Loungewear, bouquets & photographs .. #MM

It's Sunday. And Sundays are lounge days. Or most of the time they are. In fact today wasn't isn't supposed to be a lounge day. It's planned in our calendar as a we-have-lots-to-do-day. I really should get properly dressed and out of the door to go paint some windows in our apartment but sitting here on the couch in my loungewear working on blog posts has just been so relaxing lately. And when my mom brought home this beautiful flower bouquet today I just couldn't resist taking some time to experiment with photography.

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!)

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.

The illusion of growing up

A thought that has been nagging me for the past few weeks is this: do we ever really grow up or is it all an illusion? I'll clarify what I mean by telling you a story. When I was in first grade I used to look up to the sixth graders (the last grade of primary school in Belgium) and I would be like "Wow, they're so big and cool, I want to be just like them one day." But then I grew up, went to second, third, ... and eventually sixth grade. But nothing ever changed. I didn't feel big and cool. I still felt like the 6 year old first-grade-me. What I had thought being in sixth grade would feel like, that feeling never came.

Sunset at the river .. #MM

I'm always complaining to Ruben that we don't do anything together. We do sometimes but we really ought to do more activities together out of the comfort zone of our daily lives: go on a city trip, do a biking tour, visit a museum, ... I'm a big fan of doing fun things and building happy and unique memories together but for some reason we're kind of bad at it. We always stay in our comfort zone and at times we even get bored at home with no idea what to do other than play some ping pong or badminton which Ruben is always begging me to. Lately the number of "special" activities we do together has even dropped from few to none. Being in the midst of renovating our apartment there doesn't seem to be much time left to have some quality time together and get away from it all. Past weekend we decided to do just that. We got ourselves some take out french fries (I know I know, don't judge) and went down to the river to watch the sunset.

Fresh air and flowers .. #MM

Every other week or so I'd love to sit down in front of my computer and write a more personal, life events inspired post on top of the normal Sunday-Thursday schedule. A post without all that much of a plan but with lots more personality than the other tutorial-like posts here on A Hearty Home. Don't get me wrong, I love doing those and that's what I want to keep focusing on but I also want this blog to be a representation of all of me. I debated whether or not to do them from the minute I started this blog but since I love to read these kinds of post on other people's blogs I thought I too could get away with rambling about life and its ups and downs. I feel like without a little bit more personality this blog could become too clean and unrealistic which is exactly the opposite of what I'm going for. For your information I'll be indicating these personal posts with #MM, which stands for "Margot's musings" so if you don't like chatty personal posts you can just skip those. I'll be putting them into the "life + more" category so you'll be able to find them in the tabs if you'd want to.

Memories from Helsinki - photo diary

Complete zoom, high in the air. Taken from the boat to Suomenlinna.

As I told you in the previous post "Apartment renovation progress - part 1" I don't do much these days apart from working in our apartment. When I'm busy working I tend to start dreaming about traveling: both trips I did and places I'd still like to visit. So since I do not have anything else of interest to share with you I thought this would be the perfect moment to show you my memories of Helsinki in a photo diary (it was the first time I brought my DSLR on a trip!). The capital of Finland might seem like a strange travel destiny and it probably is. I went there mid april with two friends to visit another friend studying there on Erasmus. It was more like a social vacation/visit but we ended up seeing a lot of the city while we were there.