the last post in 2013

my readers,

this is my last post in 2013. i want to wish you a happy new year with all my heart. i want to wish your next year to be so much better than the previous one. let all the things that worried you go away, and all those things that made you happy, make you even happier. i wish you to forget the resolutions, forget not fulfilling them, i wish 2014 to bring you all the great moments, which you haven't planned, happiness which you didn't expect and million of smiles to brighten each day of the upcoming year.

sharing with you a wonderful commercial of moscow christmas fairs to set you in the holiday spirit if you are not there yet. me and ilia visited all of them virtually with the help of my creative sister and mother, who made our 'fair' passports and will bring them to us once they are back.

xx

nini

the new MTV

there were times when i used to live with MTV. i had it on before going to school, during writing homework, when i went to sleep, on weekends. i used to tape all the concerts and favourite video clips. i had the best wyclef jean VH1 storytellers concert, with amazing perfomances of great artists. those were the times when i knew all the new songs and charts and sometimes even voted for songs on tv :)

but at some point of my music taste development my taste stopped and went backwards. it went to jazz, old r'n'b, soul, old pop and even older. and now i realize i have no idea what songs are on charts, i don't have MTV, and hope it still exists, i listen to my own music compilation from my ipod in car, which has more than 5,000 songs in it, i rarely put on the radio and love the songs my friends are giving to me, which are usually the same old music i listen myself.

but occasionally i go shopping. and that is the time when i usually listen to music from the store's speakers. and that is the time when i use shazam. shazam tags all the songs that are popular now, and it became my personal mtv these days. listening to my tags, i think that there are pretty nice songs released these days. i loved all the songs by bruno mars, cee-lo, alicia keys and many many other artists.

sharing with you some of the tunes, which i discovered not long ago, but which you may have already been tired listening to.

18 with a bullet

my personal soundtrack today
the tune is just blowing my mind

it's a wonderful life

i thought i have seen all the christmas themed movies until i realised i haven't seen 'it's a wonderful life'. have you? it's the kindest of all the kind movies in the history... which reminds us of so many great things.

we live our whole life waiting for something, planning things and when the life goes it's own way, ruining all our dreams and plans, we get depressed and upset. we don't notice all the great things that surround us. we don't see amazing friends, our wonderful families, how great the cities where we live are, we miss all the wonderful moments, only worrying about our unfulfilled plans and our personal problems.

but just imagine if you didn't have all those things. only then you would realize that your life has no meaning. without your children, without your family, your friends, your great job, your small but wonderful city, from where you are always willing to run away..

my dear readers, watch this movie and look back at your life. thank god for everything you have and underestimate.

posting for you some wonderful christmas tunes and wishing a Merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate it today.

x

magical loft

this is the view from my office window. down there is the street full of people and cars. to the left and the right are those beautiful old buildings, but this is the front view and it intrigues me. not the whole building, but just the top grey floor. 

first i thought that it's an unusual office, and somebody may be sitting there and working just like i do totally in the style of Paperman. then i began thinking of this place more like of a place where this guy lives:

then in my mind fantasies it turned into a nice sunny loft, with a beautiful view and even more beautiful interior. probably with only one big room looking something like this from the new coke ad:

those thoughts are always subconscious: every time i look out of the window i come up with the new idea for this place in my mind. honestly speaking, i don't want to go up there and check, i would be so disappointed if it is just a small office without anything magical in there.

frames, curtains and cages

i like paintings, but i don't like frames. i like windows, but i don't like curtains. and needless to say, i hate cages.

paintings are so unique, so beautiful and full of so many different colours. they have life in them, they tell stories and live on a piece of canvas. but oh those horrible frames! they are so limited and limiting. frames make the paintings lose their whole beauty. they put those colours and emotions into standarts, when they should be given freedom and space to go out of them and fill in the rooms.

i have the same feeling about curtains. windows open so many beautiful views and backgrounds, be it sea or a set of skyscrapers. but they are closed down with curtains. you say curtains make your life and home private, i say they hide away the space around.

and yes i hate cages. and everything that limits all those wonderful things. and that's how i live. my paintings on the walls have no frames, my windows are never closed with curtains, and cages.. i have never had them and will never let them into my life: physical or mental

...only...

But you only need the light when it's burning low

Only miss the sun when it starts to snow

Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low

Only hate the road when you're missing home

Only know you love her when you let her go

traditionally about christmas

i traditionally start talking about new year in november. i start thinking about new year even earlier. this year, i won't break the tradition and try to set you in a christmas mood. the main mood setter is of course music. the earlier you start listening to christmas songs, the quicker you'll get the festive feel.

the second mood setter is the christmas tree. (for you the first and second places may be vice versa, but for me music is always no.1). set the tree up as soon as you can. mine is ready to light up the whole room for the upcoming month.

then come the smells. decorate your house with tangerines and oranges and place cinnamon barks in each of them. you won't believe what a wonderful smell comes out of those decorations. the instant smell of christmas fills the air. the smell of cinnamon cookies is also something i associate with christmas. bake this month. fill your house with warmth of oven and taste of chocolate cookies.

wear the snowflakes. i personally can wear them only this season. all the sweaters, leggings and gloves with snowflakes, reindeers, santas and elfs - get them out and wear them.

begin christmas shopping. i order my gifts online way earlier than the christmas banners are on. but as soon as i start receiving them, i start to anticipate the day when i can see the reaction of people i'll give them to.

and the last one on my christmas mood list is snow. my mood will be raised by the snow which awaits me in moscow this weekend. though i won't be able to bring it with me to georgia, i saw the forecasts, they promise some snowflakes in tbilisi next week.

and now i'm giving you the first mood setter - nice christmas soundtracks and leaving you to continue the list for yourself. if you have some tips to add to my post, please let me know!

at last

i love to dedicate my posts to different songs. this song i'm writing about today is like a warm blanket, or like a glass of baileys with three ice cubes, or like a smile on your favourite person's face, or like a hug. oh yes, this song is a warm hug.

everytime i listen to it, i can feel it. i can feel the goose bumps and my heart squeezes and skips a heartbeat. thank god such songs exist, which can reach your heart and emotions so deep as sometimes no person can.

after watching 'cadillac records', i can say for sure, that the cover version of 'at last' is as good as the original. etta james is great and beyonce makes this song sound even better.

changes

i envy people who are easy on changes. who love them and always look for new things, new places and new experiences. who can easily move out of one place and move in to another without having heart pricks. who can buy new suitcases and throw out old ones. who can throw coins into fountains without nostalgia and be sure about coming back soon. who can say goodbye to people, with whom they spent some time, without big amount of tears.

unfortunately, i'm very nostalgic. i miss my moscow home all the time, when i get there 1-2 times a year, i look through all the drawers, sit and read all my old notebooks, listen to old cd's and take out old clothes from the wardrobe. i instantly begin missing all my childhood years and student life. i get nostalgic even in a hotel, where i stayed for a week. when closing the door i try to make a snapshot of the room with my head and put it into my memories. i hate leaving places. i hate leaving things behind. i always have that weird feeling that those things can get upset that i have forgotten them. i hate forgetting.

i wish it could be easier for me. i wish i didn't take so many things so close to my heart. i wish i could learn to ignore and get less sentimental.

nice covers

i don't have much time on writing these days, just sharing with you beautiful covers of songs, which you may haven't heard until now. enjoy!

labelling love

we love labelling. we label everything. in some cases labelling is ok - it helps structure things and make life easier, but in other cases, instead of making it easier - it make everything worse.

and i'm specifically talking about labelling the relationships. when you love a person you're dating,  you learn more things about him, find out what he loves more, what makes him happy. but once the label  (husband/wife) comes on the attitude changes. a husband or wife can understand anything, he or she is a part of you and you don't need to spend as much time on researching him/her as you used to before. but imagine, you are dating different people, and you marry not the one you really married, but another one, that means that the life with the other person would be different, so this one unique label 'husband' or 'wife'  doesn't work uniquely for every person. moreover, it is somehow humiliating, it covers under one word so many people, so different from each other.

the same applies to all relationships. when we do something in respect to our friend, we tend to think, 'a friend would be ok with that, he would like or not like it', but why not try and address it without label? not a friend, but nino, elene, sali... because all of the people have their own points of view and their own feelings, even if they are all in the same 'friend' label category.

mom will understand, friend will forgive, husband will always be around - forget those thoughts. each person is unique, and by making labels and categories we forget that each person should be treated as such, according to his or her personality, with different attitude to everyone and without any labelling.

not sentimental georgians

those of you who know me, also know that i am a pseudo-georgian. i was born in tbilisi, but raised in moscow. so when i returned back to tbilisi, after 20 years of living in russia, i faced some differences between russians and georgians: there were huge differences even between georgians living in moscow and georgians living in tbilisi. in 2009 i dived into tbilisi life style. i won't lie, i like it here. i have never regretted my moving here. there are things that i miss - my friends in the first place, streets of moscow, its theatres and concerts, restaurants and all the great memories i have connected to this city.

but generally, i like it here in tbilisi - i like that you manage to do 20 things a day and there are no traffic jams, i like the kindness of people, warm climate and the views.

but there are some things that i have noticed in georgian people, which i want to share with you. In this post i will write about one specific character feature of georgians, that i have been observing since i came back. here in georgia, people are not sentimental. i have been to many weddings, cultural events, places - and noticed one common thing - georgians don't like to show when they are touched. nor do they ever express their feelings in public - it's a shame to show your true emotions. georgians prefer to address everything with humour. instead of running a tear after a very sentimental speech, they prefer to laugh away, instead of enjoying in-love condition of a newlywed friend - million of jokes is made of him/her. to me that is really unusual. on the other hand in some difficult situations, humour is probably the only thing that makes people's lives easier.

... some more of my cultural observations to follow in my future posts.

b is for breathing the music

if asked what is one of my biggest impossible dreams, it is the talent of singing. unfortunately, i can't sing and it won't change no matter how i try. one of my dearest friends, who had the same dream with the same scale of possibility, came up with his own solution - he married a very talented young singer from georgia, and is happily compensating his inability to sing with her super voice, super concerts and super performances.

i have a solution, for which i am thankful to god - i listen to music and i can hear it not only with my ears, but with my whole body. i have been to many concerts, listened to many artists, and today's concert at tbilisi jazz festival - of natalie cole inspired me to write this post while the emotions from it are still in my blood.

every song she sang i knew by heart, and i wanted to sing together with her because all the music she performs is the music of my soul. those are the songs i listen to regardless the mood, time of the day and place. everlasting melodies which are with me always. amazing thing is that i think her voice hasn't changed much, notwithstanding the fact that she is 63. she sounds like she used to sound on cd's some twenty/thirty years ago. as you know, every person has his favourite voice, for me personally, natalie's voice is the best woman's vocal of all times. i was sitting at the concert and the music she was performing from the stage was coming to me and into my lungs, i was breathing the music and that was an amazing feeling, which i don't get on every concert.

so yes, l is for the way you look at me and b is for breathing the music.

love indicators

i am an observer. i like to observe different things, situations, people.. people especially. and people in love are my favourite ones to observe. one thing i find in common between most of the couples is their love for nicknames. if you belong to the happy number of people in love (mutually), you must belong to the happy number of people who come up with all the possible letter combinations to call their second halves. i have known boo's, du's, ku's and many others, and i think that probably it's weird if you don't want to nickname your love. nickname is a sort of meter - the closer you get, the nicknamier you are.

and then comes the voice. people in love talk with different voice. when the phone rings and you watch a person pick up - that's when you get right away who is calling. voices change, become sweeter, happier and brighter when they talk to their loved voices. yes, voice is probably the most important indicator of love.

kindness is yet another one: when people are happily in love, they become kinder. i have seen some really aggressive and unkind people turning into small sunshines, once they were loved by somebody.

usually my posts have some conclusions, would it be a pretty trivial one, if i say:  love, come up with nicknames, change voices and become kinder!?        
... and i will be there to observe :)

a little brain wash for young-me

every time i need to lift up my mood, i reach for the 'memory' box, which i have been filling in since childhood. i keep old invitations, greeting cards, tickets, love letters ... and my diary, which i used to write between 1999 and 2003. i started when i was 13.

looking back at my old notes in the diary, i wish i could have had the chance to tell my young-me that all those things which i used to worry about then would eventually turn out so good. i would be successful at entering the university, i would enjoy studying there and have a pretty successful career path. i would like not only characters from Beverly Hills 90210, members of 5ive and boys from the school, but i would actually meet many interesting people and communicate with them without blushing and feeling awkward. that i would like pictures of me taken, and i would never hide away from the camera. i would make my young-me so much more confident if i could only have one small talk with her.

maybe this is the right thing to fix in our children, help them be more open and confident, by telling them how great they are and how even greater everything will turn out.

autumn in georgia. kakheti.

and traditionally i will be sharing with you some beautiful moments and pictures from my autumn voyages around georgia.

in autumn my trips are usually limited to kakheti mostly, main reasons being that first of all, kakheti is my second home - i used to spend all my summers there with my grandmother; and secondly, autumn is the season of wine picking and vintage, which i love the most.

my grandparents used to have a beautiful house in the village, where they spent a lot of time when they didn't work in telavi. the name of the village is Artana. we used to go there often when i was little, though i didn't like staying there for the night, because i was so afraid of the big space in the house and numerous rooms with old books and houseware. but it had the most amazing garden with lots of fruit trees and dozens of flowers. i can still feel the taste of apples from that yard: tastier apples i have never tasted anywhere else. my grandparents are long gone, the house is now empty, nobody waters the plants except the rain and occasional workers, whom we pay to clean the garden... but every time i enter it, the fruits are always there; my old chair is standing in the corner and my childhood comes back.

the season of wine making is on - with dozens of cars filled with grapes, ready to be weighed in my uncle's wine factory, the wine routes filled with those who make wine - be it companies or just people who make their own family wine. and i will be sharing some photos from our own vintage in one of the next posts. 

instagram killed it

i was looking through my albums on facebook to find old photos from my trips. and i remembered i have deleted them all. and instagram ate all my albums, all the professional camera photos, all the collection of pictures from the past. now it's all instant without much thinking or sorting.

but i used to love those albums, each for separate event, taken with a canon or nikon, uploaded in high resolution without all those filters... it's time to go back to real photography

season soundtracks

every season has its soundtrack. 

winter songs have jingles on the background and deep voices that warm your heart better than any marshmallow chocolate drink and a chimney. spring soundtracks have bossa nova flow for me. they are so flower-blossom-like and light-rain-like and you walk and almost dance down the street with the melody of spring in your ears. summer songs are full of sea and salty wind. they give you positive emotions and the dance mood. those are the happy tunes, that keep you up all night with the fruit cocktail in you hand and a straw in your hair. 

                       

but with autumn it's different. for some reason the autumn soundtracks are so sentimental. they bring the sadness sometimes, and make the memories come often to your mind. so do the days - that get darker, windier and rainier...

until the season of fir-trees, cinnamon cookies and tangerines is back, these are the songs for you to enjoy and feel sentimental. because it's the right season to. 

ps. special thanks to NS for inspiration and some motivational messages today

                                  

missing the twenties

i rarely regret things in my life, because there is no big use in doing so. i just usually miss things, which i want to return back in my life. 

among such things are my 20 years old age. i know i haven't left my twenties yet, but i can see a big difference between now and back then. 

now i usually get invitations to lunches and dinners, then it used to be the invitations to cinemas and parks. now we quickly text, whatsapp and imessage each other, then we used to call. the landline. for hours. we used to say everything we thought, now we think 10 times before saying, weighing each word, so not to offend anyone and be as diplomatic as possible. now we have so many things to worry about, so many things to plan, we keep the diaries, we schedule meetings, cancel them, reschedule and shake hands with the partners. then we left home in the morning and did everything without any plan or purpose. now we commit, then we didn't. we walked and walked when we didn't have cars. now we do. and we drive and drive. we used to drink everything, now we know the names of favourite wines, cocktails and how they are made. we eat healthy food.. we grew up.

i won't lie, i miss those days. and i miss myself, the person i used to be then. person, with pink sunglasses and pink hair, in cinemas, parks, with telephone talks, hugs and smiles, no worries, with sincerity, walks and millions of plans for the future.

i know i don't have much to regret, and all the great things are still ahead, but it was so much fun being 20!

ilia's birthday photobook

what can you get our child as a present for his 1 year birthday?

when ilia was turning 1 on 13th of June, i was thinking about possible birthday gifts for days and days. and you know, i think i came up with the best decision - to give him his first-year review in pictures in one big 90-pages photobook. you should have already noticed what a crazy collector i am, so i have all his moves and pictures collected during the whole year - the only thing left was to put them all in one book, add stickers and comments to each page - and a photobook with all the memories was ready. i have received it today and can't wait to go back home and show it to my son :)

and i have a plan - to keep making such photobooks every year - that's a great thing to have for my son, who will probably love memories just like his mom, genetically ;)

                                   

shampoo for coloured hair

you may think what a weird title to a post in a mother-baby blog, but today morning one detail  made me smile and i decided to share it with you.

as a child, i have always watched the red shampoo bottles standing in our bathroom. those used to be shampoo bottles of my mom for coloured hair. i never used them, always thinking they were only for older women. i had all kinds of shampoos - first with princesses, then with flowers and all of them were different colours possible - except red.

today looking at my bathroom shelf, filled with red bottles, i realized that i have entered the category of women, who are grown-ups, dye hair and have children of their own, who have their own shampoo bottles with dinosaurs and princesses and never use shampoos in red bottles.

entertaining cards

the one thing i know is that my son (and every child of his age) adores small little things. he may be staring at something for minutes and i can't even see what it is. so this little game is specially for children who are at the age of exploring world, different surfaces, materials and objects.

first of all, you will need cardboard, which you should cut in small square pieces. the cardboard may be white or you can colour it. then you will need everything that could be glued on the cardboard - spaghetti, candied fruits, beans, buttons, zips - the main rule here is to stick similar things on the same cardboard. i suggest you use a paper glue, which doesn't stick to the fingers of children and is much safer than the glue for all the surfaces. ilia used paper glue, but when i had to stick something that was heavy, i used the superglue, but kept it far away from my child.

the main goal of the game is not to ultimately stick the objects to the cardboard, but to show you child different textures and materials. children at the age of 1 love to tear off everything, so once the objects are stuck, they will try to tear all of them off. keep an eye on your child, don't let him eat any of those objects ;)

when you have cardboards ready you can teach your child how the objects are called. we have a big box where we keep those cards: i name an object, and ilia finds the right cardboard in the box and gives it to me. you can't even imagine how this game works, ilia has learned all of the objects in one evening.

thank you

i have been writing a book from some time now. about music and my personal memories connected to different songs and melodies. as you may have noticed i am a huge nostalgic. but i'm also a great believer of memories. and that things happen for some reason. some things happen for you to remember, some things happen for you to learn a lesson and never repeat, but some happen just to bring smile to your face.

i want to thank all those people, memories about whom will bring smile to my face anytime i remember them. some of those people i may not see again in my life or those moments may never repeat, but what i know for sure is that when i'll pass familiar places, or hear familiar music the smile will come to my face and those memories will make me happy.

i saw a movie the other day where the main heroes were talking about the future and that when we are young we think that there are so many things ahead us, and we believe that we have so much time left and we never hurry. but in reality, there are not as many opportunities in life. so if life gives us one, we should grab it.

let's start living fully and let's be happy and gather the moments for us to remember when we are older and nostalgier :)

  

make somebody happy

what it takes to make somebody happy? not that much i guess.

we sometimes lack happiness in our hearts. there may be serious reasons for that or there may be no reason at all. but we still feel down from time to time. and suddenly, a small comment, a small gesture, a small gift, a smile and even a glance can change everything and bring back the sun. the sun may be coming from a close friend or an absolute stranger, but it may light up you day in a way it hasn't been lighting from the early morning.

so what it takes to make somebody happy? it actually takes smiling to the strangers, saying nice words to people, giving out compliments, encouraging those near us, making them laugh, thanking them, hugging them and loving them.

and you know what is the best part of it? happiness is contagious. by making others happy you get happy too.

oh, it's so important to make someone happy

un bacio a mezzanotte

i'm absolutely in love with a song that i found not long ago. and not simply in love with one version of it - but with all the versions that i gathered. 

this version by quartetto cetra is the one i heard first and the one i listened to thousands times..

until i found this great version by jumpin' up. with amazingly cute video clip.

enjoy this song my dear readers, with a lemonade, a smile and nice thoughts about upcoming summer with some nice midnight bacio's for everyone.

 

melody

i got this habit of leaving music several weeks ago. by 'leaving music' i mean that every day when i come home from work i put on some nice music in the car for me to listen in the morning. i turn the ignition off and the song is saved in my ipod for sleepy me sitting in a cold car on my way to work.

you have probably noticed the kind of relationship i have with music. a very special, butterfly-bringing and never ending. sharing with you the soundtrack of today, which was waiting for me in the car and which i can't stop listening to since then.

the choice

few days ago me and my son were sitting and looking at the covers of different magazines and i decided to test ilia's taste. i put two covers with two different girls in front of him and told him to choose the one he liked.

i won't lie - i definitely prefer miranda kerr to zooey deschanel. but my son picked zooey. and not once. he picked her all ten times i put those two girls side by side hoping he would change his mind.

and that made me realize - despite his young age he already has his own taste. that's good to know :)

here is some nice music for you to enjoy this windy grey morning

the shuffle

when we were little and went to school, we had a game which my classmate veronica has invented. i don't know if she still remembers it, but for some reason i kept playing this game and still have a lot of fun with it. the main idea is the following - you put your player (now ipod) on the shuffle mode, start asking questions and ipod gives all the answers you wanna know.

what will happen to me next month? where will i be in summer? what X thinks about me? and any other question your imagination will come up with.

you won't believe how this game actually works. i would have imagined that all my songs on the playlist are about love and nothing except it would come out. but it turned out that my 4,000+ library has answers to all the questions - some pretty encouraging and some very disappointing.

so next time you're in the car and have nothing to do, try this game - i promise it'll be fun.

fear of silence

i know the kind of phobia i have. it's the fear of silence. those of you who know me, know how much i love to talk. but this love originates from something that i realize is making me talk all the time - the hate of silence. i feel extremely uncomfortable around people in silence. it makes me begin talking about million different things just for the purpose of breaking it.

i have realized the scale of my silence fear several days ago while on holiday in bakuriani, georgian ski resort. one of the slopes had ski lift which would bring me up the slope i spent most of the days skiing from. in the middle of the ski lift route there was a man sitting on a log watching out for the unfortunate skiers falling off the lift. and so were the two other man - one in the beginning and one in the end. when i started my way up, i used to say something to the first man, then there was this mid-route man and finally i had to come up with something to say to the last guy. within several days i knew everything about them: names, surnames, families, ages, hobbies, their mood, news for the day, plans for the summer etc. but sometimes came the moments when i didn't know what else to say and when those guys were talking on the phone or looking other way, i was so relieved and could finally enjoy the sun and tanning till the end.

so here comes one of my biggest lessons from this situation - those people with whom you are comfortable in silence are the closest people to your heart. in my case especially, because there are so few of them.

follow me

i loved the idea of those 'follow me' pictures which have been appearing all over the internet these days. there is this guy, murad osmann, who is taking pictures of himself holding hands and following his girlfriend to different places all over the world. pictures are taken by iphone and uploaded then to his instagram account.

i seriously wonder how we all lived without instagram? i think that this is the only social app or website (call it as you wish) i cannot imagine my life without. and this idea of showing different places with one main hero in them is one of my favourite photo ideas. it reminds me of amelie, who was sending pictures of yard dwarf from different countries to her dad who didn't believe in miracles.

and reminds me of my friend olya who takes her toodee toy with her everywhere and we all receive photos of him in different locations with warm greetings and funny comments. toodee even has his own facebook page. you can find him under the name - Toodee Velimirovich-Yakovlef. 

i am a big fan of creative photography and ideas. i'm thinking of coming up with my own way of capturing the places i am travelling to starting with my nearest trip. i will be posting those pictures here for you to enjoy. bon voyage, my dear readers!