Short Hair Don't Care

I cut my hair again...

... and I wore my new pencil skirt from Hess Natur. This pencil skirt was my my sole purchase this month and I am very happy with my new consumerism habits :) 
I will share more about this topic at the end of next month, when I sum up my September and October purchases. 

I got the blouse I am wearing here back in February and I have been wearing it quite a lot since. I think its perfect for Fall - do you agree :)?

I am a little obsessed with pencil skirts lately and I am wearing them almost every day since the weather got colder. They are so perfect to combine with everything and no matter what you wear on top of it, you somehow look a little elegant - I love that. 
I pulled together a few favorite looks and I really wanna share some of them with you. So be ready to see loads of pencil skirt outfits this Fall ;)  

Oh and about my earrings, they are from my friend Lea Marie Franck and you should totally check out her website if you like them! They are sterling silver and walnut wood and I especially love to wear them to darker looks like this one - or to white looks in Summer.  

I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far!? I am definetly having a most wonderful one. Its our wedding anniversairy and of course we celebrated this with a little getaway (we do this every year). I can't wait to share some pictures with you of where we went and what we did :) 

This week and also the coming weeks are a little crazy since we are on our anniversairy trip and we then go on an adventurous holiday afterwards. I planned loads of posts in advance but nevertheless, there will be a small blogging break in the middle of October. 

But anyway, today is today and I wish you all a wonderful day and I wanna say THANK YOU for your comments on my last post! I really appreciated that you shared your thoughts with me!
Sending much love!

About Change

This is another post for my About Life column...

... today I want to write about change. I was inspired by various really nice people, by conversations, the slow living conference (I posted about it here) and also by my husband to write this post. 

I guess its not new to anyone out there that we change over time. We think differently when we grow older, we behave differently, we change our interests and hobbys, we change our style, we somehow change who we are all the time. Of course we are always the same persons and there are many things that do not change when it comes to our personality, our thoughts and our ideologies - but many do change. 

Since I started this blog (that was back in 2012!) I changed. When I started this blog I just left northern Germany and moved to Eastern Germany. Since I left my hometown, I did not have many friends in my new home in the beginning and when university started I found my friends solely at university. I found the most wonderful friends, thats for sure, but, since we got to know eachother from university, all we talked about was university related. I was studying African Politcs and Economics and my husband (boyfriend at the time) was studying European Politics and Economics and all my friends were from the same area, so all we talked about was politics! We had endless discussions about how to make this world a better place through the right policies, how to behave in society (very abstract though), which theories were bad and which teories were okay, etc. etc. it was great and I was very inspired, but I realized after some time that all of this was only one part of me - there was this other girl inside me that wanted to talk about fashion, about what to wear and where to shop and about cosmetics and make up and about food and all those topics that were thought to be "superficial". I could never have talked about these topics with my friends because I would have been afraid that they could think I am stupid and superficial. So I never talked about these things with anyone (except my poor husband who had to listen to me when I explained him why I was wearing this or that outfit this or that day ;)). And then - to be able to live this side of me - I started blogging. 

As I told you already in previous posts, I did not tell anyone (except my husband) about my blog since I thought it superficial and stupid to blog and to talk about clothes and food and those kind of things. And I just kept it going for years, not putting too much effort in it because I somehow thought that its stupid anyway (its not world politics so how can it not be stupid ;) ?). Then, when I finished university I was lost for a while and then I began to realize what I really love doing (I have been posting about this a little back here).

By now, I know that topics such a clothes, cosmetics and food - especially food actually - are just what I really like. This does not mean that world politics are no longer important to me, but they are no longer the sole topic I allow myself to show interst in. And this is now where I want to make my point - after I realized that I am not the girl that is 100% academic I ALLOWED myself to show interest in the area of interests I was hiding for a long time. Along with that actually went a huge change: the moment I allowed myself to show interest e.g. in clothes and I started talking more with other people about this interest, I began thinking about in which way I want to be related to this topic - and I took the decision to buy only organic, fair trade or second hand clothes (find out more about that here) because this is much more consistent with my ideologies and values. And when I began talking more about food, I realized that people do not think that I am stupid but that they find it intersting and I realized that its okay to be intersted in food (yes, this may sound stupid to some of you but coming from a family of academics it really is a big step to prefer talking about food than philosophy!) and so I realized that it is okay to change. And to be authentic. And to show what I like. And maybe even to talk about my blog sometime. Because sometimes it seems that it is not that stupid that I always thought it is. :) 

Now what again has this to do with change? Well, when I realized that its okay to talk about food, about general thoughts, about cosmetics and clothes, my first impulse was to create an entire new blog. Because I thought "okay, now I am okay with what I like and now I will make a really good blog with only organic fashion from the beginning and only pretty food images etc." and I really started planning a new blog. But then I stopped and I thought "hey, its okay to change and my readers are allowed to see this change!". And thats where I am now - I think its okay that I do not like some of my older posts wearing clothes I got from bad brands and even promoting these, but I will leave them there on my blog anyway because they show how I changed and my future posts will show how I change in the future and all of that is okay. 

My blog will certainly change again and again over time and I hope that I will be able to be more and more proud of it and maybe even tell more and more people about it. I may loose some readers over time and win others and I will loose some partners over time and win others. And somehow I feel like that I will not regret the losses and always be happy about the new additions :) 

Wow, in case you really read all of that - I love you ;)! Thank you for showing so much interest! 

I would love to know your thoughts on this! Are you proud of blogging? Are you proud of yourself? Are there parts of you you prefer to hide?

Sending much love!

Slow Living Conference - Goodies and new Friends

Let me share some of the awesome goodies from the Slow Living Conference with you...

... I posted about the conference in my before last post (here) so in case you do not know what the Slow Living Conference was about, feel free to check that out. 

Besides the awesome foods and drinks that we got during the conference, we were also invited to take a few goodies with us - and of course I thought its a great idea to share these with you. I took some smoothies, some tea and some dried fruit mix which are all organic and from companys absolutely worthy of support (thats why I am doing this post ;)). Since I really loved the smoothies and the dried fruits, I decided to share a little more about these products in an extra post sometime in the future and tell you a little more about the brands Voelkel and Keimling. For now, I will just shortly sum up what I got here :) 

First of all there is this chai tea from Shotimaa that I am drinking while I am writing this. Its spicy, its sweet, it gives me this feeling of coziness - its all a good chai tea needs to be. 
It this time of the year where I drink chai tea all day and it was like the day before the conference that I thought that I need to buy some chai tea to bear the greyer and colder weather - well I did not have too because someone thought the same thoughts I did ;)

Then there are these little juices from Voelkel. I actually know the brand since childhood because I used to drink their products at the time already. At the conference I tried their green smoothies (perfect!) and the juices from their "fair to go" series. They are all super healthy and super yummy! At home I also tried their "Vegan to go" drinks that I am going to share more about sometime soon :)

Finally, there are also the dried fruits from Keimling that I have been snacking on intensively every day since the conference ;)
Keimling is a great company for vegans and everyone who likes healthy food, super foods and even raw food supply. 

I am actually participating to receive the Keimling Food Blog Award and I invite all food blogs from Germany to participate too (deadline is September 30). I do not really think I have great chances to win since my blog is everything but a professional food blog - but I thought its fun to participate anyway and I may ask you sometime soon to vote for me :) 

Since Keimling has a whoooooole lot of intersting products and since its an awesome company anyway, I will share more about this company soon. 

Aren't these amazing goodies? I was thrilled - they were so 100% in accordance with my taste and my values and the moment I saw them I thought "oh wow, I have to share this on my blog". So this is what I did now and I hope you enjoyed :)

Sending much love and wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Slow Living Conference - My Outfit

As promised, here is my conference look...

...  I decided for a rather casual look, since the topic of the conference is a rather casual one ;) 
I wore my oversized blouse that I was wearing on the blog here and my Lands End pants together with my black booties.

 

How do you like this look? 

I thought about wearing something slightly more chic like a pencil skirt or so but in the end I decided for the look I feel most comfortable in - because in the end I thought this is the most important when spending an entire day at a conference, talking with loads of strangers and taking a train back home at 9pm with my little baby girl. 

Especially when it comes to talking to potential partners or new friends or just when networking in general, I find it so important to wear something that I feel 100% comfortable in and that makes me feel like "me". The confernce was also for networking for a business idea that my husband and I have so I wanted to be truely me and wear what I feel best in :) 

How do you choose your outfits when you go to conferences or other events where you know you go to network? I would love to know!

Sending much love!

Slow Living Conference

This week will be all about the Slow Living Conference...

... I will tell you about the conference, I will share my conference outfit and I will share some goodies and new brands/friends I got from the conference :) 

It was my first time attending the conference and I hope that it wasnt the last time - I got loads of inspiration for my working life, for my blog and for my personal life and it was thoroughgoing wonderful day! 

The slow living conference is - as you can maaaybe guess from its name - all about slow living ;) Its about how to live our lifes in a way that suits us humans (which is not being stressed all the time because of a millions appointments...) and its about living a conscious and a sustainable lifestyle. Oh yes, exactly the topics I have been writing on my blog for a while now because they are very important to me. Since this is my favorite topic anyway at the moment I got sooo much food for thought from the conference - and I have a few posts for my "about life" column that I cannot wait to share with you :)  

The speeches I liked best at the conference were those from sociologists, talking about consumerism, the perception of time and consciousness. There were a few speeches that I missed because I had to take care of our little one (she was such a darling the entire day, even though it was a really long day for her and she did not get as much sleep as she usual does) and there were a few speeches that did not inspire me that much - which is totally fine I think, because it just shows me that I have a clear area of interest :) 

The conference was in this most beautiful small villa in an ancient ballroom and I pretty much just loved the location from the moment I arrived. Since the conference was all about slow living we were asked to turn off our smart phones - and in case someone was getting withdrawal symptons because of that, there was the possiblity to get an iStone instead (a fun piece of art which has the size and the weight of an iPhone 6 ;)). Can you believe how obsessed people are with their phones? Do you belong to them? I am happy that I am having a good, but rather distant relationship to my phone ;)

I really got inspired by a speech about juicing (I will share another post about this in the coming weeks or so) and I soooo enjoyed the delicious drinks and smoothies at the conference. Oh my, I had no idea about all the great products from Voelkel (will tell you more about this brand soon) and I feel like I just drank pure health the entire day ;)
Not only the drinks from Voelkel were delicious but also the food in general. It was all raw, all organic and of course all vegan - and all good!

For lunch we had salad and dried nori wraps. I never tried this before and it really had an intersting taste! There was also a "liquid lunch" availabe - a yummy smoothie with everything you need :) the dessert was a smoothie with hemp milk and raw cocoa and as snacks there were loads of fruits, nuts and dried raw bread. There were also shots of wheat grass (which I love as you may remember from my post about barley grass). So even if the rest of the conference would have been bad (which it wasn't) it would have been worth going for the food ;)

Concerning the topics of the confernce, they were so diverse that I cannot summarize it all but the three things I found most important were the following points:

1.It is important to be easy-going because only when you are easy-going you can be creative - and only when you are creative you can fully live!
2. The more we own the less time we have!
3. When we want to slow down its not by buying any producht that we will achieve it, because relaxation can only occur through a practice not through a thing!

There are two other things that I took from the conference that I find important enough to dedicate and entire post to it :) 

Feel free to check out the conference website - which is in German and probably only intersting for those of you, coming from Germany.

Have you ever thought of slow living? What are your thoughts when you hear this word? I would love to know!

Sending much love and wishing you all a wonderful start into the new week! 

Organic Hand Cream Favorites

Today I want to share my favorite organic hand creams with you...

... the brands will not be new to those of you who follow my blog since a while - I just love them and they convince me over and over again with their organic, fair, sweet-smelling, effective products :) 

I want to begin with the Sea Buckthorn cream from Weleda because this one I actually use in more than 10 years. I think my mother used to use it and so I began loving it pretty early.This hand cream drenches hands in moisture, as well as vitamins and essential fatty acids necessary for healthy skin, its full of antioxidant-rich biodynamic sea buckthorn and has the best uplifting natural fragrance from pure essential oils of mandarin, orange and grapefruit. It absorbs quickly (actually no other one can compete with this one when it comes to absorption) and I use it mostly when I am working on the computer or writing letters because I can be sure not to leave any grease anywhere. 

You can find out more about the Sea Buckthorn hand cream from Weleda here

The next one is not new to many of you - my much loved hand cream from Love me Green. I wrote about this hand cream here and here and I am not getting tired of telling you how much I like this product ;) This regenerating organic hand cream is made with moisturizing and regreasing organic shea butter and protects your hands and helps to improve the regeneration ability of your skin. It relaxes irritated and stressed skin - and it smells really good! I love to use this hand cream in the eveing when I am relaxing (and the baby is sleeping) and I am trying to calm down and get ready for the night... :) 

Feel free to find out more about this hand cream here.

Now the hand and nail cream from benecos was also on my blog before. I wrote about it here when I talked about my Summer nail care routine. The hand cream from benecos contains also Sea Buckthorn (like the one from Weleda) plus orange peel oil!  It provides rich, natural care for soft hands and beautiful nails and I always have it in my purse to use it whereever and whenever I want on the go :) 

You can find out more about this hand cream here.

And last but not least there is the Honey and Grapeseed Hand Cream from Burts Bee's. This one is NOT vegan and its not 100% organic but I like to add it anyway because 1. I am okay with honey even though I am eating a vegan diet and 2. the hand cream is 100% natural which is not organic but still good. 

This hand cream is made with Honey, Jojoba Oil and Rosemary Extract and it’s specially designed to smooth and soften super dry hands. It has an intense smell that my husband does not like at all and that I love ;)

Feel free to find out more about this hand cream here.

And now I would love to know about your favorite hand creams? Do we have one in common?

Sending much love and wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Vegan Burgers (with Davert)

Today I have some vegan burgers for you...

... I love to have burgers from time to time. Usually I make them at home, because I always like them better when I make them on my own instead of buying them in a restaurant. Its because I have a special taste when it comes to burgers and I just know best what I like best ;) 

I always use fresh salad, tomatoes and cucumber on my burgers, I also always have some avocado with it. Usually I make some fried veggies, such as zuccini or egg plant (sometimes I prefer sweet pepper or even carrots and sweet potatoe) to put on my burger. When it comes to the sauces, I love to use ketchup, mustard and barbeque sauce (plus the avocado) which is all vegan - and so yummy :) And, finally, I am having a different vegan patty every time I make burgers. Sometimes I make them from kidney beans or from lentils but this time I used the patty mix from Davert. 

Davert is a brand that you may have seen in some of my vegan boxes (between others here) and that I totally love because of their philosophy: They stand for controlled biological cultivation, continuous further development of processing methods, transparency, careful monitoring of every production step, and guaranteed organic products – from cultivation to packaging. Plus their products are mainly fair trade! Feel free to find out more about this brand on their website.

I do not only like their philosophy but also their products - of course :) The veggie patties (one made with green spelt and one with lentils...) are really good and so are all other products I tried from Davert so far (remember the cocoa nibs from my breakfast smoothie? They are from Davert too!). I am almost sure that you will see this brand more often on my blog since I really love their products and since I feel good about advertising this brand, because its doing a lot of good out there! 

But now I am curious - how do you like your burgers best? Do you make your patties yourself or do you buy them ready made? Do you also prefer whole wheat buns? And do you also love fried veggies on your burger as much as I do :)?

I would love to know!

Sending much love!

Hello Fall

In the background of these pictures you can see that Fall arrived...

...the berries are ripe on all bushes and you can find loads of blackberries and rosehips everywhere. However, I am not yet totally ready for Fall so this outfit is something in between Summer and Fall - the soft colors of Summer but now with longer sleeves and longer pants ;) 

The blush chino pants have already been in my "for the second hand shop"- bag for a few months and I had totally forgotten about them. But then, the other day, I looked at them again and I decided that actually, I still love them. I wore them only once or twice so far but I think I will wear them again more often next Summer. They are rom H&M and around two years old. I am also wearing the kimono from my last my purchases post plus a blouse from C&A which is at least six years old. 

How do you like this somewhere-between-Summer-and-Fall look :)?

How was your weekend by the way? I hope you had a lovely one!

On Friday my husband and I went to visit an apartment that we would like to rent. We really liked it and (hopefully!) this week we will get to know if we can rent it or not. Please cross your fingers for us ;) 

After all, we decided not to move to the coutryside yet, but to stay for another 3-5 years in the city. Then there is still enough time to move to the countryside. However, we thought if we are going to stay in the city for another couple of years, we need a bigger apartment with a nice and big balcony... and this is what we will (hopefully) have from December on. 

I spent my weekend planning how to set up the new place and what to build and what to buy - it was a lot of fun! Sunday I spent in our new family garden which was so peaceful and wondeful and little N loved to play in the grass :) 

Have a great start in the new week everyone!
Sending lots of love!

My Breakfast Smoothie

Today I want to share my favorite breakfast smoothie with you...

... I have this smoothie every morning. Sometimes I just have a little one and I have something else for breakfast on top, sometimes I have a huge one and nothing else. It gives me all the energy I need in the morning and it fills me up with loads of nutrients :) 

For my breakfast smoothie I use:

1-6 bananas (depending on how much smoothie I want)
Puffed quinoa
Puffed amarant
(sometimes I also use oats, or cooked quinoa or puffed rice or cooked rice... depending on what I have and what I feel like)
A handful of almonds
A handful of dates 
Some cocoa nibs
Some chokeberry powder
(sometimes I leave away the chokeberry powder and sometimes I use non-sugar cocoa powder)
Some of my vitamin b12 drops
Water - of course

I just blend everything together in my highspeed blender and I end up with the most delicious, smooth, creamy, healthy and filling smoothie ever. The grains give me loads of energy, the dates give a sweet flavor, the alomds give the creamyness, the cocoa nibs and the aronia powder add some extra nutrients. Perfection!

I love this smoothie so much that it is the first thing I am thinking about when I wake up in the morning... and sometimes I have another in the afternoon because I am craving it so bad. 

Make sure to use only really ripe (spotty) banans for your smoothie, cause otherwise it will not be as creamy and sweet - and not as good ;)

Do you like smoothies for breakfast? If you do - you should really try this one!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Sending much love!

HOW to be vegan (book recommendations)

Today I want to share some book recommendations with you...

... back in April this year I posted a post on WHY to be vegan and today I want to write a little bit about HOW to be vegan. 

Eating a vegan diet does not always mean that you are also eating a healthy diet. And eating an unhealthy vegan diet can actually be pretty bad for your body. This is why I think it is important to think about HOW to be vegan. 

I have some book recommendations, some of them are German but I am sure that you can also find similar English books :)

First of all, I have two books by American authors, which I both really love. The Starch Solution was also named in my WHY to be vegan post because it does explain a whole lot on the health benefits of a vegan diet (plus a little on the benefits on the environment) but it is mainly about HOW to be vegan - namely starch based, with loads and loads of greens and fruits! WITHOUT any added fats, without any "fake meats" and other processed foods and without much refined sugar. 

It is basically as simple as this: Avoid processed foods (this includes loads of oils, sugars, prepacked food...), eat loads of starches, veggeis and fruits and you will be fine - not only fine, but healthier than ever before :)

The same is said in the Campbell Plan which is another GREAT book that I can recommend to anyone who wants to know more about what to eat on a healthy vegan diet. Both the Starch Solution and the Campbell Plan have each around 50 really good and super easy recipes in the back of the book (which I use A LOT because they are so easy and so yummy!). From this book you will also learn what to stock in your kitchen, how to read labels and shop, and what to watch for in social and eating out situations. Very practical!

Next to these two books, I totally recommend to get one or two GOOD cookbooks! When I say GOOD cookbook, I mean a cookbook which does not only show you the dishes you normally eat in a vegan version but new and easy vegan dishes (its totally fine to eat vegan bolognese, vegan mac and cheese and those kind of things and I love eating them - but usually, when you crave for something like this, you just go online and google "vegan mac and cheese" and you will find a million recipes, however, when it comes to really NEW recipes then you need a good cookbook to get inspired :)). 

My favorite cookbook is a German one, and the English translation of the name is "always vegan". There are only recipes in this cookbook which have always been vegan, recipes from all over the world. This book showed to me that there are plenty of recipes out there who have always been vegan, because they are just BEST when they are made vegan.
Maybe I will share some of those really good recipes with you on my blog sometime :)  

Google for the China Study Cook Book for the English Version of this book: 

If you are interested in a vegan diet, I thnk its really important to get some research done. I hope this post inspired you a little on how to be vegan and please feel free to go back to my post on why to be vegan to get some information on that. Please also feel free to ask me any questions, if you have any :)

Sending much love!

Jeans Dress

Happy Monday everyone!

A new week, a new look :) 
Today with this jeans dress that I got back in 2013 when I lived in the US. I actually wore it on the blog back then (as you can see here) but since I combined it with black tights and a black cardigan at the time, I thought its okay to put it on the blog again - Summer style like :) 

I got the dress from Old Navy at the time and I am wearing it here with my favorite sandals that you can see on my blog in every second (Summer) outfit post and some casual golden jewellery. I was never the kind of person who is wearing big jewellery, statement necklaces and those kind of things, but I prefer to wear simple and small golden pieces. The only exception are big earrings from time to time - I really enjoy earrings! 

What kind of jewellery do you like best? 
 

Did you have a good weekend? 

I actually had a special one, because I had my final exam in my nutrition class! From today on, I am an officially certified nutritionst! Hurray :)! I am now waiting to receive my certificate and my final grade. As soon as I am done with maternity leave I want to begin working as a nutritionst. For now,  I am still in maternity leave and all my attention is going to my daughter... well, and a little bit to my blog too ;)

Have a great start in the week!
Sending much love!