Lion King Theme

For the upcoming Christening this week end we have prepared some invitations and some other printable goods that compliment the Lion King theme...

For the tables we have created these printable paper table mats 

And some Thank You notes...

xoxo

Hakuna matata!!!

Depression and self help

Depression has become a very common disorder in our day and age.

It is most likely that you or a loved one has gone through depression or has experienced depression symptoms at some point in their life. Depression varies from mild cases to very severe cases but every case does hold some of these common symptoms:

• A sudden switch from being very sad to being very calm or appearing to be happy
• Always talking or thinking about death
• Clinical depression (deep sadness, loss of interest, trouble sleeping and eating) that gets worse
• Having a "death wish," tempting fate by taking risks that could lead to death, such as driving through red lights
• Losing interest in things one used to care about
• Making comments about being hopeless, helpless, or worthless
• Putting affairs in order, tying up loose ends, changing a will
• Saying things like "It would be better if I wasn't here" or "I want out"
• Talking about suicide
• Visiting or calling people one cares about

Important Note: Depression is an illness and should be treated with the help of a medical professional. 

Nevertheless there are things you can do to help yourself or a loved one that may be suffering with depression.

Important Note: Recovering from depression takes time and isn’t quick or easy but is very possible. Feeling better takes time, but you can get there if you make positive choices for yourself each day.

How to help yourself

Depression drains your energy, hope, and drive, making it difficult to do what you need to feel better. even just thinking about going for a walk or spending time with friends, can be exhausting. But recovering from depression requires action. And this is the "Catch" The things that help the most are the things that are the most difficult to do. There’s a difference, however, between something that's difficult and something that's impossible.

Start small: The key is to start with a few small goals and slowly take it from there. Even if you do not have a lot of energy, you might have just enough take a short walk around the block or pick up the phone to call a loved one. Reward yourself for making an effort!

1.Connect

On your own, it can be difficult to maintain perspective and sustain the effort required to beat depression, but the very nature of depression makes it difficult to reach out for help.Understand that these feelings are a symptom of your depression and make the effort to connect with the people who care about you. Maintaining emotionally close relationships can be instrumental in overcoming depression. You will soon realize that your loved ones care about you and want to help. It may also be very helpful to create new relationships and make new friends.

• The people you talk to do not have to know how to fix you or your problems. They just have to be good listeners.
• Keep up with social activities even if you don't feel like it. Being around other people will make you feel less depressed.

2.Get Moving 

Major studies show that regular exercise can be as effective as antidepressant medication; physical activity triggers new cell growth in the brain, increases mood-enhancing neurotransmitters and endorphins, reduces stress, and relieves muscle tension—all things that can have a positive effect on depression.

Again, start small. Short, 10-minute bursts of activity can have a positive effect on your mood. Slowly make it a goal to exercising 30 minutes a day which would be more beneficial. You don't have to sign up for the gym if this is not something you like doing. The key is to pick an activity you enjoy, so you’re more likely to stick with it. Even very small activities can add up over the course of a day. Here are a few easy ways to get moving:

• Put on some music and dance around
• Take your dog for a walk
• Use the stairs rather than an elevator
• Park your car in the farthest spot in the lot
• Pair up with an exercise partner

3. Challenge negative thinking

People may say to you “just think positive” unfortunately this is easily said than done. The trick is to replace negative thoughts with more balanced thoughts. Here's how to challenge negative thinking:

• Think outside yourself. Ask yourself if you’d say what you’re thinking about yourself to someone else. If not, stop being so hard on yourself. Think about less harsh statements that offer more realistic descriptions.
• Allow yourself to be less than perfect. Many depressed people are perfectionists, holding themselves to impossibly high standards and then beating themselves up when they fail to meet them. Battle this source of self-imposed stress by challenging your negative ways of thinking
• Socialize with positive people. Notice how people who always look on the bright side deal with challenges, even minor ones, like not being able to find a parking space. Then consider how you would react in the same situation. Even if you have to pretend, try to adopt their optimism and persistence in the face of difficulty.
• Keep a "negative thought log." Whenever you experience a negative thought, jot down the thought and what triggered it in a notebook. Review your log when you’re in a good mood. Consider if the negativity was truly warranted. Ask yourself if there’s another way to view the situation. 

 4. Do things that make you feel good (or used to)

In order to overcome depression, you have to do things that relax and energize you. Also keeping a healthy lifestyle will help you gain back your energy and aid your goal of working your way out of depression. 

• Get just the right amount of sleep. You may be sleeping to much or to little during your depression. Aim to regulate your sleep to 8 hours and to get these 8 hours of sleep during the night time.
• Get some sun everyday. Even if you just have your tea or coffee while sitting outside. Getting at least 10 min of sunlight a day is essential. People who do not get enough sunlight are more prone to experience depression symptoms.
• Relax. Take some time out of your day to relax. You might like using relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga, or just listen to relaxing music while closing your eyes and taking deep breaths.
• Care for a pet. Taking care of a pet can be very rewarding and animals show us gratitude and love in return. This relationship should not and can not replace human companionship but can offer feelings of joy and companionship.

While you can’t force yourself to have fun or experience pleasure, you can choose to do things that you used to enjoy. Push yourself to do things, even when you don’t feel like it. You might be surprised at how much better you feel once you do.

Pick up a former hobby or a sport you used to like. Express yourself creatively through music, art, or writing. Go out with friends. Take a day trip to a museum, the mountains, or the ballpark.

5. Eat a healthy

When you eat well, you will feel well. It is not a surprise that they say "You are what you eat" .What you eat has a direct impact on the way you feel. 

Aim for a balanced diet of low-fat protein, complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables. Reduce your intake of foods that can adversely affect your brain and mood, such as caffeine, alcohol, trans fats, saturated fats, and foods with high levels of chemical preservatives or hormone.

• Don’t skip meals. Going too long between meals can make you feel irritable and tired, so aim to eat something at least every three to four hours.
• Minimize sugar and refined carbs. You may crave sugary snacks, baked goods, or comfort foods such as pasta or French fries, but these “feel-good” foods quickly lead to a crash in mood and energy.
• Focus on complex carbohydrates. Foods such as baked potatoes, whole-wheat pasta, oatmeal, and whole grain breads can boost serotonin levels without a crash.
• Boost your B vitamins. Deficiencies in B vitamins such as folic acid and B-12 can trigger depression. To get more, take a B-complex vitamin supplement or eat more citrus fruit, leafy greens, beans, chicken, and eggs.
• Try super-foods rich in nutrients that can boost mood, such as bananas (magnesium to decrease anxiety, vitamin B6 to promote alertness, tryptophan to boost feel-good serotonin levels), brown rice (serotonin, thiamine to support sociability), and spinach (magnesium, folate to reduce agitation and improve sleep).
• Consider taking a chromium supplement. Some depression studies show that chromium picolinate reduces carbohydrate cravings, eases mood swings, and boosts energy. Supplementing with chromium picolinate is especially effective for people who tend to overeat and oversleep when depressed.

Last but not least do not be afraid to seek help. If you feel your depression getting worse and worse, seek medical help. Remember that the negative thoughts are due to an illness called depression. Needing additional help doesn’t mean you’re weak.

Bucket List Ideas

Today i has looking through Facebook and saw that a bucket list was going around. People were ticking off the things on the list that they have done.
I took a look at the list and ticked off some of the listed, but to be honest the specific bucket list was not all quite the things that i would want for my self. So i decided to make one of my own with all the things that i have yet to experience.


I hope to be able to add a capture of each task completed on the list.
So here it goes...


1.       Have a series of my paintings/photos put in a gallery.

2.       Take my Husband/family to visit Portugal.

3.       Own my own home.

4.       Visit Brazil.

5.       Visit New York.

6.       Publish a book.

7.       Design a fashion line.

8.       Fall asleep getting a full body massage

9.       Write a song-Have it sung  

10.   Take my son to the cinema

11.   Grow my hair down to my waist

12.   Create a beautiful garden

13.   Make a series of funny videos

14.   Host a show

15.   Be on the Ellen show

16.   Open a business with my mother/father

17.   Spend a day with my father on his kayak

18.   Make a super gift for my husband (new car or fix his car to become good as new)

19.   Win the lotto

20.   If I win the lotto- travel the world

21.   Hug Vid Diesel

22.   Bake the perfect cup cake- then eat it!

23.   Have a big/tall Christmas tree

24.   Host a Family Christmas Party

25.   Finish the mural in my brother’s room

26.   Have a sleepover at a monastery

27.   Visit China

28.   Visit India

29.   Become a grandmother

30.   Have another baby


Thirty should be good for now ;)
If you have any cool ideas, feel free to share.

xoxo
Natasha

The Best Banana Cake

Here is an easy and yummy recipe for banana cake.

I don't like getting rid of my over ripe bananas, so i made a recipe that takes care of that problem.

Here is what you will need:

• 1 cup of all purpose flour
• 1tsp of baking powder
• 1tsp of vanilla essence/or a little pure vanilla
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 milk (room temperature)
• 1 egg (room temperature)
• 1 cup sugar
• cooking spray (not to stick)
• Icing sugar to sprinkle on top

Here is how: 

1. Mash the bananas in a plate/bowl with a fork. Add sugar, vanilla and oil to the mashed bananas and blend.
2. In a separate larger bowl add the flour and baking powder. Mix the two powders together.
3. Add the 2 eggs to the flour mixture and whisk (with a whisk :p)
4. Add the banana mixture to the flour and egg mixture and blend. Add the  milk to mixture and mix until you have a combined mixture.
5. Place the mixture in a loaf baking pan (mine is 260x95mm, 75mm deep) that has been sprayed with non stick cooking spray. (i always sprinkle some flour on to the pan before adding the mixture to make sure it wont stick.)
6. Bake in the oven for 30minuts at 200°C.
7. Let cool. Sprinkle with some icing sugar. 

Sorry i do not have a picture to add just yet. This cake got eaten to fast!!!

I will add a photo the next time i bake it.

xoxo

Natasha

Baby Boy Christening - Theme Beach, Sea, Ocean

Summer is around the corner and this means that the time to Christen (Baptize) our little baby boy is coming up.

We have booked the date and the venue for the 11th of June. 

I would like to take this opportunity to show you the venue we have chosen as i am very exited to plan the Christening at LA MAISON VRACHOS.

This venue has both indoor and outdoor facilities and it is perfect for high summer temperatures as the indoor is fully air-conditioned, well looked after and every detail is given attention to. The menu is a full dinning experience with a large variety of main dishes as well as deserts.

The staff is very friendly and willing to help, the owner Mr. Vrachimis is not only a very good business man; attending to his customers needs personally but also very approachable and easy to communicate with.

So here are a few pictures just to get the idea of the location:

So as mentioned in the title of this post our theme for the Christening decor and through out feeling will be the Beach, Sea, Ocean. This theme was chosen because we all love the beach and our baby's God Father is a fisherman so we thought it would be well matched.

At the moment we are at the gathering ideas stage. And even though the venue will provide us with delicious deserts; we will be baking our baby's Christening cake and a few treats. Here are a few ideas we like:

I would like to make every table look amazing and hope that we can use a little creativity to pull of something like this:

 

Hoping to fill the room with little details to make the experience of every guest  special and memorable:

 

Holistic Massage Therapy - Business Cards

So after a full year of training, practicing, studying, working on study cases and cramming for exams... I am proud to be a ITEC qualified Holistic Massage Therapist.

 (last bed on the left ;p)

And with the excitement to share my knowledge and skills of  touch, healing and rehabilitation i have created my new cards that i would like to share with you.

xoxo Natasha

From home to home- Our 4th home - Moving

Got engaged in February 2012 (not a very unique proposal story; it was Valentines day we went out for dinner and he pulled out the little box) and moved in to our little "house on the prairie" in August of that same year.

House Number one will always have a special place in my heart. We were a new couple in our small one bedroom little house and soon after we were married in June 2013 we also enlarged our family number by one with the addition of our then puppy lab Hugo.

This was the house that my hubby and i got to know one-another (you know... the little things that we keep to our selves before moving in together). I found out that my husband was a morning person and that i was not that much of a morning person. I found out that my stress levels were higher that i thought being the lady of the house. I found out that no matter how long we live in the same house my husband will always ask me where we keep the scissors, the hand moisturizer and how i take my coffee. I also found out that i was not the most clumsy person in my family as my husband was now the new king of clutz. It just goes to say that every time he will help with the dishes we will have at least one loss. Some of these new revolutions i found funny, some took a while to get used to, some of these bother me and always will. But this is all part of starting a future with someone and learning how to compromise and appreciate the differences we have. This house also  taught me that i could be very content home alone with my husband and puppy.

House No.1 was our first opportunity to pick out brand new furniture and appliances. I can tell that we made good choices then as we now in our 4th house and we have dragged those same furniture and appliances with us from house to house and they still standing! This was one dusty old house; as the walls were made from clay and the windows and doors did not have great sealing. So most of my cleaning house time was spent sweeping and dusting. Soon the thought that we may want to have a baby started entering my mind which both exited and scared me. But i knew that House No.1 was not a place for a newborn with all the dust so we started looking for a new home in October 2014.

House Number two was great fun! This was a huge 3 bedroom, one office, 4 bathroom house in the middle of town. I loved the open spaces of the house and having people over felt like a pleasure. I was able to host my sisters baby shower and have dinner parties with friends and family; this house generally created a more active social life.

House No.2 had me concerned about financials and it triggered me to look in to new interests and i spend a year studding to get my massage therapist diploma and certification. I am now proud to be a certified holistic massage therapist. Also it was a time for baking!!! yes i tried almost every flavor of cake in house number 2 and though seriously of starting up my own Home baking business.

In February 2015 i found out that i was pregnant with my baby boy Mario. This was a very exiting time for my husband and i. But financial concerns as well as 2 floors of stairs (with no elevator and a huge baby bump) pushed us to the decision to move again in September 2015.

House Number three was a roller coaster! Attempting to pack and move was a big challenge with my 8 month baby bump. And it seemed that we had accumulated so much more things in house number two which made packing and unpacking even harder. My husband and i made the decision to move in to house No.3 so abruptly that i believe we did not use very good judgement. Nevertheless it did at least help bring our financial to a more comfortable state as it was much smaller and also older that house No.2 also making rent less. But in our rapid decisions making we kind of missed large warning signs that the house showed to be prone to humidity & mold, no direct sunlight, a series of pluming problems, and a very nosy landlord who kept checking up on us to see the time that we woke, went to bed, what we cooked and even when we would order takeout. I must admit that opening the doors or windows started to freak me out as the landlord was always lurking around. If this was not reason enough to think about moving out our family had some extremely difficult times while staying in House No.3. My brother was in a horrible accident which made us  believe that we were going to loose him. It felt like i mourned my brother in that house many night in row. But House No.3 was also a place of prayer and faith. God herd our prayers and gave my brother a second chance. He also allowed my baby boy to be born healthy and we spent the first 4 months of his life locked behind the four walls of house No.3 which if not anything else kept us both safe while the rest of my family were at my brothers bedside. I think of that place and i cry... sometimes out of sorrow for the pain and difficult times my family and i went through; sometimes out of relief that my family is still in tack and that we are all ok; and other times i cry due to post pregnancy hormones ;p

So in October 2016 we decides to move again!

House Number 4 is where we are currently staying. This is where i am starting to learn how to juggle being a working mother, wife and my own housekeeper. I must admit that this is a challenge! We moved in one week before i was due to go back to the office after 4 months of maternity leave with what seemed like 1000 full boxes to unpack and a apartment to clean. Taking it one step at a time we are now in week 3 in our new apartment and the house although its looking much better from week one still needs a lot of work. These events have also been a reason for my very delayed posts on to this blog. This home is a one bedroom apartment on the 1st floor (with elevator) and its fairly new. I love our veranda view and the amount of light and sunshine that enters the house. This was probably the main reason i liked the apartment. I cant wait to see what this new home has instal for us and can just pray for God to watch over us no matter where we live.

I hope and wish that the next time we move we will be able to call House Number 5 our own. Steps towards this future goal have been made as we are proud owners to a lovely piece of land overlooking the village of Klirou (suburb village of Nicosia in Cyprus) and we have hired a very friendly architect to help us with the designing of our future home.

So this has been our moving home to home experience; an emotional journey of ups and downs.

Stay at home mom for 4 months #maternity

Well this week I am computerless! Yep!!! After 7 years my Lap top had a little bit of a breakdown. I am quite surprised it lasted this long cause I literally have draged my lap top everywhere. University, Oversea trips, The Beach etc and at one stage of my life my PC was my best companion and friend; 

Oh well! I know I should just get a new one but I am giving my old friend a second chance and trying to get it repaired.

In the meantime I will give writing a post from my iPhone a go! 

So since I came home from giving birth in November,baby boy and I have spent quite some time home alone. Sadly this precious time is almost over and soon I will have to get back to the office and leave my baby with Yiayia (grandmother).

Personally I feel so lucky to have my mom help out even if it is just for a couple of months for my baby to hit 6 months before we start thinking of taking him out in to the real world (daycare and interacting with strangers). So let me take this opportunity to thank my mom for this great gift X

Thank you mama Mou for providing the care that I wish I could, for my baby boy while I am not able to. Thank you for the unconditional love you give us both xxx

On another note here are a few of the best times we have had these past 4 and 1/2 months...

Before you arrived

Day One

Daddy and I

My expressions

Mommy and me

Fun times

Family moments

Xoxo Natasha

Baby Sotiris 1st Birthday - Ninja Turtle themed

We were very exited to celebrate baby Sotiris 1st Birthday! Taking this opportunity to thank  all who attended and helped make this a very fun and special celebration for our little one. I hope you enjoy the photos...