Fine Tuning: Bahamas - Caught Me Thinking

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  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Strictly Exciting

Do you know what my favourite thing about fall is? No, not the colour of the changing leaves. Not the fresh crisp air in the morning. Not the fact that hot chocolates are good to drink again. No! Every September, I eagerly wait for the start of a new series of Strictly Come Dancing (which is like Dancing With The Stars, for you overseas readers). I just love cuddling up on the sofa on weekend nights and let the old school type entertainment fluff my brain. A live band, a national treasure of a presenter, ballroom dancing and glittering outfits are truly my kind of a good time. 
This year's celebrity contestants have just been announced, and I actually know quite a few of them. Which either means I have lived in the UK entirely too long or that the quality of stars is actually getting better.
Without having seen her dancing abilities, Victoria Pendleton (Champion British track cyclist) is going to be my favored participant for the time being, and that's because I quite like her personality. And also because my secret plan to get on Strictly myself has always been to become a cycle racer and to be invited on the show after my retirement. So Victoria, you are giving me hope that my plan might actually work!
The BBC has given each of the celebrities a set of questions to answer for the viewers to get to know them a bit better. This is what they were asked: What's your earliest memory? What would you do if you were invisible for a day? What's your ultimate fancy dress outfit? If you could dance with anybody, past and present, who would it be? What's your biggest indulgence?
These are my favourite answers:

And just for fun, I though about what I would have answered (practising for my own Strictly experience, you know...): What's your earliest memory?
I think it might be when I was alone in the house for a moment when I was maybe 5 and got my head stuck between the rungs of the banister. I do not know what I was trying to achieve by sticking it through there in the first place, but we were living in the top part of a house with our landlady down the exact staircase I was stuck in, and I remember being horrified that either the lady or my parents would come back inside and scold me for being so stupid. Luckily I got myself unstuck again and nobody noticed.
What would you do if you were invisible for a day? 
There is this huge old villa near at the end of the street I grew up on, and I always wondered what it looked like inside. If I was invisible, I would sneak in somewhere and have a good look around.

What's your ultimate fancy dress outfit?

I don't dress up very often, but the costume I liked most in my life was when I put on a potato sack and went as Annika (from Pippi Longstocking. Genius, right?!)

If you could dance with anybody, past and present, who would it be? 
Gene Kelly. No doubt. He is grace and charme personified.
What's your biggest indulgence?
Probably going out to eat in really, really fancy restaurants (Michelin-star-kind-of-fancy) from time to time.

How about you guys? Want to let me know in a comment?

Last, but not least, I am also looking forward to the professional dancers, especially James and Ola Jordan, the show's sexy-as-hell power couple. I think I might have a crush on both of them. Don't judge.

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Rawr! Bring on the sequins!
© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Fine Tuning: Wretch 32 ft. Josh Kumra - Don't Go

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© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Then & Now - 2012

It was fun to take a then-and-now picture on our first wedding anniversary last year, so we did it again for our second! I wonder if I will still love wearing leggings next year and if Marco will be dressed in a shirt again. He's a t-shirt kinda guy, normally. 

I do know that I love my husband very much, that's for sure!

 

  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).  

Neat Freak

I have finally started moving into my shiny new craft room, and am going through a lot of organizing activities as a consequence. I really want everything to have its place and most importantly, to be easy to locate.

Last weekend, my stash of embroidery thread went from this:

 To this:

It took me the whole of Sunday to cut out bobbins and to wind the floss around them, but it was a downright satisfying activity. Seeing how much joy I take out of my colour-coordinated, neatly lined up bobbins, I am amazed I am not a tidier person in other areas of my life... 

Maybe I should be!

  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

The Sea

So often I feel a great yearning inside me. 

To stand on the shore.

To hear water meet with beach. 

To watch seagulls levitate.

To smell the salt and the seaweed. 

To breathe in deeply.

Filling my soul with clean fresh air.

Emptying my mind of worries.

I love that the sea can do this to me.

It never fails to offer me comfort.

© All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated)

Some Song That I Used To Know

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© Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).

Panda Pencil Case

So, I handmade this panda pencil case for my "niece" Clara. (She's my inverted-comma-niece because we are not blood-related, but she's my sister-from-another-mister's daughter). I used this tutorial for help with assembling the case and made the rest of the design up completely. Which is incidentally how I live most of my life...

It's a present for Clara's first day of school, which we Germans celebrate big. I have been informed by a reliable source that "niece" is currently panda-crazy. 

Well, guess what, I am now panda-crazy, too. Just in a completely different way. Because starting to make something with ears and eyes and a zipper and then having your sewing machine give up the ghost in the first quarter of that process does drive you somewhat bonkers... But for a hand-sewn first attempt, it ain't too terribly bad. Even if I say so myself.

Happy First Day Of School, Clara!!!

 

P.S.: Sorry about the cat hair....

  © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).  

Olympic Fever

While we have well and truly moved on to the Paralympic Games now (Finally! Day-long sport viewing on TV again!), here are the pictures I took during the Olympics.

I got completely caught up in everything Olympic, to the extend that I even bought one of the overpriced, scary-looking mascots! (Sorry, Wenlock, you know I love to cuddle you!)

So her's everything from the torch relay, from me holding the torch when it came to my workplace, over boxing, volleyball, basketball at the Olympic Park to women's football at Wembley Satdium. Hope you enjoy. The especially blurry photos are from my phone, apologies.

    © Text & Photos - Annika - All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated).