once upon a Valentine's day

I'm not a huge Valentine's day person, always felt that these kind of public holidays put extra pressure on people and pressure eventually turns into obligation and obligation turns into some sort of nightmare... and the days turns into a gift exchange party rather than celebration of love. Anyway...

Couple of years ago I got a nice perfume from France from one of my French colleagues (I used to work for a French company). The scent of was really nice, sweet but not too much, pretty subtle and at the same time had a lot of character about it, if you know what I mean. It was one of Armani fragrances that I can no longer remember the exact name of.

I wasn't a huge fan of the perfume, I quite liked it, but wasn't desperately in love with it until my husband told me that he loved the scent of it. And, of course, as a regular loving wife I started wearing the fragrance more often than just every once in a while. The more I wore it, the more he would compliment me on the beautiful scent of perfume that I was wearing. And I liked making him happy by wearing the perfume every day, sometimes several time a day.

One day, near the Valentine's day, the perfume finished. And I thought to myself "Wouldn't it be funny if I got another bottle of my Armani perfume and actually gave it to him as a Valentine's day gift"? To me the idea sounded hilarious, because I thought that I was about to buy female fragrance, wrap it up and give it as a gift to my husband on Valentine's day, just because he liked it so much... we would have a good laugh about it and I would end up wearing the perfume. That was the plan.

So I went to the beauty shop on Valentine's day all very excited and happy about my plan and started looking for that Armani fragrance. The shop assistant came up to me asking whether or not she could help me, so I said that I was looking for Armani blah-blah fragrance.

"Oh you won't find it here, let's go to the male perfume department", she says.
"Excuse me?" I couldn't believe my ears.
"Yes, it's a male fragrance, you thought it was a female perfume"? she continues:
"Of course, I did not..." I respond in complete awe and embarrassment and a little disappointment because the plan didn't work out.

Turned out that nothing was wrong with my husband's taste in fragrances and I've been wearing male perfume for a whole year.

I did buy him the perfume anyway.

Happy Valentine's day, everyone! Be loved every day ~

Coffee

I've been drinking coffee since I guess I was 13-14 years old. I never really liked it, but I could never deny the fact that it was the essential and integral part of our neighbors meet-up routines over the weekends, the core of stories, sharings sometimes even gossips... but it all never really mattered to me, cause for me coffee time sometimes was the happiest and the most bonding time that I spent with my dad. He was actually the one who "taught" me to drink coffee :)

My dad he is an early riser, he usually goes to bed at around 11-12 p.m. and he is up at around 5.30 a.m. or 6 a.m. the latest and just as all artists are, he drinks a whole lot of coffee. The first cup of coffee he usually takes is at around 6 a.m. and the second one falls at around 8 a.m. the time when the whole family is still in bed. Yes, he is the only early riser in my family of looong sleepers.

My dad, he has such an controversial extremes in his character. He is both extremely social and antisocial at the same time. I don't even know how it is possible but he somehow is able to combine these 2  extremes in his life. Mornings are the time when he is extremely social :) So having taken his first cup of coffee he would be cheered up-up-up with the idea that  he was going to share his second coffee in a company with somebody. So he would walk around the house, waking everybody up asking "who wants coffee"? ...and 8 a.m. in the family of long sleepers is still too early so usually his sweet inquiry would follow grumpy noises like "Dad, come on no, it's too early, let us sleep".

I used to be a long sleeper as well but I still thought that it was very sweet of him to offer coffee and be willing and eager to make it early in the morning, so I would get up and say "I'll have a coffee with you dad, you are making it or shall I do it"? "No, I'll make it, come to the balcony when you are ready"!
And though the coffee was not really age appropriate for me at that time, I just couldn't deny it from my dad.

I hated it - the coffee, I honestly, absolutely, completely, totally, hopelessly, wholeheartedly, desperately... hated it, it wasn't tasty to me at all. it didn't make any sense to me why people would actually voluntarily take coffee, but at the same time I couldn't refuse to take it, cause it all just wouldn't work without it: it wouldn't work with tea, with water, with juice. The morning chill, balcony, dad, his tripod and canvasses, colors and brushes, stories, would come together only with coffee.

Our mornings with dad were beautiful, our whole drinking coffee routine would take not more than 10-15 minutes every morning but sometimes those were the happiest minutes of my day. And just like most habits are usually formed by doing them regularly, I started drinking coffee and in a while (in about 3-4 years) long while actually, I completely forgot that I actually didn't like the taste of it.

So now I drink coffee because it makes me happy or a happier person, because it doesn't matter where I am, whether I'm with or without my dad, in or out of city, in cold or warm, healthy or ill, happy or upset, every time I take coffee it all comes back to me, all the kindness, beauty, harmony and the incredible amount of peace that we would create in our balcony, comes  back to me.

When I was writing the post I came to realize that I actually don't have any coffee photos or portraits from our balcony with my dad, but it's OK, maybe I'll take some later and edit the post, meanwhile let me share few moments accompanied and portrayed with coffee.

After I left my job and started running own activities, this was the first day that I was working out of office. My mood was just like the weather that day ~ all springy, blossomy and beautiful :)

This shot was taking celebrating the 1000 number of followers of Eiva's Facebook page. Was super excited and filled with the excitement and that feeling when you have when you come to realize that there is a chance that whatsoever it is that you are doing now is worth doing it :)

That moment when I thought would be really cool to end a year by visiting elephant somewhere in India or Sri Lanka (which we actually did in my former "from Sri Lanke w* <3" post)

This actually was the first coffee portrait that I've made. We were having coffee with my husband some time in spring in  Achajour which is our favorite spring-summer morning hangout spot in Yerevan. Took the picture when he brought the 2 Amerikanos and the apricot jam pancakes were yet to come :)

This shot was taken during one of our breakfasts at home, it depicts that funny moment when you think you like and take coffee without sugar & at the same time  the one your husband usually makes for you who, turns out, has been putting sugar into your coffee all this time.

 couple of weeks ago my 5 m* old little darling wouldn't let us sleep at night. I was really sleepy and decided to have some coffee and 29 year old darling - no, not my son, my husband - joined me. Since it was 3 a.m. I took an owl portrait with our coffees.

Took this portrait just yesterday. Got severe flu and sore throat about a week ago still pretty sick and pretty unhappy and still trying to heal myself with natural remedies.