Personal Update June – Lots of Emotions, Wedding Update and Sustainability Tipps

A few days later I actually managed to knock out a piece of my front tooth with my metal bottle … I had my sunglasses on, was very thirsty, on the way to a meeting, late and somehow completely misjudged how far from my mouth the bottle was and slammed it with full force against my tooth. I had done something similar a few weeks earlier with a weird glass, so I was immediately worried. At first, everything seemed to be ok. Only the next day, after brushing my teeth, I noticed something like a grain of sand in my mouth. And indeed, a small piece of the tooth was missing. It was not dramatic, but it felt weird and of course I saw the difference very clearly. Fortunately, my dentist had time immediately, even though I said on the phone that it was not urgent. After 10 minutes my teeth were completely straight again – I was impressed! But now I watch out when drinking water out of a metal bottle! Life as an Eco-Warrior is dangerous, hahaha 🙂

Apart from that, I practiced a lot of ukulele songs (I am currently practicing fingerpicking with the song Moon River) and often visited my friend in the hospital (she had a bad accident, poor her …). Besides, I FINALLY managed to visit my fiancé at his work. He works near the zoo and we could get in for free in order to have lunch there. I walked around a bit, but since I do not like zoos and do not support them, I could only enjoy the beautiful plants and trees. After that, we went to the neighborhood called Wedding. I haven’t been there in ages. My boyfriend had an appointment in a backyard in Berlin, which was so interesting: a bit alternative, run down a bit, full of cool street art and just everything with a very inviting and relaxed Vibe! Sometimes I miss this old side of Berlin …

With Jesse, I spent almost a whole weekend creating a video for my partner Goeuro about picnics in Berlin. We were at Lietzensee, at the Gleisdreieck and in the Körnerpark. You can find the result on Instagram! And another big update from us: We FINALLY managed to sign up at a new gym!! I’m so looking forward to our regular workouts there!

Instagram Podcast Recommendations 

On Instagram Stories I asked you which podcasts you can recommend that talk about entrepreneurship and motivation. Here are all the recommendations screenshotted again:

Thank you again for your great feedback! But honestly, I’ve only been able to listen to the Lavendaire Lifestyle Podcast so far. But I really like it a lot!

Then a real event marathon started, from salty porridge to self-love exercises:

The Berliner Zeitung organized their first event with bloggers and I have to say that this was one of the best blogger events I’ve ever been to. Everything was planned perfectly. There was a clear schedule, in which a lot of background information was shared, concrete ideas for a collaboration were exchanged, as well as enough free time to just chat and network comfortably. Would you be interested in reading short articles by bloggers in daily newspapers?

The next day I went to one of my dream events: I was invited by Oatly to a porridge event!!! That was soooo great and delicious <3 I think the pictures speak for themselves 🙂 The highlights: There was a sweet porridge with mango orange oatmeal and a salty porridge with avocado, tomatoes and vegan mozzarella! Have you ever tried salty porridge ???

But that was not all! The Fashionchanger girls invited me to a wonderful Body Positivity and Empowerment Event with the natural cosmetics brand I+M! The location in the Bali Penthouse in Wedding was amazing! The whole evening was great, we had lots of vegan food, nice talks and lectures. We felt so comfortable there that we actually finished the whole buffet and Jana, Vreni and Nina had to order a few more vegan pizzas, haha 🙂 There was also a really nice exercise that we did: Each of us was supposed to write on a piece of paper she loves about her body. These sentences were then illustrated and randomly distributed to another person.

In the middle of the month I was invited to a workshop by Re:Blog, the sustainability blog by Otto, for which I write regularly (here you come to my author profile). Part of the workshop was also a photo workshop with Yannic and Susann from Krautkopf. I learned a lot about the manual mode of my camera. Usually I prefer to shoot in aperture priority so to say semi-automatic, but as a good photographer you should master the manual mode, at least that’s what the duo behind Krautkopf said! Of course, I wanted to apply my new knowledge immediately and shot a few random photos 🙂 The hardest part of it for me was to really understand why I should always choose the shutter speed in everyday use and not set to shutter speed to automatic. If I want to photograph a waterfall or something like that, or in general with a tripod I understand that, but otherwise my hands shake too much anyway to set it to a long shutter speed. But slowly I realize, why Manual Mode is actually so important … slowly 🙂 Are you into photography?

Even though I didn’t have much time, I still didn’t want to miss the opportunity to stop by at Charlotte’s place to create another video with her. It was sooooo much fun! I always find it amazing how fast and well you get along with previous “internet friends”! By the way, here is our video:

Right after I got back to Berlin from Hamburg, I immediately made my way to Elli’s party! She celebrated her 30th and for the first time in the longest time I was out until 5 o’clock in the morning in Berlin bars. Otherwise, I’m actually a grandma, but this exception was fun 🙂

Do you know anything about food waste?

Sophia Hoffmann explained, together with the WWF – World Wildlife Foundation, at an event, how much food is wasted, even here in Germany! In Germany alone, an incredible 18 million tons of food are wasted every year and just thrown away!!!!! To teach us a bit more about the topic, we all cooked together with Sirplus’s salvaged food. We made a gazpacho with old tomatoes and cucumbers that were still super good, but just a bit softer. Also, there were stuffed peppers with hazelnut leftovers from a homemade hazelnut milk that we used for a chocolate pudding. Incidentally, the chocolate pudding consisted of old chocolate Easter bunnies!! A few food saver tips I took from the event:

• The best before date is not an expiry date! Food is still good weeks after bbd! Simply test it or use common sense.
• Do not be tempted by discount offers and rather buy small quantities more often than a few large purchases (where the chance is high that something will be thrown away at the end of the month)
• Pour hot water over peeled apple skins and enjoy a delicious apple tea!
• Old bread: let it dry in small pieces, use it for dumplings, in soups (we added it to our gazpacho) or grind it for breadcrumbs
• To cook deliciously with nut rests (when making almond or hazelnut milk, for example): we used them similar to minced meat and made a stuffing for peppers
• Generally, old but still edible fruit or vegetables are perfect for the blender! If a banana no longer looks perfect: put it into the blender (or freeze it in small pieces and then later put in the blender). If the spinach does not look perfect anymore: off it goes into the blender! Same with tomatoes and cucumbers. That’s how we made a delicious Gazpacho 🙂

Wedding Update

I saved the wedding update until the end 🙂 And it’s really a big one too: We booked a Wedding Planner!!! Where the wedding will take place and when, as well as what keeps me busy, you will learn in my latest YouTube video. It’s in German but I know that some of you are learning German so maybe my videos help:

5 Days in Vienna

Wow I write and write and one of the biggest highlights I left for right until the end: The last five June days I spent in beautiful Vienna! I visited my cousin and just worked from there, helped him a bit with his work and spent 2 more nights with Justine. So I was more there to work and less as a tourist (I actually didn’t visit anything), but they were still five wonderful days in the Austrian capital! Vienna is so relaxed and empty, but still big enough to offer a lot! I went to many vegan restaurants and shopped in the great fair fashion shop We Bandits! We ate, just to name a few, at Juice Deli, Swing Kitchen and Beavers Brewing Company. And of course, there were many homemade treats, such as vegan tarte flambée or in general many treats from food blogger Justine, hehe 🙂

Perfection on Instagram

Ok, somehow I cannot let go of the topic “Instagram” … I’ve been told recently by at least two different people that my Instagram feed is too perfect and that my life is just perfect. I live in Berlin, in a nice apartment, I am engaged to my amazing Jesse, we have family in four different countries, are planning our wedding, I am tall, slim, struggling with too much hair rather than too few, am currently self employed and more and more … the thing is, I’m VERY unwilling to complain publicly about work. I never really complain about my work on Instagram, because I’m just so grateful that I can be my own boss. Plus, working as a blogger is actually quite a rewarding job with many benefits compared to other jobs (and I don’t mean gifts, just lots of other benefits). That’s why I hate to complain about the disadvantages that blogging, just like every job, also has. I’m just currently in a mini-crisis, as far as planning my future goes. Where is it going? What is my next step in my career? Am I not too late with my 31 years in terms of EVERYTHING? Have I seized enough chances and advantages so far? I have a lot of self-doubts regarding success. I see super successful founders at the age of 21, or friends at my age, who have a family with husband, child and dog. Or just a lot of super young people who are just taking off, with projects, promotions, their own labels, and and and … and I’m just a bit behind with everything in my life in terms of career planning. I think many of you have similar thoughts, but it’s not talked about often and there is a lot of pressure from the outside … oh, and taxes, health insurance, technical problems and media law matters rob me of my last nerve recently: P but that is just part of working life.

In terms of my private life: I’m SOOOO happy about my relationship with Jesse, so in my love all is good (with ups and downs, of course), but the friendships is a very difficult topic for me. What I actually hear from love relationships, I have experienced in friendships: I was cheated on kind of, lied to, “replaced”, forgotten, oh everything and therefore I feel a bit “damaged” … honestly, I find it very difficult to talk about this topic and that’s why I have to leave this here until I know how I can better explain my thoughts….

I do not want to list now what is NOT perfect in my life. I just want to say, I’m like everyone else. Self-doubts plague me (maybe more at the moment than usual), I’m working hard not to compare myself to others, I’m worried about the future, I’m still working hard on self-love and of course not everything is perfect. Instagram is just too much of a facade. I always like to say “Life happens to everyone”!

Phew, it is getting a bit deep and emotional for me, so let’s quickly move on to a topic that is a little more neutral but also very important to me:

Taking the train instead of flying

Since I want to try to travel more sustainably, I took the train instead of the plane to Vienna and back. Flying is just such a huge environmental sin and although I already do a lot in terms of sustainability (veganism, consuming less, etc.), I just want to try to live more consciously while traveling. Unfortunately, I had problems with the train AGAIN and I think I might fly to my next business meeting in Vienna … unfortunately. The last two times just took so LONG, the train ticket was super expensive and I couldn’t really work in the train due to delays and crowded trains. I don’t want to make traveling by train sound like a generally bad thing, but I just want to talk honestly to you about the topic. Within Germany I will continue to use the motto “only by train”, but perhaps next time in Europe I will be less strict with myself. My previous trains instead of flights in the last 12 months have been:

• Two times Berlin-Vienna
• Several times Berlin-Munich
• Once Berlin-Paris
• (And then the mammoth route Berlin-Serbia via bus and car)
• In addition, I have canceled several collaborations, to which I would have had to fly, but it was not worth the content (travel to Mallorca, video shoot near Stuttgart, and much more.) – Just as a small insight for you …

Now that I think about it, my last train rides were mostly very positive. And to realize that flying is incredibly harmful to the environment is just super important! But I will not never fly again. Especially long-haul flights are unavoidable to me, the actual bad polluters … But I will continue to pursue the motto #FLYLESS. Maybe I will inspire some of you to travel less by plane, to avoid commuting by plane, possibly switching appointments to take place via Skype, instead of constantly flying from Berlin to Frankfurt, or just to plan the next city trip by train. Are you also supporting #FLYLESS? Share the hashtag on Instagram or Twitter !!