Our Precious Menta Passed Away

Hello everyone, it’s been a while…

Lot’s of things happened on this month and a half I took a break, and if any of you follow me on my Instagram then you already know. The most recent and the most painful by far was that our beautiful dog Menta passed away a week ago.

(This picture is from the day she died a few hours before)

She died the age of almost 16 years old (Jan was her birthday). I planned a big birthday for her but she didn’t make it. She was such a wonderful, crazy and cute doggie and she will be missed forever.

She passed away at home from lung cancer and it was just heartbreaking to see her go, we wanted more time to play, be with her, saying our goodbyes… But it was too fast.

We still find ourselves calling out to her as we try to live without her but our routines, habits and moments together for so many years, makes it so hard. It’s been a week now, and it still hurts a lot. I call out to her so that she will cuddle up with me, or to give her food or just to see how happy she acted as we entered home and we called out her name.

I am so happy that I was able to be with her in her last moments, especially when things went to the worst fast. Just hours before she was doing okay (not great but really okay) and a few hours later she was gone. We truly thought we had more time with her. The vet called to tell us that the blood results came back and that she has lung cancer that was very aggressive and that with the treatment she will only have another week. We planned to go the vet the next day or after that to give her the injection but she passed away that evening.

I am so relieved she didn’t suffer much and at the end, she passed away at home in my arms as I calmed her down. But even now, a week after her death still hurts so much. And even now as I write this post and tears pouring down my face for missing her so much, I am still so grateful to have all these big and small moments with her for 15 years.

Thank you so much, Menta

You will be missed so much ❤

❤️

Writer’s Log: Minimalism and Low Waste

Hello everyone, and happy Sunday to you all ❤

In today’s writer’s log, I wanted to talk about my journey to lower my waste and become more mindful and consume less stuff.

This topic is a bit loaded these days with all the environmental issues we are having and people from all over the globe open up about their opinion on this. For me, though I am sure that people in my life and even my husband are thinking that this is just a phase or following some trend… This is not the case with me.

I am under a lot of stress almost all the time, and because of that and my illness my body started to reject a lot of the food I am eating so I’ve become as you already know, Gluten-Free Vegan (+peanut free) and I already feel the huge difference it made on my body for the better.

However, taking care of my body is great but I am feeling a strong pull to taking care of my mind, my home and my environment.

It is a well-known fact that when your surrounding is not cluttered and not overstimulate you, then you can accomplish more and be more creative. It is true that there are people out there that can thrive in chaos, but I am not one of those people. I need clean and open space to create and think and I want to that in the most sustainable way I can.

My journey with lowering my waste and being more minimal had begun a few months ago, but it will take the entire year I think to get to where I want us to be. I will never be one of those esthetic minimal people, hehe but I do want to lower the amount of stuff we own. I don’t want to feel that we are paying rent for our stuff, I want things that are useful to our lives but also that makes us happy.

I want to create the space for us that will bring us together and make the space for me to create again and feel that I can sit and write and not worry by all the chaos we are living in. Don’t get me wrong our house is relatively organized but there a lot of things that still don’t have space and where to put them.

As I mentioned in my post Another Minimalism Game, I wanted to declutter lots of items from our home and I’ve already decluttered over 150 items not including over 60 books.

All of these changes are a bit hard for my husband, but slowly I hope that he as well will see the benefits of not buying so much stuff and living a more meaningful life by creating a better space for us to live in and for our environment. We may never be zero waste but I know that I can lower my waste, even by just not baying every piece of shining cute item I see in the stores or on Instagram.

Well, that’s it for today’s somewhat short update, hope you are having a good day and I will see you tomorrow 😀

(Btw, This gif is so true in my case, hehe)

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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🌞The Sunshine Blogger Award🌞

Hello everyone, hope you are having a great weekend ❤

It’s been a while since I saw a blog award of some sort around the blogging community. When I just started blogging 4.5 years ago the blogging community was filled with tons of blog awards, tags and other blog-sharing posts to know better of the people behind the wonderful blogger’s community. And now, I’ve been tagged by the wonderful Hilary from sereneluna blog. If you don’t know Hilary from her beautiful blog and her joyful Instagram, go check her out after you read this post. Don’t forget to say Hi and get to know another great blogger by following her inspiring posts.

🌞SUNSHINE BLOGGER AWARD RULES🌞

The Sunshine Blogger Award has rules (surprise, surprise!). These rules ensure the success of this award, providing exposure to all the award winners. The rules are quite simple and straightforward.

RULES FOR AWARD:

• Thank the person who nominated you and provides a link back to their blog so others can find them.
• Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
• Notify the nominees about it by commenting on one of their blog posts.
• List the rules and display a Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or your blog site.

QUESTIONS I WAS ASKED:

1. Why did you decide to start a blog? I have started blogging because I wanted to share my passion for writing, book, and life with other people who have the same passion. I love the positive community and how people show their kindness and compassion for others, it’s just inspiring and motivating ❤

2. What year did you publish your first blog post? My first weird (lol) blog post was published in 2014 and it’s called This Is Me. Go check it out even for just a laugh, hehe.

3. What is your favorite thing about blogging? The obvious reason is the wonderful community, but I also love the writing aspect of blogging. To just write a more free aspect of writing. I am now editing my novel so having fun to just write and share my thoughts, some writing tips, and about my life, is very freeing and almost like therapy (hehe).

4. Do you own a pet? If so, what kind? We (my husband and I) care for the most beautiful, joyful, old and crazy dog named Menta (Mint) 😀 She doesn’t have a specific breed.

5. Do you have any routines before you write a blog post? It’s not much of a routine, but if I have to really sit down and brainstorm ideas…

• I like to sit by my desk and take a piece of paper and just brainstorm ideas and what I really feel I would like to read or write about.
• Then I go into Grammarly and start writing a rough draft of my blog post and copy it into my WordPress blog post.
• I like to search for pictures and edit them on Canva (I only have the free version and that’s enough for me) ❤
• If I don’t have time and I am of the house for most of the day, I like to do it all on my phone and my favorite app to brainstorm ideas in is Google Keep 😀

6. What motivates you to write? Where do you find inspiration? Omg, this can be a long answer, but I will try to keep it short. Writing for me is like therapy, so I always write, hehe… If it’s a diary, poems/songs, blog post or novel form… I will always write because it keeps me sane and connected and that’s what motivates me to keep going even if I will be 80 years old and still haven’t published a word, I will keep writing 😀

I find inspiration everywhere… Books, people, movies, dreams, other blogs and sites, and pictures.

7. What country do you live in? I live in Israel ❤

8. Are you a coffee or tea drinker? I am mostly a coffee drinker but I do love tea as well and I have a cupboard filled with tea boxes of all sorts to prove it 😉

9. Are you a morning person or a night person? I am a night person that has to be a morning person due to my mom’s illness and the fact that Ralfi (my husband) always said he misses me. I am getting used to it, but my most productive writing sessions are at night or very early mornings.

10. What languages do you speak? I speak Hebrew, English, a bit of Hungarian and a bit of Spanish. I do understand very well Romanian but I don’t speak the language.

11. What do you fear the most? Wow, that a very personal question (I love it)… Other than bugs and mostly Cockroaches? I think I fear that people will think I am totally ugly (I know it’s superficial but sadly we live a world that judges you on how you look not on what you are as a person) and I also fear that when a struggle presents itself that I won’t be strong enough to deal with it.

🌞SUNSHINE BLOGGER AWARD NOMINEES🌞

Chanelle

Heena Rathore P.

Kate M. Colby

Emily from A Quintillion Words

Lauren from Bournemouth Girl

Kristy from teabookandme

Melanie from Mel To The Any

Simple Ula

Tony

Aloma from Aloma Writes

Jen Dollente

And all of you that are reading this ❤

My Questions to you:

1. What is your favorite thing about blogging?
2. Is blogging your full-time job?
3. What kind of blog posts are you most looking for to read?
4. If you knew you would die tomorrow (knock on wood 3 times, hehe just in case) what would be your last post about?
5. Do you believe in true love?
6. Which do you love more… Reading books or watching movies (name your #1 book or movie).
7. What are you most passionate about?
8. Do you exercise, do yoga or just chill on the sofa?
9. What do you see when you open a window?
10. What is your best tip to organize your day?
11. Any wisdom to share or your favorite quote?

There is no pressure to respond to this nomination, as I know you have very busy lives outside of the blogging world. I look forward to reading your answers if you do decide to participate in the Sunshine Blogger Award. I am curious to know what your answers are 😀

That is all for today’s post and I will see you again tomorrow.

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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Writer’s Log

Hello everyone, hope you are all doing okay ❤

After lots of thinking, planning and lots of journaling, I came to the conclusion that I don’t like where my life is heading. I basically stopped creating in any form and rarely even writing. I stopped writing/editing, reading, drawing, playing music… and I focused all my energy on helping my family, my friends and basically stopped everything else. I am telling you the complete truth so you’ll know where I am coming from and understand where I want to be. And maybe even go through this journey with me.

I miss our connection and I want to bring it back so we will always have this community and the outlet to seek help and try to overcome life’s obstacles together.

So here it comes… Are you ready?

I am starting a huge series here at Coffee n’ Notes, that will focus on a few major things in my life that I want to change and the main goal is to be able to create again:

• Create more – Writing, blogging, drawing, doodling, or anything else I want to create.
• Meditate every day twice a day, and to slowly be able to de-stress and breathe better.
• Consum less tv, and social media.
• Declutter more, our home and lives. Living with less clutter and chaos has become one of my main goals this year, after writing.
• Eat better, and taking care of my mind and body.

I’ve been sick for almost 2 months and due to this illness I became vegan again and you know what? I feel so much better. I know it’s just been two weeks but I eat better food and I feel much better than before.

I spoke to a specialist who said that due to my none stop stressful living, I get sick a lot and I can do even more harm to my body and to my mind, so I must change and that is what I working on right now.

This will be hard for me but I need this change in my life, I can’t give myself to others as much as I do, I am burning up all my energies and at the end of the day, I’m left with nothing. I need to trust this process and this journey to lead me where I need to be so that I will be able to be the better version of myself and by doing so I will be able to help my family even more.

I want to do the small things every single day that will slowly build these habits I want to build.

So… Every day from today 14.4.19 until 6.6.19 I will post about my progress and how I find my creativity again ❤

I have tons to do with my mom this month and on May but as I said before I need to find my way in all this chaos. I will try to keep it short and to the point in my next posts.

I hope this series will not be spam in your reader and if so I am sorry in advance, but this is something I have to do for myself and share with the world these moments… good and bad and how I truly going through things in my life.

I hope you don’t mind coming along with me in this weird journey but even though this will be hard for me (really hard, I can tell you now) hopefully, it will lead me to where I need to be and create the books I was meant to create ❤

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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Starting Over: Hitting the Reset Button

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.
– John Dewey

It’s been a while, sorry for that. January was complete madness and February is a bit slower but still busy. Missed you all so much and this little corner of ours 💕

It’s been almost two months, but I am slowly getting organized an trying to catch up on all my to do’s. The good news is that I was able to have a few days here and there to write and edit (these revisions are killing me, hehe). Anyways… Happy to be back ❤

This post will be a bit longer than usual, so go grab a yummy hot drink, mine is caramel coffee and let’s talk ☕

Because January was such a crazy month, February feels like the start of 2019, I know it sounds a bit out there but for me, it’s the truth. February feels like a fresh start and only now I am able to think clearly about my needs, my goals and my dreams and only in this month I can see the road ahead of me and not get overwhelmed. Because all of these reasons I see February as the new start of 2019, I also see it as a great opportunity to hit that reset button and start fresh with new intentions and see things through the eye of an eagle.

“Hitting the reset button” is hard but for me, it was a necessary step, in order to climb out of this overwhelming haze that I was in. I listened to a few podcasts and everything got better, hehe… No, but it did help me realize that I was overwhelmed and too stressed.

I took a chill day, to just relax, listen to some music and breathe. I’ve inserted meditation to my weekly routines, but I was too stressed to really enjoy and get any benefits from that. So I took out a pen and a paper and wrote above a question.

“How are you feeling at this moment?” I took a deep breath and started mapping out everything that I felt… The good, the bad, everything (big or small). I didn’t want solutions, just to take out what was overwhelming me and put it on a piece of paper. After filling the entire page I saw all the chaos that was in me and the weird thing is that I was starting to feel better, my head started to think clearer.

I realized that no matter how much I wanted to I couldn’t show up for my goals and my own dreams because I was too busy and stretched too thin from helping everyone else and then things started to change. I started to go back to my old self, being more optimistic and even going back to my old “magic vibe” such as tarot and just tapping to the universe’s magic, showing up for small goals, tiny steps that someday will lead to something bigger 😀

I slowly showed up for my yoga practice a few times a week, at home. Started with just a few easy minutes and slowly getting into it with soft stretches, until I felt stronger and ready to push myself harder.

I also slowly started to reorganize and define my workplace, my home and what I truly envisioned it would look like after I achieve what I want and after I showed up for my goals. I got a plant from my mom that my husband named Nott The Plant (Nott from Critical Role) and I hope it will grow and thrive, I finally got the two decks of cards I wanted: The Universe Has You Back and the Animal Spirits  ❤

With this new mindset of just showing up for my small goals helped me feel calmer and more ready to tackle the big goal that is my book revisions. Now, I am trying to show up for my weekly goals with the notion that I can always just take a deep breathe and push that reset button and start again.

I found that just taking the few moments and allowing myself to have that reset mindset helps me a lot with bring back my creativity, my magic and the entire flow of how I move, act and think of myself and with others.

For me what helped is taking some “me” moments or even a day to just be myself, without a deadline, tasks or anything else I need to do, just be. I know it sounds weird but for me, it helped a lot. Taking almost a full day by myself to think, relax and feel the creativity flow around me. Meditate, brainstorm ideas and dump all that is cluttered my mind to a piece of paper and lately I listen to a lot of music on Spotify and create playlists for any mood I feel, all to make me feel more connected to myself (and others) and to my dream and thrive.

With all these small but crucial changes that this small step of resetting our intentions brings to us a calmer mind, happiness, and the focus we want to be able to thrive and tackle the task we want and need to achieve. Know that you can start over (even each day), brings such a calm vibe and joy.

What are your steps and habits to reset your mind, body, and soul when life is too overwhelming?

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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The Minimalism Challenge (Game)

Hey everyone, I hope you are all having a nice day ❤

I saw a few (or a lot) youtube videos about minimalism and now, I know a lot about it and I know that it is not for me, hehe. Both I and my husband are some sort of hoarders (in a small scale of course). I collect lots of books, pens, and notebooks 😀

In my last post, I talked about creating 6 habits before 2019 and one of the habits is decluttering. I am working on decluttering my home, my computer and even my blog Don’t know if you’ve noticed btw, but I’ve changed the blog header picture and I am so happy with how it turned up. The blue picture worked great and I love it but I wanted a cleaner look to my blog, and it came out nicely ❤

This is the old one

Anyway, back to the challenge…

Even though we will never live the minimal life, we still have too much stuff and I want to declutter our home, so I thought this minimalism challenge game could be a nice and fun way to declutter. Basically what you do is on the first day of the month you declutter 1 item, on the second day, you declutter 2 items and so on, until the end of the month. So overall you are decluttering 465 items in 30 days. Now that sounds like a lot and it is a lot but I need this decluttering in order to get back into my habits of organizing and decluttering.

I just started this game a week and a half ago, lol, but I already decluttered 172 items. This month I am cleaning out our entire closet room, so I know I will find more things to declutter. I want to do this next month as well and after that, I will do a daily declutter so that way, we’ll only keep the things that will bring us joy and happiness and not keep any item just for the sake of keeping it, or because someone has gifted something to us that we don’t even like.

I am even going to declutter my pens, notebooks, and books, I know that there are some books in my bookshelves that I will never read ever again and that I barely enjoyed them on the first time I’ve read them, so they can go to a new home 🙂

Wish me luck with all the decluttering and feel free to join if you want 😀

How do you declutter your home when you need to?

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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November MoodBoard

Hey all, I saw the November Moodboard over at Aloma Writes, and I knew I just had to do this ❤ I asked her if I could do this post and she kindly said yes (yay me ).

If you don’t know who is Ashleigh or her gorgeous blog, go check it out and don’t forget to say hello:D She is such a kind and sweet person and her blog is so pretty and fun, I know you’ll love her posts.

November reminds me of rain, a good book and yummy hot drinks (mostly coffee and spiced teas, hehe). My favorite colors in autumn are brown and pastel colors ❤ And I will hang twinkly lights everywhere (already started on that) 😀

My mood has changed completely, lol. My goal is to be more relaxed and not feel so overstressed as I do on most days. I’m drawn to tarot cards such as the Medicine animal and the Animal spirits, even my mood in music changed and I am more into chill music and rain sounds 😉 ❤

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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Pictures are from Unsplash: Photo by Eaters Collective , Photo by Kira auf der Heide , Photo by Marcus Wallis , Photo by Shehran Syed , Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger

The rest are from Pixabay.

19 Before 2019

Hey everyone, I hope you are all having a great weekend ❤

I am feeling tons better and it finally rained here and a lot. It was amazing, our first real rain storm and it felt great. I love the smell of rain and how everything looks so beautiful and crisp after the rain.

We have only 2 and a half month before 2019 and I truly want to do a few more things before the end of the year. I saw this 19 before 2019 circling around the internet and I thought I would give it a try. Now I am sure that most of you know just how much I love a good list (hehe) and so of course, I’ve made myself a list of 19 things I want to finish, do, or continue doing before 2019.

Here are my 19 things I want to do before 2019

1. Read 10 books 😀
2. Finish outlining the series, enough with the dilly-dally.
3. Declutter the entire kitchen (I can’t wait to do this, maybe even this Tuesday) 😉
4. Declutter the entire closets room (I am so dreading this one).
5. Start doing yoga (again – daily).
6. Win Nanowrimo.
7. Write in December.
8. Let go of any toxic, unsupportive people in my life (started on this already, it feels amazing).
9. Blog 3 times a week (already on it) 😀
10. Journal daily.
11. Drink more water (2L) I started a monthly challenge to drink 2L of water everyday 🙂
12. Consum less and create more (I’ve taken a break from my social media for a bit so I can write and edit more).
13. Meditate every evening before bed (already started on this).
14. Sleep more (at least 6-8 hours a day).
15. Once a week, pick a day to pamper yourself and do some self-care (oh how much I need this) ❤
16. Pick after myself every day and put things where they belong.
17. Try coloring again or just doodling, I missed it.
18. Continue learning a language or two (I took a small break but I already continuing learning) 😉
19. Be a better friend to other and be kinder to myself ❤

Well, this is my very long and a bit weird list, lol. Hope you all got inspired and maybe even make your own list of things you wish to accomplish before 2019.

What would you like to accomplish before 2019 is here?

 

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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August…. Wow!

Hey everyone, did you noticed it’s already August?

WOW!

I wanted to share with you how was my July and how August was so far, and maybe even try to set some simple goals 😀

Well, let’s start with July,

July went by as fast as a bullet, I am not kidding… It flew by so fast that I barely had a moment to realize, wait… It’s July. I was so busy with my mom and my husband’s family that we had no time to take a deep breath and rest before jumping back into the deep water, called August.

I barely had time to write though I have written over my monthly goal, which is great. I wrote 6.3K and my goal was 5K, so yay for that 😀

I didn’t edit a single word or blogged as much as I planned and I didn’t finish my newsletter 😦 I still have time to finish things with the newsletter as it will go out on the 28th.

A happy news of something great that happened on July was that I’ve reached 1000 followers on Coffee n’ Notes. I am so happy to see my blog grow, thank you so much (again) to you all ❤

August so far:

From the end of July, my mom felt super bad and we went to the ER where she had a CVA like episode. When I arrived at the E.R. my mom was paralyzed from the neck down and even her mouth was closed tightly. I could only communicate with her through her eyes and after a few hours with a very hushed whisper, it was scary seeing her like that, but I knew she will get better and luckily she did ❤

Only when she was hospitalized they said it might not be a CVA but it was something else. The doctors started to run around like headless chickens (do headless chickens really run? but that’s a question for some other day), so after I had enough of them, I’ve suggested to do an EEG and see what is really going in her brain and that way will know everything (well… mostly everything). The next day we saw her neurologist in the hospital and he did the EEG and he saw something.

That something was Epilepsy (that might have been there for a while now – maybe from her last CVA). A few more days went by and she got treated for Epilepsy and she didn’t have any episodes since.

My mom is out of the hospital. She’s still feeling a bit weak but I hope she’ll feel better soon. This is the short version of what’s been going on with my mom and our family.

My goals for August:

1. Rest as much as I can (we have a lot of doctor appointments this month and I’m starting this month with already feeling exhausted).
2. Write 6K.
3. Edit. For the love of god… Do some editing.
4. Post the book reviews and finish the blog posts for this month.

How was your month?

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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1000 Followers: Thank You So Much 🎉💕

Hey everyone, I hope you’re having a wonderful and productive day.

OMG, Thank You Everyone 😀

I feel so blessed and grateful and this made my week even with the anniversary my husband and I had 2 days ago, for our 14 years of marriage ❤

As we sat down and eat our anniversary cake I saw on my app that I’ve reached my first 1K, how amazing is that:D

I will not start from the beginning, as we already been there, but I will say that I’ve been blogging on and off for 3 years and I still love it. Since I am helping my mom with her health life became immensely hectic and stressful as you all know, but I still want to push myself and to be a better blogger – After all you deseve that from me ❤ A few months back I planned what I really want to achieve and with everything that is going on, I mapped out how can I achieve my goals. one of my big goals for July I kept secret, I wanted to reach my first 1000 followers and have a stronger communication with you all ❤

I am so happy that my efforts are shown and that feels beyond amazing. Breaking this first 1K wall was very hard for me and mostly because I didn’t put the time to do something about it. I want not only to publish my first book (which means finishing my editing, hehe), but also grow this blog and feel like we are in this together – In life and in achieving what we want 😀

Thank you again for being so amazing and staying with me even when my life got too hectic to post. You are truly my inspiration and part of the reasons I get up every day ❤

 As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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