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Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Get up and move





This just makes me wanna roll out my mat no matter what.

In a blah state of mind, I just stumbled upon this website and this got me so revved up that I think I will now do some hardcore Pilates.



BRB



Kiss and Peace

Arrrrgghhh Miss Sinister

Monday, November 10, 2014

Luck would have it...

Good morning world! This morning we were treated to a bush breakfast!
Bush breakfast=a bush(preferably a Serengeti one)+a view(preferably a 360 degrees, breathtaking one)+a cook(one that can make french pancakes on top of a electricity lacking hill)+3 eager Europeans(one Sinisterly excited, one Mysteriously happy, one used to it Director).
A recipe for success!
Minus me stepping twice...yes you read that right - twice, in elephant dung. On a hill. With no running water. 
You know what they say. Stepping on ... brings good luck. I now have an elephant sized luck for at least a couple of months!



Kiss and Peace
Lucky Miss Sinister

Took a walk on the wild side

Crazy day yesterday! 2 dozen lions, more elephants than one can imagine, gazelles, zembras, wildabeast, buffaloes and pretty much the entire bird section of the encyclopedia made for some awesome photos!
All of that pilates really turned out to be useful since the road is the equivalent of the Grand Canyon in the Serengeti. Rock on Cassey Ho!
Another great surprise was the camp where we are staying. Set atop a hill we have a breathtaking view that is presided by a large group of wildabeast while behind us are some zebras, some more wildabeast and one solitary gazelle. Mystery took great joy in scaring the last half to death this morning when he stepped out of our tent wearing a bright blue jacket! Way to blend in,huh?!
The food here has been amazing and I think the camp owners might have secretly abducted Gordon Ramsey and are helding him hostage. The food has been that good!
Today they promised pasta. Maybe they also have Moreno Cedroni in there.
Today I had a very interesting chat about hippies.
Tomorrow I'm going to teach the camp staff some pilates. 

Kiss and Peace
Excited Miss Sinister

Go Go Go time!

KAnd we're in the Serengeti!! Woke up in Arusha at our friend's house, drove to airport, had a cold muffin and two espressos for breakfast, got on airplane, flew over Lake Manyara, Ngorogoro crater and just landed in the Serengeti. Time to take some photos!!

African adventures

After 7 (to be read an eternity) hours on board a large airplane with limited leg room, I want a coffee, an organic orange juice and blueberry muffin. I'm in Addis Ababa aka where airport came to die. Our African week begins with swollen knees, no decent coffee, very good ethiopean tea, Ebola screenings and a whole lot of healthy enthusiasm!!!
Mystery slept like a baby and is now frantically roaming the airport in search of a smoking room. He already smoked one in the waiting lobby before I pointed out the blatant (to be read huge) No Smoking sign.
There is no internet here (to be read I'm horrified) and I will post this as soon as I find some.

Kiss and Peace
Adventurous Miss S

The D&g that got me

After a long day slaving around my house getting ready for the end-of-the-world type of b-day party me and Mr. Mystery got going on tomorrow, I'm finally at the hairdresser's enjoying the peace and quiet of a bustling hairdresser's shop on a busy Saturday afternoon. Amidst the horde of Saturday-night fever women I found my quiet spot where to write this post. There is an undeniable quieteness to a roomfull of chit chatting women.
My shoe addiction, hibernating for some time now due to below freezing economic conditions, gave me quite a nudge the other day in Rome. 
Visiting the caput mundi on official Mystery&me business, we went for a (financially dooming) walk in the city center. A hop, skip and a step away I was trying 700€ macrame laced, stone embelished Dolce&Gabbana shoes. And let me just tell you that those shoes were made for walking...walking with my feet that is! 
Fast forward to a couple of days later and countless internet searches I have decided to save up and buy those ridiculous shoes! The how and the when are to be determined
Their use is also to be determined.

Kiss and Peace
A Dolce obsessed Miss S


Friday, October 17, 2014

New obsession

Sorry for being MIA for quite some time. Among books for my DELTA, lesson plans for my job, vacationing, cooking, shopping, pilatesing and other such -ing activities I had completely forgot about writing.
Quick update. Went to Copenhagen by car. Very fun, very chic, very Bonnie and Clyde. On our way, me and my Mystery stopped in Berlin (terribly wonderful), Leipzig (it reminded me of home), Hamburg (we almost didn't come back) and finally on the way back Munich (officially the Naples of Germany in my book).
Copenhagen. Beautiful, different, more expensive than a year-long stay at the Four Seasons, a culinary alien city, fashion forward on pretty much everything. But, at the end of the day, a tad bit blah for a city girl like me that needs dazzling lights and crazy traffic and endless rows of cheap and savoury ethnic restaurants. I got bike rides, organic muffins, a heck of a lot of wind and food that could sit in the palm of your hand passed around as actual dinner.
By the time we got back to Germany, I was experiencing a muffled ding in my ears from all that crazy wind.
As you can imagine, Germany was all about pretzels and beer and butter fried meat. Delicious.
Anyway, we got back in early September and I have been keeping myself occupied with my DELTA studying. Very occupied that is.
Yesterday, after practically blinding myself through reading I decided to take a streamlined look at the Apple conference that tech people have been dying to see. At the same time I was watching Marshall get wasted and ruin a wedding on "How I met you mother". Very funny.
Although most of the stuff they presented (the iPad and the new iMac plus some software stuff I wasn't properly listening to) was kinda long and boring for someone like me(an user rather than a connoisseur), the new iWatch got me freaking excited! I want one! I want one so bad, I might just buy two so that i can wear it on both arms. :)))
Now that is a sleek looking, technologically advanced, fashion sensitive piece of fruit logoed equipment!!! And I want one. And Tim didn't even have to convince me. You just have to look at the picture and you will feel an instant capitalistic, irresponsible, childish almost desire to possess it.
Who cares if their new iPad is as thin as HALF a pencil? Who cares if the pictures on you new iMac with retina display are better than the actual people and surroundings in them?
I want an iWatch! The why I shall consider after having purchased it!

Kiss and Peace
iMiss Sinister

Thursday, July 17, 2014

My kind of gal!





An amazing human being. An inspiring woman!

This is what will power and strength look like.

5 feet, 100 pounds of sheer determination!



Kiss and Peace

An inspired Miss Sinister

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Sales season fury

Sales season fever. I get giddy and excited about sales season almost as much as I do about Christmas, just with less expenses, which makes it so much enjoyable.
After splurging on crop tops and barely-there cutoff shorts and floral prints on pretty dresses and gladiator sandals (which strangely enough are still fashionable), I am still surfing the fashionable side of the web for here and there finds.
And here I am on nastygal.com.
Insert dull look with raised eyebrow. Now change to complete disbelief as I flip through several looks and suddenly understand that I have only two options on the face of this planet if I were to pick up on what nastygal.com so blatantly suggests with their freakin' website.
1. Loose 25 punds and turn anorexic.
2. Disappear. Leave their website alone for the really skinny people.

I am not overweight. I am on the side of athletic/slim. I practice pilates everyday, go swimming, trekking and enjoy cooking(and eating!). I am a US size 4, UK size 6, European size 38, Italian size 42. All numbers I have methodically learned through years of internet shopping. And sometimes I get really angry and frustrated with numbers and styles and fashion designers and brands. They must see the female population of this planet like a mass of inflatable dolls ready to inflate and deflate to perfectly adjust to their crazy clothes.

Soooo, nastygal.com. Sofia Amoruso started this website some years ago and it has garnered her fame and fortune and a golden throne in the Olympus of online fashion shopping.
But, dear Sofia, you're not anorexic. You're a normal looking, healthy weight kinda girl.
So why, in Dior's name would you do this to us? Slap all those dangerously skinny models on your website for all of us to see and instantly become self-conscience?
Are you completely unaware that those girls don't buy your stuff? Normal girls buy your stuff. Normal girls have time and money to buy your stuff. Normal. Normal can be skinny, slim, athletic, curvy, even slightly over-weight. Not everybody can be healthy at size 0. I personally think only tweens can be healthy at size 0, but that's just me.

Now please sit behind your desk, say I'm fat and envious and don't get fashion, please ignore me and think you're the s**t. That's just fine with me.
I'm going to press that little X at the top of your tab and never ever look back.

Oh, congrats on the name. You really are a nasty gal.

Kiss and Peace
Nice gal
Miss Sinister

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Shutter Sunday

Sunny day, slept well, did my hair, had a bunch of home grown strawberries for breakfast.
Coldplay's "A sky full of starts" really rocks.
Finally, lets get down to business and write some stuff.
Went to Milan last weekend with my super Mr. Mystery. Our hotel was miraculously just next to the MIA - Milan International Art Fair, and I spent a wonderful Saturday morning walking around the photo clad walls thinking just how much this inspires me.

Look, wait for the perfect moment to press your finger against the shutter release, listen to the sound it makes, imagine the picture you will see in a few seconds and then revel in the magic of that moment. That is exactly how I feel after each and every picture. That's just how taking a photo is.
I have always been artsy despite not having seen much art to begin with. I like colours and shadows, people from other centuries captured by oils and magic. I like black and white photography because you get to focus on the people, the detail, the movement in the picture, the eyes, the clothes.

Edward Steichen, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Yousuf Karsh, Annie Leibovitz, Francesco Scavullo.
Google any of these names and you'll understand what I'm talking about.
So nowadays, I spend more and more time thinking about photography.
I have a new Polaroid instant camera. Not exactly new since it's about 30 years old or so, but my wonderful Mystery found it in his attic. An online Impossible Project film order later, I took my first photo with a Polaroid a couple of weeks ago. Now I know selfies and 1000 shots/day is the new normal and photos are taken and thrown away faster than saying "cheese", but I still get a kick out of every shutter release I press. And considering the Polaroid has a shutter release several inches long and 20 minutes wait to see the actual photo, that rush I get when I take a photo has acquired a wholly new dimension. I'm hooked.
I feel like an addict who has just discovered a new drug. :)
 :)


















Kiss and Peace,
Miss Sinister

P.S. This is one of my favs. Shot 18 months ago in Tanzania



Sunday, May 18, 2014

What does the fox say?





Despite having been MIA for the past week, I have been unusually busy finishing the academic year(so yeah that means reports, tests, extra lesson), I have been quite consistent in following Casey Ho over on www.my.blogilates.com and today I was doing one of her videos and stumbled upon this song.

The silliness of this song is astounding yet somehow 400 million people, yes I said 400 million, have watched it on youtube.

It is the essentially the epitome of Internet-age viral. It's the Black Plague of the 21st century. The Spanish Influenza of the music business.

And I needed to share with you all.

I am in awe.



I am also secretly wishing I knew what sound the fox normally makes.





What does Miss Sinister say?

Kiss and Peace

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Move over Old McDonald!

After somehow making it through yesterday, I finally sat down to write this morning.
Apparently the sun hadn't run to some dark corner of the universe, standing us up like a bad blind date, since today and most of yesterday it has been shining his ass off.
Just did the morning rounds, turning on the water on my salad and spring onions

These are my tiny salads. They don't look like much now but you should see them in a month. They are 100% organic since I don't use anything to protect them, a choice that costs me about half of my crop since I'm feeding the entire population of snails and birds in my neighbourhood.
Planting them is quite easy and you can easily do it in a fruit crate on your very tiny city balcony. Personally I set them up in a big tool wooden tool crate that I snatched from my boyfriends father, but it's only about 25-30 cm/10 inches tall so it's well within the height of an easily procurable crate.
You just fill it with plant soil(it's better if you get quality soil since it will help your plants grow stronger), make tiny thumb  deep holes and put your salad in (I use the already grown ones, but if you want you can just put in the seeds - be careful though, they will need more sun and water). Make sure you water them everyday (early morning or late evening) for the first week or so (if it's too cold don't water them for that day) and you will get your own organic salad in no time.



The spring onions work just the same as the salad and don't need any extra depth. I plant these because I have developed an acute intolerance towards normal, supermarket onion that just kill my stomach and leave the bad breath from hell.
I use them for most of my cooking but also in my Spring Salad with all-raw vegetables.
I know they look a little shabby now, but it's been particularly crazy with the weather where I live so they had to go through a few days of Navajo May and a few days of the monsoon season so kudos to them for pulling through.







Just before I finish I have to show you a pic of my crazy chickens clucking at me just as I went to say hello. You know how people say chickens are stupid, with their tiny brains and all? Well, I think mine could well qualify for Genius Chicken of the Year Award. They recognise me, follow me around, make fun of my dog (poor Dudù), constantly escape and get back in on their own, have a bunch of microscopic mice who come visit and let them eat their food... a really cool group wouldn't you say?
Anyway, here they are. And please oooohhhh and awwwwww since I think they are adorable.

Kiss and Peace
Off to Pilatesland

Miss Sinister



Saturday, May 3, 2014

Saturday Soul Food

Woke up to a horribly wet Saturday morning and went out for breakfast with my wonderful boyfriend (if going out in the pouring rain with me for my craze of puff pastry doesn't make him wonderful, I don't know what will), I remembered I wanted to write down a recipe.
I'm a big fan of everything sweet, having more than once passed on real food for some sort of diabetic inducing concoction that made my day. Since me and, I imagine, half the female population on the globe are constantly on a diet, either for looks of for spirit, for themselves, their boyfriends, that perfect LBD that just won't fit you anymore...anyway, I am always on the lookout for something delicious yet healthy to eat in the morning.
And no, I am not talking about the crazy "organic chia seed-golden flax seed-Peruvian cow milk-freshly picked by the hands of innocent children berries" kind of recipes that make me go....WTF??!!!
I sometimes wonder if the people who write the impossible to follow "do-it-yourself" recipes live on Earth or on a far away planet, maybe the newly discovered Kepler-22b, where every crazy ingredient that pops into their green recipes is conveniently stocked and easily purchasable at their local supermarket.
So what I normally do is find a good recipe and change the crazy, difficult to find ingredients in stuff I know I'll always have around the house. After all, I have a job and I live on Earth.
So here goes nothing.

Morning dash pancakes
  • 250-300 g/8-9 oz of oat flakes
  • 200 ml/ 7 oz of soy milk (rice milk, almond milk-all of them are just as good)
  • 2 small eggs ( I have three chickens in my garden so I get organic eggs free, but just about any    organic eggs will do)
  • 2 tsp of cinnamon (I use the normal, supermarket type, but if you have whole cinnamon, ground it and use, I'm sure it's going to make these pancakes taste awesome)
1. Put the oat flakes and cinnamon into a blender and mix. 
2. After a minute or so, add the soy milk and eggs.
3. Heat a small pan with a drop (a drop!) of olive oil. (I prefer olive oil to any other possible oil or spray because it adds flavour and is so much healthier)
4. Pour some of your mix into the pan. It should be 2-3 cm/1 inch thick. Wait for bubbles to form on top and flip it!
5.Wait 1 more minute for the other side.

Finito! You're ready to put jam, fruit or maple syrup on top of your pancakes. This batter will give you about 6-7 pancakes depending on your pan. Make sure your partner is in it with you!

The whole preparing, creating and eating time is under 20 minutes. 

Hope you enjoy it!

Kiss and Peace 

Miss Sinister

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Open for business

Rattling my brains for the past few weeks with the quintessential question of: should I or shouldn't I?
I decide I should.
I have been overly outspoken and stubbornly opinionated for the best part of my life, becoming even more so when I started putting everything on paper. Actually no, not on paper, on screen.
Life for us all has become such a complicated mess of emotions, preconceived ideas, fear and expectations, pleasures and 32-hours long days, hobbies and fashion, being fit and eating green, crappy jobs and fabulous shoes.
All of them get concentrated into what we call life.
My life is wonderfully complicated by a boyfriend and a dog, a job and three chickens, not enough time to do everything but an ostinate desire to do everything anyway, a whole lot of pilates, at least 6 years of green cooking with an endless number of recipes to share, 2 years of planting and killing but also growing vegetables and a lifelong passion for fashion. The last has resulted in permanent damage to my brain and my wallet.

This place will look at fashion and food, sport and life. But it will undoubtedly talk about all of them from my own very subjective point of view.
So buck up strangers! We're going for a ride.

Kiss and Peace

Miss Sinister