others in any way I can. It’s what I love doing. Being able to bring a smile to a sick child’s face or give medicine to those who otherwise wouldn’t make it without it, it makes me happy. It’s such a great feeling knowing that you did something to make others feel good or even happy.

I have to admit I didn’t always know what I wanted to be when I grow up. When I was living in Bosnia my opportunities were very limited. The country had just been through hell during the war. Many schools were destroyed and so were many people’s lives.
But perhaps, that is the reason why I want to become who I want to become. In spite of everything bad that happened in that special little country, one thing remained throughout all the horror, and that’s good spirit of people. It’s hard to explain exactly how it felt, being surrounded with so much evil and destruction and yet feel so much love. Yes, I said love. Complete strangers, really.

In the hospital, being there for months at a time without being able to see my family, without knowing if they were even alive, is horrifying for any kid. No child should ever have to go through something like that. And yet as I write this, hundreds of children are going through similar situations throughout our world.
But it was the nurses and doctors and volunteers that got me through those months. It was their love and care. And I will forever be grateful to each and every one of them.
Now it’s my time to pay it forward.

I’m a simple girl and I want to lead a simple life. I want to be happy, more than I want that house with a picket fence, or to become rich. It’s not my main goal in life. Get married, settle down and make babies.. don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with that, I just don’t think its for me. Heh but hey if I learned anything from my past it would be that the future is constantly changing. The future is the home of our deepest fears and wildest hopes. But one thing is certain when it finally reveals itself.

The future is never the way we imagined it.

Fairy Tales and Castles

"We all remember the bed time stories of our childhood. The shoe fit Cinderella, the frog was turned into a prince, sleeping beauty was awakened with a kiss. Once upon a time and then they lived happily ever after. Fairy tales. The stuff of dreams. the problem is, fairy tales don't come true. It's the other stories. The ones that start in dark and stormy nights and end in the unspeakable." - Grey's Anatomy

When I think of fairy tales I can't help but think of the castles.

Here are some of the most amazing castles in the world.