Magical Monday!

Hello everybody! I hope you have all had a great weekend and a good start to the week.

Today I had my Tui na Massage exam and my tutor said I did well! On Friday I did a resit of my first semester Acupoint paper and last Monday I sat my second semester Acupoint paper.

Now I have two weeks off so I'm very excited about it!

My boyfriend and I are also currently in the process of packing up our belongings in anticipation of moving house this Summer. I can't wait to decorate our house!

I'd like to introduce a new feature to d-S which I've decided to call Magical Monday.

Every Monday I'm going to make a post with links to some of my favourite websites, places that put a smile on my face and inspire me. Monday's often seem so dreary and I hope by doing this I can bring something special to you that you might not have seen before.

http://igorandandre.blogspot.com/
I found out about this man a short while ago and spent hours looking through his blog, marvelling at his art. His work is truly wonderful, I love his unique style and his use of colour.
The idea behind his project is very inspirational. Basically he started a sketchbook whereby he decided to draw a number of portraits in order to see his progression and improvement.
He started with Gemma Ward and Lily Cole and most of his early work is drawings of these two however he's since branched off onto other people as well.
What I like most about his work is that it proves that 'practice makes perfect' theory, or more that if you love something you can improve on it just by continuing to do it. You don't have to be a great artist to make something great and if you put your mind to it you can improve in any facet of life that you want to.
It also shows how easy it is to start something like this. There's hundreds of pictures of models online especially if they're well known so you can easily start something like this for yourself.


http://www.learntarot.com/course.html
I love doing Tarot card readings. I first got interested in Tarot cards when I was about 12 or 13, my nana used to take me to this New Age shop in town when I was a child and I would browse it for hours every week while she sat in a chair and read her book. I never tired of exploring all the amazing things inside, I loved looking at all the spell books, ornaments, crystals, stones, candles and runes. The shop closed down a while ago and I miss it very much.
Something that really struck me as I got older was Tarot Cards.
My dad got me my first set and gave it to me as a gift (as is customary with Tarot I believe) when I was 13, since then I've bought a few other decks but I still mainly use the one that my dad bought me all of those years ago which is the 'Tarot of Moon Garden' deck.
In a lot of ways I suppose I could say I've been bought up with quite 'new age' beliefs and so reading Tarot was always encouraged by my family.
I don't really understand how they work however I like to sit down and ask a question and then do a reading to get some insight into a problem or query I might have. You can read for yourself or someone else and I've also done a lot of readings for my family, friends and also my online friends.
The above site teaches you how to read and understand the cards, it's a lot of fun and is very interesting to study.

http://princessportal.com/
I started reading Princess Portal early last year. It's written by a lolita named Skye who follows what I suppose you could call the lolita 'lifestyle' or more a Princess lifestyle.
She writes about being a Princess in society today and I find her articles very uplifting to read. She often posts articles about historical princesses as well as modern ones, even those who you wouldn't stereotypically think would fit the mold.
She also often answers questions emailed to her and posts pictures, stories, advice and a monthly 'Princess Challenge' which encourages you to do various fun and positive things.

http://www.theoi.com/
This site is an encyclopedia database on Greek Mythology.
It's so interesting to read about all the stories, the heroes, demons and creatures. I love fairytale stories, fables and things like that so I often spend some of my free time reading about some of the hundreds of creatures that exist in Greek history.

http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/
I found this blog this month and it's wonderful!
Katie (as I assume she is called) is one of the most cheerful and creative person I have had the good fortune to find in the blogging world. Every one of her posts has something sweet and happy to brighten up your day and I just can't help smiling when I read her blog.
She often posts DIY projects she is part of or fun little activites she does like handing out flowers to strangers or getting thousands of people together to ride the Subway without any pants!
She seems like a lovely person with many inspirational ideas that make you want to go out and do something fun too.

http://endofmarch.tumblr.com/

I first read 'End of March''s blog on Livejournal but recently found her tumblr which is full of beautiful and dreamy images.

http://www.emofree.com/
This is the home page for EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). Don't let the name of the site put you off, EFT is free to download and teaches you basic techniques that enable you to positively impact your life and change a whole range of things that you might have difficulty with for example addictions, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, weight loss, allergies, pain and so on.

It's actually like a mental form of Acupuncture and works on the same lines which interests me based on my studies.

http://www.theselby.com/

The Selby is a site that interviews 'famous' people from various proffessions and basically takes photos inside their homes. Some of the houses photographed there are amazing for example that of Annakim Violet!

I hope you enjoy this post and if you have any sites you really enjoy then please feel free to leave a link in the comments! I'll post them up next Monday along with other sites that I enjoy.