Link Love

I would like to experiment with a new post category: link love. You might have seen this category on other blogs already. For me it's always fun to read what articles and posts other bloggers enjoyed reading. I hope you enjoy reading my link favorites, too.

Have a look at my potpourri of links I enjoyed reading in May & June:

• Tips and opinions on how to tell if an appartment has adequate soundproofing before moving in by the readers of apartment therapy. Obviously this is a very important question when you are looking for a new apartment. I myself remember living in several flats where I couldn't sleep because my neighbors have been partying and inviting people over all the time. Hence, choose your neighborhood and neighbors well. If you move in next to a drummer who enjoys drumming on the balcony, you won't have a lot of fun in your new apartment. This is a real life story since I once was viewing an apartment for rent while a drummer was drumming on the balcony of the neighboring flat. Of course I didn't rent that specific apartment. ;-)
• Stepcase Lifehack describes 19 ways to fall asleep fast.  
• Yes and yes have published tips on how to broadcast body confidence. Great article. I like it a lot and highly recommend reading! In addition, my experience is that doing a lot of sports is also a great way to broadcast body confidence since it helps you with building up the muscles you need for keeping up a good posture. Doings sports properly yields a great posture and straightens the body - you literally can't have a bad posture anymore. Furthermore, you start to feel great and love your body because sports makes you feel every inch of it. Hence, you not only broadcast body confidence but literally have it. :-) 
• Leo Babauta the guru of time management describes in his blog zenhabits 20 small actions to create a fit environment. He has some really great advice and got me into registering at Fitocracy myself as well. I am testing it at the moment.
• Amy describes how she stays healthy while travelling. 
• BBC2 has broadcasted the show The Men who made us fat and the Guardian wrote an excellent article on food addiction and why our society is endangered by obesity (yes, sugar and junk food is highly addictive and this is why it causes obesity). Very interesting and highly recommended in this context is the blog of Sarah Wilson who has quit sugar. 
• At My Life All in One Place a really nice travelling journal print out for personal sized and pocket sized Filofaxes is available. Enjoy and organize your holidays! :-) Btw: it doesn't have to be a Filofax, there are plenty of customizable calendars where Filofax refills fit as well. See the German sizing and hole spacing guide of Filofax (in German) and compare it with your customizable calendar. 
• This is an interesting blog on daily routines of writers, artists and other interesting people. Ever wanted to know how they organized their days? Have a look here. ;-)
• Adulting is a cute blog giving advice on how to become a grown up person. 
• E-Book lovers and digital librarians, here is the perfume for you: Paper passion. ;-) 
• Smart people are especially prone to stupid mistakes and stupid. Considering the huge amount of stupid mistakes I am making all the time, I must be incredibly smart. ;-) By the way, "Thinking, fast an slow" by the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahnemann seems to be a really great book and is already on my To-Read list for some time. Now it moved a bit up in the queue.
• While surfing, we all come accross the 404 http error code from time to time. There are also plenty of other http error codes. In June, a new one has been proposed by the XML creator Tim Bray: error code 451 for "Legally restricted". This might be useful for detecting whether a site has been censored by a court or government. Especially when you are a hacker. ;-) Don't mind the joke, I agree with the fact that increasing transparency is always a good thing. Have also a look at the announcement at boingboing. 
• Here are three things you need to know about photo tagging in facebook! 
• Quirky has just relased a new modular storage system. Isn't it incredibly cute and lovely? I wish products from Quirky would be available in Europe as well, look at how cute their other products are.
• Here is a very interesting article on trolling or just being rude by the Guardian.
• I love Real Techniques Brushes and have a couple of them as well. Now there are new ones available as shown by Getting Cheeky and Essiebutton. The Expert Face Brush, the Setting Brush, the Blush Brush and the Shading Brush are now on my brush wishlist. However, since I own around 100 to 200 brushes, I am currently not allowing myself to buy any brushes soon again. But I keep a wishlist and dream of these brushes at night. ;-) 
• Another thing on my beauty wishlist is this eyeshadow palette by Soap & Glory: raves by Essiebutton and Getting Cheeky. Some day ... ;-)
• At Squeaky Swing I stumbled upon a really a cute knitted laptop bag. It's a design by the blogger herself. What an inspiration! I should really knit more myself, too. 
• Orgasms due to abs workouts? Really? Although I have never experienced orgasms while doing workouts myself, this was not the first time I came across this topic. In a book by Benita Cantieni, I already read about orgasms while doing pelvic floor workouts. The author associated this phenomenon with the pudendal nerve (Pudendus Nerv in german) which apparently some people can stimulate by proper pelvic floor training. Interesting. :-)
• End of June, there was a Bobbi Brown blogger event in Munich. See reports by Magi and hearttobreathe. This is the only blogger event, I had fun reading about. The guys from Bobbi Brown even offered a Yoga session in order to show the bloggers that the makeup stays during sports. By the way, in my aqua running course I am attending each week, I also wear the Bobbi Brown Gel eyeliner. The one by Bobbi Brown and the waterproof gel eyeliners by Essence and Zoeva are the only ones that don't disappear or smudge all over the face while doing sports in water. :-)
• A mentor-led accelerator program for start-ups called Springboard currently takes place at Google Campus London. Springboard is a 13 week programme where the founders receive intense mentoring and business support. TNW publishes a video series following three startups taking part in the Springboard accelerator. Have a look at the videos here. I found them interesting and motivating. :-) 
• 3 forum recommendations for the bad times when your computer is not working as it should e.g. because it has got infected. 
• Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia & Wikia) has launched an online campaign against the extradition of  Richard O'Dwyer to the US for his search engine for streaming and downloading tv shows (typically programmes not yet available outside the US). See also this article by the Guardian. Julian Assange has recently lost his extradition case, but he is not a UK citizen and with Richard O'Dwyer it is pretty clear that he has not violated the copyright law since he has not made any copyrighted content available himself but only provided the links to such content through his search engine. Linking content actually shouldn't be prosecuted as long as the links are deleted upon request which Richard O'Dwyer seems to have done. Here is also another article by the Guardian on Richard O'Dwyer.
• Stepping out of our comfort zones keeps us youthful, flexible and happy. Stepcase Lifehack provides inspiration on how to step out of our comfort zones. Since stepping out of our comfort zones often involves more social interaction, these tips on remembering people's names might be useful, too. :-)
• Stepcase Lifehack has also published 24 quotes on creativity. Enjoy! :-)
• The European Union has launched a "Women in Science" campaign last Thursday and one of the videos uploaded to Youtube is highly controversial. Actually, since the video aimed at getting attention which it obviously managed to do, maybe we should not take it that seriously. The profiles on women in science are really very well made and inspiring, hence, it's obvious that the EU isn't that shallow minded as it comes across in this specific video. I had a good laugh while watching it and believe it or not, somehow I do like it alltogether. It's light, it's fun. Come on, it's not that bad (considering the context). ;-)

Jamie Oliver @TED

Watch an emotionally arousing talk by Jamie Oliver on food and unhealthy eating habits especially in the United States of America. This talk has been held in the US in conjunction with him being a TED Prize winner of 2010 and is linked below. Healthy food is not only important in the US, it is an important topic all over the world! Everyone should take care of what they eat and everyone has to get to know how to cook healthy food!

I haven't learned how to cook as a child either. My mother cooks amazing and very healthy, so I grew up very healthy. But unfortunately, I somehow have not been taught how to cook myself and have not helped my mother with cooking at all as a child. So, I struggled with food and cooking when I moved out and also gained some weight. Only recently, I had a major breakthrough with cooking when I moved together with my boyfriend. He cooks amazing and he taught me a lot and helped me to get a feeling for cooking and dealing with spices and ingredients. Now I really enjoy experimenting with recipes and ingredients and also have developed some feeling for cooking. Currently, I also read Jamie's Dinners by Jamie Oliver which is a very inspiring every day cooking book. (This is why I had a look at his TED talk in the first place.)

Here is a dish we cooked according to a recipe included in Jamie's Dinners last weekend. It's roast chicken with lemon and rosemary roast potatoes (have a look at the recipe online). Yummie - I am not exaggerating by telling you that this was the very best chicken with potatoes I ever had in my whole life.

Cooking is an essential skill for a healthy and thought-ful life. But it is a long way until feeling comfortable with cooking when you haven't got any access to it as a child. Interestingly, a lot of my friends do cook but in the end of the day, it's obvious that they don't have that kind of feeling for ingredients and cooking that I admire and aim for myself (but I am totally not there yet either ;-)), namely to be able to set up a meal in mind while walking through a (super)market or while looking through the fridge and trying to consume leftovers or products near date of expiry. As Jamie says: being a good cook means juggling with ingredients and spontaneously assemble parts of a meal yielding tasty combinations. Here, practice is essential. However, for most people I know (except of my mother and my boyfriend and very few friends) cooking is something special you just do strictly according to a recipe and rather seldomly, e.g. on weekends or for special occasions. Of course, it's no wonder that they don't have much experience with cooking and might also not be able to help their children gaining some.

In the above mentioned book by Jamie Oliver, he manages very well to support the reader with gaining confidence for every day cooking activities. Here is the link to the german version of Jamie's Dinners (german title: Essen ist fertig) at Amazon:

Yoda theme

I've been a bit obsessed with the Yoda theme lately (I love, love, love Star Wars and especially of course Yoda). The Star Wars films have even been scheduled on my to rewatch soon list by me now. :-) Here are some quotes (love them, they are truly sapient):

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.”

 

“Remember, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Luke... Luke... do not... do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor or suffer your father's fate you will. Luke, when gone am I... the last of the Jedi will you be. Luke, the Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned, Luke. There is... another... Sky... walker.”

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”

"The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side."  

"If into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find."

"No! No different. Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned."

"Do or do not ... There is no try"

“May the Force be with you.”  

"When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not ehh."

 

New in: Illamasqua Naked Strangers

Recently, I stumbled over the new Illamasqua Naked Strangers Limited Edition while browsing through the newest posts mentioning this limited edition at InnenundAussen and Nudeaddict. Actually, I try to keep away from limited editions (because I want to support the standard products since they can be repurchased without any limits concerning amount or time) and also from blushes (because I have far too many blushes - somehow I tend to collect them) but the swatches of the two blushes of this limited edition have made all my good intentions evaporate. The two blushes that come with this limited edition are a cream blush called "Zygomatic" and a powder blush called "Naked Rose". Both are very subtle nude rosy colours and as you might already have read between the lines of my blog: I am a sucker for nudish make up looks. Hence, I needed to order these two blushes.
They arrived today and after the first swatches and experiments with them I am really happy that I threw my good intentions overboard and didn't keep myself to my prohibition to buy LEs or blushes. These two blushes have the potential to become my favourite blushes of all times. They are just lovely and look great on me.

This is how they looked upon arrival:

Here is a swatch of the cream blush in "Zygomatic". It's a very subtle soft brownish rose colour. The colour is really difficult to capture in a picture and always turns out to be more brownish in pictures than it really is. It's a wonderful and lovely mix of pink and brown and it can create the most subtle flush of colour on the cheeks I've ever seen. Too bad that it does not belong to the regular product line of Illamasqua and is just available for a limited amount of time within a limited edition. As said, these blushes have the potential to become my favourite blushes of all times and I won't be able to repurchase them. This is *exactly* why I don't want to buy any LE products anymore. ;-)

This is a swatch of the powder blush in "Naked Rose". Naked Rose is also a great colour and a bit more pinkish than Zygomatic. It's still a very subtle nude pink blush. Really lovely. I also like how both blushes look combined.   

Here is more information from the back of the products and from the back of the packaging, including ingredients (in both pictures Naked Rose is on the left and Zygomatic is on the right):

Anne Semonin @Radisson Blu

During my short trip, I also stayed a night with the Radisson Blu hotels. There you can find products from Anne Semonin in your bathroom. Have a look at the Anne Semonin products I found in my room during my Radisson Blu stay:

Normally, the beauty items that can be found in hotel rooms are not so special, but these ones are great. I am writing this post because I fell deeply in love with the body lotion. It's just perfect: the scent (lightly like verveine in a nice and subtle way), how fast it is absorbed by the skin, the application, ... everything. Because of this sample sized product at Radisson, I wanted to repurchase it and searched for an online shop but haven't found it unfortunately. :-( It seems that this specific body lotion can only be found at Radisson Blu hotels. 

On the website of Anne Semonin there is an online shop but only this product seems somewhat similar: botanical body milk. However, it seems that it does not smell like verveine. And it is also very expensive with 48 Euro for 200ml. Nevertheless, the sample at Radisson has conviced me to add the botanical body milk of Anne Semoning to my wish list for somewhen in the future when I have enough money such that I don't have second thoughts when paying 50 Euro for 200ml of body lotion. And in the meantime I hope to be able to stay with Radisson Blu again. ;-)

The shampoo has the same divine scent like the body lotion, but I find it to be very drying and hence wouldn't want to purchase it. I think I wouldn't take it home with me after a Radisson Blu hotel stay either. It's not a good shampoo for dry hair like mine.