I’m what you could call a novice within the blogging world and am still trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing firstly, and secondly if my English makes any sense at all as Italian is my mother tongue.

Me being me, I had to get my acceptance speech ready without even knowing what this was all about! I thought I was nominated for some sort of Blogging Oscar, which would have turned me into a Pulitzer winner overnight!

It turned out that the Liebster Award is a lovely way to encourage clueless bloggers like me (or more screwed on but still fairly new to it!) to carry on and share the love through their words.

Now, imagine what happened when a week later I woke up to an email notifying me that I was nominated a second time.

Wow, this is definitely Pulitzer Prize time then! Should I wear that red dress I haven’t worn in ages or shop for a new one?

I was really chuffed and also a bit afraid it may have been a mistake, but it turned out it wasn’t as I read the email 3 times and apparently “Bliss in the City” is inspiring and so, yes, yes I am officially a 2 time nominee/winner…oh God how good it feels to be whatever I just wrote I am!

Lovely Patrice nominated me for Kings of Pain and I was so happy ‘cause I adore her blog and respect the way she opens her soul to the world.

My answers to her questions are the following:

• What compels you to keep a blog? 

  I wanted to find a way to be closer to the everyday person. The one who still wonders whether we should all be living in a shack up on a mountain to find peace or if we could find ourselves in the midst of a crowded pub on a Saturday night. The stranger on the bus, in a queue, sitting across from me at the pub. That stranger is ultimately the person who will have to face life no matter of their social level, background and origins.There is so much emphasis now days on being “spiritual” that I think we all got confused a bit. So writing seemed to be a good way to show how happiness is right here, where we are.

• What stifles your creative process? 

  Self doubting.

• Tell me one thing about yourself that would surprise me. 

  I’m a big fan of “Strictly Come Dancing” (Dancing with the Stars) because, in my opinion, it’s just “cheese good for the heart”!

• Dog person? Cat person? Neither? Both

  Don’t really have any pets right now, but if I could own a Japanese Akina and a “teacup kitten” then I’d say I’m both.

• Tell me something special about the place that you live? It could be your home, city or country. 

  We have a “rain room” at home which we go to when it pours down and it’s just beautiful to watch the sky crying and smell the fresh air and see people outside running for a repair. That makes me sound like I live in a huge mansion that specifically has a “rain room” erhh, no…The rain room is the spare room in my 2 bed place.

• Music is my therapy … recommend some songs for me? 

  Deva Primal’s “Healing Mantras”.

• What book/books are you reading right now? 

  “The untethered soul” by Michael A Singer.

• Introvert or extrovert?

  Extrovert when it comes about laughing with life, perhaps introvert when it comes about shedding my tears.

• Do you listen to music when you write? What kind? 

  No music, as writing is the one thing that brings silence to my mind, so I enjoy it too much to share it with anything else.

• Do you write in solitude or in public? 

  Solitude, even though I secretly envy the ones who can write on public transport or open spaces.

• Do you have a dedicated writing space? 

  My little meditation room, which is also a music room, guest room, laundry room, office…and yes…rain room again.

Darling Nena nominated me the second time for Feel your Dreams (Part 2) Her blog inspires happiness and lightness and geeeez don’t we all need a bit of that right now!

My answers to her questions are the following:

• What was your first thought this morning? 

  “How would it feel to choose happiness no matter what?” followed by “what’s for dinner?” (a bit random but here we go..)

• Top 3 websites you visit often

  Jim Self, Kaypacha Pele, Mystic Mamma

• Name a song you don’t like, but got stuck in your head 

  “Money on My Mind”…Sorry Sam Smith, love your style, but geeeez what is this song about again?

• What animal do you identify with and why? 

  My animal totem for this year is the Lynx and it could not have been more accurate, for 2015 has seen me wanting to break free from old structures, learning to use my skills to empower others and how silence is often the best way to navigate the madness of the current energies.

• How do you start a conversation? 

  I don’t! I usually let others come and talk to me…and then I never shut up!

• Freaky Friday! If you could switch lives with someone for a day, who would it be and why? 

  Any reality TV Show star to experience the thrill of believing to be the queen of the world for 5 minutes.

• What is a habit you are proudest of breaking or want to break? 

  As a kid I never was able to have a lie in. I was always the first one up…and I mean I’d wake up around 6 am in the morning trying to get everybody else out of bed. You can imagine how I may not have been very popular back then in the house. So now that I’m getting older, I see myself able to slow down more and more, enjoying an afternoon snooze whenever I can and having a little lie in at the weekend.

• First word that pops into your head when I say, “Fun” 

  Must!!!!

• What do you most look forward to as this year comes to an end? 

  I can’t think that far ahead and I can only say that, right now, I’m super excited autumn is here and Samhain is on its way! This  has to be my favorite time of the year ‘cause the veils between worlds are so thin and the air so crisp…pure bliss to my soul.

• Who is your least favorite super hero or villain? 

  Sorry, but I can’t really do the whole Superman, Spiderman, “Blablaman” (I made this up) thing…If I ever found myself in harms way I’d have Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones to come to my rescue instead

• Do you collect anything? 

  Memories, which I then store away in my heart only to bring them back out in my writings.

Part of the fun of being nominated is to then reveal 11 random facts about yourself. I must admit this made me cringe at first, cause I struggled all my younger years with wanting to be mysterious and elusive like one of those Hollywood stars who make you dream you could just switch lives with them even for 5 seconds.

And now I’ll be in the open and OK, I’m just going to dive in pretending this is not happening:

• I had an obsession with having straight hair since a very young age, so my mum one day found me in the toilet about to pour super glue onto my curls (I shall leave details of what happened next for a book…)
• Back in the 80’s I suddenly decided John Travolta was cool (????) after watching Saturday Night Fever so I tried to get his chin dimple by sticking mine over a hot cooker…in the middle of the night. Luckily my mum smelt burning and came to my rescue. I proudly showed a bandage over my chin for a week thinking I looked as cool as John…I bet I didn’t.
• As I was quite a different child (I love when parents diplomatically choose words that disguise the fact their kids are just from somewhere else all together), mum & dad hoped a nunnery would help me to open up more to other kids and…be normal. The Mother Superior summoned them after I was found talking about the atrocity of Nazis concentration camps and the horrors of the Second World War to a bunch of kids who had, luckily, fallen asleep in the meanwhile.
• We woke up very early this morning to go and watch the sun rise at 7.04! In a place of 8 million souls there were just myself and my photographer husband on the Millennium Bridge! The sun never came out ‘cause it was quite foggy, still what a blissful way to start our day right in the heart of this very special part of town.
• I could spend hours watching the Minions…life must be such a ball for them!

• When I first moved to London and I had no money and no friends, I used to spend my Saturday nights in a bookstore called “Borders” (remember?). I used to lose myself in all these great books on the shelves, thinking how incredible was to be there with so many strangers doing the same thing. Tiny universes merging together in this small corner of the world! I still look back to those days with great affection.
• I was fortunate enough to be by my dad’s side right till the end, when I kissed him goodbye on his way out. I played 2 songs to wish him well on his journey, which I didn’t think he knew at all. Mum later on told me how my dad spent the last month of his life playing those 2 very songs whenever he had the chance because he liked them so much. Life does really work in mysterious ways!
• I hope I’ll “pancake my way up to heaven” one day. I looooove a good pancake and these “SuperHero Pancakes”by gorgeous Meadow Linn got to be our favorite ones at home.
• Few “worldly” things work really well when life beats the hell out of you:

1) Cup of tea with double chocolate digestive McVitie’s (ditched processed food a while back but we chose to hold on to these super yummy bickies for emergency crises!)

2)Nutella by the spoon…straight out of the jar…no shame whatsoever…get in there quick and see all your trouble melt away.

• Shhhh! Please tell no one but I some times watch Keeping up with Kardashians on Tv because it makes me appreciate how normal my life is ( I know, I know..)

• Trying to make it here in London back in the day when I first arrived, I used to go and sit on the stairs of St Paul’s Cathedral for hours on end watching life go by. I always felt better and stronger afterwards, ready to soldier on. I later on found out how St Paul’s actually came to symbolize the resilience of the English during the Blitz fighting off the Germans

Great, enough about me!

My nominees are:

Nickie @ http://thegoodwolfmanifesto.com/

Christine @ http://amidstthechaos.ca/

Andrea @ http://livingoncloudandreanine.blogspot.co.uk/

https://myhollisticlife.wordpress.com/

Amber @ https://whatmakesmeamber.wordpress.com/about/

Alex @ http://beingthroughbalanceandbliss.com/

Amanda @ https://talkingdance365.wordpress.com/

Autumn @ https://autumnspitteler.wordpress.com/

Madhawi @ https://mrtookles.wordpress.com/

Juliet @ https://tinyjuliet.wordpress.com/   Shub @ https://worldreacher.wordpress.com/       

Welcome into my world

I’m the founder of Evoking Grace, a coaching program designed to inspire others to be their very best while bringing ease and balance into their everyday life. I can be contacted by email for more details on the work I offer or to schedule a free “Wisdom Within Session“. Follow my mumblings & musings on  Facebook , Twitter & Pinterest to be part of my “online tribe”.