The Talented Ms. Strawberry

How are you all doing? Are you anxiously awaiting Halloween with its parties, costumes and horror-movies?
As for me - I'm not. I haven't planned anything, not even watching a horror-movie because I don't really like them XD The only thing that Stefan and I are doing on monday is giving some dancing lessons to Sophie and her boyfriend. We'll see how spooky that will be ;)

By the way, Stefan and I have finally started dancing in a real sports club. It was about time, at least for me. 10 years of dancing and just now I enter a club XD
It's great but also challenging, perfect for me <3

To come back to the title of this post: For one of my courses this semester I had to read "The Talented Mr. Ripley" by Patricia Highsmith. I was a little sceptic in the beginning because usually I don't like crime stories but I soon realised that it is not really a crime story. It's rather a thriller, maybe even psycho-thriller and even if not, Ripley's psyche is very important. The novel is about Tom Ripley, an American who earns his money with smaller jobs and frauds, who is being send to Italy by a businessman. His task is to bring Dickie, the businessman's son, back to America after he has spent several years as a painter in the village Mongibello. Instead of asking him to come back he befriends him, but ends up killing him and decides to live on under Dickies identity.
Okay, that was a short and very bad summary and no, I have not told you the ending, you'll find Dickie's death in every summary you read XD
I haven't done a book review in quite some time and I'm not really in the mood to do it now, so just in case you'd like to have something interesting and well-written to read: Try "The Talented Mr. Ripley". I liked it so much that now I want to read the other Ripley-novels that Patricia Highsmith wrote after this one.

Of course there has been some progress on my stitching:

Hurley obviously wanted to do some shameless self-promotion :D
I ran out of blue thread today, maybe I'll buy some more tomorrow... or I'll sew something instead and continue with it next week ^^

By the way, you may have noticed it in the sidebar: I've joined poupéegirl. If you also have an account, feel free to add me ^^

The end is nigh!

More and more progress on my cross-stitching:

Yay ^^ I really like it but I think as soon as I'm done with this I won't be able to look at blue thread anymore. I seriously can't wait to use different colours again XD

Today Stefan and I helped our dance instructor Marco to teach waltz and chacha to the beginners ^^ We'll be helping him out until his sister comes back from her stay in America by the end of November (actually they teach together).
It was the first time for me to dance in my new shoes <3 They are awesome! As usually, new shoes don't fit perfect, they were a little tight at my left toes (my left foot is slightly bigger than my right one) but they are real leather, so they can and will widen a little throughout the time. But still they are sooo comfy <3 I'm in shoe-love *____*

And then I want to show you another quick-and-dirty outfit that I wore last week and really liked:

I'm happy to say that finally we're planning another Lolita meet-up. I can't wait to really dress-up more fancy again and meet other Lolitas. Maybe there'll also be new faces? Well, we'll see.
Time to think about what to wear ^^

I have new dancing shoes...

Imagine me singing the words above to the melody of "Dancing Queen" and with a delirious smile on my face *____*
My lovely boyfriend bought me a pair of dancing shoes! Not just shoes that I can wear to dance, but REAL dancing shoes! I can't even express how happy and thankful I am! I guess I just have the best boyfriend ever ^^ I love you, my dear :-* (though of course not only because you buy me things, but I'm sure you know that)
I have to admit, if I had had to chose according to look I would have picked a different pair, but these just fit best:

Not the best photo, I know. I just wanted to show you the bag that came with it ^^
Buying them was a little adventure of its own. Sophie came along with me and my boyfriend to have a look at some shoes and we had to sit down, put our shoes under our seats and were only allowed to try the dancing shoes on on a footmat and a part of laminate. An old lady, who was also there to buy some shoes, stepped on the laminate with her normal shoes and the shopkeeper immediately had to wipe it clean. Although it wasn't even dirty -.- The shopkeeper herself was... let's say special XD She didn't really listen to our wishes and just told us several times the same stories about her own 11 pairs of dancing shoes XD And she kind of scared us by telling us that it usually takes 2 to 4 hours to find the perfect pair of shoes @.@ In the end it really took almost two hours and several pairs to find it ^^

Anyways, speaking of my cute boyfriend: I took this twee picture of him and our cat Hurley a few days ago. It's so sweet how he always curls up on Stefan's or my lap *___*

Now I also want to show you an outfit snap and the obligatory (and blurry -.-) progress picture ^^

Nothing special, but I like how the dress looks with an underskirt and I just love my hat and my flower hair pins ^^

Photo booth reloaded

As I told you (and as you have probably already read at Mias and Sophies blog ^^) the Gang had a fantastic evening at the cocktail bar and afterwards we had a lot of fun at the photobooth:

What would I do without my beloved manatees? ^^ *insider-alert*
*ongk ongk ongk*

Thank you so much!

And again I got a cute Valentine! It's great that you like my blog and thank you so much for the compliment! *___*

I always fear that these mirror shots look kind of... awkward but the lighting's best there, so most of the time they turn out best XD

Last weekend my beloved Vroni got married *___* She looked incredibly beautiful and I'm sooo happy that she has found just the perfect husband for her! Of course the Gang was there to celebrate with her and I hope that I can show you some pictures soon (if I get permission to do so ^^) and then you'll also hear a little more about the wedding. It was the first wedding I ever attended and it was wonderful! But as I said, later you'll hear more ^^

And today we'll have a little "After-show-party", meaning we'll go out and have some cocktails ^^ I'd love to wear my new Surface Spell dress, but I'll have to change the straps first... I'll see if I can fix them still today.

Oh, almost forgot the obligatory progress picture ;)

I hope your weekend was just as fun as mine was and I wish you a good start into the week ^^

Back to brown

How are you all doing today? Is it also incredibly windy where you are? I hate it -.- And even so I have to go out in the evening again @.@

As you know, I actually wanted to become blonde and today I went to the hairdresser.
She however advised me not to dye it blonde because my hair is so messed up colourwise that it wouldn't be even anyways and also it's a lot of stress for it. So in order to at least get it a little more natural, we decided on a... medium brown I'd say? Though still now it's not even, but now instead of different shades of blonde and ginger, I have different shades of brown XD Enough of the talking, that's it:

I think it suits me quite well, but I'm afraid it doesn't look too well with the purple dress for the wedding. But I haven't tried that yet, I'll do that later. Although even if it doesn't look good I'll wear it XD
I'm afraid the coloured tips will have to be postponed because they wouldn't look as good with this haircolour.

And now, the obligatory progress picture ^^

The blue is not perfect, but it works and I couldn't find a better one anyways.

By the way, I'm glad you're not scared off by longer texts. A good friend of mine once said that she doesn't post when she doesn't have a picture to show and that got me thinking that maybe people don't want to read but prefer only looking at pictures XD

Just a proof of progress

Sushi-licious

The title already gives it away: I ate sushi today ^^ It was my first time, so I thought it would be worth mentioning but let's start at the beginning:
My boyfriend asked me to come with him to the custom office today because he had to pick up a package from China and I decided to take out my new Meta skirt:

I show you this now because I later had to change into other clothes when we came back from the office. It was the second time that I wore these shoes and my feet looked (and actually still look) like a swoolen mess afterwards ;________; I hate new shoes... but I also love them, if you know what I mean ;)

Anyways, since we wanted to go into the city, I changed into flip-flops and a long dress to cover my feet XD
And then we went shopping, BUT in my defense: It had to be done. I bought a present and a light jacket for Vronis and Andis wedding (in only two weeks! O.O Are you scared, my dear? ;) ) because my dress doesn't have sleeves and since it's October I just need something in case it's getting cooler.
And then my boyfriend did something über-sweet. When I was first looking for dresses I found one that I was totally in love with but I decided to buy it only a month or so before the wedding in case I might lose or gain some weight (I had hoped for losing, but oh well...nothing happened -.- Well at least I didn't gain any either XD) and when Icame back to buy it, it was gone ;___;  And today it was there again O.o But I just didn't want to spend the money because I actually already have a dress and this month's going to be expensive. But Stefan really liked how I looked in it and knew that I love it and so he bought it for me and said that now I can decide which dress I want to wear ^^ It turns out I actually can't, because we haven't yet found a matching tie for it while we have one for the other dress, but both dresses are beautiful and I'm sure I'll find an occasion to wear the other one, so I'm fine with that ^^ Enough with the talking, that's the dress:

The picture really doesn't do it justice, it's much more beautiful in reality. the colour is green-ish/teal-ish/blue-ish... hard to say, but incredibly beautiful (most of you probably know that I dig anything teal or turquoise XD)
Thank you so much, my darling :-*

Well, then I bought some new thread for my cross-stitching. After i had used up all of the old one it looked like this:

Maybe I'll continue with it today.
Well, and afterwards we ate my first sushi and I have to say, I wouldn't want to eat it everyday but it tastes quite interesting and good. And with sushi, soy-sauce actually tastes good XD
On our way home, we stopped at the bubble tea bar (as always XD) and already when we entered the ladies working there started smiling and greeted us incredibly friendly because they already know us pretty good XD We just completed our third (or even fourth?) bonus card and when she stamped it she said "So you can have one free tomorrow!"  Damn, she knows me way too good XD

BTW, do you actually read everything I write here? I have the feeling these long posts could be intimidating XD

A busy week ends

Sooo, I didn't post anything these last days because this week I was pretty busy.
A friend of mine, who has moved to Ireland some time ago, was here from Tuesday to Friday and was craving for some German food, so I had to make (and eat) some. I really regret eating so much, it's only 2 weeks until the wedding of two very good friends of ours and I feel so fat, I think I'll have to take on my dress everyday to check if it still fits XD
She (getting back to my friend) also made me take her measurements because she wants me to sew her a dress. I'm a little anxious about that, because it's going to be made from jersey and everyone who sews knows rows nose close chose flows rose... sorry, I got a little carried away there XD *cough* Everyone who sews knows: Jersey is a bitch. And it's also the first time that I'm going to use a Burda pattern. We'll see how that works. I don't have the fabric yet anyways so I actually don't have to worry about that yet.
So then I showed her the new parts of Dresden that she didn't now yet and I introduced her to bubble tea ^^

Yesterday my boyfriends parents came here and stayed for the night. Basically we did the same as with my friend: Make some food, show them Dresden and introduce them to bubble tea XD
It was nice to see them but I have to say I'm really glad that we have our flat to ourselves again after this week ^^

This is probably going to support the impression that the only thing I do in life is shopping, but already some months ago I pre-ordered the new re-release of the Sailor Moon manga and after almost being forgotten it arrived yesterday:

(The pictures look so red-ish because we have red walls and the sun shining, so it's reflecting XD) It's so great *__* I even sold my old copies of Sailor Moon to make way for these new ones. The next volume is already pre-ordered ^^ It even has a wonderful coloured page:

Sailor Moon was such a big part of my childhood *__*

Oh, and I want to show you something that has kept me busy for about two weeks now:

I've rediscovered my passion for cross-stitching and now I'm making this picture of the Super Mario castle ^^ Above there's going to be written "Home Sweet Home" and then we're going to hang it up on the door. I actually wanted to make this secretly as a gift for my beloved nerd, but as always when I'm very excited about a self-made present that I'm making: I told him ;___; This aaaalways happens, I have a great idea for a present and get overexcited and tell the respective person about it -.- I need a lock for my mouth. Or I have to make things that don't take so long XD
I ran out of brown thread today, so I started with the writing. It already says "ME" above the castle XD A little too late I realised that I should've taken day-to-day-progress-pictures. Ah well, next time ^^

And finally I want to show an awesome Valentine that I got this Saturday:

Kiiiiiiiiitos! Se on erittäin mukavaa ja terveisiä Saksasta ^^ (I hope this was correct, I haven't had any Finnish lessons since June because it's holidays XD) This is so cute, I really appreciate it *__* And if you are who I think you are, I'm looking forward to new blogposts from you too ^^

So I guess that's it for today. I hope you had a nice weekend and that my German readers have a nice holiday tomorrow ^^