Welcome to Chaos !!

Leaving in about two weeks. FUN !!
Looking forward to meeting up with all my friends, shopping, strolling around at The Fashion Show Mall with an enorme iced vanilla latte with whipped cream, doing some photo shoots, go hiking, afternoon tea at the Four Seasons, massage at the Asian massage place, facial from Beba...........oooooh, can't wait!

OCTOBER 1 today! How do you feel about that?
This means big business for some places in the US because they have their own version of Germany's Oktoberfest. Like Hofbräuhaus in Las Vegas.
Tatiana has been there a few times but probably never again. The food is very overpriced and far from what a real Bratwurst should taste like. The Kartoffeln is a disappointment too. And Tatiana sure loves her potatoes!
It's also a place you might consider bringing earplugs to. There is a band playing and singing supposedly German songs on a very high volume and people around you yell "Ziga Zaga" and swing the oversized beer mugs around.
Last time Tatiana was in Vegas she went to Hofbräuhaus but decided to leave shortly after she got seated, it was just too much.
It's worth the experience, once, but Tatiana prefers having her dinner in a more quiet setting where she can really savour her food. She loooooves dining out and Vegas has many great restaurants. Kenai, not so much.......
Actually October is a great month to visit Vegas, not too hot, pretty much perfect.
Anyways, back to Kenai.....Alaska that is. It's a windy and cold day, the leaves are falling down from the branches at an alarming rate.
Tatiana is cozied up with a blanket on the couch. Chhaya is scouting for squirrels with her nose pressed agains the window.
Today is a day for movies at home and maybe some hot vanilla latte. Actually, Tatiana is considering getting her own espresso machine, so she can make lattes at home.

When I was little my Mom would give me books to read because reading was one of my favorite things to do. It still is. In a lot of the books, she would write down a quote by a Polish author, Kornel Makuszynski. This was the quote,
"Madrym byc, to wielka sztuka, ale grzecnym - jeszcze wieksza!" That has stuck with me since childhood. I think of it often.
It basically means, it's a great thing to be smart, but to be kind is even greater. I grew up admiring people like Mother Teresa and others that would practice kindness.
I am not saying that I am the nicest person out there, what I am saying is that people that do good, impress me. And I try to do my part.
People say that there are givers and takers in this world. I have always been a giver, not always the best thing to be but I can't help it. Doing something for others, walking that extra mile, gives me some kind of personal satisfaction I guess. What I have learned is that many people do not give back.
Even people that I used to consider friends and gave freely to, of my time and things would turn out to be unworthy of the attention in the end.
But that's ok, that's life. Many ups and downs.
It's still disappointing of course when you have a friend that you care about and you show them appreciation and you get back nothing or even worse, some sort of betrayal. But you have to give anyways, because it is the right thing to do, at least for me.
And then sometimes you come across complete strangers that help you out in situations when you least expect it. Life is full of wonderful surprises like that.
I love when people practice random acts of kindness, it gives one hope in humanity.
Somehow, someway, we are all connected, I've had glimpses of that realization a few times. It might seem impossible that we are all connected, but we are.
It's not always easy to remember this, I forget it all the time. But still........
♥

By the way if you want some inspiration to practice some kindness yourself, I came across this

Tatiana is a little surprised, she won the Olivia giclee "Taboo". It was an eBay bid and Tatiana put in a rather low bid, half of want the seller wanted for the giclee, kind of just to see what would happen. She did not at all expect to win but she did. Wow! Great, another OLVIA to hang on the wall.
With all these naked women on Tatiana's walls, all she needs to do now is cut her hair really short, let her grays grow out, get some cats and invest in some Birkenstocks and become the angry lesbian that is fighting to emerge.
LOL.
The truth is, Tatiana loves her long locks, her mean looking pitbull, everything girly - the girlier the better, pink and purple, butterflies and mermaids.... the list goes on.

Tatiana loves and kind of collects art by OLIVIA.
She got her first couple of Olivia's in 1999, if she remembers it correctly. "Starfish" and "Fallen Angel", both absolutely beautiful!
Well, those two got STOLEN in 2005. Since then Tatiana got two new ones, one of them as a gift, thank you SO very much!
And after that she got herself a couple of more Olivia's, "Mermaid II" (2). And "Showgirl".
Tatiana is still on the hunt for Mermaid I.
Now she is tempted to get this one, "Taboo". Pretty, huh? All of Tatiana's Olivia's are giclees. There might be like one or two more Olivia's that Tatiana likes but that's about it after that.

Here are Tatiana's eyes decorated with the fake eye lash strip that she now can't live without!
Well, at least for work. She feels naked without them now.
Besides that, everything else is Tatiana's own and real. No hair extensions. Hair color is light brownish golden. Though many people here in the US seem to think that Tatiana is blonde. But in Sweden and many other places in Europe, Tatiana would not be considered blonde.
Eyes are brown. No colored contacts. Tatiana tried those a few times and she was not happy with the result. It looked weird.
All original body parts. They all work well and look pretty good too, so no need to tweak anything.
Who knows, the future might hold a hip replacement due to work related injuries or all the dancing at raves.