Spring cleaning and organizing challenge

Hi lovelies,

I can not belive that 3 months has been already passed… We are in the middle of a lock down like last year, but I am hoping the best for all of us and courage you to be positive (not your PCR) and look ahead, try to appriciate small things, for example I am sitting at our balcony, sun is shinning.

So tomorrow is April, officialy spring so it calls for a home cleaning and organizing challenge! If you work like me, you might not have a whole day for deep cleaning or just it is too much or just you are not in a mood of… this challenge going to work for you. We are going to do by-by day activities, so download it to your mobile and have a look everyday.

Start with your “frames”: windows, doors and do it like a pro from the ceiling to down, then clean your bedrooms and personal area, bathroom, kitchen, living room etc. Take care of your plants and have fun.

Tide up your home- Bedroom

Hi lovelies,

This is my final one of the tide up serie, I hope you had did the same while you should stay home to be safe. It did not took me a full day, but I still think I have to work on it so much: I would need some boxes that fits, new velvet hangers and of course the rest of the home decoration like plants, curtains and a rug. So home wishlist coming soon.

Firstly -I did my husband side: chest of drawers and the wardrobe and shift his clothes to Spring, but I did not decluttered anything – only a half pair of socks – as it is his own responsibility, so just asked him to do so 8-10 items.

Than I was worked on my own belongings: I have made my intentory I own 93 items without nighties, swimwear, underwear and loungewear, which can be much for a minimalist… I have figuered out my year arround basics and the seasonal items and for the first time I only decluttered a few, but I think I will have much more specially for the summer… but that can be a whole seperate post. I think I should check my clothes more frequentely an update according to the weather, so May again.

Then I made the other storages in the bedroom: under the bed and on the side of the bed and of course the window.

Xoxo,

 

Tide up your home- Outside

Hi lovelies,

The weather is still pretty bad, so I still have to skip the bedroom… I neither have a Spring feeling at all to be honest, even it is nearly April, by the time it will be posted it is.

So last week I did the entryway and our outside storage, as we most not really go out of the flat I did not have the opportunity to buy what we really need to the balconies or to the outside storage…

Our balcony opens from our bedroom, so I washed it all: the floor, window and the fence. We do have only a tiny pine tree on now so later on we should plant some flowers there.

In our entryway there are not some many things, as it is an L shape I just started the most inner side the built-in wardrobe. On the top we do store our luggages and some decoration stuffs, middle are the coats and suits, bottom shoes in their boxes, tools and the hoover. So check my outwear and some shoe collection coming soon… stay turned.

Before and my beautiful wedding dress below

 

Processed with VSCO with t1 preset

Processed with VSCO with f2 preset

Then I have cleaned our shoe cupboard, mirror and the other small built-in storage too. I know we would need a bit more plants to decorate a bit, just yet we did not had time to. So I was washed the entry door too and tomorrow is the turn of the outsidestorage.

That was a big fail as it shelves have to be replaced and also to do a new door and lock, in addition most of the stuffs are belongs to my hubby, so I was unable to do it alone…

Finally bedroom coming up, so stay turned.

Xoxo,

 

 

 

 

March Low Buy Haul

Hi lovelies,

March here, which means that it is my third #lowbuy check and haul of 2020.

If you remember I have over spend a bit in February, but I do not mind I had to happend to be able to draw my attention and focus on my goals more. In this month I made an investment: I am going on a course to become an official TOUR GUIDE, so I have paid in once the fee of this license course, which will end in August/September. I know this business situation is not the best now, but I am positive and hoping the best as soon as possible.

This month , as we had to sent at home most of our time, I was deeply into my declutter and tide up serie, so I rather focused on items that I have already have and items that I can sell and of course I have listed a long (and expensive) home wishlist, which I will introduce you soon too.

So what about my budgeting?

Needs (50%) – as Covid-19 appeared in Hungary, most of the people went to shopping, which I wanted to be smart, but I am also stocking up a bit, so I send 17% more than I was budgeted as I had to cook a way much more than previously to avoid my husband going to stores and restaurants while he is working. Even if I am those lucky ones still having a job, we have losen most of our benefits which a hotel can offer…

Savings (20%) – so again my saving was lower, only 35% than what it should be as I had to make an investment in myself as it is above mentioned.

Wants (30%) – as the above mentioned things had happened I only sent 15% of my planned budget, just thrifted a jeans at Promod in the beginning of the  month: it is a mom jeans style in a light blue wash, called Marcel. Did purchased some macrame yarn to be able to make some plant holders. We have bought an air moisturizer too. (Halfly from gift card).

 

 

 

 

How Covid19 effect our life

Hi lovelies,

You might think you are young and strong it will not effect on you, but I think if you live in Europe or in America now it is time to stay home (if you can). Before you read, you ought to know that I am not a virologist, neither working in healthcare just an economist, who works as a Hotel Concierge. Since January it is our everyday life: meeting, smiling and greeting people from all over the World, while we are so anxious and worry about our health and work. We must not wear gloves, neither masks, write or post about it…

So what you can do?

1. Please follow the suggestions of WHO and your own government!
2. Take care of your personal hygienic
3. Do not understate or joke on other people’s fear.
4. If you are the one of those lucky ones, try to work from home. Even if I used to work from home last year a lot, now we cannot. In the last year in tourism we had lack of employees, so we tried to focus on the in-house guests and the last minute email requests, so I had to take home the rest and answer them during my free time, now we do not have anything to do…
5. Avoid contact with other people as much as you can, only go to grocery if it is really needed, do not use public transportation.
6. Help the elders around you, but in the meanwhile try to contact them less.
7. Try to consume less.
8. Plan your life at home- you have plenty of to do…
9. To save millions of jobs and the economy, please do not cancel, rather postpone, modify or accept gift cards for your future holidays.
10. Try to think of yourself, your lifestyle and change. You might be going to be a better person when it ends.

About Hospitality

Yeah we are again in a big crisis: in the end of the 2000s we had a similar issue that no one had the money to travel, then everything changed even people, who have never ever been a part of the global tourism started to travel and without experiences they had totally changed this industry. Their style and demand was totally different which we used to had, so we have adapted. We have adapted to a strange, self-focused world, where people (especially younger generations) did not evaluate others, where most of people wanted everything (nearly) free and went through on everyone else to aim their goals without thinking the emotional part.

So what I really want to ask:

Learn to appreciate the luxury of personal services. We are not human robots, also human beings, try to complaint less for trifles. Learn to smile, be kind and say thank you for a shop assistant, waiters, call centres etc.

Please appreciate what you already have and be more sustainable, try to buy less.

Discover you close family: talk, play games and if you have kids study together.

In the future think before you write review, it might hurt someone and they would had been solve it without the public. Do you leave a negative review, just because you wish to kicks? Let me explain what I mean: most of the service related negative comments are coming from offended humans, who do not write the whole story. This is an example: he was smoking in the room, while the hotel is strictly non-smoking and had several alarms from the room, so firstly he got a message „please avoid smoking in the room, next time we will charge 250 EUR penalty” next time reception calls him, he did not understand, furthermore he menaces the receptionist. At check-out he has to pay, of course he complaint, manager agree with the staff, he pas the penalty. Next morning, he writes on TripAdvisor saying the staff and the manager was rude, unprofessional and overcharged me…

Restudy skills: reading to the able to understand the terms and conditions, some finance: what is an authorization, what is advanced purchase etc. But you can study new things as well, learn languages or just read anything, handwork or just follow my cleaning routine.

For „influencers” please do not ask for free stays, you are totally degrading the service of other people. You might do not understand it, but I have never ever meet any influencer paying for an extra service of the hotel, where they stay for free: upgrade, extra meal or concierge services, but you do constantly asking for the Marketing Managers, who will ask the rest of the staff do the things for free: no commissions, no service charge and of course no tip. I know you do not understand what I mean, because you think you know everything from Google, you do not have the social background to know who is who in a hotel, that is why you do not even know that the real influencers just the locals right behind the desks, who suggests the personalised restaurants and programs for the tourists.

I do pray for a better World and so thankful for anyone works in healthcare or police  nowadays. I wish I could say at home for a few weeks too.

xoxo,

Tide up your home- Kitchen

Hi lovelies,

So I am keeping to continue my tiding up series with our kitchen. It is a pretty small only 7,9 qr. meter, but it look perfect and probably my favourite place of our small flat. So just in case if you fall in love with it (I know it is easy): the cabinets from IKEA (Bodbyn off white), tiles: Equipe Lisbon and white Chevron Wall, machines from Teka, diswasher is Bosch, while our fridge is LG. The dinning area: desk is vintage from my great grand mother, chairs are from IKEA.

Monday I was staring with the fridge inside and outside taking all the food out and cleaned it- after a night shift I did not had so much “feeling” or mood to do so I just finished it shortly.

Tuesday also the same situation, had too much work, so I just did the cabinets above and washed the window.

Wednesday the tiles and all the cabinets below…

Then only our built in pastry -counter situation left, for which I should to go to IKEA for some baskets to be finally cluttered, but as it is quite serious to stay at home so I try to keep it and left as it is, just a bit more cluttered…

See you next week…

Xoxo,

Tide up your home- Introduction

Hi lovelies,

Let’s the sun shine get in to your home and it is time to clean and clear your space like spring. Let’s do an entire and complete one for the new season. Yeah, I do declutteringregally, but these are usual tiny ones, let’s do it till Easter room by room and week by week. It is also a great idea to create some space for the upcoming shopping days…

Rules:

• try to do declutter all the unnecessariness, which are not related to the room function,
• keep the maybe files for an additional few days and rethink them at the end of each week,
• try to list what additional you would need to have in this room- shop those at the end of the whole process only,
• deep clean each room cap-a-tie,
• organize,
• do not forget to dominate, sell, give away or recycle.

First I will try to do the smaller or one function related rooms, but I will not start with our bedrooms as the weather will change rather in the middle of the month… 6 weeks challange is:

1: 24^th February till 1^rst March: Bathroom

2: 2^nd till 8^th March: Documents, Papers and Digital forms AKA further kid’s room

3: 9^th till 15^th March: Kitchen

4: 16^th till 22^nd March: Bedroom

5: 23^rd till 29^th March: Living room and common areas like entryway

6: 30^th March till 5^th April: Outside–  balcony, storage outside and the basement

I am going to update on Tuesdays regarding the previous weeks, let’s join me by linking your blog posts below.

Xoxo,

Being SUSTAINABLE 1

Hi lovelies,

This is a continue of my previous post regarding the zero waste, so our goal is rather to reach a sustainable lifestyle. Firstly let me list you what we have already doing:

• Transportation: In the city I use my bike when I can, so it is mostly form April to November and in all the other months I do use the public transportation, while my husband goes by car as we is working so far from home, but we usually takes his 2 fellow colleagues to work too. Going to the countryside I do use train, if we go by car we do use the car share. Note: also on holiday to Italy or Coatia we did and will share our car with 2 more people. Also about the car we do have an Opel Astra with 1.4 gasoline engine, as it is 12 years old now we want to change it into a plug-in hybrid with gasoline in ca. the same, mid-size maybe next year.
• Recycle: since ever my parents rot and recycle at home, so it was so hard to find no recycle bin upon moving to Budapest, but thankfully we do have them now in the house, so we do have seperate bins for platic/metal and paper up in our flat too. So often I just leave the magazines, which I have bought to the neighbors. Yes this is one part, which we do want to improve! Also we do giveaway our clothes to a charity shop or take them to recycle.
• Useless: If you have read my blog we try to shop only what we need that is why we constantly declutter and check our items at home. There are items, which are already on a regret to buy list. And trying to be a bit more minimal in terms of my clothes.
• Drinking tap water: why should we drink mineral waters in a platic bottle if we have one of the best quality water in the world? I am always stare our guests how stupid is to take all the bottled waters up to their room or demand for complimentary bottles of water while drinking the free lemonade at the welcome desk, which made of tap water:). Yes we do buy syrup, which brand’s glass bottle is returnable.
• More vegetables: as I can not be totally vegan nor vegetarian, so I decided to have one day in each week: so Tuesdays are my veggie days. It is mostly comes from my parents garden or the vegetable grocery next door.
• Textile bag: I always carry one textile bag with me, however we have to update it more in the future.
• Dairy: as I am having skincare issue due to milk, we try to reduce to consume these as low as possible, sometimes I do eat some cheese or a yoghurt, but a way much less then before.
• Thermos: At work I already have a bottle for water and a tiny thermos mug for my coffee, so I am not wasting paper or pastic mugs everytime, like most of my colleagues do.

I think that is all what we do at the moment, but might missed out something, so coment your suggestions and I am going to continue with our steps to be sustainable.

Why we can not be zero waste?

Hi lovelies,

Plastics free July is such a nice initiative, however let me write the truth why you can not succeed-> YES the whole world is againts you. So we tried to reduce the platic: so did not buy any soft drinks, plastic bags nor anything with single use plastic packaging. But let me tell you why we failed:

I really like the conception of zero waste(read and watch videos too), specially the 5R, which I try to keep is the next time, but firstly it is my list which I just can not do. I really appricate the people, who live a zero waste lifestyle!

• Travel: I love to travel and can not live without it, I think it is a bit unsightly when zero waste gurus travels a lot (specially by plane or car) to give speech regarding their lifestyle.
• Washing: instead of using single use products, zero waste usually required to wash, specially hygenic items, to disinfect you do need to use a higher temperature, which increase electricity usage and also waste a lot of (in Hungary: drinking) water!
• Detergents: eco free detergents also packed in plastic… and costs a lot more than normal ones and usually not that effective. I have tried DM Nature, which is a prettygood eco products for us, but I have read a lots of reviews that is useless for stubborn spots- but we do not have a kid yet so… And also the fabric conditions alternatives are pretty low choices. Yes, you might say these washing nuts- but there are coming for India, form the other side of the World…
• Hygiene: I can not replace toilet papers or kleenex. From the kleenex it is better to take the paper box ones, but there are having smaller and lower quality. Diva cup is not something that I can imagine to use.
• Secondhand clothes: I used to shop second hand, but as most of the second hand are extremly over priced, also sells fast fashion and most of the clothes are coming from the UK, so I only go into real, local vintage store. So all those Hada or Cream English second hands sells H&M, Zara, Primark ect. so imagine: these clothes are produced in Asia or Morocco, than they shipped to UK, which they might sold (yes sometimes the stores took the unsold items into the bins) and used once or twice by a women, than they left it into a bin,which they select and sold the best ones (which are the rare used) for the price of 10-15 EUR/items in the Eastern European part. Other problem they cause, that you can not sell your used and locally purchased clothes at all or maybe by facebook market place, which takes a lot of time and energy. The zero waste way would be to shop local designer clothes, which is very expensive or sew it yourself- that is still not the cheapest and also need time and skills.
• Lack of selective bins!
• Lack of returnable packaging: milk, beer, wine ect. bottles used to be widely returnable a few years ago.
• Online shopping: I love to do my shopping online as you can buy much more things then in the shops, it is easier and do save some time. Yes it is comes in a lot of extra packaging, which is mainly plastic.
• Make-up: I am a make up lover, yes I have not rethink that part of my life;).

I hope you have enjoyed this little post, I am going to update on my steps for a sustainable lifestlye in a few days!

XOXO,

April newbies

Hi lovelies,

This is an other haul again, now regarding my April purchases. 10-14th April we had a magazine coupon days, I know this is such a nice opportunity for shopping, but I tried to be more focused and skip impulse shopping, so I have planned my budget and cut the coupons the night before and leave the rest of the magazine at home to avoid other shops.

First day I only went to DM– I have chosen one and only drugstore from the 3 options! I have bought a lot of household products from Frosch, gloves, toothpaste, toothbrush, shower gel and Gillette for my hubby etc.

Repurchased my favourite eye cream, deodorant and sheet masks from Alverde and took some “give-a-try” hair masks, a Trend it up panorama eyettention mascara and highlightening eyeshadow (020). I believe these where limited editions, this cream eyeshadow looks like a high-end one and it is having such a nice bronzing shade with white shimmers, while the mascara was a one, which people are wave about so want to give a try.

On the second day after  an unsuccessful fridge hunting and got some stuffs from The Body Shop. I really love that Brand and they had 20% at least for 3 products, so I repurchased the Camomile Fresh Micellar Cleansing Water, which is my favourite CF makeup remover. The Camomile -Sumptuous Cleansing Butter I used to had it and now I was so happy to find it again because it is the best of my double cleansing method. I have taken a 2 of the small Japanese Matcha Tea mask from their super food mask collection, it is damn good pollution clearing mask, I even liked it better than the Himalayan deep cleanser mask- which is makes me dry a bit. Last but not least a lightweight concealer for my under eye circles, as my Tarte shape tape is too have with BB creams I was so needed.

From H&M I have ordered a nice black halter crop top for the summer, it is a bit more rigid than I expected to be but it is better for the ruffles lookalike. …A light olive green dress with flowers, I love its light material makes it each to wear and it is A-lined, so even great for to ride bike in it.  …A blue lance dress for the upcoming wedding and a wire box for our entryway just to solve the mess on the top of the shoe cabinet.

At the end of the month I made a tiny cultbeauty order as I have received a 15% off coupon, so have purchased the iconic IT cosmetics cc cream in light medium, a Lanolips tinted lipbalm with spf30 (it is a lipgloss) in rhubarb and their famous Everywhere multi-cream, so I have received an 101 ointment fruities in peach as a gift. The Ordinary is excluding from promotions, but I really wanted to have a try with their sunscreen to in this summer. Of course I have chosen two samples: Charlotte Tilbury Wonderglow and Milk makeup cooling water pod. Milk makeup is only shipped in the UK, so I am really curious whether I will receive the sample or not.

 

… and finally we have our built-in wardrobe in the corridor;) – okay it is not done yet but soon to be… Finally our LG fridge went on sale last weekend, so I think we totally went bank robbed by the end of the month;)- specially from the hen party…haha

Xoxo,