What I'm reading + NOTD pt.12

Discovery - people don't read as much during winter as they do during summer. The shelves in the library are full and it is hard to choose which books to take home right away and which will have to wait for the next time. They were both there (for now, just the two of them are transated into Slovene language), waiting for me. I picked up just Sister, which is on my reading list. And it was good, so good that I can't understand my sister with her dislike for thrillers. The next one(still waiting for me in the library), with the name Afterwards was even better.

There is a fire and they are in There. They are in there ...Black smoke stains a summer blue sky. A school is on fire. And one mother, Grace, sees the smoke and runs. She knows her teenage daughter Jenny is inside. She runs into the burning building to rescue her. Afterwards, Grace must find the identity of the arsonist and protect her family from the person who's still intent on destroying them. Afterwards, she must fight the limits of her physical strength and discover the limitlessness of love.

“You told me once that the last of the senses to go is hearing. But you're wrong. The last of the senses to go is love.” 

“Motherhood isn't soft and cozy and sweet; it's selfish ferocity, red in tooth and claw.” 

“I’m only just discovering that how someone behaves in everyday life gives no clue how they’ll be when it counts.”

Look, the nail polish is not from Catrice nor from Essence :) It is Deborah Shine Tech with the number 59. It needed three coats and still didn't cover my imperfection on the nails (chipped nails). The application was ok. 

As always, a base coat and a top coat were used.  

Have a nice day ;)

Fredrik Backman: MOŽ Z IMENOM OVE (A Man Called Ove)

A roller coaster of emotions this one. It was a long wait and when I finally got it I finished it in one day. As it is very hard to get new and popular books in the library I decided to make a reservation. It was the end of July and I got it in January, so I was waiting six months for it (I was eight in the waiting line, so I knew it would take a while to get it, but I was patient :) ).

I don't know if I was more emotional than usual when I read this book, but as I said, it was a roller coaster of emotions this reading. First I was laughing, than I was crying, then laughing and again crying and so on. And when I read it I begun to annoy my relatives with the book, telling them they should read it, that it is so funny and we can have it at home just a month, because of the waiting line behind me, so they better start read it. 

Original title is En man som hetter Ove and if you want to know why I liked it so much you will have to read it, but in the meantime here is a short describtion. Meet Ove. He s a curmudgeon the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul.

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.” 

“All people want to live dignified live; dignity just means something different to different people.” 

“Maybe to her destiny was "something"; that was none of his business. But to him, destiny was "someone.” 

“Loving someone is like moving into a house,” Sonja used to say. “At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren’t actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it’s cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.” 

“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps.” 

I will say it again, in case you didn't cach it already :) I really like this book. It is a love story, a story of friendship and a story about life. 

Have a great day! ;)

What I'm reading + NOTD pt.11

This is not a bad story, not at all. Maybe not something that I will remember forever, but it is well written and leaves you without any moral lesson at the end and I appreciate this.

English title is The Casual Vacancy and the story focuses on people of Pagford. When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.

The nail polish is from Catrice, Steel My Heart and it dry in matte finish. The first picture is without topcoat, the second is with it. And no, you can't buy it anymore, because it is discontinued. 

Have a great day! ;)

Highlighters galore

Since there are some new additions in my highlighters family I decided that I want to swatch them and see the diferences between them. 

Highlighters are:

1. Too Faced Flush Luminazer (from Le Grand Palais De Too Faced) powder

2. Essence my base Illuminating Make-up base (discontinued) liquid

3. Catrice Prime and Fine Professional Contouring Palette - 010 Ashy Radiance powder

4. Essence soo glow! cream to powder highlighter - 20 bright up your life cream

5. Essence eyeshadow - 43 mystic lemon (discontinued) powder

6. Essence highlighting powder Merry berry TE  - 01 i love my golden pumps powder

7. Catrice Prime and Fine Highlighting Powder - 010 Fairy Dust (discontinued) powder

Golden highlighters

First we have here the highlighters with golden shine. All of them are powder ones, the one from Catrice Prime and Fine Professional Contouring Palette is very subtle and compared to other two almost doesn't look like a highlighter. Essence highlighting powder from Merry berry TE is a lot more shimmery and the colour is champagne gold. Flush highlighter is also shimmery but a lot more darker that the Essence one, a true gold I would say.

Essence Merry berry, Catrice Contouring palette, Too Faced Flush

Pearl highlighters

Then we have pearl highlighters. Essence my base Illuminating Make-up base is my first highlighter and I like it very much, too bad Essence discontinued it. Because I will soon run out of it I bought Essence soo glow! cream to powder highlighter. The colour is almost the same, just the constitution is different. As a constitution I think I prefer the liquid one, but it is true that I actually never used the second one, I want first use up the liquid one. The last one is Catrice Prime and Fine Highlighting Powder and it is very subtle. As you can see from the swatches it is almost gold rose. I don't know why I don't use this more often because it's very beautiful and not so "in your face" highlighter.

Catrice Prime and Fine, Essence so glow!, Essence Illuminating Make up-base

The "changed purpose" one

Technically I think this is my first highlighter. A couple of years ago when Essence released this eyeshadow 43 Mystic lemon, there were speculations on some blogs that this is similar to the Nars Albatross highlighter (that was sooo popular at that time, where is it now with all the highlighter craze?) so I tought why not buy it, it just a couple of € anyway. To be completely fair I didn't use it very often, but maybe the now is the time :) I don't know how to describe this colour, but it is a duochrome, it changes from simple white pearl colour to  more champagneygold colour.

Essence eyeshadow Mystic lemon

So this are my highlighters. I know this post is not very useful since you can't get most of them anymore. But maybe will you remember some of your highlighters that you don't use so often but are good nontheless. I did remember some of my highlighters that deserve more love than they get :) 

Writing this post got me thinking about my ability to write reviews. Yes, I love beauty products, I like reading reviews about them but when it comes to describing them on my blog I don't think that I do a decent job. I'm wondering does writing good reviews come with experience or it is just something that you have or not? I will try some more, it would be good if the products are still availabe, so I must go on a shopping spree :) Just kidding.. maybe.

Have a great day! :)

What I'm reading + NOTD pt.10

They say either you love Haruki Murakami, or you don't like his work at all. I love his work. Loved everything I read of him and 1Q84 is not an exeption. The book 1Q84 is divided in three parts and the book on the pictures has first two parts, the third part is already waiting for me at home.

I think I will do a seperate post on this book, so here is just a short describtion of the novel. The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. In this world, the fates of two people, Tengo and Aomame, are closely intertwined. They are each, in their own way, doing something very dangerous. 

The nail polish is from Essence, a really old one, from the line Colour&Go, the oldest one in their mini bottles with 5ml of nail polish. This one, with the name Irreplacabe is interesting one. The base colour is nude, with golden shimmer. Really pretty. On the pictures I have a base coat, two coats of coloured nail polish and a top coat.

This nail polishes from Essence were really good. The brush was flat and application is really easy. But I believe the new gel formula is even better.

Have a great day! :)

Art therapy colouring book anti-stress

Look what I bought :) It's a colouring book for adults. I was eyeing them for quite some time now, but this one really caught my eye, so I bought it and on top of that it wasn't really expensive, it was 9,90 €, so it went with me.

I found this colouring book in an Italian bookstore and it is an Italian edition, but who cares, you just colour it, so even if you don't understand anything it doesn't matter. There are a lot of volumes of this edition, mine is Scandinavian design. Of all of the volumes that were in the bookstore I liked this one the most. But I see now there are some others that are interesting, like etnic designs, mosaics, Mayan designs, but weren't in the store. 

The publishing house that is responsible for the Italian edition is L'ippocampo and you can see the other colouring books (and mine) here. 

What I like about this colouring book is that is hardcover and is made in the way that when it folds, it folds all the way without the problem, so you don't damage the book when you colour.

Let's see how the colouring goes :)

And you, did you also jump on this bandwagon of adult colouring books?

Have a great day ;)

Book or Kindle? Why not both?

Books are better, books are always better! Yeah, I was also on the "team books" and tought that nothing can replace them until I came across one of these electronic reading devices. My sister got a Kindle and how she got it was a pretty funny story actually, but on that matter maybe some other time. That was the first time I got the feeling that these devices are not so bad and then I got one for my birthday from my boyfriend. It is true that if I had to choose between books and Kindle, so that I could use just one for the rest of my life, I would choose books, but I think Kindle is also fun to use and enjoyable and this is why. 

The one that I got is Kindle Paperwhite 6" 2014 so my comparison with books is based on this model, but I believe they don't differ that much.

• On Kindle you can highlight the parts of the book that you like and all the highlights that you make are kept together in a folder called My Clippings with the date and the location of the highlight (yes, it is true that you can highlight in books too, but I never do that, because I don't want do damage the books and the majority of them are from library anyway)
• If you want to know what a word means you just press on it and the dictionary with the definition of this word opens and since English is not my firs language I find this very usefull
• Because it is small is great for travelling, especially if you travell just with carry on baggage and also, as my cousin pointed it out, if you are away from home for a year or so and you like to read but don't have the heart to leave the books you buy behind, Kindle is great, you buy books for Kindle and can take everything back with you
• This is a strange reason to like Kindle, but it is a plus for me, you can't "accidentaly" peek on the next page or on the last page and see what will happen, with Kindle I can't do it or better say I can't be bothered to do it because theoretically you could go to the last page of the book, but then it would not be "accidentaly" any more
• The paperblank one is great for reading, the screen is not agressive and it is very simmilar feeling as to reading regular books

There are also some negative aspect to it, and this is what I noticed.

• First of all, there are few e-books in Slovene language and although I have no problem reading in English, reading in my native language is always more relaxing for me
• A lot of people say books are always better and have this romantic view on them and say how good they smell (can't say that myself, you know, the library :) ) and I agree with this romantic view of the books on some extent, this is because of book covers. I love to look at the covers of the books, I like to touch them and see the covers, on Kindle is just not the same

(found on Pinterest)

Saying all of this I must say I'm very happy that I got a Kindle and I like to alternate between books and Kindle. Let's say that I read five books and then one e-book. And if you ask me if you should buy a Kindle I would say of course, go for it, if you have the possibility and if you like to read a lot. 

(found on Pinterest)

I'm sure there are some others positive and negative aspects of electronic reading devices that I didn't cover and are true for you, but this is what I find good and bad about them. No, I would never change books for Kindle, but both is good, so why not both? :D

What are your toughts on Kindle, or on e-reading devices in general?

Have a great day ;)

What I'm reading + NOTD pt.9

I always liked Agatha Christie and she might also be the reason why I like crime genre I remember that I was reading her works when I was thrteen or twelve and I read everything I could find in our library. So once in a while there are new releases in slovenian language and I try to read them all.

In this one with the original title The Body in the Library we find Miss Marple. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry? The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple to solve the mystery.

The nail polish is from a limited edition. Yes, from the Essence one. I must admit I went crazy over this collection and I have all of the nail polishes from this one. Five of them. It never happened before and I'm sure that it never will again. 

The collection was Vampire's Love and the name of this polish is Into the dark. Dark blue with silver glitter. Nice brush, nice application, as always on my pictures a base coat, two coats of nail polish and a top coat. But with this polish something stranhe happens when I put on a top coat. Two pictures above are without a top coat, on the one below with top coat.

Can you see that with the top coat the glitter somehow dissapeared a little bit. It is not so obvious in the pictures but in reality this was even more visible. It is the only nail polish that I have that reacts this way to a nail polish.

Did it ever happened to you that the top coat changed the colour of nail polish?

Have a great day! ;)