Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! May the light in your heart never fade and the star above you take you on a wonderful journey in the New Year!

Believe in yourself, believe in your dreams and in your power to live your life the best possible way! I wish you abundance of lovely miracles and joyful events in 2011!

Me, I'm having the best Christmas ever. Because I believe so! :) My heart is full, my hands are hardly carrying all I've been blessed with, my love always comes back to me. I'm grateful and I'm happy. :)

All is possible! Make a wish. And make it a big one! ;)

Christmas preparations - cookies

This year I promised myself to go slowly and easily, so I'm making only two types of cookies - Linzer and honey. These are my Linzer cookies with milk and walnuts which we made and decorated together with my son a couple of days ago. I hope your holidays are bright and yummy like a plate of Christmas cookies! :)




Linzer cookies with milk and walnuts
(I use a medium coffee cup to measure, approximately 300 ml)

2 cups flour
1 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs (at room temperature)
half cup soft butter (at room temperature)
10-12 walnuts (powdered or grated finely)
the rind of one lemon, finely grated
1 / 5 cup of warm milk with one tablespoon of liquid vanilla in it
jelly of red, green or yellow fruit ( I use strawberry jelly with no sugar added)
icing sugar for sprinkling

Sift the flour flour and the powdered sugar, add the eggs and the oil, and knead well until you get a dry dough, may be brittle. Add the nuts powder and the lemon rind, mix well again. Add milk little by little and knead again, you can sprinkle a little flour on your hands if very sticky. Roll out the dough on baking paper (as big as your tray) to a thickness of about half an inch, not too thin, because it's easy to over bake the cookies. Cut in the desired shapes, and in every second cookie (for example, the second tree) make a round hole (I use a bottle cap). Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees until pink, be careful to not over bake. As son as the cookies look a bit fluffy on their tops, you can take them out. Now spread jelly on the bottom one, top with the second one (with the hole), sprinkle with icing sugar and finally add more jelly in the hole with the tip of a knife (to keep it red and to avoid icing sugar in it). These cookies can easily stay for about two weeks on your table. If you don't add jelly at this point, you can preserve them in boxes for three weeks and add jelly just before the holiday. However, I prefer to add the jelly while the cookies are warm because they draw the liquid from it, they stay soft and stick well to one another. Enjoy!

Perfume and changes

Hello dear ones! I haven't forgotten the blog, just had to travel forward and backwards since September till now. As scared as I was about flying with my little one, I did it, and a number of times. This time I practiced what I preached - facing our fears and still doing what scares us is intimidating, even paralyzing sometimes, but it's so worth the effort. I had the most bizarre summer as I found myself in a hotel I first visited when I was two years old and as I entered the hallway the first thing I saw was a man I've been eyeing for ages... Nothing happened. Or maybe happened but I don't know it yet. ;)) I mean, the Universe sometimes works in odd ways. As I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, I'm full with optimism that the way my past entered my present again has a deep, rich, fulfilling purpose. And I'm open to receive the huge Christmas presents I know are in store for me. :)

Speaking of presents, this year I wish for beauty. Beauty in all around me - in my relationships, in my love affairs, in my motherhood, in my writing, in my cooking, in my new perfumes and in my big box of cocoa I'm sharing those cold days with my son. Beauty like Dior jewellery, I guess. :))

Did you make your wishes already? Did you wish big? As big as you have never dared to? Because I found (again) my only limitation is my own mind. This summer I realized how deep in my past were hidden the reasons why I had never wished as big as I wanted. And I started working on these. This time I am resolved to kill all the thoughts that stop me from getting all I want. For Christmas. And in general. :)))

I must say that my treasure map is also working wonders and some of my wishes there are already a fact - in only a few months. Wow. :))) I am constantly updating it and keeping it safe from hostile looks and people. It's my secret weapon. :) Currently I'm attaching pictures of Venice - I've dreamed of going to the carnival since I was a teen, London next Christmas, and Paris for this once-in-a-lifetime killer date. :)) I'll keep you posted how the manifestation is going. :)

So, to open a new chapter, I switched from J'Adore to Miss Dior Cherrie, started working out again, bought a couple of killer dresses, changed my hair color and my hair style, bought an apartment far away from here and booked my flights for next year in Prague... I-am-so-enlightened. I feel like I'm flying. My horoscope tells me it's all Venus's doing and I hope she stays for long. We all have our time to shine but how often we miss the opportunity. I had forgotten how it feels to love myself for no other reason except that I exist. Now I'm floating on a puffy cheesy cloud and it feels oh-so-great. And in addition, it seems to influence everyone around me... Let's see what Santa has in his bag for me. I hope the bag is big enough. :)))