It all started with a growing frustration over my idle habits and a desire to become a better person. To be better tomorrow than I was yesterday, a week ago, or one year ago. “Better” is rather arrogant word but it sort of summarizes all the points I am going to mention further, so I will use it for now.

I should probably start by describing my personality. An irrational 32-year old with an attention span of a monkey and a 1GB system memory in the era of 32GBs growing like mushrooms after the rain, I am one of those people who try to open their apartment door with their car keys, arrive at the airport at 12 am instead of 12 pm, stop in the middle of the road and then realize they ran out of gas... I forget things, confuse things and never finish things.

My imagination, on the contrary, rarely fails and during the course of a day I can live multiple exciting life scenarios in my imaginary world, where I am either an artist, or a musician, or a writer; where I travel the world and make a difference; where I succeed at any ventures. In reality, I hardly accomplish anything, jumping from one thing to another, being constantly late, procrastinating profusely and never keep up with my routine. My lists of to do things and resolutions are endless, hardly ever getting fulfilled. Why? Dreaming is fun and easy. Doing and accomplishing is hard, tedious and often frightening.

Close to winter holidays I always feel somewhat nostalgic and sentimental. Today I felt like browsing through my childhood pictures and as a result came up with this post.

I was born in a little town Tomsk, which is hiding in the pine forests of Siberia, Russia. When I was seven, my family owned a two-bedroom apartment in a five-story condominium building in a…well, let me call it uptown or sleeping quarters. The building was the exact copy of dozens or even hundreds of other buildings placed in a certain order around the neighborhood. Those were the Soviet times. Everything had to look the same – buildings, clothes, furniture, cars. People were deprived of choices. The choices were made for them by the caring communist government. But despite of certain weirdness and in some cases even absurdity, I always remembered those times fondly. That was my childhood and those were great times: fun and active, free and happy, barefoot-and-loose-hair kind of times!

The room is spacious, bright and inviting; with hardwood floors and huge floor-to-ceiling windows which let Miami sun feel welcomed in here, just as welcomed as all regulars or any random curious visitor. Abundant greenery, palm trees and the bay on the other side of the windows complete the picture and fill this space with energy. Once you open the door, you want to stay a little longer.

Florida International University Wellness Center added yoga to the existing classes back in 2000. The idea came from brainstorming ways to improve students’ general wellbeing and was an instant success. Students loved yoga and the schedule quickly changed from one class to four classes a week.

It finally feels like fall in Miami! It is windy, foggy and rainy and I love it!

I usually have no complaints about Miami always sunny weather, but I miss seasons a lot. Especially fall. Well, in winter I will most likely say, especially winter *smile*.

Anyways, days like these are rare and I cherish them greatly!

So, I decided to add some color and some flavor to the already perfect rainy picture from my balcony and to make a pumpkin soup.

It is so simple, so delicious and so fall-like-bright-orange!

I have just boarded the plane Fort Lauderdale-Frankfurt and I am feeling super excited! I am flying to Germany to visit my sister and to have a road trip to France. Did I mention this would be my first time in Europe? Oh yeah! I am already anticipating all the adventures of the road, the charm of Paris and Strasbourg and the character of Frankfurt.

This post is going to be rather sentimental. I simply can’t help it – the emotions are bubbling inside and must get out! Now, let me go back in time to describe the particular moment when I realized that travelling is what makes me happy.

Life is beautiful, when you live in Miami and the weather is gorgeous all year round. Life is especially beautiful, when the summer semester is over and you have the whole month just for yourself (work doesn’t count if you are a freelancer and work from home at your own convenience, as I do). So, once I stopped being ecstatic and got over the happy thought that there will be no more classes for a WHOLE month – naturally followed the question “What do I do with my free time?”

So that you better understand what kind of person I am, I probably should mention, that I love saving money and experimenting with living on tiny budgets. Not because we are struggling with money, but because there is always something useful you can do with it, instead of carelessly throwing it away. Anyways, here’s how we spent two awesome evenings for a total of $40.