Hola lovelies 💕,

It’s already time for October favourites. This year is almost over. It always scares me how fast time is going because I always feel like I’m not living the life I want. It makes me anxious. I’m glad that at least I enjoyed some nice things in October such as going to the swimming pool with my brother, mother and lovely niece, having fun with my best friend, buying Christmas cards and receiving the book “To love and let go” 💗.

Things I did with my family 👪:

Going to the swimming pool 🏊

I went to the swimming pool with my brother, mother and my little niece who’s right now 4 years old 👧. I have always loved this swimming pool so much. I love the slide which is 60m. It has a side where you can go a bit outside. There are also jacuzzis and there’s another big swimming pool. Swimming is just the best thing ever 🏊 It always makes me feel so relaxed, inspired and happy afterwards. I want to go more often. Doing sports is so good for our physical and mental health. I went down the slide with my niece alone and we had loads of fun.

I even made a friend after swimming which was a girl from Syria 🇸🇾. I love to meet people from other countries, religions or nationalities. I believe that the diversity of the world is what makes this world a beautiful place to live in 🌍. Hearing her talk made me emotional. I also talked about the war which is going on there. I find it hard to talk about it because I can definitely feel how hard it must be to leave your country and live in another one where you don’t speak the language. In two years she learned Dutch, has her driving license, just got her swimming diploma and is studying. This made me feel bad too because sometimes I take too many things for granted in life such as my home, my freedom, food, water and all the things we have and so many others in this world don’t have.

Having delicious fondue with the family 🍽️

I had a delicious night of fondue with my brother, his wife and my parents the weekend before me and my mother were off to Spain. We ate delicious food such as potatoes with different sauces and vanilla ice cream with fruits 😋. It’s always a tradition to have fondue like you can read in my posts.

Buying Sinterklaas presents 🎁

I bought presents for the feast Sinterklaas which we celebrate the 6th of December with my family. The official date of this feast is the 5th of December. It’s a celebration like Santa Claus 🎉. They say he comes from Spain to deliver presents. I wanted to buy almost all presents because I will spend most of November in Spain. Some Dutch families make surprises but we just buy presents for each other. I love to give and receive presents! I already wrapped all presents too.

Making a wish list for Sinterklaas 📃

I love to make lists and especially wish lists haha 💖. I always make them for Sinterklaas, Christmas, The Three Kings Day and my birthday. I just update them every now and then. This year I ask for loads of nice books such as from Holly Bourne, of course nice stationery, yogi tea, book paper lovers from Flow and the calendar from Flow. Flow is such a nice Dutch magazine which makes loads of amazing and creative stuff. I also always want an advent calendar. I love to eat a chocolate 🍫 a day until Christmas.

Autumn in the park 🍁🍂🍃

I enjoyed a nice walk in the park with my mother. I’m a Summer girl but I love the beautiful leaves in Autumn. The park was beautiful and we made some nice pictures. Afterwards, we went to the restaurant in the park and drank a delicious mint tea 🍵 with some cookies 🍪.

Trip to Spain ✈️🇪🇸

I’m in Spain right now since a week. I’m always happy to be in Spain but I also know that my body stays with me wherever I go so I have anxiety also wherever I go. I used to think that if I travel somewhere else, I would feel better. There’s some sunshine here which makes life a bit better. I’m also happy to see my friends in Spain, eat delicious food and have fun. I also know that I still have to go to the dentist which makes me so anxious but I hope to overcome this fear soon. To be honest, I’m struggling a lot with anxiety now 😢.

Buying Christmas cards 🎄🎅

I already bought Christmas stuff such as washi tape, a silver and golden pen, stickers and Christmas cards because I want to begin writing Christmas cards in Spain. Maybe I’m also sending them from Spain. It’s better to do it earlier because otherwise I get stressed as December is always a busy month. It’s better to have it done already because this year I will write 30 cards, every year less than the year before because not everyone writes me back. I love to write them but the fun is also to get a card back 💌.

Buying new stationery and bath products 🛀

When I went one day to the shopping mall near to my house with my mamita I bought loads of nice stationery. I bought a set of 20 cards with different designs. I love the blue, pink and purple colours and the quotes on it 💙💜. I also bought new washi tapes. I bought loads of bath products too which includes a blue mermaid bath bomb and bath salt with mixed flower petals and grapefruit scent. For the trip to Spain I bought nail polish remover pads 💅, coconut body cream which I love so much as it smells so good, my favourite dry shampoo Batiste cherry and eye make-up remover oil pads from the Hema.

Things I did with my lovely friends 💖:

Eating delicious food with my bestie 🍽️💗

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒔 𝒂 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒏𝒊𝒆 𝒃𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 💗

I’m so happy I saw my bestie again after 4 months twice. It’s always good to see my best friend 😍 I loved eating at Bagels and Beans as it’s one of my fav places. I had such a delicious bagel with avocado, salad, tomato, cheese and drank a mint tea. It doesn’t matter how long we don’t see each other because our friendship never changes. You know when the friendship is real, deep and honest when everything stays the same when you see each other again after a long time. I’m so so so thankful to have you in my life. I will be always there for you. Even writing this makes me emotional. We are both a highly sensitive person forever haha 💗 Thank you for guiding me through life. Thank you for being the light 💡 in the dark times. Thank you for being my best friend who is always there for me when I need it. Thank you for our real talks about politics, mental health, feminism, life, death, music, books, and just anything.

We all need a little help from our friends and it’s just so true. Being surrounded by good people make you feel less alone in your struggles. The moment I share something and I hear you or another loved one say me too I feel a bit better. We are never alone. We are all walking this life together. As long as I have you by my side I will be okay. 11 year friends. Forever besties. I love you so much, to infinity and beyond, to the moon and back 💕💝💖🌜🌛🌝🌕

The second time we saw each other we went to La Place in the shop Hudson Bay which is a restaurant where you can see whole Haarlem. We ate a delicious tomato soup 🍜 with some cheese. We had some good talks, laughed a lot and afterwards we did some shopping. I bought some nice cards with quotes and some stickers. I’m going to miss this shop when it’s going away only for the stationery hahah. We also went to see her brother, his wife and parents because they were celebrating her brother’s birthday 🎂🎉. I loved to see them all as I’m just one of the family. It’s nice to feel so connected and so loved.

Receiving beautiful pen pal letters 🖋️

I received some beautiful mail from my lovely pen pals. I received beautiful mail from Sophia which inluded some awesome unicorn writing paper and envelopes. I also loved your notes and stickers. The letter from Mollie was also amazing. I loved the goodies especially the whale card and the sticky notes. Thank you Vikki for your amazing mail too. I loved the friendship card, the other cards with quotes, the unicorn key ring and the feather sticky notes. I love all my pen pals so much. Writing is healing and makes me so happy 😍.

Other amazing things of October 🍁:

Receiving the book “To love and let go” by Rachel Brathen 📖💞

I finally received the book “To love and let go” by Yoga Girl. She’s my biggest inspiration in life 😍. I also wrote about her and her book in this post. I’m in the middle of this book and I already cried so much. It’s so heartbreaking, so beautiful and so real. In this book she wrote about how she lost her best friend, the divorce she suffered from her parents and the suicide attempts from her mother. She writes about loss, gratitude and love. This book is one of my favourite books ever now. I can’t wait to meet Rachel one day and go on a yoga retreat. Thank you so much for being the light in this sometimes dark world 🙏🌍✨. We need it. I’m so thankful for the Yoga Girl community where I met so many amazing people which I also hope to meet soon. It’s so important to hold space for others to feel our feelings. That’s exactly what this book is about. Feel our feelings, the good and the bad. Go through the dark times in life and eventually you will find the light.

Blas Cantó is going to represent Spain for Eurovision Song Contest 2020 🇪🇸🎙️

I was very happy to hear that Blas Cantó is going to represent Spain in Eurovision in Rotterdam, The Netherlands next year. I hope to be able to see it live because it cost a lot of money but it’s been 44 years that Eurovision comes to The Netherlands. It’s a one in a lifetime experience 🇳🇱. It would be great to see Spain winning in The Netherlands haha. Blas Cantó is a very popular singer here and famous for his song “Él no soy no”. His voice is beautiful and I’m sure he will do really good in Eurovision.

Thank you all for reading this blog post. I hope you all liked it. What kinds of fun things did you do in October? What are your favourites from my post? Did you like the new stationery I bought? Let me know lovelies. I will speak to you all in my next blog post.

Much love 💕,

xoxo Christina