Although it was my birthday yesterday and the first wrinkles are starting to show, I still feel young at heart. I’m a little allergic to grown ups who act like everything is Super Important. A study has shown that the average four-year-old laughs 300 times a day, and a 40-year-old only four. Wow. I think that it’s very healthy to take everything with a little grain of salt. I’d much rather make a joke or funny comment, than to be all business-like. When I was younger I sometimes felt inadequate, other people always seemed to have the right thing to say or do. But these days I simple embrace the child in me and try to be honest and direct. It might come to no surprise that my birthday presents reflect this 😉

Sally wears an outfit that I received from a friend, who also collects Blythes. I love the tiny details and puff sleeves on the dress! Next to Sally is my new preloved iPhone, which was a gift from Metin. I’m very happy with it, since it’s much lighter than my iPhone 4 and takes better pictures. This was a great excuse to finally get myself a Rilakkuma cover. It was on sale at Modes4U, where they also have the sweet polar bear cover from Shinzi Katoh.

Oh yes, Metin knows me so well! I’m not sure if this chocolate brand is available worldwide, but I’m a sucker for the Tony’s Chocolonely limited October editions. These delicious bars have got cherry, banana and liquorice (Dutch candy) in it. Somehow the design reminds me a bit of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

While taking these blog pictures Catootje jumped on my desk, for some much needed attention. I tried to capture her, but the back light resulted in dark pictures. I started to play a bit with the manual mode of my SLR and finally came to understand it better. The picture above was taken with a slower shutter speed, allowing more light to enter the camera. But because it takes longer for the picture to be taken, a moving subject will become blurry, turning Catootje into some sort of ghost-like-creature:

Thank you for reading and have a nice weekend!