A Heart A Day #9

Heart #9 – Money heart, all in red.
I’m thankful for all the money coming my way. It might not be much, but I’m thankful for every tenner I can fold a heart from ;-) “Money can’t buy love” they say. However, to me money means the ability of taking care of me, the ability of treating and surprising others. I think that’s love, don’t you?

What is your heart made of today? Share your picture using #aheartaday and let’s fill this worldwideweb with love, compassion and self-made (or self-found) hearts!

9

[I love love and I love hearts! But oh, there’s too little of it, this world needs more love. So let’s change that, step by step. Away with pessimism. Away with hate. Let’s fill this world with love. And hearts. To show compassion towards each other, towards the planet, towards ourselves. It proves to be difficult for so many of us. But instead of judging it’s more meaningful to show love, to respond with love, to act out of love. Say it with hearts.

I’m sharing A Heart A Day. Homemade. Every day I will create a heart and post it on this blog. Will you help me make love and hearts spread like a contagious but healthy disease?]

About a Discodipped and starry night

Last week I celebrated my birthday. I turned 31 but celebrated like I hadn’t even reached 13 yet. Growing up is something I’ll save for later.
I celebrated my birthday with a group of lovely people that I feel blessed to have in my life and call my friends. The theme was DiscoDip, after my favourite ice cream decoration.

Ice cream1

This accidental Discodip picture I took a couple of years ago. Copyrights by me, 2014.

I bet all my friends stressed out at the thought of a theme. That was the only true reason I decided to go with a theme – to make them feel a little awkward. And also the fact that Discodip is just too good and colourful to be true. It really makes me happy!

We met up at the TonTonClub in Amsterdam’s Red Light district. No red ears or under-age warnings needed; TonTon Club is kind of a modern game arcade where you can play Jenga or get lost in a car race (never ending if you keep on feeding the machine coins) and dive in a ball pit. You can also watch the prostitutes from a safe distance if visiting them is too much for you, guys.

Like any 13 or 31 year old probably wouldn’t… I made party bags for my friends. The kind my mother used to make for my birthday parties when I really was young. With a candy heart, confetti, a weird-shaped eraser and a lucky star. Because I love my friends, I love to give and I love to show my gratitude. The lucky stars I made myself and I added a little message to them before I folded them. Unless they’ve all unfolded their stars, they still don’t know what’s written on it.

So here it is, my message to you ‘unfolded’:


“Be the DiscoDip to someone’s icecream”. That’s the loveliest thing you can be: colourful, happy and full of love. And to share that is spreading it, like a colourful love-virus. So I won’t stop you from spreading. Enjoy!

If you want to fold Lucky Stars – it’s pretty easy! I just don’t like to write out the instructions so here’s a link to someone else who already did write the instructions down for you.

A year in a jar

Every year I’m surprised. All news channels look back on the year and it turns out I’ve forgotten at least 95% of it. Largely. Besides the feeling of surprise, it makes me feel a little ignorant, too.

However, these news channels all show why my brain banished most of those news items, as most are terrible tragedies and other depressing facts. But it’s not only these facts that I seem to have forgotten. Also the good things that happened, the beautiful moments that popped up along the road I travelled during that year – blurry memories as well… That saddens me a bit as it occurs to me that remembering such things could give a nice positive boost at the start of the new year!

So this year I started my 2014-in-a-jar. I found the idea somewhere on the internet and immediately decided that was going to be the trick for me.

It’s easy as one-two-three. You can make it yourself. Use an old jam jar. Or a weck jar. Maybe you’re more the box-type. Shoe-boxes may do, too! There are no rules.

 

If you feel totally lost at only the thought of that jar, here are some guidelines. Just to help.

A few guide lines...

This is how it works…

 

My weck jar has really helped me become more aware of interesting moments and beautiful happenings. It absolutely is a good way to stand still and see what you have. To realise it’s not all that black and negative. And to be thankful for it.

Tomorrow I will open my weck jar and carefully read the collected moments. I will use them to write a short review on my 2014. Then the jar will be ready for 2015.

And so will I.