Saturday, 27 November 2010

*Winterstart*

Frost touched roofs, street signs, her lips and fingertips. City was filling with steaming people every time they talk, yawn or simply breathe. Kids started painting on trams' windows - it's just a matter of time, when they start sticking their tongues to the metal poles to prove wrong or right the theory about metal and flesh cooperation in cold. People doubled in size - coat, scarf, hat; i'm not talking about that part of society though, which cares about actually exposing their bodies as much as possible - you will always find more of this treat in certain parts of the city. 
Dogs were dressed in colourful, warm and sometimes (mostly?) embarrassing clothes. Kids too. Neither of them really cared. 

Snow fell really slowly on the sleeping city when just few were awake and sneakily hid during the day. Layers of it like sugar icing on a cupcake were to be seen outside and she shuddered a bit while having her cup of tea at the balcony doors. She would normally go out and sit outside, but not now, not in the winter. 
She didn't like cold, although enjoyed the snow sometimes. Watching it. Especially in the mornings, when she would still be inside or in the evenings, when it glitters in million colours, reflecting street lamps, cars and the rest of what this flashing world has to offer. 
Mornings changed after the first snow fell. It became colder in temperature outside and inside, it became slower, for no one wants to get out of their cozy beds, it became really silent. Sometimes it would struck her, that yet another year passed by. Snow was her messenger.  Sometimes she would turn silent for the whole season and hold back a lot, stay in front of the books. She would often buy candles, for she thought it goes well with the winter. 

Today she's trying to figure out what kind of music suits winter most. 
"It's almost december",- she thought to herself. Everything around her knew what that means - another year almost passed by... 

Friday, 26 November 2010

Buy Nothing Day.


Today Buy Nothing Day starts in North America and from tomorrow it's going international, so i'm going to join as well! 

I'm really happy about days like that, because people consume way too much. Way too much... I hope there's gonna be a change during these two days, at least for a little while. 

You know, sometimes i wonder... Do people ask themselves really what they are buying and what for when they're in the super market??? 

Thursday, 25 November 2010

Being a photographer (again)

This monday i started working as a photographer, which lets me gain even more and more confidence in the path of life i've chosen for myself. Trying to become a photographer...

I guess, i should mention the details about this job, which kinda spoils the whole thing. I'm working in the shopping mall as a X-mas photographer, so i'm taking pictures of kids on santa's lap. Not really the best job you can find, but i guess i have to start somewhere, huh..? It's interesting actually and i can practice photography (and have to!) every day, even though it's not really what i would wanna do in the future - taking pictures of kids on someone's lap. Anyway, i'm not the complaining type, so i'm just happy to have this kinda opportunity. Of course, i do have a boss, but there, where i'm working, i'm the boss so to say, which is also nice i suppose. Besides, i fortunately manage to make good shots and people's comments are a big help for me to believe in myself. Comments like it's hard to pick a picture, because there's so many great ones or something like: "One is better than the previous one... and the next one's gonna be better than this one...". That actually IS nice to hear.

I'm happy i can have this experience though, because right now i can truly say, i would wanna work as a photographer on daily basis, and now i know what it would be like. It's not going too well at the moment though, because the part of the city that shopping mall is, isn't the best one, and also we're at the end of the month, which makes it even trickier, when you have to decide where you wanna spend your money. I am looking forward to December, we'll see how many customers will come. 


Sunday, 14 November 2010

Resizing multiple pictures with Automator

I work with pictures a lot, since that's what i do and so i have to resize them often when uploading to internet or sharing via mail, skype and so on. My biggest problem was the time i have to put into, so lately lots of pictures are just left to be without being processed, even though everyone's asking me to upload this or that shot, but i shiver from the thought of resizing 100 or 200 pictures and just promise myself to do it tomorrow and tomorrow i promise to do that the day after and i never really do a thing. So today i finally decided to google it up... And right now, i'm siting with a huge smile, relieved and a little bit angry with myself for not doing it earlier. 
I am a Mac user, so there's not gonna be any useful information for Windows users in this post, but those, who are using Mac and still don't know how to resize a batch of pictures at once, gonna love it!

I found an article about how to do it using Automator (i know, lots of people are somehow afraid of this program, but believe me - it's good!), and wanna share it with you... There's one mistake though in the article, or if it's not a mistake, then at least difference if you're using the newest OS. When you're choosing an application the article tells you to go for PREVIEW, which in my case was PHOTOS. So don't panic if you cannot find the Preview thingy. Anyway, have fun with it:




Your Milly

Monday, 8 November 2010

Pumpkin cupcakes!


Yesterday i made pumpkin cupcakes and the recipe was all mine (came up with that while doing homework)... Just combined what i think had to be combined, and you know what? It turned out just beautifully! I was happy about the texture, about the form and, of course, about the taste. Baking wasn't my strong point a while ago, but i tried and tried over and over again and lately my baking's getting better. Finally! In the past weeks i made really delicious cookies and a nice tender apple pie... This week i'm up to bread pudding with custard cream and cinnamon pound cake. We'll see how that goes... I do have some more ideas which are a little bit more complicated, but since i wanna get in better shape before winter sets in, i should get easy on sweets, right? 

Practice makes perfect after all...!

Sunday, 7 November 2010

Knowledge after good lunch.

Today i understood one thing completely after eating nice warm kebab for lunch. 

You know, if you want something and it's not getting out of your mind - JUST DO IT. That's the easiest way... Couple of days back i went into this junk-food mode, when i wanted pizza or kebab soo badly (the rest of junk food i don't eat...), but i told myself that it's not a good idea and tried to forget about it. The result was pretty bad... Yesterday i ended up in overeating - i ate basically everything i had at home and i didn't feel full but at some point i did feel sick! Despite that, i still was thinking about pizza. 
I guess my calorie intake was outrageous and if there would be a record of overeating on totally random food it would have to go to me. The last thing i ate was dry instant cocoa powder used for drinks - how pathetic. 
So today when i again started making plans of what i could eat INSTEAD of what i actually wanna eat i felt the urge rushing back to eat pizza or kebab, and so i just got my jacket, shoes, money and went across the street to grab myself a kebab. I did want to skip all the meals today, since i sinned yesterday, but then again i decided it's not a good way and i should just forgive myself for yesterday. After all, that kebab did make me feel full - finally!!!  There's not that much bad food when it comes to common sense (except mcdonalds, "dead" food, modified one and so on...), there's just bad amounts of it. And i know i'm not one of those who tend to overeat and i'm not obese, so why not cut a slack every once in a while and enjoy?