The power of music - self recovery playlist

Music is a big love in my life but it's a love that comes and goes. I don't really understand it myself but let me try to explain. I've been playing music, singing, listening to music since I was a little girl but I have episodes (days, weeks, months even) when I don't really listen to and search for new music (except for the radio in my car). I actually find this a bit embarrassing to admit but well, you might know by now that I'm very bad at habits and keeping up with music is one of those things that need a lot of work still. Having said this, I do have a subscription to Deezer (a streaming service like Spotify) and I wouldn't want to live without my playlists. One of the playlist that has gotten a lot of attention lately has been my Recovery playlist. It's a playlist with songs to give me more self confidence, promote/create self love, leave past mistakes behind, forgive myself, recover from everything that's is haunting me (which is also a story for another time) and just clear my mind.

Is blogging all about the visuals?

Having been blogging for a few years (on and off, on different platforms) before I started this one it shouldn't have surprised me how much of the actual time of blogging goes into taking and editing photographs. But it did, it does. To clarify: I'm an amateur photography lover but I own a DSLR (Canon 600D) which makes it kind of "easy" to get decent photos. For editing I don't use any fancy programs (yet) - PicMonkey is my hero - and although I have my camera settings set to shoot both in .raw and .jpeg, to this point the .raw files only take up a lot of valuable space on my hard drive, because those files are for the fancy editing program I don't have (yet), get my drift? Before you get the wrong idea: I really enjoy planning, shooting and editing the visual part of this blog. I could take and edit pictures all day long and it wouldn't feel like work. Sadly I don't have the time to spent all day taking and editing photos. (Some would disagree since I don't have a job, but that's another story for another time.) So because I want my pictures to look sleek and beautiful I only manage to post twice a week. If it weren't for the pictures I could probably post up to four times a week. So lately I have been wondering: does every blog post need (so many) pictures? Is a blog post only a good blog post when there are beautiful visuals in there?

Port of Antwerp By Boat - Autumn Outfit

Last week my mom invited me to go on a boat trip around the port of Antwerp with her company and take atmospheric photos of the event. Of course I couldn't say no! Every child living in this area probably goes on a boat trip around the harbour (sorry, port - it's huge) at least once in their school career and so did I, but that was such a long time ago that a lot has probably changed since then. The entire week before the event we prayed for beautiful weather but failed. Thursday morning the skies looked very grey and cloudy and rain fell down faster than I could blink. I knew it was going to be very cold on that boat so better to dress appropriately: full on autumn outfit, even though technically it was still summer last week. (Outfit details at the end of the post.)

Fifty things that make me happy

I was tagged by the lovely Suzie Marie of Eeep I'm A Blogger to do a post about fifty things that make me happy. Fifty is a lot, so I was afraid that I just wouldn't be able to find fifty things but once I'd started writing a lot more silly and little things came to me. Agreed, it took me about a week to finally finish my list but when I read it back now maybe I should add that this list makes me happy. I don't think this post could have come at a better time for me. While feeling absolutely horrible (both physically and mentally) the best thing you can fill your head with are positive thoughts and that's what preparing this post did for me. So thank you Suzie Marie for tagging me to do this. It made me realize that there are so many little things that can make a day beautiful, even if you don't necessarily see them on first glance. I loved her original Fifty Things That Make Me Happy post so much that I wanted to do it the exact same way: with image collages. Imitation is flattery right? So here it goes: my fifty things that make me happy! (Don't forget to read the first 10 at the beginning of the post!)

Mashed Potato & Caramelized Onion Patties

It's been too long since my last (and first) food post! If you missed that I talked about how to make my super fast avocado dip. I love reading food posts on other blogs and even though I'm no "kitchen princess" as we like to say in Belgium, I like food and I'd love to do more food posts myself. So why the food-post-break then? There's even a whole category for it! Well, I thought we would have moved by now but renovations are still not finished. That means no kitchen with my own name on just yet, patience Margot. Not having your own space makes preparing food posts a little harder. Especially since my mom and brother will look at me weird when I want to take pictures of my food at every angle before eating it. But after almost two months of nothing food related here on the blog I just couldn't wait any longer to try some new things, so I sneaked an afternoon of cooking in my mom's kitchen in my calendar and made these incredible mashed potato and caramelized onion patties.

I feel like a fraud in my own life .. #MM

Impostor Syndrome is a real thing. That's something I only recently found out and you can't imagine how relieved I was. Relieved because that means I'm not alone. And I'm not crazy. There are moments when I feel like I deserve everything I accomplish, but most of the time I feel like I'm going to be "found out". Even while typing this I'm afraid I'll just come across as trying to get some attention, afraid that I'm even posing to be an impostor, if that makes sense? Once I discovered that there are more people out there who feel this way I went searching for their stories and I recognized so much of it. "I'm not good enough", "I'm not an expert!", "why'd they give me this job?", "I'm not competent", "I don't deserve this reward!", and so on and so on. If that's something you've felt too, keep on reading.

Back To School: Healthy School Night Habits

School has started and the change in routine in comparison to summer break can be tough on your kids. Some are all happy and smiles to go back to school because they missed their friends and teachers but others have a hard time adapting. No matter how your child handles going back to school, there are simple things you can do to make it easier for everybody, including yourself. In this little back to school series I already talked about having the right homework essentials and the right lunch and snack (hardware) essentials. Today I'd love to talk about healthy school night habits. The reason I'm doing this post is because I see so many children come to class that are just too tired to learn anything and I believe it can be different. I know, modern times, but sometimes the old ways are just what you need.

Top 3 blog discoveries in August

Being part of the big blogger community brings so much to the blogging experience. I always thought blogs were little islands in the large online ocean but they're not. Not really. All these little blog islands and their owners are connected through invisible bridges and ferries that sail up and down the waves. Okay, not really. But wouldn't that be nice? What I mean is that bloggers not only inspires their readers. They can also inspire other bloggers to be the best possible version of themselves, online and offline.

So to give a little back to that wonderful blogger community, at the end of every month I'd like to share my top 3 new blog discoveries that inspired me that month. New, because for me they will be. It's perfectly possible that (like this month) the blogs I stumble upon and love instantly are in fact quite well known and established already but it's also possible I find a brand new up and coming blog with almost no followers yet. Size doesn't matter for this feature. Heart, passion, writing style, beautiful pictures and that-what-makes-you-you does. So without further ado, here are my top 3 new blog discoveries in August!