10 Good things

1. New Sofa! The new sofa is finally here, after ordering it at the end of December. I’m happy with it, it’s exactly as I wanted it to be and it’s very comfy. The last sofa we had we got it from a friend after we moved in an unfurnished house. We had to buy everything and we ran out of funds. After a little over one year we moved into our home. With renovating, we ran out of funds again. A new sofa was not as important as carpeting the whole house, painting and all those other “small” things like new kitchen, new bathroom. So we had the sofa for close to three years, instead of a few months as we planned.
Another reason we’ve waited so much for a new sofa was that we wanted a white faux leather sofa. There isn’t one on the market and there aren’t many faux leather either, regardless of the colour. We found two black ones that looked great, but it can’t be further to white than that. We nearly bought one of them. Last Autumn we saw one we liked at SCS, with grey and ivory and it was what we were looking for. Our living room is white with grey, so it was a perfect match. I’m happy we’ve waited for so long, it’s what I wanted. Picture on instagram, I will make a post about the living room now that I have a new sofa.

2. Easter gift swap. After the excitement with the Secret Santa, this Easter I signed up for a Blogger Easter Gift Swap. The lovely Bronagh send me these amazing gifts. I love dark chocolate, it’s my favourite and the basket is great for Easter. I was so excited to see it. I’m going to dye eggs and put them in this basket. It’s a Romanian tradition.

3. Walks in the forest. Even a short walk in the forest makes me happy. Hearing the birds, seeing flowers, other walkers that are enjoying the silence and the beauty of the nature. It’s so relaxing.

4. Egg-bath bombs. I got egg-bath bombs for Easter. I loved the way they smell so much that I bought as gifts too. I found them at a farm I’m going to from time to time, they have lovely livestock as pets (goats, pony, donkey, a sheep). I also got a very good face cream from there, handmade locally, exactly what I’m looking for.

5. Very British Problems. This show is so funny. If you missed it, I think it’s available On Demand. It’s a 3 episodes series on Channel 4.

6. Loft. The loft was completed a couple of weeks ago and I have a lot more storage space, it’s incredible. It was a hassle to make it as it had insulation and we had to add a little bit more where it wasn’t as fluffed as it should have been. Now I can store so many things in the loft and we don’t need a shed anymore. We were wondering if we should get a shed or not, but it would have taken from the outside space when we have the loft and we can use it entirely. It’s so much better, even though it was quite expensive to get the work done and it took a week or so to be finished.

7. Matcha. I’ve been baking with matcha from the day I got it and I love it. I’ve made biscuits, scones, fruit loaf, cheesecake. It looks green, I love the taste and it inspired me.

8. Getting ready for Easter. After I finish writing this post, I’m making the list with the things I have to buy for my Easter menu. I want to make dyed eggs, Simnel cake and hot cross buns, a cozonac (a sort of a fruit loaf), a vegetarian Spring terrine. I still have to decide on a few things to do, like mains.

9. New F1 season. The qualifying session started great, but it was disappointing in the end. I loved the start with Vettel, Raikkonen and Verstappen overtaking at least one Mercedes. Sadly the race finished with an 1-2 for Mercedes. Vettel was on the 3rd place after a bad decision not to change the tires during the red flag. Alonso had a spectacular crash, but he was fine. It was scary to see the car like that.
Verstappen was amazing, as usual. He managed to overtake a few cars, but he was stuck behind his teammate after Torro Rosso made a stupid mistake at pit stop. His outbreak on the radio showed passion, I loved that. Palmer was fab, another British driver with great skills. Nothing much about the winners, they changed the tires when they had to and they were lucky enough for the tires to last until the end of the race. I really hope things will change in the coming races, the others seem more eager to win than the Mercedes team.

10. Smart dog. Having a smart dog is usually great, although the fact that he is able to learn by looking at us can be an issue sometimes. For example he knows if we are talking about him even if we don’t say his name. That leads to excitement before actually getting ready for walkies.
But this makes him so much fun to have around. Yesterday we were busy downstairs when I heard strange noises from the bedroom. Festus was in our bedroom, with a bag of toys, having fun. I asked hubby if he moved the bag from the spare bedroom and he didn’t. So, Festus saw the spare bedroom door open, he went in and took the bag with toys (a canvas bag). I usually don’t let him in the spare bedroom because it’s where we work when we’re not at the laptop and he would only get in our way. He carried the bag in our bedroom, where we all sleep, and took a toy out of the bag. He removed the label (obviously he can’t play with the label still on) and started to chew it. It’s a shame we don’t have a camera hidden in the house to see what he is up to.

These are my 10 good things and an additional mention of the 7 flavours I got from Cake International.

What made you happy these days?