Category Archives: Life

Happy New Year?

Posted in Life by

Sooo… Happy New Year!

I’m a bit late with that one, aren’t I? Oh, well. It’s not any less sincere! I wanted to do the End of Year Survey on the 31st of December but didn’t get round to it, and then it kind of went downhill from there.

BUT! My internship (you know, the one I’ve been blaming my lack of blogposts on since September) ended yesterday which means I have a lot of time all of a sudden. I do need to write a report and fix all kinds of boring things related to graduating (yay!) and adulting (yegh), but all in all it seems like I’m going from being very busy all the time to doing very little indeed. Seems like the perfect opportunity for lots of blogging!

It is a little overwhelming to be back, to be honest. I haven’t written anything in over a month and haven’t read any blogs lately either. But I’m looking forward to it a lot! Same goes for reading. I’ve hardly read anything over the past couple months and I’ve been reading My True Love Gave To Me since Christmas. It’s nice to still feel a little festive in the new year, but to still be reading Christmas stories in February is pushing it a little, I think. So finishing that one’s on my To Do-list for this week.

As I’m writing this post I keep getting ideas for all the posts I want to write after this one, but it feels wrong to just get back into the swing of things without acknowledging the fact that I’ve been gone for a long time or talking about what I’ve been up to, so this is just a very short post of me doing exactly that.

Life’s been good the past couple of months. Busy, but fun! My internship went really well and I also passed the last university course I was taking at the same time, so I’m well on my way to getting my MA degree at the end of this month. My personal life’s been pretty darn wonderful as well, so all’s good in the life of me. Now all that’s left to do is to get back to those hobbies of mine. You know, the books and the baking and the blogging…

Here’s to the New Year!

im-back-baby

What I’ve Been Up To [3]

Posted in Life by

Previously on… Books Baking and Blogging:

I’ve decided to temporarily scale back on the blogposts. I’m going to aim at putting out a blogpost once a week, which I think should be manageable.

– Monthly Recap August, 5 September 2016

Well. That didn’t go quite as expected, did it? Seven weeks it’s been. That’s the longest consecutive period of time I haven’t blogged since I started BB&B three years ago!

It’s not that I didn’t want to blog, it’s just that I’ve hardly had any time to read or bake, let alone write about it. As I said in my last post (which most of you will probably have forgotten about by now), I started an internship at a publisher’s at the start of September, and that – together with one last university course that’s been a buttload of work – has left me with very little free time. After not having had the time to post anything for a few weeks, I decided to just let that go and post something again when the first part of the uni course was over and I would have a little time again. Which is now!

tumblr_n11z87uu4q1s8hnhko1_500

Continue reading →

Things I Want To Do This Summer

Posted in Life by

A few weeks ago, my three month summer vacation started and since then I’ve been doing very little of anything. I caught up on some TV shows and hung out with my friends, but I haven’t really done many of the things I planned on doing this summer. Three months is long, and I just figure “ah, I can do that later”, but it’s turning into a bit of a thing in my mind. I’m starting to resent the doing nothing, which has somehow led to doing even less. I haven’t posted a blogpost in over a week, for instance. What’s that about?

I know, I know, first world problems. You’re all probably resenting me for complaining about a three month vacation, and to be fair, you should. This post is pretty whiny so far.

ng gif boohoo

So let’s change that!

Instead of whining, I’m going to make a list of things I want to do in these coming two months so that I can refer back to it and actually start doing things instead of thinking about doing things and watching YouTube videos in the meantime. Time to get off my ass and start being productive (while also having fun), yay!

Continue reading →

What I’ve Been Up To [2]

Posted in Life by

A while back I did a “what I’ve been up to” post, and I really enjoyed it, so I’ve decided to make it a thing!

I got back from my little vacation in France on Saturday to amazing weather in the Netherlands. Apparently, we’ve had the nicest weather in all of Europe for the last two days, which is nuts, since that includes places like Greece and Spain. Either way, I’m loving it. Today is my mother’s birthday and we spent the entire afternoon in the garden, which hasn’t happened in years; and yesterday I spent a lot of time outside as well, eating pie and ice cream, and burnt my nose and forehead. Good times, good times!

P1030687

Continue reading →

What I’ve Been Up To

Posted in Life by

It’s been rather quiet around here lately. Yes, I’ve done a few posts, but not a whole lot of them and I’ve hardly been commenting on other blogs. Mostly, though, I just feel like I’m kind of out of it. So, am I in another blogging slump? I’m not sure, actually, because it’s not like I don’t want to blog. I’ve just been having a hard time trying to find the time and energy to write and come up with posts. So, in order to ease back in and let you guys know about what’s been going on in my life, I figured I’d just do a personal post and ramble for a while. It might even become a series – who knows!

Exciting, I know.

chandler excited

To be honest, I’m never really sure if anyone wants to read about my not very thrilling life, but I always really enjoy personal posts by other people so apparently us humans simply like taking a peek into other people’s lives. I guess that’s why reality shows are so popular (although I despise those).

Anyway, let’s get back on track, if we ever were to begin with (this post is a mess already).

Continue reading →

Happy 2016!

Posted in Life by

I wasn’t planning on writing a “Happy New Year” post, but it felt a bit strange to just get on with my usual schedule without paying any attention to the fact that 2015 is over. Although, I have to say, I’m not as excited about the new year as I have been in the past. 2015 was a good year for me, so I simply want to keep doing what I’m doing.

However, this doesn’t mean that I don’t like to look back on everything I did in 2015! A year ago today I wrote a post in which I mostly looked forward on what was to come, and also included a few goals. I also wrote a post with some blogging resolutions at the end of December, so let’s take a look at the goals in both of those posts and see how I did…

lets-do-this-nye-resolutions

Continue reading →

Blogiversay Post: My Favourite Posts

Posted in Life by

Books Baking and Blogging is 2 years old!

Today, the 28th of October 2015, marks the second anniversary of Books Baking and Blogging! I’ve had an absolute blast over the last two years, and honestly, it feels as if I’ve been doing this for much longer than that. It’s become such a big part of my life that I can’t even really imagine not doing this anymore.

I know quite a few bloggers host some sort of give-away for their blogiversaries, but I have neither the money nor an adequate ability to plan ahead, so that’s not happening. Instead, I thought I’d create an extra blog post this week with a list of my favourite posts from the past two years! It’s always fun looking back, and there are quite a few posts I’d like to put in the spotlight for a little bit. So, here we go…

Continue reading →

An Autumnal Walk in the Woods

Posted in Life by

Last year around this time, I wrote a post about how much I loved autumn and I added some pictures I took of the autumnal colours while walking around my neighbourhood. So when my father asked me this morning if I felt like going with him to a wood in the area for a nice walk, I immediately thought “ooh, that might make for a nice blogpost.” Yep, I’m that person these days (and proud).

We drove out to the Noordlaarderbos and just started walking, stopping here and there to take pictures. There were mushrooms everywhere, in different stages of decomposition, and they were of course hugely photogenic.

It’d been ages since I had actually been in a wood, but it just reminded me of how much I love it. It has quite a relaxing effect on me and I also started to feel sort of inspired. It’s similar to how I feel when I’m at the beach.

My father and I had a great afternoon and I ended up with some lovely autumnal shots. I took almost a hundred photos, but these fourteen are my favourites. Let me know what you think of them in the comments!

P1030325

Continue reading →

Two Weeks on Gozo

Posted in Life by

As some of you may know (especially if you follow me on Instagram) I recently got back from a holiday in Malta. I spent two amazing(ly hot) weeks with four of my best friends on Gozo, the second island of Malta, in a beautiful village called Xlendì. We’d rented an apartment there, which turned out to be much bigger than we expected, and we had a wonderful time there.

Those of you who’ve been around for a while might remember my ginormous post on the four days I spent in Barcelona last summer. Don’t worry, this post isn’t going to be nearly as long! I just figured I’d give you a little taste of what our two weeks there were like with a couple of pictures and some text. (edit: this post turned out longer than expected anyway – I really can’t help it!)

P1020810

Continue reading →